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Guided Meditation: Gaining Confidence

Good evening. Let's see, this microphone doesn't feel quite right. There we go. Good evening. Welcome, welcome.

So I'll do a little guided meditation here. And just settling into this experience right now. I remember somebody once describing it as getting the mind and the body in the same place. And to do that, it can be really helpful to feel into the body, the bodily experience. Just in general, how does it feel in the body right now? Maybe there's some tiredness, some restlessness, some achiness. As best we can, we welcome these experiences. Maybe not welcome in terms of invitation, but they're already here. So acknowledging what's here.

And feeling the body breathing. The movements associated with in-breaths and out-breaths. Maybe you feel that in the belly, in the chest, maybe sometimes the ribs, even around the back. Or maybe the air going in and out of the nose.

And when the mind wanders, we just very gently, simply begin again.

And if we notice an uncomfortable sensation in the body, can we make room for it as best we can? That is, not hating it or trying to shove it away, but to somehow recognize that it's actually there. And can we befriend it, or somehow allow it to be there, because it is there.

And if we can bring our awareness to our experience, even if it's an uncomfortable one, and somehow we don't get lost or swept away or carried away when we're bringing awareness to our experience, accompanying our experience in some way.

And each time we accompany or bring awareness to an uncomfortable experience, we learn something. We learn it's possible to bring our awareness to that which perhaps we want to avoid. And we also learn that somehow it's okay after we bring our awareness. Like we survive in some kind of way. There's a little bit of confidence or familiarity of being with difficult experiences. So even if at that particular time, the particular instance we bring awareness to an uncomfortable experience, maybe it seems insignificant, but this is precisely how we grow our capacity to be with difficulties and gain confidence to be with difficulties.

And as we gain familiarity with being with difficulties, as we gain confidence being with difficulties just by being with difficulties in meditation, even minor ones. Feeling that itch rather than scratching it. Noticing our reaction to the neighbor's dog barking. These seemingly small, little movements really make a difference as we train, so to speak, the mind and heart to be able to hold these difficulties. Because all of our lives have difficulties, and if we can hold more and more of them, not only does our life unfold differently, but it enables us to help others. Maybe to recognize when they are in difficulty, or to be an exemplar of how to show up in difficulties.

So may our practice together be for the benefit of all beings everywhere, without exception.

Fear as a Vehicle

Good evening. Good evening. Welcome, welcome, wherever you are, whatever time it is, whether it's evening when you're listening to this or not.

So today I just finished the last class of a course called the Path of Fearlessness. So this topic of fear is something that I've been thinking about. It's on my mind and on my heart a little bit. How we work with fear, how we are with fear, how fear shows up.

And of course, there are different types of fear. One is due to imminent danger. That is, seeing a rattlesnake while we're out for a walk, or a car that's veering over into our lane, or something like that. So some real imminent danger. There's that type of fear, like some bodily harm might happen soon. I'm not talking about that so much. That's a natural response, and it's important and helps keep us alive. It's an appropriate response. But we also might have some fears that are less pressing, not so much associated with some imminent danger. Maybe just a fear of public speaking is not so uncommon, or fear of being seen a particular way, not doing the right thing or something.

We could distinguish between fear and anxiety. There's a number of different ways in which we might make these distinctions, but one way is to say that fear has a clear object. I'm afraid of public speaking, and I feel this dryness in my mouth or jitteriness in the body or something like this. Maybe as a little aside, I'll say that there was a time in which I had this really increased heart rate. It would be beating really fast, and before I really understood it, I just assumed that it meant that I was afraid. So then I started making up all these things that I was afraid of. But then when that kind of got taken care of, I realized, oh, I was misinterpreting this rapid heartbeat as I was afraid.

So there is fear that has this bodily experience. Most often, our hearts don't beat quickly for no reason. But to distinguish between fear and anxiety: anxiety also can have an increased heart rate, but anxiety tends to not have any particular clear object. It's more diffuse, maybe it's not so clear what we're anxious about. Anxiety tends to be a little bit more pervasive or touching different areas of our life. Maybe in some ways those distinctions are artificial, but maybe it's an invitation for you to discover for yourself the relationship between fear and anxiety.

I would like to talk a little bit about fear this evening, and some of the ways in which working with fear can be really beneficial. Not only because it's a difficult experience, and not only because I don't think anybody wants to feel afraid. For the most part, it's something that we're trying to manage so that it'll go away. But there can be something really valuable about working with fear. In addition to learning how to be with difficult experiences, as I was suggesting in the guided meditation, it really can be a great support for our life. I would say fear, in particular, is something that can be a support for us, provided it's not overwhelming.

If it's overwhelming, then of course we need to take care of that. One way to stop feeling overwhelmed is to feel the experience of fear in the body. Maybe it's a rapid heartbeat, maybe it's a dry mouth, whatever it might be. As best we can, allow the fear to be there. And in some ways, maybe even allow the fear to be okay to be there, as best we can. And then, if we can allow the fear to be there, maybe we can become curious about it, and learn a little bit and investigate it. Not so much that we have to figure everything out while we're in meditation, but at other times when we're off the cushion, perhaps to get curious about it.

To help us explore fear outside of meditation, I'd like to share a poem. I'm just going to share the first part of this poem. This poem kind of unfolds as a short story. The poem is called "Hello, Fear" by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer^[1]. The first part of the poem goes like this:

There I was making tea in my kitchen when fear hit me like a school bus. I didn't need a scientist or therapist to tell me it hurt. I screamed "Ah!" I shouted "No!" But after smashing into me, fear just opened the folding glass door of the bus, yanked me on, then plopped me into a green vinyl seat.

I love this. I think it's very evocative, this idea of fear never being invited. We never really want it; it just comes careening in. The poet is choosing to use a school bus as the vehicle. I'd like to suggest that we might use examining, being curious about, and investigating fear as a vehicle. I'll unpack this a little bit as we go. But with the school bus, maybe we feel younger. We were children when we were on school buses, so there's a part of us that feels young and vulnerable when we feel fear. But also, buses carry a lot of people. We don't know how many other people are on this bus, but maybe there's a whole lot of people when we get pulled onto this bus of fear. Maybe we don't notice them at the time because we're feeling fear. But might there be a way in which we can imagine connecting to this common humanity, that fear is something that humans experience? It's a good thing, it's helpful for us; it keeps us aware of the rattlesnakes and the car drifting into our lane. But also, there is some support in knowing that there are others, and maybe the others can accompany us with our fears.

I also appreciate in this poem that the bus with fear on it just arrives, they open the door of the bus, and we get yanked on. Sometimes we feel that way, right? When we have difficult experiences, we feel like, whether we want to or not, we get whisked away, and off we go.

So the poem continues. She's on the bus on the green vinyl seats. I'm laughing because that's my memory of school buses also, with green vinyl seats. [Laughter] So the poem continues:

"I'm scared," I said. "Yeah," fear said, "because I'm scary." "Yeah," I squealed as the bus careened through the couch, through my bedroom, through the splintering dining room table.

In this poem, the school bus carrying fear is taking our protagonist through all the areas of a person's life: the couch, the bedroom, the splintering dining room table. In the same way, I'd like to suggest that working with fear can take us to many areas of our lives. Sure, we might experience fear in all areas of our lives, but I want to suggest that working with fear, being curious about it, investigating it, and learning how to be with it, can also touch so many different areas of our lives.

In fact, working with fear provides a window into our inner life. Maybe some emotions have been tucked away that we've been kind of afraid to feel. Or maybe if we work with fear, we start to notice some of the stories that we've created about who we think we are, the purpose of our lives, or what we value. Because when we start to work with fear, we get a view of what we are trying to protect. Often fear arises when we feel threatened. So what are we trying to protect? Examining fear is a way in which we might gain some clarity about our inner life and what's important to us. And maybe some ways in which what we're really holding onto isn't so helpful.

Working with fear also helps us to realize the way in which our fears might be limiting our freedom in ways that we didn't appreciate. We might not be aware of the role fear has until we are asked to really examine it. I noticed for quite some time early in my meditation practice that there was an awful lot of planning going on. I was just spending my time planning. You name it, I was planning it: what I was going to do next, what I was going to eat next, what I was going to get at the grocery store, the emails I was supposed to be sending. All this stuff, right? Maybe some of you can relate to this or recognize this. It wasn't until I really started to examine it that I started to see, "Oh, there's fear underneath this planning." I'm trying to make myself be safe. I have this idea that as long as I just plan everything, I'll be safe. I see this showing up sometimes in my Dharma talks too, that I try to plan them, and then maybe I get a little too stiff. But the ways that we try to plan, prepare, or take care of things just because there's a little bit of fear there. Somehow just recognizing the fear shifts our relationship. If we bring some awareness to what's happening, then there's some confidence that can be there.

Working with fear can also reveal some additional underlying beliefs. We may have the belief that we're only validated through the eyes of others. So it's so important how others see us, and we're afraid that we won't be seen in a complimentary way. Or maybe we have the belief that it's dangerous to be strong and competent. So examining fear might highlight some of these things that otherwise wouldn't get illuminated. We might notice some of our patterns of reactivity. "Oh yeah, I get a little bit afraid when the refrigerator is running out of food. I feel this sense of lack, and I won't have enough." We all have our own things where we have some patterns of reactivity or second arrows, where we might notice fear or anxiety showing up.

If we start to investigate fear, we also might notice how there's this vicious cycle of fear and clinging. Fear leads to clinging through identification. Clinging to a sense of self or clinging to wanting to have things a particular way. That's why we're planning, right? Things have to be a particular way so that we can feel safe. And then this clinging through identification leads back to fear, as we observe the objects of our identification under threat because, of course, they are changing. Whatever we're identifying with doesn't stay constant. It doesn't stay steady; it's not as predictable as we wish it were.

So fear and clinging is this vicious cycle. We know that clinging is a source of suffering, but maybe sometimes it's helpful to look at clinging from the side view. And maybe one way is to look at fear. Again, not when we're feeling overwhelmed, and maybe in our meditation practice it's just enough to notice there's fear. But maybe outside of meditation, talk about it, think about it, journal about it, and get curious about the role fear has in our lives.

Some other areas of our life that working with fear might travel through is our relationship with death. This, of course, is a natural fear that humans have. But if we are looking at fear, we could look at our relationship to death. We are all going to die. We know this intellectually. But maybe we can start to reflect on death in a way that allows us to approach the dying process in a way that's sacred, in a way that's liberating. Perhaps when we examine our fear of death, maybe we decide that we'd like to do some death contemplation practice, Maraṇasati^[2] practice. It's a highly esteemed, well-established practice in the Buddhist tradition of contemplating our death. Not in a morbid way; it turns out to be a really beautiful and touching practice. I know that Nikki Mirghafori^[3] has taught some death contemplation practices. It allows us to reclaim that part of ourselves that's afraid of death, and instead experience the peace and ease of the wholeness that comes when we can no longer be afraid of the fear of death, no longer have the fear of the fear. And also the peace and calmness that can come when we align ourselves with the truth of reality. We know things that have the nature to be born have the nature to die, but somehow it's part of the human experience that we don't really think about it.

So that leads me to the next section of the poem. Here the protagonist is speaking to fear, and she says:

"What if I lose everything?" I said to fear. "Yeah," said fear. "What if you do?" "And who will I be when everything changes?" "Yeah," said fear. "Who will you be?" Then he opened the door and shoved me off the bus. And I was standing again beside the familiar green counter, teacup in hand, not a drop spilled.

So the person finds herself at the beginning, right? She was making tea in the kitchen when this bus arrived. Working with fear builds some self-confidence. Once we realize that yes, we can be with fear and we can examine our fears, then the fear of fear starts to diminish. We realize, "Oh yeah, okay, it's uncomfortable perhaps, but we can do this." We learn to trust the practice, trust the awareness, trust having some curiosity about what our experience with fear is. And this expands into wider and wider circles in the world. The confidence that we gain from working with fear starts to leak out in different areas of our life in so many different ways.

Maybe we can also be inspired by how the Buddha worked with fear. Part of the stories he talked about was how he had fear before he was awakened. I think I talked about this in a Dharma talk a number of months ago. He said when he felt fear, he just kept practicing until the fear went away. And then after awakening, the Buddha is not somebody who is afraid. He speaks with confidence. He's confident in his knowledge. He has seen and knows, and he wants to share it with others. So it's possible to go from somebody who experiences fear to having some confidence.

We might also think of the nuns from ancient India, and their liberation poems that are captured in the Therigatha^[4]. These nuns express themselves with warmth and calmness and with confidence, even though in some of their poems they are describing some really difficult emotions and some fear. But they found their way to some confidence and more freedom.

Then this poem continues, building on this:

"Who will you be?" he shouted.

So fear is shouting to the protagonist:

"Who will you be?" he shouted from the half-open window. I took a deep breath. "Ah, not knowing how to answer." "Good," fear said, as if uncertainty were a gift. "And who," fear said as the bus peeled away, "who are you now? Who are you really?"

"Good," fear said, as if uncertainty were a gift. Pointing to that working with fear helps us not only to gain confidence where things are uncertain and to trust the practice, but also to recognize that uncertainty. That is, to be open to what's actually happening, to have some flexibility, some fluidity with how things are and with how we are.

One of the key Buddhist teachings, of course, is that there isn't a solid, stable, permanent self. Instead, actually, there's uncertainty, there's impermanence, things are changing. There's the uncomfortableness that goes with that, but there isn't a solid self. I talked earlier about this vicious cycle of fear and clinging and identification. In some way, identification is a way in which we're creating a self. "I'm the one who has this experience" or "I'm the one that has to get rid of this experience." So we can just notice how fear and clinging, identification, and a sense of self that feels really tight and separate from everybody else go together. If we can relax our fear, we can relax our separateness, this sense of separateness.

And being fearless can be a profound gift to the people around us. The willingness to have the difficult conversations, the willingness to be with people who are dying or really sick. Or the willingness to not know, to not know the answer, to have uncertainty, and instead of being dogmatic or having really strong views that we have to trumpet loudly, to just have some openness, some uncertainty, and have some fearlessness that allows us to just be with what is.

So fear as a vehicle. Working with fear can be a really great way that can complement a meditation practice and might help support us discovering more and more things about ourselves. It can bring these beautiful fruits not only to our lives but to those around us as our fearlessness grows.

So when you find yourself on this school bus careening around with fear, maybe you might notice there's other people on the bus with you, and maybe that diminishes some of your fear. Or maybe the fear just asks you... he dropped her off after she said, "What if I lose everything?" and he said, "Yeah, what if you do?" And she said, "Well, who will I be when everything changes?" and fear said, "Yeah, who will you be?" And that's what brought this bus to a stop.

So working with fear. May you find some of the benefits and fruits of working with fear. Thank you.