How a Buddhist Monk Deals With Anxiety | Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
In this episode, renowned Buddhist monk Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche shares his personal practices for working with anxiety and panic. He discusses using sound and breath meditation, deconstructing reality, and understanding awareness as our fundamental nature to find inner calm.
Deep Dive Analysis
14 Topic Outline
Dan Harris's TED Talk Anxiety and Meeting Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur Rinpoche's Approach to Nervousness and Anxiety
Understanding Awareness as Fundamental Nature
Systematic Practice: Sound Meditation as a First Step
Making Meditation Free-Range and Portable
Working Directly with Strong Emotions like Panic
Deconstructing Panic: Seeing its 'Two Faces'
The Third Step: Open Awareness or Objectless Meditation
Awareness: An Innate Quality Available to Everyone
Overcoming Aversion and Craving in Practice
The 'Inner Recycling' of Difficult Emotions
Wisdom: Deconstructing Reality and Impermanence
Four Guidelines for Working with Intense Emotions
The True Purpose of Meditation: Discovering Innate Goodness
5 Key Concepts
Awareness (Buddhist Sense)
Awareness is described as our fundamental nature, a deeper level of contentment, joy, love, compassion, and wisdom, which is always present even amidst fear, panic, or depression. It is the 'sky' that remains unchanged by the 'storms' (emotions) and is inherently wakeful and clear.
Two Faces/Colors of Panic
This refers to the ability to deconstruct panic into its constituent parts: physical sensations (stomach, chest, neck, head), frightening images, unpleasant voices, and underlying beliefs. By seeing panic as pieces rather than a solid, overwhelming entity, its power diminishes and it becomes workable.
Inner Recycling
Inner recycling is the practice of using any 'junk thing' or difficult experience, including the aversion to panic itself (panic of panic), as a support for awareness. Instead of fighting the initial emotion, one turns attention to the secondary reaction, making it a new object of meditation.
Non-Meditation Meditation
This is the advanced practice of open awareness, where one simply 'is' with their mind as it is, without needing to focus on any object or exert effort. It's about being completely natural, present, and clear, allowing thoughts and emotions to come and go without getting lost, after having learned meditation through structured steps.
Basic Innate Goodness
This is the ultimate purpose of meditation practice: to discover the inherent beautiful quality of our own mind, which is awareness, love, compassion, and wisdom. It is the 'light' of the movie projector, the background from which all thoughts, emotions, and perceptions manifest, and it is free from mistakes.
7 Questions Answered
He acknowledges the fear but connects with a deeper level of contentment and joy, which he calls awareness. He allows anxiety to be present without fighting it, viewing it as a teacher that makes him more alive and reminds him to practice.
Awareness is our fundamental nature, described as clarity, luminosity, and a wakeful presence that is always with us, even during panic or sleep. Unlike being lost in thoughts or emotions, awareness is the knowing aspect, the 'sky' that observes the 'clouds' (emotions) without being changed by them.
Beginners can connect with awareness through a support object like sound, their own breath, or a mental recitation (mantra or simple phrase). The key is to just listen or be with the object, allowing thoughts and emotions to come and go, without strong focus or trying to stop anything, just remembering to hear or be aware of the chosen support.
It is recommended to practice the first step (connecting with awareness through sound, breath, or mental recitation) for at least one to two months, every day, for at least five minutes. Regular, consistent practice, even for short durations, is more important than infrequent long sessions.
Meditation helps by allowing one to observe the emotion without being carried away by it, like seeing a river without falling in. It also helps to deconstruct the emotion into its changing, interdependent pieces (sensations, images, thoughts), which diminishes its solid, overwhelming nature and reduces aversion and craving towards it.
Yes, taking a break is part of the practice, especially when one feels too tired or exhausted from working with difficult emotions. It's like resting while hiking a mountain; it doesn't mean giving up. One can stop meditation for a while, drink coffee, do physical exercise, or sleep, and return to practice later without guilt.
The ultimate purpose is to discover one's 'basic innate goodness,' which refers to the beautiful qualities of our own mind: awareness, love, compassion, and wisdom. This is the underlying 'light' that allows all experiences to manifest, and the practice helps us recognize this fundamental nature within ourselves.
24 Actionable Insights
1. Discover Innate Goodness
The ultimate purpose of meditation practice is to discover your innate goodness, which is the beautiful quality of your own mind, encompassing awareness, love, compassion, and wisdom. This fundamental light is the background from which all thoughts and emotions manifest.
2. Embrace Awareness, Not Fight
Do not try to get out of, fight with, or do anything with panic or strong emotions; instead, the key point is to simply be with awareness. This allows you to connect with a deeper sense of contentment and joy that exists beyond fear and anxiety.
3. Recognize Awareness as Present
Understand that awareness is your fundamental nature, always present within you, even during panic or sleep. The practice helps you recognize this inherent quality, much like recognizing a watch you’ve always worn.
4. Practice Meditation Systematically
Connect with awareness through a systematic, step-by-step practice, as it’s not easy to perceive directly at first. This gradual approach allows your mind to become more pliable and workable over time, like building physical fitness.
5. Begin with Simple Meditation
As a first step, choose a simple meditation support like listening to sound, focusing on your breath, or mental recitation of a word or mantra. This helps you connect with awareness through an object, serving as a mental exercise.
6. Meditate Everywhere, Anytime
Progress to the second step by expanding your meditation practice to everyday life, using any situation or problem as a support for awareness. This means you can meditate with anything, anywhere, and at any time.
7. Navigate Strong Emotions Strategically
When working with strong emotions like panic, follow a four-step approach: first, be aware; second, if overwhelmed, try something different like a smaller emotion or returning to sound/breath; third, step back by observing your aversion to the emotion; and fourth, take a break if too exhausted.
8. Deconstruct Emotions for Wisdom
Cultivate wisdom by deconstructing strong emotions, like panic, into their constituent pieces such as sensations, images, voices, and underlying beliefs. By seeing these components as changing and interdependent, the emotion loses its solid meaning and power.
9. Let Go of Aversion, Craving
Understand that aversion (trying to get rid of something) and craving (trying to hold onto something) are core causes of suffering. Letting go of these reactions allows emotions to liberate automatically, revealing wisdom, love, and compassion.
10. Cultivate Self-Kindness, Acceptance
Allow difficult emotions like panic, depression, or stress to be present without fighting them, as this act is a true form of self-kindness, self-love, and self-compassion. This approach helps diminish the emotion’s power.
11. Stop Doing, Just Be
Learn to practice “non-meditation,” which involves ceasing all striving and simply being with your mind as it is, allowing clarity and presence to naturally reveal themselves. This is the best meditation once you’ve learned how to meditate.
12. Use Suffering as a Teacher
Reframe any suffering, including anxiety and panic, as a motivation for practice and a teacher that helps you discover awareness, love, compassion, and wisdom. This perspective allows difficult experiences to become your friend.
13. Listen Effortlessly to Sound
When practicing sound meditation, relax your body and simply listen with your ear and mind together, allowing sounds to come to you without strong focus or trying to stop thoughts. The key is to remember you are still hearing, even if thoughts arise.
14. Understand Awareness is Effortless
Recognize that awareness itself requires no effort; it is happening without your conscious doing. You can use a mental reminder like “effortless” to bring yourself back to this understanding during practice.
15. Treat Meditation as Mental Exercise
View meditation as a mental exercise, similar to physical training, where consistency is more important than intensity. At first, you may only sustain awareness for short periods, but with regular practice, it becomes longer, clearer, and more effortless.
16. Practice Daily, Even Briefly
Commit to a regular, daily meditation practice, even if it’s just for five minutes, for at least one to two months when starting. Consistency is crucial for building mental fitness and making awareness more salient.
17. Begin Free-Range with Small Emotions
When starting to apply meditation to your problems in daily life, if a major affliction like panic is overwhelming, begin by working with a smaller, less intense emotion like past anger as a stepping stone. This prevents being overwhelmed and builds confidence.
18. Observe Emotions Without Identification
Practice observing emotions as if you are “seeing the river” from the bank, rather than “falling in the river” and being carried away. This means you are out of the emotion, even if it’s still present, allowing awareness to be greater than the emotion.
19. Shift Focus to Aversion
If you find yourself fighting with an emotion or pretending to welcome it while secretly wanting it to leave, shift your awareness to that feeling of fighting or aversion itself. This “inner recycling” turns the secondary reaction into a support for meditation.
20. Take Breaks from Meditation
Do not feel guilty about taking a break from meditation if you are too tired or exhausted; it’s a valid part of the practice. Resting, drinking coffee, exercising, or even sleeping can be beneficial, much like resting during a mountain hike.
21. Understand Meditation’s “View”
Before practicing, cultivate a clear “view” or understanding of what awareness is, its function, benefits, and how to practice it. Having this conceptual framework helps guide your experiential practice and connect with your core being.
22. Be Open About Your Nervousness
Being honest and open about your nervousness or anxiety, even if you are an expert, can be incredibly impactful and relatable for others. This shared vulnerability can help alleviate others’ fears.
23. Allow for “Fake Welcome”
If you find yourself struggling with an emotion, even a “fake welcome” or insincere attempt to accept it can be helpful. This initial step, though not fully genuine, can still create a beneficial shift in your experience.
24. Continuously Reinforce Learnings
Recognize that these profound insights often need to be heard and revisited repeatedly, as they cut against the grain of human nature and modern life. Each reminder offers a deeper level of learning and discovery.
7 Key Quotes
Of course, I feel nervous about this. There's some kind of like sense of fear. But for me, the most important thing is I always discover kind of like can be with something beyond fear and anxiety within me, kind of a deeper level, the sense of contentment, like joy.
Mingyur Rinpoche
The key point is not try to get out of panic or not try to fight with the panic, not try to do anything with the panic, actually. The key point is be with awareness.
Mingyur Rinpoche
You don't have to do anything. Just being with the sound. And that really changed. Actually, mind becomes pliable and workable.
Mingyur Rinpoche
To learn non-meditation, first you have to learn meditation, right? So then eventually you let go of meditation, but you're not lost.
Mingyur Rinpoche
My biggest problem for my panic is panic of panic, fear of panic, aversion of panic. That keeps my panic ongoing.
Mingyur Rinpoche
Letting go is not giving up. There is wisdom comes. There's love and compassion comes. There's awareness comes. And these are much better than craving and aversion.
Mingyur Rinpoche
We are making our own enemy, actually. We are putting ourselves into our own jail. And this jail who made it, we made it. So if you made your own jail, why not? You can free.
Mingyur Rinpoche
2 Protocols
Three Steps to Connect with Awareness and Work with Anxiety
Mingyur Rinpoche- **Step 1: Systematic Practice with Support** (Practice for 1-2 months, at least 5 minutes daily): Connect with awareness using a support object. Options include: a) Sound meditation (just listen to sounds, allowing them to come and go, remembering you are still hearing), b) Your own breath (being aware of the sensation of breathing), or c) Mental recitation (silently repeating a word or phrase like a mantra, e.g., 'I'm fine, everything's fine').
- **Step 2: Free-Range Meditation with Problems as Support**: Extend the practice to everyday life, using any experience, especially problems or strong emotions, as a support for awareness. Instead of fighting the emotion, observe it. If the primary emotion is overwhelming, try working with a smaller emotion first, or 'inner recycle' by observing the aversion to the emotion itself.
- **Step 3: Open Awareness / Objectless Meditation**: After consistent practice, transition to 'non-meditation meditation'—just being with your mind as it is, without needing to rely on any support or object. Allow thoughts and emotions to come and go naturally, resting in the clarity and presence of awareness itself.
Four Guidelines for Working with Strong Emotions (within Step 2)
Mingyur Rinpoche- **Be Aware**: At the beginning, simply try to be aware of the strong emotion (e.g., panic). Understand that it might feel worse initially, like a muddy river clearing to reveal more fish, but this means your mind is becoming clearer.
- **Try Something Different**: If the strong emotion is overwhelming, shift your attention to a smaller emotion, or return to a basic support like sound, breath, or mental recitation (from Step 1).
- **Step Back**: If the emotion is still too intense, step back from the primary emotion and observe the secondary reaction, such as the aversion to the emotion (e.g., 'panic of panic' or 'fear of panic'). Use this aversion as a new support for awareness.
- **Take a Break**: If you are too tired or exhausted, take a complete break from meditation. This could involve drinking coffee, doing physical exercise, sleeping, or watching Netflix. Resting is part of the journey and does not mean giving up.