Q1-20130813-Larry_Rosenberg-CIMC-q_a_for_8_13_13_dharma_talk-24521

Talk: 2013-08_13 Q&A for 8_13_13 Dharma Talk.json Start_time: 00:01:04 Display_question: Can you talk about fear and its connection to suffering? Keyword_search: fear, suffering, energy, intelligence, mind, thoughts, psychological fear, mindfulness, awareness, stability, calm, clarity, pure observation, investigation, silent, loneliness, death, present moment, Korea, Massachusetts, transformative, bone deep, Freud, Jung, Buddha Question_content: Questioner: You mentioned fear. We talk about suffering with Buddhism, that's the first thing. So can you talk about fear, and the way you would talk about suffering, about that it's there, and what you do about it? How would you talk about fear, in that same way? Larry: It's no different than anything else, or me. Here's the issue. First of all, fear is a natural energy that's in people. There's sometimes intelligence tucked inside fear. It's saving you from something you should be frightened of. Here comes the…you know, the classical examples of snake, you're about to step over a cliff, or you see some very menacing looking people coming towards you. But a lot of the fear I'm talking about is, unfounded, or it's made up, in the mind. Break_line: Typically, when you get to know fear, not the fear that has intelligence in it, which is alerting you to something that is saying, hey, take care of yourself. You might need to do this or that, or get out of here, or whatever it is. The mind has thoughts, typically about the future. It makes up what's going to happen in the future. Very often it originates from, past wounds that we have. And then the thoughts, are the soil out of which, the fear grows. So that the fear is, psychological fear. And when you look at it, you may find there's nothing to be afraid of. Break_line: But now, even if you don't want to do that, let me draw a picture for you. This left hand is the… fear is… throw the word f-e-a-r out and throw the word awareness, or mindfulness out, throw them both out. They're energies. Okay, so here's fear. Could you all see it? I know it's not fear, but it is fear. And here's whatever level of awareness we have, remember the new people all cleared out. Okay, they saw this not for them. It's okay. When you begin, awareness is not something we've developed. So it's like any skill, you have to begin, where you are. But as you do it. And every moment of being mindful, is contributing to developing a mind that has stability, calm, and clarity, and could see accurately. Break_line: Okay so here's fear, typically what happens when we're afraid, we either run away, escape from it, go to… become immersed in something else, or get swallowed up by it, become terrified, have a panic attack, or whatever. I understand it could be physical contribution to it or we try to explain it away intellectually, and maybe that helps a bit. Here what we're learning is, the art of pure observation, and what we're learning is, to allow fear to just… that energy that I'm calling fear, allow it to sing its song, tell its story, not necessarily in words, in fact it isn't. And for the awareness to watch what happens, to learn about the nature of fear, not as a conceptual intellectual, it's a form of investigation. Its silent investigation, is another form, more at the beginning of practice, which can be years, and it also has value, at all times, has some thinking in it. This has no thinking in it, that I'm referring to now. When the mind becomes silent, it's stronger than, whatever comes in front of it. The mind can get to be that way. So, it's not that fear won't come up, or that loneliness won't come up, or anything that maybe is on your mind, or that's tyrannizing you, won't come up. If you're human, it comes up. It's not weird, but you're now not helpless. I could go on, but does that begin to answer what you're asking? Questioner: So you said awareness is important. Larry: Important, it's crucial. Questioner: You said before that there is also thinking about… Larry: Well awareness can see that this is based on thought. It can see that it's based on thought,, and once you see that, the thought falls away, and then usually, often the fear falls away, because it's premised on something that might happen, down the road. Okay, I don't feel I've completely gotten through. The only way you can really learn if what I'm saying is true is, by watching your mind, and seeing there's a lot of fear that grows out of the soil, of thinking. And typically, it's we imagine something, that's going to happen. That's terrible. Break_line: Take death, since I was talking about that. We are going to die. But a lot of what the fear of death is not the fear of death, it's the fear of the idea that we're going to die. Right now here we are. At a certain point each one of us will die. I don't mean to spoil your summer, but it's just true, and it'll be a normal moment just like this. It's just all life, no one maybe there's some people have beat the rap, but I don't know of any. At a certain point, it'll be an ordinary moment like this, whether you're with family, or friends, or alone, or where, I don't know the conditions, and death will happen. That's the fact of death. But on the way, there are people who are in their twenty's and thirty's, who are very... turn eyes, and frightened by death. It's the idea that, I won't be here someday. Now, can you see through that? So that it's basically, a lot of what we're learning is, how to take care of the present moment. You've all heard that, till it's coming out of your ears. But that's the only moment we have. That's where our life has lived, in this moment. This is it. Break_line: I once asked one of my teachers a whole bunch of very interesting questions. I thought... he just shook me, and he said, this is it. What? This is it. In other words... this is in Korea. And he said, you didn't have to come to Korea, because the cure is not in Korea. The problem is in you. You can go back to Massachusetts. I said, oh, I can. Why did I come all the way to Korea? He said, don't ask me. If you learn it, you see, the learning is at different levels. I would use… it’s bone deep, is when somehow you get it. And it's a level of understanding, that translates immediately, into behavior. And a lot of our learning is, at a much more shallow level. It doesn't have the ability to… it's not transformative. It's just soothing. Break_line: Like if you explain something… in this town, everyone's, probably everyone in this room, we're pretty good at explaining things. Freud said, Jung said, the Buddha said, and it makes you feel better. Good. But that's just the beginning. Like, if you see a good menu, oh, wow, that sounds delicious. Order the food, and then until you bite into it, and taste it, you won't know. So, the Buddha is encouraging us to do that, over, and over, and over, again. It's not blind belief. So, what I'm saying, I've seen it, so I know it's true. But maybe I'm deluded. So, it's for you to see. Is there a role of thinking about the future, in creating the fear in the first place, which, if seen, and understood deeply, will at least some of the fears, they're going to not be potent anymore. They're going to fall away. They were there out of ignorance. We didn't understand them. What brought it? Still no good? Questioner: No, I was just trying to practice that. Larry: Yeah, but the practice is… you know what the practice is, I know. End_time: 00:08:56