INTREPID

Fear is not an option so long as we are alive, or at least until enlightenment happens. Who knows, the dead may even have their own fears too! The point is, how do we deal with fear when it arises as our own inner experience? To get there, we need to find out what fear really is.

Suggesting this project is not a fearless venture. In fact, on the contrary, fear already began when the project was mooted. It ranges from getting the wrong land to worrying about funding, from it being located too far to concern whether anyone is even interested in such a project. There is also fear of how to sustain the place to who will inherit it if the community is no longer supportive. All these concerns, worry, restlessness, or even “what if?” have an element of fear within. There was even the fearful thought that it should not have been suggested in the first place! Don’t all of these sound familiar in one way or another?

For me, fear is more a result of what or how I think than a cause of concern for something. Fear gives the impression that the aboutness of something is the cause of my experience of fear. But the truth is that "something" cannot make me fearful unless I think about it in a certain way. Each time I learn more about fear, I realize how thwarted the thought system is. You will notice that too if you observe the mind thoroughly enough. Basically, my way of thinking is normally geared toward how I want things to be. Ironically, I also knew that what I want is not the way things will work out finally. It may or may not work out the way how I thought it should, and that already obviously shows that my thoughts or wishes have no rights in the outcome. Somehow, if I am not mindful of such ridiculous thinking, fear will be its result.

In other words, fear is an option. But it is also not an option if I am unmindful of the absurdity of such a thought. So, this project, the Sri Langkasuka Retreat Village, is a fertile condition for fear to arise. It is also a fertile opportunity for me to understand my mind better. Specifically, the views, thoughts, and attachment to what is. The project is a greater part of the practice of meditation in grooming Right Understanding. If it ever comes to fruition, its end result is also the continuation of the passing of the baton of the right practice towards the Ultimate Deliverance of the misunderstood mind to a purified state of Right Understanding.

When the attitude is right, in terms of knowing how to investigate the thought system with awareness, then the outcome of the project is no longer of concern and beyond our expectations. We can only work on the causes, and the effect will take care of itself. We still need to do what is necessary along the way, minus the fear, and that is a whole world of a different experience altogether.