The Treasure Hidden in Fear
El tesoro oculto en el miedo
A reflection on how complete intimacy with fear and pain is the doorway to lasting freedom, and how the process of letting go of who we think we are mirrors the experience of dying.
The Treasure Hidden in Fear
A reflection on how complete intimacy with fear and pain is the doorway to lasting freedom, and how the process of letting go of who we think we are mirrors the experience of dying.
Until we have an intimate relationship with fear and pain, a deeper and deeper relationship, we cannot know the freedom that we are. We can taste it, but we cannot fully rest in it until we have complete intimacy with fear and pain.
Glimpses that draw us deeper
This is what happens. We meditate, we go on retreats, we have tastes, we have glimpses. These glimpses encourage us to relate with our experience more intimately and deeply.
The treasure in the fear of death
The treasure that lies in the fear of death is the treasure of freedom. As we look at death, we get to know what it is that we think can end. The only thing that can end is a belief. And the dropping of this belief: will it be experienced as if we were dying? Yes, because it is exactly what dying is. It is the ending of what we think we are. So when we drop the belief of what we think we are, all of our biology and psychology will be activated as if we were dying.
Approaching the threshold gently
Sometimes this needs to be approached gently and slowly over time. As we have glimpses of being something other than mind, that transition softens. We get close to it, step back, get close, step back. In that process we have glimpses of what is beyond. We taste. For some it happens very suddenly, but that is not something we have much control of.
Death and resurrection as symbol
This is symbolized in the resurrection of Christ: the dying of what we think we are, so that we may be born as what we truly are. To know that what we are has no relationship with what we thought we were. But that transition is symbolized by the crucifixion, which is fear and pain.
That is one example of a very extreme, fast, sudden process. It can also be gentler, more gradual. It can be like paying mortgage installments versus making the whole payment at once.