View Printer Friendly Format
Page 1 of 7

We recently celebrated our tenth anniversary, and it was a very wonderful occasion. During the weekend events, we featured a documentary film made by some friends of ours, Tony Anthony and his son, Andrew, from Ukiah. The title of their film is Fearless Mountain. That’s what the name Abhayagiri means. In the Pali language, the prefix a indicates a negative, bhaya means “fear,” and means “fear,” and giri means “mountain.” So Abhayagiri translates to “fearless mountain.”

This name was chosen for a variety of reasons. First, it was the name of an ancient Buddhist monastery in Sri Lanka that was founded around 50 B.C. and flourished for several hundred years. This earlier Abhayagiri was known as a very welcoming ecumenical center, and many different forms of Buddhist practice were followed there. Part of the reason our own Abhayagiri Monastery ended up in this particular spot was thanks to the generous gift of half the land from Master Hsüan Hua of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. He was also ecumenically minded and wanted to support our group of Southern, Theravada Buddhists even though he hails from China and the Northern, Mahayana school. Another curiosity of history is that the bhikkhuni order that developed in China originally came from Sri Lanka, from a branch of Abhayagiri Monastery back in the fifth century, so there’s a loop of connection that’s been made over the centuries. To reflect this spirit of generosity, mutual respect, and mutual support the name Abhayagiri was chosen.

It wasn’t entirely due to these reasons that we settled on the name for our monastery. I also discussed it with Ajahn Pasanno, my co-abbot. I said, “I’m thinking of calling the place Abhayagiri. How does that sound to you?” He thought it was a good idea not only for the name’s ecumenical spirit, but also because of the potency of the spiritual practice of Buddhist meditation in working with the quality of fear itself. During my own life,
particularly my early years, I was a very fearful person—very insecure and afraid of instability. Ajahn Pasanno had a Page 2 of 7

similar background. He told me, “I had ulcers when I was sixteen. I was so anxious; I was a very nervous little boy.”

We both felt it was important to reflect on fear and how the practice of Dhamma—Buddhist meditation, Buddhist teachings and ethics—can lead to a quality of fearlessness. How valuable and how marvelous it can be to live without fear. This was something that had been significant in our own lives, and it would be a good flag to wave for the world—to encourage and point to the quality of fearlessness. Thus, our monastery is called Fearless Mountain.

It’s good to consider that there are many different kinds of fear. When we contemplate where fear fits into the natural order, we see that at times it’s a very useful feeling. We tend to think of fear as being bad, something we are burdened by. “It would be really nice not to feel fear.” But we also have to remember that those ancestors of ours who were not afraid were the ones who got eaten when a sabertooth tiger came along. They got chomped and their genes didn’t get passed along, while the ones who saw the tiger and ran survived. Fear is a useful thing. It’s a protective element in nature.

I had quite a strong insight into this years ago when I was on retreat in the forest in England. I remember sitting on a gate looking out over the fields just around dawn. I was delighting in the scene, watching deer grazing in the meadow, these beautiful creatures munching away peacefully in the grass as the dawn light brightened. Then I cleared my throat, shifted or something, and the sound brought me to the deer’s attention. They noticed me sitting there on the gate and suddenly bolted off across the field. My mind started to think, “Oh, what a shame, poor things. So stricken by fear. They hear an innocent sound and run away terrified. They were so peaceful, enjoying the misty morning, calmly eating their breakfast; now they’re running off in a Page 3 of 7

frightened fluster.”

But then I had an insight: “Don’t be so whimsical! The deer have big ears and big eyes, and their fear protects them. That’s how they stay alive. Whenever there’s any kind of threat or suspicion of threat, they can run. hat’s how they survive. Their fear is a protection. It’s not an aberration of nature.”

Fear is what protects us, too. When we’re driving down the freeway, that same kind of alertness and caution is what keeps us from crashing into other cars. It’s what helps us to beware when a large truck comes up alongside to overtake us. It’s good to be alert and attentive. Here at the monastery when walking along the trails in the dark, we use a flashlight to see where the edge is. Fear of falling down the hillside is sensible. If we didn’t feel afraid, over the edge we’d go!

The down side to our fear, as I’m sure we’re all aware, is how it gets fed and grows in our minds rather than just being something that protects us when we’re in a precarious situation. Because we’re able to remember, anticipate, and imagine, fear sometimes overspills its bounds.

Last year I had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of a scientist named Robert Sapolsky, who teaches at Stanford University. He’s written a book called Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. His main studies over the years have been on stress and its harmful effects. Using his example, zebras experience fear when there’s a lion chasing four feet behind them and they’re racing across the savannah trying to get away. When a lion wants to make you into breakfast, then it’s good to get stressed! Get that heart pumping. Get the breathing rate up and run like crazy, because if you don’t, you’re going to be eaten. But a zebra only needs to feel fear for a couple of minutes—either until it escapes or is eaten, at which point its worries are over anyway. Either way, the need for the body to crank out a high degree of Page 4 of 7

tension and stress lasts for just a short period of time, so zebras don’t get ulcers.

As human beings, such short, intense bursts of stress can even be enjoyable. That’s why people love to ride on roller coasters or watch scary movies. Many of us like an occasional terrorizing of the system—it’s a thrill. The endorphins rush and the whole system is very, very charged up with tremendous energy. There are incredible levels of alertness and the mind is really focused. When we’re on the roller coaster, we’re not worried about our tax returns or the argument we had with our sister ten days ago. There’s only that ever-increasing ascent as we wind up for the next drop. Likewise, dangerous sports like rock-climbing make the mind very one-pointed, which is an enjoyable state for a short period of time.

What Robert Sapolsky points out in his book is that because we are able to remember, to anticipate, to imagine, stressful situations that last for only a few minutes may continue in our minds for weeks or months. That’s when the system starts to break down. It’s okay if the digestive system switches off for three minutes while we’re escaping from a lion. But if the digestion is messed up for three weeks or three months—or if the heart rate is increased, if the reproductive faculties are switched off, if the supply of the oxygenation to the muscles is cranked up too far—then the system gets burdened and stressed. We get ulcers. Fear becomes a major problem.

Ajahn Pasanno got ulcers as a sixteen-year-old not because he lived in constant danger. It was that his mind went on and on and on, fretting, being concerned, picking up issues, remembering, anticipating, imagining, creating images of difficulty and danger. These are not physical threats but threats to the ego, threats to our sense of security. The combination of these protective instincts and the imaginative and conceptual faculties of the mind creates stressfulness, anxiety, and fearfulness.

So the fearlessness of Fearless Mountain is not aimed at being totally devoid of all Page 5 of 7

fear. We’re trying to let go of stressing fear, ulcer-inducing fear, the sort of anxiety that is brewed up and extended by the thinking mind going out of control.

The main cause for this kind of destructive fear is the unknown. We don’t know what’s going to happen next. We don’t know how things are going to be. But that’s natural.

Things are uncertain. We don’t know if this project we’re uncertain. We don’t know if this project we’re engaged in is going to be successful. We don’t know what other people think about us. We don’t know what possibilities are going to open up for us in the future. We don’t know anything, really. The future is a mass of uncertainty.

When we relate to this uncertainty from an egocentric point of view, we try to fill it up with some sort of belief or hope. And when we can’t come up with anything positive or optimistic, then we fill it up with anxiety, fear, worry, and fretting about how things might be. What if, what if, what if. In this way we actually create the causes for the feeling of anxiety.

The more we fail to understand where this fear comes from, the more the sense of threat, which then compounds the feeling of “I-ness,” of “me” being threatened, “me” being worried. The stronger this feeling of “I,” the more we hunker down to try and protect “myself ” from all the dangerous, difficult, and worry-provoking things “outside.” We try to create a sense of security by having a plan, an opinion, a belief, possessions, or insurance policies. We try to establish a feeling of predictability and safety by keeping at bay all those things that remind us of the uncertainty of life. In the background there might be some murmuring: “Yes, well I still really don’t
know. It’s a good plan, but it might not work out. I’ve got a good insurance policy, but these companies do go under now and then. . . . Remember the bank that collapsed last week? All those Page 6 of 7

people were left to drift. I’ve got a good retirement plan, but what about the Enron debacle? Those people got dumped.” Then the intestinal tension starts up again: “Oh dear. This is making me really worried.”

In terms of understanding how this fear works, we first need to see how the process operates within us. When we try to stave off feelings of anxiety, insecurity, and uncertainty with believing in things, or hoping, or planning, notice the consequent inflation of the sense of “me” and how much that feeds into it. Begin to know: this is the feeling of anxiety, this is the feeling of fear, this is reacting against not knowing, this is wanting to have something that makes me feel secure. Get to know what those feelings are, where they come from, how they are created.

Fear is natural enough, but in recognizing where it comes from, we begin to intuit that it doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to be burdened by feelings of uncertainty as a problem; we don’t have to carry around a cloud of fearfulness, worry, and dread of undesired outcomes. That is just a mindstate we are creating. It’s not an intrinsic threat.

Fear is derived from the way we handle our experience. As we look at our life, our mind, our world, we see that of course it’s uncertain. We don’t know how things will turn out, what other people will think, what will bring benefit, or what’s going to fall apart. Even in the best of times, this is simply the way nature works. Life is uncertain; it’s never been anything but. In reflecting, we begin to let go of the obsession with I and me and mine, to relax our focus on the sense of self, to look at things in terms of nature. We expand our view: “Why do I call this bad? Why do I call this wrong? Why is this a threat to ‘me’?” If we just refrain from creating a sense of self
around our experiences, we will see events as Page 7 of 7

being the flow of the natural order—arising and ceasing, coming together and falling apart—and not take it all so personally.

There is still the unknown, but instead of it being frightening and threatening, we experience it with qualities of wonderment and mystery. We don’t know, and our lack of knowing is interesting and delightful. This is the kind of fearlessness we’re aiming at. Directing our efforts in a skillful way, we can live completely free from fear.

This is, in a way, what we mean by Nibbana, the goal of Buddhist life. Oftentimes we don’t really have a clear sense of what Nibbana might mean. We may think of it as a sort of mysterious or exotic word, as some kind of fantastic heaven realm or strange mystical state. Actually, it’s simply that quality of the heart when there’s no grasping, no buying into our own judgments and self-concern. It’s the beauty we experience when we stop fretting and continually seeing things in terms of our own habitual preferences and viewpoints. The heart sees things from the point of view of nature. That beauty is what we mean by Nibbana. In opening to the present
moment, letting go of self-concern, Nibbana is right here.

The fearful mind may say, “Yes, but what am I going to do?? What happens if my plans don’t work out? What if the building does slide down the hill? What if? What if? What if?” When truly attuned to the fundamental orderliness of nature, what will we do? We’ll adapt. We’ll be mindful. If there is something to be done, we’ll do it. A skillful response will arise, and we won’t have to worry about having the future planned or guaranteed or fixed. We can’t take refuge in specific outcomes, but we can take refuge in the quality of pure adaptability, pure openness in the present moment. We can live in fearlessness.

Adapted from a talk given on June 10, 2006, at Abhayagiri
Monastery.

Ajahn Amaro is co-abbot of Abhayagiri and was ordained in
Thailand by Ajahn Chah in 1979.