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Guided Meditation: Seeing But Not Being Emotions

Warm greetings from Redwood City and IMC. It delights me to be able to spread these greetings around the globe to people in so many different places. So, welcome everyone.

And now we will start with the meditation. I want to mention first that one of the advantages that can come from sitting and meditating a lot—meaning perhaps meditating every day, day in and day out, through whatever ups and downs happen in our lives—is a constant thread. The constancy through it all, kind of like the ballast of a boat that keeps everything balanced, is meditation. That's what we're doing, no question about it. We literally learn to be with, be mindful of, and meditate with whatever circumstances our life might have. Slowly, as we are meditating like this regularly through all the ups and downs, there's a very interesting shift that can happen. And that is that instead of being identified with whatever mood or emotional state that we have—

For example, to identify with it is to say, "I'm afraid," or "I'm angry," or "I'm happy." I've had all of those. And not only have I had them and identified myself with them, but at various times I have thought, "I'll always be this way. I'll always be afraid. I'll always be angry." There was once in my life where I thought, "Oh wow, I have it made, I'll always be happy." That didn't last long, but I remember having it. So this identifying, being "I'm afraid," at some point shifts.

With the regularity of meditation, sitting in the stability of meditation, just sitting there day in and day out, and just kind of watching it all come through, at some point instead of identifying with these emotions and moods, we recognize we have these states. So, "Oh, there is fear. Fear is here. My old friend fear has returned. Here is fear." Or, "Anger is here," or "Happiness is here," or "Sadness is here." There is sadness, there is joy.

There can be a huge difference between being identified and defined by the mood and state—somehow assuming it says something about who we are—versus not making it a definition of who we are, our identity, or even our worth. Maybe it's just a phenomenon. It's here, it's happening to me, it's here and now. That gives a whole different possibility of relating to it. I think we can then relate to it a little bit more respectfully. That's a little hard to do when we're glued to it or enmeshed in it. You can kind of step back away from it and say, "Oh, I see you, my dear friend. I know you're there. I'll spend some time breathing with you, or accompanying you, or you're welcome to accompany me as I ride the inhales and exhales."

We can start to study it or see it. We can befriend our emotions. We can explore them. We can allow them in a certain kind of way, because they're not us. We're not in danger of being influenced by them, and saying and doing things as if we were caught in their grip. Maybe we can even release them. They're releasable because they're not us. So, as we do this meditation, maybe something will come through, maybe not. Some emotion that's common for you. Maybe you'll try out viewing it as, "There's the emotion. There it is. It's present," as opposed to, "I am this way."

Taking a comfortable, alert posture and gently closing your eyes.

Taking just a few moments now to feel your body here. If you felt your body from the inside out, what stands out as being the predominant sensations and feelings in your body?

Then, to take a few long deep breaths. Maybe loving breaths, tender breaths. Maybe three-quarters full. And then a long, slow exhale, maybe longer than the inhale. Maybe three-quarters complete the exhale, not so far that it's a strain. It's a little ritual of having your body and mind connect together here. They are partners in being present in the here and now, taking these deep breaths.

And then letting your breathing return to normal.

Also, to help you arrive here and be present, it can be helpful to relax different parts of the body. We might relax the muscles of the face. Soften around the forehead and the temples, letting the eyes rest in their sockets. Perhaps softening and relaxing the shoulders. Perhaps adjusting the position of your hands to make it a little easier for the shoulders to relax.

And then, soften the chest and soften the belly.

Then, become aware of the natural rhythm of your body breathing in and breathing out. The rhythm of expansion of the torso as you inhale, the contraction of the torso as you exhale.

Taking a few moments to feel whatever stillness or quiet there is here in your body and mind. Even if you're agitated, maybe there is still somewhere in the corner of your being some quiet and stillness. Maybe you can breathe with that. Sit quietly and still.

If, as you're sitting here, something occurs—an emotion, a mood, sensations in your body, comfort and discomfort, or even thoughts—perhaps rather than identifying with them, see them as visitors. There is here now. There's this emotion for now, these sensations for now, these thoughts, these visitors that soon enough will change and not be here.

But the breathing remains. Always the breathing. Breathing in and breathing out, a kind of constancy running through all things.

And then, as we come to the end of the sitting, perhaps appreciate that when you're sitting with some stillness in meditation, your posture is not changing so much. Whatever emotion or mood that comes through is not being expressed in your posture, in your body. It's allowed to be there, but we're not engaged or involved with it with our body. The body just sits upright and still. There's a stability that can arise, that's able to stay stable regardless of what we're feeling.

It's from such a stability, where we're not identified with our emotions or involved with our feelings, that all the different flavors of kindness, goodwill, and care can flow. There can be a stability in which we turn our kind gaze out into the world. We look upon the world kindly. We look upon the world in a friendly way. We look upon the world with appreciation at the wonder, the beauty, and the preciousness of all life.

From our stability, we can look upon the world with care, with goodwill—wishing for the welfare and happiness of all beings. Maybe even having a vision of how people would be, and how beings would be, if they were safe, free, and happy. To wish people well, to wish life on this planet well, is a form of generosity, respect, and love, to wish the best for all beings.

May we, as we end this sitting, gaze upon the world beyond our meditation with well-wishing. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings everywhere be free.

The Four Practices of FEAR

Good day, and welcome to this dharma^[1] talk. Today, I would like to talk about fear. Part of the motivation to talk about it is that it's a very common state for many people, for everyone at some point or other. Also, I'm finishing up a year-long program that I'm co-teaching, which is an experimental program that we will probably offer more in the future at some point. It's called "A Path of Fearlessness," where we spent seven months or so looking at fear, considering it, and practicing with it. It comes to a conclusion this week, so bringing this program to a conclusion has the topic on my mind, and this is what I have to talk about today.

I'll say it this way: For people who meditate regularly and are really familiar with being present for their experience, they are familiar with themselves. All kinds of things in their life come along when they meditate. When they're upset, they sit down to meditate and they feel the upsetness. When they're afraid, they sit down to meditate and their fear is there. When they're angry, they sit down and experience the anger. When they're happy, joyful, peaceful, or calm, they sit down to be with that. Sometimes as we sit, some of these things shift and maybe become calmer, more settled, more stable.

Then we might be sitting there quietly, and suddenly something appears out of nowhere. A thought or memory comes up, and there's anger. A memory comes up, we remember what's going to happen tomorrow, and there's anxiety that comes up. Over time, it's not a surprise when an emotion appears while we're meditating. There can be a phenomenal shift that happens when we move from identifying with the emotion to just recognizing that it's part of what's happening.

To identify means to define oneself by it. If one is angry, assuming, "I'm an angry person. People now are going to relate to me as if I'm an angry person; that defines who I am and how people will judge me." The same thing happens with fear, when one feels, "I am afraid. Boy, am I afraid." When leaning into the fear, or being captivated by it so thoroughly and fully, we assume it's all of who we are. The same thing happens with happiness and joy.

But a shift happens in meditation. At some point, rather than saying, "Oh, I'm afraid now," the meditator will say, "There is fear now. There is anger now. There is happiness now." There's no inclination to define oneself by it, as if it's a well-worn coat that we're putting on for another time. It's just a phenomenon, part and parcel of what's happening. It might be strong, and it might even be coursing through the body, but there is a stability of mind that recognizes, "There is joy. There is sadness. There is happiness. There is fear."

This ability to just see it as a phenomenon that's present gives rise to very important possibilities. This is really when the mindfulness work can begin becoming stronger, deeper, and more penetrating. It's a little bit hard to penetrate phenomena if we identify with them, if we define ourselves by them. Because we're so fully defined by it, it's like we can't normally see the eyes that see without a mirror. We see through our eyes, but we don't turn back and look at the eyes and see them. If we're really defined by an emotional state, we might know it's there. We might recognize that "I'm angry," or sad, happy, or afraid. But it's kind of the filter through which we see, so it's not really accessible for clearly seeing and recognizing, "There it is." When the time comes when we can say, "Oh, fear is here," this gives birth to new possibilities.

I'd like to talk about four categories of possibilities for how we can be with fear once we can just see that it's present, and not be defined or identified by it. I thought it would be fun to come up with an acronym using the letters of FEAR.

The first thing we can do—now that it's become a verb, thanks to Facebook, I think—is we can friend our fear. We can befriend it. This idea of becoming a friend to our fear is a really powerful thing to do. It's the opposite of being afraid of fear. It's radically different from being aversive to fear, angry at fear, ashamed of fear, trying to fix fear, attacking fear, or trying to analyze it and figure out what's going on. It's kind of like if you're with a friend, you don't want to do all those things with your friend. You want to be present for your friend and hear what's going on. If you haven't seen the friend for a while, you want to hear what's happening and be with them in a way that's respectful and caring.

It's possible to do that with fear. It's harder to do when we are defined by it, but it's easier if we recognize that it's just there. In a kind of way, I'm here, and fear is there. Fear is part of me, but it's not quite me, so I can look at it without it being a filter through which I see.

The value of becoming a friend to it is similar to—I'm jumping around a little bit—but if a young child is afraid, we don't get angry at them. We don't run away from them. We don't get all flustered and confused and run around in circles. When the kid is sitting on the floor being afraid, you don't berate the kid. You sit down with the kid, and maybe if the kid is small enough, you put them on your lap or you hold them, and you're there with them.

There are all these ways we can respond once we recognize that fear is there. We want to first friend the fear. One of the great values of friending it is that the fear feels safe. The fear doesn't feel like it's being shamed, pushed away, denied, or unwanted, which would be hard, just like it would be hard for a little child. One of the fascinating and wonderful tasks of mindfulness is to help our fear feel safe.

Now, it's a little counter-intuitive. Some people have never thought about helping their fear feel safe. If we are defined by the fear, then it's hard to offer anything to it. But when we come to the point in practice where we can recognize fear is present, and we're not so inclined to say, "I am afraid," then we have something we can offer the fear. We become the one who offers safety, offers stability, offers kindness, and makes space for it to be there, so we can start to listen and look more deeply at what's here.

And that's the E of FEAR: to explore the fear. Rather than recoiling from the fear, we step towards it to explore it, to be with it, to feel it more fully. One of the first things we can do in exploring it is to assess whether the fear is appropriate or not. We can try to see: Is this an appropriate fear to have, or is it not? Is it a real fear, or is it not? Is it a healthy fear to have, or is it not healthy? Or, my favorite pairing: Is it a helpful fear, or is it not helpful?

Some fear is clearly helpful to have; it protects us. Sometimes we need protection. There are times when I'm driving my car or walking on a street where I feel a little bit afraid. There's a little bit of fear there that's inseparable inside of me from a sense of caution. Sometimes it is a little bit scary. Maybe if I was different than who I am, I wouldn't be afraid of certain kinds of traffic situations, but I don't think it's necessarily wrong. Death can be instantaneous in some crosswalks with the way some drivers drive. So the fear protects us. It says, "Look before you walk across the crosswalk."

In Buddhism, one of the appropriate fears is the fear of doing something that injures one's own integrity, that injures one's own sensitivity to compassion, kindness, or honesty. It harms one's sensitivity or orientation to live a life that doesn't cause harm to anyone else. When we feel like we're in danger of saying something very unkind and hurtful to someone, to feel that fear—"No, this is dangerous. I don't think I should say this. I should be careful here. The mood that I'm in right now is a little dangerous. I could easily snap at someone and later regret what I would have said." So I'm afraid of myself a little bit because of this mood. I see what I've done before, so I'm going to be cautious. Maybe I'm going to learn to hold my tongue, or maybe I'm even going to avoid certain stressful situations when I'm in this mood, if I can. We have something to protect here. The simple fear of not wanting to hurt others is a very healthy fear to have. In the teachings of the Buddha, they say that practitioners have fear of causing the slightest fault or the slightest harm. Hopefully, this is not seen as a debilitating fear that diminishes who we are, but actually as a fear that protects what's best in us and allows it to grow.

So Buddhism recognizes healthy fear, but there's also unhelpful fear. The fear that is debilitating, that freezes us, inhibits us, or keeps us from living a full life or engaging properly in the world. Sometimes it's fear that causes us to harm others. Sometimes it's fear that causes us to harm ourselves because we're so afraid of the alternative, and so we keep ourselves in check, close down, or collapse. As we explore fear, we can recognize when it seems helpful and when it seems not helpful. Even when fear is helpful in principle, the strength of the fear, or the way we engage in it, can be debilitating and limiting. This idea of exploring the fear—asking, "What's going on here? What's happening here for me?"—is a wonderful stance. It's a sense of inner strength that begins to operate from the stability of the practice of mindfulness.

One of the things we can ask is what we're afraid of. I see the exploration of fear as a movement of respect. We respect the fear; we're not belittling fear or belittling ourselves because we are afraid. I like to think that every fear we have should be respected because it's a messenger. Sometimes it's a messenger that there is in fact a danger. But sometimes it's a messenger that something inside of us feels threatened. It's important to look and see what the real danger is. Explore: Is there a danger right now? Sometimes in the here and now, what we're afraid of is not present. That's a fascinating thing to realize, that what we're afraid of is partly a product of our imagination.

Some people have said that anxiety is completely an issue of imagination. It might be a realistic imagination, but it's imagining what's going to happen in the future; it's predicting something. Sometimes it's a wise prediction, but then it becomes a kind of anxiety that lives and simmers inside. Some people have chronic anxiety. They've learned there's been so much pain and danger in their life that it becomes habitual and to be expected. There's always a threat, always something dangerous that's going to happen, and we don't know what it is. There's nothing concrete right here and now, so in that sense, it's imaginary. To see clearly that it is not present can give us some breathing room, knowing that here and now, it's maybe not as dangerous as we thought, and there could be some relaxation.

We can look at what we're afraid of, but for dharma practice, a very significant exploration of fear is to look and see what's being threatened. What is really going on inside of me? What am I afraid is going to be hurt or damaged? What is it that feels threatened? Sometimes what's being threatened is real enough. Integrity is real and important enough to protect. But sometimes what's being protected doesn't really have such a strong, real basis. Sometimes what's being threatened are the constructs we live under, the constructs of self, the ideas we have about how we identify ourselves and how we've constructed our idea of who we are.

For example, if a person constructs an idea of themselves that they need to be wise and funny all the time, then if they feel fear, maybe it's because how other people see them is being threatened. Their identity as a wise and funny person is threatened. But there's no inherent need to be a wise and funny person. That's a particularly constructed notion or idea; without that idea, it can't be threatened. The idea that we have to be someone everyone likes, or the fear that we are somehow an undesirable person, means we constantly feel threatened by everyone because we're afraid of being pushed away or rejected. It gets a little more complicated when what's being threatened is a bit of an imagination, a concept, an idea, or a construct that maybe doesn't exactly have to be there. Maybe we're stuck on some idea that doesn't need to be there.

When I was younger, I thought it was almost a life and death matter whether someone liked me or didn't like me. I had a lot of social fear. I was constantly assessing, wondering, and hoping that people would like me. It was a big revelation to realize that everyone doesn't have to like me. It's okay if some people don't like me, and I don't have to constantly be concerned about it. To see that begin to shed and drop away created a lot more peace inside of me—social peace and ease. In fact, sometimes people don't like me, and that's okay. They're allowed to do that. And sometimes people do, and that's nice too.

There's a whole series of things that can be explored around fear, but the important principle is to not be caught by it. One way not to be caught by it is to explore it, to take the initiative: "Okay, let's discover what's going on here." There are all these different ways of discovery, and you can have your own way, but just keep looking, feeling, and getting to know it.

The A of FEAR is to really allow it to be there. The more we can discover and explore it, we can really allow it, but not allow it to run us, tell us what to do, or dictate how to see things. This is a continuation of, "There is fear here. I'm not the fear, but there is fear here with me, in me." Discover how it appears physically. What is the physical manifestation of fear? Then allow that physicality of fear to be there, almost as if you get out of the way from it. Sometimes it's best to do this in short bouts, especially when there's terror or very strong fear. It's better not to explore it or be with it for very long, but just to touch into it for a while, pull away, come back to it another day, and slowly befriend it and get to know it.

At some point, the beautiful art of mindfulness is to really allow it to be there, and allow it without our reactivity around it, without needing it to be different. It's an extension of befriending the fear and allowing it. Part of the value of that is that our inner life knows how to take care of itself. It knows how to unwind, how to release, and how to morph into what needs to happen next. If we learn the art of just allowing the fear to be there, it's impressive what can happen. That's a hard skill to learn when our habit is to analyze it, engineer a change, fix it, or something like that. To learn how to allow it in meditation is a wonderful skill. With some fears, maybe we can't get rid of them, or they will always be with us. But the art of allowing it, befriending it, knowing it's there, and exploring it can mean that we might be able to have the fear be present, but not be inhibited or limited by it. We bring it along; it sits on our left shoulder. It's there with us, and we know it's there, but we're not going to stop what we're doing. It's not going to get us to cower, shut down, or not live our life as we want to live it. We allow the fear to come along and accompany us. We recognize it's present, but we know how to allow it so that it can just be there and not interfere.

And then the R of FEAR is to release. That's the freedom part of fear. That has different sides of release. Sometimes the fear is released and it's no longer there, especially if the underlying thing that was threatened is no longer there, or we realize that what was threatened doesn't really exist—it has no real substantial existence. When we learn to be at peace without the constructs of self and the self-definitions we have—at peace without a self-construct we're trying to build up, defend, protect, or hide from people—then there's nothing threatened around self-identity. People can do all kinds of things, but they can't hurt that identity because we're not holding on to it. We're not defining ourselves by it, and it just goes right through us, so we're free of it.

Sometimes what's being released is not the fear, but rather our clinging, attachment, selfing, or identification with the fear. We release ourselves from the fear. The fear is still there, but we are released from it. Then it's much easier to have the fear be present and just live our life as we want to, or as is appropriate. To friend the fear, to explore the fear, to allow the fear, and to release in relationship to the fear—these are four things to explore.

But the emphasis for this talk is that this is meant for people who are capable of having some disidentification from fear. Not dissociation from it, but disidentification—the sense that they don't define themselves by their fear. They're able to sit, be quiet, breathe easily perhaps, and recognize, "Oh, there is fear. Fear is present. I'm not the fear, but boy, is fear present. That fear is strong, but you know, I'm not the fear." That allows for this interesting practice to friend the fear, explore the fear, allow the fear, and release the fear. Then FEAR has become a fourfold practice that we engage in. Next time you feel fear, you might remember that FEAR is an acronym for a practice where we respect the fear by getting to know it well. It's a messenger. Do we understand what the message is?

Thank you very much. May you explore your fear and discover the wonderful place inside where there is no fear, because it's a place that cannot be threatened. Thank you.