There's a video where you talk about how to be calm and avoid anxiety and you say that the important thing is how you react, but does this help remove the anxiety from our heads?
Yes.
Yes, the important thing is to separate the anxiety from the result, the resultant physical
manifestations of anxiety the butterflies in your stomach the tension in your shoulders and the headache and the fluttering of the heart the beating of the heart and so on all of that is not anxiety and that's really the problem even with meditation because you'll say to yourself anxious anxious and the effects don't disappear you still have butterflies in your stomach you still have a heart beating fast and so on but
and so as a result you think it did nothing and then you get anxious again you say oh no it's not working and oh no I'm still anxious and then you get more and more anxious and it snowballs this is what it does if you're not meditating you feel the effects in the body you get more anxious you get anxious and the effects in the body get worse you feel the effects in the body and you get totally paralyzed as a result the
when you if you focus on the anxiety and focus on the effects of the body objectively seeing them for what they are you don't need the bodily manifestations to disappear this is something that we don't get you can be totally calm in the mind and have your body freaking out this is logically logical so
you don't you don't have to worry about what's going on in my you know my heart is beating very fast I must be anxious because no you you can't stop that it's something that's going to take a few minutes to calm down but immediately you can do away with the anxiety in the head it's important to see that and it's important to make the distinction because you know I've given talks before where my heart was beating really really fast and I had butterflies in the stomach I was really one might say anxious but where I had
caught the anxiety and was acknowledging the feelings in the body, was clearly aware of them and gave a great talk and was perfectly clear and perfectly calm and happy even though my voice was even shaking because of the fluttering in the body.
You know what's really funny which is going along with what you're saying is what I've noticed and is like myself and other people say
but I'm not supposed to be feeling like this.
What do you mean you're not supposed to be feeling like this?
This is how you're feeling.
It's like people with lifelong depression.
They're trying to always find that drug or that therapy that's going to cure them, but maybe if they were to just realize, oh, this is the way I've always felt,
Maybe they can adjust with it better and go on.
Actually, that's what has taken place with myself.
Oh, but I'm not supposed to be feeling like this.
And my own sister had to say, hey, dummy, you've been feeling like this since you've been two years old.
So have I. We inherited it from our parents.
It's genetic.
And it's like, oh, you mean so I am supposed to be feeling like this?
yeah that's like oh okay well I'm gonna choose to start feeling other things and it allowed me that opening to acknowledging it it's like you know the idea of like oh you're not supposed to feel pain what do you mean you're not supposed to feel pain the more you're saying that the more you're gonna feel the pain obviously and you know when it comes to like physical pain
We all know that when you start not resisting it, but settle into it, allow yourself to acknowledge it, you realize that the pain starts alleviating itself on its own.
And, you know, I just had to make that comment there because when you can sit back and just say, oh, the chaos going on around me, well, that's actually normal.
That's samsara.
okay let me let me just work on not thinking that this is uh all out of order no i just have to direct my own mind and just be calm because really that's the case we're living in chaos constantly whether it's internal or external whether it's our own you know perception of our own pain or the perception of out around us
maybe for a moment there we have that little bubble of where we feel everything's all right but then first and uh you know part of the joy of practicing dharma is to go with those uh ups and downs and the bursts and the deaths of all these different experiences
I probably said a little too much, but I just had a... No, that's exactly... I'm with you there.
And I think one of the best... or the best example of this that I can think of, especially as it relates to anxiety, is insomnia.
People are only insomniac because they want to sleep.
It's kind of, you know, that's obvious, right?
Because I should be sleeping.
Exactly.
It's the worst.
It's the worst form.
I used to be insomniac, and I'd be up until 3 a.m.
because I thought I should be sleeping.
Buddhism, one of the first things, the quickest things that Buddhism is able to cure, as far as things that need to be cured, is insomnia.
It's something that you... All it takes is for the teacher to say...
You don't need to sleep.
You would be far better off if you were to stay awake all night and be mindful.
So do it.
And it comes into play, especially when they do an intensive meditation course.
But even people in daily life, when you tell them, well, then don't sleep.
Stay up all night and meditate.
And you say, good for you.
I'm so happy for you.
I have to argue with my students
to get them down to six hours of sleep at night.
Oh, I could never do six hours of sleep.
And then these insomniacs are what I get, two, three hours a night.
Great, good for you.
More time for meditation.
Meditate all night.
And immediately, of course, they fall asleep and have no problems at all in the future.
But the idea that you need to sleep more and so on, that you should be asleep, I thought that's... That conflict.
Yeah, stress.
I mean, anxiety, it certainly is.
Someone adds to this and says, someone's saying, can you talk about anxiety and how to deal with it, which I think we've done.
And the second one right above it says, anxiety and insecurities.
Insecurity might be an interesting topic.
That's a good one, yeah.
It's a little bit different than anxiety, isn't it?
I don't know if it's a Western world problem largely, but there's a lot of insecurity I find in the social circles that I run in.
Yeah.
Feeling that you are inadequate or worrying that you might be inadequate.
Right, yeah.
Remembering things that you've done and, oh, I was such an idiot to do that and
what they must think of me and so on.
We're so much harder on ourselves than other people are, aren't we?
Have you ever been to one of those situations where you just did something you thought everyone must think you're an idiot and you just really ruined your relationship with everyone and no one else really noticed and they're kind of like, oh yeah, whatever.
And we're like killing ourselves.
Yeah, exactly.
We're thinking about ourselves.
So they don't really care.
It's an interesting thing that that tends to be the case.
Our insecurity is thinking, you know, how are they looking at us?
They must really be judging us.
People don't care.
People don't really judge you.
They judge you for a second and then they go back to their own problems because they got lots of them.
So how do we deal with insecurity?
Is it almost like insomnia?
Is it a similar situation where it's okay to feel insecure?
Obviously you do, but I think it's much more difficult because it has to do with ego.
Insecurity is the core.
It's part of the core, which is to give up self until you can be totally fine with being an idiot.
you'll never be free from suffering.
Until you can say something that just really makes you look stupid and be fine with that.
Because my teacher once did that.
He said something that was really wrong.
And it didn't faze him.
He was like, yes, oh yes, sorry, that was wrong.
And just went on with it.
Oh, I got no problem saying stupid things.
Of course, I guess we would have to say, based on how you said that, it's kind of like a joke.
I wonder if it's possible to be saying lots of stupid things.
There are people who say lots of stupid things and are fine with it and aren't in life.
That's different, isn't it?
Yeah, but they don't have insecurity.
There are people who...
But that's not true, no.
Some people who, you know, I'm thinking of jokers, for example, people who are just class clowns and so on, who thrive off of it.
You know, deep down, are they really secure?
Interesting topic, interesting question.
That's interesting, yeah, because I'm very much like that.
Sorry, what is it, Mark?
Oh, I was just going to add that, you know,
Being in school still, a lot of people around this age are very, very insecure, self-conscious of every little thing they do.
They're always thinking, what do people think of me?
How do I look right now?
Those thoughts come to my mind as well.
I think an easy way to deal with that is just focus on what you're doing at the moment.
You're thinking.
It's really what you're doing.
you're overthinking, actually, and what else are you doing?
Walking, sitting, whatever else.
I think that's a good way to deal with being insecure or self-conscious, because in reality, you're making up this big story about what other people would think of you, and really, yeah, they do have their own problems.
Of course, you'll see it as you meditate more that people really don't care about other people at all.
They care more about...
It's not always true.
Some people are very altruistic and empathic.
Some people actually do.
Yeah, some people are.
People aren't even caring even about themselves, per se.
What they're doing is they're just perpetuating this myth in their mind.
Part of their myth could even be masochism, or constantly putting themselves down.
The idea that they're really caring about themselves.
Well, the term care, maybe that's not the case, but they're definitely constantly playing this mythology.
And in that mythology, well, of course, other people really don't matter because they're not really dealing with the real person.
They're dealing with the image of that person in context in their myth of them.
You're my daughter, you're my son, you're my mother.
But very rarely are they saying, oh, I'm a person and you're a person.
It's always in context with this fabrication of how they want to create reality as opposed to the natural order of reality.
Very well said.
It's interesting, too, when we talk about caring and insecurity, and they don't care.
In some situations where you find someone really does care, it helps with insecurities.
In fact, it doesn't seem to have as much ground.
And it seems like if you care as much as someone might in that circumstance, it also seems to have an effect on insecurity.
It doesn't seem to remove it perfectly.
Yeah, but that person that comes into your life and they really, really care, what's your response?
What the hell do they want from me?
Sometimes, yeah.
Well, what do they really want?
I don't like them because they're too direct.
they're too honest to me I fear that that's a common response I've seen yeah isn't it the insecurity isn't it a part of the symptom of anxiety no I think it has ego more I mean yeah I think it's very much of anxiety because what they think about me oh
I feel bad what he might think about me.
I suffer from anxiety.
That's a very part of the anxiety.
Sure.
But I think the insecurity comes first and the anxiety comes after.
Or the insecurity is talking about something bigger than anxiety, much more ego-based.
And the real problem there is, as Lou said it much better than I could, it's the myths that we're playing.
It's all just
Whether you care about it, you know, I don't think I was totally correct to say that no one cares.
We don't normally care, but we care more about ourselves than others.
Or we're more focused on it, because some people are not.
But regardless, as Lou said, if they're focused on themselves, focused on others, the problem is simply the myth.
It's that we don't relate to each other.
as we really are.
I was talking today to one of the meditators and she was just asking about something just curious offhand about this seeming kind of special power that she had to
to see auras so she could look at someone and she could tell it wasn't their emotions but it was she explained it one example was how she was able to tell a person's sphere of influence how basically how powerful a person was how big they were she got the sense of a person being big and a person being small I've heard a monk tell me the same thing in Thailand he said he was able to see some people just filled the room when they walked into the room the whole room was full
And other people just seem very, very small to them.
And so she was asking about this in general and how it relates to what we're talking about.
The answer I gave was the idea that
It doesn't matter whether you can see people's state of mind, their emotions or who they are, because that's only who they are at that moment.
And I said to her, well, you're going through this intensive course and you can see your own mind.
It's not one train.
It's not one coherent message.
who you are changes from moment to moment in totally chaotic ways.
So you might have built up this sankara, this formation, this state, this habit, and you might have a totally contradictory habit.
Evil people can suddenly do wonderful things.
Why is that?
I guess the point is just how important it is to shift our understanding of beings.
Right, and to point out how different it is, our ideas of people and the subsequent insecurity that comes from thinking of people as immutable entities, including ourselves, like I am this sort of person, to seeing the things as aggregates of moment-to-moment experience, and to see people in that way.
Is it related to listening to the person carefully and not having an idea of the person?
Like when you or yourself spoke about mother, child, daughter.
For sure.
Is that related?
I think so.
Because the reason for listening closely should be that you know, you understand this isn't the same person that they were last time.
I can't rely on my idea of who they are.
Yeah.
they could be totally different at this time and we are this is something that is very under under appreciated how how changeable we really are how we could come up with something totally the person who you see oh this is this person you expect them to act in a certain way and they may suddenly come up with some crazy past life habit that they've never exhibited before they may
I mean, of course, talking about past lives, which of course is taboo, but I don't care.
Breaking taboos.
That's what I'm all about.
That's your past life talking.
One of them.
One of the many.
Okay, so did we get anxiety?
Are we all anxiety-ed out?
I'm going to quit.