Choice and fear

Yesterday I received one of the most inspired spiritual instructions I have yet heard. I wanted to share it (and also write it down so I won't forget it).

For the last several months, I have been preoccupied with choice and fear.

"OK," I've thought to myself. "I'm stepping out of my old habitual patterns... going beyond my normal egoic defences... climbing to the edge of my preconceptions... putting one foot out the door..."

Then suddenly: "AAAHHHGG! There's nothing out here! My road map is gone! I'm falling!! There's nothing to grab! What do I do?? HELP!!"

When you start to live deeply in the moment, you naturally begin to notice that you have defensive patterns that you cling too: a certain way that you deal with anger, perhaps, or with speaking in public, or with meeting a beautiful stranger. And once you see those patterns, you also begin to notice that you no longer have to stick to them. You have a choice. You begin to experience freedom.

But what to choose? Almost as soon as you taste freedom, you taste fear. You can't rely on what you know, and this provokes a sinking, disorienting, and sometimes dark feeling. Buddhists call it "groundlessness", and apparently it's a good sign. Western psychology calls it the "neutral zone", and apparently it's a natural part of the growth process.

I just call it freaky.

I've been asking my various teachers about how to deal with this, but haven't received much in the way of guidance. Until yesterday. Then I was given this:

We can think of ourselves as living in three concentric "zones" which encircle us. The first zone, closest in, is the "comfort" zone. In this zone we are in the familiar and the cozy, but things are sluggish and there is no sense of progress. Perhaps we can lie fallow here at times, but we cannot live here forever. The second zone, next out, is the "edge". In this zone we are challenged. There is some fear, and a bit of confusion, but we can handle it, and when we rise to the challenge, we learn and grow. The third zone, on the outside, is the darkness. Here, things are overwhelming. Fear and confusion cause us to shut down and burn out, and if we spend too much time here we can get seriously hurt.

Along the spiritual path, we cycle through all three of these zones. We often undergo challenging situations in our "edge", facing our fears with wisdom, bravery, and gentleness. But sooner or later, we get pushed over the edge into the darkness. We know we are there because our fear becomes overwhelming and we aren't able to make good choices any more. At that point, all we can do is stay present with the fear, know it is "just fear", and drop the need to do anything about it. Sometimes, we need to fall back into our comfort zone for a while, waiting to build strength so we can return to the edge and take on the next challenge. But this is OK! We haven't failed. To the contrary, we have succeeded: we have faced the darkness and survived.

As we watch our fears in this way, they melt. Facing the darkness over and over again slowly expands the size of our edge, so that situations we found paralyzing a year ago, or five years ago, or fifty years ago, become manageable now. And as the fears melt, we find that the energy they release becomes useful to us. Like magic, the fears gradually transform into confidence and wisdom, and then we are no longer lost. We can go beyond our habitual patterns without freaking out, and we are free, at least, to make real choices.

A special thank you to Brian Callaghan of the Halifax Shambhala sanga for this teaching. May this account be accurate, or at the very least, not a complete bastardization.