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.”

Chogyam Trungpa, From “Fearlessness” in CRAZY WISDOM, pages 124 to 125.

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