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FEAR
Beings who see fear in the
non-fearsome, And no fear in the fearsome, Embrace false views and go
to a woeful state. According to
the Buddha there is only one thing of which we need to be afraid, and of
this, unfortunately, most worldlings are not
afraid. It is the doing of evil.
Unskilful action (akusala kamma), of any kind is fearsome.
By unskilful action the Buddha meant such action as tends to
increase greed, hatred, and ignorance, because it is by such action that
we prolong and intensify our suffering, life after life, in this
treacherous sea of Samsara. The
wise fear such action and do their best to avoid it, but, to the foolish,
such action often seems harmless, pleasurable, and even praiseworthy.
Thus do foolish parents teach their children to “get on in the
world” at all costs, ignorant of the dreadful price those children will
have to pay for that temporary and utterly meaningless advance. On the other
hand, worldlings are afraid of a number of things which, to a Buddha, are
non-fearsome. They fear physical danger, financial loss, sickness,
unpopularity and a host of other ills which are merely part of the
environment in which life is lived. According
to the Buddha, such fears are stupid.
“Wherever fear arises,” He said, “it arises in the fool, not
in the wise.” He was
speaking here of those beings who see fear in the non-fearsome. A certain
Brahmin once asked the Buddha whether those who resort to the lonely
depths of the forest for meditation, while yet unattained to
concentration, are not seized with fear.
The Buddha’s reply was illuminating.
He said, “Thou has said it, Brahmin, thou has said it!”
He then went on to explain that those ascetics who, for one reason
or another, are unprepared for the lonely forest life, are
seized with fear. Before He
attained Enlightenment, the Bodhisatta deliberately sought those “places
of horror and affright” and spent lonely vigils there in order to
experience and overcome that very fear.
Being already a yogi of perfect purity and high mental attainment,
He met and mastered the fear, soaring at last to those heights which only
Buddhas attain, But He recognized the fear, saw its basis, and saw too
that to the average worldling, of frail virtue and irresolute mind, it can
be a very real thing. It is true,
as the Buddha said, that fear arises only in the fool.
But then it is equally true that we worldlings are fools.
That is why we are still worldlings.
We crave for things, cling to things, hate each other for these
very qualities, and are steeped in ignorance.
So we experience fear. If,
on occasion, we are brave, it almost invariably is for the wrong reason.
For instance, the “brave” hunter, armed with the latest thing
in sporting rifles, does not fear the elephant.
In arming himself against a meaningless fear in the non-fearsome,
he sees no fear in the truly fearsome, that is, the doing of evil.
His folly is doubled. There is only one way to get rid of fear, the way shown by the Buddha. Until that End is achieved, and Final Deliverance won, we will experience fear. But let us at least have the intelligence to recognize it for what it is – the unpleasant fruit of our own greed, our own ill-will, our own delusion. - - - - -
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