Fear in the Driver's Seat
El miedo al volante
A student describes a constant, gut-level fear that something bad is going to happen, and a feeling that something is missing in them. The teacher explores how fear and false beliefs shape a life, why the path of awakening moves back and forth, and how questioning what we assume we are opens the inquiry into reality.
Fear in the Driver's Seat
A student describes a constant, gut-level fear that something bad is going to happen, and a feeling that something is missing in them. The teacher explores how fear and false beliefs shape a life, why the path of awakening moves back and forth, and how questioning what we assume we are opens the inquiry into reality.
During the meditation, something stood out for me, and it has stayed with me throughout this conversation. You spoke about fear and anticipation. I used to completely reject what was happening, and now I'm more accepting of things the way they are. But now I notice the fear more. It isn't so much a fear of what's happening now. It's the anticipation, the fear that something bad is going to happen. So I feel I need to prepare, to prevent, to...
If you could find what it's really about, what is the fear? The mind will have a million stories about this thing and that thing. But at the root, in the gut, what is it?
The fear that something bad is going to happen to me.
And if it happens, then what? If a bad thing happens, what's the consequence?
I won't survive it.
Right. And have bad things happened to you in the past? Pretty bad things?
Yes.
Now set the past aside. Just what is now. If you forget everything that has happened, and only this is real, could you say you've survived whatever happened?
I can say I've survived. But I feel something is missing in me. Something is wrong with me. I'm not full.
Those are two separate things. There's the fear and anticipation of something bad happening: if it does, I won't survive, something fundamental in me will end. Then there's a sense that something isn't quite right with me.
I know it's my beliefs.
Beliefs and the gut
Yes, but you can't always fully address it at the level of beliefs, because there's a feeling. That's why I asked about the gut level. There's an energetic component.
My guts are twisted and knotted. It's a fear, and it drives so much. I see it in so much of my life.
Everywhere. So now go to that sense of your gut twisted and knotted in fear, right now. Let it be transparent. Let it show itself, along with all the feelings around it: the fear, maybe pain, sadness, anguish, shame, whatever is there. Let yourself see what is there, and don't hide. Let it be revealed.
Fear is always closely tied to pain. It's a fear of pain. Something ending is painful. The fear of ending is the fear of pain: not surviving, whether a part of me or myself entirely, my life in a certain way or who I am in a certain way. And then there's what I feel is needed, what I feel is missing: what I'm searching for not being found, what I'm trying to fix not being fixable. That sense, right?
Yes.
That's the fear. Then the energy cycles and burns, trying to control, trying to make things happen, and your guts are in knots. We can look at all of this. Let it be transparent, let it be seen, let it be revealed, and start to see through some of it.
Beliefs are hard to drop on their own, even when we know they're beliefs, because we still prefer them. We hold on to them because at some level we sense that they help us numb. They create a sense of okayness, even if it's false. If I'm in pain and avoiding the pain, the beliefs create some imagination, a veil, an illusion. The fear and pain go into the background, buried deeper in the gut. Then, even if I know I'm operating on beliefs, I prefer the beliefs.
Wiser preferences
To be free from that, we can learn that our preferences can become wiser. You may have heard me talk here about a child's preferences. If a child is offered a fast-food burger or a big, amazing salad full of greens, how many times will they choose the salad? Maybe zero out of a hundred.
I know what I should be choosing, and yet it's so hard to choose it.
Yes, and that's because something still isn't seen. When you really know, the preference is effortless. When you really know what's valuable, what's true and real, no effort is required to choose it and live it. So it needs to become clearer and clearer how avoiding pain, denying what's happening, or avoiding what's real is so much worse. I mean the experience of it: not the consequences, not ethically, not at the level of right and wrong. It is worse experientially. It simply feels worse.
Then we start to discover how allowing and being with what is (there are many ways to talk about this), tasting the pain that is here, facing what we've been avoiding, feels so much better and is so much more freeing. Then the preference matures and grows wiser, like a child growing up and realizing it's much better to eat healthily, to the point where, given unhealthy food, there's a natural, healthy rejection: I'd rather eat the healthy thing.
So the preference becomes natural and healthy. It isn't about fighting our misguided preferences. In the beginning it's about recognizing them, but the freeing happens as the understanding and the wisdom deepen, until being identified, or holding false beliefs, simply feels worse.
What is missing
That's the lesson of suffering. It is there as a way to see that something is happening that, in a sense, shouldn't be. You're right about that. What's happening is an illusion. So there is some truth when you say something is missing. But what is missing is the realization that nothing is missing. There is the belief in something missing, and that creates a very true and real experience of something missing.
Then one can get twisted up in knots wondering: why am I believing this? Why, if it isn't good? That's the mind. Often the "why" is an avoidance of sensation, of energies that are being avoided or rejected.
I've chosen the other alternative before, and I've experienced how much better it works for me. And yet I keep choosing what I normally choose.
The back and forth
That's normal. It's this back and forth. What matters is that you see more and more deeply, so the preference matures and becomes clearer. The back and forth is always there, because experience also deepens, and there are layers. We discover: if I choose presence, if I choose feeling what I'm avoiding, and so on, wow, that's so much better. But then there's a deeper layer, a deeper fear, a deeper pain being avoided, and we go back to the old habits. So this cycles as we deepen, and we encounter bigger forces, deeper energies, deeper challenges.
Deeper fears.
Deeper pains, until it becomes ultimate and total: terrors and excruciating pains. And then we see: wow, that was intense, and everything is totally fine.
Whenever the fear comes up, I know I'm just sitting here, physically safe. But it's always with me, whether at the surface or in varying degrees.
Facing what we most want to avoid
Exactly. To use a metaphor, take the story of Christ. It makes you wonder what drove him, and what he faced, when he spent forty days and forty nights in the desert. We have the gospels about it, but imagine this was a real person facing something true and real. That's a big deal. I can imagine: there's something I've been running from, and I'm going to face it until I die, or it kills me, or I come through it. And even after that, he had to face the crucifixion. In a sense, the first journey was baby steps, a preparation. Metaphorically, it's the journey of facing fear, pain, and death. And the resurrection is the symbol that even that is okay, even the most unimaginable, horrifying thing.
So one can ask: what does the crucifixion, as a symbol, represent for me? What is the thing in my life I most want to avoid? And then face it.
Facing your deepest fears, whatever they are.
Yes. And it always needs to be aligned with your deepest passion and love. It isn't about facing the fear of being thrown off a building. It needs to be aligned with the heart, with what I really want but am afraid of. It could be something very simple and ordinary, something moment to moment. It's what goes unlived, what is being sacrificed when it shouldn't be. That's an internal negotiation: if I sacrifice this, at least I won't feel this fear and pain. That is suffering, and it becomes the sense that something is missing. In a sense, something is missing: I'm not living what I truly want.
What I'm saying can be interpreted in many ways, and it can apply to many things at many levels, at any moment. What I truly want right now might be to close my eyes and listen to the sound of traffic. The next moment, it might be to go for a walk, then to plan a big trip or build a big project. There are infinite possibilities of creativity in being human, in being the universe, in being everything. That level is the heart singing, whatever makes your heart sing. Then the fear comes up: no, not that, that's not possible, that's going to be painful, I can't do that. That's the self-protection of avoiding pain.
It's as if Christ had said: no, I can't survive forty days and forty nights in the desert. I must not, I shall not, I will not. Instead, it was: forget it. He could have escaped the crucifixion. He was given the option by the Roman governor, and he carried that cross. He said: no, I won't betray myself. What a lesson for humanity, what a symbol, what a powerful journey. All of it in the service of your truth, your love, what you really want. Your heart must sing. It is hurting because it wants to sing. The love that it is, the love that you are, the passion for this life wants to break through all your barriers and fears, shatter everything in the way, and destroy every false belief. The more you allow it, the better it is. The more you fight it, the bigger the struggle.
I didn't realize I had so much fear inside me.
Seeing that fear is driving
That's great. That's a big awakening, layers upon layers. Now you can see what you're avoiding. You can see the mechanism. When you don't realize the fear is there, it's unconscious, but it's still in control. You're letting it control your life.
Yes, I see it.
But you've also created it. You set that mechanism in motion and let it play out in the background, and then something isn't right. That's because fear is driving. Fear is in the driver's seat. But there's nothing wrong with you. This is humanity. Very few people have this encounter, this deep realization: wow, fear is driving me. The normal state is to have that happen and not know it. What is rare is the recognition: holy shit, fear is driving this.
It's everything. It has taken over so much of my life.
Yes, it has. But I would also suggest another interpretation: how much I've let it, how much I've made it. It isn't some other entity.
I'm the creator of this hell. I fucking did this to myself.
The fist
A hundred percent. That's a very liberating moment. You've seen me use this fist as a metaphor here many times. This is how it goes. I make a fist out of curiosity, or because it seems better for some reason. Then I keep making the fist until my muscles get numb and contracted and I don't even feel a fist anymore. I walk around with a fist, and my hand doesn't work very well. I try to grab something; I try to hug somebody and punch them in the face instead. Something is wrong. Then I notice: oh, the hand is making a fist. What a problem. How do I fix this thing that's happening to me? Then I start to realize: I've been making this fist since I was maybe two years old. I don't even remember. And all it takes is: oh, it's me. And that's so much better.
But then: oh no, the fist again. That's when we start to learn. You realize it's you, and you can just relax. At first it feels amazing, an incredible relief. Then it gets a bit boring. I want the relief, and to get the relief, I need the fist again. So it's: fist, horrible, horrible. Then: relief. We get addicted to that. And at some point we realize it's simply much better not to make the fist, to have a healthy hand that is free and works as God intended.
What you're describing is that moment: oh, it's me. It's a big moment, because now you can start to see how to stop doing it and what happened. It's like learning to use the hand again. We've used it in such a wrong way that we think this is how it is, how I am, how things are, that there's something wrong with me. No. You just haven't been using the body-mind the way it was intended. There's nothing wrong with it. It just needs to learn its natural state. People talk about unlearning conditioning. This whole process is unlearning, dropping false beliefs. It isn't about learning something.
It's knowing that there are other ways.
Yes, and having the courage to really explore them. Usually what happens is this: I've been doing this, it feels terrible, and the moment I look at it, I don't want to see it. It's horrible, and it's me. There can be a lot of shame, guilt, and self-criticism in seeing that I'm doing this, so I'd rather not even start. So it's back to ignoring and denying, and life gets rough again, pretty stormy, until I see it again, until at some point it's: okay, I have to address this.
It's a constant pendulum, back and forth.
The ox-herding pictures
It is. There's a map of spiritual awakening from one of the Buddhist traditions called the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures. There were originally eight, and then two were added, thank God, because the eight were incomplete. Every image is a metaphor for the journey of awakening, and the journey is about entering a relationship with self, which is represented by the ox.
The seeker begins looking for something and finds footprints. Seeing them, he becomes curious and excited. At one point he sees the tail of the ox and is fascinated: what is that? Then he sees the whole ox. That's the first full glimpse: wow, there's self, there's what I truly am. But then he wants to ride the ox, to be one with it, so he needs to tame it. That's around the third or fourth image, and it's what you're describing: the back and forth. The ox runs into a bush and I can't see it anymore. Then I find it again. There's a whip and a rope to catch it and tame it, to get closer, to create connection and relationship. And at some point, he mounts the ox.
This back and forth you're describing appears in a map that is centuries old, probably fifteen centuries. As the images progress, the man is on the ox but sitting backwards. He's no longer riding it forward. He sits facing backwards, playing a flute, and the ox walks wherever it wants. That's surrender to self, the allowing: whatever is, is okay, and I'm just celebrating, playing my flute. Even that is only the fifth or sixth image. There are ten. There's a lot more.
But in that stage there is this back and forth: the struggle, release and tension, fear and avoidance, and then another glimpse, another good moment, another taste. Yes, this is really it. That taste feels so good that nothing compares.
The one taste
And we start to recognize: what I tasted in that romance, in that love, in that experience, in that moment, on that trip, all of these tastes were the one taste. It is the taste of reality, the taste of self, the taste of whatever you want to call what cannot be named. It is presence. It is this moment. And one starts to realize: it isn't those experiences that I need to chase. It's something that happens here, something related to the mind. That's where the work of awakening and meditation begins: this is how to approach it. There are many ways and many traditions.
Those are the footprints in the first image: all these little tastes in life. But then we realize it isn't moments or experiences we need to chase. They're all related to one thing. All of these footprints point to one thing: self, reality, whatever the ox represents. And it is always here.
I really question what reality is.
That's good. You'll see that you have a lot of ideas about what reality is, and they're false. So it's good to question.
I see how limited we are as humans to what our senses and mind perceive or interpret.
Questioning "I am human"
Yes, but notice you said "as humans." I understand what you mean, and it's true, but don't assume that what you are is entirely human. What if you're not?
Let me approach this in a very rational way, since you have a strong scientific mindset. I'll say something that sounds absurd but that, scientifically, has to be accepted as possible: reincarnation. A scientific mind cannot deny the possibility of reincarnation. We don't know. It's unscientific to claim to know that reincarnation isn't possible or real. So what if? What if what you truly are can also reincarnate in some alien species light-years away, and has done so in the past, and now you're on this earth and you're human, but you used to be an ox, and so on? How do you know you're not? How do any of us know?
This is just a way to really challenge the sense that what I am is human.
Well, I guess what I am now is human. But am I sure? I don't know.
I'll debunk that one right now, and it's good, because you have a scientific mind. I was talking about past and future. Now you're talking about the present. What if you're in a simulation?
I don't know if I am or not.
That's the point. You cannot know. You might be an alien right now, in a machine that is simulating being you, with the memory of being an alien suppressed, like a very powerful virtual-reality game. You cannot know.
Waking from the dream
And there are stranger ways, which to me are more real. Those were ways to play with the rational, scientific mind. But consider what happens when you wake up in the morning from a dream. In the dream, you were convinced you were in it, that you were what you were in that dream. Not in all dreams, but in many of them, you were convinced it was real, right?
When I was younger. Now it's more like: I know I'm dreaming this.
Okay, but my point is that you can remember dreams where you had no idea you were dreaming. That was reality. So you have a completely true experience of what I'm saying: you inhabit a world that seems totally real, you inhabit an entity in that world that seems to be exactly what you are, and then you wake up and realize you're not that. You've had this experience many times.
What I'm saying is that this can happen in exactly the same way with the experience of being awake right now: body, mind, this world, planet Earth, this waking consciousness. You can wake up from this and realize it's a dream. It's different, almost a different level, but it's the same mechanism.
I can't prove either way whether that's true.
I know, but that's my point. You know from experience that it happens in your dreams, and I'm telling you it can happen from here. You can't know that what I'm saying isn't true. To a rational, scientific mind, it has to be entirely possible.
Anything is possible. I can't rule it out.
Exactly. So when you say, "I could have been a dinosaur, but right now I'm human," how do you know? How are you so sure? That's an assumption. You're experiencing a human perspective right now. But whether that is what you are, you can't know. That's a hard one to question. When you wondered what reality is, I took you to the big one, the big assumption, the big belief.
I don't know what I am. I can't be certain of what I am.
Catch yourself when you assume you are something you cannot know you are. Step back and say: whoa, that's an assumption.
I guess everything is an assumption.
Yes. Everything is an interpretation of reality. Everything. In the Tao Te Ching, just rename the Tao "reality."
And I'm not even certain what reality is.
That's my point.
So everything I do or decide isn't even real. I think it's real, that it has a purpose or meaning, that it accomplishes something. But I don't even know, because I'm not sure what reality is.
What does not change
I'll give you a few tips. Reality can be approached by realizing what it is not. It can never be approached through what it is. "Tao" is a word you can replace with "reality." My preferred translation of the first line is: "Tao called Tao, not Tao." It's like a mathematical equation. Reality named, reality described, reality represented in the mind, put into a philosophy, a book, a phrase: not reality. So it can only be defined by what it is not.
In the East, the word "reality" is used in a way I find more appropriate: what is something fundamentally? For example, this is a drinking glass, a cup. Is that fundamentally what it is? If I throw it on the floor, it's no longer a cup. It has become shattered glass, many separate pieces. I could put one in each corner of the universe. It's no longer one thing. So fundamentally it was neither a drinking cup nor a thing in itself.
Then I think: at least it's fundamentally made of one substance, glass. Really? We know from science that it's atoms, many separate little atoms that are completely different from and independent of what glass is. Only their combination in a certain form makes it glass. The same goes for water and for air. But look further, and the atoms themselves aren't really things either. Science keeps going deeper: subatomic particles, quarks. They aren't things either. And now scientists are seeing that there isn't anything there. It's probabilities and wave functions.
So, back to the question: what is reality? That which does not change. That's the definition in Sanskrit. What is illusion? That which changes. What is real? That which does not change. That's a very different way to conceive of it.
"I am"
So I would say that what you are is that which is real. If you contemplate it, when you say "I am," there is a strong, undeniable sense of "I am." There's something real here. There is something that I am.
Something rather than nothing.
Exactly. It isn't empty. We can use the word "empty" in the sense that it has qualities of emptiness: there are no forms, no things to be found. But there is something real that I am. Not a thing. No-thing.
But then, back to being your personal self. That person comes and goes, is born and will die. Who am I? Who are you? In fact, that which you are, that which recognizes the reality and truth of "I am," knows the person. That which says "I am" experiences the person. The person appears to it and is known by it. So which one are you really? Are you not that which can know and say "I am"?
One or two?
I'll read something I shared with a friend a few days ago. It's one paragraph. Most of you probably know the book The Power of Now. Its author opens the book with this, in the third paragraph I believe, and that's no coincidence. It is the most fundamental teaching in all of spirituality, the foundation of every spiritual tradition, and Advaita Vedanta approaches it most directly in this way.
He was suffering; the first paragraph describes his suffering. The third is very short, just three sentences. "I cannot live with myself any longer." Then he realizes it's a thought: "This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind." Now, boom, there's complete separation, the recognition that this is a thought. This is not reality. This is a thought appearing and repeating in my mind. "Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was." And then the question: "Am I one or two?"
This is the inquiry into reality. What is this? What am I? Who am I? Am I one or two? He reflects: if I cannot live with myself, there must be two for that to be true, the I and the self I cannot live with. "Maybe," he thought, "only one of them is real."
That's it. What came right after was total awakening, from nothing more than a true, direct question into the fundamental illusion. And the question is this: are you the person, or is the person appearing to you, and you are not the person at all?
I know the answer to that.
And this can be seen more and more deeply. For some people it's one seeing, total, and then it has its effects. That author spent decades processing and integrating what happened to him that night. It happened when he was in his twenties or early thirties, he became a teacher in his fifties, I think, and he wrote the book even later. He says in the book that much more happened afterwards: many more deepenings, glimpses, and realizations. But that is the fundamental illusion and the fundamental seeing. And you've had one, yes?
Yes. I guess it's the part of me that flies back into the cage.
Yes. It's the bird that flies out of the cage: this is great! Then an eagle comes to bite its head off, and it's: oh no, back to the cage. No thanks. I'd rather have the contracted, safe prison than infinite possibilities, which include everything, fear and pain as well.
I guess for me it won't be total, but this back and forth. It's just a matter of developing a preference over time.
Glimpsing and integrating
Yes, because it's like that for almost everyone. There are many stories of people who, I do believe, have a very sudden, total glimpse. But even they describe years of iterating and integrating. We often hear of them only after all of that has happened, and the interpretation becomes: that happened, and from that moment on, he was who he is now. No. There were many, many years, and it deepened and evolved. It's also common that the beginning isn't a total, full glimpse, but partial glimpses and iterating. Some people have a big, sudden glimpse at the beginning and then a lot of iterating and cycling afterwards.
It doesn't matter. For everybody, it's both: glimpsing and iterating, glimpsing and iterating. Sometimes there's a big glimpse at the beginning, sometimes a bigger one in the middle, sometimes one closer to the end, with small glimpses along the way. It's unique to every process, and it doesn't matter. In fact, in my experience, looking back, it was how I wanted it to be. It followed my preference, my desire. I couldn't say I wanted it any other way.
Thank you for your pointing and your guidance. I'm so grateful.
You're very welcome. It's a pleasure to have you here.