Beyond Fear and Dread
Photo by @nuragies
Returning to the practice of staying present to this very moment in the face of fear, anxiety, worry, can be difficult. This dharma talk identifies how these difficulties express themselves and offers ways to meet them simply.
Zuisei’s talk, “Beyond Fear & Dread,” draws on the Subrahma Sutta, the Bhaya-bherava Sutta (Sutra on Fear and Dread), and more.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard. See below for transcript.
Transcript
Transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Dedication
In the Buddha, his teaching and the fellowship most excellent, we take our refuge until enlightenment. By the merit of generosity and other transcendent virtues, may we attain Buddhahood for the sake of all that lives.
May the merit of these teachings benefit all beings, may these words help and not harm, may they clarify and not confuse, may they self liberate, leaving no trace behind.
There is a very short sutra, a sutra with only eight lines, called the Subrahma Sutta tucked away in the connected discourses. It's a section in which various devas ask questions of the Buddha. Devas are celestial beings in Buddhism. They have godlike powers. Some of them don't have form, others don't have gender or passion, others do have form but much larger than the human form, and they live longer. Generally speaking, they're better off than humans, but they're not yet liberated. In this collection of sutras, each deva goes before the Buddha to ask a question or a set of questions, to learn from him. I think that is telling, that they understand that there's something for them to understand. They know that there's something they don't know.
Even though they have fewer problems than in the human realm (not having a body and not having the passions associated with it helps in that respect), still, they understand there is something for them to see. They're willing to ask about it. This is, really, perhaps the number one requirement on the path: to have an inquiring mind, student mind, or beginner's mind, as we call it in Zen. This is a good opportunity to remind you of the importance of this when we do our private sessions. You can tell me what you know and wait for me to confirm it, or you can ask about what you don't know, and together, we can explore it. As my teacher said to me a long time ago, "Zuisei, this is like a tennis game. If you don't hit the ball over the net, I have nothing to hit back." Back then I didn't want to appear dumb. I didn't want to look like I didn't know. But I didn’t know, that's why I was there talking to him.
Since that day, I’ve made a lifelong practice of asking. Sometimes, with my fellow teachers group, I feel like the dumbest person in the room. They're so knowledgeable, sometimes it feels to me like I'm asking the Sariputra question—Sariputra, the Buddha’s disciple who asked the most obvious questions. Some of them might think, "Zuisei, you really don't know that?" I don't care. Well, I care a little, I do, but I also want to know, I want to be free more than I want to be right. We have to really stand where we are, look, take stock and then be willing to put ourselves out there, to be vulnerable, to be transparent, and ask.
In this mini sutra—this nano sutra, given how long most of the others are—a deva called Subrahma asks the Buddha the following question—or rather, he offers the following plea:
Always anxious is this mind,
The mind is always agitated,
About problems present and future;
Please tell me the release from fear.
In this succinct and very elegant way, Subrahma, who's the son of a god, encapsulates the crux of the human condition. I have everything I need: I have work, a partner, food, shelter. I have relative ease of mind, I have health—enough—or not. Maybe I don't have some of these things, and that's the source of the problem. Maybe, not having these things, what I need to do is get them, get a better partner, a better job, a better car, better children, definitely better children. If only I had these things, everything would be alright...right? Then when I do have them, why isn't it? Why is the mind always anxious? Why is it always agitated?
Notice the repetition in Subrahma's words, it's not accidental. He's saying this anxiety, this dread, is sticky, it's persistent. It follows us like a needy dog. It's there when we wake up, it's there when we go to bed. It's there when we go to work, it's there when we go on vacation. We're supposed to be relaxed and enjoying ourselves. Why? Why is the mind so often anxious, agitated, fearful? I should point out, this “always” of the “always anxious mind” isn’t absolute. Subrahma isn’t saying that every thought we have is plagued by fear, that everything we do makes us feel more agitated. We know this because we've lived it—life has offered us plenty of moments of joy, fulfillment, wonder, ease. We also know that we had to be there for them. We have to be present enough, quiet enough, to actually enjoy them.
As I was preparing this talk, I remembered an interview that I did at the monastery with a young man who wanted to come into residency at the monastery. As the conversation unfolded, I was asking the usual questions: why do you want to come, what's your experience with practice, the usual. It surfaced that he was incredibly anxious about going hungry. He was really concerned that he might not have enough food at the monastery. He was so distressed about the possibility of going hungry that he couldn't focus on much else. I thought to myself, If he comes, he might not enjoy his stay. I kept trying to reassure him, It really is okay, there's plenty of food, and yes, there's a few hours in between meals, but we can work with you.There's plenty of options, but of course, it wasn’t about the food. He ended up deciding not to come.
It was like what my friends asked me after I had told them I had lived at a monastery. I hadn't seen them in a number of years, and the most pressing question that they had for me was, Can you have snacks? I thought, Really? That's what you want to ask me? Then I realized it's not about the snacks. It's about the agency. They wanted to know whether I could make my own choices. Seen in that light, it was not an unreasonable question because, in community life, your own preferences do take the backseat. They don't disappear, but they're not what drive your choices because you're committing, at least in part, to moving in harmony with a group. That's a big part of community life. It's a big part of monastic life. Shortly after arriving at the monastery, I said to Jimon, the head liturgist, that I wasn't hungry for lunch:
"Could I just have a banana?"
"No."
She was kind about it. She explained that we eat the food that is offered and if I didn't want to eat, I didn't have to, but I couldn't eat just whatever I wanted. I was miffed. I was used to doing what I wanted when I wanted, eating what I wanted when I wanted, and I didn't like giving that up. Then I decided that other things were more important. I let go. Little by little, and sometimes very grudgingly, slowly, I learned to let go.
Please tell me the release from fear, Subrahma asks the Buddha. Tell me the release from anxiety, from dread, from craving of various kinds. Please show me how not to be a prisoner of my body, of my mind, to not be constantly worried about the past and the future. (Another translation says, "About arisen problems and about unarisen ones.") Think how incredible it is, if unfortunate, that we have the capacity to worry about what has not happened—may never happen—that we have the capacity to fret and be fearful about things that don't exist at all. Fear, when it's working, is a kind of alarm. It alerts us to a threat, this is how we survive. It's not illogical or unreasonable to be fearful, but when many of us look at our situation, we realize that the fear itself is happening no other place than here. It is fuel for our thoughts. Why is it that the mind tends to fixate on what can go wrong? Why doesn't it naturally move toward celebrating all the things that could go right? What is it that we learn as we're growing up, as we're maturing, moving through life, that encourages that pattern?
I think of the relationship between parents and children and how sometimes those relationships can be very negative, like some mothers and daughters or fathers and sons. For example,a daughter visits her parents and she's very excited about a new dress she has bought and, wanting to bond with her mother about it, she models it. The mother stares at her critically and says, "It looks like you've gained weight. Are you stress eating again?" This happened to a friend of mine. Imagine a son goes very proudly to his father and says, "I know what I want to do. I've really thought about this, I want to be a sound engineer." And the father doesn't even look up from his paper, he says, "Forget it, you'll starve."
Always anxious is this mind, The mind is always agitated.
We're anxious about looks, about social position, about power and wealth. It does not seem to matter how much we have. Sometimes, in fact, the relationship seems to be inversely proportional, the more power and wealth we have, the more afraid we become to lose it. That is what we transmit. That is what we hand down even though none of these—our looks, our social position, our power, our wealth, none of it–will release us from that fear. How unfortunate this is what we learned from one another: to be afraid, as if that could protect us from pain. The mind thinks, "I better be ready for the worst case scenario. And if it's good, if it's better, well, then that's great." This affects how we see the world. It affects it so much that a twenty-something year old decides not to go to a monastery so as not to place himself in a situation where he can be liberated from that fear. He doesn't know that, the fear is too all consuming. He's not in physical danger. He's not actually in any real danger of going hungry but he believes that he is.
In the sutra, Subrahma, who most likely has everything he needs or wants, somehow understands that no matter how much he has or how much he tries to conform, none of that will bring him the peace that he's looking for. He goes to the Buddha, and he says, Help! Please, help me. I see the problem, but I don't yet see the solution. Can you help me, please? This is another critical element on the path— a moment when we understand we cannot do it alone, not because we're not capable or not willing, but simply because that's not the way things work. An ocean wave cannot flow by itself. It's impossible. A cloud needs sky and air and water and salt or dust and temperature to form.
Just so, we need one another. Not just to survive, but to actually grow, to thrive. We all need help now and then, and I've come to believe that it's a great strength to learn to ask for it, to not be afraid to ask, to not think, "Well then I'm going to have to owe this person." Hopefully, ideally, what is freely asked for is freely given. Maybe you'll get a chance to pay it back, or maybe you'll pay it forward. That's not what's important. What's important is that you know in your cells that we're connected, inevitably so, and to understand that's a good thing. It’s a very good thing because then that means that we're never alone. Isn't that a relief? In a moment when we're convinced that our pain is unique and lasting, what is required to be able to come out of it just enough to see there's more to this picture? When you're deep in a hole and you think no one has ever been in a hole as deep as yours, what does it take for some part of your mind to think, "Probably not true?" I think that's one of the reasons why it's so important to hear the teachings again, and again, and again. Let them go deep into your being. It's not a matter of posting stickies and reminders, even though that's actually really helpful. It's that when you become steeped in dharma, in this case, it has a chance to bubble up at a time when you need it. It's like, when you think to yourself, Oh, what would such and such do? I think that now and then, What would my teacher do in this situation?" Just invoking, What would he say gives me a way forward. When I’m stuck with a problem, with my anxiety, I remember a line from one of the sutras and I think, Oh, okay, here's the line that's like the thread in “Ariadne and the Minotaur.” Ariadne leaves a thread for her love Theseus, helping him find his way out of the Labyrinth. It's like that—it's finding that little thread because when you're deep in the labyrinth, you're going to need help getting out.
So, perhaps Subrahma has been thinking about this for a while, perhaps he's been struggling. Perhaps he's after really struggling and flailing on his own, he goes to the Buddha and says, Please help me. What does the Buddha say to Subrahma?
Not apart from awakening and austerity,
Not apart from sense restraint,
Not apart from relinquishing all,
Do I see any safety for living beings.
Let me turn this and express it positively:
Subrahma, peace is in enlightenment, peace is in simplicity.
Calm is having few desires, and knowing how to be satisfied.
Ease is letting go and letting go some more.
Apart from this, it'll be hard to be safe and tranquil.
Below are Ajahn Chah’s words I love to invoke:
If you let go a little, you'll have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you'll have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you'll be free.
How is that even possible—to let go completely? How is it possible to relinquish all? Does that mean giving away our money that we work so hard for? Does it mean not caring about our jobs or our titles? Do we have to let go of love, sex, good food, and pleasure in general? That doesn't sound very peaceful, or, rather, enjoyable. In fact, that sounds kind of miserable. No, thank you.
Kensho was a monk from Japan who resided at the monastery for a couple of years. I love Kensho. He was completely himself. One of the things that was interesting about him is while running a race at school at 18 years old, he ran so hard, he had an embolism, and so he could not remember anything from before he was 18. I don't know if it was due to that, but there was something about him that was so childlike and innocent. He wasn't bound by convention. He was very polite, as is the custom in Japanese culture, but if a group said to him, "Kensho, we're going to the movies. We're going to watch the matrix, do you want to come?" and he didn't want to, he'd say, "No thank you"—not, "Oh, I'm not feeling well," or, "I'm tired," or, "Thank you for asking me, maybe another time?" He’d just say, "No thank you." I wish Mexican culture was more like that. We seem utterly unable to say no. It's like we think it's impolite so we make up excuses, or, as with some of my friends, we say, "Oh yes, of course," and then we don't show up. "You want to go to lunch?" "Oh, of course, that sounds great." Two hours later, after the agreed time, you ask, "Where are you?" "Oh, I'm waiting for the plumber? I'm not sure if I'll make it."
Sometimes the way renouncing is presented, it doesn't seem like fun at all. I was going to say I don't think that's the way the Buddha meant it, but the fact is, I don't know how the Buddha meant it. Perhaps the Buddha did mean, give up all your possessions and join the Sangha, be a wandering monk. However, given that all of us who come to these talks are most likely going to live out our lives in the lay world— I think of this as him reminding Subrahma that there is no other place where fear and dread live but in the mind. That's what you have to protect. That's what you have to guard. He's saying, Just keep things simple. It's not a matter of denying yourself what you want, but of working with that relationship with what you want. You don't have to become a monk. You don't have to become an ascetic. You don't have to walk on your knees for 100 miles through the desert repenting, as Mary Oliver says in her poem, "Wild Geese."
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves
You only have to let your soft body release what is not yours. What is not yours never was. It's actually on loan, starting with the body itself. We read this last week, in Pema Chodron's commentary to Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life. She says: “Regard the body as a short-term rental: take care of it and keep it clean, but not to the point of absurdity. Treat your body with respect, but not with a sense of ownership.”
The commentary to the koan “Senjo and Her Soul” says: “If you are enlightened to the truth of this koan, you will then know that coming out of one husk and getting into another is like a traveler’s putting up in hotels.” If you understand who you are and what your life is, you will know that from moment to moment, and life to life, we come out of one husk and into another. Just like a traveler going from one inn to another on the road, we check in, we check out, we move on and do it again. Our bodies are on loan for the time being. Everything we have is on loan for the time being.
When we understand this, it becomes a little easier to let go. That's what the Buddha is saying: None of it is yours. Realize that this is so and then you'll be free. You'll be free to pick it up and to put it down. You'll be free to hold on if you have to use it and let go when you're done.
Not apart from awakening and austerity,
Not apart from sense restraint,
Not apart from relinquishing all,
Do I see any safety for living beings.
I don't see you being safe by accumulating all the things we've learned will shore the self up, I don't see that, the Buddha says. I have not lived it, he could just as well have said, the man who had everything.
In another sutra, called the Bhaya-bherava Sutta or the Sutra on Fear and Dread, the Buddha teaches a Brahman. He says to the Brahman, when I was a bodhisattva, I would sit in these isolated forests, these wild places, meditating, and sometimes an animal would come. Sometimes a peacock would snap a twig or the wind would rustle the leaves, and I'd feel afraid, and I would think, Is that the fear and dread coming? It's interesting to me that he asks the question in that way, Is that fear coming up? That is the question. Then he says, Why do I keep waiting for this fear and dread? Then essentially he says, What if I just stayed with it instead? He says if I'm walking and I feel afraid, instead of turning away, instead of sitting down, instead of running, instead of doing any number of things I could do, what if I just keep walking? If I'm standing when the fear comes, what if I just stand? If I'm sitting, if I'm lying down, what if I just stay with the fear until I subdue it?
As he does this, slowly, his mind gets quiet, focused and calm. He actually goes into the jhanas—deep meditative states. He slowly liberates himself within the fear and dread. We know because we've heard it many times and because we've experienced it. It's not that fear will not come up when we're liberated. It's simply that we're able to see that fear, like anxiety, stress, angst, grief and anger, arises, persists, passes away. Perhaps we're also able to see that, often more frightening than the fear itself, is the thought of the fear—our anticipation. That's often true of pain as well. We're afraid of being in pain. The teachings that work with mindfulness for chronic pain always are an encouragement to get close, to move toward the pain so that you can see that it is not a solid wall. When you're really able to stay with it, you see that there are moments, there are pockets, where it changes—it fades, or it brightens, or it opens. Teachers often say to really go into that space, because that's what allows you to move through it.
It’s the same thing with depression, for example. Depression is not a solid gray wall. If you're really staying with your experience, you'll have moments where you remember something that makes you feel joyful. It's almost like the brain itself says, Dissonance? Tamp it down. Must continue to be depressed because we think that safety comes from that singularity. Whereas, really, the larger you become, the larger the container, the wider the range of experience, the safer you are, meaning the more grounded you are, the more stable, the more accepting of each of those moments of experience. You go out of one husk like grief and into the next one in the moment, like joy. Then you go into the next one: despair, boredom, whatever it is. You don't just check into a hotel and live there forever.
What if when a fear arises, the Buddha thinks to himself, what if I don't move away? What if I don't try to avoid it? What if I just stay alert—resolute, mindful, courageous? What if I ask myself, What is this that scares me? What am I really afraid of?What if I look and I keep looking and don't look away? Is that possible? Can I do that?
You don't have to be heroic to practice your life. It's true, you don't. You do have to be courageous enough to do the thing that will liberate you, courageous enough to resist the voice that will have you do what is familiar, that tries to convince you what’s familiar is what is safe. You have to be courageous enough that when you don't know where to step or how to step next, you’ll ask for help, courageous enough to trust that even though you may not know what that next step looks like, or what the help that you're asking for looks like, you will recognize it when you find it and when you receive it.
Someone said to me after coming back from sesshin, "I never stopped to think that every time I take a step, the ground never fails to meet me." They were delighted by this. They had been doing kinhin, walking meditation, for many hours. I said, "Exactly, it's never not there.” How incredible is that? With each step the ground rises up to meet our foot, to meet our body, whether we know where we're stepping or whether we have absolutely no idea. This is how it works, my friends. This is how life works, and this is how practice works. We don't have to know, all we have to do, which is a lot, is trust. All we have to do is have faith, but that's for another talk.
Explore further
01 : Subrahmasutta translated by Bhikkhu Sujato
02 : Bhaya-bherava Sutta: Fear & Terror translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
03 : Stay by Vanessa Zuisei Goddard
04: Having Few Desires with Vanaeesa Zuisei Goddard