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  • January 12, 2026 at 12:04 pm #454090
    Peter
    Participant

    Hi Anita — thanks for being such a good mirror. I’ve also struggled with fear, doubt, uncertainty, and shame.

    I think many of us recognize that inner shakiness, even if we hide it well. And you’re right: when the ground inside feels unstable, rigid rules or black‑and‑white answers can feel like a lifeline. They offer the appearance of solid footing.

    Your reflection points to a paradox: the more we insist on being right and certain, the less we trust our own capacity to meet the moment. Fear steps in and tries to build a fortress out of absolutes.

    From a Zen perspective, self‑trust isn’t confidence in our thoughts, our judgments, or even our abilities. It’s more like trusting the ground beneath all of that (the canvas, the roots) the part of us that can remain present even when the mind is unsure. The part that doesn’t need guarantees. In that sense, self‑trust feels less like “I know what to do” and more like “I can stay here with this without collapsing.” It’s the willingness to let the moment unfold without rushing to secure it. Not easy, especially because it isn’t something we can force; it’s something we allow.

    Maybe that’s why certainty is so seductive: it promises safety. But presence offers something deeper. Presence says, “Even if I don’t know, I’m still here.”

    For a long time, in my religious upbringing, I felt shame for not being certain. Today I know doubt as being an important attribute of faith. Without doubt and uncertainty we do not grow.

    January 12, 2026 at 12:11 pm #454091
    Peter
    Participant

    Hi everyone
    Something came to mind as I was reading everyone’s reflections — a memory from a podcast where a father described the moment he had to tell his daughter that Santa Claus wasn’t “real.” and the impact it had on this daughter relationship to wonder.

    What struck me wasn’t the loss of Santa, but the subtle lesson underneath. Culturally, we tend to equate “real” with “objectively verifiable,” and everything else… wonder, imagination, meaning gets quietly downgraded to “just pretend.”

    But the child’s experience of Santa was real: the wonder, the anticipation, the sense of mystery and generosity. Those are subjective realities, yet they shape us far more deeply than most objective facts ever do. When adults say, “Santa isn’t real,” without also acknowledging the reality of the inner experience, we unintentionally teach children (and ourselves) that the subjective world doesn’t count. We begging to wobble and not surprisingly seek certainty in our rules…

    It made me think of our conversation about form and formlessness, certainty and doubt. When we privilege only the “objective,” we cling to form as if it were the whole truth. But Zen keeps pointing us back to the deeper field in which both the objective and subjective arise. The literal Santa may not exist, but the experience of wonder does. The form dissolves, but the formless quality it carried remains. If we allow it, and or are allowed it…

    In that sense, the Santa moment is a small example of the same cognitive dissonance we meet in practice: the mind wants to know what is “really real,” while the heart knows that meaning, presence, and lived experience are not less real simply because they can’t be measured.

    Maybe part of Zen is learning to honor both, the world of facts and the world of felt experience without collapsing one into the other. To see that the story may not be “true,” yet the truth within the story still moves us. And perhaps that’s another way of saying what we’ve been circling: form falls away, but the formless remains?

    January 12, 2026 at 12:46 pm #454094
    anita
    Participant

    Thank you, Peter for your message for me. I appreciate you caring to answer me. I am looking forward to reading and replying later🙏 ✨

    January 12, 2026 at 12:59 pm #454095
    Peter
    Participant

    For anyone looking to restore some wonder and hope for humanity I invite you to view Itchy Boots latest Youtube video – KYRGYZSTAN S8, EP110. The last half took my breath away and I found myself happily laughing!

    January 12, 2026 at 4:15 pm #454098
    anita
    Participant

    Hey Peter:

    From a Zen perspective, you say, self-trust is about trusting the ground beneath, the roots, the canvas.

    Using an imagery I particularly like would be that I, as a wave in the ocean, one that rises (lives) and then falls (dies) can trust the ocean that’s always there, before and after me as an individual.

    To be present in the moment and let it ✨️ unfold. To not rush to escape the moment, to rush toward something else, but to stay.

    As to your second post, Santa 🎅 is Form, a child’s wonder about Santa is Formless. The formless is real even though the form isn’t.

    So, if you had a child, Peter, and he or she came home from school upset after hearing that Santa isn’t real, what would 🤔 you tell the young child?

    🙏 Anita

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