The Fear of Losing What You've Found
El miedo a perder lo que has encontrado
A student describes a deep, natural well-being that has been growing over years, yet fears it may not be real, and worries about losing herself in the world. The teacher offers a new map for navigating fear, control, and unconditional well-being.
The Fear of Losing What You've Found
A student describes a deep, natural well-being that has been growing over years, yet fears it may not be real, and worries about losing herself in the world. The teacher offers a new map for navigating fear, control, and unconditional well-being.
The meditation goes so deep here, deeper than I can usually reach on my own. When another student was talking about fear, specific moments from my life came to me. I realized that pretty much all the time I'm living in fear, different fears for different things, but I don't realize it in the moment. I only see it looking back. For example, my kids fighting and my fear of not knowing what's good for them. That's just one example, but many more came up.
I have several questions. One is how to approach this in my day-to-day life, because right now the depth I'm experiencing here may not be as available in everyday life. And as someone else was saying, there's a well-being I've been feeling for years. A lot of suffering and worrying about things has fallen away. Many things are simply not that important anymore.
But sometimes I wonder: is it real? That's my biggest fear. I think the fear comes from not knowing, and also from losing myself, getting lost in the world, getting sucked in by the world and losing my reality.
If well-being has a cause you can identify, if it depends on conditions, then it's not the truest. That's how you can know.
I think it's more like a natural thing.
The old fear and the new possibility
Then I would trust that it is. And it's very challenging to discover that, because it will challenge all of our structures. It's bigger than you, bigger than us. It will challenge all our beliefs and create the need to choose from a deeper place.
The fear of getting lost is an old fear. I think that's the past. When we speak of risks and dangers, what matters is how real they are. Sometimes there's fear, and what we're afraid of isn't real anymore.
So you're saying I'm still attached to a fear that isn't actually there anymore?
I think there's a new possibility, and that fear you're describing belongs to a different level that's no longer real. In a sense, it's a part of you that wants to go back to a known system, a known method that's no longer alive or active.
Being lost in the world is a valid concern, but only up to a point, because there comes a point where the world is no longer separate.
I think it's becoming more like that, so I get confused because it was never like that before.
And so how could you be lost in yourself? It can become very true and real for you that the world is not other. Wherever you are, however you are, you're there.
The need for control
The need for control is still very strong.
First we can discover we have fear. Then we can discover a need for control. And then we can discover that our trying to control cannot itself be controlled. That's difficult, but there's a freedom there.
I think you're crossing a threshold. You need a different map. A different world, a different reality. You're outgrowing the old one. It's not about throwing out the old maps, but seeing that they're still valuable in a different way. That gives more mystery, more unknown.
Well-being as the new map
It's a process, and it happens slowly. Trust that well-being is a new map. Notice whether it has a cause or a condition. Keep noticing fear, the unknown, and the moments when you need to choose and act in the unknown while there's fear.
Check to see if that well-being is still present, because there could be fear and well-being simultaneously. If the well-being is conditional on fear, if it goes away when there's fear and comes back only when the fear is gone, then it's not as deep. The map is to look for the well-being precisely when there's fear, when it seems to disappear. If you can recognize the well-being while you act, the action will be deeper. The choice will be more loving.
Discovery and then living from it
There's a first phase in this work, which is to discover this well-being. It's a discovery, not something we achieve. And then it's about how to live from there. It's a very different way to live. It turns all of our structures, behaviors, and forms of functioning upside down, and it brings up a different kind of fear, because we can no longer believe in control.
So in your day-to-day life, where you said the depth you're feeling now might not be present: just check for that well-being. And by "check," I mean you know it. See if it's there. See if it seems gone. And if it seems like it's gone, look more closely.