There is a Buddhist mantra that monks are taught to use in meditation. It goes like this: “If only death is certain, and the time of death is uncertain, then what should I do?
Related Quotes
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is,to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within yourself the possibility of shaping and forming as a particularly happy and pure way of living; train yourself to it - but take whatever comes with great trust, and only if comes out of your own will, out of some need of your inmost being, take it upon yourself and hate nothing.
A monk asked, “What is the substance of the true person?”
The Master said, “Spring, summer, autumn, winter.”
The monk said, “In that case, it is hard for me to
understand.”
The Master said, “You asked about the substance of the true
person,
didn’t you?” - Traditional Zen koan
Buddhist thought has been helpful for me with this because the Buddha’s first noble truth—that life is tinged with a sense of pervasive unsatisfactoriness (or suffering)—takes it as a given that there is always some way that we feel unseen, unknown, or unrecognized.
Psychoanalysis has explored many of the most obvious parental failings that contribute to such feelings but, in trying to find the source, or the cause, of personal uncertainty, it has encouraged people to overly blame their families of origin rather than taking on the responsibility of reaching out to establish whatever kinds of connections are actually possible in life.
Conclusion: It's Never Too Late to be Happy
“Recall the wisdom of the Zen master Shunryu Suzuki: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.
There is this emptiness in me. All the things in the world are not enough to drown out the voice of this emptiness that says: you are nothing. This emptiness does not claim the past because it is always here. It does not have to claim the future as it blocks out the future. It is either a dictator or the closest friend I have ever had. Some days I battle it until we both fall down like injured animals. That is when I wonder: What if I become less than nothing when I get rid of this emptiness? What if this emptiness is what keeps me going?