Zen teachings about fear are also teachings about ego. The masters of this philosophical discipline say that if the ego had an engine, fear would be fuel. For them, in reality, you can’t make a great inventory of fears; these are reduced to only three and relate to our “I”.
From this point of view, all the fears felt by human beings have two well-defined roots: attachment and ignorance. Attachment makes us vulnerable because it involves setting the mind, emotions and desire into something external. Of course, this is a first form of fear: to lose what we are attached to.
- Ignorance.
- On the other hand.
- Plunges us into a state of uncertainty and doubt that facilitates the appearance of fear.
- The inability to accurately recognize risk or danger and understand how to deal with it leads us to be overwhelmed by insecurity and fear.
Zen teachings on fear say that there are three subtypes that arise from these two fundamental roots. They’re next.
“The source of all our fear comes from our own uncontrolled minds and illusions. “- Bouddha-
The first of Zen’s teachings on fear says that the most fundamental fear of the human being is that of losing life, we identify the loss of life, basically, as the loss of the body, we are physical beings and this is our most basic reality We inhabit our bodies and the fear of losing it is the fear of ceased to exist.
This fear is equivalent to fear of death. However, death is not just the complete completion of our organic functions. There are also, so to speak, other scales of body loss on the road to death. For example, you may lose skills, youth, normal body function, or yourself -image.
Zen teachings on fear say that the fear of losing life can disappear through the body itself, this fear is physical and, if it is extinguished from the body, it also comes out of the mind, what we have to do is respond to the sensations Then breathe using your abdomen, calm your heart rate and relax your muscles.
The fear of losing ourselves is also what can be called fear of change, we come to believe that we are what we are used to being, the activities we usually do, the spaces we occupy every day, the people we see every day. Base.
We are so used to seeing each other so we feel a strong fear if the context changes and we are exposed to novelty, that is when there is fear of getting lost, not knowing what to do or how to act. a kind of fear of diluting, not diluting.
Zen teachings on fear emphasize that fear can also be eradicated through abdominal breathing exercises. From this perspective, the abdomen is the source of courage. They say it is from him that the “roar of life” is born, that is, our tranquility and our courage. It is advisable to take a deeper (abdominal) breath when you feel this type of fear.
In general, we call suffering to everything that causes extreme stress in the nervous system, producing an unpleasant and agonizing sensation, which involves deficiencies, limitations and frustrations or unmet desires, can be very intense and, in these cases, invades and paralyzes us. other aspects of our being.
The way to overcome the fear of suffering, according to Zen teachings on fear, is to work on our spiritual growth, when we put ourselves in a perspective where everything that happens to us is an opportunity to evolve, the fear of suffering gradually disappears. It’s about seeing physical or emotional pain as a passing thing that helps us improve.
Zen teachers say that suffering is a phenomenon that is in the mind, each person gives a positive or negative meaning to the experiences he is living, so it depends on how much he is willing to suffer, as a result, the fear of suffering increases. or decreases.
These Zen teachings on fear remind us that it is we who feed fears or work to block them, the greatest food of fears is imagination without information, in addition to resisting natural changes and life cycles, finally, there are inevitable situations and as much as we are afraid, or however much we avoid them, they will always catch up with us.