If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear? – Confucius.
She was seated in front of me the first time I saw her. The room was full – there were people of different cultures and of different ages. Almost all were seated on the floor and were very absorbed in the subject under discussion. I had come a long way to visit this big city beyond the Alps. For the evening, my friends had invited me to this renowned Buddhist center in the city.
One could see that she was full of enthusiasm. Often she would raise her hand and wait to put a question to the speaker. Then she would turn back at me and smile. She seemed like a child with much curiosity. I could feel the energy in her arrive at the surface and explode like bubbles. The Tibetan monk continued with his discourse on mind and on sunyata.
When I came to know her better, she expressed her deep worries for her mother. Despite a poor physical state, her mother worked a lot, and suffered from insomnia and other minor ailments. She had tried everything but her mother would not listen. One day I came to know her mother. She was a sweet and warm woman, but one felt sorry to notice the fatigue stored up in her being. She was concerned about not speaking any language that I knew. But we went on to discover that we could communicate fairly well. She asked me about my origin, my work and my family. She seemed impressed with my sense of adventure. “You are so far from your country,” she asked me, “Aren’t you afraid?”
One day, her mother invited us for dinner. She had prepared typical dishes of her native country but was not sure if they would be to my taste. At one point, the two started to discuss. I could not understand all this but one could note that the mother was very worried. The daughter was quite calm but at the end the mother burst into weeping.
Later, the daughter explained that her mother did not want her to follow that Buddhist school. She was terrified that it could be some dangerous sect and could take away all her money. “But strangely enough, today I am calm with my mother,” she said, “I think it is your presence.” After dinner, I tried to talk with the mother and to explain why there was nothing to fear or to worry. She would certainly not budge from her convictions but something had moved in her. At the end, she hugged me and said “I feel you as one of our family. Thank you!”
We are terrified of losing our possessions, of our children taking the wrong way or of our parents contracting a disease. We are scared of being alone in a far-off land, of not understanding or of not being understood. We are afraid of not being able to live up to our expectations or to others’. In this process of living, fear is our constant companion. But do we ever treat it as such?
All that we do is try to ignore this enemy called fear, to conceal it or to keep our distance from it. Have we ever met it fully, looked in its eyes and listened to it carefully? Perhaps only when we do so, shall we know what it has to say. Perhaps this entity will then reveal us a secret or two. Perhaps then fear will assume a wholly different significance.
pc Drew Graham
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