ABSTRACT
Reflecting on the complex relations between sensitivity and fear, holding on and letting go, this chapter explores the possibility of feeling at home in the world. This feeling entails a sense of security, which in turn requires some level of trust or faith. So, I delve into the primitive fear of annihilation and climb out on the ladder of sober, rather than blind, faith. Based on Bion’s psychoanalytic notion of F in O, alongside the Buddhist Sadhhā (trust, devotion, or faith), I describe sober faith as a scientific state of mind receptive to truth. I ask: How can our dread and sense of catastrophe enable penetrating knowledge of the internal and external world? And how can those who had to hold themselves by themselves commit themselves to complex processes beyond their control?
With great caution, I look into the potential connections between a primary experience of insufficient holding and difficulty to surrender and trust – expressing themselves in the ability to focus and control one’s attention in meditation. I discuss the circumstances that may enable us – phenomena that form and fall apart in a universe that forms and falls apart – to feel safe in a mental space of not-knowing, and to feel held without clinging.
