This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Feeling Fear ~ Diana Clark. It likely contains inaccuracies.
The following talk was given by Diana Clark at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org to find the authoritative record of this talk.
Welcome. It’s nice to practice and meditate together.
I’m just returning from a teaching and meditation retreat. For those of you who haven’t been on retreat, I’ll just say that everybody who participates has a conversation with a teacher, usually more than one. The retreats are in silence, but there’s a particular time when you meet one-on-one with the teacher or in a group to talk about how your practice is going, questions you might have about the teachings, or describe maybe some difficulties or what’s going well.
It’s not uncommon for people who are having a beautiful practice—their meditation practice is unfolding and deepening in a way that we would expect—to have touched into slightly different experiences than they’ve had before. For example, maybe just feeling settled and calm more than we usually are, more than we can with just a single meditation session. But after you’ve been meditating, sitting and then walking, the mind and the body can’t help but start settling down. That might feel unusual, like, “Oh, what is this? I’m not used to feeling this calm or this relaxed or this settled or this connected or this easeful.” It might feel like, “Am I still alive?” This feeling of what we associate with vitality or passion might not be there in the usual way. We’ve become so associated with just having this little bit of agitation: that thing I have to do, that thing I have to take care of, this problem I have to solve. Our life is like just one long to-do list, and when that’s gone, it can feel a little bit unusual.
Sometimes, as this settling happens, our sense of the body starts to be a little bit different. Our perception, not always, but sometimes, can feel more spacious and easeful. We’re in touch with the body, we know what’s happening, but it’s less the anatomical body. It feels less like the body that’s going to show up on a CAT scan or an X-ray and more just like a collection of sensations that are just there in some kind of way. For some people, that feels like, “Wait, wait, wait, am I still here in the usual way?” Or sometimes the head starts to feel really big, or the pressure against the body starts to feel really strong. Or maybe there’s a feeling of energy moving through the body in a pleasant way, usually, but it’s not our usual experience, like, “Oh, what’s this energetic feeling that’s going on?” Some people report something like their finger in a light socket. It happens just to a small subset of people.
So I find in these practice discussions that I’m having with all these practitioners on the retreat, I do a lot of saying, “Yeah, that’s fine. It’s absolutely fine what you’re experiencing.” But there’s this way in which sometimes there can be fear that arises when we’re having new experiences. I’m talking about meditation experiences that can arise when we’re on retreat, but it could be any new experience, like going to a new gym. “Okay, I want to look like I know what I’m doing, but where are those machines that do the thing that I want?” Or going to a new grocery store and thinking, “Oh, where is everything? This isn’t like the usual one.” Whatever it is, maybe there’s not fear at the grocery store, but my point is that sometimes when things are unfamiliar, there’s a little bit of fear.
There’s a way in which we can practice with this that can be a real support for our life. In particular, when I was talking about these meditation experiences, they are usually happening with this settling of the mind and the body, which is generally a pleasant experience. It’s nice to feel some ease and some settling and some collectedness, but then, as I said, there can be some fear. As soon as there’s a little bit of fear, it kind of hijacks our attention away from what is otherwise a pleasant experience. It might be a little bit unfamiliar, but it’s pleasant.
So one thing we can do—and this is a practice—is to learn to orient, to incline the mind towards that which is pleasant. That which feels spacious or collected or steady. Maybe there’s a sense of warmth, too. Maybe there’s a feeling like the heart isn’t so constricted and tight, or the mind isn’t running around quite as fast. So when the fear is just a mild fear and it’s happening at the same time as something pleasant, this is a practice. It’s not something we can automatically do. But just to acknowledge both of these things are happening, and can we intentionally incline towards the pleasant? Then our capacity to be with discomfort and the unfamiliar will just grow. We’re not ignoring the fear. We’re not pretending like it’s not there. We’re just not letting it take over.
But of course, there are times when fear in other situations is stronger, when fear really has a big pull on us. So what can we do then? What are some of the ways we can be with fear, whatever ways it’s showing up in our lives? I’m generally not talking about the fear that’s there with imminent danger. You know, when we see a car coming towards us and we have to get out of the way. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the fear that arises often from worries we have about the future, or the fear about our health or somebody else’s health or something like this. So when that type of fear is arising, how can we be with that in a way that feels supportive for our life? A way that, again, we’re not pretending like it’s not there. We’re not ignoring it. We’re not suppressing it, but we’re not letting it push us around so much.
What can we do? We can investigate it. “Fear is here. What is fear?” What is the experience of fear? What are the sensations, this collection, this constellation of experiences that we assign the label “fear”?
I had a medical condition where my heart would beat faster. It turned out to be fine; I eventually figured everything out and got things stabilized. But before I knew that, I remember giving some talks in different settings, and I would feel my heart pounding. I’m like, “I’m so nervous. What can I do?” I was feeling like, “Why am I so nervous?” And I could just see my confidence sinking. “I thought I was prepared, but I’m so nervous.” And then when I started to speak, my heart was pounding. My sense of myself started to fill with doubt. “Do I not know how to give a talk? What’s happening?” And it did not go so well. But it turned out to not be fear. It was just my heart having a faster heart rate. So even things that we assign to fear don’t mean that they’re actually fear.
But those collections of experiences that we’re assigning to fear, we can investigate them. What is the bodily experience? Maybe the heart is pounding and going fast. But chances are, maybe there’s a clenching in the gut, or sometimes for me, there’s a lump in the throat. And also, there can be a sense like the body wants to move; it doesn’t want to just stay there. It wants to do something. So there’s this sense of restlessness in the body.
We can also notice the thoughts. The quality of them is like they have a certain pressure, and they’re going fast and maybe are blurry and not so distinct. And the content of them is all about what might happen. Not what’s happening right now, but what might happen in the future. “What’s going to happen?” Or, “What does it mean about me as a person?” In that little anecdote I told about when my heart was beating fast, I started to have all these thoughts like, “What does this mean? Does this mean I don’t know how to give talks? Does this mean that I’m not prepared?” There’s this way in which our sense of self gets brought into it, and that sense of self takes the form of thoughts when we are having fear. So there are bodily sensations, there are thoughts about the future, and thoughts about what this means about us as a person. Usually, those thoughts are not clear to us; it’s just a collection that’s happening.
The third thing that’s often happening is a shrinking awareness. It’s like we become so concerned about whatever it is we are afraid of. We kind of aren’t noticing the bird singing or the sunshine or the feeling of the chair against our body if we’re sitting down, or who’s in front of us necessarily. We aren’t noticing much else except what we’re afraid of. And there’s this way that this kind of constriction is kind of unpleasant, as opposed to just this relaxed openness and this relaxed awareness.
And then a fourth thing, of course, is all the aversion we have. We don’t like it. We don’t like the bodily sensations. We don’t like having those types of thoughts. We don’t like the awareness being restricted. “I don’t like it. Make it go away. What can I do to get rid of it?” So all this is in the mix when there’s a sense of fear, and we can bring our attention to any of it. All of it. The point is, can we be present right now with the experience?
Bringing mindfulness to any aspect is helpful. Because what happens when we start to have this sense of fear, but we’re able to just notice it, a sense of confidence grows. It’s like, “Oh yeah, this is uncomfortable, but I can handle it. I can be with it.” And with this confidence, of course, the fear diminishes, because implicit in fear is the sense of, “I can’t handle it. I won’t be able to handle it. This will be uncomfortable, terrible, horrible, awful in some kind of way, and I won’t be able to handle it.” Otherwise, we wouldn’t be fearful, right? So there’s this way in which confidence develops by just being mindful as best we can of any of these aspects of the fear: bodily sensation, thoughts, shrinking awareness, aversion. There are four things. You might find something else that’s happening to you.
It sounds like a good idea, but it’s not always so easy to do, right? When we’re in the midst of fear, of course. And that’s why when we notice we’re having fear in really mild, unthreatening situations, it’s helpful. Can we just tune into that fear? Or can we tune into any pleasant experience that’s happening with it? That also builds confidence and increases our capacity to be with the fear.
So notice how I didn’t say, “Do whatever you can to get rid of it,” which is our usual response to fear. We have this aversion, we don’t want it, and then we’re maybe trying to solve some problem or figure it out or get mad at it or lash out at people, lash out at ourselves. “I’m a terrible person. I shouldn’t be afraid of this. Logically, there is no reason to be afraid of this.”
There’s this way of wanting to avoid it or make it go away. This is aversion, which turns into avoidance, or this sense of, “I have to fix it.” Both of those, the fleeing and the fixing, the wish to flee, the wish to fix, both of those turn out to just be things in the mind usually. Sometimes we’re jumping up and actually doing things. But right now, I’ll talk about what’s happening in the mind: there’s this way in which we are injecting more and more thoughts into the thinking apparatus. We’re already having these thoughts about what it means about me as a person and things about the future. So in some ways, we’re disconnected from ourselves, and the way in which we try to fix or flee the situation turns out to be more thoughts. So then we are just in our mind with lots and lots of thoughts, and we’re disconnected from what’s actually happening. What’s actually happening is probably uncomfortable but not actually threatening. If it is threatening, then do whatever you can to get out of harm’s way. Absolutely. Of course. When the bus is coming straight towards you, don’t think about, “Oh, how does this feel in the body?” Of course not.
So there’s this way that aversion actually perpetuates and often increases the fear because it’s adding to that element of thoughts. That’s an aspect of fear. The more aversion, the more fear. Less aversion, less fear. They go together. This is really helpful to keep in mind: the more that we’re trying to push it away, the stickier it gets.
This idea of the Tar-Baby1, right? I don’t remember the story exactly, but what I do remember is that there’s this sticky thing, and you want to get rid of it, so you push your hand towards it and you can’t get rid of it. So then you put the other hand, and then both hands get stuck, and then the left foot, the right foot, and then you’re just completely stuck with this sticky thing.
Fear, in fact, I would say all experiences are the same. This is such a key recognition, but of course, you don’t have to take my word for it. Please don’t just take my word for it; find this out for yourself. Explore this. What happens if I orient towards my bodily experience? Maybe it’s unpleasant, but it’s happening right here in this moment. I’m taking energy away from the thinking, disrupting the momentum of the thinking. Maybe even intentionally orient towards a neutral bodily experience, towards something that’s there that’s happening but isn’t fueling that. And you’ll discover, as the aversion goes down, the fear goes down.
There’s also this way, in some part of these thoughts, that we’re judging ourselves, thinking that we shouldn’t do this. So just note that too; in this collection of thoughts, there’s a whole bunch that turn out not to be so helpful.
There’s a poem I like to read here by Rosemary Tramer2. She’s one of my favorite poets. The name of this poem is called Mus Musculus, which happens to be the Latin name for mouse.
Today, fear is a mouse that scuttles between thoughts and feeds on whatever it finds. Nibbles on my certainties, gnaws the coating off my circuitries, and pulls the stuffing out of each moment. Those are its droppings in the hallways of my mind. I thought it was worse when fear was a tiger, a badger, a wolverine. But the mouse of fear finds its way into everything. Makes nests inside my minutes, discovers passages into my inner walls, then scratches against them at night. It never goes near the traps I’ve set. No, it scampers around them. Its soft feet pattering, its small dark eyes noting everywhere I go.
I love this line: “Those are its droppings in the hallways of my mind.” This way that it just finds its way in. And I’m pointing to how a lot of this is in our mind. And so can we orient towards something else?
But I want to unpack this a little bit more about some of these thoughts. The thoughts are often about the future, as I said. For example, “What will happen to me?” maybe in general or specifically. We might have these vague notions of unsettledness, like, “Am I going to be okay in the future? Will I be all right in the future? Will it turn out okay? What will go wrong, go poorly, go badly?” Or maybe there’s this concern for our physical well-being, our emotional well-being, maybe even our survival. “Will I have enough money? Will I have a place to live?” These types of things in terms of security or relationships or possessions. Of course, we have these types of fears. We have this fear that we won’t be okay. We have this fear that we won’t be happy, that there won’t be well-being. This is normal. Humans have this.
But fear tends to push us around and try to convince us that we should distract ourselves or avoid things. But what is it that helps increase the likelihood that there will be well-being, that there will be security, that there will be happiness? We have this fear that there won’t be, but what can we do that will increase happiness and well-being? And that is cultivating qualities of the heart, cultivating qualities of the mind that are helpful and skillful and useful. Of course, we know this; dharma talks are all about this so often. But there’s this way in which we think, “Yeah, I know that mindfulness would be helpful. Yeah, I know that cultivating some warm-heartedness, some mettā3 or loving-kindness or some compassion is helpful. Yeah, I know that generosity helps support a sense of well-being, helping others, helping ourselves. Yeah, I know that equanimity is a good thing to actively cultivate.” We all hear about this, and yet we often aren’t doing it in a way that’s going to be impactful, in a way that really helps create the foundation for us to have well-being and happiness in the future. There’s this way in which we aren’t putting the investment in now that can help ensure a future that will bring some ease and well-being, so that we’ll have less fear about the future.
Because when we cultivate these beautiful qualities, they bring happiness. They do. They bring a sense of well-being. Whether this is mindfulness, which is what we’re doing here, or mettā practice, or equanimity, or generosity, or compassion—this whole host of inner qualities.
So this is how we take care of the future, instead of just having fear about the future: to invest in these qualities. Paying attention to our mindfulness in daily life. Can we bring some kindness to our interactions with others? Importantly, can we bring some kindness to ourselves? There’s this way in which the inner critic is just running the show so often, pushing us around. But what would it mean to say, “You know what, I’m really going to work with the inner critic in a committed, diligent, or intentional way”? Or, “I’m going to work with mindfulness in daily life, not just as part of a meditation practice.” Or, “I’m going to work with cultivating some warm-heartedness so that it becomes more and more the orientation or the inner mood.”
Because when we do this, then the future starts to unfold in a different way. And even if some of those things happen—”Will everybody like me?” and “Will I be okay?”—even if some things don’t go exactly how we wanted them to (and let’s be honest, how often do things go exactly as we want them to?), we’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.
So, I’m not saying that we don’t have to take care of our livelihoods and plan for the future. I am not saying that. Of course, we have to do that. But can we do that as a way of care instead of fear? And can we create the conditions in which all the worries that tend to have such a big impact on us, influencing so many decisions that we make, just start to diminish? And instead, we’re just focusing on cultivating our inner qualities and noticing the relationship that we have to the present moment. Just tuning in. Are we meeting this experience right now with openness? Are we meeting this experience with curiosity, with mindfulness? Are we meeting this experience with kindness? As best we can. I like to slip that in there because it’s so easy for the inner critic to say, “Oh yeah, I’m not open or mindful or kind.” And there was that time when I got really irritated with the driver who was going 25 miles an hour in the 50 mph zone or something like this. So, as best we can.
This is something that actually makes a difference. Cultivating some of these qualities really helps us have a future where not only is the future different, but our worries about the future start to diminish. Some people might have an investment portfolio, thinking, “Okay, I want this to grow as I age.” Often that’s associated with money, stocks, and bonds. But is there a way that we can also have an investment portfolio for our inner life too? Can we invest in mindfulness, as we do here, or warm-heartedness?
And there are lots of resources. There is an embarrassing amount of resources on audiodharma.org, as well as so many apps and books and YouTube videos.
What would it be like to just say, “You know what, I am going to invest in something,” whatever feels rich for you, whatever your intuition suggests. Then there will be less fear in our lives. I kind of like this idea that aversion increases fear. But what if we bring warm-heartedness to our experience? Warm-heartedness is the opposite of aversion. And so these unpleasant experiences just go down as we bring warm-heartedness, loving-kindness, compassion, openness, even curiosity to them.
So this way of considering our daily life as a support for our future, as an investment for our future, also means there’s less fear. Maybe I’ll just read this poem again because often we’re just not aware of the impact that fear does have in our life, our fear about the future.
This poem is Mus Musculus by Rosemary Tramer.
Today fear is a mouse that scuttles between thoughts and feeds on whatever it finds. Nibbles on my certainties, gnaws the coating off my circuitries and pulls the stuffing out of each moment. Those are its droppings in the hallways of my mind. I thought it was worse when fear was a tiger, a badger, a wolverine. But the mouse of fear finds its way into everything. It makes nests inside my minutes, discovers passages into my inner walls, then scratches against them at night. It never goes near the traps I’ve set. No, it scampers around them. Its soft feet pattering, its small dark eyes noting everywhere I go.
Making an investment into wholesome qualities is a way to not only diminish the fear in the present moment but also take care of those thoughts about the future which are so often laced with fear. So, thank you.
With that, I’ll open it up to see if there are any comments or questions about what I said here tonight. I talked about wholesome qualities, but I didn’t really go into depth about any of them. So, my apologies about that, but chances are you know a lot about them.
Questioner 1: Thank you. I was just wondering if you could repeat what you said about cultivating wholesomeness, or whatever was skillful and helpful. The things that, if you cultivate them, help with reducing the fear. What does that look like when you’re meditating or otherwise? What does that mean?
Diana Clark: So if we bring mindfulness to an experience of fear, as I was just talking about, then we’ll notice that there are bodily components and mental components and aversion. If we notice this constellation and the aversion to it, mindfulness isn’t aversion. And the aversion is fueling the fear. If we bring in something that isn’t aversion, then the fear goes down. So that’s one way in which, in the present moment when the fear is there, we can work with it. But not only that, just cultivating the capacity to be with fear helps us to meet everything in the same way. And then our life unfolds in a way that’s not being dictated by fear. These qualities help create more openness, more ease, more happiness. Does that make sense? It’s a little bit circuitous. I can see why you were asking this question. Thank you.
Maybe I’ll just throw in something here too. If we look at our fear, it’s so much about the future. So I could have just done a talk about how to take care of your future: cultivate these wholesome qualities—openness, warmth, mindfulness, compassion. I could also have done a talk on how to meet fear in the present moment. It’s the same type of qualities very often. Mindfulness in particular, loving-kindness maybe.
Questioner 2: You were talking about having negative experiences, maybe fear, negative thoughts, and we want to push them away. It’s true, but I wonder because when I have negative thoughts, often what I do is bring myself back to the present. Is that the same as pushing them away?
Diana Clark: Maybe I’ll ask you a question. When you say come back to the present, what does that mean?
Questioner 2: Oh, I might focus on my breathing.
Diana Clark: Yeah, I would say that’s not the same as pushing them away. You’re aware the thoughts are there, chances are, but maybe they’re more in the background and the breath is more in the foreground. Pushing them away is what I’m talking about when I’m shoving them down and repressing them. There’s a way in which a thought can come up and we just immediately distract ourselves, and the distracting turns out to be enormously effective. But when we just turn towards the breath, that’s just bringing us to the present moment experience, and the thoughts don’t disappear. They just come back. They come back, but maybe they’re less authoritative or not pushing you around as much, or not even as troubling or bothersome. They might be unpleasant, but they don’t have as much momentum or authority.
Questioner 3 (Bill): So if I really dislike fear, I can handle just about anything else. Rejection, loneliness, disappointment, that’s all fine, or I can work with that. But I really don’t like fear. It’s very uncomfortable for me. But when it comes up, and if I’m fearful of someone, then I don’t just look at the fear, that’s too uncomfortable. So I kind of do a little side step or jiu-jitsu move, put my attention somewhere else. So, what I’ve done a couple of times that helped was to do loving-kindness practice for many people that I know. And then I put it off as long as I can, but after I’ve covered everyone else, I’ll do loving-kindness for the person I’m fearful of. And it helps a lot. You just feel better afterwards. Much less fear, actually.
Diana Clark: Excellent. It’s one of these wholesome qualities we can cultivate: loving-kindness.
Bill: It’s kind of a trick. I don’t feel like I’m cultivating something worthwhile in me. I’m just, you know, kind of doing what I can. But it does help.
Diana Clark: Yes. Opening the heart, softening the heart. And it’s the anti-aversion. And it’s the aversion that really fuels and makes the fear bigger and bigger. It’s interesting to me that you started by saying, “I really don’t like fear.” Just being honest.
Bill: Yeah. No, I don’t think anybody likes fear. It’s uncomfortable.
Diana Clark: But maybe I’ll just offer one thing also. If you wanted, you could just be with the bodily experience. Like, “Oh, what is the bodily experience of fear?” And then just to be with the body experience and let the thoughts just kind of take care of themselves and just be with, “Oh yeah, a beating heart feels like this, a lump in the throat feels like this.”
Bill: That’s advanced practice, Diana, but I’ll work on that. Yes, I will. Thank you.
Questioner 4: Would you say there are counterpoint emotions to fear? Kind of like if we dig around in our fear or engage our fear, muddle through it, are able to embrace it and just be one and be okay with our fear? Would you say that there are counterpoints? Because you call it a negative emotion.
Diana Clark: Oh, I’m not sure I understand the word “counterpoint.”
Questioner 4: I guess what I’m saying is that maybe fear isn’t so bad because there’s probably something on the other side of it.
Diana Clark: Oh, very nice. Yeah. I would think like maybe joy or maybe even ecstasy. I see. I’m not sure. I think if we look at it in that way, that maybe fear is not really such a bad thing. Very nice. But sometimes logic isn’t always available to us when we’re in the middle of fear. To think, “Okay, there’s something good on the other side of this,” sometimes that doesn’t help us. But I appreciate what you’re saying. You’re saying joy. Has this been your experience?
Questioner 4: I don’t know. I was just thinking about it while you were talking. I guess my thought is, you know, that life is only so long. An emotion like this can be horrible, but it might be actually something really, really good because if we can engage our fear or kind of accept it or muddle through it or be mindful of it somehow, it’ll probably just kind of turn into something positive.
Diana Clark: Yep. I would agree. And I think in that sense, it’s just an emotion. It’s not like a brick wall. It doesn’t have to be.
Questioner 4: That’s right. It’s just a collection of experiences. That’s all it is. But they’re usually uncomfortable.
Diana Clark: Yeah. I was just thinking of what would be a counterpoint. Well, I would say I started talking about how sometimes there’s fear when we’re in some unfamiliar territory. Sometimes on the other side of fear is more confidence. It’s like, “Oh, I learned something here, and now something that I was afraid of, I’m not afraid of anymore.” And so there can be some, and with that can come confidence, maybe some happiness or the ability to… I don’t know, there are all kinds of things that can come from confidence, but joy too. Yeah. Like, “Oh, I made it. It wasn’t so bad.”
Diana Clark: Okay, so we’re at the end of our time. So, thank you very much, and I wish you a lovely rest of the evening and safe travels home. Thank you.
Tar-Baby: The speaker is likely referencing the “Tar-Baby” story from the Uncle Remus tales, a famous allegory where a character tries to fight a sticky tar doll and becomes progressively more stuck with each attempt to free himself. It’s often used as a metaphor for problems that worsen the more one struggles against them. ↩
Rosemary Tramer, Mus Musculus: The original transcript mentioned “Rosemary Tummer” and “Moose Musculus.” This has been corrected to the poet Rosemary Tramer and the correct title of her poem, Mus Musculus, which is the scientific name for the house mouse. ↩
Mettā: A Pali word meaning loving-kindness, goodwill, or benevolence. It is a central concept in Buddhist practice, involving the cultivation of a universal, unconditional love for all beings. ↩