Recognize Fear
February 2012

In order to rediscover our natural confidence and live a fearless life we must examine the challenge - we must recognize fear.

We can take various perspectives on such a topic. Anthropologists trace fear back millions of years to our days as small mammals bumbling beneath jungle shrubs and the feet of massive carnivores. Fear was our mechanism for sensing and reacting instinctively to dangers of all kinds. We would “fight”, “fly” or “freeze” when facing a threat and those of us who made the right choice lived another day.

Or we could explore fear from the view of a neurophysiologist, examining our brain and nervous system. When confronted with a visual conflict as simple as a misplaced symbol or an unknown sound, parts of our brain light up that focus our attention and signal a need to “problem solve”. Fear, for the neurophysiologists, is a stimulus to investigate, discern and resolve.

Or we could trace words to their origin - examining the etymology of coward, for example: from “cowherd” where animals were made to cower – to crouch in terror, where fainthearted beasts, tails between their legs, lower themselves, trading their nobleness for subservient safety.

Taking a Buddhist perspective on fear, however, requires that we make a simple, yet somewhat outrageous, observation: fear does not exist. This is not to say we don’t experience fear and its many forms. Of course we are afraid of death and pain, afraid that we can't handle life. We fear new situations and the unknown. Yet, while we may want to define fear, explore fear and possibly even resolve it, we first must acknowledge that we cannot actually find such a solid thing as “fear” at all. Like everything else in life, fear has no fixed point but is, instead, fluid, unpredictable and livelier than a “word” or scientific study. So in order to explore such a thing we will need to move with it, live it – “be” it so to speak. Whether we are mildly anxious about an impending surgery or deeply distressed about losing our favorite pencil, sickened at the death of our child or utterly terrified by a raging war, fear is starkly intimate - woven into our lives, shaping how we choose to spend the few hours we live on this planet.