But can there be security even in uncertainty?
Security about what? Fear of losing what? Is certainty and predictability itself a possession to hold on to?
What is security? Isn't it assurance of a continued survival and a continued series of pleasures and pleasant relationships.
The deepest questions to ask are: what continues? And why is there this urge to continue, "to survive amidst impermanence" (Krishnamurti)?
I think identifaction leads to the urge for continuity. Identification of the self with the body or the beliefs or the patterns of the mind. Without identification, there is nothing to hold on to and to fight for.
Many teachers have pointed out that false identification (or ignorance about one's true nature) is the cause of fear, sorrow and grief.
So, instead of fighting the urge for security and the pain and effort it entails, instead of finding a safe haven in life, one must ask and enquire as to what is one's true nature. Insecurity and fear relate to what one thinks of oneself.
Again, self-knowledge is seen to be essential.
Self-knowledge is an extremely wide enquiry if one puts aside the assumptions of what one really is. It encompasses the whole universe. But soon it is seen that there is the world of senses to which the mind responds in a certain way. Recognition and habitual response is the hallmark of thought. Also, it is soon seen that the response is what leads to pain or sorrow, not the stimulus. The response leaves us dissatisfied.
The sensual stimulus finds a habitual response from the mind. Is there any way of not responding habitually, responding without recognition, without the "burden of past knowledge".
Is such a action worthwhile? How is one to act without habit or recognition in a field such as technology or medicine? But are these the responses which lead to pain? And is technique the only domain of human endeavour? Some say that it has increasingly become so (Ellul).
Is habitual response the cause of pain, or is the inappropriateness of the habitual response the real issue? To drink water from a glass in a certain way is a habitual and recognized response when one is thirsty. Such responses do not lead to pain.
So, there is this discrimination in application of the mind and memory. We apply the same general method (the method of cause and the trusted effect) in our search of happiness.
But perhaps, happiness is not a matter of cause and effect (or in other words, of time). This requires extraordinary deliberation.
Let's go for it!