A Meditation On Fear
It's wise to have fear when driving through blistering snow on a twisted mountain road in the dark, don't you agree? Or to run east, when surrounded by fire north, west and south? The young often lack this kind of fear, to their own demise. They drive with abandon and the statistics reflect it. Yet I do admire those without fear, I aspire to become like them. So is fear is a useless thing? Should I attempt to abandon it altogether. Some think so. Others do not... Tsong Karpa, a Tibetan sage from the 10th century, once commented: "Those who fear death, when death comes will have no fear; yet those who have no fear of death, when death comes, will be very afraid." I have often mediated on this concept—imagining my own death, or the premature death of my children. Some call me morbid for it, I say I am realistic because it counters sloth and redundancy. Who knows when anyone will die? My brother-in-law was told by doctors he had only 6 months to live. That was over 5 yea...