The Problem

This introductory chapter discusses Buddhism's view on worries and anxiety. The basic insight of Buddhism is that the source of this fundamental problem is a mismatch between an individual’s fundamental feeling about the world and how it really is. The painful experiences, the faint buzz of anxiety, they happen because an individual’s outlook on life has certain assumptions built into it that are out of step with reality. Since the source of the problem is that an individual’s way of experiencing things is misaligned with the world, it is important to think and examine very carefully both that outlook and the world. Indeed, Buddhism is about taking a long, hard look at the way things are. Rather than pretending things are not that way or wishing and hoping that somehow things might be different, Buddhism offers a way to live at ease in full view of such facts.