I looked at this, I signed up for this class and thought, oh, it's getting big. And I got a little frightened. And I thought, oh, good. What's your name again? Peg. Peg. Are there any other Pegs or Peggies? Peggy. Peggy. And great for me and great for you that a big group is great because people are afraid of big people. Especially speaking in front of big groups. So let's see. Some of you have done other workshops here on fear and fearlessness, right?

[01:15]

How many have done one before? Not so many. At the end of the last one, people wanted to keep going, wanted another one, but didn't come back. One, you kind of want to keep working with it, but then if you get away from it for a while, maybe other things come up more interesting, or I don't know what. So, fear is something that a lot of people are working with, and closely related to fear. inseparable from feeling anxiety. So these are things which most people have to deal with.

[02:21]

Everybody has to deal with anxiety. Most people have to deal somewhat with fear. And so they're just things we have to work with. But more than that, they're actually very closely related to the process of getting in trouble and getting entangled and enslaved. And they're involved in those processes by which we make lots of mistakes and do terrible things. And they're also involved in the process of doing good and becoming enlightened. So they're very important topics there. So we could say that we are in kind of a crisis concerning anxiety and fear.

[03:26]

I guess everybody is actually. I have learned that there's a Chinese term for crisis. Two Chinese characters. One character means danger. The other character means opportunity. So characters together mean crisis. So fear is a very dangerous thing. If we don't face up to it and have courage to do it, we can be made to do anything. And if we do face it, it can take us

[04:37]

The facing of it can take us into the most subtle realms of understanding ourselves and all things. Similarly, anxiety is dangerous in a different way because anxiety, if you don't face anxiety, you can't exactly be manipulated by anxiety the way you can be manipulated by fear. I'll explain that to you more later, but people can manipulate themselves and be manipulated by others, and manipulate others by fear, because fear is object-oriented. So, people can be controlled and driven around by fear. But anxiety can exactly drive people with it, because it isn't so object-oriented. The danger of anxiety is not so much that we will be driven directly to... Well, one of the dangers of anxiety is that we're driven from anxiety to fear.

[05:51]

And there again we're driven into a realm where we can be controlled by our inability to work with fear. But the more immediate danger of anxiety is that we will withdraw from being present with being ourself, that we will diminish ourself, be less present and self-expressive in order to attempt to reduce or escape anxiety. This does not work, but this is one of the dangers of this approach. The opportunity of finding a way to face anxiety and work with it is that we can see what we really are and

[07:02]

become free of our usual ideas of what we are through anxiety, through using anxiety properly. We're ongoingly in a crisis vis-à-vis fear and anxiety. They're both dangerous and they both have great opportunities. So they're like very sharp swords for very, very strong medicine, even you could say. There may be some things in our life that aren't dangerous.

[08:13]

I don't know if there's anything like that. Maybe there is something like that. Which is fine if there is. Like, I don't know what, maybe a... What? Maybe. I just thought of various things, like I thought of a ball, you know. But a ball's a little bit dangerous because, you know, if it's a small ball and you put it in a kid's mouth, they could... You think, well, how about a big softball? Well, you know, it gets deflated. It could fall in the water and, you know, smother some animal or something. I don't know. It's hard for me to think of something that's not dangerous. But if there is something that's dangerous, I have no problem with it. Of course, because it's not dangerous. But it's working with dangerous things that we develop skill. The Buddhist term, actually, for skill, derived from the word kusa, which is a type of grass, which the Buddha recommended for making meditation seats.

[09:21]

And harvest this kind of tall grass, and then make a pile out of it, and they sit on this grass, which made a nice surface, and also that protected their bottoms from insects fighting But this grass that he recommended, which has a sharp edge, you can cut yourself as you harvest it. So if you were unskillful, you'd cut your hands on the grass. So if you learn how to harvest the grass skillfully, you could harvest it without cutting yourself. But also it can develop skill. because it is dangerous. So it's an opportunity to have a nice seat, to develop a skill, and learn how to be careful handling something that's dangerous. And that term, that word for grasp, was converted from kusa to kushala. Kushala then meant skillful or appropriate.

[10:22]

And in general, it means the appropriate way of dealing with what's after experience. So, in the case of a sharp piece of grass, you want to develop the way to To get a hold of it, you don't want to grab it too hard or too soft. So the same with your fear. You don't want to grab it too hard or too soft. Same with your anxiety. What's the proper relationship to these things? What's the skillful, wholesome way of dealing with these phenomena? That's the question. I guess I have a feeling, I feel like anxiety... Maybe I'm not going to say priorities.

[11:48]

I was going to try and say that I feel like anxiety is simply... Anxiety is simply the human condition. We are. normally, naturally anxious, basically, all the time. It's not an unusual thing. It's an omnipresent anxiety. Some people are very happy to hear that because they know they're anxious. There's quite a few people who think it's just them. They're happy to hear that it's not just them. And even I'll tell you that the founder of Buddhism was anxious. If there is a sense...

[12:50]

and then even a belief on top of the sense in an independent self of a limited self of a limited individual if we have a sense like that and we give it some credence or a lot of credence which most of us do If we believe in our own being, then we will experience anxiety. If you don't have such a sense, and or you attribute no reality to that sense, then you won't have anxiety. But if you don't, you're not a normal human being.

[13:57]

And some people and aren't normal human beings and these people are usually hospitalized either as psychotics or as people who have some kind of organic brain or neurological problem or development and most of the work That is, most of the therapy they receive is to help them develop a sense of self and to believe in it so that they can function in normal human concourse for the anxious. If there is a sense of own being, then all around that there is a sense of non-being. And non-being threatens in an immeasurable way, immeasurably big, immeasurably small, immeasurably varied, endless, ungraspable way, non-being threatens being.

[15:17]

Healing this threat from all around Because non-being can come from any direction, any time, any place, feeling this, and feeling the discomfort of this. And there's nothing you can do about it, because non-being doesn't have any form, doesn't have an address, It doesn't come from any particular direction. In a sense, from the point of view of me being an individual person, that I believe in, everything I see, every image I perceive is a symbol

[16:26]

of non-being is a threat to my own being. And everything in that sense is both dangerous and an opportunity. Most of us, to some extent, and the extent varies greatly, do not wish to notice this fact. One of the main ways we distract ourselves, and also very basic and not really sick, it's not a kind of sick thing, is that we drive to make this non-being into an object.

[17:39]

And then we're afraid. And we can do something about fear. which we kind of like to do, because then we can do something. And also, in the interaction with fear, we are somewhat distracted from the anxiety, which we can do nothing about. From the point of view of anxiety, all images are symbols. All images are not objects of what's threatening my existence. They're not objects. They're symbols of something which is not an object. And non-being can be represented by anything. Symbol is another thing of non-being. And again, most of us do not want to live with that.

[19:00]

So instead of seeing you all as symbols, non-being, I make you into an object. And then I can be afraid. And then I can struggle with and participate with. Because the object of my awareness is partly me. And I'm partly it. then I can interact with it. And in that sense, if I courageously interact with it, without like backpedaling, in a sense you can transcend the fear. And we can discuss how that might work. That's what that's done. That's good. Because then you're back to yourself again. And then the anxiety reappears. So the fear and the anxiety kind of go back and forth.

[20:05]

When you're facing the anxiety, the fear is in the background. When you make the anxiety into an object, fear comes forth and the anxiety disappears. But the root of fear is anxiety. And anxiety naturally goes towards and drives towards fear. They're very much in a dance. Generally speaking, although that's a rule out of any of this, but this is a guideline, fear is anticipatory. Fear is generally in the future.

[21:10]

Anxiety is not in the future. It's not in the past, and it's really not in the present even. However, if you are present... That's where you can really feel anxiety. You, the subject, you, the meditator, being in the present, you most vividly and effectively feel anxiety. But the anxiety is not really in time. Fear is. And even fear of negative things It isn't the negativity of them that bothers you. Just pure negativity of them isn't fear. It's the anticipation and the possible implications of what you're afraid of that makes it hard on you.

[22:14]

And the implication of fear is what the anxiety is worried about. So you can be afraid of things which aren't too negative either. But the real negativity of all is what threatens our life. Turns out that non-being does not threaten our life. Turns out that life completely includes non-being. That part of life, you know, life co-arises with non-being. Being is actually first. If there is non-being, it is irrelevant to being. But once we are here, non-being becomes very, very significant.

[23:30]

We, living, being creatures, give life to non-being. Non-being is a thing. Because we're alive. And our life is very much wanting to be itself, and our life very much wants to transcend itself. One of the ways, in a sense, that it transcends itself, life, perfectly healthy life, has the capacity to accept its negation.

[24:48]

It wants to be itself and being itself, it can accept not being itself. And not being itself arises from being itself. However, anxiety arises in this very situation. But you see, again, it is part of our nature that we would get involved in this kind of dynamic. Life would just be life. And life could not transcend life. But it turns out that life is something that does transcend itself. Life does not just happen and bog down and stay that way. Life is constantly changing and constantly erupting from itself and completely Life is actually freedom from life.

[26:06]

But this breaking free turns out, goes with this anxiety, which we have trouble standing, and then driving the fear, which then, you know, If we don't work with that properly, we get way off track and forget all about being life and understanding life. In other words, we start moving, you know, kind of like off the mark. It's kind of a, I don't know what, you know, very challenging situation. Life is very challenging. life is not for dead people you got to be alive to do it and you can't be like a little bit alive you got to be like eventually work up to being you know completely alive and then when you're completely alive you have to be complete you have to be completely you live

[27:24]

And then again, when you are completely you, then you get the big reward of lots of anxiety. A living being, in a sense, has to command herself to be herself. And while commanding herself to be herself, she also has to obey herself to be herself. And if you command yourself to be yourself, you put yourself at risk. If you don't command yourself to be yourself, you don't put yourself at risk. So you're not yourself, you know, you're slightly yourself, and you're not at risk, you play it safe, you're submissive to situations, not obedient.

[28:36]

You don't listen to yourself and command what you hear. You don't do that. You don't take risks. The risk, the risk of being yourself. Not a whole bunch of risks. Just that one. That one. Just that one. And that... To have the courage... to take the risk of being yourself. And not just at random, but, you know, like listening, you know. Now, what is it, first of all? And actually, like, listen to see what it is. Don't just sort of like... uncarefully be yourself. Carefully be yourself. Check out what it is and then inhabit that person, that physical, mental, emotional, psychic, intellectual, blah, blah person by listening and being willing to be there.

[29:38]

The anxiety. Anxiety, you know, the root of the word anxiety means to be choked or strangled or tormented. Tormented is related to the word torque. It means to be twisted. If you're willing to be yourself, you get choked you get twisted by circumstances not exactly by circumstances in the sense that they come over and choke you but

[30:58]

What is the threat? What is the threat? What is the fear? Before the fear, there's a threat of, you know, people go into this detail, but basically, your being is threatened by not it. And not you is a lot bigger than you. Not you is, you know, almost everything is not you, and you don't even know which parts of not you are the most threatening. And you can't make an object out of not you, because as soon as you make an object out of it, you're projecting yourself on it, so it's a little bit you. And so you've still got some safety in, like, when you make non-being into objects, you're still getting a little bit of safety in there. but beyond and free of all your projections. That is seen as fundamentally a deep, unsophisticated threat.

[32:14]

You don't have to be smart or well-educated to feel it. Again, it's more familiar to you to think now, if you would like express yourself, we might do something to you. Okay? You know about that. But that's when you drive this thing into the image of us being American, having certain standards, and you can do certain things here. And if you were someplace else, you would make them into objects of being people of another culture that you were less sure about what you could do. But that's what you'd make it into then. But before you would make it into people who have certain rules on what they'll allow you to do, before you'd feel something. You feel threatened before you sort of think of some reason why you're threatened. As long as I stay in my seat and keep my clothes on and don't talk too loudly, you know, and don't breathe on anybody or touch anybody, then maybe, unless perhaps Rev tells everybody to turn their attention on me,

[33:28]

Maybe I'm relatively safe, but we're concerned about that. But we're concerned about it in terms of these things as objects. You can hardly imagine this in a way, but you can feel what it's like, what you feel is coming at you before you make it into objects, before it's made into fear. And you feel that. All this non-being that we feel is going to threaten us is not really going to hurt us because we made it. We gave it its life. Us and stuff like us, what power would non-being have? It's really, it's a dead non-being.

[34:34]

It's because of us, non-being was born, non-being is our baby. But it's a big baby. It's a big baby because we want it to be little. Because we want it to be just somewhere under a ton and have a limited number of things we have to deal with, then we decided that non-being would be big. Really, without that non-being, it gives us our life. And these people are symbols, and the trees and the sky and food are all symbols in our perception, in terms of our anxiety. Everything that's pressing on us can be symbolized by these things, but before it's symbolized, something's pressing on us which we feel might overwhelm us, but actually... It gives us our life, and we give it its life. It's not going to overwhelm us.

[35:36]

But because we switched over to the side of being and forgetting about how we made that, then that threatens us. Actually, like, get intimate with this is the job of, is our job. with it when we make it into objects and experience fear and to get intimate with it before it's turned into objects. Or, put another way, to get intimate with it when it's objectless. And just to, what do you like, just simple, you know, message from Zen Center, Zen meditation is objectless meditation. Zazen is objectless meditation. If you're actually doing Zen meditation in this classical sense, objectless meditation, you're meditating on, well, you know, in a sense, nothing or nothingness, which, you know, really means nothingness.

[36:52]

It doesn't mean like your idea of it. You're actually like getting cozy with nothingness. So of course, Zen meditation is closely related to anxiety. And so most people, when they first start practicing Zen, do not want to practice Zen meditation. So they practice something else, because they do not yet want to get cozy with this kind of very basic, raw anxiety. But again, I want to say again, this anxiety is normal. It is existential anxiety. It comes with human existence. It's not sick. It's not neurotic. It's not psychotic. It's also not healthy. It is simply part of the deal.

[37:56]

and it is very difficult for us to stay with it even though it's part of the deal. So again, what I'm proposing to you is that... I think you also have heard about Zen being, you know, kind of like... Zen has to do with developing presence, right?

[39:46]

You heard about that? Being present here and now. You know, it's all Buddhist... All Buddhist practices are really about that, though. It's not just Zen, just that Zen is somehow got credit, got, you know, credit for that somehow. It's very fortunate for the Zen school. But this is basically just a basic Buddhist thing, but really just a basic human thing. Human life is about being present, right? Rather than absent. Since we're here, And not for long. It's about being here for not so long. It's going to be over soon enough, so let's... For what little we have of it, let's be here. It turns out that knowledge makes common sense, but it turns out to be the happiest, healthiest, most unlikely thing to do, too.

[40:51]

And also it's the best thing you can do for all the other people who are here, even the ones who are not here while they're here. It's them to try it too. Because a lot of people don't want to be here because you know what happens when you're present, right? When you're present, you start to feel what it's like to be alive. And what it's like to be alive is that you want to be alive and also you want to transcend being alive. And it's very dynamic and very intense. things become very acute. So, it's very dynamic. So I propose to you, just a proposal, that a self willing to experience anxiety is a virtuous self.

[41:58]

That a self willing to be itself and therefore be at risk by being itself is a virtuous self. And it's a courageous self, of course. And it is a creative self. It is creative because it's creating itself and also transcending itself and creating itself again. And transcending itself, it is constantly, what do you call it, autopoetic. Autopoesis. Constantly self-making itself. Checking out what it is and saying, okay, let's be it. being present, feeling what it's like and saying, okay. And then feeling the anxiety. Well, I can't quite say okay, but I'm not going to run away. Or if I do run away, hey, I admit it.

[43:11]

I'm afraid. And I'm going to face the fear, and by facing the fear, I come back. Fear is vanquished and now I'm anxious again. Life willing to be itself is good life. Life willing to transcend itself is good life. Self willing to be itself is a good self, is a virtuous self. Self willing to transcend itself is a good self. If you're willing to be yourself, you will unavoidably transcend yourself. If you don't accept transcending yourself, you won't get to be able to be yourself again because you've just changed. So you have to be willing to be yourself and transcend moment after moment.

[44:19]

That is the good self. And that is the good self. However, you will not appreciate that. And you will be miserable, frightened, and driven to cruelty. But you will always be exactly that self, nothing else but it, and you will constantly transcend it. what you are and that is in fact what life is. And if Buddha saw you, Buddha would see that happening. And what I mean by Buddha is a person who is doing that and admitting it while they're doing it would see that you're doing the same thing but also would see that you don't think you are and therefore the rule of it, the way it works is that you would be um um

[45:28]

You would be miserable. Miserable. You know, miserable comes from miser. Or miser comes from miserable. Miser. You don't give anything to yourself. You don't let yourself be yourself. Martin? I had a great experience of what you're talking about. I'd like to share it. Is that okay? Yeah. I recently had a practice period at Green Gulch. In December, I was here for about a couple of months. And when I first got here, the first couple of weeks I was really anxious. And I didn't want to be here. I had thoughts about leaving. A lot of things were coming up, which, you know, things from the past, whatever, that I was anxious about. And I just couldn't... I couldn't get around it, but I was doing my best to remain present, and we were doing a lot of meditation, and I was very aware of what was coming up in my mind and my emotions.

[46:46]

But in the beginning, I was not that. I was it. I wasn't that attached from it. And I remember I had one experience that I was going to leave. I walked up to the entrance. I was here like two and a half, Right there was a beautiful day. And the cars were coming by. I was going to stick out my tongue and say, I'm out of here. I'm out of here. It was just, I was overwhelmed at the time with all my emotions and stuff. And then I asked myself, where am I going? If I let it go home, I'm going to throw it on the stove. I got really committed to staying here and being here until the end. And after that, something flipped over. That emotional stuff was still coming up, and I was still in anxiety. But I began to... in its place. And... for my remaining time here, it was more and more joy and less anxiety.

[47:52]

And I feel really good about being able to complete it. Just saying about the anxiety and being in the presence was very real for me. Congratulations. I didn't talk to you about this. Yes. Very interesting. When I dissolve now, I feel like I've become less anxious as a result. Uh-huh. As a result of going right into it, whatever it is. You know, going right diving into whatever fear, anxiety, or sense of this, anything, whatever. And looking at Ray of the Faith, it seems to dissolve a lot of the time. So I find this general in my daily life, I'm much less anxious as a result of cramping. Does that contradict what you're saying?

[48:55]

Or am I doing it wrong? I didn't do it wrong. How's it air in here? That's the launch. That's the launch. Could it be alright to open some windows? People stand there. You okay? Thank you.

[50:14]

Thank you. Wow. So Mary Lee said that she feels as a result of meditating that she's less anxious than she was either before she's meditating or when she's not meditating.

[51:59]

She's wondering how this applies to what I've been saying. Now, when you say you were anxious before, what was your experience, what was the anxiety you're talking about? Well, for example, I got here early today. I got here about 4. And there was nobody around. The guest house was dirtied, everything was dirtied. And that ordinarily made me feel pretty anxious. So I'm all alone here, and I start feeling lonely, and I start getting kind of freaked out about my lonely life. So I sit down on my cushion, and I look at that. Just a second. So what you're describing there as anxiety is that you feel alone. And you feel nervous. But first of all, you felt alone. Yeah. Okay. Now, how would the aloneness... What is it about the aloneness that makes you feel nervous? Kind of abandoned feeling. So that's... Is that anxiety or is that fear?

[53:08]

Well, from your definition, it's probably fear because I'm defining it as something rather than just facing a formless phenomenon. Yeah. So there are many, many, many, many possible objects which are frightening to us. Traditionally in Buddhism, there's five basic types. Fear of death, One. Actually, sometimes it operates in terms of loss. Fear of... Or you can not even say fear, but anyway, the feeling you have about losing life. That's one. Feeling you have about losing, basically, your mind. Losing control of... feeling you have when you think about losing your job, your livelihood, feeling you have when you think about the prospect of losing your reputation, your good reputation, feeling you have a livelihood, reputation, your mind or your body sense, and then also fear of speaking in front of a large group.

[54:49]

Those are the five fears. But, you know, the five types of fear are to say, feel at the prospect of losing these four kinds of things or speaking in front of a large group. Speaking in front of a large group means losing something. Speaking in front of a large group, you could lose your life. You could lose your reputation. You could lose your livelihood. And you could lose your mind. So basically, they're all about, in a sense, one sense is they're about losing something, but also they're about the other, you know. They're about states of mind that are other than your usual. They're about forms of livelihood that are other than what you usually think of as livelihood. They're about losing what you have. or just so that the other will come moving in on you through these object portals.

[55:54]

So when you come into a place and nobody's around, and you start feeling nervous, part of the nervousness is because nobody's around, but also the nervousness is also something that's a harbinger of perhaps more nervousness. Or, you know, that your mind will become move into a form that is usually considered to be out of bounds, or other, or out of control, or... And maybe it doesn't go too far, but you're concerned that it might, that, you know, you come into a place, you know, must be packed, as a matter of fact, and nobody's there, you know. That's not so bad in itself. But what does it imply? What does it imply? That everybody left? It's the wrong day?

[56:58]

I'm hiding from you? It's the implications of this that sends you into this fear. And the implications are, well, there's no limit to them, actually. There's no limit to the implications of something that's... Once you start thinking about the implications, if things are going according to plan, you sort of say, okay, that's it, and you stop it. You don't get into the implications. If a tiger's in your face, and you just meet it, and don't think about the implications of it, it's not fear. It's just being... And there you are. You in the face. If you start thinking about the implications... Well, there could be a lot of important implications. Then you become afraid. So when you got into, I think you got into implications.

[58:00]

That's what it sounds like to me. You didn't get way into the implications because, as you were about to say, you went and sat. Instead of elaborating on the implications of nobody being around, which you can see, you can take that a lot of different places. The people had all been abducted by You know, and I might be next, or they might be sent back in a different form. There's lots of different implications. But rather than getting into the implications, which means rather than elaborating on them and causing more fear, you just face the fear. And you face the notifications of the fear, the nervousness, and also your concern about the nervousness. You were a little concerned about the nervousness, too, because you didn't, that was a little bit out of, you weren't planning on that either. So you went and sat, you came back to the present, and the fear was in some sense vanquished. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You come back, and the fear is vanquished. And then I propose to you, then the anxiety is present.

[59:04]

When she is not so aware of the anxiety. Why not? Well, do you want to become aware of the anxiety? Well, I want to progress. And progress, where do you think you'd be progressing to? Uh-oh. Huh? Transcending, yeah. Impression in a sense would be to progress from coming back from fear to the present with yourself and then start feeling what it's like to have a self. And the more you start feeling and being aware and the more you command yourself and obey yourself and become this person, the more you become this person, the more this person is at risk. Now, if you come up here and sit in front of me, okay, and look out at the people and talk to them, you can see the implications of what's going to happen if you do that.

[60:22]

You can just feel through these symbols what that's about. You start to feel the anxiety. But only if you come and sit here. You know, you have to really be yourself here. If you sit here as an individual in front of these people, all people and all things that aren't you, you start to get in touch with the anxiety. So, it's not that you were doing something wrong, you didn't do anything wrong, to feel, to come back, to feel that fear, to face that fear, which you could identify, which you could participate with. You engaged it, you participated with it, and in a sense, you temporarily vanquished it. And also, your anxiety is allayed. But it's not gone. It is still here. And your anxiety will manifest more and more. Take credit for being yourself. The more fully you express yourself, and not moving into the implications of that self-expression,

[61:36]

not anticipating what will happen to you later from self-expression. Be yourself not for some reason to accomplish something for yourself or for anybody else, but be yourself only to be yourself. Being yourself only to be yourself is to put yourself at the maximum risk. you know to accomplish something or to get something for yourself that's not really emphasizing yourself that's a distraction it's a distraction from the primary activity of being yourself and when you work on that you feel the anxiety most vividly say what you have to say as an expression of yourself primarily in order to express yourself primarily in order to show your heart to show your mind to show your body, if that's your primary concern in your self-expression, then you feel at risk.

[62:43]

And as you get more skillful and more honest at revealing yourself, you feel more and more at risk. And you notice Self-expression is anxiety. And then many people say, well, if that's it, I'm not going to express myself. But you see, that's in fact what they learn. They learn self-expression, attainment, anxiety. But to keep expressing yourself, even though you get anxiety for self-expression, is the liberation. It takes a while. To get present enough and expressive enough. To be obedient enough to yourself. To be obedient enough to listen to yourself. To recognize yourself. To feel yourself enough. And to command yourself to be what you hear.

[63:47]

Not to be something else, but just to be what you hear you are. To get skillful enough at that so you really start feeling anxiety. True anxiety. Which is not fear. Feel the anxiety. If you stay present and watch, you'll notice how it veers off into fear, how it goes off into objects. And then bring yourself back, feel the anxiety, and then notice how it drives off into the fear. And how when you get into fear, that when you get to fear, the real crunch of fear is the anxiety about fear. It's not the known. It's not when the known thing happens. It's not the negativity itself. It's the endlessness of the possible implications, which is the anxiety. It's all back around. Andy? Is my understanding incorrect if I interpret what you're saying to be that fear becomes the objectification of anxiety?

[65:05]

Is that what you said? Yeah, fear is the objectification of anxiety. So a typical representation that you might observe in yourself or other people is fears that arise regardless of Any apparent reason for fear will arise. In other words, anxiety tends to objectify whatever it encounters and create fear in that situation. Whereas, to another person's viewpoint, there doesn't seem to be a rational reason for that fear to arise. So would that be the case with anxiety objectifying? Taking any particular object and objectifying it? Yes. Think about fear. You know, I feel like, you know, what you said was, I don't know what. I couldn't quite, you know, connect with it.

[66:09]

But anyway, back to what you said, fear is the objectification of anxiety. There we were, you know, I was right with you. And then I talked a little too fast for me. So if you walk through this more slowly, maybe I can stay with you. I've been seeing myself a tendency in my behavior where if I'm experiencing anxiety, I can jerk it by most anything. I think you said this, in fact, you can jerk it by almost anything. Uh-oh. I said that your objectification of anxiety... It's not that you can objectify almost anything, okay? You can't objectify almost anything. You can't objectify almost anything because it is something. It's already been objectified. So you can't objectify almost anything.

[67:13]

It's a thing. It's already objectified. And you've got to work with that thing and you've got to objectify that object Okay? That's one step. Anxiety is, you know, it's not... It is endless. It is like... Everything that's not you. Then you have experiences. You, being a living being, you have experiences, which means you interpret this universe. Something happens. You have a feeling. Or a smell. Or a picture. There's a woman, there's a woman, there's a man. You see these things. Things happen. These words happen to you. Then you can

[68:17]

you can say that that object is about this... all that non-being out there that, you know, threatens me. So then any of these objects could be... I could take them as symbols of unknown non-being. In fact, all these things, in a sense, are little kind of like... You could use them as kind of like little, you could use anything as a symbol of that. Then everything reminds me of not me. That's the way it is. But not me. Like, you know, autistic kids, right? You heard about autistic kids. That's the way it is for them. All this stuff's out there like kind of a... Anything could be like practicing. But it isn't the thing, it's that this thing represents you.

[69:21]

Then, if you put it in the future, and think about the implications of this, what you've done, then you're afraid. This is all, you know, and some people can come up with nice things, good reasons for why they're afraid of this person, but not that person. But these are both perfectly good symbols of my non-being. Both these people are perfectly, equally good symbols of it. But I may choose to, you know, elaborate how Rafa is, you know, I may get into how he is. I may make him into, rather than a symbol of that, I may make him into an object of it. Because then I can interact with something which I can't interact with. Because if you could interact with non-being, it's not non-being. Over dancing with you, it's coming into being.

[70:23]

But then you're afraid. If it's non-being you're working with. Which is kind of a problem, being afraid. Because of all these... Now, where are you? I feel like I follow what you're saying. Okay, now is there something you want me to follow? I think that you stated what I was trying to say, but the only difference in orientation was that I was trying to look at it in more of a psychological framework where you could recognize certain types of people's behavior and objectify their anxiety more than other people seem to, and that makes them seem anxious, but makes it seem irrational to another person. Yes, some people are more afraid than other people. Some people have a less tolerance for anxiety, which means some people are not as courageous as other people.

[71:31]

The people who are more courageous have a higher tolerance for anxiety. This means being yourself. Some people are really backpedaling on guess who. But that's the way that they be themselves. And they're perfectly doing it that way. But the way they're doing it is by basically self-accusation. They find they feel it's wrong to be themselves. So they back into some corner of themselves. And then they don't feel less anxiety. But feeling less anxiety, you've got to do something with it so then you feel more fear. And then you say, well, there's the fear, and that fear is saying, I can't be me. The anxiety doesn't say you can't be you. The anxiety is saying, you are you. We're going to wipe you out. The anxiety is not saying you can't be you. The anxiety is saying, you are really being you, and who do you think you are to do that? Anxiety is only for people that have been themselves.

[72:35]

Fear is for those who have already kind of like left the scene of the crime. Now there's also like before even getting into fear is to withdraw from the situation. So there is neurotic anxiety and then there is fear. Some people are into fear and some people are into like getting themselves into a position where they can't even feel what would drive them to fear. Yes, Rafael. And anxiety, for me, anxiety is more unpleasant than fear. Yes, it is. Because fear, I can do something. That's right, exactly. So now there's something that I noticed and something that I do is that when I have anxiety, I will do something. Especially something dangerous or something exciting or adventurous or whatever. Yes. And this, I am afraid.

[73:37]

Yes. But I can deal with that. That's right. I agree. That's the pattern. I think I keep on doing it. You know? I never have to, you know, it's unsafe. Correct. It's just Luminar waiting for you to come home. When you get home, it actually will say, well, where you been, sweetheart? We've been waiting for you to come here and be yourself again. It turns out it takes more courage to come home. The thing that takes the most courage, the most courage, the most courage, the most courage is to be yourself. It takes the most courage. Yes? Yes. Something very interesting happened to me last week was confronting an old friend of us. It was just very hard for me to do.

[74:39]

Marsha. Yes. And she asked me a question that the first time I heard about it. what the situation was. And that was incredibly uplifting for me. And then I went to talk to my therapist about it. And I thought that was something that was very profound, which has to be yourself. It has to be differentiated from whatever that object is. You have to be able to be willing to let somebody or something decline. That's right. Yes. I have a really good read on this. Your name is Janice. What? Joyce. Joyce? If you were more yourself, would you be yourself in your own nature? That's somewhat self-emerging.

[75:44]

I would assume that if you were more yourself, you'd get less of the ego to protect you. then where would the anxiety come from? Oh, what I mean is, be your ego. Authentic self is not the ego. I'm saying if you develop an authentic self, if you choose yourself to feel more naked, then there's less of an ego to protect, so where would the anxiety come from? There's no less of an ego to protect when you're authentic. Same amount of ego to protect. Well, don't get into whether it's true or not. Just listen to me. Were you saying truths over there before? No, I said it's quite the way I'm reading it. Yeah, this is just the way I'm reading it, too. I'm not saying truth. I'm telling you what I'm talking about. That's all. So when I say self, the self that has the anxiety, that's the ego.

[76:48]

The non-ego doesn't have anxiety. I'm talking about ego. If you want to meet the authentic self, the authentic self is the transcendence of the ego.

[77:06]

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