First a confession. This series of posts, with "Zen” in the titles, isn't actually about Zen. That’s just a metaphorical reference to a book -- "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” -- which wasn't really about Zen, either, but espoused a philosophy that is useful for maintaining our biological health. I haven't studied Zen extensively, preferring other meditative philosophies, but Zen does teach useful philosophies for a condition that seems to be driving a lot of the recent conversations regarding covid vaccines -- fear.
We all see a lot of discussion about government pronouncements, and our perceptions of its authenticity and relevance, and a lot of discussion of anecdotal statistics. The numbers of covid cases, hospitalizations, treatment outcomes, and risks swirl around us in an incomprehensible frenzy, creating more insecurity than wisdom. This generates a lot of irrational behavior. Human nature produces fear reactions when we're confronted with danger, amplified when we don't know how to deal with it. This produces active responses like fight or flight, often manifested in irrational behaviors like hoarding toilet paper. Zen offers more constructive frameworks to help us manage fear in stressful situations.
Fear has roots in attachment (fear of losing what we're attached to), and ignorance (unable to accurately recognize risk). Fear of death, fear of change, and fear of suffering are manifestations that hide the fundamental roots of our fears.
Zen teaches us to control our fears. Physical fear alters our body chemistry, creating elevated pulse and breathing, muscle and cardiac tension and unhealthy appetite. Learning to recognize the physical responses allows us to "exile fear from our body" with self discipline and techniques like deep breathing, muscle relaxation and meditation. These techniques calm us, and permit a more disciplined response to threats. Our minds have much more control over our physical and mental states than most us us realize. A little practice makes it second nature.
I will be writing more about meditation in a future post.
Another important tactic is to maintain perspective. This allegedly deadly pandemic has been with us for well over a year, and we're still here. The aggregate numbers seem dire, but those numbers are tiny compared to the affected populations. Most of us have far less risk from any virus than we do from over reactions by misguided politicians and neighbors. Do the math. Learn the truth. Don't succumb to fear.
I'm writing a post on heart disease and how to avoid it. That's a much greater risk than viruses, but we ignore it until it suddenly attacks us. That's probably a healthier reaction than the chronic fear of a routine virus.
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Attachments can mean a number of things and any halfway-decent human life must serve values; if persisting on those is an attachment, then there is no way to get around it.
Fear, however, is subdued, once the values are more precious than one's own life.
Also, there is a more pragmatic way to avoid living in fear: evaluate it after experiencing it.
The last two years may have been enough for some people to realize that living in fear is worse than death, so being afraid of dying loses its power over them.
Hello AGAIN David. I wish we dared to post our email addresses, here. I know I don't. But I'd be curious to know your experience with Zazen. I have meditated for 52 years, enjoyed guided meditations for 20 of those years, switched to the Small Circulation (taught in Tien Tao Chi Kung), hated TM, and found Zen ten years ago. I've been very happy with it. But my Rosicrucian studies conflict with the writings of Shunryu Suzuki and Eithei Dogen. I hate being conflicted.