Teaching number 3.

"...A warrior accepts that we can never know what we 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 non-knowing is part of the adventure. It's always what makes us afraid.

"Wherever we are, we can train as a warrior. Our tools are sitting meditation, tonglen, slogan practice, and cultivating the four limitless qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. With the help of these practices, we will find the tenderness of bochichitta in sorry and in gratitude, behind the hardness of rage and in the shakiness of fear. In loneliness as well as in kindness, we can uncover the the soft sport 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 onto, we will finally learn to grow up.

"If we find ourselves in doubt that we're 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?'"

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From: Chodron, P., (2002). Teaching 3, Comfortable With Uncertainty. in E. Sell, Ed., Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings. Shambhala, Boston, US.