Are You Sure?
My first spiritual teacher, and by far the person who has had the most influence on my religious life, was Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who passed away in January of 2022. Until his death, he taught millions around the world through his books, lectures, and classes. He founded Plum Village, a Buddhist monastery in France, and formed the basis for a new movement within Mahayana Buddhism known as Engaged Buddhism. He was influential on the global and personal scales for many who were exposed to his work. Today’s post honors him by drawing attention to one of my favorite teachings of his: Asking myself if I am sure.
Typically, when people imagine spiritual awakening they envision bright lights and visions and all manner of other supernatural and fantastical events. However, more often than not I believe spiritual awakening comes in the form of a simple, silent moments of realization. I’ve had quite of few of these with Thich Nhat Hanh, but one of the most transformative was certainly the mindful practice of “Are you sure?” What this teaching does is encourage us, in moments of anxiety or fear, to simply check whether we are actually sure that what we are worrying about is actually real. That’s it. That’s the secret.
Now, this is not meant to discount anxiety disorders or legitimate worries. I struggle with an anxiety disorder of my own and know the absolute mess a person’s mind can tie itself into over next to nothing. However, despite the awareness that this will not work for everything (full on panic attacks, for example), it is still a wonderful teaching for getting ahead of yourself and stopping things from escalating beyond what makes sense.
To put it into a western author’s words, Mark Twain once wrote, “I’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” Twain’s pithy remark points out a reality I think we’ve all experienced: getting yourself into a tizzy worrying about something that never comes to pass. We can experience so much distress and anguish over something that never even happened, and potentially wasn’t even all that likely in the first place.
What Thich Nhat Hanh asks us to do is take a step back when we find ourselves worrying and ask, “Are you sure? You are so worried, but is this reality?” Far more often than I think many of us would realize, the answer to that question is, “No, I’m not sure. I’m just worried about a possibility.”
For a concrete example, let me turn to an event from a few years ago. My mom planned a trip for the family, but, during the planning phase, I said I didn’t want to go. She asked if I was sure and I reiterated that I really wanted to just enjoy a week of having the house of myself. So, my mom, dad, and sibling went off on their trip without me. However, the morning they were set to leave I came downstairs to find my mom crying in frustration and my dad working to console her about something. I didn’t ask why she was crying, and no one said, so I had no idea what had caused it. Despite this, my mind decided to fill in a reason on its own. Obviously, my mind decided, she was distraught that I didn’t want to travel with them and was lamenting my decision. I’d made my mom cry and I felt TERRIBLE about it the whole week they were gone.
Fast forward a few weeks and my mom decides to regale me with the story of the night before they left for the trip - a story that involved potential hotel cancellations, a ruined trip, and a bunch of wasted money. It turns out, my mom had been crying because she thought this trip she had spent so much time working on had been ruined by hotel agent screwing up their reservations. Everything ended up working out and they all had a blast.
My moms tears had had nothing to do with me. Her emotions were entirely because of things happening outside her control and she had been fearful of everything being ruined. Not knowing this and assuming the worst, I had stewed in my anxiety and guilt about my decision for weeks before learning the truth behind her unfortunate state that morning. Had I instead asked myself if I was sure about why my mom had been crying, I would have had to say that I wasn’t. I had assumed the worst. If I’d asked myself that question and then listened to myself, I could have spared myself a lot of heartache.
This is the simple beauty of so many of Thich Nhat Hanh’s writings. Many times the thing holding us back from happiness is simply bad perception, and clearing it away can be as simple as asking a single question.
