Friday, June 20, 2008

THE WISDOM OF FEAR

The crazy wisdom approach to fear is not regarding it as a hangup alone, but realizing it is intelligent. It has a message of its own. Fear is worth respecting. If we dismiss fear as an obstacle and ignore it, then we might end up with accidents. In other words, fear is a very wise message....The point is, you can't con fear or frighten fear. You have to respect fear. You might try to tell yourself that it's not real, that it's just false, but that kind of approach is very questionable. It is better to develop some kind of respect, realizing that neurosis also is a message, rather than garbage that you should just throw away. That's the whole starting point -- the idea of samsara and nirvana, confusion and enlightenment, being one. Samsara is not regarded as a nuisance alone, but it has its own potent message that is worthy of respect.

From "Fearlessness" in CRAZY WISDOM, pages 124 to 125.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.

OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK now has 5,873 subscribers.

Please send comments on and contributions to OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK to the list moderator, Carolyn Gimian at: carolyn@shambhala.com.

Carolyn Rose Gimian

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week: teachings by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
Taken from works published by Shambhala Publications, the Archive of his unpublished work in the Shambhala Archives, plus other published sources.
TO SUBSCRIBE visit the Chogyam Trungpa website by clicking on the following link: http://OceanofDharma.com

No comments: