fear and meditation

Discussion of meditation in the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions.
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Johnny Dangerous
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fear and meditation

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

You hear about this anecdotally (and it appears obviously in the story of Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment, etc.), curious of people's opinion:

Are significant meditative experiences often, or even neccessarily accompanied by fear (leaving out where they fit chronologically for now), and if so, why?
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

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Jesse
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Re: fear and meditation

Post by Jesse »

Johnny Dangerous wrote:You hear about this anecdotally (and it appears obviously in the story of Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment, etc.), curious of people's opinion:

Are significant meditative experiences often, or even neccessarily accompanied by fear (leaving out where they fit chronologically for now), and if so, why?
Im not entirely sure what you mean. What sort of experiences, there's quite a few possible with meditation. I've never really experienced fear except in one way. The first and only time I lost total bodily awareness during meditation, there was a distinct fear of dying, or losing myself in some way. Most meditative experiences I usually find are relaxing or neutral.
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SeeLion
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Re: fear and meditation

Post by SeeLion »

I feel fear is caused by clinging. So any experience related to overcoming clinging may involve fear.

Any other experiences shouldn't contain fear. But on the other hand, we have a lot of clinging. So I guess, fear is expected to be common.

But probably most important experiences are related to understanding reality, right view. That should dispel fear, I think.
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Re: fear and meditation

Post by Wayfarer »

I think fear can certainly come up, but it is only one amongst various - how shall we say - 'guises of Mara'. After all fear is basically aversion/hatred and so it is an ubiquitous feature of ordinary life. So for sure when you go into meditation and start seeing into the various aspects of your being that haven't seen the light of day, then fear is something that could come up. I don't think it has happened a lot in my practice, but I can easily imagine that it could.
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Re: fear and meditation

Post by Redfaery »

It depends on what you mean by "fear." I've never felt afraid in the sense of expecting harm to come to me, but my most profound experiences have left me quite literally trembling in awe.
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Re: fear and meditation

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

I found some of my own handwritten notes from a Dezhung R. lecture where it said that the reason we are told the deities are our own mind is because if we do not think of them that way "they can become demons".

What I understand about my own notes is that the experience of the deity is so shocking that if we do not embrace it as being our own nature that we can misinterpret the experience as an attack. I can imagine that being terrified of your own nature would be like being afraid of your own shadow, not matter how fast you run you never can escape it. Not a fun scenario.
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Re: fear and meditation

Post by Herbie »

Johnny Dangerous wrote:You hear about this anecdotally (and it appears obviously in the story of Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment, etc.), curious of people's opinion:

Are significant meditative experiences often, or even neccessarily accompanied by fear (leaving out where they fit chronologically for now), and if so, why?
Fear of loss and fear of death ... but not necessarily. If one has conditioned oneself to accept impermanence and achieved certainty of death i.e. that it may happen any moment then there is no fear.
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Re: fear and meditation

Post by Jesse »

smcj wrote:I found some of my own handwritten notes from a Dezhung R. lecture where it said that the reason we are told the deities are our own mind is because if we do not think of them that way "they can become demons".

What I understand about my own notes is that the experience of the deity is so shocking that if we do not embrace it as being our own nature that we can misinterpret the experience as an attack. I can imagine that being terrified of your own nature would be like being afraid of your own shadow, not matter how fast you run you never can escape it. Not a fun scenario.
That being; a self appearing where there isn't any? Of course it's shocking. If you externalize parts of yourself you can lose control of them. We create a selfhood where there is none, it's not much of a matter to think more selfs can be created and viewed as demons.
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Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.
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Re: fear and meditation

Post by Vasana »

Johnny Dangerous wrote:You hear about this anecdotally (and it appears obviously in the story of Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment, etc.), curious of people's opinion:

Are significant meditative experiences often, or even neccessarily accompanied by fear (leaving out where they fit chronologically for now), and if so, why?

Meditation shines a light on the interdependent links of our tendencies towards grasping and aversion,indulgence and suppression, acceptance and rejection etc Since our innate-grasping at our identities is routed within these, any threat to their continuity makes the sense of " I" feel insecure of it's existence and place in the universe, hence the very natural possibility of fear arising. We have a self-concept that we grasp at in gross ways and in subtle ways and so any threat to the self-concept is naturally unconformable. Mediating on, and with prajna, our afflictions and maras, which are the only real cause for fear ,are made more apparent and so we meet with the resistance of fear.

You light a candle and simultaneously become aware of it's light but also of the remaining space that still appears to be in the dark.
The path to fearlessness is directly via fear. The path to certainty is through uncertainty.The path to wisdom is through the unbinding of our subtly-cherished confusion. For us, no escape :jawdrop:

How to relate and deliberately utilize Fear is spoken of in more detail in Machig Labdrön's Chod system i believe.
Confess your hidden faults.
Approach what you find repulsive.
Help those you think you cannot help.
Anything you are attached to, give that.
Go to the places that scare you.
Pema Chodron and Lama Tsultrim Allione both approach the topic of fear in ways which are a lot more accessible as introductions on the nature of fear.
'When thoughts arise, recognise them clearly as your teacher'— Gampopa
'When alone, examine your mind, when among others, examine your speech'.— Atisha
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