Transcending Fear

There is a day last May that I remember vividly. I was at home downstairs, watching the end of a murder mystery, probably the first TV for fun that I had watched in over a month. My son George was upstairs gathering items for an upcoming school overnight. Suddenly I heard a bloodcurdling scream, and it was from upstairs, not from the movie. Alarmed yet slightly irritated because I knew I was about to miss the end of the movie, I ran upstairs and saw George pointing to the cabinet near the back door where we store shoes and backpacks. "Bugs!" he shouted, "Lots of them–ones I’ve never seen before!"

Sure enough, the cabinet was crawling with bizarre insects that looked like overgrown mosquito larvae with legs. They were crawling and hopping all over that part of the room now, and my skin shivered. It was too late to call anyone, and all I could think to do was to get a wad of paper towels and begin squishing the bugs, trying at least to contain them to that area. "Don’t kill them!" shouted my son John, our resident vegetarian and animal rights activist. "What else can I do?" I asked. "They’re horrible and there are hundreds of them."

Just then my wife said, "Wait–I just thought of something." She dug into a box in the cabinet, and a moment later held up a mesh bag with two round objects inside. "They’re praying mantises," she said. "One of our friends gave us egg sacs to put in the garden, and we left them inside this box. Now they’re hatching."

I suddenly felt horrible about the bugs I had squished, but we still had a problem. We spent a long time that night and the next day catching baby praying mantises on pieces of paper and setting them outside in the garden. As we worked, the boys examined the little insects and said, "Look how cute they are! Oh, Daddy, get this one!" We laughed about the whole episode even as we mourned the dead praying mantises. I don’t know if any of them survived and grew or not, but we did our best to save them and give them a chance. I should add that I also never saw the end of the movie, but now I don’t even remember what it was. It couldn’t stand up to real-life drama.

In retrospect, what was most remarkable to me about that episode was how the same bugs that looked like monsters turned cute as soon as we knew they were baby praying mantises. So often, we fear what seems strange or what we don’t understand, and too often, we react with revulsion and violence.

Even among human beings, it is easy to hate or fear people who seem strange, people we don’t understand. Foreigners become potential terrorists in our eyes; people of different political or religious persuasions become enemies; anyone who looks or acts different becomes someone it might be better to avoid. It’s hard to hate or fear people we know well, however, unless they have harmed us directly. It is a fact of human psychology that people are almost never argued out of homophobia or other prejudices by rational argument, but a positive relationship with a person from the feared group can be transformative. Fear often prevents such relationships from occurring, but when they do, the prejudice becomes much more difficult to maintain.

Strange bugs and seemingly strange people are not all we are prone to fear. People can have all kinds of strange phobias, as well as more common fears. We may fear heights, or small spaces, or public speaking. We may fear pain, death, or tragic news. We may fear what has hurt us in the past. We may fear embarrassment, rejection, failure, or even success. We may fear the truth about ourselves or others. It is not always clear how to overcome or transcend these fears.

Of course, fear is not entirely bad, and it evolved in us for useful reasons. Fear can warn us about real dangers or keep us from doing something stupid. Our natural reaction to fear is fight or flight. It is easy to see how it could be useful either to fight and kill or scare off a dangerous wild animal, or to avoid it by hiding or running to a place of safety. But most of the things we fear today are not like that. And when fear rules our lives–when it becomes pervasive in all we think and do, it becomes a kind of spiritual poison, sucking joy out of our lives.

When fear rules a whole society, it is even more dangerous. I am dumbfounded by how many people in this nation seem ready to give away their basic Constitutional rights for the sake of a little perceived security. We ignore real dangers to our planet and human life while focusing to the point of absurdity on others. I really can’t imagine, for example, what danger was posed by the six-ounce tub of chunky peanut butter that was taken away from my son John in airport security on our way home from family vacation this month. (Only later did I realize that all I needed to do was to scoop the peanut butter into two three-ounce containers and put it in a plastic bag to make it safe.)

It is tragic to see our nation spending itself toward bankruptcy on wars that only generate hatred and fear toward the United States around the world, increasing the likelihood of terrorism against us for a long time to come. So often our fears are self-fulfilling, both at personal and collective levels. Not all of the motivation for war has been fear; some has been greed and national ambition, but even these are a form of fear of never having enough. Now the rhetoric in favor of bombing Iran is ratcheting up once again. If we go down that path, it would almost certainly be a mistake more horrible than what we have done so far. Our fears are stoked by color-coded alerts and the image of suicidal "Islamofascists" (one of the worst coined words I’ve ever heard), and in response we have done more to harm our own nation than any terrorist could have hoped to do.

I don’t mean to suggest that there is no threat from the extreme wing of Islam, or that we should not engage in prudent intelligence or basic security measures. But we do ourselves no favors by whipping up fear, stereotyping other people and failing to see nuance or a different point of view. After all, those we fear are also motivated by fear much of the time. Imagine what it must feel like in Iran right now, with U.S. troops on two borders, warships in nearby waters, and threatening rhetoric from our leaders. It would be amazing if the resulting fear did not strengthen the position of the most radical elements there. What do we do under threat or attack, become more moderate and cooperative? Even so, as web columnist Glenn Greenwald pointed out, surveys have shown that 80% of Iranians say intentional attacks on civilians are never justified, while only 46% of Americans say the same thing. Who has the most to fear from whom?

We live in a society pervaded by fear, so no wonder it is difficult to transcend our fears at a personal level. Many of our fears are quite irrational, but much of what we fear is quite real. We will die, after all, and tragedy befalls everyone at some time or another. There will be more terror attacks in the world, although you are much more likely to die of heart disease. It is important to realize that the goal of transcending fear is not to make us safe from whatever we fear. The goal is simply to live, rather than to die before our deaths by cowering or lashing out in fear. The goal is not to banish fear, but to embrace life in all its tragedy, wonder and constant change, becoming aware of our defensive habits and addictions so that we can begin to let go of them, and acting in love and compassion so that others may do so as well.

I was startled when Buddhist writer Pema Chodron referred to Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King as "master warriors." They sought peace and healing, not war. But then I realized that courage, the chief virtue of the warrior, was one of their chief virtues as well. It takes great courage to act nonviolently or to go where others fear to tread. It takes great courage to allow ourselves to see the pain in the world and to act with compassion or seek justice rather than running away.

Courage is not about eliminating our fears and insecurities, which we can never do, but rather observing them with clarity and compassion, then responding appropriately, whether that means laughing at our worries, ending an abusive relationship, acting with kindness, acting prudently, or facing unavoidable death with grace and curiosity. Courage is about accepting uncertainty and the reality that we cannot control everything in life, but acting with hope and compassion anyway. It is often about seeing options other than fight or flight, neither denying the reality of what we fear nor lashing out at it. It is about opening our hearts and minds, not closing them in imagined self-protection.

So how do we cultivate the inner peace and courage that will allow us to keep our hearts and minds open in this manner? I believe it often begins with a conscious choice or commitment–a choice to embrace life whatever it may bring, to seek truth whatever it may be, and to act for the well-being of others, whoever they are. It is a life-affirming choice that neither denies nor rails against the constant and ever-changing realities of existence.

There are practices that can undergird this choice, especially those that involve observation of our own habits and thought patterns. It is not only unfamiliar people or bugs that scare us; we are often strangers to ourselves, afraid of what we will see if we look at ourselves honestly. The key is to look at ourselves with kindness and curiosity, in an attempt to be aware of what is going on, not to justify or berate ourselves. How can we be perceptive and compassionate toward others if we are not perceptive and compassionate toward ourselves? How can we raise gentle and brave children if we do not practice those qualities ourselves?

Meditation and breathing practices can help with cultivation of awareness, as we observe and let go of our swirling thoughts. Journaling can help, as can sharing our thoughts with a trusted advisor, therapist or friend. There are many books on spiritual practices, from Christian, Buddhist and other religious perspectives. Sometimes we may need medical or clinical help, but even that is only a step on the path to self-understanding. If we are genuinely in danger, it is important to assess that danger, neither minimizing nor exaggerating it, and then, whether we feel calm or panic, simply to act if it is possible to mitigate or remove ourselves from that danger.

All through our lives, it matters what messages we tell ourselves as well. I have phrases and mantras that I repeat in times of fear or anxiety, and well chosen words can remind us to love always, to let go, to stay awake, to rejoice in life, or to take the next step. There are Bible passages that remind us of the futility of worry, divine love, or fear that is cast out by love. There is the Pagan reminder to do no harm, and the principle shared by most Muslims that true jihad is an inner struggle, not war against others. Sometimes it helps to remember that "this, too, shall pass;" that when we worry what others are thinking of us, they are probably worrying what we think of them; or that our most painful experiences have the potential to give us our greatest wisdom and compassion for others in pain, even if that’s not what we want to hear when we are in the middle of those experiences. Humor and laughter can help, especially about our own foibles. Being part of a community can help, especially when we need the courage to act, or when we need compassion for the difficult times in our own lives. It is amazing how calming a pet can be, and it can help to think about anyone or anything that awakens our soft spot of compassion and gratitude, letting those feelings wash over our fear, pain or anxiety.

Curiosity also helps, since so much of what we fear is rooted in our own ignorance. I feared the praying mantises because I was ignorant of what they were. We fear distant peoples we barely know or understand. Sometimes the issue is literal ignorance, such as last year when Senator Trent Lott asked, “Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me.” We also fear what we don’t know or don’t want to know about ourselves. We can learn a lot when are curious about ourselves, other people and the world, and when we choose to move outside our zones of comfort, to meet people, try things, or go to places we otherwise might not, sometimes directly facing our fears.

In her book, "The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times," Pema Chodron makes a related point. "Traditionally," she writes, "it is said that the root of aggression and suffering is ignorance. But what is it that we are ignoring? Entrenched in the tunnel vision of our personal concerns, what we ignore is our kinship with others. One reason we train as [warriors] is to recognize our interconnectedness–to grow in understanding that when we harm another, we are harming ourselves." These are wise words indeed. And I should say that as embarrassing as Trent Lott’s words may have sounded, even they betray the truth that it doesn’t make sense for any of us to be killing each other, for we are all more alike than different. And if he asked his question with genuine curiosity, it was the right thing to do.

When we identify with and commit ourselves to life itself, not merely to our own slice of it, then what happens to us personally becomes less important, and the source of meaning in our lives expands far beyond our individual limits. When we move beyond ego and embrace life in this way, the universe becomes our home, no matter what it is or what happens. There is nothing ultimate to fear, and we are freed to act with courage, love and open eyes. It is as if our tightly-wound souls were to open up and take wing.

Of course, we still remain ourselves, with all our quirks, habits, wounds, anxieties and imperfections. I would still shiver or scream at some new infestation of insects in my home. But perhaps my curiosity would kick in a little sooner, and my revulsion would be tempered. Life is complex, and there is no magic formula for what to do about bugs, addiction, terrorism, war, or speaking in public. But any practice that helps us face and release our fears will ultimately help with these problems as well. To the extent that we can open our hearts and minds, transcending even though not eliminating our fears, we can then live more fully, see more clearly, and act more courageously and compassionately for the sake of our world and all beings who live and die.

May it be so.