The Living Journal – Fear, do you?

If you ask me do I live in fear? In some ways, yes, I do and what about you? Because we are human beings and our reactions and emotions are naturally responding through our body, speech and mind. We all have them. Some of us know without a doubt our fears, others, may have to dig deep inside to find them. If you are going to win any battle, you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tells the mind what to do.

In Buddhism, there are negative fears and positive fears and the cycle works like this: we react to depression by fearing, fleeing or fighting it. These reactions cause too much adrenaline to flow, and it is this adrenalin that causes many negative reactions and emotions symptoms. We are so desperate to get away from these symptoms that we fear, flee and fight even more, which in turn produces even more adrenaline, which prolongs symptoms and produces new, even more alarming ones, which we fear, flee, and fight, and the cycle continues.

What are the common fears for us?

Financial problems? 

Sickness? 

Old age? 

Death? 

Depression? 

Family problems?

Love and relationship problems? 

Loneliness?

We have always been struck down with the constant fears that make us unhappy and paralyze our will and as well, torturing us in every minute when we think about all these. We attempt to run away from these and we don’t even want to talk or face it. Who doesn’t right? 

Similarly, when someone gives up a bad habit, namely smoking because they are afraid of developing a deadly disease in their life, this is a positive fear because the danger is real and there are constructive steps they can take to avoid it.

We have many fears of terrorism , fear of death, fear of being separated from people we love, fear of losing control, fear of commitment, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of losing our job, the list is never-ending!

Many of our present fears are rooted in what Buddha identified as “delusions” distorted ways of looking at our self and the world around us. If we learn to control our mind, and reduce and eventually eradicate these delusions, the source of all our fear, positive and negative, is eradicated.

Positive Fear

However, right now we need the positive fear that arises from taking stock of our present situation so that we can resolve to do something about it. For instance, there is no point in an alcoholic being scared of dying of related diseases unless there is something that he or she can or will stop drinking.

It is true that we are exposed to danger and harm, we are vulnerable to aging, sickness, and eventually death, all due to our being trapped in samsara – the state of uncontrolled existence that is a reflection of our own uncontrolled minds. We are vulnerable to all the mental and physical pain that arises from an uncontrolled mind-such as the pains that come from the delusions of attachment, anger, and ignorance.

We can choose to live in denial of this and in that way give up what control we have, or we can choose to distinguish this susceptibility, distinguish that we are in danger, and then find a way to avert the danger by removing the actual causes of all fear.

The delusions and negative, unskillful actions motivated by those delusions. In this way we gain control, and if we are in control we have no cause for fear. All Buddha’s teachings are methods to overcome the delusions, the source of all fears.

A positive fear it serves to motivate constructive action to avoid a real helplessness situation. We only need fear as an impulsion until we have removed the causes of our vulnerability through finding spiritual, inner refuge and gradually training the mind.

There are fears of being deluded and harmful and non-deluded and positive. These can also be divided into fear to be anticipated and fear of the inevitable. The key to dealing with fear is to check which types of fear we have, and to transform our negative fears of what we can do nothing about into healthy, appropriate fears of what we can do something about.

We can then use these as the motivation to develop refuge and to overcome what is really dangerous, and even eventually to overcome what at present seems inevitable, such as sickness, old age, and death. Perhaps we are afraid of death. Again, though, as we are definitely going to die, that fear is not constructive and will lead to inappropriate responses such as denial or a sense of uselessness or meaninglessness in our life. 

However, although we have to die, we don’t have to die with an uncontrolled mind. It is therefore wise to transform our fear of dying into a fear of dying with an uncontrolled mind, the motivation that will ensure we prepare for a peaceful and controlled death.

Liberation from Fear

In other words, we cannot control whether things will go our way or not, but we can learn to control our own minds, our responses, and our own conduct, and in this way gradually find a genuine liberation from all fear. It is crucial that we recognize that it is this cycle that causes fears disturbing physical, mental, emotional and spiritual sensations, and that by breaking that cycle, we can eventually be free of them.

As with all emotion, the practice of meditation can stabilize us enough in the midst of fear to help us see more clearly, and to distinguish a false threat from a genuine threat that needs to be acted upon. The type of fear meditation can have the most effect on is the fears that we continually generate in our own minds, the product of our rich imagination and our desire to control everything, rather than be tossed around in the risky and stormy world.

Thank you for reading, may you find peace and great bliss. With your support it helps to spread the Buddha’s precious teachings and turning the Dharma wheels in the world.

Aspiration For Bodhichitta

For those in whom the precious Bodhichitta has not arisen

May it arise and not decrease

But increase further and further.

Nagarjuna's Dedication of Merit

By this merit may we obtain omniscience then.

Having defeated the enemies wrong-doings.

May we liberate migrators from the ocean of existence.

With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness and death.

*Note

I do not own or infringe any copyright of these pictures.

Pictures courtesy and credit to the rightful owners.