Fear of Awakening

The estimable Joseph Goldstein begins his book, Insight Meditation, by saying that enlightenment (his word) “does not make us weird.” I have no desire to dispute with Mr. Goldstein, but to be enlightened, or awakened, in our society is definitely weird.

What’s wrong with being weird? I want to be weird in our society. I was weird before I started meditating, so awakening has not been much of a change as far as that goes.

But fear of awakening is still a problem. The chapter in Goldstein’s book where he writes that it doesn’t make us weird bears the title, “Fear of Enlightenment.” Enlightenment/awakening is a foreign experience for all of us, or the vast majority of us, on the off chance that an awakened person or three choose to read this.

Foreign experiences can induce fear. Buddhists like explanations from evolution. The people who reacted fearfully to the unknown in our evolutionary history were more likely to survive than people who blustered along, fearlessly.

But awakening harbors no sabre toothed tigers. It is an experience that has over 2,000 years of validation by thousands, maybe millions, of people.

The Buddha did not suffer by awakening. Awakening on the Buddhist path is often described as the end of suffering. The first noble truth is that life is full of suffering. The whole point of Buddhism is to end our suffering as humans.

And the benefits of awakening are well worth facing your fears. It is only slightly inaccurte to say that the whole point of meditation is to face all of our fears in a gradual, compassionate way that allows us to do so effectively and, um, fearlessly. Confronting emotional pain is not fun, but it is far better than allowing it to continue to guide our behavior from our subconscious.

So, keep up your consistent meditation practice fearlessly and do not fear awakening.

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