For a long time Zen students have come and talked to me and told me that they are afraid. Recently that has been happening quite frequently and I was invited to give a talk today and I was I was thinking that I would talk about fear and terror. May I? Sometimes when people tell me that they're afraid, I ask them how they want to practice with the fear.

[01:27]

Sometimes they tell me they want to get rid of it. If they ask me how I want to practice with fear, then I say, I see fear as a great opportunity to practice compassion. a great opportunity for great friendship. And then I received the question, well, how do you practice compassion with terror?

[02:49]

with fear, with anxiety. And as many of you know, I say, well, come it. Welcome it. Welcome fear. Welcome anxiety. Welcome terror. I believe that that is the beginning of the path of peace, which I wish to support. Welcoming doesn't mean liking the fear, and it doesn't mean disliking the fear.

[03:54]

People say, does that like accepting? Yes, it's like accepting. It's not necessarily going looking for it, but more like being ready to welcome it, whether you can see it or not. Sometimes we're feeling fear and we don't know it. Sometimes we do know it. In theory, it's always present in our unconscious and in our body. We have vast and rich complex cognitive processes which are on guard and vigilant 24 hours a day, watching to see, are things okay?

[05:01]

Is that sound a problem? Is that movement a problem? When we're asleep at night, even in a happy dream, or even in dreamless sleep, our unconscious cognitive processes are picking up data from the body, analyzing it, not analyzing it, associating it with other situations and come into conclusions about whether it's okay to let the person continue to sleep. Sometimes the process says, nope, time to wake up. And then we become conscious that there's some, perhaps, danger. But sometimes it says, you can keep sleeping for the time being. But it's always going on watching to see. It's part of our body-mind process.

[06:07]

Even when we feel relaxed and joyful, another part of us is watching to see Are we safe? So I do not feel that fear is something to try to get rid of. That would be like trying to get rid of your body. But it is something to be kind to. I feel. In this short life I've had, I can't think of an example where I regretted being compassionate to my own fear or other people's. And again, I start with, okay, I'm here to be your friend.

[07:15]

You can be here. I still may feel afraid, but I feel my feet are coming to the ground, my abdomen is opening, I feel centered. I'm ready to live with it. It feels better than running away from it and having it behind me or over to my left or my right. or am I right or am I left? So that's how I start. Then I consider how to practice ethical body, speech and mind activities in relationship to it. Looking at the bodhisattva precepts,

[08:17]

which guide into how to relate to this fear. Don't deny it. Don't say bad things about it. Don't try to kill it. Don't try to get some other state than it. Don't numb yourself to it. Don't numb myself to it. Notice that there's a tendency to try to wonder, when is it going to end? Or where can I go to get away from it? And again, if there is any of this unskillful responses, then those are not fear, but they also are calling for compassion. The attempt to get rid of fear is another being that's calling for compassion. The attempt to numb oneself with alcohol, drugs,

[09:21]

and so on. The attempt to use sexual activity to distract yourself from fear. Like, for example, the fear that someone doesn't like you. That someone doesn't approve of you. Maybe you could use sexual energy to get them to approve of you. Watch out for all those ways of basically not being friendly to the fear at hand. and acting in speech and thought and posture in ways that distract you from the friendship, from the deep compassion for the fear, which is asking, the fear is asking for compassion. And then be patient with it, which for me basically means watch out for wondering when it's going to end, or thinking about how long it's been going on, and be with the present fear.

[10:29]

And again, it still is painful. It's still difficult to be completely present with it. But when you get to the present with it, you'll find that that's the coolest place to be with it. in various meanings of cool. Matter of fact, that's where the hip term cool came from. People that were present in the street in the midst of fear, they were showing how to be there in a non-violent, ready-to-be-friendly way. The word cool did not come up, you know, out in the woods. It came up in the urban fearland.

[11:33]

We can be cool, not cold, cool with the fear. Feel it warmly in your gut. Coolly observe it with compassion. And then we practice enthusiasm, enthusiasm for being compassionate with the terror. Enthusiasm for the peace that is realized in the middle of the terror if we practice compassion with it. It's so good. to be able to find peace and freedom in the middle of terror.

[12:43]

Think about how good that is, how much it helps all beings if we realize that. And think about it until you feel energy to do the practice of compassion with the fear. And aspire to being able to do that moment after moment, eventually, through training. Even when we get spun around and flipped in the air, be able to remember the name of the game is compassion. And with all that, if you do those practices, if we do those practices together, and if we support each other and receive other's support to do these practices, then we can do this amazing thing, which is possible, which is to relax in the middle of fear.

[13:47]

But without the preparation of these compassion practices we don't trust that we can relax. And in fact relaxation might turn into negligence rather than diligent, thoroughly diligent relaxation. And then with relaxation there can be playfulness with the terror. And with playfulness with the terror we can be creative with the terror. And when there's creativity we'll understand the terror and be free of it. And there will be peace. As I often say, the ancestors have taught Buddhas are sitting in the middle of all beings.

[15:21]

All the different types of beings, Buddhas sit in the middle of them. And that's where we sit, too. Buddhas sit in the middle of fierce flames. And they turn the wheel of Dharma there. They face the flames and all around them with compassion. or facing the flames all around with compassion, that is Buddha's. And they are aware, there's an awareness that in these flames there is danger, in this fear, in the fear, in the terror, there is danger.

[16:31]

and also in the terror there is opportunity. Opportunity and danger are forms of possibility. It's danger of harm is the possibility of harm. The harm has not yet occurred, but it's possible. The opportunity also is the opportunity of something beneficial. So in the fear there's both of these, danger and opportunity. And there's this wonderful Chinese compound which is made of two characters. One character is danger and the other character is opportunity.

[17:37]

When you put the characters together, the meaning of the compound is crisis or turning point. Fear is a turning point. It's a crisis. There is a danger and fear of slipping into unwholesome responses. That is a possibility. Becoming distracted from wholesomeness in the face of fear is a danger. But also there's the opportunity of not getting distracted by the fear, to remember to practice with it. It's a great opportunity and it's a great danger. And those are not separate. They're not pulled apart. They're turning on each other all the time. And the opportunity to practice skillfully with fear, generously,

[18:50]

carefully, patiently, diligently, playfully, creatively, that opportunity is the opportunity to realize that the fear is very closely related to beauty. And beauty is very closely related to truth. So in the fear, there's beauty and truth. It's there for us to realize. But in order to realize it, we can't skip over the fear and jump into the beauty. But the beauty is right there. It is actually the fear when we practice compassion with it. And it's not just beautiful.

[19:52]

It's the truth as it appears to us. The truth appears to us as the beauty of fear. The beauty of fear is already there. But we have to be there completely for it. And if we're not there completely, we close the door on the beauty, somewhat, and the truth. And again, it takes compassion to endure this terror and open the door to beauty, creativity, and understanding the truth. This is what Buddhas are sitting in the middle of.

[20:59]

This is their practice. The director just walked by. Then he walked by again and came in the room. Where is he? Yeah, so there's the director. But he didn't walk by because he thinks he doesn't have to practice anymore. He knows he's practicing and he's being diligent. He's practicing diligence, trying to take care of many things respectfully.

[21:59]

While he's being diligent, taking care, he's trying to remember the Buddhas sitting in the middle of all beings, not leaning into them or leaning away from them. And all over Marin County and Sonoma County, people are practicing diligently, trying to take care of living beings with compassion. Each of us is being called to practice compassion.

[23:42]

It's our responsibility. And we are calling others to practice it too. Calling others is our responsibility also. It's possible that what I've said is sufficient.

[25:43]

Is there anything you want to express verbally? Yes? Thank you, Guruji. It would be very helpful to hear, to put together a Zen story from your life of how you practiced this compassion for fear. A teaching story for us. The first one that comes to mind is from about you know, I guess it's from about more than 30 years ago I was at Green Gulch and I was the abbot of Zen Center

[27:05]

And people were discussing the Abbot of Zen Center and how much longer the Abbot of Zen Center should be the Abbot of Zen Center. And I heard a little bit about the discussions that were going on when I was not present. And I felt, I could say I felt anxiety or fear. I don't think I thought of, I wasn't in touch with it being terrible. But probably part of me thought, this is terrible. And this feeling of anxiety was kind of like flying around me like flies or gnats.

[28:21]

Kind of annoying and quite uncomfortable. And I just kind of invited all of it to come into my stomach, into my gut. And I felt, OK, I'm here. This is my life. And I felt ready to... I wasn't being pushed around anymore by the fear of whatever people were saying or whatever changes they were going to make at Zen Center and my life. I was just feeling all that possibility and all that fear right here at the center of my body. And I was, yeah, that was a very strong sense of this is how to deal with it, with the fear.

[29:24]

This is the best place to feel it, not up around my ears, but in my gut, at my center. I really felt full of life and fear in the gut. And I still appreciate that way of practicing with these, the fears that are all around, you know. Okay, okay, that's fine. Now don't try to push them away. Just welcome them to be, to be completely, completely include them. Thank you for your invitation. So I don't know about other abbots, but that abbot was able to feel fear. Yes?

[30:29]

Just one second. I'm having a little trouble hearing you. Unless you come up close. Yeah, I could come closer. I could hear you better. I once read a book. The author also commented on how to face fear. And his suggestion is, I think, is faith-based. All these are past. So when I hear your teaching, I wonder, is there... That should be considered a bit of pushing away, or there's a subtle difference. So could you describe a little bit more the faith-based way of meeting fear? Yeah, the light. All these are paths. Fear is first. All this will pass? I would welcome that way of talking, but that's not the way I practice.

[31:36]

I try to avoid that statement. You know, just let it play in the sandbox. I don't get into this will pass. That I think is, that statement, this will pass, is something to be compassionate towards, that statement. Because that statement is like, it's the statement of children. When you tell that to children, it will pass. But didn't Buddha also say, talk about impermanence? Yeah, he did. But you don't use impermanence to avoid impermanent things. You can use impermanence as a way of not dealing with impermanence. You can use the teaching of impermanence to not deal with impermanent things. The Buddha wants you to look at impermanence, not use impermanence to not notice impermanence. So, patience is compassion. And compassion doesn't think about this is going to end. Compassion doesn't say this is going to go away.

[32:40]

Patience doesn't say this is going to go away. Patience is to be there with the pain. And patience does not make the pain go away. The pain goes away because it's impermanent, not because the compassion doesn't make things change. It helps you be with things that are changing. And if you're there with them, you will realize impermanence, rather than hearing about it, and then using impermanence as a way to get away from impermanence, using the teaching, the words, Like I just heard, I'll try not to get into the whole story unless you ask me to, but the teacher said to the group, you understand the idea of X, but you don't understand the function of it. So you understand the idea of impermanence, but you don't understand the function. The idea is not supposed to take you away from the function. The function of impermanence is to be with reality. So the pain will change, but thinking about the fact that it's going to change or that it will pass can distract me from my job, which is to deal with it.

[33:54]

It's asking me, it's not asking me to say, oh, you'll change, see you later. It's saying, would you be here with me now? And don't think about how long I'm going to last. Just be with me here now. Be with me, and if I change, be with me And if I don't change, be with me. Of course I'll change, but if I look like I'm not changing, don't go away from me. So some people go visit people in the hospital who are sick and they say, I'm here and I hope you get better. And if people don't get better, they say, I'm leaving. If you don't get better, I'm not going to stay here. If I'm going to stay here, even if you don't get better, So, yeah. When you said faith-based, I thought maybe you could say, you know, like, oh, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, please be compassionate to me. That could be a faith-based thing, too.

[34:56]

But being compassionate to me means be with me so I can do my job. Help me be here with this. Be compassionate to me so my karma doesn't distract me from being here with this pain. Because you don't do it by your own power. You don't, by your own power, make yourself able to stay present. So it's okay to ask for help because the people you're asking to help, they want you to do your job. That's also faith. But it's faith to do the job, not faith to, like, this will pass. So... It seems like fear has a built-in aversion, like you'd like to get rid of it. What about lust, things you want? How do you practice with... Yeah, shame, shame. ...spring it into your ectomy?

[35:57]

Well, it's basically welcome the lust. Lust wants compassion too. Lust isn't saying, hello, please destroy me. It's saying, would you please welcome me? And then be careful of it. Because it also is another crisis. There's a possibility of unwholesome, there's a danger of unwholesome responses to it. But there's also the opportunity to have a wholesome response to it. Like that story that I quote in Being Upright of this monk who's being supported by this matron to meditate all day long. I think she brings him food, too. And so she wants to test his compassion. So she sends this girl who is full of sexual desire to him to see how he deals with her. And he doesn't lean into the lust.

[37:03]

He leans away from it. He's cold to her. He doesn't welcome her. He says, welcome, let's have some tea. That's From the point of view of Buddha, that's equally off the mark to be cold to someone or some feeling of lust. It's equally missing the point as like leaning into and indulging it. Of course, it's less scandalous from certain points of view. But from the point of view of compassion, it's equally a tragedy. And, yeah, when Suzuki Roshi first came to ... Suzuki Roshi was a warm person. And in Japan, I think, people understood his warmth. They knew his warmth was compassion, it wasn't lust. And they understood him correctly.

[38:05]

But when he came to America, American people didn't necessarily understand his warmth as warmth that wasn't associated with lust. And they responded unskillfully to him. In some cases. And so I think he kind of felt like he had to be less warm for a while. And I think it really hurt him. Hurt his heart to have to act in a way that people couldn't possibly confuse as something other than compassion. And I don't know exactly how long it took, but shortly afterwards, his wife came from Japan. And then she made things clearer.

[39:09]

and he could open his heart again. And there was no further, almost no further examples of people misunderstanding his great compassion as something, some side road. But it's very painful to have to turn it off like that monk did. He turned off his warmth to be a pure monk. Yeah. And what did the matron do? And the matron, when she saw his cold response to this young woman, she kicked him out of his meditation hut and burned it. She did not want him to indulge in sexual misconduct with her He wanted him to indulge in great compassion, and that's what she was supporting him to do, and he didn't do it.

[40:18]

His own purity was more important than helping this girl find some peace in the midst of her flames. That's a first. The first time somebody picked up my hearing aid battery and gave it to me. I'm glad we're here to witness it. Yes. So there's a fear that has an object attached to it. We perceive with our senses. It's called physical fire. And it seems when a fire is approaching, we know how to react, and we know when time has come when we need to stand up and leave the zendo, and practice takes us elsewhere.

[41:35]

For fear that is objectless, that's outside of ourselves, and I think maybe clinicians would call it anxiety, that is amorphous and sometimes pervasive. So for example, the sense that the world is burning. How do we discriminate between when we should take our practice outside, and how do we discriminate when our ego is telling us that, or when that is right action to take that path? Well, what you're bringing up leads my consciousness back to what I said earlier, which is that the fear, even if the fear has an object, but also there's a fundamental fear that does not have an object, which is the fear which is beauty, and it's fear of the truth. The truth is not a visible object.

[42:39]

It's our actual relationship with each other. So the most fundamental fear is the fear of how the whole universe is supporting us. And we're supporting the whole universe. That's not an object. That's our actual life. That's our actual relationship with all beings. And If we realize that truth, which comes to us initially in beauty and fear, then we act spontaneously in the appropriate way of walking out of the zendo, or perhaps not walking out of the zendo, when other people walk out of the zendo, and do something else. Like Kadagiri Roshi told the story, when he was at Ehechi, and there was a great Zen master there that he was studying with. There was an earthquake, and everybody ran out of the, I think it was the Buddha hall or the Dharma hall.

[43:45]

Everybody ran out, which is like, you know. And all that running could have come from some really deep realization. He didn't comment. But sometimes running out of the Zen door is the right thing to do. But one old monk who people didn't think too much about stayed in the dharma hall and shuffled slowly over to the altar and put the candle out. And then he came out after everybody else. So, you know, there's that side too, you know. It's not to criticize those who ran out, but in some sense they didn't necessarily notice that there was a flame in the room. And when, you know, the earthquake and the candle falls over them. So part of the theory is that when you realize the truth, you will still leave the zendo sometimes, but sometimes you won't. you'll do the thing that realizes the actuality of the situation and you'll do something that will be most appropriate.

[44:55]

And it comes from realizing a truth which without training we cannot, we're too afraid of. So when we're little babies we actually kind of feel that overwhelming interdependent support in both directions. And we need a lot of support to stay alive in the face of that. We're very afraid and we get a lot of help, a lot of compassion with our fear. And then we gradually close the door. on that truth. And then we learn language and then we hear a way to open to it again. So the theory of this teaching is we can be helpful before we realize the truth. But realizing the truth, we can be more accurately responding to the truth because we have actually entered that relationship.

[46:02]

And fear is part of the price of admission to realization of the truth. And realizing that truth, we will be free and creative. And being creative is part of realizing truth. It isn't going according to rules about what's, you know, like, you should leave the Zen door now according to this rule. That's the rule, but I think I'm going to stay and put that candle out. Or... You don't figure it out. It comes from the realization. So we're constantly doing things, but there's an opportunity to do things from the realization of truth. And again, the realization of truth, I haven't heard of it coming to anybody in our tradition without going through a field of flames or without sitting and learning how to deal with the fear.

[47:05]

All the ancestors have had moments of fear and anxiety and they have found, with the help of their friends and teachers, they found a way to sit with it and face the fear and see the beauty of that and realize the truth. And then they have They built temples and planted trees and put out fires and built bridges and visited sick people. But it was from a place of wisdom rather than their idea of, just their idea of what is the appropriate response. Which we, again, don't get rid of our ideas. We practice compassion. I mean, we have the opportunity to practice compassion. And people in this room do practice compassion with their fear. They do.

[48:07]

You do. However, you may not always do it. You may sometimes miss some opportunities to be present with the fear. Which I swatted away. that may happen. But then that's another thing to be compassionate about. Another situation is, I actually, I told Dr. Chu last night, she came back from a real hard day taking care of a lot of people who were having a hard time in her family. You know, her mother's 102, her brother's

[49:08]

really, really ill. Her niece is about to have a baby any day by induced labor so that she doesn't get too stressed by the birth. One of her step-grandsons died a couple weeks ago. And she's just taking care of a lot of people. And she said to me, how are you feeling? I said, well, you know, I'm actually feeling this... I'm feeling actually kind of uncomfortable with this wind and this power outage. And... Yeah. And I've heard that maybe Green Culture is going to be closed.

[50:18]

So the Dharma talk I was going to give tomorrow probably won't happen. Or maybe, no, I was after... I've been asked to maybe give a Dharma talk in a different venue to the residents. And I've never given a, well, yeah, I've never given a Dharma talk on a Sunday morning when we were closed, just for the residents. And it doesn't seem so bad. It wasn't so bad, was it? Right? It wasn't so bad. It was okay, yeah. But it was unusual. And I said, it's just unusual. I've never seen anything like that before and I'm kind of uncomfortable with it. So they said, my body is kind of like going, is this okay? This is strange. To give a Dharma talk on Sunday morning to the residents and

[51:20]

Just part of my system is kind of like, is this okay really? And I was kind of like, yeah, I was noticing this. Kind of surprising. Seemed like that would be easy, but part of me is going, but it's unusual. How was it for you? Was it unusual? Yeah. Were you looking forward to it? Was there a little bit of uneasiness? Some were, some weren't. I was really happy. Some happy, some were worried. Anyway, this worry is another great opportunity and danger. Thank you so much. Thank you. May our intention of anything expand to every beginning and place. May we get the truth that it comes, but it doesn't sway.

[52:25]

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