How to overcome fear

Today I faced my biggest fear. What could that be, would one think. What could a healthy 25 year old, who lives in a peaceful and quiet Buddhist monastery in the sunny south of France of all places be afraid of? There are no drugs and violence here, not even stress and competition, only some rats and an occasional shower. What could there be scary here?

Are you afraid to look inside your mind?

Well my dear friends, the most scary thing in the world is actually quite close, especially here, it's there all the time, waiting for you behind the corner, until one day you run into it, or rather, it hits you when you stop running for it. The most scary thing there is... is your own mind. 

You see, usually we are too busy too look into our own minds, usually we are running around like headless chickens, trying to achieve this, or wanting to get away from that, stuck in some form of stress or some idea that keeps us going. But once we slow down and see, really look our mind in the eye, then we see that it is actually our mind that produces all these things: desires, aversion, anxiety, stress.

And if you really stop and look even closer still, then you will feel them creeping over you, like a big cloud of thunder, massive and immense, ready to incinerate you, to strike you in the core of your being, and - worst of all - unstoppable. There is nothing you can do to stop your mind from producing these things, you have no control whatsoever. Realizing this, my friends, is pretty fucking scary. It's like there is a hurricane closing in on you, and all you have is an umbrella.

So off course, the must obvious thing to do, is to run. That is what your last remaining scrap of your - so thought - sane mind is screaming: Run! Just run on, pretend it is not there, this madness, just get your mind off of it, just look the other way, distract yourself and keep on running. And off course this is what you usually would do.

But what if I decided to do the opposite? To just stand there and let it come, while every cell in your body is telling you to go, just stand there and do nothing, while you feel you are not just losing all control, but your whole being is going to be shred to pieces. Now would that not be the most pretty fucking scary thing you can imagine?

They say that fearlessness is the greatest gift you can give someone. They say that, in order to overcome fear, you have to face it - you know, let that tarantula just crawl over your body. So in order to overcome all fear, shouldn't one face the root of all fear?

They say there is a calm after the storm. So what is there to be found if you sit through the storm of storms, the storm of your own mind? You want to find out? It is easy, all you have to do, is just stand still, very, very still...