Conversations with the Guide

Anxiety Assignment 1 - Batch 7
3/22/2023

A thought occurs, fear beginning as nausea in the belly and runs through the body bringing weakness into my limbs. Anxiety is setting in. Some part of my life is threatened by a change. Change often brings anxiety, the security of what I've created is in flux.
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“Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and the door shall be opened to you.” I’ve often suspected that even the folks who deeply and sincerely believe the truth of those words don’t really get the magnitude of that truth. What Jesus was telling us, very simply and succinctly is “how” it works. Literally. Actually. Truly. We have the life we’ve asked for. Not that we asked at some point in some distant past that we can’t remember. We have the life we’re asking for in each moment. In this practice we hear, “What you practice is what you have.” “What you do is what you get.” Comes to the same thing. Yes? Ego wants us to believe that everything is up to us, that we get what we get because we’ve tensed up a lot of muscles, worried, stressed, agonized, fretted, and made it happen. If it didn’t happen, it’s our fault. But, much as we’ve been duped into believing that, it’s just not true. We don’t “do” anything. Not in the way egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate wants us to believe. Life does. Life is. We, as expressions of Life, participate. Just like everything else. There’s not a single thing in life that we can “make happen.” We believe we can and believe we should, but believing doesn’t make it true. Believing just makes us unhappy. With that for consideration, back to “your anxiety.” When we believe that we are the creators of our world, we are bound to be anxious! Can’t be avoided. Why? Because we know it’s not true. In our heart of Hearts we know we’re not in charge, have no control. We know we’re no more in position to make our life be what we want it to be than we were at age three. And, we’re far, far less happy than we were at three! We feel anxious and scared and worried, holding our world together with tensed muscles in the stomach, hoping and praying all will go “well.” Realizing the futility of that approach can inspire us to turn to what is so. We can focus all our attention on what we have, what we’ve been given. We can be grateful and trust that, always having been provided with all we need, that will continue. We can expand our focus to ask that as we continue to be grateful and to enjoy all we’ve been given, that the same will be true for all beings. May all beings be happy. May all beings feel Love. May all beings end suffering. Ego fear begins to dissipate and is replaced with a sense of surprise at how obviously well-cared for and loved we clearly must be! Now we are having rather than wanting, now we are receiving rather than worrying and longing. Yes? I often promise t-shirts for awareness practitioners that say, Change Is Good. Change is good. Change is how the generous, lovingkindness of Life opens us to be able to receive more! Give it a go, huh? Gasshō
 
Noticed anxiety presses action to avoid fear of making mistakes, losing or looking foolish. Notice that urgency of action produces mistakes. Pausing and watching the little girl appears painfully embarrassed by making mistakes. Ego keeps her alone wondering fearfully what to do to avoid making mistakes. No mistakes? R/L Gassho
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That’s correct. That’s what she needs to see/get in order to free her from ego’s ability to frighten and control her. We each went off to whatever version of kindergarten with a range of emotions from excitement to terror. There, most of us had it clearly pointed out that there is a right and a wrong—for everything. Right is the standard. Knowing is the way to be right. You need to know so that you will be right, so that you’ll be the right person, so that you will be acceptable and loved, so you will survive. Learning? Absolutely not! School has nothing to do with learning. School is where you find out about competition, judgment, evaluation, and comparison. It’s where you find out what’s important in life and, most of all, exactly how you are flawed and lacking. You may be smart, but are you attractive? You may be athletic, but are you bright? You may get good grades or be musical or artistic, but aren’t those just other ways of describing nerds, dorks, geeks and other unappealing types? (I could become self-conscious about revealing too much about my youth, but the rate of anxiety, depression, and suicide among young people tells me nothing much has changed, except perhaps to be worse.) So, that’s the kind of child abuse—and yes being a child going through the process of socialization is abusive—we’ve all navigated. And, for most of us it instilled, among other horrors, the horror of making mistakes. Now, we get to bring not just the more experienced perspective of a grownup to the situation, we get to bring conscious, compassionate awareness. Best of all? We get to learn! We get to be curious, find out for ourselves rather than being told by someone else; we get to see, to realize. We get to be in this great big world and love it, be fascinated by it, in each moment. We get to be alive rather than held in a shrinking fear that we will be wrong, do something wrong, make a mistake. There’s nothing wrong and there’s no such thing as a mistake. HA! Here we go. Gasshō
 
The most prominent sensation in the body is a pervasive BRACING. Anxiety seems to equal bracing -> feeling unease/something wrong -> looking to conditioned mind to make it better which involves worry, planning, projecting - an exhausting conversation w/ego. I could work with the content endlessly or investigate the bracing. R/L
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YES! That’s it, precisely and beautifully. We can either follow egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate through a list of stuff, content, things, situations, and circumstances that turn out to be longer than our lifetime, never getting anywhere except more suffering, OR we can investigate the specific. Which specific? We don’t all have “bracing” as an issue. “Bracing” won’t always be your issue! True. But we each have our current version of “bracing.” We each have what we can see as the current ego focus holding us in “stuck,” causing us to suffer.  That’s where we start. We start with wherever we are, whatever we just stumbled over. We give whatever that is all our attention until it dissolves. What’s under that will be revealed. We do the same process until we become like all good detectives, thrilled with the next mystery to solve. Gasshō
 
The old double-bind fits any content: "You have to, but you can't" seems to be the story behind sensations of anxiety, and particularly scary is "You are conditioning, you must drop conditioning." Grateful to have guidance, time, and willingness to see the stories I'm believing. R/L Gassho
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And, very good to see that all “you”s are not created equal. The “you” of “You are conditioning” is not the “you” that can drop conditioning. In fact, the “you” that is scared by that message is “ego identified” and not only couldn’t drop conditioning, wouldn’t want to drop conditioning. However, the “you” that can see that process and is aware of the story, the fear, and, let’s face it, the bamboozle, can, would, will, and does drop conditioning. Ah, it’s the old “case of mistaken identity.” Those kinds of “you have to X, but you can’t X” situations are double-binds only for ego. They use the “logic” that ego uses. It’s a logic that only exists in the faux “reality” of egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate. Inside that imaginary, dualistic structure there’s only one “you,” the “you” of ego, playing all the parts. Step outside that fiction and we can see we have no problems because all the problems only appear to exist inside that fictional structure. We don’t need to see the stories, we need to see the process. “Double-bind” is the “bracing” of the last conversation. Gasshō
 
I picture a little anxiety-fear-urgency wheel spinning endlessly in space, whispering/ranting into the void. (It exists only when I think it.) Listening to it from identification with a separate self is suffering (and there's nothing wrong with that). Compassionate awareness says, "Stick with me, kid. I'm always here."
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“Stick with me, kid,” equals “turn attention from the suffering wheel and give attention to thisherenow,” yes? It’s true that there’s nothing wrong with attending to a suffering wheel spinning endlessly in space, but why do that? As soon as we realize we don’t need to suffer, we go from “it’s wrong to suffer” to “suffering is a process I don’t choose to indulge.” It could be argued that it would benefit us if there actually weresomething wrong with suffering. Not wrong in the sense of “making a mistake, gonna be punished,” but along the lines of don’t smoke in bed or don’t leave candles burning around the house when you go to bed or don’t drive drunk. These are behaviors that have great potential for causing a lot of misery. We can certainly do them if we want to, but perhaps not complain when we burn the house down or wind up in jail. Giving attention to a suffering wheel might fit nicely in the same category? Gasshō
 
This Practice further unveiled the big lie ‚ there's something wrong. An unnamed, unidentified, always looming "wrong" that works on this human when unconscious, usually in early morning sleep, resulting in a tightly wound, dense, black/red knot at the base of the sternum. Great to catch and release. Gassho R/L
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Such a perfect description. “An unnamed, unidentified, always looming ‘wrong’….” We could add “vague,” yes? I hope everyone will watch for this. It’s a huge piece of how suffering is created and maintained. There’s this shadowy, amorphous, nebulous feeling. We should say, “feeling.” What is it? I don’t know. It just feels like there’s something there, something off—something wrong. Is there? NO. But we’re trained to be distracted, to start looking. While we’re searching around for something that isn’t there, the ego voices are making suggestions. “Well, maybe it’s that argument I had with…” “There’s the presentation coming up…” “I probably shouldn’t have had that extra helping of spicy sauce…” “This is how I used to feel around my in-laws…” Sooner or later a hook will get set and we’ll be reeled in. Is there anything to any of it? Not a bit. Here’s something we might all play with: If there’s a problem, a difficulty, someone unhappy with us, something we forgot, etc., let’s wait for Life to inform us rather than rooting around in conditioned mind with ego trying to figure it out. Gasshō
 
Headline "These sensations are uncomfortable/wrong, I don't like this". Sensations arise with varying degrees of intensity, location, shape, and size. A conversation in mind interprets the sensation through a dualistic lens (that's bad/wrong/problem), a solidified sense of self emerges, and it desires to escape and change the sensation. R/L
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Ah ha! An elaboration on the previous theme. The helpful addition here is that we have only two ways to go with a dualistic lens, good/right or bad/wrong. Since duality is the “world” of egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate, and since we’re heavily conditioned to identify with ego, bad/wrong is going to be the conclusion at least 99 out of every 100 times. Absolutely the ego voices will point out that good/right exists, but it’s not in me, not in this, not in that, not in them, not in now, not in here. Ego/I, as noted, is a non-stop conversation about “I don’t want this, I don’t like this, I want something else, other, different.” The thing we begin to catch onto as we pay closer attention is that the ego voices just rant on. What they’re saying has nothing to do with anything other than the program they are. It’s fun when they say something so out of keeping with the moment that we hear them for what they are, but that rarely happens. We’re trained to look/listen to/believe them and they frame the world we live in. A simple question along the lines of “What’s so bad about this? What’s wrong with it?” can really throw a spanner in ego’s works. We quickly get to see that it is, in fact, a program, quite unable to interact creatively or presently. Gasshō
 
Seeing how anxiety stories arise when very young survival needs seem threatened such as perceived possible loss of love or approval, not belonging, someone angry, doesn't like me. Or wellbeing, security feels threatened; health, bank failures, stock market crashes, wars, climate change. Meant not to see: There's no control. R/L
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Precisely! We can’t do anything about any of those things. Even something like love or approval is not ours to control. Everything is as it is and we really have no say in any of it. One would think that given that we would all say, then let’s just eat, drink, and be merry. BUT WE DON’T. Even folks who get the truth of no guarantees, could all be over in any split second, don’t live as if that’s the case. There was a Great Depression. Banks failed. The economy tanked. People were out of work, starving, starved! What did people come out of that experience having learned? You need to be frugal, save for the future. Of course, that hadn’t helped during the Depression. So, do people do that? Do they save for the future? Nope. People agonize about future deprivation, but do little toward what might help. AND, in all of it, what almost nobody does is enjoy life, enjoy the present. Why not? Because almost everyone is living under the direction of a self-hating system that guarantees suffering now and suffering later. Gasshō
 
Anxiety is covered up by shame: "you are 60 years old! You shouldn't be anxious about this [work]." Yet I am. And the emotional roller-coaster that ego-centric-karmic-conditioning/self-hate puts me through is so intense and "paralyzing" that I don't do what I need and want to do. R/L. Gassho.
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Did you read the response earlier about “bracing”? And the one about “double-binds?” Please do. If you choose you can apply all of that to “shame.” That’s the one that’s available for you to tackle now. And, here’s the really good news for all of us about all of this: While the content appears to be endless and endlessly varied, the process for dismantling is exactly the same. I just read that some young person just set the record for arranging a Rubik’s Cube in 3.4 seconds. I bet that wasn’t his first go at it! Dismantling ego is just like a Rubik’s Cube or Ikea furniture. The more we do it, the more familiar, the easier it gets. Gasshō
 
FLASH: FEAR IS BEHIND IT ALL! Every time I trace an anxious, frustrated, or angry voice it leads to some fear. Not being able to handle it all, when will it end, or no one will love me, etc. Then there's "something wrong" voice harder to see. Awareness is freedom. R/L
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Good! Remember, fear is ego. Ego is fear. There isn’t a something called ego that is fearful. There isn’t a fear that we’ve named ego. It’s one thing. So, yes, you’re on it. Ego is behind it all. Ego is the root of all suffering. Fear is how ego protects itself. Get too close to interfering with its power, seeing it for what it is, big jolt of FEAR! Human being learns to back off, stay away, start looking for answers to “what should I do?” As you keep paying attention you’ll see ever more clearly the relationship between fear and something wrong. Something wrong is what we’ve all been deeply programmed to try to avoid. We don’t want to be wrong, hence the terror of making mistakes. Ego voices get their “something’s wrong” schtick going, we start nervously looking around for what’s wrong, we look to ego to inform us, we’re afraid, and ego is running the show. Self-hate is the gorilla glue of it all. There’s wrong, it’s you, all is your fault, you’re cast out, you’re not going to survive. Awareness is freedom and that’s what you’re focusing on. All will be revealed. No Fear! Gasshō
 
As the investigator, I saw details of an episode of ego taking over my body, dark and heavy around my throat/chest physically and stories of fear and inadequacy. Which came first, the story or the sensations? The headline is, "It's a lie. There is adequacy." R/L Gassho
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I’m going to go with a “spoiler alert” because I know you’ll keep paying close attention even if you know the answer. It’s always the thoughts. The tricky part is that the thoughts don’t always come in full sentences. The one we often refer to is the parental LOOK. As kids we’re doing something and we get the LOOK. Not a word needs to be spoken because we know exactly everything that’s being communicated. So, egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate has plenty of LOOK equivalents. You’re going along and there’s something that touches one of the senses and the “meaning” is communicated. Throat/chest gets dark and heavy, memories (stories) of fear and inadequacy start up. We’re on the hunt for “what set that off?” Not in a thinking about/figuring it out way, but in a gotta be right here paying razor sharp attention to see it happen when it happens way. Much fun! Gasshō
 
Noticing resistance to looking at anxiety. "I'm not feeling anxiety. When I try to look I can't find it! Where are those snakes?! I'm supposed to see everything I can about them! I don't want to feel those sensations. I'm not doing it right!" Just simply notice. What a relief!
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Are you saying there’s no anxiety in “Where are those snakes? I’m supposed to see everything I can about them! I don’t want to feel those sensations. I’m not doing it right!” No anxiety there? Really? I felt kind of anxious just reading and then writing it! But this is good. Resistance is your “bracing,” “double-bind,” “shame.” Tackle that resistance head-on and I’m gonna bet you get in touch with some anxiety tout de suite. Gasshō
 
 

Anxiety Assignment 1 - Batch 6
3/21/2023

The first hit is that there is something wrong and I need to prepare for it. Then, conditioning goes through a process of establishing a narrative that supports the premise. It then goes through a refining process, I feel somewhat numb and gird myself for impending tension. >Repeat. Gassho.
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If I’m with you here, it seems as if you not only see this very clearly, but go through it with some regularity? It’s interesting that you “gird yourself for impending tension” when it sounds as if you’re already in way a lot of tension. You can see that conditioned mind is, we could say “establishing” or we could say “creating” a narrative to support the premise. It’s true that in awareness practice we don’t ask why questions, but I have to make an exception here: Why do you indulge it? The one thing we “know” is that there’s nothing wrong. If we only “know” that intellectually then our practice is to realize it directly, to realize, in the marrow of our bones, that in a non-separate universe there simply can’t be anything wrong! Yes? Wouldn’t that be a good place to stop and bring all the attention? There’s the first hit of “something’s wrong.” STOP. That’s not true so what’s going on here? Yes? Not going off with ego down a path that it sounds you know full-well will take you to repetitive suffering. Gasshō
 
Some anxiety over forgetting to do the assignment for the required time. Did it anyway looking at the anxiety over forgetting. Another ego scam! Everything is okay in this moment. Not going to the past or future--just thisherenow. R/L
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What a great point! You forgot to do the assignment in the required time. Egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate would want to make that wrong! Failure! Feel bad! Should just quit! What else is possible for us? Well, we can tune in to where we are now, feel the sensations, recognize the labels, look to see if there’s a big problem in this moment, see there’s no problem at all, recognize it for the ego scam it is, enjoy the fact that all is well in this moment. Oh, and, by the way, since this moment is all there is—we being people who do not go off into imaginary pasts or futures, or “alternate realities” in which something is wrong—we get to enjoy life. Period. It’s not possible to be late for or to miss NOW. Gasshō
 
Headline: "I cannot figure it out!" No clue. Too diffuse. Maybe it's because it doesn't exist, I can't grab a hold of it. I hope to learn something, I am weary of the anxiety story. 
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Well, you definitely have that right. We cannot figure it out. Good to know we’re all right here with you in that, huh? “It” can’t be figured out because the only “thing” (ego) that would say it wants to figure it out (ego actually doesn’t want to figure it out) would need to get outside of “it” (LIFE) in order to do that, and while ego desperately wants to appear to be something outside of LIFE, that’s not possible. Besides which ego is an illusion of a self that is outside of LIFE. It’s not real. Imaginary. Whole ego-suffering-mess is imaginary. I was in a conversation with someone recently who has spent a lifetime in “Why would God, if there is such a thing, create such a messed-up world?” I offered as an alternative possibility what the Buddha taught: We can suffer for as long as we want, and when we no longer want to suffer we can stop. What? How? When we are identified with what we are not, egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate, believing what the ego voices in conditioned mind tell us, we suffer. We suffer because we’re believing a pack of lies that are designed to cause suffering. When we see that we can redirect attention away from the suffering stories inside the head, give attention to what IS, to what we ARE, to LIFE/LOVE in thisherenow, suffering ends. The choice is ours. The only way just about anyone makes that choice is when they’ve suffered enough at the imaginary clutching little hands of egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate. We can suffer for just as long as we want, and when we no longer want to suffer we can stop. Gets my vote for not only a beyond brilliant, but also a kind, compassionate, loving design. And there’s nothing to figure out! Gasshō
 
Anxiety hurts my body. I become stiff and tight. i shake, then move around quicky. the movement relaxes me. my thoughts are going a mile a minute. my body, mind and spirt connect with adereline. the past becomes present. This exercise revealed that I am addicted to the anxiety.  OMG
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Well, as you continue to watch I suspect you’ll fairly quickly see that ego is the addiction that manifests in one form as anxiety. Ego is the first addiction. Addiction # 1. The sub-addictions are all the addictions that feed that primary addiction. Yes, food, alcohol, drugs, sex, exercise and also distraction, busyness, urgency, catastrophizing, guilt, and such. All the compulsions that capture attention and drag it into conditioned mind. On a recent Yearlong Retreat call we were talking about them as “click-bait.” A word, an image, a memory passes across the screen of the mind and attention is snagged. Mostly it all remains fairly low-level. It’s just my life. Sometimes I’m busier than other times, sometimes there’s nothing and I feel a bit restless or bored, sometimes I’m exhausted and just want to hang it all up and sleep on a beach for a year. Sometimes, there’s a giant jolt of OMG!!! that shakes the foundations and rattles the rafters. It usually “comes from out of the blue,” unexpected, surprising, shocking. Not every moment. If it happened regularly, we’d get used to that and stop seeing it for what it is. It’s just often enough to make sure we keep the attention on the voices of egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate as they tell us what’s wrong, what’s to be feared, and how to stay safe. Are you with me? The whole system is meant to keep a human being in the business of the care and feeding of an imaginary ego. I often compare us to farm crops. Ego is the farmer harvesting our lifeforce for its use and profit. Creepy, but quite accurate. Gasshō
 
Headline: "Area woman sues lifelong swindler; awarded full restitution." Process: Dissected one anxiety/day. Utterly bored by Day 10. Same old story: "You're hopelessly inadequate and must avoid, hide, and be afraid." Noticed ego has habituated the mind to seek things to worry about, be ashamed of. Gassho. R/L
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You make my previous point perfectly! For the farmer-ego, companion planting and crop rotation is essential. Worry and shame pair so beautifully, don’t they? I worry that I’ll do something I’ll be ashamed of. Inadequacy and avoiding/hiding are another marvelous companion crop. I have to hide out and avoid because I’m inadequate and hiding and avoiding keep me from anything that would allow me to experience adequacy. And we’re trained to go along with the whole thing. “Don’t worry,” oozes the slimy voice of ego in the head, “I’ve got you. You to stick with me, and I’ll make sure you’re okay. Oh, and, yes, pretty soon, soon as you become the person you should be, you’ll be happy.” That would be a massive load of fertilizer! Gasshō
 
Beneath every surface content, accompanied by a desperate desire for distraction, lurks the understory, "Everyone hates me." What I've seen with this exercise is another layer: "...and I'm helpless in their presence." (If I'm hated, but powerful, what's to fear?) Despite the belief, this assumption of inadequacy contradicts reality.
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Inadequacy is not the issue!!! It’s an illusion—we could say a delusion—that everyone hates you! Ego hates you. Ego hates the possibility that you will realize it’s the only thing that hates. Here’s what we all have to get sooner or later: We’re just not that important. Almost everyone I’ve ever talked to believes that when they walk into a crowded room everyone in the room is looking at them, watching them, judging them. NO! Identified with ego, we’re obsessed with our self, but no one else is. We’re lucky if other people give us a single thought in a month! (Trust me, I know whereof I speak!) Here’s another point to consider: I know you. I don’t hate you. I know other people who know you and don’t hate you. In fact, we like you! So, who and where is this “everybody” who hates you? They don’t exist except in ego’s fantasies. I promise you that if you drop that story, the whole thing will disappear. How about this? The ego voices instead of saying “Everyone hates you” switch to, “You need to shoot up heroin.” Would you believe them? Of course you wouldn’t. If they said, “You need to eat only sugar,” would you? Why then have you decided to devote your life to this equally bizarre message? Gasshō
 
Things will go wrong and you'll end up alone seem to be the headlines of my anxiety. I keep playing future scenarios in my mind, like movie scenes, of arguments, disagreements, ultimatums, fights, etc. the flavor is fear, tension, righteous indignation
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Or, we could narrow it down: The flavor is egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate. The movie scenes image is right on target. The movie screen is in the mind. The ego conversation in conditioned mind is throwing images, scenes, up on the screen. You/we are meant to believe they’re real. This could happen. That could happen. True. It’s all possible, but here’s the question we must ask ourselves as practitioners of awareness: Is it more likely that “things will go wrong” and you’ll end up alone if you are present in the moment, living in unconditional love and acceptance, lovingkindness, gratitude, and generosity, OR if you are living in an imaginary “world” of arguments, disagreements, ultimatums, fights, fear, tension, and righteous indignation? Hmm… Let’s see, I’m going to project that choosing Door # 1 is REALLY going to up your chances of having the future your Heart desires. Gasshō
 
Seeing that most of the time I'm still taken over by the sensations called anxiety., like a train running downhill. I see it coming sooner though, and recognize the sensations and interpretations are familiar. My Intention: to stay with this process of investigation and see it rather than be it.
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There we are! That’s it. The process you describe is the one that brings success in any endeavor. We stay with it. Start and don’t quit. We don’t need always to be happy about it or eager or excited or even feel particularly willing. We just need not to quit. LOVE has you in its sights! Even if our “yes” sounds weak, it isn’t. It’s all we need to carry us through. As we continue, everything about our process strengthens. You’ve heard the Gary Zukov quote: 10% of us makes a commitment (sets an intention), and 90% of the universe gets behind it. That Anxiety Express is coming to a halt! May not always seem/feel like that now, but it is. Gasshō
 
I was "anxious" that I had missed the deadline for the assignment. I have identified a process in my life of stopping and starting things so I think this is an underlying process resulting in "anxiety". When I bring presence to my "anxiety" I can forgive myself the process.
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What was written to your neighbor is definitely for you as well. The ego voices would claim that we “have a process of stopping and starting things,” but if we step back a bit we realize that while we may take breaks, we don’t stop. We actually can’t stop. It’s true that ego can cause us to drag our feet and make everything—suffering—last longer than it needs to, but even ego resistance can’t stop us. All ego can actually manage is to make miserable what could be joyful. Two items for consideration: We don’t need to “own” any of this, starting with what egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate is bringing to the party. It’s not “my” anxiety. In fact, it’s not even “anxiety.” It’s a set of sensations registering in a physical form to which a label has been applied. Ego is an “ownership” machine. I, me, my, mine. Then we have you, yours. (“You” are clearly less important since “you” have only two words while “I” have four!) We can see where this quickly leads. “This” is mine; that is “yours.” Threaten anything about me or mine and I need to hate you, fight you. We have lines and laws and all the misery that flows so readily from egos carving up what never has and never could “belong” to them. All suffering results from that process. (A much larger conversation than we can have in this context, but important to see the importance of.) So, no need to let ego claim ownership of “my” anxiety. Also, and even more essential: There is no one to forgive and no one qualified to do the forgiving. That’s an ego set-up designed to accomplish what all ego set-ups are designed to accomplish: Unhappiness. Guilt. Remorse. Focus on the past and fear of the future. In a word, suffering. We’re learning. There’s no such thing as mistakes, nothing to regret, nothing needing forgiveness. When we see, we’re free. Until we see, we’re in a process of trying to see. That person who is trying to see, who is practicing to be aware, is worthy of all our admiration, love, appreciation, and respect. Oh, and definitely all our support! Gasshō
 
Looking at my experience with anxious sensations over the last week or so I saw that I am the least anxious at home and the most anxious among my best friends. A friend even asked if she could take my anxiety for me, which she immediately dropped. Looks like choice. 
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Yeah, well, everything is easier when it’s for someone else to do the changing, isn’t it? We can usually see what others need to do to fix themselves. That said, yes, it is a choice. We just don’t want to let that fact be something the ego voices use against us. Okay? Realizing the situation isn’t terminal; that we can alter our experience is an essential awareness. You’ve seen that. You’ve realized that you’re more anxious in one circumstance and less so in another. Now, without falling for the old ego dodge of “figuring it out,” you can begin to watch how and why that’s the case. First place to pay attention is to the conversation in the head. It’s likely that at home the conversation has a different tone than when you’re in a social setting. First, we get to become familiar with the tone and then we get to explore the various “flavors” within the tones. Very exciting! Subtle. A tip: Take full advantage of the recorder and the Mentor. On the way home from work have a conversation with the Mentor about your day and the “place” you’re in. Stressed? Feeling successful? Happy with things? Worried about something? Then watch as you arrive home and go through the evening. Record before bed what you saw. Next day do the same process going to work. Then apply those same tools before getting together with friends. Conscious, compassionate awareness. ‘Twill break up even the most entrenched ego process. Additional tip: Watch closely and record copiously as the ego voices throw massive amounts of resistance at this! Gasshō
 
"100% empty threats killed nobody" worrying about the past, about the future when only now exists inner judgment without a jury. this void, a swirling nothing gathering particles of mind to compose with. knowing I am filled with mistakes, letting go of perfection, and being free.
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That’s a bit difficult to be confident about following, but see if this speaks to you at all: Being free is realizing there’s only perfection, no such thing as an I, and no possibility of mistakes. Gasshō
 
The End is Near. In related news, egocentric karmic conditioning / self-hate continues its barrage of accusations, threats, and abuse. Investigators noticed no one and no thing there. Just "a tale, told by [no one], full of sound and fury, signifying nothing (Shakespeare)." Practitioner goes happy. R/L Gassho
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A tale told by imaginary, disembodied voices in the head. A seemingly endless story of wrong, fear, horror, dread, mistakes, punishment, threats, promises made and broken, blame, disappointments…. Moments of presence, of clarity bringing realization of possibilities, recognizing, identifying the lies in that gloomy diatribe. Seeing the goodness, the kindness, feelings of gratitude and generosity, a growing desire to be HERE, to choose lovingkindness, to give attention to LOVE. Old Will got a lot of it, didn’t he? We get to choose, apply, and live the clarity. Happy. Gasshō
 

Anxiety Assignment 1 - Batch 5
3/20/2023

“The future's uncertain and the end is always near,” is the headline. From ego's perspective, the many snakes cause worry and fear. From Life's perspective, a wake-up call to be present and live Life instead of wasting time looking for a cure for the never-ending physical ailments. Gassho
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Very good! One minor, okay, major adjustment there: Ego doesn’t believe the snakes cause worry and fear. The snakes of worry and fear are ego. If you’re not going to be afraid of and worry about snakes, ego will come up with something else for you. Sounds as if “never-ending physical ailments” are your “snakes.” That’s critical to realize, isn’t it? If we don’t see that, life will be one of attempting to deal with—give all our attention/life force to—whatever “problem” ego comes up with next. Many, many people live from “emergency,” to “what’s wrong now” to “my really, really big problem” throughout their lives. They think that’s what life is! They live with ego and its constant suffering-making and believe what they’re experiencing is life. It isn’t life. As we lose interest in the manipulative, attention-grabbing, fear-mongering conversations with ego in conditioned mind, we have a growing awareness of what LIFE is. Of what we ARE. Gasshō
 
If I'm sharing on a call or swimming in the ocean and think of sharks the same feelings of anxiety appear. It's fear triggered by thoughts. Tightness of the chest shortness of breath, paralyzing. Facing it in conscious awareness and examining it closely dissipates it. Gassho
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That’s it! Attention is in the head, thinking, thinking of what’s wrong or could go wrong, and it’s terrifying. You shift attention to conscious awareness and through, with, from conscious awareness you examine the process that has been making you suffer. Poof! It’s gone. How can that be possible? All that fear/anxiety is imaginary. It’s not real. There’s nothing to it. It’s the boogey man under the bed. If we’re afraid to look we’ll never see that it’s a fiction, made up. Having the courage to look is our way to freedom. It’s a practice. We don’t look and we suffer. We look and we’re free. Being intelligent beings it doesn’t take us all that long to realize that looking feels great and hiding out is miserable. Choosing looking over here, Boss! Gasshō
 
Create karma, experience karma, start thinking-conditioning fishes for future things to worry about equals anxiety, often going to avoidance or addictive behavior. Preference drop it and return to this here now. Break up into small actionable steps. R/L brings about realization to conditionings trap. Gassho
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Excellent plan! Small actionable steps. Egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate is operating all the time. Sure, we can wait until we see it doing what it does—big shot of adrenalin or misery thinking about the future or going over guilt or remorse about the past—OR, we can just decide when we want to tackle it on our terms. Perhaps I connect checking in with other activities in my day, à la the “make gasshō each time I walk through a door” of the current Yearlong Retreat assignment. Maybe it’s every time I pick up my phone, or have something to eat and drink. Whatever it is doesn’t matter. We’re training. What we’re going to get to see is that the more we do it, the more we’re going to want to do it. Absolutely ego voices will pitch a fit—that’s what we’re getting to see! What’s true is that the more we’re HERE, present in lovingkindness, the more we want to be HERE in lovingkindness. So, we choose what we want to practice with and we make it a party. Every time I remember to make gasshō as I walk through the door, I turn attention to happiness, smile, thank the sincere human being for being so sincere. Every time I remember that I forgot to make gasshō as I walk through the door, I turn attention to happiness, smile, thank the sincere human being for being so sincere. I get us a cup of tea or coffee and we sit together for a few moments, enjoying. Basking in the delight of presence. Grateful to be present. I take out the recorder and talk about how grand it is to be HERE, to be alive, to feel the happiness of being. Like that! Small, actionable steps. Gasshō
 
"Frenetic Activity Masks the Peace" whether it's a speeding heart rate, fast fire uncomfortable thoughts or an explosive sensation in center of the chest, they habitually mean something's wrong. They get labelled as anxiety. On examination it's a coverup to the peace available beyond the habitual interpretation. R/L
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Yes, it is. There’s no place for egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate in Peace. Peace is thisherenow. Peace happens in the space between the thoughts. Peace happens HERE. And, what you’re suggesting is really important. We can have a racing heart, we can even have fast fire thoughts, even an explosive sensation in the center of the chest and it can all be just fine. It can all happen within Peace. Actually, it does, whether we know it or not! It’s all happening in LIFE and LIFE is where Peace is. We don’t need to fix or change anything, do we? We’re just learning to direct attention to what actually is, rather than to a narrative fueling an imaginary “world” of suffering. Gasshō
 
The thoughts are noticed initially and the emotion fear follows. Physical sensation only in extreme events. Fear is about the consequences of being wrong, failing, displeasing or not enough. The ultimate self deprecation‚ or, acute embarrassment. Self hate. Anxiety is the constant fear at various levels of intensity.
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Perfectly stated. Let’s picture our life force as electricity. Electricity is just energy. It just is. It comes into the house and is just there. With the flip of a switch it can turn on lights or the coffee maker or the toaster. Nothing on and we believe it’s there, but we actually have no evidence. We trust that it is and we take it hard when it’s not. We rarely think about it until there’s something “wrong” with it. Power goes out and we realize how much our lives revolve around this energy we usually pay no attention to whatsoever. Of course, it’s there in the background, underground, if you will, as we go about the day. It’s running everything we do, but we’re not aware of that or of it. Yes? (Are we still talking about electricity here?) So, what we want is to have just the right amount of electricity (energy) to do what we want to do. Too little. Problem. Too much? Yep, equal problem. We have “surge protectors” to be sure the electricity is modulated, the amount we want/need and no more. I’ve always found it helpful to think of myself as a toaster. I used to think I was hot stuff, able to make that toast as light or as dark as needed, in control of the dial that made it all happen. Then one day the electricity went off. Oops. No control. No toast. Doesn’t matter what the dial is set to. Good to remember one day the electricity is going to go off for all us appliances. Good to be ready. Yes? Back to anxiety. Our lifeforce is like the electricity. We run on energy. Anxiety is to our nervous system what messed up electricity is to the toaster. Not enough energy/life force and we feel depressed. Too much energy/life force and we feel manic. Surges in energy and we feel anxious. We’re “nervous” and we learn to self-medicate through food, alcohol, drugs, exercise, sex. In this country the big business is getting people to feel the way they want to feel, how they think they should feel. All are attempts to manipulate the energy, the lifeforce. A pill for more; a pill for less. I don’t feel the way I want to feel, what do I do??? Enter Awareness Practice. When we’re identified with the appliance, the separate ego self, there is no way NOT to suffer. But, when we’re identified with what we are, with the lifeforce, with the energy that’s animating, when we’re with it rather than being an ego-subject that objectifies it, when we’re with it, when we realize it is us, suffering is not even possible. Gasshō
 
Process: paying attention, identifying snakes of worry, fear, anger, hurt, frustration, exploring through R/Ling, forgetting, and returning. Story I'm not meant to see: have little or no control over people, things, events, time/space. Headline: Embrace the snakes of vulnerability and lack of control: accepting the unacceptable.
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Bingo! Accept the unacceptable and we are no longer in the unacceptable, we are in the acceptable. Like magic, isn’t it? Ego voices shriek that if you accept all that unacceptable stuff you’ll never have/be what you want, what you should be. Horse feathers! Accept the unacceptable and the unacceptable ceases to exist. And, here’s the best part, right? We don’t have to laboriously, painstakingly face and accept every unacceptable ego can throw at us. We can do it in one shot! I ACCEPT. We say YES to Life. Sometimes we can be wildly enthusiastic. Sometimes not so much. Sometimes all we can manage is an “okay.” That’s okay. We say okay often enough and it starts to be funny. That too? Yes? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Pretty soon there’s a little beat to it. The lyrics aren’t much but the beat is danceable. (I think it has a salsa feel to it, but we’re all different in that. Rumba? Hip Hop? Waltz? Life doesn’t seem to have a preference. There’s even twerking, you know?) Gasshō 
 
"It's the Voices!" I can hear them. Starting subtly and get louder and louder! I'm sitting watching a movie and I get the sinking feeling, however just before that, the voice says, "You shouldn't be doing this." And the self hatred starts--big black entity that sucks my breath away
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You got it! Now, stay with it. Is it going to try to scare you off? Absolutely. No doubt. But grab all your courage and keep watching. Keep listening. We have so many supports for this, and one of my favorites remains to write down everything you hear the voices saying. Then make a recording that says, “The voices say XXX, but the voices lie. They only say these things to scare and control me.” Get all the voices down in this way. The voices will say that’s not possible because there are too many voices. Not true. The messages are few and repetitive. Once we start to catch on, as you have, we begin to see the patterns and the whole thing moves from scary to fascinating. Now you’re the watcher. You’re observing rather than being the victim. The ego voices can’t do what they do when they’re being watched so they’ll try to distract you and sneak up again when you’re not looking. It’s a program! You can see it, learn what they do and how they do it, and you will realize that you are the awareness watching the whole thing. At that point you’re in a position to save that human being—the one you think of as you—from all that self-hating suffering misery. Well done! Gasshō
 
Breathe. Relax. Focus. Ask questions. Answers come. What am I thinking? Are my thoughts creating anxiety? Can I choose new thoughts? Change focus from fear of future to what's here now. Can't control what hasn't happened yet. Can control my thoughts; how I feel. Can create pleasantness. Banish fear. 
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We can choose where we focus attention. Absolutely true. We want to be careful about letting that word/idea of control enter the picture. “Control” is one of the main ways egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate introduces a “comparison contest” into our lives. “You can control XXX,” in this case your thoughts. “You should control XXX.” “You didn’t control XXX.” “You failed to control XXX.” “You’re not controlling XXX.” “What’s wrong with you that you’re not controlling XXX?” Soon we’ve lost sight of the original point—we canpractice directing the attention—and we’re in a losing battle with ego in which it has all the attention. Yes? It’s enough to practice choosing what we focus attention on. And, yes, you are absolutely correct that we can choose love rather than fear. Life rather than ego. Gasshō
 
Loved looking for anxiety - tried to run life. Seemed less scary when I called it out. Most noticeable was that almost all anxiety stemmed from ping-ponging between past and future, and believing it was true. Attention there meant me feeling miserable on some level. Noticing/freedom. Gassho, R/L
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Nailed it! In practice we often hear that “nothing stands up under scrutiny.” Look for anxiety, call it out, focus all the attention on it, and it’s nowhere to be found. Doesn’t exist. Get caught up in an ego-based story of what’s wrong/not enough in an imaginary past or an imaginary future, and the story produces the sensations that get labeled anxiety. Or, as we like to say, “There’s no such thing as anxiety.” Now, a word of caution: When we say things like “It seemed less scary when I called it out,” we’re inviting egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate into our life. Your actual experience wasn’t that it “seemed less scary.” It wasn’t scary at all. You saw it for what it is and felt free of it. Language is beyond important. Our choices are critical. All this suffering has happened to us since we “got” language/meaning. Words/meaning and the attending beliefs/assumptions are how ego controls a human being. We don’t pay attention to what we’re actually saying because we’ve been brainwashed into believing we know. We don’t. Takes a lot of awareness practice to realize the brainwashing didn’t happen, it’s happening. We are moving from “trusting the mind to give us the information we need” to observing the mind closely, expanding awareness to include the mind, in order to see how suffering is being done to us. Gasshō
 
For me, anxiety is a suffocating, embarrassing, fear of inadequacy. What is behind it? Nothing. It is a glimpse of a universe moment in which a me has anxiety. Moving on now to another. On repeat-listen as the mentor says one at each exhale. R/L
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Perfectly articulated! There’s identification with an experience of paralysis. The moving pictures suddenly stop and there’s a still frame. Embarrassment, fear, can’t breathe. That becomes the whole of reality. Is it? Absolutely not. In fact, it’s not even “real.” It’s an imaginary picture projected on an imaginary screen (the mind), seen by an imaginary person (the ego). If we get stopped there, the paralysis continues. However, if, as you suggest, we drag attention away from that very compelling, believable story, if we redirect attention to thisherenow, the pictures once again move. Are the pictures any more “real”? You’ll find out because now attention is HERE, in the moment, where you are. You’re relaxed, happy, eager to be present for this moment. That’s a great “place” from which to see it all! Gasshō
 
The assignment reminds me of something the guide once said that no thing can stand up under scrutiny. As I placed all my attention on the anxiety, the sensations, and the story that made meaning about it, it dissipated into thin air. Gassho R/L
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Ah, ha! I was just discussing that with one of your neighbors. Exactly so. Nothing can stand up under scrutiny. We can test out that theory with any number of content, can’t we? We hear voices in the head use words like “always” and “never” and “can’t” and “they.” If we give attention to any of those—and innumerable others—with an “Is that so?” attitude, we will see entire belief systems evaporate, as you describe. We hold imaginary “realities” in place, often ones over which we suffer mightily, because we’ve simply never examined them. Never questioned. The orientation got put in place at some point, we accepted it, and we’ve never returned to the scene of the crime. We suffer in large part because we have never returned to the original premise to see if it has validity. Is this going to take all day every day for the rest of our lives? Isn’t this going to be an overwhelming task, figuring all this out? Not a bit. No thinking required. All we need do is look into each moment with fresh eyes. It’s simply a matter of being here for what is rather than off attending to the brainwashing program in conditioned mind. It’s what practicing awareness is. Gasshō
 
Unscrambling egos system. Experience dread/anxiety writing the assignment. Practicing "don't mind being anxious" seeing that with total acceptance no longer gives fuel and I if I don't go with egos labeling system it is just energy. Now I am in the flow of Life plenty energy to write the assignment R/L
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What an excellent point! People go see films, horror films, for entertainment. People do all sorts of things for laughs, fun, a good time, that other people wouldn’t do unless threatened with immediate extinction. There’s no one definition for anything, is there? What people free climbing up a sheer rock face are feeling is the same energy all humans are animated with, but their labels are no doubt very different from the person with acrophobia. We get out of the head, out of conditioned mind’s labeling system, and what do we have? Energy we can use for whatever we choose? Yes, indeed. Gasshō