In Buddhism, life is an illusion. Our perceptions can be misleading and clinging to worldly things leads to suffering. In the First Noble Truth of Buddhism, there will always be suffering in life. Everything is impermanent. Everything ends, including ourselves. That impermanence sources the illusion of life. Life is in the perception. Life is in the eye of the beholder.
Werner Erhard said, “The only meaning in life is the meaning that we give it.” We can give good meaning or we can give bad meaning. We choose. We define the narrative of life.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, anxiety is apprehensive uneasiness or nervousness usually over an impending or anticipated ill. The state of being of anxiety is anxious.
At least for me, I’m anxious over things that haven’t happened yet, things in the future. I could be anxious in anticipation, in surprise, which is good. I could be anxious in dread, in fear, which is bad. I could be anxious in fear or I could be anxious in surprise. Both are interpretations of what hasn’t happened yet, interpretations of the unknown future. When I’m anxious, I’m not present in the moment.
In the present, in the moment, I can have the empty mind, mushin. I’m quiet inside. I quiet the noise outside me. I can only create from nothing, from mushin, in the quiet inside. I create myself in fear or I create myself in surprise. I choose. I give meaning to life. Werner Erhard said that when we get we choose who we are going to be in any given moment, then making a difference becomes our most authentic self-expression.
We all get anxious. We’re all human. We have anxiety about the unknown future, about what we can’t control. Still, I only have the present. In the present, I can choose to be anxious in fear or be anxious in surprise. I choose to be anxious in surprise. That’s the no-brainer. Although that’s not always easy to do. That’s just life.
The Fourth Noble Truth of Buddhism is the path to end suffering. There’s suffering in anxiety, in being anxious about the unknown future. We have to find our own path to end that suffering. The late Mizukami Sensei said, “Just train.” I have nothing to do with what goes on inside someone else. I have a say in what goes on inside me. I work on myself, not on others. That’s all I can do. That’s all that we can do.
The Second Noble Truth of Buddhism is the source of suffering. My childhood trauma and depression was my source of suffering. Dad scared the hell out of me as a little boy. Whatever I did or didn’t do only made him so angry at me. I was his greatest disappointment in life; not the son that he wanted. I got that I wasn’t good enough for Dad, that I never would be. I would not be good enough for anyone else, including me. I suffered.
On the path to end suffering, I trained in Aikido with the late Mizukami Sensei and Ishibashi Sensei and worked with my therapist Lance Miller. In Aikido, I take a risk, take a hit for what’s meaningful to me. I enter the attack, enter what I fear, and hold my position under the attack, in the danger. I open up myself and let go my fear inside that I’m not good enough over, and over, and over again. I’m quiet inside. I create myself inside. In therapy with Lance, I forgive Dad for not knowing how to be a father, for being afraid inside too, and for being imperfectly human. I forgive myself for not being strong enough to stand up to Dad as a little boy and protect Mom. I forgive myself for being imperfectly human, too. I’ve learned to be anxious in surprise, not in fear. I give my life meaning.
On the path to end suffering, I love myself for who I am and forgive myself for who I’m not. I’m quiet inside. I have peace inside. I can be happy inside. In the unknown future, I’m anxious in surprise, not in fear. Although I might fail in that, I keep trying. Keep moving forward. Just train. I don’t have to get somewhere or be someone else. My journey shall end the same like everyone’s. That’s impermanence of life. Rather, that’s just life.
Are you going to be anxious in fear? Are you going to be anxious in surprise? Just asking.
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