Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through The Storm

by Thich Nhat Hanh

The only way to ease our fear and be truly happy is to acknowledge our fear and look deeply at its source. Instead of trying to escape from our fear, we can invite it up to our awareness and look at it clearly and deeply.

Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones. The first part of looking at our fear is just inviting it into our awareness without judgment. We just acknowledge gently that it is there. This brings a lot of relief already. Then, once our fear has calmed down, we can embrace it tenderly and look deeply into its roots, its sources. Understanding the origins of our anxieties and fears will help us let go of them. Is our fear coming from something that is happening

When we understand that we are more than our physical bodies, that we didn’t come from nothingness and will not disappear into nothingness, we are liberated from fear.

Even if the Buddha were sitting right here next to you, he couldn’t give it to you. You have to practice and realize it yourself.

If you’re afraid of what other people might think of you, it comes from that same place. You’re afraid that if others think negatively about you, they won’t accept you and you’ll be left all alone, in danger. So if you need others to always think well of you, that is a continuation of that same original fear. If you regularly go shopping to buy yourself new clothes, it’s because of that same desire; you want to be accepted by others. You’re afraid of rejection. You’re afraid you’ll be abandoned and left alone, with no one to take care of you.

One of the first things we can do to soothe our fear is to talk to it. You can sit down with that fearful child inside and be gentle with him or her. You might say something like this: “Dear little child, I am your adult self. I would like to tell you that we are no longer a baby, helpless and vulnerable. We have strong hands and strong feet; we can very well defend ourselves. So there is no reason why we have to continue to be fearful anymore.”

I believe that talking to the child like that can be very helpful, because the inner child may be deeply wounded, and the child has been waiting for us to come back to her. All her childhood wounds are still there, and we have been so busy that we have had no time to go back and help the child heal. That is why it’s very important to take the time to go back, to recognize the presence of the wounded child in us, to talk to him and try to help him heal.

And the future you constantly worry about is nothing other than a projection of fear and desire from the past.

Much of the fear, anxiety, and anguish that we experience is there because the inner child has not been liberated.

Our memories can cause us real suffering, both emotionally and physically, even though they are not happening in the moment. When we recognize that we have a habit of replaying old events and reacting to new events as if they were the old ones, we can begin to notice when that habit energy comes up. We can then gently remind ourselves that we have another choice. We can look at the moment as it is, a fresh moment, and leave the past for a time when we can look at it compassionately.

If we are well grounded in the present moment, we can look skillfully at the past and learn from it without being sucked in and overwhelmed by it.

So I gave him an exercise to practice for one week: “Breathing in, I see myself as a five-year-old child. Breathing out, I smile to that five-year-old child.”

Unconditional acceptance is the first step in opening the door to the miracle of forgiveness.

If you breathe slowly and mindfully, in and out, deep and slow, while you say these remembrances to yourself, it will help you look deeply into the nature and roots of your fear. The five remembrances are: I am of the nature to grow old. I cannot escape growing old. I am of the nature to have ill health. I cannot escape having ill health. I am of the nature to die. I cannot escape death. All that is dear to me, and everyone I love, are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them. I inherit the results of my acts of body, speech, and mind. My actions are my continuation.

The Buddha taught that when we call up and get in touch with the truth that we cannot escape old age and death, our fear—and the foolish things we do to try not to feel it—will cease.

If we are attached to obtaining more and more wealth, fame, power, and sex, we lose our freedom.

Invite your fear into consciousness, and smile through it; every time you smile through your fear, it will lose some of its strength. If you try to run away from your pain, there is no way out. Only by looking deeply into the nature of your fear can you find the way out.

Our consciousness is like a circle in which the bottom part is our store consciousness and the upper part is our mind consciousness. The fear of aging, the fear of illness, the fear of death, the fear of having to let go, and the fear of the consequences of our karma are all there in our store consciousness. We don’t want to face our fear, so we try to cover it up, keep it down there in the cellar. We don’t like it when somebody or something reminds us of it. We don’t want it showing itself in our mind consciousness.

Mindfulness is the opposite of this tendency. We must invite these things up into our mind consciousness every day and tell them, “My dear, I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of my fear. It is my nature to grow old; I cannot escape old age.”

“My dear fear, come up here so I can embrace you for a while. It is my nature to die; I cannot escape death.” We can stay with our fear for five, ten, twenty, or thirty minutes, depending on our needs, and use the energy of mindfulness to embrace our fear. Being embraced like that every day, our fear will lose its strength.

Buddha said, “It is possible to live happily in the present moment. It is the only moment we have.”

Suppose we speak of the death of a cloud. You look up in the sky and don’t see your beloved cloud anymore, and you cry, “O my beloved cloud, you are no longer there. How can I survive without you?” And you weep. You are thinking of the cloud as having passed from being into nonbeing, from existence into nonexistence. But the truth is, it’s impossible for a cloud to die. To die means that from something, you suddenly become nothing at all. To die means that from someone, you suddenly become no one. But we’ve seen that this is not the case. That’s why, when we celebrate someone’s birthday, instead of singing “Happy birthday to you,” it may be better to sing “Happy continuation day to you.”

Zen Master Linji said, “The miracle is not to walk on water or fire. The miracle is to walk on the earth.”

As the Buddha said, “The past no longer is, the future is not yet here; there is only one moment in which life is available, and that is the present moment.”

When you practice being aware of your breathing, you generate the energy of mindfulness. This is called mindfulness of breathing. That energy of mindfulness is the Buddha, because a Buddha is made of mindfulness. And every one of us is capable of generating the energy of the Buddha. If you come from a Christian background, you may compare it to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can be described as the energy of God. With the practice of mindful walking and mindful breathing, you generate this powerful energy. You take refuge in that energy of mindfulness. It is a kind of light that shines forth and shows you clearly where you are and what is the next step you want to take.

Suppose we are feeling worry or anxiety. We practice, “Breathing in, I know that anxiety is in me. Breathing out, I smile to my anxiety.”

When a thought comes, you say hello, and then you say good-bye right away. When other thoughts come, just say hello and say good-bye again. Don’t fight. Don’t say, “Oh, I’m so bad, I think of so many things!” You don’t need to think like that. You just say hi and bye, relax and let

“Dear one, I know that you are suffering. That is why I am here for you.” And already your loved one will feel better.

Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am”; but most of the time, the truth is more like “I think, therefore I am not really here.”

The first exercise is, “Breathing in, I know this is an in-breath. Breathing out, I know this is an out-breath.” We

The second exercise is, “Breathing in, I follow my in-breath all the way from the beginning to the end. Breathing out, I follow my out-breath all the way from the beginning to the end.” The in-breath may last two seconds, five seconds, or more.

the first exercise is the identification of the in-breath and the out-breath. The second exercise involves staying with the in-breath and the out-breath for their whole length.

The third exercise is, “Breathing in, I’m aware of my whole body. Breathing out, I’m aware of my whole body.” During the length of the in-breath you get in touch with your physical body, and your body becomes the object of your mindfulness. That means bringing the mind back to the body. There’s a reunification, a reunion of the body and the mind, so that you are truly present, body and mind together. Oneness of body and mind is the object of the third exercise. “Breathing in, I’m aware of my whole body.” This is an act of reconciliation between the mind and the body.

the fourth exercise: “Breathing in, I am aware of some tension and pain in my body; breathing out, I calm and release the tension and pain in my body.”

“Breathing in, I recognize a pleasant feeling.” Traditionally we say there are three kinds of feelings: pleasant feelings, unpleasant feelings, and neutral feelings. For me there’s also a fourth one: a mixed feeling, when happiness and pain are mixed up together, like a bittersweet feeling.

“Breathing in, I’m aware of my heart. Breathing out, I smile to my heart with a lot of gratitude.” You’re touching another condition of happiness. You can touch hundreds of conditions of happiness right there in your own body and mind, as well as around you.

The fifth exercise is to recognize a feeling of joy: “Breathing in, I feel joy. Breathing out, I know joy is there.” And the sixth is to recognize a feeling of happiness: “Breathing in, I feel happy. Breathing out, I know happiness is there.”

The seventh exercise is to recognize a painful or unpleasant feeling: “Breathing in, I know that a painful feeling is there. Breathing out, I calm that painful feeling.” Pain is a kind of energy, and a nonpractitioner can be overtaken by that painful feeling. We

The eighth exercise is to calm and release the tension in the painful feeling—to embrace, soothe, and bring relief to the feeling: “Breathing in, I calm my mental formations. Breathing out, I calm my mental formations.”