The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

by Pema Chödrön

How are we going to spend this brief lifetime? Are we going to strengthen our well-perfected ability to struggle against uncertainty, or are we going to train in letting go? Are we going to hold on stubbornly to “I’m like this and you’re like that”? Or are we going to move beyond that narrow mind? Could we start to train as a warrior, aspiring to reconnect with the natural flexibility of our being and to help others do the same? If we start to move in this direction, limitless possibilities will begin to open up. The teaching on egolessness points to our dynamic, changing nature. This body has never felt exactly the way it’s feeling now. This mind is thinking a thought that, repetitious as it may seem, will never be thought again. I may say, “Isn’t that wonderful?” But we don’t usually experience it as wonderful; we experience it as unnerving, and we scramble for ground. The Buddha was generous enough to show us an alternative. We are not trapped in the identity of success or failure, or in any identity at all, neither in terms of how others see us nor in how we see ourselves. Every moment is unique, unknown, completely fresh. For a warriorin-training, egolessness is a cause of joy rather than a cause of fear.