Anxiety: What Is It, Where Does It Come From And Buddhist Way To Treat It

In Buddhism, the main goal is the end of suffering. There’s one form of suffering that afflicts most people at some point in their lives: anxiety.

Anxiety and panic disorders are very common these days. They are manifestations of anxiety out of control.

For most people, the first reaction to anxiety is to try to fight it, but according to Buddhism, an important step in fighting anxiety is not to fight. The Buddha’s teachings are oriented towards acceptance.

Fighting anxiety will lead to even more anxiety because you are resisting something that already exists, which is a bit unwise if you think about it.

So, what can Buddhism offer to ease anxiety?

To answer that question, let’s understand what anxiety is.

What Is Anxiety?

We live in a society based on fear. We’re never safe enough and for that reason we obey laws that restrict our freedom, promising that we’ll be safer. We’re never beautiful enough that’s why we spend a fortune on liposuction, botox, and anabolic steroids. We’re never rich enough and therefore neglect our mental and physical health to chase the money.

A phenomenon known as “desire for status”, which is widely discussed by the British philosopher Alain de Botton keeps us worried all the time about our jobs, our bank accounts and show others that we have something. We also need to keep track of our Instagram followers, our “likes” on Facebook etc.

With all these things to worry about, we constantly feel anxious.

Common means of coping with anxiety are alcohol, drugs, food, and different forms of entertainment. We want to escape the suffering caused by anxiety and so we end up dulling our minds.

This phenomenon already suggests that this is not the outside world, but the mind that produces anxiety.

Anxiety and panic, both start in the mind who strives to think excessively to the point that the physical symptoms of anxiety arise.

Buddhists refer to patterns of excessive thinking as the monkey mind.

A big mistake we made as human beings is that we are easily deceived by our minds. We believe in the mind, but the mind is a great creator of fantasies about the future, lies about the present, and nonsense about the past.

Often our mind isn’t our friend at all, so we shouldn’t believe everything that the mind shows us. Especially when there is a large flood of negativity. And when we believe, the monkey mind generates all anxiety.

What often happens when we experience the discomfort of anxiety is that we start to worry about it. And when we worry about it, we fall into a vicious cycle.

Buddhism offers wisdom and practice to ease anxiety.

Wisdom means that we understand what anxiety is, where does it come from and how to treat it.

A simple but effective lesson by the Buddhists is that worrying does not make sense.

The 8th-century Buddhist monk named Shanti Devi says about this,

“If the problem can be solved, why worry? If the problem cannot be solved, worrying will do you no good.”

If you have a problem that can be solved, you either focus on that problem entirely in the present moment or you don’t. If you cannot solve it, drop it.

Many things that we care about are beyond our control and it’s completely useless to spend our time and energy worrying about them.

Unfortunately, our monkey mind loves to worry probably because it loves solving puzzles, but most of the puzzles that our minds invent do not need to be resolved, because they are based on irrational fears, fantasies, and just plain nonsense.

When it comes to excessive thinking we should focus on dissolving instead of solving.

The Buddhist method of achieving this is called meditation.

Meditation is a way to focus on the present moment and watch your thoughts passing by like clouds in the sky, instead of engaging and committing with them.

This practice calms the monkey mind, without fighting, but with acceptance.

There are different forms of meditation. Let me know if you’re interested in different forms of meditation or what Buddhism can do to live a happier life and I’ll see what I can do.

Thank you for reading!!!