Fearlessness is knowing when you are afraid. It isn't the absence of fear, but the inclusion of it and the minimization of reflexive and adrenalized behavior. It also means knowing how to dig inside for the courage to act independent of circumstances, self protection, self image, or the pressure to conform. It means knowing the truth of your inner experience and like Jiminey Cricket says, "let your truth be your guide".
Fear is a natural response to threat and horror, and we live in an age of profound global threats to humanity and the environment. The daily news recounts the horrors of war and local brutalities. Although some measure of fearlessness is cultivated in Zen practice, perhaps the openness of a Beginner's Mind quite naturally lends itself to experiencing the Great Fear of Extinction at the personal and global levels. Perhaps this is heretical, but without some deeply embedded alignment and identification with all life and the shocking fear of real threats to existence, the human race will continue to act with stupidities of greed, hate, and selfish interests.
Paul Tillich wrote that it takes courage to exist. Each breath is a moment of dependence on the whole universe, on the extraordinary and simple fact of not being in control of life. Nature is us, we are nature. Life flows in us, through us, around us...and our efforts at control, domination, and protection render us both helpless individually and collectively, and result in living desperately. This epoch could see the decline of civilization, if we dare call it that. Zen begs us to find our fears and realize how they influence us. This is the ongoing work of living that may result in some measure of peaceful living.
Looking in the mirror
Eyes wide with fright
Who is it?!
Fearlessness
