Hmm.
This is one that I answer a lot in various forms, but it's especially good to answer these questions because this is a real-life important question.
It's not like, what would happen if everyone became Buddhist and so on and so on.
because it's actually pertinent today.
It's actually an important question.
It's not such an important question to know what would happen if X, not to really, not to poke fun too much, but this is an important question, because you have anxiety, and that's causing real problems in your life.
So you have to ask yourself, is the anxiety really a problem?
Is the problem really the anxiety?
Because if it is, then clearly looking at it is not the answer, right?
Because when you look at it, it gets stronger.
It becomes clearer.
You get even more focused on the anxiety.
But let's step back a second and really ask ourselves, what happens when you're anxious?
What does it do?
Probably it tenses up the stomach, tenses up the head, tenses up the shoulders, and makes you feel really bad.
And...
prevents you from interacting with other people, from carrying out your life.
It might even lead you to do something desperate, hurt yourself, hurt other people.
It will prevent you from living an ordinary life.
But what is actually going on there?
When you have the anxiety,
What is it that is actually preventing you from carrying out your life in an ordinary manner?
What I'm trying to say here in a bit of an awkward way is that when you look at the anxiety, you'll see that actually
it really isn't objectively a very big problem at all.
Anxiety is a state of mind that causes physical reactions, you know, tensing and so on.
But it really stops there.
A simple anxiety, panic attack, stops there.
It has effects in the mind, it has effects in the body.
But unless we react to it in a negative way,
it doesn't have a massive impact or a significant impact on our lives.
It doesn't have to have a significant impact on our lives in any way.
I used to have very strong panic attacks when I had to give a talk, when I had to get up on stage or anything like that.
And this was an issue as a Buddhist monk because, you know, people think you're in robes and, well, you must know something, so they want you to give a talk.
And so you get up on stage and sometimes in front of hundreds or, I don't know, hundreds of people anyway.
And it can create a real panic attack.
That is a clear example of how people who don't have a strong tendency to panic can really panic.
And what I found through the meditation was, the hardest part of it was, that noting didn't help.
Meditation didn't help.
Because I would acknowledge it, I would say to myself, you know, afraid, afraid, or feeling, feeling, and the tension in the stomach and so on.
And it wouldn't go away.
Sometimes it would get even worse.
But what I found...
was that by doing it anyway, by noting anyway, regardless of whether it was going away, by trying and trying and trying, and really putting my heart into the noting, and every moment to be aware of what's going on,
that the panic attack in general didn't get in my way, surprisingly enough, didn't get in my way in giving the talk.
And sometimes I actually gave a better talk than when I was relaxed.
I've seen motivational speakers, because when I was young I would go to all these leadership conferences and they'd have motivational speakers.
I saw one motivational speaker twice.
And it's something I'll always remember.
The first time he gave the speech, I didn't know him or I wasn't in close contact with him.
But it was a big deal.
He'd never been to this leadership conference before.
This was his first time being invited.
And so it seemed like he took it very seriously.
And it was a brilliant talk.
It was really something that inspired us all.
The second time, he came back to give a talk again.
And I was, at that point, it was my second time or third time or whatever.
And I was one of the organizers.
And so I was talking with him.
And I was really impressed by this guy.
So I was sitting with him and
And he was, he was so, seemed so high on his last appearance that he got so, he got overconfident.
And he was sitting there telling me about how you just get up there and say, you just get up there and talk.
You know, it doesn't matter what you say.
You just, it always comes out right if you just let yourself talk and so on.
And he got up and he bombed, totally.
He really fell flat because he was expecting people to just, you know, he was expecting a positive reaction.
And so he wasn't trying, he wasn't putting any effort into it, he wasn't being mindful, you might say.
Of course, he didn't have a great knowledge of mindfulness.
When you're worried, when you have stress, it's often easier to be mindful than when you're happy, right?
This is why people come to Buddhism when they're suffering, because they really feel like they need an answer.
This surprising thing led me to, or helped me to understand what I've come to understand in general through the meditation practice, is that the biggest problem is not the experiences, even be they inherently negative experiences,
It's our tendency to react to them, react negatively to a negative experience.
The truth of it is, when you focus on the anxiety, or not just focus on it, when you recognize the anxiety as anxiety,
The anxiety itself disappears.
The anxious mind state is replaced by a mindful mind state.
What doesn't disappear, and what fools you into thinking that you're still anxious, is the physical results of it.
The physical manifestations of it.
Because they are...
They're not directly connected to one state of mind.
It's like you've already set the ball rolling and now you're feeling the effects of it.
Now you're feeling the effects of the anxiety in the stomach, in the head, in the shoulders, feeling all tense.
And that's what doesn't go away.
The problem is we don't see that.
We lose our confidence in the meditation practice and we give it up and we feel anxious again.
We get worried about it.
We say, it's not going away.
And then we get anxious again.
I don't have an answer.
I don't know what to do.
I still don't have a solution.
And so it makes us anxious again.
The anxiety comes up again and we try to be mindful of it again and we find that yes, the effects of it are still there and so we think the anxiety is still there and so on and so on.
If we are
observant, we will be able to notice the difference.
And you should try to notice the difference.
Often you need this.
You need a teacher to point it out to you that the physical and mental are two different things.
It's the first stage of knowledge that a person comes to.
The difference between the physical and the mental and the separation between them two.
And in fact that's what you're realizing.
That's what this is showing to you.
It's showing you the difference between the physical and mental because when you say
anxious, anxious or worried, worried, the worry is already gone.
At that moment you're not worried, you're focused and mindful and clearly aware.
The physical is not affected by that.
The physical will continue to arise.
The physical is something separate from this.
It is something that has already been affected by the past anxiety.
What you should do at that point, when you still feel the effects of the anxiousness, is you should see them as physical and note them as well.
The feeling in the stomach, feeling, feeling, tense, tense.
If you react to it, disliking it, you should focus on this new mind state that has arisen, disliking, disliking.
But this is what's going on.
An anxiety attack is not just anxiousness, this entity that is there continuously.
It's a whole bunch of things going on from moment to moment.
Anxious, physical feeling, disliking the physical feeling, anxious again, and so on and so on.
And so many different things involved in there.
There can be ego, the attachment to it, I'm anxious.
There can be desire, the desire to be confident and impress other people and so on.
But certainly the meditation is working.
The meditation is helping you to see that
These things are not under your control.
Neither the physical nor the mental is subject to your control.
The more you cling to it, the more you try to fix it or try to avoid it, try to change it, try to make things better, the more suffering, stress and disappointment you'll create for yourself.
The bigger the problem will become.
So, when the anxiety comes, it is correct to say to yourself, anxious, anxious, to focus on it, to be mindful of it, to let yourself, quote unquote, be anxious.
Because the anxiety is not what's the problem.
The problem is your reaction to anxiety.
generally physical states that are caused by the anxiety.
Anxiety is just a moment.
It's something that occurs in the moment and then is gone.
At the moment when you're mindful, it's already gone.
All that's left is the physical experiences, which should be noted as well.
And if you can be thorough with this and note everything, note the anxiety when it's there, note the physical sensations, note the disliking, going back and forth, and be thorough and complete in your noting, you'll begin to get the hang of it.
And you will realize that it doesn't matter what arises.
Nothing has the power to hurt you until you react to it.
Not even negative mind states can hurt you until you react to it.
react to them.
So just be a little more patient with it and you'll see for yourself all the things that I'm explaining to you.
If you're a little more patient with the anxiety, you know, noting it even though the anxiety doesn't seem to go away and noting more over the physical sensations, the disliking of the anxiety and so on and so on.
Every physical and mental experience that arises from moment to moment is
you will see and you'll be able to break these things apart and you'll cease to be disturbed by them because you'll see that they don't have any power over you.
And then it doesn't really matter what occurs.
It doesn't matter whether you get afraid.
It doesn't matter whether you're anxious.
It doesn't even matter whether it inhibits your ability to perform in life.
It doesn't matter if people think you're a fool and useless and incompetent.
It doesn't really matter.
It doesn't matter if you're thrown out on the street.
It doesn't matter if you die.
When you come to this realization, this is what really overcomes anxiety.
I mean, I guess I had real anxiety problems even as a monk, and it's something that through practice really
is really easy to solve actually i think anxiety and fear are really easy ones to solve they may not be eradicated quickly but the solution comes fairly quickly when you realize that it doesn't really matter yeah you can be anxious yeah you can be afraid and these are the of course acceptance which is the opposite of anxiety you know and that destroys them i think
Anybody want to chime in there?
Marion, you have something to add?
I was just going to say, I love how you answered this problem.
And with the emphasis on patience and realizing that all these petty little feelings that we have are just not that important.
I was thinking of you when I said I'm getting thrown out on the street.