The Root of Fear Without Content
La Raíz del Miedo Sin Contenido
A student describes an experience of deep pleasure and bodily dissolution in meditation, followed by periods of intense, contentless fear. The teacher explores what this fear points to and how to investigate it.
The Root of Fear Without Content
A student describes an experience of deep pleasure and bodily dissolution in meditation, followed by periods of intense, contentless fear. The teacher explores what this fear points to and how to investigate it.
Total pleasure. Sensuality, extremely sensual. And dissolution. My legs, my body, my arms, my hands, everything was dissolving into something that wasn't, that was not. And the pleasure, this swimming.
Beautiful.
I've been feeling periods of deep fear the last couple of months. Not with any real content. All I could do the last few days is say, "Okay, I'm going to relate to that fear, talk to it, because I can't reject it. It will kill me." But if I relate to it somehow, then in the place we were just at, there was none. It's not that the fear isn't there, but it doesn't matter. Just breathe, and that's it. Without avoiding. I don't know how to explain it. It's that. Thank you.
Are you interested if I have a few words about what you're saying?
Of course, yes.
Fear that has no object
You would know that there are fears about things we need to act on, and you would recognize those. When you say it's a fear that has no content, it's because you're aware it's not about anything specific.
When we start to relate to that fear, and when it starts to come regularly, it's because we are coming to a point where dissolution is happening. What we were doing today in the meditation is exploring that edge. This is where terror originates from. It is the root of all terror.
To have the intention to relate to it is the right intention.
Investigating what is endangered
Then there's one more thing I suggest you do, which is to explore what we did here, in your own way, creatively. Really look into what is endangered, because the fear is pointing to a loss, a resistance to let go of something. Even if it's the fear of a pain or something happening, it's always an attachment to something that is.
I would suggest you explore that core sense of "I" that is endangered. Explore it in the sense of what we were doing today: Where is this? Where is it? There's an "I" which is a thought, and then there's the "I" which is the source of what we feel experience to be. If you look for that, and look for the boundaries, asking what's inside of that and what's outside of it, it might bring up this fear. But it's the way to truly understand what is at the root of it.
Thank you.