I recently finished "The Four Agreements," by
Don Miguel Ruiz. The book itself is amazingly succinct and insightful. Though it angled from the Native American tradition, I found it interesting how so much of the thinking traveled directly on or closely parallel to Zen Buddhism. It took me about three hours to read (some of which was spent hi-lighting and writing in the margins). His work has giving me quite a few streets and avenues to travel, one of which was his discussion on "fear."
The impact of his words and the mental connections that it has produced has influenced me to write about "fear," in parts and sections. This is mainly because I find it so pervasive and ingrained into our psychology. There is probably a lot we need to talk about. Though I have no formal outline and plan for where it will go, I figure it's best to "just let it flow," and see where this leads us. I hope that you will offer your experiences, insights, thoughts, notions and solutions. I always find looking through others eyes helpful.
Ruiz states, "
fear is a parasite that gives nothing but takes everything." Fear is something that finds its way into us in various forms, contaminating not only our bodies, but thoughts, feelings and spirituality. Ruiz goes even so far to directly state that it is fear which may have some greater or lesser impact in inducing states that might appear like a type mental illness such as depression, etc. He states that fear can be so "intense" or extreme that it can influence a person to retreat deeply into themselves, causing isolation and live within a dream world that it can be extremely difficult to leave.
Looking back over my shoulder, there are many things that I have feared. Oddly some I didn't really notice until I starting writing on this today. I put them various categories. Some are in my circle of influence, while others are in my circle of concern and largely out of my hands to effect.
The large ones are very easy to see. When I was a child it was the disapproval of my parents. Later I learned to fear my father on many levels. From his alcoholism to anger and violence after having a stroke, in his younger days. I have fears over my mothers health, since she's getting on in age. I learned to fear death when two of my friends died in separate accidents when I was 11 years old. That fear had gotten only worse when I lost my grand mother to whom I was very close. There's the fear of not being a good husband and father. There are the medical fears when you children, family or friends are diagnosed with a disease.
The medium sized fears where always visible, but these where the things considered to be the "healthy" fears. Are the kids passing with the "right" grades. They can't get into school without the "right" grades. Am I making the right marital and parental decisions. Will I get fired in this weak economy? You know there's always someone after your job. How will I pay my bills with the sky-rocketing oil prices. Am I acting in such a way that people close to me still love me? If I don't conform will they leave me.
The small fears, where subtle and very difficult to see. They are like phantoms. There one minute and gone the next. The fear of forgetting something that seems trivial. Not getting something done on time. Not getting the right picture. My computer code not being neat enough or efficient. I think of things making a wrong turn down a street and not getting somewhere "on-time."
On top of this we have people/organizations who are directly attempting to inject fear into our consciousness. Examples are a couple of summers ago, there was a shark attack in Virginia Beach, VA. Then there was one in Florida. All of the sudden, cable stations dedicated hours and hours of coverage on "Shark attacks." It told people to fear getting into the water, because you where going to be eaten. In truth there's a better chance that you won't make it to work alive than dying by a shark bite, but you still see people going to work every day.
The new version of the shark attack, over the last couple of years is what I call "Brown." By this I mean Hispanics, Muslims, THose from India and people of African-American decent. Hispanics are "leaping over the boarder and going to capsize America, lets put up a wall. Muslims want to kill the infidels (I think that's us). What ever part of your job can be exported to India will be and they are hurting our way of life. You need to give up your constitutional rights, because the threat is so big. And African-Americans are a little to uppity. You might take note of how the press is playing the Barack Obama campaign. They are basically boiling down to race and saying, "look at how those blacks are sticking together to get their guy in." The message is obvious. Fear those whose skin tone appears different.
And in the end if all of the above does it get you, remember that you can always fear the "unknown." That boogie-man that is out there somewhere with some sort of trap, waiting to take us down.
No matter what category or label that's used, "fear" seems to lead to only one thing. I call it the "fear-based lifestyle." It's stunning to trace back and see what a dominating role fear can play in our day-to-day life. When Deb and I talked a little bit about this, she said, "we live in so much fear and then wonder why we are sometimes messed up."
So this appears o be the problem. Do you find it true or false? What are your own experiences? Do we agree on the fact that we have been using so-called "fear," as a part of the keystone and foundation for our life?
The next posts will focus on what might be solutions to living in the "fear-based lifestyle." As I said before if you have thoughts, experiences or suggestions, feel free to post your comments.
Namaste,
Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO
Labels: Thought For The Day
