Certain Uncertainty

I've been reading Pema Chodron's book Uncomfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion. I bought it to learn how to let my 22-year-old adult son be an adult and not try to control his adult life. Ha! I'm on lesson 12. I have a ways to go, in the book and in life.

But here is the essence of today's lesson: "Our mind is always seeking zones of safety. We're in this zone of safety, and that's what we consider life, getting it all together, security. Death is losing that. We fear losing our illusion of security--that's what makes us anxious. We fear being confused and not knowing which way to turn. We want to know what's happening. The mind is always seeking zones of safety, and these zones of safety are continually falling apart. Then we scramble to get another zone of safety back together all again. We spend all our energy and waste our lives trying to get another zone of safety back together again. That's the essence of samsara--the cycle of suffering that comes from continuing to seek happiness in all the wrong places."
--Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty

Oh! Thank you, Pema.