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Fear
misecmisc1
I am a HinduIndia Veteran
hi all,
there is fear in me from many things like fear arising after finding a lizard crawling on the wall of my room, even fear arising from seeing a cockroach, fear arising after a thought that if a scorpion or a snake comes near to me, how much fear i may feel. these fears i thought about and found that they are fear that arises from seeing the harm these things can cause to my body, in a way ultimately leading to fear of death that due to the harm caused by these creatures i may die or i may become physically disabled to not able to support myself and my family.
then there are other fears like what if i lose my job tomorrow due to a sudden recession, what if my manager becomes angry with me due to any small activity and do not recommend my name for salary hike etc.
this is not the case that i am always feeling fear due to the above things, but sometimes when the thoughts about these things arise in my mind, then i feel fear inside me.
i think being mindful of present moment can help to remove the fear arising from the thought, as then the thought might cease. but if suppose a snake or a scorpion comes in front of me on a narrow road, then how to remove fear from inside me? any suggestions, please.
so just wanted to ask you all - do you feel fear of anything? how do you overcome your fear specially fear of death and fear of losing everything(which any how is bound to happen at death)? please suggest. thanks in advance.
there is fear in me from many things like fear arising after finding a lizard crawling on the wall of my room, even fear arising from seeing a cockroach, fear arising after a thought that if a scorpion or a snake comes near to me, how much fear i may feel. these fears i thought about and found that they are fear that arises from seeing the harm these things can cause to my body, in a way ultimately leading to fear of death that due to the harm caused by these creatures i may die or i may become physically disabled to not able to support myself and my family.
then there are other fears like what if i lose my job tomorrow due to a sudden recession, what if my manager becomes angry with me due to any small activity and do not recommend my name for salary hike etc.
this is not the case that i am always feeling fear due to the above things, but sometimes when the thoughts about these things arise in my mind, then i feel fear inside me.
i think being mindful of present moment can help to remove the fear arising from the thought, as then the thought might cease. but if suppose a snake or a scorpion comes in front of me on a narrow road, then how to remove fear from inside me? any suggestions, please.
so just wanted to ask you all - do you feel fear of anything? how do you overcome your fear specially fear of death and fear of losing everything(which any how is bound to happen at death)? please suggest. thanks in advance.
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I couldn't wait till I was an adult, because I thought that adults always knew the right way to think and what to do, and how to do everything properly. Hahaha! What a disappointment that one was!
But also, what a relief. It's really not just me that's not perfect. There is freedom in acceptance of imperfection: not getting a promotion, not being able to control the world around you so you never have to see another ant (!), or in your case a cockroach. Life will never be any other way, but you know that already, as I always really did, but I just never accepted it.
As for death, I've seen two dead bodies, both my parents. Horrendous. But.... when you see, literally without your own eyes DEATH, there has to be acceptance, otherwise you'll end up going crazy.
When my mum died, my sister went to the funeral home and painted our mum's fingernails and toe nails, ready for her funeral. The funeral director had already dressed her in an outfit we chose for her, and applied her expensive estee lauder make up (she was always very glam!), it was extremely cathartic for my sister to do that.. the act of doing that, and also seeing the body one last time. I'm not suggesting you go and paint the fingernails of the dead, god no, but would it be too weird to suggest a walking meditation through a cemetery? At one time, I looked into becoming a grave digger, I have a lot of respect for the 'dead', and to me, would be a very rewarding job. But it's quite technical these days, with chemicals and such, and there are no courses anywhere near where I live. And isn't it sad when you see cemetery's so unkept, so little respect for the dead at times.
Have you watched the film, IKIRU?
Death isn't something we can ever understand experientially, because the moment we die, the life and body we had, is gone. We can't come back and then say we know what it's like, unless of course you have an near death experience, but that's a whole different conversation. So all we really can have, potentially, is acceptance. You can have death acceptance, experientially. Just saying, 'accept it', or 'i accept death happens', isn't enough. It will haunt you till you go deeper. Do you fear death because you're scared about what happens afterwards to 'you', as you know 'you' to be? Do you fear not being able to do all the things you want to do before your body dies? Do you worry for your family, what will happen to them when you die? Is it something else?
Beneath all of those fears, for me anyway, there has ALWAYS been a lust for life, and of course, a survival instinct. I tend to think, that our survival instincts get the better of us at times. We want so much to live, we begin to fear its alternative: death. We start to feel fear, and as @genkaku points out, our fears do indeed become afraid. We fear our own fear. We fear anything that might possibly terminate our current existence, real, or imagined. Then finally, we realise we may as well be dead. It can end there, or then we can realise we're living all of this in our minds.
Regardless, I do believe our fears DO become afraid. Sometimes, they're afraid we won't let them live in our head anymore, sometimes they're afraid that what we're imagining will become reality.
Sometimes, it feels like fears have a life of their own. Sometimes, I think a lot of us feel unable to control our fears. Part of us knows it's wrong to have the fears we have, they're imagined, and they just won't bugger off! We fight with them, like it's them and the other part of 'us' that is more rational, logical. Sometimes, maybe we have a dialogue with them, like with another person.
But no, I don't personally see fears as having an autonomous life of their own in reality, because in reality, they are 'us', we are our thoughts, we are products of our thoughts, it's all connected, so not autonomous.
Are they assured? Don't they always want more assurance.. fear can escalate very easily, it's often hungry, rarely satisified. Having said that, it leads me to think this... if the very nature of fear, being the anthisis of peace, is to create as big a hell in the mind as possible, then maybe what determines when fear is afraid of itself is when it does actually back off. So, it works in the opposite fashion to how i initially thought. Sorry @Citta for talking about fear like an autonomous being again, it's the best way I can explain what I mean that's all.
Ive given myself a headache lol
Danger is real. Fear is a choice.
Respect the danger for what it really is and then it will be easier to skip the fear part.
Try it! It works for me.
/Victor
Buddhist recommendation. Turn towards your fear. Whether you worry or not if a snake gets you you can't do anything about that. Let all arisings be. They are just ripples in the pool. Stop with the storylines and just feel the energy of the fear. Take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. This is where rebirth can help you have less fear.
Fear is the teacher saying " this is the best subject of this moment of practice".
It is always showing me exactly what I am unable to accept or let go off.
In formal meditation I have learned that surrendering to it completely, allowing it to be itself without me attempting to fiddle with it in any way, dissipates my suffering in it's presence.
What needs to accompany such a practice with fear though is a realistic threat assessment to first eliminate the possible realistic need for action to what ever has brought the fear up.
( eg. Am I going to be hit by that bus?)
When I was a young kid, about 6 or 7, someone tried to kidnap me and my friend. Of course, I have since learned that that was probably simply my perception and the guy was probably a local who was offering a ride to 2 kids on a cold winter night, but it was terrifying, and that's the only thing I can look back to to have caused my anxiety about related issues. My parents reaction to how scared I was was less than stellar, in my young opinion. At the time I wasn't even sure my best friend made it home ok, because we were separated while running through the snow through the woods. I still cannot walk that road (we live in the same place I grew up) in the dark without wanting to sprint the couple of blocks. It has no street lights and is just creepy for me.
But I had a lot of fears as a child, too, that I have worked through. Ways I prepare myself for things coming up in my life, and ways I probably over-prepare my children. For the most part, most of the fears have disappeared but they had (and still have) an impact on how I run my life. The only one that really remains is the fear or a bloody, murderous death, and like I said that is more about my kids at this point, and when I was a kid, it was more fear for my parents than myself. Very strange.
Anyhow, like I said, TNH's books were a pretty good help to me, and now when I can't sleep at night because I'm afraid the noise I heard was someone coming to murder my family, I can get over it much faster.
I"ll hand the couch over to someone else now, :crazy:
Likewise practising mindfulness can provide some "detachment" from unpleasant feeling, but it doesn't atually remove the unpleasant feeling.
I hope my answer won't scare you too much . . .
I invite demons from the hell realms (or my own mind - which ever is nearer) to come feed on the fear. I often bow down to my fears, angers and imaginary virtues as great Buddhas and teachers.
The Buddha is a lizard. David Icke will be pleased.
2. Realising that nothing is really yours helps allay the fear of loss. You come into this world with nothing. So don't expect things to be any different when you leave. Things are only yours by convention.
Bottom line is to accept things as they are. If you can do something about it, there is no need to fear. If you can't, what then is the use of fear.
We tend to forget that associations are subjective and that they can have many different kinds of sensations, which aren't exclusive to either positive or negative.
For instance when I was a kid and it was christmas morning and I would see the gifts under the tree my heart would start racing, I would get excited, my breathing would go faster.
If I'm having a panic attack, the exact same sensations arise, except, I'm interpreting this as panic. People all have the same feelings, bodily sensations and breathing patterns, it's how you approach them and what you do with them that will decide if they empower you or consume you.
Coming from someone who is 100% recovered from a pretty serious anxiety/panic disorder I've been around the block when it comes to dealing with fear
material things
relations
we, ourselves
in other words, attachment to those things brings the fear
so how can we get rid of such fear?
reduce the attachment
how can we reduce the attachment?
contemplate that everything anicca, dukka and anatta
contemplate on body parts like hair, nails, teeth, skin etc. (asuba until you see there are only bones in everybody including me
or
all body parts are earth, fire, water and air in this space)
contemplate on death (everybody die and i too die)
by gradually our attachment would reduce
at the same time
our fear for losing things and people including ourselves would reduce
by degrees fear factor would reduce
bringing calmness into mind and giving a strongness into mind
Fear demons are just arisings, with physical sensations that you can experience, explore and learn to love.
It helps to have a bit of mind control, meditational practice behind you . . .
Identify your 'fear demon'. Write your fear down.
Now call up a mild form of it. For example let us say you are scared of being punched on the nose. Bring up the sensations. Is it the pain? Is it the conflict? The humiliation? Observe, feel, hear the nose being hit. Offer the sensational arising to any passing thoughts or hell passers by. Don't get carried away, the mind can carry you all the way to hell and back . . .
Told you a bit of mind control required
There you have raised a nose bashing emptiness, explored its emptiness, fed it's being. With your new red nose . . . you could be a clown . . .
Before you know it, you will be a Jedi Skywalker . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakini
http://m.wikihow.com/Overcome-Phobia
May the Force Be With You
OM YA HA HUM
So in the example of fear of scorpions....learn about them, which are the most deadly, what are their behaviors, what do they like to eat, where do they hide, what does they look like when they are ready to stike....then by way of this knowledge, perhaps the demon scorpion can be handled...even petted and become a friendly little critter that comes around to be fed.
Anyway my 2 cents on dealing with fear, danger and demons
Then, the raging lunatic, tries to get their rage or fear of being out of control, out of them, by dumping it on someone else. Someone who rages at someone else is surely sick, and it is because they are fearful of a feeling (be it anger or fear).
Fear of being alone, or not good enough can be suppressed to the point where a person becomes depressed. And when you suppress it enough, you become fearful it will come back or you will never get rid of it so the depression becomes deeper.
Shame is a good example of a fear we try to avoid. We feel that by hiding from it like when we are embarrassed or when we isolate ourselves, it will go away. And then this can turn into very deep self harm (suicide) or even self-hatred where we feel so worthless, we feel so much resentment, that we feel justified hurting or even killing.
Fear isn't the sickness. Our reaction to it is.
Not getting what we want and getting what we don't want. In short fear is caused by clinging to things that we take to be ours when in reality this is far from the truth.
How much fear do we really need?
Just enough to protect the integrity of the physical body.
Fight or flight is a common fear response. Would you call that a clinging to life?
I have not always found fear to be synonymous with suffering.
Fear (like pain) is just information saying it is in need of immediate attention. While clinging to something related to that information will create suffering, true equanimity can allow that info to remain in its virginal presuffering state.
As others have said...how we relate to that info determines whether it creates suffering or not.
The first step is to move out of my thoughts and try to find something else to place focus on, such as the breath or a mantra. Fear is rarely quite what I think it is so getting out of the thinking mind and finding stability elsewhere is a must. It is positively impossible for me to think my way out of being scared as the whirlpool of confused thoughts gets out of control and further clouds the issue.
Then I try to find the fear in the body. Usually it feels like a knot or congestion in the chest or stomach. Feel that sensation and ask "what is this?" without trying to answer with the head but rather asking repeatedly and observing the bodily sensation and whatever arises in connection with the asking. Let the bodily energy do it's thing but be aware and quiet in the process. Do not grab and do not push away.
What often happens is that the fear changes and presents itself as something quite different. It is like holding a piece of ice- it melts and drips away. Or the correct action may present itself: "oh, crap, I'd better do so and so quick". It is really marvellous to see the monster mutate into something that is no problem anymore. I suppose that is what they mean by emptiness. Often a feeling of compassion springs up too.
This is hard, takes much practice and does not always bring a resolution. Sometimes we are just going to lose it and have a dreadful time. But I keep trying. Not much else I can do, is there?