Lodro spoke for the Daily Dharma Gathering, 1-20-2015.
Yes, I know that could qualify as old news since it was ten months ago. Because the talks are initially seen live and the recording is available only for the next 24 hours, this is from my memory and my notes.
According to my notes, the title of his talk: "Fear and Fearlessness."
It is his definition of Fearlessness that I want to share with you.
Fearlessness is when we look and examine fear.
This strikes me as profound! When I'm afraid of something, and for the record I'm not afraid of spiders, I do not want to look and examine it. I want to get away from it!
Looking and analyzing and staying with fear seems the only way to know it and then get over it.
Do you agree with this definition of fearlessness? Do you think it would work for you? I will continue to ponder this wisdom.
Email me or go to blog comment section to leave your wisdom.
Thanks for exploring the mystery - Nicky Mendenhall
Image discovered by the very observant person I live with, who told me about it, and when I was too much in a hurry to go out, took the picture for me. By the time I had time, the creation was gone. Moral of story, always make time.
ReplyDeleteI always liked this saying: 'Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway', attributed to John Wayne. Of course I like the saddle reference, but it's more than that. I really want to be more fearless! Courage and fearlessness are tough to achieve. For example, I hate looking at even dead mice....well, I don't really like to see anything dead. But I don't think that's fear, just revulsion. But, I'm still afraid of mice. I'm also afraid of what is happening in our country and world. I'm afraid of what could happen. That's when I try to remain in the moment and remember that RIGHT NOW, everything is OK. And then I pray that I will be fearless for whatever I may have to face that is frightening to me. I think most people want to run away from things that scare them. The heroes are the people who go ahead and push through that fear, usually to do what they think is the right thing to do. So, I'm not sure I agree that fearlessness is "examining" fear. I think it's more real than that.