Talk Excerpt - Having the Courage to Face Your Fears

So all of this talking,

Going back to what I was talking about hiding death and all of these things,

It stems from one thing.

It stems from fear.

Fear is one of the largest driving forces we have in our life.

And if you examine that,

You might see that almost all of the time where fear is driving you is not necessarily a healthy or skillful place.

Fear is something that,

As our ancestors,

When we were hunter-gatherers,

When we were thousands,

Tens,

20,

30,

40,

100,

000 years ago when we were out there,

Fear kept us alive.

Fear allowed us to propagate the species and keep going on.

If our ancestors had absolutely no fear,

We wouldn't be here.

Our line would have ended a long time ago.

But there's also a negative aspect of fear.

Fear is also,

In our modern times,

I guess I shouldn't say there's less to fear,

Maybe less life-threatening stuff to fear.

I don't know.

But we can,

Even if you think of fear as a balance,

We want to work on bringing fear in a place that might be of use to us but doesn't control us,

Doesn't keep us back from good things in life and living in a good way.

And there's a sutta,

The fourth sutta in the Majjhima Nikaya,

One of my favorites,

Called Fear and Dread.

And it's literally the Buddha talking directly about fear.

And somebody comes up to him and he says,

You monks and people going in the woods,

I can imagine that being in the jungle at night might rob a man of his sanity.

And the Buddha's like,

Yeah,

Pretty much.

Before I was awakened,

I felt the same way.

And so he talks about how he would be in the woods or in the jungle.

And he actually talks about making a determination that he would go into these places,

Like on the full moon and the new moon nights,

Like a posita,

What we call in Buddhism.

And he would stay in these places overnight.

It's called awe-inspiring places.

Of course,

That's using,

When we think of awe-inspiring,

We're like,

Oh,

Wonderful.

But if you actually look at the definition of awe,

It's like inspiring fear and terror and all these kind of things.

So it's like going into these places where you know you're going to face your fear.

So that's what the Buddha did.

He went into these places.

And he even talks about,

As I was abiding and meditating,

Then there was a sound,

Or maybe a peacock came up to me.

He's talking about all these animals in the woods.

And he makes an interesting comment about his mind state.

He says,

Why do I always go to fear and dread?

He's asking himself,

Why does my mind always go to whatever is the worst?

I'm in here.

I'm in the woods.

I could die,

But I might not.

But instantly,

My mind is going right to whatever is the worst.

And so if you're in the woods at night and you hear a sound,

And it's like the leaves rustling,

And it sounds like a freaking saber-toothed tiger coming up right from behind you,

And you look around and it's a little squirrel on the leaves,

That's our fear.

That's the darkness and the sound.

That's us going right to whatever is the worst possible thing that could possibly happen.

And of course,

Again,

100,

000 years ago,

Maybe it was a saber-toothed tiger,

And that person survived because of it.

But today,

Especially in our modern world,

That can really keep us from living a full life.

So fear is something to not be controlled,

Not be conquered per se,

It's something to be understood.

In this practice,

We're not trying to conquer things and control things.

Because I've personally found that any time I tried to conquer and control things,

It never worked.

It always made things worse.

It was actually when I started to just let go and to understand things,

That's when actually I started to get control.

It's very,

Very axi.

.

.

It's very,

What do they call that?

It's not what you would expect.

It's the total opposite of what you would expect.

But in my experience,

It's the truth.

And also,

I've heard many other teachers talk in this regard.

So maybe we know what we're talking about.

I don't know.

I'm not an awakened being yet,

So I might be wrong.

So it's important,

I think,

To understand the importance of coming to terms with your fear.

And you do this slowly,

Step by step.

There's this old movie that I used to love,

It's called What About Bob?

Some of you who are older might know it.

And it's about this guy who's very full of anxiety and all these kind of things.

And he can't even go and touch the door without using a napkin.

He's full of anxiety and fear about everything in the world.

And the therapist in there,

His new book,

And he's talking about baby steps.

And I say,

You know what?

That's good,

Actually.

That makes sense.

And so you see,

Bill Murray is the main character.

And so he'd be like,

Baby steps to the door,

Baby steps to the elevator,

Baby steps.

And so he was actually,

He started to face his fear little by little,

Step by step,

Baby steps.

And so that's my advice in terms of facing your fear.

And it's something that I did even before I became a Buddhist,

I wanted to start facing my fears.

I wanted to start really understanding what fear was.

And as somebody who loves the wilderness and being out and camping with family and friends and all that kind of stuff,

I figured,

Well,

I'll start using that.

And so when I would go camping,

Like I have my wife's sister,

So my brother and sister-in-law,

They have property out in Vermont.

And so I would go with them and we'd camp.

And so I would start camping far away from them by myself in the woods.

And at first I had a tent and a gun and fire and all these kind of things.

And I'm like,

OK,

I'm good.

Everything's going to.

.

.

There's interesting things about tents.

Tents are actually,

If you ever camped,

You might notice this.

When we're outside in the dark,

There's fear.

When you go in the tent,

You feel safe.

It's totally false.

I've actually seen a video of a bear dragging away a tent with a guy right in it.

And that's what.

.

.

I think,

In my opinion,

That's a good analogy for life because there's all these kind of things that we think that we can do to make us safe.

But it's like this tent.

Whatever we think that we can do to make us safe,

There's something that's going to be able to show us that that's not the case.

You can look at in war and things like that,

There's always this battle between weapons and armor.

Every time,

Oh,

I have this strong armor.

And then somebody invents a gun and boom and you're dead.

And then you get stronger armor and then stronger.

So we're always striving to try to have some kind of permanent safety.

But as I was talking about with impermanence,

Everything's unstable.

There's no such thing as this permanent safety.

There's no such thing.

We can't hide away from everything.

What we can do is learn how to grow stronger,

Grow more courageous,

To learn how to handle things in life in a more skillful way that's not only good for you,

But good for others.

I heard this psychologist talking about be the person who doesn't fall apart at a funeral.

I thought to myself,

Yeah,

That's awesome.

That doesn't mean that you're not sad or you're not crying,

But you're there.

And you know what?

If you know that you're not sad or you're not crying,

Then you're not sad.

So this is what being able to face your fears and living a life with less fear allows you to do and more mindfulness,

Less fear and more mindfulness.

You can be a pillar and a support for others and yourself.

And so going back to my story,

So I started out with a tent and a gun and all these kinds of things.

If anything comes at me,

I got this.

I'm good.

I'm protected.

And a fire too,

Chris,

Because you need some kind of light when you're in the middle of the woods.

And so then just gradually over time,

I just started letting go of.

.

.

Okay,

So now I don't need a fire.

And then it was,

I don't need a tent.

And so I'm like,

I can remember that first night where I slept and all.

.

.

I just opened my eyes and there's just total darkness.

And I'm kind of like,

Oh,

Okay,

This sucks.

This is scary.

Like anything can just.

.

.

Just like I was.

.

.

Like the Buddha,

It's like a jackal or something could just come and just grab me right there and bring me.

And the first I was like,

Oh,

Okay,

I got my gun.

I'm good.

Right?

And then eventually I says,

You know what,

I'm gonna let go of that too.

So eventually I just got to the point where I can just lie down in the woods and be okay.

Now that doesn't mean I'm totally free of fear.

The fear is there.

But interestingly enough,

If you take fear as an object of meditation,

You put yourself in.

.

.

Outside of your envelope,

Outside of your castle,

Your fortifications,

You put yourself outside of that and you put yourself in these experiences where you notice your fear,

Then you can use that fear as your object of meditation.

You can see what it does to you.

You can see like the spine,

The chills down the spine,

The goosebumps,

The clouded mind.

Right?

And you can start to see that.

And the more you do it,

The more you get used to it,

The more you understand it.

You can be in a fearful place.

Like up at Bhavana,

There's.

.

.

Up in the woods,

There's platforms where you can go meditate,

Spend the night,

Whatever.

And so usually on a post of the night,

If I'm not tired,

I'll go up at night and I'll meditate up there.

And so of course,

You can see the fear.

If there's a squirrel behind me,

It still sounds like a saber-toothed tiger.

But I can just be calm.

I can just observe the fear,

Observe my body and what's going on,

Observe my mind and what it wants to do,

Like run away really fast.

By the way,

Tip,

If there's a creature,

Never run away from it.

There is no creature that you can outrun.

Believe me.

Even if you think,

Oh,

This huge hulking bear,

That bear will outrun you.

If you go up a tree,

It'll out-climb you.

You never run from any of these.

And so it's just like,

That's a good analogy for me of fear.

Don't run from the fear.

You have to face it.

One of the ways you face a bear is you face it,

You don't look it in the eyes though,

Because then that's like an act of aggression.

Like you're calling it out.

You face it and you make yourself as big as you possibly can.

And you make lots of noise.

And they go away.

Hopefully.

I've never actually had the,

All the times I've been in the woods by myself,

I've never once seen a bear in the wilderness,

Unfortunately.

But usually if you're walking in the wilderness,

If you make lots of noise,

You won't see an animal.

Because that's actually what they tell you to do.

So you're not,

And the experiences I have had with animals is that unless you surprise them,

They're not going to attack you.

They're afraid of you.

And interestingly enough,

When you're surprised,

If an animal is surprised,

What do you think the animal is?

Afraid.

The animal is acting out of fear.

So just like we can act out of fear.

And when we act out of fear,

We can do all kinds of rough and horrible stuff too,

To ourselves and others.

So baby steps.

You know,

Whatever,

What I,

I heard this tip once a couple years ago and I like it.

So I use it and I tell people,

It says,

Do something that you fear every day.

It doesn't mean,

Everybody doesn't need to have to go and leave New York for the weekend and go in the woods and face their fear.

There's lots of stuff that you can face your fear.

I have fears in the city.

You know,

Like all kinds of stuff.

I'm not really much of a city person.

So when I come to the city,

I have things in my mind,

Oh,

This fear or that fear.

All these kinds of things.

Now the more I come to the city,

The more like,

You know,

Especially in the beginning,

When I first rode the subway,

I'm like,

Oh my God,

This is like,

You know,

All these kinds of fears and concerns.

Like where am I?

What am I doing?

And now this past week,

I'm like getting on the subway.

I came here by myself.

I'm going to leave.

I'm going to take the subway tomorrow morning to the port authority by myself.

And you know,

So the more you do it,

The more you gain your confidence,

The more you see what we thought was so fearful and we had such negativity and fear towards,

Oh,

It's not so bad.

All the times I've been in the woods,

I've never been dragged away by an animal.

I'm okay.

You know,

Nothing has taken me.

And so I think the more you realize this,

The less fear you have and the more,

The more confidence,

The more happiness you have because you're not controlled by this,

This fear.