This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Thanks for coming. Tonight I'd like to talk a little bit about fear and courage and practice and life. So basically, there are two types of fear.

[01:11]

One type that is helpful, and one type that's not so helpful. The helpful type comes in handy when you're actually in real danger, as far as your survival goes. For example, there is some volcano erupting or something and you're at the foot of the volcano and you realize, oh geez, I'm afraid, I have to get out of here. That's the kind of fear that is helpful for you and me. The second type of fear is sometimes called ego fear or psychological fear. And that's the kind of fear that comes up.

[02:14]

It doesn't really have any real threat. It's generally about something that might happen in the future. And instead of being helpful, it has a tendency to sort of narrow your life, make it more difficult for you to live fully. Worry is connected with fear and it's been interesting for me to look into this a little bit because I personally tend to worry sometimes and One person described worry as fear talking to itself.

[03:16]

So it's really the same thing as fear. So if you feel worried about something, you can bet that there is some fear underneath that may or most likely does not have any real benefit for you. There's a lot of words that seem like they mean the same thing, like fear and worry and anxiety and phobia. And they are all related in some way. But phobias in general are a little bit more... irrational, it seems. The fears are less... They just don't make quite as much sense, at least when you're not experiencing them.

[04:30]

I used to have this old letterpress and I used to make cards and handset type and so I'm sort of attracted to letterpress cards and I found this card in San Francisco probably three or four years ago but the title of it is A Selection of Phobias and on the front there's probably I'd say 20 different phobias and I thought I might just redo a selection from the selection of phobias because You know, there's a lot to be afraid of. Acrophobia, fear of heights. Amathophobia, fear of dust. Androphobia, fear of men. Let's see here.

[05:32]

Clinophobia, fear of clowns. Cremophobia, fear of being alone. Dendrophobia, fear of trees. Let's see here. Pluviophobia, fear of rain. Skiophobia, fear of shadows. Here we go. Thalassophobia, fear of the sea. And Xanthophobia, fear of the color yellow. So you can sort of see that the phobias are a little more unusual in some ways. And then there's anxiety and fear.

[06:43]

In the definition of anxiety that Freud actually said, anxiety is a state characterized by the expectation and preparation for a danger, even if it is unknown. So it's sort of like, you know, many of you, I know I've experienced it, that just a general feeling of dis-ease. and not exactly knowing where it's coming from. On the other hand, Freud talks about fear as implies a specific object to be feared. So I get the idea that anxiety is a little more unspecific and that fear can be perhaps named a little easier. In Buddha's teaching, the Buddha recognizes five great fears.

[07:54]

The fear of dying, the fear of sickness, the fear of losing your mind or dementia, the fear of loss of livelihood, and the fifth one is a fear of speaking in public, which I found sort of interesting because in the Buddhist time, I have a feeling that the monks and the Buddha were telling people about the Dharma, but I don't imagine the Buddha being nervous or afraid, but maybe the monks were. Anyway, It's having the fear of public speaking at the same caliber as fear of death. I sort of understand it, but not completely.

[08:59]

So we have lots of different kinds of fear. We have the fear that's helpful, the fear that's not so helpful. We have anxiety, we have phobias. And then we have what the Buddha describes as the great fears. And then there are the ways to meet the fears and to practice with the fears. So right now we're reading in the Blue Cliff Record about Master Ma and In the verse, one of the lines is about going down into the blue dragon cave. And actually going down into the blue dragon cave is going down to meet your fears. So your fears are your obstacles. And like any of the afflictive emotions,

[10:06]

The best way to be free of them is to study them and to look at them. To go down into the blue dragon cave and take a look. So fear is suffering. And I talked a little bit about suffering last time I was here talking with you. And so we can use the model of the Four Noble Truths to look at fear. So the First Noble Truth in this case is that there is fear. So then there is a cause of the fear. And like the other forms of suffering, the cause of fear is generally the afflictions of greed, hate and delusion. And especially the affliction of delusion, of feeling like you are a separate self, that is the basis for feeling threatened and feeling like you need to protect yourself.

[11:30]

And so then you can be afraid of things. So there's a cause of fear. There's also a cessation of fear by studying it. And the path to the cessation of fear is again the study of the fear. In the Heart Sutra that we chant in the morning, it says, with nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on Prajnaparamita. And thus the mind is without hindrance. Without hindrance there is no fear. So again, in the Heart Sutra it's saying the same thing, the hindrance of feeling that you are a separate self. Once that is gone, once the hindrances are gone, then there is no need for fear.

[12:33]

So without hindrance there is no fear. And, you know, as you know, it's not so easy to say, okay, I'm going to be free of these hindrances. It's something that you can say over and over, and it's something that you can practice remembering to help you with fear. And the paramitas, The first paramita is the paramita of giving. And the paramita of giving actually has three aspects. The first one is the giving of material goods. The second one is the gift of the Dharma. And the third is the gift of fearlessness. So, you know, what is the gift of fearlessness and how

[13:38]

is it given? How can we give it to each other? The bodhisattva's example is one way of not being afraid to go into places where there's suffering. But also, I feel like we can give the gift of fearlessness sometimes by just smiling at each other or coming to a Dharma talk. The gift of fearlessness can be given in many ways. Another of the paramitas is the paramita of heroic effort. The heroic aspect of that is Being courageous. A heroic effort.

[14:41]

To be a hero, you have some courage. So those are just some aspects of the Buddhist teaching that explain a little bit about how we can meet the fear that comes up in our lives. There's also a helpful book, at least I found helpful, Sherri Huber called The Fear Book, and maybe some of you have read it, but I just thought I would... She has six ideas, six sort of methods of meeting fear, and then she has a few questions, simple questions that you can ask yourself when fear comes up for you. And the first one is, you are not your fear. So even though fear arises with you, if you can separate yourself from the fear, if you can, sometimes I think it helps to write it down, if you can write down the fears, then you can separate those a little bit from yourself.

[16:01]

Because if something feels like it's part of you, then it's really hard to study it in a way. It's hard to be free of it because you think, well, this is me. I'm just afraid of this and that's how I am. But if you write down your fears on a piece of paper, it's a little bit less connected to you and a little easier. to look at. She also says, the stronger the fear, the closer you are to the truth. So I found that interesting. If you're really afraid of something, that you are really close to the truth, the truth What is the main, what is the big deal?

[17:11]

What is the big fear you have? She calls it the core fear. What is your core fear? Is it the fear of death? So anyway, the stronger the fear, the closer you are to figuring out what's that main fear in you. The third thing that she talks about are the other emotions might actually be fear. So if you have a strong feeling of sadness or anger, to look to see if there might be fear beneath that. And the question that goes with that one is like, what am I afraid of? And when we avoid fear like anything else, the fear actually gets stronger. So, as in aversion, weeds spread.

[18:16]

If you try to avoid the fear, the fear becomes more powerful. And She says, if you don't believe what fear tells you, your fear will become smaller. So the question is, is this true? So sometimes I think, oh, I'm afraid of this. I'm afraid of what might happen. And if I ask myself, is this true? If I question that it actually is true, the fear begins to shrink. And this is one that she said that I'm not so sure is true, but it says, a calm mind can't be fearful. To me, I feel like a calm mind can still be fearful, but less fearful. So I think meditation does help in calming the mind and in easing fears.

[19:20]

Some of you may know this place in San Francisco called Creativity Explored. It's a big art studio for developmentally disabled adults, and they have printing presses and ceramics and painting studios. It's really an amazing place. If you haven't been there, it's in the Mission. But this is a book that one of the artists that works there published. It's called Fears of Your Life. And he was 42 when he wrote it. But on the cover, there's a few things. There's a picture of a firecracker, a time bomb, a bat at night, a gun, a rattlesnake, a spider. The first part of the book is 138 different fears that he had.

[20:26]

And then the second part of the book is like 45 different scenarios, more like stories about times when he was afraid. So actually, the first part is things that you are very fearful of. And I just thought I'd read one page, maybe a little bit from another page, but you can sort of see it. It's sort of printed and numbered. So the first fear Fear of hospitals and needles. The second one is fear of school and dentists. Fear of black cats. Fear of monsters being under my bed. Fear of intruders coming into the house to steal things and hurt us all. Fear of going to jail as being punished for doing something very wrong and have to stay in for a long time. 6.

[21:27]

Fear of being followed. 7. Fear of dogs. 8. Fear of strangers. 9. Fear of time bombs. There's a lot of other really interesting fears in this book, which I won't read to you now. But the book sort of inspired me to think about fears fears of sashin. So I know our rohatsu sashin is coming up in a week and a half or so, and for some of us this might be the first time we've sat for seven days. For others of us we've sat seven days before, and it's still a little bit daunting. And so I sort of wanted to bring the fear idea to this machine, even though, because once I write it down, I can sort of see how it doesn't really, it's sort of like phobias.

[22:43]

It's sort of like not so much basis for the fear sometimes. Well, sometimes there is basis for the fear. I hope you don't mind if I read these. And some of them you might feel yourself, and I'm sure you can come up with other fears that you may have. We'll get to the courage part next, so don't worry if you have a lot of fears. We can get over it. The first fear for me is called sesheen fears. Number one, fear of pain. And that might be one that most everyone might share. Number two, fear of seven days. I think there's a story, someone asked Suzuki Roshi, why do we sit for seven days? And Suzuki Roshi said, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

[23:47]

That's the reason. Number three, fear of the wrong cushions. Number four, fear of moving. Number five, fear of not moving. Number six, fear of sliding off cushions. Number seven, fear of no windows open. Number eight, fear of sweating. Number nine, fear of long dharma talks. Number ten, fear of moving during dharma talks. Number eleven, fear of oryoki. And this one has a few sub-fears that come along with it. Number twelve, fear of dropping chopsticks.

[24:51]

Number 13, fear of many people taking seconds. Number 14, fear of setsu tip coming off. 15, fear of many people dropping chopsticks. Because I think most of you know, when someone drops their chopsticks, then the soku has to come and put it over the in sensor and then take it back. And meanwhile... Your knees are killing you. Number 16, fear of the soku not coming in to get the Buddha tray. This is something that's never actually happened, but I feel it's sort of like one of those phobias that I sometimes think, well, there's the Buddha tray. When are they coming in to get it? Number 17, fear of spilling the gamasio bowl. Number 18, and this is sort of specific to me, but maybe some other... Priests might feel like this too. Fear of not looking like a priest.

[25:52]

Number 19, fear of the Doan falling asleep. 20, fear of forgetting how to tie the knot. And 21, fear of death. So, in some ways, it's sort of light-hearted fears. And yet, sometimes it's sort of real. But then I wondered to myself, well, where does the courage come from? Where does the courage come from to come into the Zendo and sit for seven days? And I think it comes from Buddha nature. it comes from some good place where even though we have all these things that we might be afraid of, we still come into the zendo and we still bow to our cushion and we still sit down and we do our best to sit through any pain we might have or maybe no pain that we might have.

[27:15]

So now, I'd like to talk a little bit about courage. Courage is about doing something that you're afraid to do. But you sort of have to have fear in order to be courageous. So, for example, I can feel some fear when I come up and sit down here to talk to you. I can feel afraid. At the same time, I feel like I do it, and then I think, oh, that was courageous. I had courage because I was afraid to do something, and I did it anyway. So it's sort of like a seven-day sesheen. I might be a little afraid of it at the same time. I do it because I supported to do it, and I trust doing it.

[28:18]

But courage itself, the word, you know, core is like the Latin word for heart, which I found sort of interesting, that courage may have some connection with our hearts. And even just to look at your fears or to name your fears or write down your fears is an act of courage. So, you know, I used to be a teacher and we had these things called graphic organizers, which some of you may be familiar with, but this one I'm thinking of is two circles. So there's a circle here which has one sort of topic, let's say fear, and then this circle over here has another topic which might be courage. And then the circles come together and there's a little space in the middle where they overlap. So the fear circle, inside that circle, would be worry.

[29:25]

There would be self-concern, doubt, and holding on. And in the circle that has courage, there would be support, confidence, trust, and letting go. But as I said, I think I said, when they come together, there's a little bit of courage in fear and there's a little bit of fear in courage. So like I said, in order to be courageous, you have to do something that you're afraid of. And the little bit of courage that's in fear is the courage to look at your fears. And there's lots of different situations where you might be afraid and you might be wondering if you're going to be courageous today or if you're going to be fearful today. And I think a lot of it depends on the strength of the call that comes to you, that you're called to respond to.

[30:33]

And if it's a very strong call, oftentimes the courageous side will... win out. If it's not such a strong call, it may be more common that you might choose to stay with the fear. So I think the thing I wanted to get across is that courage doesn't mean that you're not afraid. It just means that you're willing to go anyway, even if you're afraid. So now the courage to practice. I feel like the life of a bodhisattva is a life of courage.

[31:35]

The bodhisattva vows that we say daily, I think, at least. Vowing to save all beings, vowing to enter all Dharma gates, end delusion and become Buddha. These are vows that take great courage. And so I think by saying them, it's developing our sense of being courageous. as bodhisattvas, that's sort of the practice of being courageous for all beings. The way-seeking mind that I talked about the very first talk, I think that what happens when the way-seeking mind arises with the Buddha mind, at that same point

[32:44]

courage arises so that the bodhisattva has the courage to help others before themselves. Then there's, of course, the courage to study yourself. Study the self is to forget the self. Study the Buddha way is to study the self. That takes a lot of courage. It's not so easy and It's sometimes easier not to study the Self. And to practice the precepts and the paramitas also. I feel like the base of all the practice is courage. In my Way-seeking Mind talk, I talked a little bit about some artists that I've been inspired by and one of them that you might remember me mentioning is Yoko Ono.

[33:56]

And I feel like I just wanted to describe a few of her pieces for you that to me are very courageous works and that have a lot of meaning and inspiration for the rest of us to be courageous. They recently, in 2002, had an exhibit of hers retrospective at the Modern Art Museum in San Francisco, which I got to see. And in it was this installation, a recreation of an installation that she did in 1966. And what it looked like is you walk into a room and There's like a 10 by 10 foot white platform, about maybe 10 inches off the floor. And in the center of that platform is a metal ladder. And at the top of the ladder, maybe a few feet from the ladder hanging from the ceiling, is a square piece of glass.

[35:06]

There's a little tiny black smudge, almost like a fly or something in the middle. and there's a magnifying glass hanging down. So what you do is you climb up the ladder and you can grab a hold of the magnifying glass and you can look at that little black splotch and it's a little word. And so I climbed up and I got the magnifying glass and I looked at the word and it says, yes. And it's amazing how encouraging that word is sort of like yes to life, yes to this moment. It doesn't mean that you always say yes. You could say no, but saying yes to what's happening, not resisting. I feel like it was a statement of encouraging us to be, and encouraging us to be

[36:11]

fearless with our lives. The other thing you may have seen, Yoko Ono and John Lennon did it sort of together, these billboards that were in different cities all over the world that said, war is over if you want it. And there was a billboard in San Francisco in 2002 that they had recreated. These originally were done in 1969. But that statement also, I feel like it's not just about the war in different countries, but it's about the war inside of us and the fear that's inside of us and that the war is over if you want it, which sort of gives us some power in a way. We're not quite so helpless to accept the war and the fear.

[37:13]

And I just felt like, wow, it's amazing how many people that reached, I mean, in different countries, and the idea of the war can be over. And the last piece of hers, she often will take out full-page ads in the New York Times. But this one was from 1983. And it said, Surrender to Peace. So it's sort of like the war is over if you wanted, but it's Surrender to Peace. There's courage in surrendering, and there's courage in being peaceful. Anyway, I don't know if you can see how these feel like courageous things to me, and how they've been inspiring, and that I feel like she's courageous because she's the one who's doing it, but I'm the one who gets to receive it, and we can all receive it

[38:40]

So I'm about ready to end my talk tonight. But before I do, I thought I would teach you a song that we could sing together. Now, some of you might know this song. It's a song I taught to my second and third grade class, the kids on the autism spectrum. And the reason they liked it, I think, is because it says the same thing over and over. The verses are very repetitive, but that's helpful in learning a song. But to me, this song is about courage that we have inside. And the song is called Peace Like a River. I don't know if anyone knows it besides Joe. You might know it. Does anyone else know? Ah, Maggie, you know it, okay. So anyway, the first verse is, I've got peace like a river.

[39:50]

The second verse is, I've got love like an ocean. The third is, I've got joy like a fountain. And then we repeat, I've got peace like a river. So, you know, you don't know the song. I'll sing the first part, and then the rest of the verses just sort of follow the same tune. It's not... too hard. So, here we go. I've got peace like a river. I've got peace like a river. I've got peace like a river in my soul. I've got peace like a river I've got peace like a river I've got peace like a river in my soul. I've got love like an ocean I've got love like an ocean I've got love like an ocean in my soul

[41:10]

I've got love like an ocean I've got love like an ocean I've got love like an ocean in my soul I've got joy like a fountain I've got joy like a fountain I've got joy like a fountain in my soul I've got joy like a fountain I've got joy like a fountain I've got joy like a fountain in my soul I've got peace like a river I've got peace like a river I've got peace like a river in my soul

[42:14]

I've got peace like a river. I've got peace like a river. I've got peace like a river in my soul. Sounded nice. Thanks. Oh, may we be joyful in our practice. May we feel the love of our practice. And may we feel joy in our practice. Did I say that already? May we be peaceful in our practice. And may we be free from fear and full of courage. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive.

[43:15]

Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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