Empty Threats

Befriend your nervous system.

All fabricated mental states [that cause suffering] pass away.
- Buddha

Move, but don't move the way fear makes you move.
- Rumi

I had two conversations this week — one with a coaching client and the other with one of my Zen students — that crystallized for me what I feel is the primary affliction facing all of us making our way in the modern world. And as I understand Zen practice, it is directly aimed at this affliction.

I’ve been seeing my executive coaching client (and his team) since September, working on the internal and external challenges as he his scales his 30-person business. He’s extremely self-reflective, which is essential in a leadership role.

What he recognized after a period of high stress was that his nervous system has basically been in a fight-flight-freeze mode for over a month, and that this mode had created almost a delusional view of his world. He was missing or misinterpreting many signals that were clearly telling him where the real issues were, and where there was nothing to worry about.

It wasn’t all rosy. Some things needed urgent attention. But in his “internal alarm” state, there was no way of telling which were real threats, and which were empty.

The second conversation was with one of my Zen students. He had listened to the podcast I did with Alex Gil (Re-branding God) and was struck by the description of our modern world as permeated with an ambient sense of insecurity that amplified our internal unease. He recognized how the stream of economic, political, social and environmental crises that pass for news these days created a sort of false reality that he felt acutely in his body. He started freaking out about his bank account even though it was fine.

I’ve come to think of what happens to our nervous system as the “Fear Body.” I think it is pervasive in many of our lives, and when left uncared-for it leads to disastrous outcomes: terrible decision-making (our thoughts are products of our nervous system), trauma-reactive emotional patterns, and physiological breakdown.

My student was able at some point to free himself from the delusion, but he was concerned and he asked me what we can do about it. The answer that came to me was not surprising: practice Zen Mind.

Meditation is a kind of technology that operates directly on the nervous system to effect shifts in our minds and bodies. It doesn’t artificiality “calm us down.” Instead it re-orients us to our own experience in a way that allows our intrinsic qualities of mind to emerge, neutralizing and surpassing the Fear Body.

We don’t have to do hours of meditation to engage with this technology, although there is some correlation between time and effect. One thing I’ve discovered to be helpful, especially for those who don’t sit a lot, is to give people a taste of the main qualities of Zen Mind. When they see it and feel it, it opens channels that can be opened more readily in daily life.

Here are six key aspects of Zen Mind and the qualities they offer:

• Stable Mind: Stability, Security

• Satisfied Mind: Abundance, Satisfaction

• Beginner’s Mind: Curiosity, Creativity

• Parental Mind: Care, Connection

• Joyful Mind: Joy, Energy

• Big Mind: Equanimity (Higher order stability)

These qualities of Mind are the antidote to the Fear Body.

I’m going to do a free live session next Thursday where I talk about the first three of these Zen Mind qualities. I’ll offer direct pointing exercises, some energy work and inquiries that allow us to taste them directly.

If you are interested, Register on my site and indicate whether you can attend live or cannot attend but would like the recording afterward.

I hope to see you there,

• Paul