Sila and the Practice of Working With Fear

This is a combination of two talks presented by Barbara Brodsky in 1991.

Barbara: In a personal sense and in our work in the world, we want peace-a world where all beings have the opportunity to live without suffering. Yet rather than peace and joy, suffering often grows from our actions and words. If we want peace, why do we end up with disharmony? What are the roots of that disharmony? How can we live our personal lives more skillfully?

Many of us are involved in one area or another of social change that may lead us to direct confrontation with those of differing viewpoints. Such meetings sometimes lead to an escalation of anger rather than to deeper communication. Can we engage in active participation as forces of change in the world without creating more anger?

I don't believe disharmony must accompany personal expression or change, but to lovingly create communication and change takes honesty, courage, awareness and commitment. How can we use our meditation practice to begin that work and to allow the compassion and joy in ourselves to shine through?

One of the most beautiful words I know is "ahimsa". This is often defined simply as non-harm, but its meaning goes much deeper. Ahimsa carries with it the determination not to violate the essence of another being in any way. Gandhi taught that the essential ingredients of ahimsa are truth and compassion. Truth is impersonal and must come from beyond the egocentric self. Compassion is our natural response to the experience of truth. Ahimsa is a dynamic expression of compassion. It acknowledges responsibility for action, speech and thought, and also for failure to act or speak. It is a way of being with the world that grows from full awareness of non-duality and emptiness of self.

No matter how determined we are to act in a loving way, fear arises when we feel threatened. It seems natural to wish to protect ourselves. Even when we aspire to act lovingly and skillfully, fear leads us to give an opposing message. We offer love but also defend. Defense brings a solidified self and heightens the illusory separation into self and other. Yet it is possible to act and speak with egolessness and non-separation that lead to harmony, even in the presence of fear.

We know we can't will away fear and the armor it creates around the heart; we can't demand the heart to open. When we notice fear, we often judge it and then unconsciously choose to suppress it, or we mask it with anger, shame or other emotions. That doesn't dissolve fear, but only buries it. The possibility of reactivity to fear is still there.

The situation is still more complex. Multiple motivations prompt most of us. Given the intention to do no harm, we see that motivation for action and speech may come partially from a space of nondual awareness which offers infinite love and compassion and also from a place of separation, and judgment of that separation. The first is a place of openheartedness that gives, speaks and acts with joy and love, with no sense of duality giving rise to the need to defend. The second is a judgmental place that says "I should". "I should" notes fear with disdain rather than compassion. We see that motivation does seem to matter in terms of the outcome. When we determine to practice generosity, truthfulness, lovingkindness and so forth even though "I should" is what prompts it, there's often a constricted quality to that action or speech which is subtly felt by all concerned. Again, we can't will away judgment.

We feel confusion, because what we perceived as well-intended actions or words become distorted. We may lack awareness that the force of fear, greed or anger also shaped what flowed from us, and then we're surprised when our act or speech escalates tension. If we do see the constriction of fear, we grow to feel "I must act only out of love. I must do away with ego." Then we heighten fragmentation and duality as we try to get rid of fear.

Then what do we do with the voice of fear? Nothing, but to know it when it's present, and know our discomfort with it! It's not fear that is the obstacle to compassionate action and speech from an open heart, but our relationship to fear. Fear is a symptom of dualistic thinking, not a cause. The path to skillful action doesn't lie in dissolving all fear but in learning to be present with it without reactivity. This may seem a mammoth job but it's truly the core of all our learning, to replace aversion to fear with loving, compassionate acceptance. We don't "get rid of" ego, fear or anything else. It dissolves just as it arose, when conditions no longer demand its presence.

Fighting fear solidifies ego. When we relax and just note, "here is fear," then it may begin to dissolve itself. There is a beautiful Buddhist teaching, the Bhayabherava Sutra, in which the Buddha wanted to meditate at a haunted forest shrine but was afraid. He says, "I asked myself to sit with the fear and dread and allow the experience of it until it dissolved itself." Just that; that is what we do. My experience has taught me we can move past reactivity to fear when we have awareness of its arising and greet it with acceptance and with compassion for ourselves. Such awareness and acceptance can grow out of our practice.

Gandhi spoke of "satyagraha," a force of love that lies within each of us. That strength is available to us only from a place of an open heart that notices fear without allowing it to lead to separation. Then the individual with a differing viewpoint is not seen as an enemy but as a partner in growth and compassion. An open heart that allows continual perception of nonduality is the doorway to communication. It can only be arrived at by loving acceptance of fear or whatever else arises in our experience.

When we're aware of fear as it arises, it no longer controls us. Then, instead of fear leading to reactivity, we can just be present with it, acknowledge it and smile to it. Something wonderful happens when we do that. Fear ceases to be a condition that leads to anger or greed and becomes a reminder for compassion. Until we have compassion for ourselves and our own fear, can we move beyond judgment of other people's fear and be truly compassionate?

As we practice this, it can effect both our everyday lives and our larger actions in the world. By way of example, I'd like to tell a story.

In the sixties I spent a lot of time working with human rights. This was before I'd begun any formal insight meditation practice. One day I was one of four participants in a sit-in to integrate a restaurant in a small town in the southern United States. There had been several such attempts in prior weeks; each was met with increasing violence. We all knew the risk of participation. Of course we had some fear.

We four spent all night in a small local church, surrounded by loving people, each of us coming to as deep a level of honesty about our egos and fears as was possible. We each knew that there couldn't be ego in this action, nor pride nor need to prove ourselves. Such ego solidifies the self. In any moment where violence needs only a small flame to start it burning, ego becomes the spark.

In late morning we were driven to the restaurant, entered and sat down. We were a middle age black couple, a young white man and myself, also white. The place was empty except for the manager and ourselves.

Outside we could hear angry people gathering. We sat at the table for some time, hands joined, and together seemed to reach a readiness to meet this crowd. Each of us had come to a space of deep inner peace, of acceptance even of the possibility of death. I know we each felt acceptance for our own fear and loving compassion for those who were threatened by our presence.

It is this love that Gandhi spoke of as related to satyagraha. Inherent in satyagraha is a refusal to harm another but a firm enough belief in one's own understanding that one is willing to take responsibility for provoking another's anger. One accepts one's role as a partner in creating that anger, asks forgiveness but allows oneself to remain in the other's path. With the heart open and loving, fear acknowledged and accepted, there is no more judgment of self or other. In fact, that illusion of duality falls away. Neither is one right or wrong. With freedom from the illusion of self, a tremendously powerful force is generated. I'm not naive enough to think it will always protect the body, but with that openhearted compassion and emptiness of self, our actions are free of adhering karma. We cannot be harmed in the deepest sense, nor can we harm another, as any action or speech will grow from a space beyond self and other.

We walked to the door, still holding hands. Standing in the doorway, fear arose again as I watched that sea of angry faces. People held pipes and bricks. How could one not be afraid? But we had all learned deep lessons of non-duality through meditation, prayer and mindful participation in many such demonstrations. We saw our fear and were not frightened by it. Love is a more powerful force than fear; the habit of love held strong.

Somehow the crowd could feel it. As we walked out, arms dropped to sides and people stepped back. We walked through the crowd and I looked into so many eyes, saw so much fear, pain and shame, but also dawning respect, not just for us but for themselves. There was no separation there. It was not our victory nor their loss. It was all of our victory over the forces of fear and hatred in ourselves, all of our joy and all of our pain.

I'm not telling this story to hold myself up with pride as anyone special. Around the world such action is repeated a thousand times a day, people moving beyond fear, to touch those who would hurt them with love instead of hatred, and thereby to transform myriad large and small encounters. It is action for which we all have the capacity within us. To find that capacity, we must first learn compassion for our fear and heavy emotions. We begin by working to understand how these mind states arise.

Central to the teachings of the Buddha is a natural law called Dependent Origination. Put in simple terms, for something to arise, the conditions for its arising must be present. When conditions are no longer present, that which has arisen dissolves. Understanding the process of how things arise and dissolve isn't mere intellectualization but is vital to our lives. It's a keystone upon which we may begin to act more skillfully and to free ourselves and others from suffering.

Let's look at the process by which we move to any emotion, painful or joyful. What really happens when we feel anger, desire or even bliss? I'm going to focus on a small part of this chain of dependent origination. In doing so I hope to give you a tool for more accurate observation of the process by which we move into the experience of aversion or craving.

To experience anything, first there must be contact of sense to the sense object, then consciousness of that contact. For example, our eyes touch on the object of sight; we're not separate from that object but participants with it in the act of seeing. In this way we become aware of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. Within "touching," we may experience a tightening in the belly that's the first physical signal of fear, or a sense of expansion of the heart that may be the physical sign of joy or bliss. We also become aware of mind touching mind object, thinking.

We label the experience-hearing a cough, seeing an angry face, or if mind was the sense that made contact, perhaps knowing or understanding. At this stage we are perceiving what the senses have contacted. Notice that there's still no attachment or aversion. We're in neutral. Physical sense is in a nondual experience with sense object. The contact is in this moment. How could it be elsewhere? Just hearing, seeing, knowing. We have no opinion about it as yet. Can we remain there, just seeing, just knowing? What pulls us away?

We humans tend to want to categorize things. Perhaps it's our way of attempting to control our environment and feel safe. So we move from the direct experience of this sound or that sight to old concepts about it. "What is this?" Is it 'good' or 'bad'? What shall my response to it be?" Thus, response doesn't grow from direct experience with this contact, but moves into old associations.

As perception of that which the senses have touched draws in old memories, can we know we're now "remembering," and pulling in old likes and dislikes? With remembering that is unnoted, perception moves unaware from "seeing," seeing an angry face, to old memories of verbal or even physical attack from those with angry faces. Knowing "remembering," we can consider, has discomfort arisen just from this bare experience of seeing or from old experience, from what we call conditioned mind?

This period of movement from neutral contact is the instant we call the active moment. At this moment of sensation we may stay in neutral or move from neutral to positive or negative, feeling dislike of the angry face perhaps, or tasting that sweet desert and liking it. If we are aware of how old memory filters present perception, what effect does that have upon this movement?

Move to "like" or "dislike" doesn't come all at once. There is comfort and discomfort, which are not the same as like and dislike. The sweet dessert may be delicious, and bring memories of soothing and comfort; we ask, is "liking" for the sweet taste itself or is it liking of being soothed and comforted? Do we crave more sweet dessert or is it more comfort we seek? A surface may be hot and lead to a sensation of pain. Is the dislike of the "touching," or of the discomfort of burning and pain? At what are we angry, the hot stove, or the discomfort and fear around the burn? As our minds penetrate experience more fully, can we follow the whole process, moment by moment? If we remain in the present moment there is just comfort or discomfort. Or if "like, dislike" arise because of the strength of the comfort or discomfort, then there is just "liking" or "disliking." No self need solidify around it. What pulls us out of bare experience of the present? Lack of awareness of these shifts and arising memories pulls us out.

With awareness we may stay in neutral and experience equanimity, without reactivity even to the like or dislike that has moved through us. With unaware movement to "like" or "dislike," we cease to relate just to the present and move into all of our memories, prejudices and opinions about what has arisen. Then we move to mental formations such as "aversion" or "craving". This movement from contact to mental formation happens in a flash so we may not see the steps and know it as the result of all our past conditioning. Without awareness, we crave the sweet and hate the hot stove; we hate the angry face and are ready to do battle with the one who wears it, and we haven't even met that person yet!

What comes next? Do we get into a fight with "angry face?' Can we hear his/her anger and fear? Can we hear our own? What has arisen? Is there aversion, fear and judgment, or is there compassion? Where is the doorway to compassion? When there's strong emotion and we can see how it arose with some clarity we have much more choice. We don't have to react to emotion or to suppress it; we can just be compassionately, nonjudgmentally present with it and watch. There is so much more spaciousness to our experience.

It seems important to understand that it's not the emotion that causes the intensity of our discomfort, but our relationship with the emotion. To have inner peace doesn't mean we never feel, only that we are at peace with whatever arises. It is quite possible to almost simultaneously experience anger and compassion. Our compassion is not only for another but for ourselves. It is the judgment about our anger that separates us from the deepening of compassion and from our true natures. Can we be present with anger without hating that anger? When we hate our own anger, that's just more hatred. How do we change that relationship? How do we begin to find equanimity with emotions?

I'd like you to try an experiment with me. Please sit up as if to meditate and close your eyes. We'll take a short journey.

Visualize yourself on a mountain top. The view is spectacular, range after range of jagged peaks fade into a distant purple haze. The sky is clear, almost cloudless, the air pure, deep blue. The sun shines warm on your back; a soft, cool breeze caresses you. On a rock nearby, a marmot sleeps in the sun. Small wildflowers lodge in nearby sheltered crevices and their scent is in the air. Feeling warm, you take off your jacket and leave it with your pack on a rock near the trail, then climb a little ways to a still higher spot with a rocky seat that beckons. Sitting with that view in physical comfort, you feel deeply peaceful and connected to all that surrounds you.

In the sky behind you is one very large cloud, a low and heavy one. Your back is to it and you don't notice it as you concentrate on the view spread out before you.

Suddenly, with seemingly no warning, that cloud has drifted in and engulfed you. It blots out the sun. It's dense; you can't see your hands in front of your face. It's cold and very damp. A chilling wind blows. You think longingly of your jacket but realize with a sense of rising fear that you can't see it, nor the trail, and have little sense of how far away that trailhead might be. To move even a short distance is to risk getting lost. You also have no sense of how long the cloud will be there; already it seems forever.

Allow yourself to experience any fear and discomfort to which this experience leads you.

Do you feel you want to push the cloud away? Watch any dislike of it; notice any struggle with it.

Is it hard to just sit in it? Where has that peace gone?

Can you see how suffering arises as you so badly want to change your situation? Sit silently with it for a few minutes.

Now let's send that cloud back to the horizon and come back to the first scene, same view, same sunny day. Leave your jacket and climb on up to this lovely perch. As you settle on your rock this time, you notice a cloud in the distance, just one cloud in an otherwise clear sky but it looks dense and low. You wonder if it's drifting your way.

For some time you sit, absorbed in the view, enjoying the sun's warmth, feeling a deep and peaceful connection with your surroundings. Remembering that cloud, you turn to look over your shoulder. You notice its shadow drifting over the landscape and note its movement. It is moving your way; it looks like it will pass here in a few more minutes. It's large and will probably blot out the sun for ten minutes or more. It may even carry rain.

You realize that it will be cold without the sunshine. You climb down to get your jacket, knowing it may be difficult to find in heavy fog.

After a moment's reflection you climb back to your rocky perch, confident that the cloud will pass and you'll have no problem finding the trailhead again.

Here is the cloud. It is dense. You can't see your hands in front of your face. The accompanying wind is cold and you zip your jacket, grateful for its warmth.

You briefly miss the sun and view but are aware that this is not an endless cloud; ten minutes and the sun will return.

Can you feel a difference from the first cloud experience? Is there a struggle with this one? Is there fear?

Are you able to sit within it and just be present there, to investigate its cloudness?

How does it feel to sit on a mountain top in a dense cloud?

Is there even some enjoyment of the experience?

Do you feel that your connection with the cloud is no different than your connection with the sun, the view, the marmot and flowers?

Can you still feel the peace you sat with several minutes ago?

It's not the cloud that created your suffering but your relationship with the cloud? What changed that relationship from one of fear to one of peaceful acceptance? Awareness! Can you see that?

Unwholesome mind states don't spring up out of nowhere, but appear when the conditions are present for their arising. We can't prevent heavy emotions from arising nor get rid of them by forcing them away. The gentle light of choiceless awareness allows us to observe the arising of conditions that, in the past, have led us to reactive patterns of aversion or attachment. Then we have a choice. We're no longer pushed into reactivity. Even sitting with anger or desire and feeling the pain of those states, we can still be peaceful, just as you may have experienced with the second cloud. It's our full presence with openhearted attention that finally provides some measure of liberation from reactivity to unwholesome mind states. And only from that opened space can we move into even deeper levels of nondual understanding.

Let's return to how this process of deeper awareness can work in our lives, looking at an angry face. Eye and face; seeing. Then we perceive what we're seeing, seeing an angry face. If we're in the present, there may be discomfort but there's no aversion. It's just an angry face.

We may remember the past experiences with such faces and how they led to unpleasantness. We move ahead and imagine, or back and remember, a difficult encounter. At this point we're likely to move from feeling neutral about the angry face to feeling negative.

Fear may arise as we perceive that we may be hurt. Fear is the mental formation.

That mental formation becomes the new consciousness. We feel the tightness in the belly that says "fear," and identify it. For the first moment we're neutral, then we feel its unpleasantness and move to negative.

What moves us to the mental formation of anger? Is it the external provocation (the angry face) or our aversion as we experience remembered pain? Can you feel the difference? If we had felt acceptance of the original fear, and equanimity with that, and been able to stay in that moment, just experiencing fear, would we have moved on to anger?

Of course our answers to that will vary in different times and situations. It's essential to investigate the process for yourself. What do you see?

What does anger feel like in the body? We identify it, don't like it, and may move to aversion to anger. Seeing that aversion, judgment may arise next-"I shouldn't be angry," or rage, "He shouldn't make me angry." The same process works with the chain of experiences which lead to craving.

We all do this over and over. Until the conditions change, we can't stop the constant arising of emotion. How do we begin to gain some freedom from our habitual patterns of reactivity, and to find peace that remains with us regardless of what arises?

I've called the moment of staying in neutral or moving from neutral to positive or negative the active moment. Let's look deeper at that moment.

When we always react to the same catalyst in the same manner, we set up patterns of reactivity. Our acts and words become reactions, not mindful responses. Each time we react, the pattern becomes more deeply ingrained. When we're mindful of what arises, looking with nonjudgmental, choiceless awareness at what's really there, we may find we have far more choice than we thought. That light of awareness can change our relationship to what we experience.

Seeing the arising of fear and its accompanying anger or greed, we can feel the emotion and still be neutral, just observing it. What is the experience of fear? What leads us to aversion to feeling it? How does aversion lead to wanting to retaliate? How does emotion separate us from feeling peaceful?

Stubbing a toe isn't pleasant but it doesn't make us want to cut off the foot. We've all had the experience of that kind of pain and of just being present with it, loving the injured area rather than hating it. It's no different than the parent who kisses a child's injury to make it better.

What makes us want to get rid of the angry or greedy part? Why is that energy so painful? Can we watch how the whole process moves in ourselves, solidifying self, leading to separation from ourselves and others, giving us something to kick back against?

As we watch this process with more awareness, we notice the movement from neutral to negative as we experience pain. At that time we can make a decision, just this time, to watch even that move to negative without judgment. Feeling anger. Feeling aversion to anger. Just that. Neutrality to feeling aversion. Nothing we need to do about it. We can "invite it in for a cup of tea" as one teacher suggests, or "smile to it" as another recommends. We can't get rid of anger or greed by denying it or hating it. Compassion grows from an open heart, not one closed by fear and judgment.

When we stay in neutral we establish a new pattern. The next time that provocation to anger or greed arises, will we have a different response? We can notice that we greet it with increasingly less fear. We have less struggle to change or fix it. We plant new seeds of loving acceptance.

How does this effect our acts and words? May I answer that by sharing another story?

When I first was involved in non-violent direct action, I was just eighteen. We were picketing somewhere. I'd promised to be physically non-violent but I didn't really know what nonviolence meant. My promise was easily-made because it was only that I would restrain myself against striking back.

I was picketing in a place where there'd been no previous violence. A man who was a little drunk and feeling belligerent approached me. He pushed me, slapped me, not hard enough to do any real damage, but enough to scare me. As he pushed, I fell to the ground and protected my face as I'd been taught. He kicked at me, again hurting my pride more than my body, mostly taunting me.

I lay there on the ground, not hitting back but hating him,. I felt so much fear and anger. It wasn't just anger at him but at my own response. I'd promised to be non-violent, to be loving. Where was all this anger coming from? Finally people pulled him off. His final words were "I'll see you next week if you're not too scared."

Scared? I was terrified, not of him but of myself, of the potential for violence I suddenly saw in myself. I explored that fear during the week, but the next Saturday the same scene repeated itself and the same fear and anger arose.

We played this out week after week-a little stage show. We had an audience gathering on Saturday afternoons, coming to expect our little drama! Each week I lay there hating him, hating myself. But I was supposed to be loving and nonviolent! What does that mean? Where do compassion and lovingkindness originate?

I began to see the roots of my anger, that I wasn't angry at him for pushing or kicking me but for reflecting my own helplessness and rage so clearly. Slowly I found some compassion for myself, lying there trembling on the ground. I began to allow my anger, to see that even with that anger I didn't have to retaliate. I started to respect myself for that.

I saw the anger masked fear, not of being hurt because he clearly wasn't going to really hurt me, but fear of losing control. Anger was also a way of feeling safe, moving into the old dualities of right/wrong, good/bad. If I was "good" and he was "bad," then I didn't have to explore my own potential for violence. I could just safely blame another. As I opened to those fears in myself and found acceptance of them, I also began to relate more openly to his fear. Suddenly instead of an opponent I saw a mirror of myself, a being suffering and filled with fear.

Then it stopped being his fear or mine and was just fear. As I found the ability to be present with my own anger without judgment, I could also be present with his, no longer his or mine, just anger. There we were, doing this dance together. I felt my heart open in compassion for us both.

The first time I felt this it was like walking from dark shadow to bright sunlight. I lay there on the ground, feeling his feet against my head and ribs, and suddenly I loved him. I'm NOT saying there was no longer anger, but it was more just the continuing reverberations of anger in the body, taking their time to fade away. Simultaneously, there was loving acceptance. There was no more judgment, just two people feeling fear together. A world feeling fear together! As my heart opened with acceptance, most of the anger dissolved. There wasn't anything left to fear.

You know our bodies do give off loving or frightened energy. As that change occurred in me, he felt it. For weeks this had been a wordless encounter. Suddenly he stopped and spoke. "Why do you keep coming back?" Our eyes met for the first time. He even offered his hand and helped me to my feet.

The door of communication had been opened. My acceptance of my own anger had helped him begin to accept his emotions. We went off to a small restaurant to talk together, the two of us and several of our friends. With the barriers of judgment lowered we were able to really hear each other. Yes, it was hard and took work, the work of constantly noting the arising desire to defend. For the first time I heard their fears about losing their jobs, not being able to support families. For the first time they truly heard and considered our views. Most important, we were no longer adversaries but participants mutually seeking an acceptable solution to a painful dilemma.

Communication grew once that door was opened. In a constantly expanding group, we began to meet regularly to talk. Rather than posing as two opposing forces, we drew together, a group of people, each with their own concerns, working together to resolve our fears and pain.

We can choose to plant seeds of acceptance, lovingkindness, generosity, and compassion. We can never do so by suppression or self-condemnation, only by the gentle but piercing light of honest, nonjudgmental awareness. We begin with awareness of the process by which it all arises and dissolves.

Look at this process in yourself, not just with the big things like rage but with small irritations and wants as well. Can you identify the active moment, that instant of choice where awareness can open the door to acceptance and compassion? Can you find some acceptance of your own emotion, with mercy for the being feeling that discomfort? Can you watch judgment arise and treat that in the same way?

As we watch this whole dance we start to see that anger or greed isn't who we are. There's also kindness and acceptance. We have space in our hearts for it all. Choiceless awareness of the fear or other heavy emotion allows us to plant a very different seed, to stay in neutral and just watch what arises without judgment. We find potential for joy and peace in our choices. We cease to fear the experience of fear and defend ourselves from it.

Then effort for change no longer grows out of "I should." Finally we begin to greet the difficult situations in our lives with an open heart, to end the war with all that arises in our experience, to be peace. And we find that this peace never needed to be attained. It's like the sun that's always shining. We have just allowed the storm clouds to dissolve, stopped holding them in place through old habits and beliefs of our solid self, beliefs of limitation and brokenness.

Use every moment of your experience to watch, to be present, and the storm clouds will shatter. Truth will emerge, radiant and beautiful. It begins with this breath!

Copyright © 2000 by Barbara Brodsky