WELCOME THE DRAGON OF FEAR
Fear is like a dragon, chasing us and trying to grab us. It controls our behavior by making us run away from it. Zookinesis and other Taoist training provides a way to turn fear into power and joy. Fear is the closed door to the palace of beauty. We do not run away from it but open it.
The next time you experience the sensation of fear (from whatever cause it may be), focus on that feeling. Pay attention to how it feels in each part of the body. Get to know the dragon of fear.
Fear is just a sensation. It may include tensing up muscles and a change in breathing, among other things. When you are faced with a fearful situation, notice how each part of your body reacts and changes. Don’t try to interfere with these changes; just notice them. Be the scientist, studying your own feelings.
The result of this exercise is that each experience of fear will allow you to learn more about yourself. Therefore, welcome these learning opportunities.
I was taught that whenever I felt fear I should thank the fear for visiting me because it gave me an opportunity to learn. In this way you will become friends with the dragon because you are treating it in a respectful way.
The Gospel of Mary (one of the gospels not included in the Bible) describes this process very well. In this gospel, Jesus’ disciples asked her what was the basic teaching that Jesus was trying to convey. She answered that it is about recognizing your attention, your consciousness which she called the “soul”. There are many distractions in everyday life such as sights, sounds, emotions and thoughts. Each tries to capture your attention. The distractions wear your attention like clothes so that you think that your attention is just part of the emotion or thought.
In fact, in modern times when we talk about paying attention to something, we really mean thinking about it. Mary said that once you can perceive the energy of attention itself and realize that it is part of you, the distractions can no longer capture your attention. At that point you are free, in a spiritual sense.
Fear can easily capture your attention. So can great thoughts, bright lights or loud sounds.
Your attention is so valuable that advertisers pay millions of dollars for advertising time just to capture your attention. Your attention is the commodity that television is selling to their customers, which are the advertisers.
And so there are the “Three Statements” in Zookinesis training. These statements encapsulate the training that allows you to be forever free of fear:
1. “Attention is not the same thing as what you are paying attention to.” This means that attention is an energy that has qualities and dynamics. Too often it is simply captured by every distraction so that we no longer are aware of attention itself.
2. “You are attention.” At our most basic essence, we are attention itself. In modern times, we feel that attention is a by-product of the chemical and electrical activity of nerves in the brain. In this way we think of the physical world as creating consciousness.
In the ancient world, consciousness and physical matter were equal. One didn’t create the other. You are attention as much as you are your body. But attention was considered to be the most basic part of a human being because everything other than attention itself is what you are paying attention to. It is as if attention were a person inside a house who was looking out of a window. Everything that person sees is not him; it is what he is looking at.
3. “When you know yourself, you know God.” God is considered to be the creative force in the universe. Creativity is considered to be the dynamics of attention. It is what moves your attention from one thing to another.
Your behavior can emanate from creativity or it can emanate from the distractions capturing your attention. In the case of creativity affecting your behavior, your behavior is a positive force, expanding from within. In the case of the distractions controlling your behavior, the control starts from outside of yourself and condenses your attention into the distraction.
Living a spiritual life requires that your own creativity be at least as influential on your behavior as “outside” distractions (which can include frozen, locked thoughts and emotions.) As your creativity gains power, your emotions and thinking mind will become more creative. What you once experienced as the dragon of fear now becomes the dragon of your own creativity. It is simply your own internal power.
And surprisingly, releasing the dragon of creativity is the greatest fear of all. Once you gain control of your life you have no more excuses. You can’t blame everyone else for your problems because you now are a powerful, creative person who can make changes in your life. You can boldly go where fear did not allow you to go before.
The main reason this is fearful is that the dragon of creativity is, well… creative! You don’t know what it is going to do next. Your life may change and you don’t even know how.
But having your behavior controlled by fear and being captured by every distraction is not a human way to live. It makes us victims. It makes us robotic. And it sucks out the joy from our lives.
The next time the dragon of fear grabs you, welcome it, thank it and examine your body to see how it feels. And then laugh!
