There is none of us, I am certain, who has never not experienced vulnerability, uncertainty, fear, doubt or confusion in our lives. It is a natural part of human experience where we can never predict what comes up within our space at any one moment of time since there are many conditionings that are beyond our control or even expectation.
Take for example, waking up in the morning just as any other day, except realising our ankle hurts for no known reasons, or waking up to find, to our horror, a breaking news on the headline of our daily paper, or waiting for a very important appointment where at the very last minute has been cancelled, or receiving news of our loved ones passing on. Life is uncertainty, though we will like to believe it is not.
Imagine me walking into a new environment this morning sending my sister, niece and nephew to a bus station where I have to pass by a construction site. Just a few days ago, I read two pieces of news on construction hazards where a heavy structure fell over a car killing the driver, and the other, where a foreign worker died from a large metal container falling on him. I have to acknowledge how my mind remembered those news and brought a sense of vulnerability and uncertainty as I crossed the site over to the bus station.
Yet amidst of that, I suddenly came to realise there is certainty in the midst of that uncertainty. And it has much to do with the now that is being presented to me at each moment. The experiences arising from my mind is beyond my control. The images, imagination, thoughts, feelings that come into each moment are something that I cannot avoid. As I stay present to all those, taking each moment as it comes, fully aware of the external and the internal, irrelevant of what I am being presented, I am awed by the stability of these certainty – certain that what is here is just as it is. It is neither good nor bad. It is just the way it is, specifically to that moment.
And as I take each moment with a stride, noticing, recognising, acknowledging everything in a loving manner, being fully aware of what is arising, I come to peace with myself. Will anything fall on my head? I don’t know. Will anything not fall? I don’t know. Will I trip? I don’t know. I don’t know until it comes. I don’t know until each moment is being offered to me. Only then I’d know. What I know is that I know for certain when uncertainty arise. I know for certain when vulnerability arise. I know for certain when fear or doubt comes a knocking. I know for certain there is nothing I could do about it except accepting it full heartedly and having the wisdom at that moment to respond on it. I can never know what is going to happen next. If I think I do, I am only hallucinating.
I am, but a passerby to the moments. And to realize this, is peace. And yet another peace the next moment, until probably when I immerse myself back into the world again, absentmindedly by unawareness. The only certainty I can rely on is the awareness I give to each moment, having the right attitude that what is being experienced is just another happening. And how my mind reacts to it, is also just another happening. My awareness is my response to both and if by chance, the grace of wisdom is available, I may take a responsive action to what my mind used to react, hence changing the course of my life of what my mind used to do.
I am certain. I am also responsible, whether I like it or not.