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Archive for the ‘Fear’ Category

Blog Anniversary

Posted in Baby Boomers and Aging, Fear, tagged , on May 11, 2010 | 9 Comments »

My apologies for missing a couple of posting dates.  I try to post once a week but reality and a busy schedule have intruded—including the need for me to dig in to starting to write my Aging as a Spiritual Practice book. I thought I would take the opportunity of this post to note the [...]

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Five Great Fears – Summing Up

Posted in Fear, Uncategorized, tagged , , on March 10, 2010 | 12 Comments »

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 [...]

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Fear of Public Speaking

Posted in Fear, tagged , , on March 2, 2010 | 9 Comments »

The fifth “great fear” of Buddhism is, strangely enough, the “fear of public speaking.”  The other four—fear of death, fear of illness, fear of dementia, and fear of loss of livelihood—are so obviously great fears that it is curious that fear of public speaking is included with them.  Certainly those who have this fear can [...]

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Loss of Livelihood I

Posted in Fear, tagged , , on February 4, 2010 | 10 Comments »

The fourth “great fear” of Buddhist teaching is “fear of loss of livelihood.”  It is interesting that this doctrine was formulated by monastics living a life of mendicancy and voluntary poverty.  One would think that the vow of poverty would liberate monks from the ordinary anxieties of earning a livelihood, but of course the monks [...]

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Fear of Dementia

Posted in Aging and Buddhism, Fear, tagged , , , , on December 27, 2009 | 20 Comments »

What a downer of a topic! Who wants to think or talk about dementia, Alzheimer’s, losing one’s mind? Yet it is the “third great fear” in Buddhist teaching, so clearly the ancient Buddhists wanted to talk about it. They knew that the best way to transform and dissolve fear is to face it.  Well, today [...]

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Fear of Life, Fear of Death

Posted in Fear, tagged , , , on November 22, 2009 | 13 Comments »

In Zen we say, “Life and Death is the great matter.”  This is a kind of exhortation to take spiritual practice seriously, but as my teacher used to say, “Don’t be too serious.”  There is a little ego in being too serious.  Anyway, life and death are two sides of the same coin.  They arise [...]

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