I'm Afraid of Myself

It’s strange how we can be afraid of the most extraordinary and precious part of ourselves. A very dear friend was recently telling me about strange flashes of light that appeared in her field of vision. After a whole battery of tests nothing untoward had been discovered, but like all unfamiliar physical or psychological symptoms, they remained unsettling and a cause for anxiety. It’s scary not to feel in control.

As she was telling me about this I was immediately reminded of something within Tibetan Buddhism that is extremely strange and very esoteric. This is the belief that our buddha-nature, a non-dual awareness, resides within a tiny chamber in the heart and when it travels along special meridians of light up into the eyes may be seen as visions of dancing lights before us. This experience is usually accessed by yogis who either spend extended periods gazing into the open sky (opposite the sun if you are tempted to try) or alternatively within an entirely blacked out room. In the latter case, for periods of weeks, months and even years is not unusual. Within these environments what happens is that the eyes and brain begin to spontaneously create visions that start out as flashes and hovering lights but, if entirely left alone, when the yogi neither desires their presence nor becomes alarmed by them, gradually take the forms of mandalas, each with a tiny buddha at their centre. And because the appearances within this vision have no physical form, they are considered a tangible display of the ultimate nature of reality which like them is the indivisibility of emptiness and luminosity. Or, as I said to my friend, it is your own awakened nature peeking out from behind the curtain.

Now comes the even more amazing bit. What happens when we experience a 180% reframing like this one? When we have habitually cast something or ourselves as a problem, something utterly intractable while being entirely familiar, and then we receive an invitation to step out of that narrative and into something far better? Do we jump at it? This reminds me of something truly tragic someone told me years ago. Romanian orphans when rescued from the dungeon like horror of their orphanages and taken in by loving new parents in the UK were terrified by the beautiful nurseries that had been created for them. They lay there and screamed. It was only after some reflection, trying to see it from their side, that it was understood that however wonderful these new environments were, they were also like nothing known before and as such were an enormous source of fear. The parents had to take down the mobiles and pretty curtains and paint the walls grey and then it got better.

And of course this is like all of us. Fear is the emotion that triggers our survival mechanisms and if we are confronted by something unknown fear is also our defence. Anything and everything will trigger it - the list is endless. But what is especially surprising - or perhaps it's not - is that even the thing we may want the most, a mind that is calm and clear, resting at ease within its own most basic nature, may also be the thing we are most afraid of. When the light of the awakened mind comes dancing before us, it takes real courage to let go of the initial fear and just rest in whatever form it takes, knowing that whatever we see is always and can be nothing other than the display of our primordially pure and spontaneously present intrinsic awareness. And then, who knows, it might turn into more than just a peek?

NW. 12 July 2025. And a big thank to my friend who inspired this blog.

And for those interested in this practice see: Naked Seeing by Christopher Hatchell.