In order to rediscover our natural confidence and live a fearless life, we must examine the challenge: we must "recognize fear."
Fear, for the neurophysiologists, is a stimulus to investigate, discern and resolve. Taking a Buddhist perspective on fear, however, requires that we make a simple, yet somewhat outrageous, observation: fear does not exist. This is not to say we don't experience fear and its many forms. Of course, we are afraid of death and pain, afraid that we can't handle life. We fear new situations and the unknown. Yet, while we may want to define fear, explore fear, and possibly even resolve it, we first must acknowledge that we cannot actually find such a solid thing as "fear" at all.
In order to recognize fear, then, we need to examine our experience, right here, right now. When the elusive, uncertain nature of life shifts from background to foreground, as it always does, we struggle and panic. Falling in love with a colleague, being diagnosed with cancer, or just missing an appointment, we instinctively sense that life happens in a way that we cannot grasp, and we become bewildered. Becoming familiar with such bewilderment is how we examine and recognize fear.
We breed cowardice with story lines of all kinds: "I'm freaked out because I am going to lose my job and won't be able to handle life!" or "I think my foot has cancer--it hasn't been behaving itself lately." Yet, when we are completely honest with ourselves, we discover not only that we are primordially exposed but that panicking is optional. Being exposed to life is sharply real and unavoidable, but being a coward is not required. And by leaping in with no guarantees, we stop seeking a life free from fear, but instead discover how to live life fearlessly.
Fear of the Unknown
Conor Mayo-Wilson, a researcher of mathematical philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University, studies how people learn and solve problems by sharing information in groups. These groups, however different, take advantage of a diverse range of experiences and knowledge, so it’s reasonable to think that collective intelligence might come to a more accurate conclusion than any one individual. But research done by Mayo-Wilson and others shows that this isn’t exactly the case.
The once-taboo topic has gotten a lot of talk these days. In the movie "Hereafter," directed by Clint Eastwood, a French journalist is haunted by what she experienced while nearly drowning in a tsunami. A spate of books details other cases and variations on the theme.
Yet the fundamental debate rages on: Are these glimpses of an afterlife, are they hallucinations or are they the random firings of an oxygen-starved brain?
"There are always skeptics, but there are millions of 'experiencers' who know what happened to them, and they don't care what anybody else says," says Diane Corcoran, president of the International Association for Near-Death Studies, a nonprofit group in Durham, N.C. The organization publishes the Journal of Near-Death Studies.