Last update: Augusts 15, 2020
Zen lessons on fear are also lessons on ego. The masters of this philosophical discipline say that if the ego had an engine, fear would be its fuel. According to their point of view, you really can't make a big list of fears, as there are only three types. All three have to do with the so-called ego.
From this perspective, all the fears we experience have two well-defined roots: attachment and ignorance. Attachment makes us vulnerable because it leads our mind, our emotions and our desires to fossilize on something eternal. Obviously, this involves a first form of fear: losing loved ones.
Ignorance, on the other hand, submerges us in a state of uncertainty and doubt, which makes it easier for fear to appear. Not recognizing the risk or danger in a precise way and not understanding which way to go makes us feel overwhelmed by insecurity and fear. The Zen lessons on fear teach us that there are three types of fear that arise from these two fundamental roots. Let's see them below.
"The sources of all our fears are our uncontrolled mind and our delusions."
-Buddha-
Zen lessons on fear
1. Preserve life
The first of the Zen lessons on fear shows us that the most essential fear of human beings is that of losing life. We identify the loss of life as the loss of the body. We are physical beings and this is our most basic reality. We live in our body and the fear of losing it is the fear of ceasing to be.
This fear is tantamount to death. Nonetheless, it is not just the end of all our organic functions. So to speak, there is also another scale of losses along the path to death. For example, you may lose ability, youth, normal body functioning or your image.
Zen lessons on fear indicate that the fear of losing life can disappear through the body itself. This fear is physical and if it moves away from the body it can also leave the mind. You have to wait for the physical sensations of fear and then breathe with the abdomen, calm the heartbeat and relax the muscles.
2. Losing the ego
Fear of ego loss is what we can also call fear of change. We come to believe that we are what we get used to being. The activities we carry out every day, the spaces we occupy day after day, the people we see, etc.
We get so used to seeing ourselves this way that we feel a strong fear if the context changes and we are exposed to something new. Here, then, is that the fear of losing the ego arises. We no longer know what to do or how to act. It is a kind of fear of diluting ourselves, fear of not being.
The Zen Lessons on Fear they insist that even this fear can be eradicated by means of abdominal breathing exercises. According to this philosophy, the abdomen is the source of courage, it is from it that "the roar of life" emerges, that is our tranquility and our anger. They recommend taking deeper abdominal breathing when experiencing this type of fear.
3. Fear of suffering
In general, suffering is anything that leads to the extreme or wears out our nervous system, thus producing an unpleasant and oppressive sensation. It has to do with deficiencies, limitations and frustrations or unfulfilled desires. It can be very intense and in these cases, it comes to invade us and paralyze other aspects of our being.
The way to overcome the fear of suffering, according to the Zen lessons on fear, is to work on our personal growth. When we consider everything that happens to us as an opportunity to evolve, the fear of suffering disappears little by little. It is about seeing physical or emotional pain as a passing thing that helps us be better.
Zen masters indicate that suffering is a phenomenon found in the mind, in every person who gives a positive or negative meaning to the experiences they live. How much we are willing to suffer depends on each of us. Based on this, the fear of suffering increases or decreases.
These Zen lessons on fear remind us that it is we ourselves who feed our fears, or work to block them. The favorite food of fear is imagination without information. Resisting changes and the natural cycles of life also feeds fear. Finally, there are the inevitable situations. Although we can feel a lot of fear in front of them, even if we avoid them or if we ignore them, they will always reach us.
