Buddhism 101:  Desire for Security
​We’re so afraid of losing our lives that we never truly live. We allow our desire for security to become a prison. Our desire for security actually makes us more insecure.

The Grand Illusion by Anan Thubten

​The Daoists have a saying: “There are ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows.” Though this is a profound and inescapable truth, most of us only truly accept half of it. We welcome the joys, but we’re not so accommodating of the sorrows. Sorrow is normal and natural, but we see it as a problem we must solve. 
​The problem isn’t sorrow, itself; the problem is we don’t accept sorrow as a natural part of our lives. We try to escape it, to seek its opposite. And our attempts to escape inevitably create suffering. This suffering has nothing to do with our external circumstances. It doesn’t matter whether we’re healthy or sick, rich or poor, loved or along. Suffering comes from our chronic psychological restlessness, which resists life as it is
 
When we get down to it, what we’re resisting isn’t just sorrow but change. If we’re not resisting the fact that our joy has turned to sorrow, we’re resisting the possibility that our joy may someday turn to sorrow. We want our joy to last forever, but we don’t have to look far to see that nothing lasts forever. Everything is falling apart; everything is changing. We can’t rely on wealth, friends, or comfort. We can’t even rely on our own bodies or minds. Deep down we know this, which is why we have so many insecure feelings throughout our life.
 
The Buddha addressed this human conundrum in the four noble truths. He taught that craving is the root of suffering. We crave happiness, comfort, and ease, and we want to avoid their opposites. We crave security, for things to stay the same, to remain stable. This craving is what turns inevitable human sorrow into suffering, even when we’re blessed with favorable physical conditions and circumstances. This collective pathology runs deep. Our craving for security is actually a craving for permanence, which is unattainable. At root is the instinctual desire to survive, which has been physiologically and psychologically hardwired into us over millions of years of human evolution.
 
We don’t like surprises either. We like to have everything under control, to force our lives to be predictable. But there’s no way to make things perfectly predictable, no real security. Security is a grand illusion. Paradoxically, our desire for security actually makes us insecure. It robs us of inner fulfillment, joy, and peace. It constricts us, closing our hearts so we can’t experience unconditional love. We’re so afraid of losing our lives that we never truly live. We allow our desire for security to become a prison. 
The Desire for Security
We’re so afraid of losing our lives that we never truly live. We allow our desire for security to become a prison. Our desire for security actually makes us more insecure.

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