Anxiety and Comfort Zone

N: How would you define a comfort zone, in your own words?

T: To me, your comfort zone is your routine, your way of being, which distracts you from your discomfort. From your fundamental discomfort. So it’s that which keeps a lid on your unhappiness.

N: Right, right. So it helps distract you and shelters you from dissatisfaction, but what dissatisfaction? Of what, with what?

T: Not necessarily pain, of things not going the way you want them to.

N: Dissatisfaction of not being in control, fundamentally. The reason why I’m trying to clarify this is because it goes on a very subtle level. It’s not just a dissatisfaction of a kind that people can easily relate to. It’s something you will need to dig in, and dig in, undo lots of your cover-ups, and then discover. That you depend on comfort and a comfort zone because it helps you entertain the notion that you are in control, that you do have a say, that you are your own, and that you will be. So it’s a sense of that existential safety that comes from it.

T: So you are dissatisfied because you’re not in control.

N: Exactly. You are dissatisfied because you recognise that even your control is not up to you. It’s not within your say, fundamentally. Even things you can control, it’s only relatively so. And a relative control, it’s not really the control that you need to reach a level of safety. You need the absolute control, at least implicitly. You need to be your own. That’s why that sense of not seeing anicca results in possessions. As the Buddha would say, it results in acquisitions. Not because you acquire things physically necessarily, but because internally you refuse to admit and acknowledge and discern the inherent anicca of these things. That they are not controllable, thus not ownable. So even if you renounce all the worldly possessions, but internally you refuse to face the anicca that fills you with anxiety, you are taking all of the possessions of the world. That’s why you still have the self-view.

T: That’s your only way of dealing with it.

N: Yeah, you don’t know how to deal with that frightening recognition, that you are not your own.

T: So what do I do? I’ll make things my own.

N: Well, exactly. Or at least, I’ll find things that will enable me to pretend that things are my own. And then just wishfully hope that things will not go against the way I want them to go, because if they do I will not be able to deal with it, and I will be overrun by suffering, and suffer, and so on. That’s why people try to outrun anxiety and the whole thing. Some people need more of a comfort zone, have a bigger comfort zone, some people have a lesser comfort zone, so to speak…

T: Or dependency.

N: That’s what I mean, the size of the comfort zone determines your dependency on the comfort zone. Either way, if you start looking at it, it can be a good symptom to see how much of a comfort zone you need for yourself, can be a good indicator of how much of a cover-up you’re engaging with on that existential level. And even in mundane, worldly terms, people who are afraid to even think about the extent of their comfort zone, and just want to commit to it, and not question it, and not have the slightest doubt about it, are usually people that don’t get anywhere in life. Because even just worldly ambition requires taking some risk, requires recognising a certain degree of non-control. So you take the risk, things can go either way, and because of that you kind of better yourself. So even in worldly terms, stepping outside of the comfort zone is actually beneficial.

T: But as soon as you step out of that comfort zone, for many people, there’s anxiety of what might happen…

N: Exactly. And that’s where you force, then, your mind to grow. If there is no stress, there will be no response of growth. Same, physically, mentally. If there is no tightening of the pressure, in that sense, there is no reason for body and mind to adapt to the new, pressuring, environment. So it won’t grow. It won’t become stronger.

T: But somebody grows, another person doubles down…

N: Doubles down on sheltering himself from anything. Which results then in doubling down on the weakness, increasing the weakness. Indirectly, but that’s the outcome of it. So the more you refuse to accept these things on a mental level—that you’re not in control, that anxiety is a natural part of existence—the weaker, the more sensitive to it you will become. And the more you try to get rid of it, the more power you give it. So, speaking from the point of view of the practice, how far would you want to go in terms of questioning or disturbing your own comfort zone? Would you go and risk your life? Because fundamentally, being alive is a form of a comfort zone. What criteria would you use as to how far to go? Give everything up, quit your job, everything, everything, go and live on the street? Because, you know, I don’t want to be dependent on a comfort zone. So how far should a person go?

T: Why are they going then?

N: Because they want to practise.

T: OK, so you’re stepping out of your comfort zone…

N: How far do they need to step out? So if somebody, say a layperson, wants to practise, maybe for arahantship. Do they just get up, walk out, not say a word to anybody, leave everything behind and just go and live under a bridge somewhere? How far do they have to go?

T: They would have to give up things which are unwholesome first.

N: Sure. Not eating in the afternoon and being celibate requires you to give up things that are unwholesome, but walking out and living under a bridge also requires you to not eat in the afternoon, because you won’t have any food to eat. So either way you’ll be giving up unwholesome, but there are obviously two different ways of going about it. So what criteria could a person use then, to know how far is too far?

T: Outside of my comfort zone.

N: Testing my comfort zone. Uprooting my comfort zone. And how far is just being ridiculous and risky? Well it’s actually a common sense thing, as the Buddha said in the Suttas. I think it’s in the Sabbāsava Sutta as well. Certain things to be abandoned by avoiding them. First, you recognise the extent of your comfort zone. And I don’t mean, the comfort zone is not always simply defined by ‘comfort’, physical comfort. More often than not, it’s the mental comfort and need and habit and access to things. That’s where people are resting. You want to question that. So the most immediate way of questioning and disturbing your comfort zone is sense restraint. That will already fill plenty of people with anxiety and panic. Just saying no to their desires. And you realise most people wouldn’t even need more than that, in a way. Then, if afterwards, they get used to that sense restraint, celibacy, and then they feel like they’re stalling and not really making any significant progress, then they start digging into things a bit further. As the Buddha said, delve with a knife. Just keep cutting and cutting until there is no more work for you to be done.

At the same time, you use your common sense. So, you are not enlightened, you are not free from suffering, you don’t know the escape. So yes you need to uproot your comfort zone and your dependence upon it, but you don’t want to do it to the extent whereby you will factually be risking your life, because you might die unenlightened and not knowing anything. There were those practices even back in the day, and I’m sure some people would still have those views today, of like, ‘oh I’ll just say yes to everything’, or ‘I say no to everything’. Or ‘I just walk straight’, like in the Suttas, no matter what you don’t go left, you don’t go right, you just keep walking straight. So if there is a cliff, you’ll just walk, because that’s the strength of your determination. That’s how much you will not depend on any comfort, or reason for that matter. But the Buddha would say no, certain things are to be abandoned by wisely avoiding them. Wisely, you avoid a raging elephant that’s about to stomp you. A rabid dog, a group of bandits that might kill you. Why? Because if they do, you will lose your life without having achieved liberation and so on. After you achieve liberation, if you choose to stand in front of an elephant, that’s fine. Because you have nothing to lose any more. Then you might not worry about it.

So you don’t want to lose perspective on your goal, which is to be free from suffering, enlightened, free from saṃsāra and so on. If you want to question your comfort zone, you question it in that manner. So, how can I test or challenge my comfort zone without risking my life or compromising my health significantly, and then that would occupy all my time, and I wouldn’t be able to practise and so on. And then it would be obvious. There’s nothing harmful and there’s nothing stopping you in practising sense restraint. Even within your current comfort zone. You don’t need to ‘I must go and live on the street’ and so on. No, I just need to be celibate. And there you go. Your entire world of comfort is uprooted by that determination and decision. And you would feel it. Without necessarily having to change the circumstances significantly. Now sure, if the circumstances are too testing, too challenging for you to practise sense restraint, then yeah, you want to find somewhere else where you can. But the reference point should be the practice, the liberation, and achieving the goal. Not some sort of ideal of ‘I must live on the street independent of others and never eat for the rest of my life’. That’s just another thing now that you’re trying to replace your comfort zone with.

T: Asceticism.

N: Exactly, asceticism, the extreme where you just shun all the comfort. Like, yeah, but then you become dependent on that.

T: So you want to get rid of that dependency on something.

N: Exactly. But not replace it. And that’s the case when the Buddha said the ascetic practices are ignoble and don’t result in liberation. It’s because you don’t really uproot any dependency, you just shun all the comfort and everything, and that becomes the thing you depend on. Constant saying no. And either way, you haven’t really uprooted any existential dependence which requires you to understand it, understand this thing. In which case, if you do, you might not need to change things too significantly, if they were already conducive for wholesomeness. It’s not that you must give away everything and live under the root of a tree, I mean, if you see that directly as being conducive towards wholesome mental states, then do it. And that’s when the Buddha would say ‘let those who want to do that do that’, the ascetic practices. Meaning, let those who know that these ascetic practices will bring wholesome things to increase, unwholesome things to decrease, then let them do it. But that’s not always the case. For some people, shunning too much comfort too soon will actually bring the unwholesome to increase and wholesome to decrease. Because the reference point should be the practice and liberation and freedom from suffering. Not necessarily a sense of duty and what you kind of romantically assume you must be living with and giving up.

T: To be free from suffering, to be free from that dissatisfaction…

N: To be free from the dissatisfaction that arises on account of fundamental, existential, non-control. That’s your goal, that’s your criteria. You don’t want to be depending on anything, that’s when the Buddha would say you don’t find anything as a support. Your consciousness is not supported by anything, any other aggregate, and so on. And the simile was that of the flayed cow with wounds, that if it leans on the wall is being eaten by the creatures that live on the wall, if it lays on the ground it’s being eaten by the creatures that live on the ground, if it stands up it’s being eaten by the creatures that are flying in the air. Either way, if it tries to use anything as a support, it’s being devoured. And that’s it, if you try to use anything as your comfort zone on account of which you don’t face the reality that you are a wounded animal, subjected to death, not in your control and so on, you will suffer. Not because of the wounds, but because you’re trying to cover it up. The dissatisfaction comes because you don’t want to acknowledge and admit that you’re not in control because it’s too frightening.

T: So pain’s not the problem, it’s that resistance toward it that makes it painful.

N: That’s what the dukkha is. Physical discomfort is not the dukkha that you should be freeing yourself from. Because the body’s not in your control, you can’t free yourself from it. That’s why even arahants would say, any disturbance that’s left now, after I’ve become an arahant, is on account of this body until it breaks apart. So it’s just physical, none of that will cause mental anguish or suffering.

T: So you want to be doing things gradually, in terms of the practice you want to be revealing the nature of things.

N: Well exactly. You don’t want to just go through the motions of giving things up, and questioning, and challenging my comfort zone. You want to have the context, the context being, I am existentially depending upon a sense of control. And basically, my comfort zone is a symptom of that. I don’t want to be existentially depending, as the Buddha would say, I don’t want to be using anything as a support internally.

T: I just want everything that I use to remind me of the nature of things. You want to do things that keep that context alive.

N: …that can sustain the context, yeah. There are obvious things that you will have to stop doing, things that will be completely and unequivocally always distracting you from that context. Sensuality, carelessness, breaking the precepts, taking drugs, alcohol and so on.

T: Or decoration. That’s why it says āsavas to be abandoned by using the four requisites properly, just for covering up the shameful parts of the body.

N: By rewriting the purpose of things you use them for. Not for beautification or decoration, but for the practical sustenance and need, until you have fulfilled your goal. You would know exactly what is conducive and what is not conductive the clearer your goal is. Most people who practise the Dhamma have a vague notion of some goal, but they can’t really relate to it internally. They don’t see a direct line between, if I do this it will result in that, it’s all kind of over there, and wishful thinking, and hoping that it will result like they way they want it to result. But are you clear as to what needs to be done, in terms of the Dhamma practise? As the Buddha would say, you hear, you measure the task and then the inspiration comes because you know exactly how much you need to do. So internally, your goal should be to not depend on anything. Not any feeling, or any perception, or any circumstance, anything that provides you with comfort and that sense of resting upon something, like ‘ah, I’m safe here’—you are not in any position of safety. That should be the context you should only be increasing in your practice. Recognition of that context. Because that’s the true way to find the safety then.

T: So I step outside of my comfort zone in the right way…

N: It might make you tougher, might make you grow a bit. But if you do it just for the sake of doing it, you’re not going to get any substantial wisdom. I mean you can do it with the intention of trying to learn from it and so on, but even then you use common sense. So, let me not do it to an extent I cannot sustain. I can go and live under a bridge without anything or anyone for a bit before I get sick and die or something. Or I can go and live in this tiger infested jungle, but there’s a good chance I might die within a month because there are man-eaters there and so on. Well that’s foolish then. Because there’s plenty of other non-life threatening ways that you can challenge and uproot your comfort zone. Be celibate. Don’t eat in the afternoon. Restrain your eye, nose, ears. Don’t go after the pleasure of sense objects. That will shake you right to the core. Because the core of the human existence is that of sensual being, being of sensuality. Being that depends upon the pleasures obtained through the objects of the senses. And the Buddha said that, a puthujjana doesn’t know any escape from discomfort, from unpleasant feeling, except sensuality. That’s why he’s twice bound by it. First because he wants pleasure, but also because that’s his only way of avoiding pain and discomfort.

T: It’s the distraction. So the only way to deal with the nature of things is to distract yourself.

N: Is to turn a blind eye to it. Find things to do.

T: Removing distractions will reveal the nature of your situation.

N: Oh yeah, exactly. If you refuse to engage with distractions, first you’re going to have just a day of plain day-to-day boredom, but if you still don’t give in and try to distract yourself, that boredom, you’re going to start feeling the weight of it. And then you realise, this is something much more.

T: You start feeling the weight of it, meaning more anxiety. The anxiety that comes from seeing the nature of you not being in control, anicca. But if you stick with that long enough, and don’t try to run away from that nature…

N: You will force your mind to grow. Because that’s how you grow it, that’s how you become stronger, by stressing it. So you could stress too much and then just have a breakdown if you can’t bear that anxiety. But if you are sense restrained beforehand, if you’ve kept the precepts beforehand, if you don’t have the negative, unwholesome outlets of your behaviour like bad habits and so on, you are actually compressing it and you’re forcing it to adapt. Once you become more and more used to anxiety and not trying to outrun it, then you realise that the only reason it was unpleasant is because you were trying to outrun it. The sense of non-control that people can recognise in anicca, it’s quite neutral. There’s nothing wrong or unpleasant about it. You don’t suffer on account of, you have no control over the tree or the river. That doesn’t bother you. Why not? It’s still the phenomenon of non-control that you recognise. It doesn’t bother you because you’re not personally invested in controlling it. So then you realise that when any sense of non-control bothers you, that bother is actually caused by your investment of ‘I want to control this’, or ‘I assume the control of this’. So now the recognition of non-control is undermining that. But if you remove your assumption, no amount of non-control can cause you suffering. It’s just as it is. The way things are in that sense, things truly are anicca. Whether you see it or not. The only reason anicca will be dukkha is if you ignore the fact that they are anicca. So it’s because of your ignorance that anicca is dukkha, not because in itself anicca is dukkha.

T: You won’t at any stage change that fact of anicca.

N: Inconceivable, inconceivable.

T: It’s not ‘I’ll practise in such a way that anicca changes’, no, you stop going against that.

N: You stop entertaining assumptions that are diametrically opposed to anicca, to the nature that you recognise. So anxiety’s a good symptom, basically. If you’re bothered by anxiety, it’s not because anxiety bothers you, it’s because of your views that are opposed to that which anxiety is revealing. Which is, non-control. So stop entertaining control, stop entertaining the control of your possessions, stop entertaining ownership. Because all you need to do is start thinking about it, and even things that you do own—just think about it, can you prevent them from disappearing or from something happening to them? Inconceivable. Maintain that context, and you are eroding the ownership. The longer you maintain it, the less and less ownership there will be remaining. That’s not to say that it’s going to be pleasant or inspiring, quite the opposite.

T: So once that ownership is gone, so to speak, then there’s still anicca, but that anxiety there changes.

N: Well, because you’re not trying to outrun it and not trying to get rid of it, which means it’s not going to be unpleasant. It’s going to be just a neutral state of things. So you wouldn’t really call it anxiety any more from that point of view.

T: You’ve said in the past that you might call it being alert.

N: Alertness, recognition that things might end in the next second. The mindfulness of death that the Buddha encouraged, that’s exactly that. First you would be anxious, because the assumption of life is so strong, but if you have uprooted the assumption of life then it’s just recognition that, I literally might die within the next in-and-out breath. And you’re alert to that fundamental, very profound recognition.

T: Somehow, from anxiety, when you understand things, when you get right view, that anxiety changes into alert mindfulness.

N: It doesn’t change, it always was that. That’s the thing, anxiety already is alertness that you’re resisting. Which is why that alertness is unpleasant. That’s how mindfulness, responsibility, recognition of your situation, are all kind of unpleasant recognitions for a puthujjana. That’s why a puthujjana cannot become a sotāpanna by chance, by miracle, or by technique. Because the direction of sotāpatti, the right view and freedom, is through the anxiety that the entire being of a puthujjana is geared against. Always. By default, ownership, sense of self, self-view, all of that is against that which is behind the anxiety. And that’s why anxiety’s so terrifying and unpleasant. So even when people practise to be free from anxiety, that practice will not result in liberation. Because it’s taking you away from that which is inherently revealed by anxiety that you cannot bear.

So the practice should not be freeing you from anxiety, it should be making you less disturbed by anxiety. Saying ‘being free from anxiety’ means, being free from existence, while you still exist. It’s a contradiction in terms, it’s impossible. Anxiety is existence. Or, existence is behind anxiety, whichever way you want to call it. If it’s a problem, it’s not because of existence or the anxiety, it’s because of your assumptions in regard to it. So the practice should be enabling you to accept that and endure it, and then eventually not even be bothered by it, and then see exactly what’s there. And that’s the direction of sotāpatti. That’s what I said before, when the Suttas say ‘at the moment of death, they will achieve the fruit’ for these various noble disciples, it’s not because of some mystical things happening at the moment of death, it’s because death is at the end of that direction that you don’t want to look at when you experience anxiety in day-to-day life. But you will have to go through it eventually. So the one with the right view goes that way even before he dies. And then the arahant has fully walked that way and freed himself, that’s why death does not apply to him any more.

T: That’s why the sotāpanna can become an arahant at the moment of death, because he’s facing that nature with no distractions. That’s the danger of any distractions for the sotāpanna, that’s why he doesn’t make any progress.

N: It’s the distractions yeah, they just slow him down from heading the way that he’s heading. So, that’s why all a noble disciple needs to do is not be negligent and make the effort towards distractions. Because if he doesn’t make the effort towards distractions, what he’s left with is his right view, which means he’s left with the practice. So all he needs to do is abstain from unwholesome things, and he’ll become an arahant. He doesn’t need to do anything on top of that.