How Well Do You Understand The World Around You?

[Guest Annetta]

How well do you understand the world around you?  I feel like I don't understand how the world works as well as I should.  There's so much to learn.  It feels problematic sometimes... but I feel too afraid of failure to try new things.  I am not sure what I am getting at here exactly, either.

[Prabhaker]

2 hours ago, Annetta said:

 I feel like I don't understand how the world works as well as I should

Most of the people don't understand, and when the old age comes, death comes, even those who are clever, cunning, those who are successful,  they find that they missed the life, their hands are empty.

Understanding cannot be studied; nobody can teach it to you. When you are depleted of energy, you start losing your understanding. When you are tired, your intelligence is less. The man of meditation becomes the man of understanding because his energy accumulates. When you are fresh, energetic, silent you start understanding everything.

[Guest Annetta]

On 6/28/2017 at 4:33 AM, blazed said:

 

Let go of trying to understand everything, that's not how reality works. Just be content with "what is".

 

@blazed @Prabhaker Thank you!

[Nahm]

@Annetta Both the things you're looking for come from proper daily meditation. You'll take in more, and see more = understand more. Failure will literally disappear. There is no such thing, only doing again. You are beautiful no matter what you do, how you do it, who see's who doesn't and even and especially when you question yourself Annettta, you are beautiful. It's high time you see it. I can see it so easily, and I have only your intent to go on. 

[Joseph Maynor]

Travel to a few culturally exotic places around the world that will move your mental furniture around. 

Southern Europe

China

India

Turkey

Taiwan

Edited July 3, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[WaterfallMachine]

"To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float." Alan Watts

Knowledge is amazing as wisdom but knowledge can be a greed used in the right places. It can be used for some ideal of perfect certainty, some form of admiration as the "intelligent one" and more. It's like when people say not to compare yourself to others because there will always be someone better than you, just like with knowledge, there will always be something you don't know.

The opposite of fear is not certainty. But openness to what might be, because no one can be 100% certain of everything. It's acceptance. It's cultivating a begginer's mind — A Buddhist concept for thinking of yourself as a begginner — believing there is something you don't know and still something new to learn. It's used well in meditation — because after all, meditation is repetitve but if you forget the past momentarily and look for what's changing every moment — you'll find subtleties of novelty. A slight change in the breath. A new feeling in your toe. A subtle heaviness to your feelings varying in intensity every moment. And with this practice — it can transfer to other areas of life.

And when you're curious, you're no longer looking for comfirmation on something good that will happen. You only would like to understand even if it's something that can end up as a failure. Even if it's painful. A torture. 

Bravery is not the absense of fear. It's doing something even when you're scared.

Maybe start with something small in doing something new. Change your routine a bit in various way. It can be as simple as taking a different route to work/school or reading something you haven't before. Making it more and more challenging over time. Over time, small changes allow you to get used to the new.