We spend much of our time in a cage created by our own fear of discomfort.
Pema Chödrön
Sunday Quote: Cage
Tag: Fear
Not who we are
The transformation of fear does not mean that we no longer have fearful responses. It means that we no longer believe that those responses are who we are. This is what practice is about: learning to stop believing that our deep-seated reactivity is who we are. Who we really are is much bigger than any of our fear-based conditioned responses. When we can really experience fear, we can see through this false identification, perhaps even glimpsing a vaster sense of Being.
Ezra Bayda, Being Zen
Part of the world’s peace
Recently I’ve been pondering a process I call “bewilderment”—or, as I like to pronounce it, be-wilder-ment. I figure if we all become a little wilder, a little more present, a little more connected to whatever it is that makes dogs so damn happy, we’ll feel better and do better things. The first step in the bewilderment process is simple: CALM DOWN.
The whole world functions this way: Real threats do exist, but when we approach life with fear, we see threats in everything, including unconditional love. We puff up in self-defense, which others perceive as aggression. We use violent, extreme words and actions when peaceful attentiveness would work far better.
If you’d like to be-wilder yourself, try this: Whenever you notice that the monologue in your head is fear-based (worrying about the future, belittling yourself, fussing over what others may think) stop, breathe deeply, and switch to a silent loving-kindness meditation, repeating phrases like: “May I be happy. May I be calm. May I feel safe and protected.”
It sounds so simple, because it is. Wild things don’t make speeches, they just notice what’s really in front of them. What’s in front of us is a world where far more goes right than wrong. Make your mind part of the world’s peace, instead of its fear, and I promise, life will get better and better.
Martha Beck, Make your Mind part of the Peace,
Careful awareness
To be born into any world is to be born into a place where these dangers are normal. They lie in wait right here in the body that at birth we laid claim to, and the world around us is full of triggers that can bring these dangers out into the open at any time.
It’s an often-overlooked feature of the Buddha’s teachings that he identified the basis for all our good and skillful qualities as heedfulness — not innate goodness or compassion: heedfulness. To recognize that there are dangers both within and without, that your actions can make the difference between suffering from those dangers and not, and that you’d better get your act together now: this is the heedfulness that makes us generous, wise, and kind.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu, What Is True Safety?
Overcoming our fears
The mind creates the abyss,
the heart crosses it.
Nisargadatta Maharaj, 1897 – 1981, Indian non-dualist teacher
Fears
Sometimes fear … puts wings on our heels;
at others it hobbles us and nails our feet to the ground.
Michel de Montaigne, On Solitude
Mindfulbalance 