Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion

by Pema Chödrön

is a legendary enlightened society rooted in the view of basic goodness, the practice of meditation, and the activity of cultivating bodhichitta, the awakened heart of loving-kindness and compassion. The story goes that the first king of Shambhala received teachings from the Buddha, practiced them, and passed them on to his subjects. Rinpoche called

awake quality (“basic goodness”) of ourselves and our surroundings. Meditation practice is how we discover basic goodness and learn to cultivate bodhichitta. With this view, practice, and activity, even the most mundane situation becomes a vehicle for awakening.

that by cultivating mindfulness and awareness, we can realize our inherent wealth and share it with others. This inner treasure is called bodhichitta. It is like

unearth as soon as the conditions are ripe. Bodhichitta is often presented in two aspects: absolute and relative. Absolute bodhichitta is our natural state,

The key point of cultivating relative bodhichitta is to keep opening our hearts to suffering without shutting down. Slowly we learn to uncover the limitless qualities of love, compassion, joy, and equanimity, and to extend them with others. To train in making our hearts this big takes bravery and kindness.

begin to stabilize and strengthen ourselves in it. Off the meditation cushion, in everyday life, we then begin to experiment with keeping our hearts open even in the face of unpleasant circumstances. With tonglen and slogan practice we start to taste the flavor of what we fear and move toward what we habitually avoid. To further stretch our limits and open our hearts, we practice expanding the four limitless qualities—loving-kindness (maitri in Sanskrit), compassion, joy, and equanimity—by aspiring to extend them to others.

our strange human tendency to protect ourselves from the joy of our awakened heart. Pema calls these activities “the six ways of compassionate living”: generosity, patience, discipline, exertion, meditation, and prajna, or wisdom. The basis for all these practices is the cultivation of maitri, an unconditional loving-kindness with ourselves that says, “Start

heart. In terms of the Shambhala teachings, it is the path of warriorship. To join these two streams, Pema likes to use the term warrior-bodhisattva, which implies a fresh and forward-moving energy that is willing to enter into suffering for others’ benefit. Such action relates to overcoming the self-deception,

the inspiration to rest in uncertainty—cheerfully. The root of suffering is resisting the certainty that no matter what the circumstances, uncertainty is all we truly have. Pema’s teachings encourage us to experiment with becoming comfortable with uncertainty, then

uncertainty is actually the open quality of any given moment. When we can be present for this openness—as it is always present for us—we discover that our capacity to love and care for others is limitless.

bodhisattva, the path goes down, not up, as if the mountain pointed toward the earth instead of the sky. Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward turbulence and doubt however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity

move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of bodhichitta. Bodhichitta is our heart—our wounded, softened heart. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will

that heals. When inspiration has become hidden, when we feel ready to give up, this is the time when healing can be found in the tenderness of pain

awakens when we no longer shield ourselves from the vulnerability of our condition, from the basic fragility of existence. It awakens through kinship with the suffering of others. We train in the bodhichitta practices in order to become so open that we

nonaggression who hear the cries of the world. Warrior-bodhisattvas enter challenging situations in order to alleviate suffering. They are willing to cut through personal reactivity and self-deception. They are dedicated to uncovering the basic, undistorted energy of bodhichitta.

never know what will happen to us next. We can try to control the uncontrollable by looking for security and predictability, always hoping to be comfortable and safe. But the truth is that we can never avoid uncertainty. This not-knowing is part

Our tools are sitting meditation, tonglen, slogan practice, and cultivating the four limitless qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.

kindness, we can uncover the soft spot of basic goodness. But bodhichitta training offers no promise of happy endings. Rather, this “I” who wants to find security—who wants something to hold on to—will finally

up to being a warrior-in-training, we can contemplate this question: “Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?”

We regard disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, jealousy, and fear as moments that show us where we’re holding back, how we’re shutting down. Such uncomfortable feelings are messages that tell us to perk up and lean into a situation when we’d rather cave in and back away. When the flag goes up, we have an opportunity:

to stay with a broken heart, with a nameless fear, with the desire for revenge. Sticking with uncertainty is how we learn to relax in the midst of chaos, how we learn to be cool when the ground beneath us suddenly disappears. We can bring ourselves back to the spiritual path countless times every day simply by exercising our willingness to rest in the uncertainty of the present moment—over and over again.

essential practice is to cultivate maitri, or loving-kindness. The Shambhala teachings speak of “placing our fearful mind in the cradle of loving-kindness.” Another image for maitri is that of a mother bird who

babies—blind, raw, and desperate for attention. We are a poignant mixture of something that isn’t all that beautiful and yet is dearly loved. Whether

it is the key to learning how to love. We stay with ourselves and others when we’re screaming for food

we begin to cultivate a clear-seeing kindness. Sometimes we feel good and strong. Sometimes we feel inadequate and weak. But like mother-love, maitri is unconditional; no matter how we feel, we can aspire that we be happy. We can learn to act and think in ways that sow seeds of our future well-being.

causes distress. Without loving-kindness for ourselves, it is difficult, if not impossible, to genuinely feel it for others.

would be just great.” And, “If it weren’t for my mind, my meditation would be excellent.” But loving-kindness—maitri—toward ourselves doesn’t mean getting rid of anything. Maitri means that we can still be crazy, we can still

of unworthiness. Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That’s what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.

ourselves. Precision is being able to see clearly, not being afraid to see what’s really there. Openness is being able to let go and to open. When you come to have this kind of honesty, gentleness, and good-heartedness, combined with clarity about yourself, there’s no obstacle to feeling loving-kindness for others as well.

AS A SPECIES, we should never underestimate our low tolerance for discomfort. To be encouraged to stay with our vulnerability is news that we can use. Sitting meditation is our support for learning how to do this. Sitting meditation, also known as mindfulness-awareness practice, is the foundation of bodhichitta training. It is the home ground

Sitting meditation gives us a way to move closer to our thoughts and emotions and to get in touch with our bodies. It is a method of cultivating unconditional

and for parting the curtain of indifference that distances us from the suffering of ...

begin to notice that there are gaps in our internal dialogue. In the midst of continually talking to ourselves, we experience a pause, as if awakening from a

moments of being right here that feel simple, direct, and uncluttered. This coming back to the immediacy of our experience is training in unconditional, or absolute, bodhichitta. By simply staying here, we relax more and more into the open dimension of our being. It feels like stepping out of a fantasy and discovering the simple truth.

beginning, middle, and end of each thought, we’d soon discover that there is no such thing. Trying to find the moment when one thought becomes another is like trying to find the moment when boiling water turns into steam. Yet we habitually string our thoughts together into a story that tricks

entities. In fact, like thoughts, all these constructs are constantly changing. Each situation, each thought, each word, each feeling, is just a passing memory.

death is a dream; waking is a dream; sleeping is a dream. This dream is the direct immediacy of our experience. Trying to hold on to any of it by buying our story line only blocks our wisdom.

way in which you can get used to lightening up. I encourage you to follow the instructions precisely,

practice is a powerful support that reconnects us with the fresh, open, unbiased dimension of our mind.

the space. Even if you still feel anxious and tense when the thoughts go, simply allow that feeling to be there, with space around it. Just let it be. When thoughts

nonjudgmental attitude. Loving-kindness is unconditional friendliness. So each time you say to yourself “thinking,” you are cultivating unconditional friendliness toward whatever arises in your mind. Since this kind of unconditional compassion is difficult

confusion and our sanity. This complete acceptance of ourselves as we are is a simple, direct relationship with our being. We call this maitri. There

we have less self-deception. Through the process of practicing the technique day in and day out,

ourselves and leaning into the emotions and the fear. We stay with the emotion, experience it, and leave it as it is, without proliferating. Thus we train in opening the fearful heart to the restlessness of our own energy. We learn to abide with the experience of our emotional distress.

make the choice, moment by moment, to be fully here. Attending to our present-moment mind and body is a way of being tender toward self, toward other, and toward the world. This quality of attention is inherent in our ability to love.

bodhichitta practices and for relating with difficult situations in our daily lives. By cultivating them we can start to train as a warrior, discovering for ourselves that

a limited view of reality is our tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain, to seek security and avoid groundlessness, to seek comfort and avoid discomfort. This is how we keep ourselves enclosed in a cocoon.

trying to re-create these zones of safety, which are always falling apart. That’s the essence of samsara—the cycle of suffering that comes from continuing to seek happiness in all the wrong places.

noble truths—he talked about suffering. The first noble truth says that it’s part of being human to feel discomfort. Nothing in its essence is one way or the other. All around us the wind, the fire, the earth,

the weather. We ebb and flow like the tides, we wax and wane like the moon. We fail to see that like the weather, we are fluid, not solid. And so we suffer. The second noble truth says that resistance is the fundamental operating mechanism of what we call ego, that resisting life causes suffering. Traditionally