I’ve spent the last several posts exploring the topic of Buddhism’s five great fears—fear of dying, fear of illness, fear of dementia, fear of loss of livelihood, and fear of public speaking. These are ancient teachings that reflect the universality of these fear states, even for lifelong monastics, who developed these teachings. Fear is the arena of Buddhist practice; all fear ultimately derives from constriction of ego, and the liberation that the Buddha taught goes straight through and into these fears. In one sense, these great fears are ego’s worst nightmare; in another, they are the ground of awakening.
Aging is nature’s plan for forcing us to deal with these fears, if we have not done so already. At the root of aging is the slowly growing awareness of mortality. We have gotten use to being alive in this body. It’s familiar to us. The notion of not being here is not really comprehensible, except as an abstraction. But mortality is the stuff of life. If we didn’t know, at some level, that all that we are and love is going to vanish, life would not be as precious as it is.
In the next series of posts, I want to shift from fear to being. There is ego, and there is true nature—technically referred to in Buddhism as Buddha nature. Sometimes I call it divine nature, especially when I am talking to non-Buddhists. True nature is who we really are, and true nature will not vanish, because it hasn’t ever participated in appearing. In true nature, there is nothing to fear, because there is nothing to lose.
Stay tuned (as they say) for much future blogging on this core topic.
In my own examination of fear, I (can sometimes) see how it is tethered to my projections about the future.
To say this sounds nearly trivial, but I think it’s actually quite important because the future is also the realm of desire.
In this way, fear and desire seem like close cousins – aversion and attachment in different guises.
Thank you for your interesting series of posts on this topic.
I can hardly wait! Your statement that “In true nature, there is nothing to fear because there is nothing to lose” is new(s) for me. I have enjoyed these posts on the 5 great fears. Pondering true nature… hmmm, perhaps I should sit in the forest to get the “true nature” experience.
Even though it’s in the clinging relm, I look forward to your posts. Thank you.
Patty
Reminds me of Tennesse Williams’ “Streetcar Named Desire”. His contention was that desire was what se seek to avoid death. Very Buddhist!
Gassho to all.
During a 10 day retreat at zen teacher Cheri Huber’s rammed earth construction monastery (LivingCompassion.org) we had daily workshops on different aspects of fear.
When we experienced a “Eureka!) insight, we wrote down a pithy reminder on a 3X5 file card.
It is taped to my computer moniter:
Fear is basically a biochemical phenomenon we interpret with ego’s story.
Gassho for the teaching.
Thank you Lewis for all your posts, I follow with deep interest everything you are transmitting to us. From this “clinging realm”, as Patty E wrote(I loved that expression) I am grateful for all this knowledge.
And thank you, Rico Provasoli, for what you wrote about fear, which is taped to your computer monitor…..I will do the same!!
Blessings to you, Lewis
“nature’s plan”… I do seem to “believe,” much of the time, that there is something like a plan. Is the point of practice (or one of them, anyway) to really see and experience that plan ( the cycle between birth and death?) at ground level: in the cycle’s myriad details, as they play themselves out in us and around us…? I experience these details as the joy that is available in this life – witnessing the wonder that each moment exemplifies. But the struggle to accept that it is all temporary goes on. The fears certainly provide plenty of detours and distractions…thanks, Lew, for these invaluable teachings!
I so appreciate your generous commentary, Lewis. Thank you for giving this to me.
I feel more connected by feelings than thoughts, sounds than words, nature than people.
I consider nature and God to be equal… the same with sounds and feelings. It’s just a feeling, a universal one, -ness.
Barry nailed it for me – fear and the future. They are so wound up together.
Lately I have been trying to make a point of working with the inevitable tightening I feel whenever a stranger (or even a familiar) approaches. I see someone coming my way on the street – I clutch up inside. Someone sticks her head in my office door – I quickly try to figure out what they are about and rearrange it to make me more comfortable.
But, if I can register that tightening, that distancing and rearranging, before it gets too wound up, there’s a possibility of feeling just a little more relaxed and open to life.
Life has fear and grief and every other emotion as part of this human expereince. I want to be careful not to use Buddhist concepts as a way to explain away or avoid feeling these states as they arise. I can know on one level that I am not my ego, yet for whatever reason, on some level I have an ego. What may be more important is that these emotions, strong or subtle as they may be, arise and fall away. It is the meaning I make of them that is the issue and that causes suffering or not. The paradox is to embrace my human experience with detachement.
..fear is a teacher only we don’t listen to it well as youth (yut’s?) …aging forces us to listen and pay attention…or we can empower it even more and lock up into constant fear always looking for distrations…Pema Chondron talks of the role of meditation, specially daily meditation, on the becoming aware of the games we paly to avoid confronting our fears, greed, all the excuses we use to stay away…bringing your mind to the present is like coming home, she says.