My wife Susan used a phrase the other day I had not heard: “I don’t need to borrow trouble.” This is a remarkable translation of Right View. Why you ask? Well, I guess you wish to borrow an answer!
First the idea of borrowing something of abundance is interesting as in I wish I had more Dukkha! Second, where do we find it? I think everywhere, and third when, and the answer is from the present, the past, or the future.
Borrowing is accepted with the intention of paying back. When visiting Amsterdam some years back we were told by our guide that the Dutch invented the banking-system. It seems that in the middle ages pirates would prey on wealthy passengers traveling by boat through the water ways of the country. So a clever system was established where money lenders, on the “bank” of the waterway would take a person’s money for safe-keeping and give them a “check” made out to a colleague at the passengers destination, who would give the passenger, as a transfer fee had been paid at the other “bank.”
Looking at fear as a commodity allows it to serve several ends. One is a warning such as a highway stop sign. It is a danger warning to do this or else! It is smelling the wind to determine if there are predators about. The Buddha spoke of walking in the forest and mistaking a ground vine for a snake creating a startle. We need to look/be careful/mindful.
Now let’s look at fear as a Dharma-teaching. It is emerging in the emotion by using the Four Noble Truths: this is happening, what is its make-up, here are ways to address it, and I will take the responsive actions. Notice that fear is taking a shape…it is projecting the probability of pain.
For example we have remorse about a past action that haunts us. We are reliving or having the thoughts of pain we had. Or in the moment a television news show details a similar theme and then we can worry about that pain recurring to us or someone we love in the future.
For us practitioners, we see fear as a teacher. Fear by definition (mine) is the oozing of the dread of pain.
So Dōgen doesn’t define fear or give step-by-step methods to overcome it. Instead, his teachings suggest that fear is a natural part of conditioned existence that arises from attachment, self-clinging, and resistance to impermanence. The Zen path, for Dōgen, is not to eliminate fear but to see through it, realizing that when the self drops away, so too does the basis for fear.
Finally, the quote I grew-up with was President Roosevelt’s famous line: “The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself.” My take on this is that we grasp fear and hold on to it at all cost debilitation our possibility to be compassionate, loving, kind and joyful.
We will explore this in our Dharma Talk and discussion this Tuesday night May 6th. Join us in person or on Zoom at 7:00 PM/EDT.
-Sangaku