Groundlessness

Image of the Week
Hand-drawn art by Rupali Bhuva
Image of the Week
Falta de fundamento.
--por Meg Wheatley

La esperanza es lo que nos impulsa a la acción. Nos han enseñado a soñar con un mundo mejor como el primer paso necesario para crear uno. Creamos una visión clara para el futuro que queremos, luego establecemos una estrategia, hacemos un plan y nos ponemos a trabajar. Nos enfocamos estratégicamente en hacer solo aquellas cosas que tienen una alta probabilidad de éxito. Mientras “mantengamos viva la esperanza” y trabajemos duro, nuestros esfuerzos crearán el mundo que queremos. ¿Cómo podríamos hacer nuestro trabajo si no tuviéramos esperanza de tener éxito?

Motivad@s por la esperanza, pero por otro lado nos enfrentamos al fracaso, nos deprimimos y desmoralizamos. La vida se vuelve un sin sentido; nos desesperamos por cambiar las cosas para mejor. En ese momento, aprendemos el precio de la esperanza. En lugar de inspirarnos y motivarnos, la esperanza se ha convertido en una carga que se hace pesada por su compañero, el miedo a fracasar.

Así que tenemos que abandonar la esperanza, tod@s nosotr@s, y aprender a encontrar el lugar “más allá de la esperanza y el miedo”. Liberados de la esperanza y el miedo, somos libres para descubrir la claridad y la energía, pero el viaje exige comportamientos con los que no estamos familiarizad@s o que hemos evitado activamente. Aquí hay algunos marcadores de este viaje, bendita sabiduría obtenida de las experiencias de aquell@s que han perseverado y mantenido un enfoque firme, incluso cuando sus esfuerzos han producido pocos o ningún resultado.

Rudolf Bahro, un destacado activista e iconoclasta alemán, describe el primer paso: “Cuando las formas de una vieja cultura están muriendo, la nueva cultura es creada por unas pocas personas que no temen ser inseguras”. Bahro ofrece la inseguridad como un rasgo positivo, especialmente necesario en tiempos de desintegración. Sin embargo, ¿es concebible pensar que sentirse insegur@ aumentaría nuestra capacidad para permanecer en el trabajo de crear algo nuevo?

No sé qué quiso decir Bahro con "insegur@"; sin embargo, he notado que aquell@s que aguantan, que tienen resistencia a largo plazo y se vuelven más sabi@s en sus acciones con el tiempo, son aquell@s que no están apegad@s a los resultados. No buscan seguridad en planes o logros. Cambian la certeza por la curiosidad, el miedo por la generosidad. Se sumergen en el problema, tratan sus intentos como experimentos y aprenden sobre la marcha. Este tipo de inseguridad es energizante; las personas se involucran en descubrir qué funciona en lugar de tener que estar en lo cierto o preocuparse por cómo evitar el fracaso. Cada vez que descubren algo que funciona, hay una gran oleada de energía, a menudo acompañada por risas.

La voluntad de sentirse insegur@, entonces, es el primer paso en el viaje más allá de la esperanza y el miedo. Conduce al estado mucho más desafiante: la falta de fundamento. Saber que nada permanece igual, aprender a vivir con la constante implacable del cambio, darse cuenta de que incluso las cosas buenas no durarán para siempre, aceptar que el cambio es tal como es.



Preguntas semilla para la reflexión: ¿Qué significa para ti la falta de fundamento? ¿Puedes compartir una historia personal de un momento en que intercambiaste 'certidumbre por curiosidad, miedo por generosidad'? ¿Qué te ayuda a aceptar la constante implacable del cambio?
Seed Questions for Reflection

What does groundlessness mean to you? Can you share a personal story of a time you exchanged 'certainty for curiosity, fear for generosity'? What helps you accept the unrelenting constant of change?

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Add Your Reflection

20 Past Reflections
MA
Nov 12, 2022
"Groundless": when what I was standing on has been completely swept out from under my feet! Feeling a huge unknowing that is unsettling, like being shaken by an earthquake.
It helps to think that "There is nothing from which I cannot grow and learn."
AN
May 9, 2022
My desire is to surrender to what is, to "let Thy will be my will". It requires being in the present moment and keeping my heart open.
May 8, 2022
“Your work will bear fruit in 700 years or so.” (From the longer article, quoting advice the Dalai Lama gave to Westerners.) Wow. That’s a new time scale for me - I’m only 1/10th that old.
ME
Meha
May 5, 2022
Most of our anxieties are routed from insecurity and ultimately out of fear. The moment you start manipulating outcomes you start messing with the balance in life. And there goes the HOPE in thin air. If one starts addressing the fear and let things happen without worrying of the outcomes and just concentrating on actions that one has control over, you will notice all falls in place as it should be. This is the principle that i try to follow and it brings hope and content for me.
FR
May 5, 2022
I have often reflected on Chogyan Trungpa's quote on groundlessness: "The bad news is you are falling through the air with no parachute. The good news: there is no ground." I may have paraphrased. I continue to care for my husband who has been in decline the last five years and is now on hospice. Here, there is no hope; only love (along with exhaustion and grief). I have no idea how much he will suffer or how his death will occur. I don't know if I'd call this curiosity but I am attentive. The generosity also resides in that attentiveness.
DD
David Doane May 5, 2022
Thank you for the Chogyan Trungpa quote or paraphrase which I think we are all living to some extent and with some awareness. I am moved by what you shared. Thank you. I hope what you suffer also brings you great joy.
May 3, 2022
In my youth I felt groundless more often than grounded. I strived for certainty and it turned me into an anxious and unhappy person. Then death came for a beloved one and there was no thing I could do. That was the gift of my opening to a different way of being. Embracing (sometimes just allowing) uncertainty and breathing a lot and seeing beyond certainty and uncertainty to the many names for god. Light, generosity, beauty, truth, life, joy…the list goes on!!! With deep love to all beings, May you be well.
ME
me May 3, 2022
🌱
DL
May 3, 2022
As with most pieces like this, the"how to" of going beyond hope and fear is not dealt with, and humans are hardwired to those two emotions, as well as resistance to change! Getting comfortable with groundlessness and unpredictability takes much internal work, through presumably meditation and the courage to embrace, rather than push away, the uncertainty or "undesirable" condition. Much hard work, and much time; it will not happen overnight. It's complete overhaul of one's though processes.
ME
me May 3, 2022
🦋
AD
Adi
May 3, 2022
I am not sure what Germen word was translated as "insecure", but I think he might have meant "vulnerable".

Like the Fool in the tarot deck, walking toward the brink of a precipice leaving the safety of the ground behind.
JA
May 3, 2022
To me groundlessness connotes something frightening. To be grounded even in groundlessness is what I aim towards. Groundlessness is a feeling of anxiety. What helps me confront such an existence and experience is accepting it and finding a space of steadfastness during the experience by way of deep breath, by allowing attention to be over some object for a time, by watching the world as if for the first time. I am more of a visual person. Seeing the benign nature of objects. The world is truly beautiful even in its changing and spiralling-out of control-nature. This Beauty found in practice of Suchness helps me to find roots even in chaos. It is denoted best in a Zen Story known as Tigers and the Strawberries.
DD
Apr 30, 2022
Groundlessness means lack of ground or foundation, lack of anything to count on. As I see life, the ground we have is constant change. We can count on that. No change is an illusion. Actually, I exchanged certainty for curiosity a long time ago. There is no certainty. We live in the unknown. For me those are simply facts of life. As for exchanging fear for generosity, I'm working on it -- my fears have greatly dwindled, and I practice being more generous. What helps me accept the unrelenting constant of change is not seeing it as unrelenting which for me has a negative and oppressive connotation, and seeing change as 'that's life'. It helps that I've become pretty good at being in the present (we are alive only in the present), trusting what I believe to be right action in the present, and letting go of outcome.
ME
me May 3, 2022
Amen.🌷
JP
Apr 29, 2022
In my relatively long life journey ( I am 96 years old) I have encountered many ups and downs and there were a few times I felt groundlessness, a sense of sinking down without bottom, darkness without rays of hope. In such dark times of my life I felt and saw the light of based on the ground of unvaering faith. Faith is the light that hardly gets extingwished.
I felt dense darkness and groundlessness during the second stage of my lie. I felt helplessness and hopelessness. They were dark periods of my life. Light of Faith in the higher power helped me go through dense darkness and see the light. Keeping my mind open and curious, accepting myself as imperfect, mindfully reducing the noise in my mind, and being grateful to my family and friends for holding my hands when I was falli
ng down have been very helful to me.
Namaste!
Jagdish P Dave
MA
Maja May 3, 2022
Thank you
VA
Apr 13, 2022
Wise and well-said. In the throes of mid-life, as I acknowledge that I’ve likely lived more than half my life, maybe much more, I’m awakening to the truth that peace and meaning now, as well as in coming to terms with death, depends on “accepting that change is just the way it is.” No easy task, but your clear and kind article helps a great deal in that process
Apr 12, 2022
I still wish that bad things won't last forever
BD
britt densford
Apr 12, 2022
When I hit this wall and experience the groundlessness, that is when I go to courage. I must dig deep and honor my willingness to experience failure and move forward anyway.
LB
Apr 12, 2022
We should be curious about what the day will bring. It's all impermanent.