Comments on: Five Great Fears – Summing Up

By: Ed

Ed — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:00:12 +0000

..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.

By: Victoria

Victoria — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:21:10 +0000

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.

By: Alan

Alan — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:13:43 +0000

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.

By: John E

John E — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:03:54 +0000

I consider nature and God to be equal… the same with sounds and feelings. It’s just a feeling, a universal one, -ness.

By: John E

John E — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:47:05 +0000

I feel more connected by feelings than thoughts, sounds than words, nature than people.

By: Marie Lloyd

Marie Lloyd — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:58:03 +0000

I so appreciate your generous commentary, Lewis. Thank you for giving this to me.

By: sara

sara — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:50:40 +0000

“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!

By: Barbara

Barbara — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:11:49 +0000

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

By: Rico Provasoli

Rico Provasoli — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:01:45 +0000

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.

By: Dot Kostriken

Dot Kostriken — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:16:28 +0000

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.