On Freedom from Fear
Practicing generosity towards self and others
I’ve faced a lot of uncertainty and fear this year. In my intro post, I mentioned a series of life transitions that occurred over a period of a few weeks: losing a job, experiencing an industry-wide economic shock, ending a relationship, searching for a new apartment.
Alone, any one of these would be enough to make me worried about the future. Together, in many moments these changes multiply in my mind, giving rise to panic and fear.
And this is even before getting to the fear and panic I feel as a citizen of the United States, in this singular political moment. Family members have worked in the law and in higher ed for many years. I used to work in an industry impacted by DOGE. Every headline feels personal. (Not to mention all of the headlines about AI eating our economy and creative work and the minds of children. Anyway.)
If I’m not careful, it’s easy to drift into frenzied rumination about terrors and dangers lurking up ahead. In these moments, I try to practice generosity towards myself, giving myself what I need to not feel afraid.
Generosity is the first of six pāramitā (in Pāli, pāramī), usually translated into English as “perfection”. These six perfections, in Chan Buddhism, are the six lifelong practices that train our ability to live skillfully in the world and be helpful to others.
If you’ve been to a meditation center, a temple, a yoga studio, or an ashram, you might have heard the term dāna, the word I’m translating here as “generosity”. In most contexts, this word means a donation of money without any expectation of getting anything in return.
But at least in Chan Buddhism, there are three types of generosity: 財布施 the gift of money, 法布施 the gift of dharmic teaching, and 無畏布施, the gift of fearlessness.
The three kinds of giving are not created equal. Money is good to give in most cases for sure. But it is better to give someone a teaching of the dharma than to give money, because that leads to their happiness and freedom.
And it’s even better to directly give them freedom from fear. This third kind of generosity is the highest gift a person can give another being.
Sounds nice, right? Freedom from fear. We all want that. But…what is that.
What that practically means, in very real terms, is not wanting anything from another person. Having no agenda or expectations for how they will act or behave. Being totally okay with whatever they do. Giving up whatever control we think we have over their actions, speech, or thoughts.
If you’re with someone who wants absolutely nothing from you, you can be yourself and totally relax. That’s freedom from the fear of consequences.
Most people want something from me in most situations in life. Totally normal human thing, we all do it. It’s not necessarily bad for somebody to want something from me. If it’s a friend, odds are what they want from me is also something that is good for me. I moved house last week, and several friends came to help pack. They wanted to help me, and help they did. It felt great.
But make no mistake, that’s different from wanting nothing from a person.
I made a new friend this week, which was a great chance to work on wanting absolutely nothing from them. Well, not absolutely nothing. This new friend can be somewhat skittish and worried around strangers due to some difficult experiences in the past. I wanted them to feel safe, happy, and relaxed.
In order to do that, I had to consistently put my own agenda and worries down to focus on their dynamic needs in the moment. When I got worried about whether I was oversharing about myself (are they going to like this part of me?!) or getting too vulnerable on a first meeting (will they think I’m intrusive or trying too hard?!), those were just my inverted way of wanting them to react well to me. In other words, I was on the brink of making our interaction about me.
I put those vexations down, over and over again, and just relaxed into the conversation. When they needed reassurance, I gave them reassurance. When they needed guidance, I gave them guidance. When they needed me to explain what I meant by a particular word or phrase, I explained. I was open, curious, and receptive. Our dynamic flowed easily. And they experienced some measure of freedom from fear.
If wanting nothing from a person consists of being open to whatever they bring and need, with no expectations or assumptions, I can do the same thing to myself.
If I give up the sense that I have to control how I feel or what I think, then I don’t have to fear feelings or thoughts. If I just feel okay with what’s coming up, then I don’t fear whatever hypothetical consequences might arise.
I give this gift to myself these days by not allowing myself to drift away into worries about the future. Just now, for example, my head felt a little heavy and my throat felt dry and tight. The thoughts came up almost immediately. Am I getting sick? I was sick last week. Maybe the cold is back. That would be bad. I can’t be sick next week. I can’t even be sick tomorrow! Etc etc, blah blah blah blah blah. With each thought came mounting tension.
If I entertained those thoughts, they’d turn into fear. So I remembered to breathe, and experienced the physical sensations in my throat. They’re just sensations right now. They don’t currently mean anything. I don’t yet need to have an opinion about how they’ll develop.
In these moments, what I need is to feel safe and relaxed, just like the new friend I mentioned above. The way to do that is to physically and mentally relax, drop the narration, and return to what is concretely happening right now. This is a great act of generosity towards myself.
This post was about pāramitā number one. In order, all six of them are:
布施 dāna (generosity), described above;
持戒 śīla (ethics), which refers to keeping precepts, that is, voluntarily restricting certain actions;
忍辱 kṣānti (patience), which means accepting difficulties and abuse without giving rise to vexations;
精進 vīrya (joyous perseverance), which means returning to practice again and again when we slip up;
禪定 dhyāna (meditative stability), which means the ability to concentrate on the matter at hand, a foundational skill for using any meditative method in any moment of life;
般若 prajñā (wisdom), which means correct understanding of emptiness and the application of that right view in actions, speech, and thoughts.
If there’s interest, I can write about how the other five perfections can be applied towards oneself too.
To want nothing from others and from the self, is a liberating thought.
There is interest!