This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. It's very lovely to have you here today. I'd like to begin by telling you my name is Laura. And why don't you, on the count of three, all whisper your names out loud, the children, okay? One, two, three. Very nice to have you here. I want to begin just by taking three deep breaths. So let's sit up straight and feel some power in our bellies and our backs. And we're going to breathe in and out. In and out.

[01:00]

In and out. And keep your eyes closed and just feel that peaceful feeling in your chest for a moment. And that's a feeling you can take with you wherever you go. So I want to begin by telling you a story. And this is a story from Africa. It's called The Monster Who Grew Small. So far beyond the third waterfall, there lived a boy named Miobe. And he lived with his uncle. His uncle was called the Mighty Hunter, the Brave One. But Miobe was afraid of everything, even his shadow. He was afraid of the sounds that the insects made in the thatched roof of his hut. And he was afraid of the sounds of wild animals that came to him in the night. And his uncle teased him about this. His uncle would scare him with stories about the wild animals that lay in wait for him in the forest. And so Miobe lived with this fear.

[02:06]

And one day, he was running along the path towards the village. And this was a place he was especially afraid of because the path ran alongside the river where the crocodiles lived. And as he was running along, he heard a little voice crying in the forest saying, please, please help me. Well, Miobi was very frightened and he wanted nothing more than to keep running, but he stopped and he had a little voice inside of himself that said, you know what it is to be frightened. Don't you think you should help? And so Miobi took a deep breath and he plunged into the darkness and deep in the shadows of the forest, he found a little rabbit. And the rabbit had gotten tangled up in a vine in the forest. So Miobe very gently helped the rabbit out of the vine, and he held the rabbit in his lap and petted her. And she looked up at him and said, you must be very brave to come into the forest all by yourself. And he said, that's where you're wrong, because my name is Miobe, and that means the frightened one.

[03:06]

And I'm afraid of everything. And the little rabbit said, what are you afraid of? And Miobe said, I'm afraid of the insects in the thatched roof of my hut. I'm afraid of the sounds of the wild animals. I'm afraid of my own shadow. So you can tell I wouldn't be very much protection for you, but if you'd like, I'll help you find your way back home. And the rabbit said something really surprising. She said, you can't show me my way back home because I live in the moon, but I'd really like to repay you for your help and your kindness. Is there anything at all that you want? And Miobe said, what I want more than anything is courage, but I don't suppose that's something you can give to me. And the rabbit said, I can't give it to you, but I can show you where to find it. Follow this road, and when you become frightened, look up at the moon and I'll help you. And she gave him a dagger. And a dagger is a short knife and both sides, or there's a blade on both sides of the knife. And Miobe tucked that knife in his belt and started on his way.

[04:08]

Well, the first thing that happened, of course, was he came to the place where the crocodiles lived. And he saw those crocodiles and he was just trembling with fear. But he looked up at the moon and he knew what to do. He held onto his dagger and he called out to the crocodiles, if you want to be killed, come and attack me right now. And the crocodiles were really surprised how frightened they were of this little boy. So he dove in the water, swam across the river and got to the other side. Now he's feeling a little bit braver, so he was walking along, singing to himself. And then he came to a clearing where there were some venomous snakes hanging from the trees. This is something Miobi was very frightened of, but he looked up at the moon. And he said to the snakes, good morning, honorable snakes. And they said, good morning. You look like a fine morsel. And he said, I'm just thinking, which of you shall I have the honor of being eaten by? And the snake said, what do you mean? And Miobe said, well, you can see I'm just a skinny little boy.

[05:09]

I wouldn't make much of a meal for both of you, but if you'd like to decide which of you will eat me, I'd be very honored. And the snake started fighting over who was going to eat the little boy. So while they were fighting, Miobe made his escape. Now he was feeling pretty brave. And so he was humming and whistling to himself. And then he heard the sound of lamentation. Lamentation is the sound of weeping and wailing and moaning and groaning. And he came into this village where all the people were crying and beating their breasts and the goats were crying because they hadn't been milked and a little girl had fallen down and skinned her knee and her mother wasn't even helping her. And Meobi didn't know what to think. So he went to the hut of the head man. And the head man was sitting with his legs folded and he was plugging his ears, his eyes were closed, he had ashes all over his face. But Miobe shook him and got his attention. What's going on in your village? And the head man said, well, we're all frightened to death because we're going to be eaten by the monster at the top of the mountain.

[06:12]

And Miobe said... To his own surprise, he said, well, if you'll show me where it is, I could kill it for you. And the headman said, that's very wise because then you'll get eaten first. You won't have to wait around to be eaten like the rest of us. So he took Miyobi outside and he showed them the mountain. And on top of the mountain was this huge monster. It was the size of three royal barges. The royal barge is the boat that the king travels in. So Miyobi took a deep breath, and he put his hand on his dagger. He started up the hill. He's running up. And the monster opened his mouth and breathed fire. And when that happened, Miyobi was very frightened. So he turned around and ran back down. But he had a very funny thought. He thought, that's very strange. The closer I got to the monster, the smaller it seemed to be. And so he thought, maybe if I just close my eyes. and run as fast as I can. I can get to the top of the mountain. So this time he closed his eyes and he ran up to the top of the mountain.

[07:15]

And when he got up there, he didn't see anything that needed killing. He felt something warm leaning against his foot. And he looked down and here was a little tiny monster with the head of an alligator, a crocodile, the body of a hippopotamus, and the tail of a snake. And Miobe picked up the monster, poor little monster, patted it, And he got to be friends with the monster. And he said, can I take you home? It'd be wonderful if you could light my cooking fire for me. And the monster said he would. So Melby walked down the mountain with a little monster in his palm. And all the villagers were cheering him as a hero. And a little girl, Melby said, I'm no hero. I didn't kill the monster. Here it is. It's right in the palm of my hand. The villagers were amazed to see this little monster. And a little girl said, what's the monster's name? And Miyobi said, I don't know, why don't you ask him? And the little girl said, Monster, what is your name? And the monster said, some people call me famine. Famine is when people don't have enough food to eat.

[08:18]

And he said, some people call me pestilence. And pestilence is when a lot of people get really, really sick. And he said, the most pitiable of human beings call me by their own names. But most people call me, what might happen? And that's the end of that story, which I think is telling us that a lot of times we're afraid of things that might happen. Sometimes those things don't ever happen. So I think all of us have some kind of fear. And one thing that really helps with fear is if you share it with another person. Would any of you children like to share something that you're afraid of? Want to tell us something you're afraid of? Are you afraid to tell us something you're afraid of? Yes. What are you afraid of? Monsters. Monsters.

[09:20]

Sometimes the closer you get to a monster, the smaller it is. Anybody else want to share a fear? Yes. What's that? Thunder. Did you hear thunder last night? In the storm? Yeah, what are you afraid of? Venomous snakes, yeah. Yes. Okay. Well, I want to invite you to try something. The next time you're afraid of something that might happen, I want you to notice that sometimes those things that we're afraid of that might happen never happen. So the next time you're afraid of something that might happen, try to notice if it doesn't actually happen, okay? Okay, so that's the end of my story. I think you're going to go do some fun things now. So children, thank you very much for being here. Again, welcome. This story, The Monster That Grew Small, is a story I share with my third graders every year.

[10:20]

And every year a third grader has some insight into this story that I never thought of myself. One of them was one of the children said, why does the little boy live with his uncle? What happened to his parents? Maybe whatever happened to his parents is what's making him afraid. And I love this one. One of my little boys said, if that man is such a mighty hunter, why does he enjoy scaring a little boy? And I love, one of my students said, I think when the rabbit's talking, that's the boy's heart talking to himself. And then, of course, they asked me, why does the rabbit say, I can't give it to you, but I can show you where to find it? So I think this story is sort of the hero's journey, the journey we all take, where we face our fear, we become intimate with who we actually are as we walk our particular path.

[11:21]

And there are five fears in Buddhism, the fear of death, fear of illness, fear of loss of reputation, Fear of unusual states of mind and fear of speaking in front of an assembly. I will say that some of us spent quite a bit of time seeking out unusual states of mind. And I have to add another fear, fear of being stuck in an airport with nothing to read. That's one of my fears. So... Actually, I think we each have our own flavor of fear, our own private fears. Maybe we have fears we've never shared with another person. In this story, the monster has many names, but for many people, it's the fear of what might happen. And I tell my third grade as a riddle, imagine that you're in a car and you're speeding down a mountainside and suddenly you notice the brakes don't work and the steering wheel doesn't work and, you know, what do you do?

[12:24]

Well, You stop imagining. So this reminds me of a wonderful phrase from the Hokiozumai, when erroneous imaginations cease, the acquiescent mind realizes itself. So I have all kinds of ideas about myself and about you and about the world and about what might happen. And often I forget that I've made a lot of this stuff up. These are often erroneous imaginations. At Zen Center recently, someone asked me about conquering fear. And I think if we think of conquering fear, right away we're in trouble because we're setting up a kind of dualistic battle with a very natural and very useful instinct. It's an instinct that's there to protect us. So there might be another way to practice with fear. And I think one way to do that is to pick it up and hold it in our hand. like that little monster and get to know it.

[13:27]

Fear can feel like a very painful separation between myself and other people, and even a painful separation between myself and myself. And I think that when we project ourselves into an uncertain future with some apprehension, we forget that when we enter that future, we'll be there with our practice, with our breath, with our previous experience, with our... dear friends to support us. We forget that we're not gonna be like a stick in the wind in that uncertain future. And if it's fear about a conflict or interaction with another person, we also forget that they'll be there too, and that we can't predict what their practice and their breath and their experience will bring to a situation. So fear is very real. as are a lot of strong emotions that we feel. And one thing that we can rest in, in the grounding of practice, in the grounding of our sitting practice, is to learn to stay with our own strong emotions and with the strong emotions of other people without having to distract ourselves with addictions of various kinds.

[14:46]

And I mean addictions in the broadest sense. Addictions to... habitual negative thoughts to shopping, to negativity, to technology, you know, to our cell phones. We can distract ourselves from standing on the brink of that fear. And one of the corrosive things about fear is it tips us out of balance We see things out of proportion and our own place in the world can be distorted through the lens of fear. We might take ourselves too seriously. We might have a kind of scar tissue inside of ourselves over the places in which we've been hurt. And if that's true, then we're much more likely to be triggered by things that are happening right now. Old feelings and fears can get triggered by rather benign things that are happening in the present moment. Often fear seems to be about the future, you know, about what might happen.

[15:49]

But I think regret is another kind of fear. We can look back and be afraid that we've made the wrong choices, that maybe we've hurt other people unthinkingly, that we've harmed ourselves, that we've made fools of ourselves. And fear about the future or about the past remove us from this present moment. And we narrow our vision and our possibilities and our imagination. Physiologically, when we're afraid or when we're angry, and often anger is just spackled over fear. At the root of anger, often there's fear. We hold our breath and our breathing becomes restricted. Our vision literally narrows. And we can shift into that reptilian part of our brain into fight-or-flight mode. Actually, it's fight-or-flight or freeze or faint are four of the possibilities that happen when we go into that fearful place.

[16:58]

And yet maybe all we're doing is deciding whether or not to talk to a co-worker who may have eaten the pizza that we labeled and put in the refrigerator. But we can go into this primal fear. So I love this book by Robert M. Sapolsky, his book, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. And he talks about how, you know, in the wild, a zebra who's being chased by a lion will run like a cat to try to get away from it. And then when the zebra's not in danger anymore, it just stops and eats some grass. And now if that was me, I'd be thinking, wow, that was a close call. tell all my friends about it, you know, my heart would be pounding, I'd be replaying that event over and over again in my mind. And this is where sometimes we lapse into erroneous imaginations and become, physiologically, it's as if that event is still happening. So, in the midst of a fearful situation, can I return to my breath?

[18:02]

I like to do this practice with children of taking three deep breaths And when I work with adults who say they don't have time to meditate, you know, we always have time to take three deep breaths. And so can I return to my breath? Can I step back and take a wider view? And it's really interesting to practice doing this in the midst of strong emotions like anger and fear. And maybe a little humor might sneak in there. We might even be able to laugh at ourselves a little bit. I used to be on the Ethics and Reconciliation Council at Sun Center and received some very helpful training in conflict resolution. And I don't know, if I'm around people that start yelling or I start to tremble, conflict can be very stressful and very frightening. And people can live in tremendous fear and stress rather than approach a conflict with another person.

[19:05]

And this... Procrastination really only fuels the resentment and makes that monster get a lot bigger than it really is. It heightens our apprehension when we're avoiding conflict, and our storytelling goes into overdrive, our erroneous imaginations about ourselves and other people. And I think maybe one of the things that keeps us procrastinating about resolving a conflict is is there might be a sneaking suspicion that we might have to see something from someone else's point of view, that we might have to let go of our tightly held concept of what this conflict is about. We might have to even own up to our own part in a conflict. And I've come across this helpful phrase, a grievance story, that when we're in conflict with another person, we start telling our grievance story to a lot of people. first to our close friends and then to people in elevators, you know, about the ways in which we've been wronged.

[20:13]

And when we do that, the story shifts a little bit and we become Mother Teresa in the story and the other person becomes, you know, the big bad wolf as we tell this story. And in conflict resolution, we're asked to think bigger. You know, the professional conflict resolutors that I've met, they love conflict because it's a great opportunity for us to have curiosity and open up to one another. So, you know, I've learned from that that we can hear about another person's experience without losing anything, especially if we enter into a conflict resolution with an open heart and an open mind. and try to develop a compassionate curiosity about the other person's point of view rather than staying trapped in our own fear. So this feels like widening the circle of compassion around ourselves and other people.

[21:14]

You know, I've heard it said that fear and faith can't occupy the same space. Fear and faith can't occupy the same space. And as practitioners, this might simply be the faith in our intention to live this very moment, to respond to what is arising right now with an open heart, rather than dwelling in regrets about the past or dwelling in fear about this monster that we imagine. Very early in my practice, I... ran into an old friend of mine, a woman named Debbie, who'd been my best friend in fourth grade. And she had started practicing Buddhism, and we just talked all night about Buddhism when I ran into her up in Davis. And she had a three-by-five card on her refrigerator, and it was a quote from Dogen Zenji, our great ancestor who brought Zen from China to Japan.

[22:24]

And he was a... Zen master and poet lived in the 12th century. And what it said on this 3x5 card is, to have faith means to believe that one is already inherently in the way and not lost, deluded, or upside down, and no increase and no decrease and no mistake. And I read those words at a time in my life when I was really confused and... and really in despair about life. My life had taken me into some very dark places. And when I read that, I realized that every single thing that I had done, the things I thought of as failures, as mistakes, the things that I was ashamed of or embarrassed about, all of that is the Dharma. All of that is my path. Nothing was wasted.

[23:25]

Everything. in my life brought me to the front of Debbie West's refrigerator reading those words by Dogen Zenji. And these words have heartened me because when I do feel fearful or lost or confused, I remember that this is all the Dharma. And this kind of faith returns me to my vow to live a life for the benefit of all beings. Our bodhisattva vow is to live and be lived for the benefit of all beings. And I can see that whatever obscures my ability to help other people, whatever plunges me into that all-too-human self-centered fear, whatever erodes my ability to vivify this vow moment after moment, is something I can practice with and work with. And I think at the same time, if we hold up a new set of expectations for ourselves, where we're supposed to, well, we're practicing now, so we're never supposed to get angry or feel negative, or we're supposed to always be peaceful and never fearful, this is setting up a standard that we will fail over and over again.

[24:39]

So another way to practice with fear is just to open up to it. and to approach that monster and notice that it gets smaller the closer we get to it, and hold that fear in our hand, like Miyobi did, and investigate it. You know, open our hearts to this soft sadness inside of ourselves and get to know it deeply, to make friends with it, and even to appreciate our own vulnerability. See our old friend fear when it arises. So some questions we can ask ourselves when fear arises is, what is it? What is this? We can say it out loud. We can share it with a trusted friend. Is this a reasonable fear? Is this fear telling me that I'm neglecting something that I need to attend to? Sometimes that feeling of impending doom is impending doom.

[25:45]

And we can actually do something about it. Or is this an old fear from the past that I can now afford to discard? Maybe this is really old news and I don't need to feel this fear anymore. Is my imagination working overtime? Am I projecting myself into an uncertain future, forgetting that I'm going to be there with myself when it arises? And when erroneous imaginations cease, I can ask myself, what is erroneous? I can make a... a practice of doing what I suggested to the children to do, to notice when I'm apprehensive about something and notice when that thing I was so afraid of never happened. Someone I know went through a very difficult time, which was the unexpected death of someone he loved. Overnight she died, and she was young. She was in her 40s. He said to me, you know, you spend all your life worrying about things that never happen, and then something happens that you wouldn't have imagined in a million years.

[26:53]

So why worry? You know? We will still worry, but that was a very wonderful koan for me to practice with. And at the same time, we resist things and fear things that are actually inevitable, like getting older and losing friends. We're afraid of illness or failure. afraid of dying. Woody Allen said, I'm not afraid of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens. You know, so all these things will happen to us, but they're never quite the way we imagine them anyway. A friend of mine has been visiting her mother in her assisted living residence, and she said to me, you know, my mom is okay with where she is right now. She's 97 years old. She's limited somewhat in her in her abilities, but she has her friends in this residence and they have each other and their daily activities and they're all right with it. And that has helped ameliorate my friend's apprehension about getting older.

[27:57]

So the quality of our life in this moment, the way we live right now, affects the way we deal with these things when they occur in the future. You know, how we attend to this moment and how we face what arises with courage and and a sense of humor, will affect the way we're able to confront the future. So if we live our life fully, and if we vivify this vow to live an awakened life, then we'll be there for ourselves when the future happens. And when fear arises, instead of resisting it or doing battle with it, I can open to it, breathe into it, stay with it. And I can think, here it is, my old friend fear, Maybe fear has something to teach me today, because that's true too. Sharing our fear with another person makes it smaller, and in sharing our vulnerability with each other, we give one another a gift. This vulnerability is what makes us human, what makes us, you might say it's what makes us lovable.

[29:04]

You know, in that song by Leonard Cohen, he said, there's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. So fear can make us feel so alone, but if we rest in our sitting practice and open our hearts, we recognize that we share this fear, this anger, this frustration, whatever it is, we share this with all living beings, the whole human race, the whole animal world. And according to Soviet experiments, the plant world too, that plants also feel fear. And when we feel fear, we can reach out in our hearts and in our actions to all other suffering beings and open our hearts to anyone in the world, we may never meet them, with anyone anywhere in the world who's feeling this painful aloneness right now. Children experiencing the ravages of war, people in every conceivable kind of pain,

[30:08]

populations right now fleeing their homes, trying to find refuge, mothers and fathers suffering because their children are ill, our own loved ones and their struggles, people trapped in a painful cycle of addiction. And we can breathe in their pain and fear and breathe in their suffering and the darkness and breathe out light and joy. You know, I think of that wonderful moment in that story where Myobi stopped in his tracks and his heart told him, you know what it is to be afraid, shouldn't you help? And this is our bodhisattva vow. You know, we know what it is to suffer, to feel pain. And we felt the rawness of that as we sit with ourselves in the presence of other beings. And in that sitting practice, we can... share unlimited joy, limitless love, limitless compassion, and limitless equanimity with all beings.

[31:17]

So thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[31:49]

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