Fear is pervasive. It is powerful. It is destabilizeng.
It is a potent weapon. It is no accident that “terror” is a means of warfare.
If you want people to suffer - scare them. If you want people to bend to your
will, scare them, and tell them you’ll protect them.
Fear is divisive. It divides the universe into chunks,
according to arbitrary distinctions: species, gender, flesh tone, ethnicity,
nationality, sexuality; elevating one chunk over another, giving privilege,
preference and superiority to one, inferiority and disadvantage to the other.
Fear is the anticipation of suffering. It is easy to hate
what one fears. If I think you will take from me something I hold dear, or you
will prevent me from getting something I need or want, it is logical for me to
fear you and hate you.
Fear and hate are close companions. They spring from the
same “poisonous root” of aversion. They are causes of suffering. Our public discourse at the moment is riddled with fear
and hate.
The Buddha’s discourse on loving-kindness was offered as
an antidote to fear. It was offered to monks who were afraid to sit alone in
the forest. He advised them - To wish all beings well. To wish for their gladness
and safety, and wish that they be at ease. To not deceive or wish harm, but to
radiate kindness, and to cherish all living beings as a mother protects with
her life her child, her only child. With a boundless heart, omitting none. This doesn’t mean that that’s what they should do to
relieve our suffering. We need to do it whether they do it or not.
Fear gives us tunnel vision; we only see the threat, and
we lose the larger picture. We identify with one little piece of the universe,
and regard other little pieces as our enemy. We are then imprisoned by our
fears. The only way to free ourselves, as Albert Einstein wrote, is to “widen
our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature” and to
recognize our inseparable interconnection with it all. It is not easy to open
our hearts to those we fear. But as Sylvia Boorstein has written, you can let
them into your heart, without letting them into your house.
Love,
Diana Gould, InsightLA.org