Fearlessness

The Buddha is said to posses the quality of fearlessness and is also said to give fearlessness to others. There is a pose in which he is standing with his left hand raised as if to pardon someone, which apparently is the pose of fearlessness. During the recent years of my practice, this notion of fearless has arisen in my meditation and contemplations many a times. Today was one such day.

 

When I was contemplating his fearlessness, for the first time it struck me that it his sense of fearlessness that creates a sense of fearlessness in others. I am sure this is very obvious and may have even crossed my mind a million times before. But never had it made quite the impact as it did today. So, because He, within himself, was totally without fear for anyone or in any situation, anyone or any situation didn't have to fear the Buddha in return. Isn't that amazing? So I dug deep a bit more. What does this mean?

 

When one is fearless, in the face of a threat even to ones own self, which is the most precious item one seemingly possesses, there will not arise a defence mechanism. There is no defensive action verbally, physically and most importantly mentally. Basically in scientific terms, there is no reaction except for the sense of threat. The reaction becomes the action for which the external world will respond to as a counteractive reaction. For example, there is a snake and it's about to strike because it has seen a human (let's say the Buddha). But the Buddha does not react in fear of the snake. So the snake does not feel threatened back or fear. So, the most likely scenario is that the snake will not strike. On the other hand if it's a normal human being, they see a snake, they react in fear. Because of the action of 'fear' the snake may try to strike him/her.

 

So, I applied this to myself and the world around me. We are habitually pronged to react. Especially in situations and to people that threatens us. It does not have to be a threat to our physical well-being. It could be just a perception of a threat to our views, opinions, our way of life, what we like and dislike....very insignificant things. But of course they becomes huge because any perceived threat/challenge to any of the above things is a very threat to who we are. So, we will stand up to protect ourselves. Thus creating a chain of events which can cascade into verbal arguments, physical fights, falling outs and even wars. Now if not for our reactions, the chain of events would not have unfolded in the first place. But our own fear itself, propells a chain of events that for most of us feel is "world is coming down on us" when in fact it is us who is coming down on the world...do you get the trend here.

 

So really, we have noone else to blame but ourselves. But I feel 'blame' is not an appropriate word to use since it creates fear within oneself. In the spiritual path or any path it's an unwholesome quality. But for practical purposes I shall pen down the word 'blame'.

 

The natural way of the world is to eradicate the threats. But this is not the way. The way is to eradicate your own need to react to the threats be it internal or external. It's counter intuitive. But that is what I felt today was what 'fearlessness' was all about. If I let go of my own need to react to threats, my own fears of being challenged/perceptions of external threats and the need to protect myself from them, then I let go of fear itself. It I believe, as unbelievable as it sounds as I am writing this blog myself, is the way to be fearless and give fearlessness.

 

It's a hard path to walk. For in it lies, I feel, letting go of what we cherish the most "myself". But as I felt these things arise in my mind, I was amazed. It sounds simple enough but so hard to do.