The process of transcending fear begins with the encounter with fear. Fear
is not evil. Remember that the Warrior's root is in the basic goodness of
everything. Thus we must find the basic goodness of fear. As the time of
battle approaches, the Warrior's body prepares itself for peak performance.
It turns on all its emergency systems, energizes its muscles, increases
blood flow to the vital organs and away from areas likely to be damaged,
heightens visual perceptions, decreases tactile perceptions, and so on.
The body prepares for war.

Yet, if the mind is not also prepared for war, the experience of the body's
preparations are perceived as extremely uncomfortable. This is when our
fear becomes our enemy. The real battle is forgotten as we start a phony
battle inside ourselves. By trying to stop our body from activating its
emergency systems appropriately we debilitate ourselves such that, when the
real battle does begin, we are no longer entirely prepared. Thus we cannot
do as good a job as we might. We're setting ourselves up to lose. "Fear is
failure and the forerunner of failure."

The problem with fear isn't much different from the problems we have with
any other feeling. If our mind and body do not agree, we become distressed.
We suffer. We are conflicted within ourselves and that conflict takes away
our concentration. It weakens us. It unfocuses us.

Trungpa notes that the experience of synchrony between mind and body feels
like doubtlessness. This is not the doubt of having an unquestioned
philosophy, as some evangelical preacher might have no doubts about his
explanation of the world, but a sense of trust between mind and body that
exists wholly in the present without any explanations being offered at all.
The synchronized body and mind flow together and every movement is precise
and seemingly effortless. In common parlance among athletes, it's "the
Zone". While Trungpa doesn't mention it, the synchronization of mind and
body is certainly a part of tantric practice.

With the synchronization of mind and body there comes a rise in one'e sense
of human dignity and power. Trungpa refers to it as the "Dawn of the Great
Eastern Sun".

That this image is very much like "The Golden Dawn" should not be lost on
students of ceremonial magick.

Trungpa insists that the Dawn of the Great Eastern Sun is an *experience*,
not just a concept or an analogy. It is an intense sense of one's worth and
belonging as a human being in the world that is itself sacred. It is, as
Trungpa comments, a glimpse of the source of light and life in the world.
We experience it as we would experience the dawn. It unfolds, develops,
becomes uncovered. It is an experience of something that is seemingly
eternal, a thing that was there all the time, as the sun is there all the
time even though it was hidden from us for a time by the earth itself.

My sense of what he's describing is a sort of kensho experience. It's not
enlightenment itself but it is a temporary realization of what lies at the
root of existence and it's very, very good. It's a vision, a spiritual
experience that ties directly into the world itself.

Trungpa expands upon the theme of how the vision of the Great Eastern Sun
and applies it to the awakening of our ecological responsibilities. The
citizen of Shambhala is a resident of the earth and has a function within
it. That function is accomplished best by making sure that our actions
disturb the homeostasis of our ecology as little as possible.

He distinguishes between a "setting sun" approach to the earth, that of
those who expect the world to die and even desire its death as a surcease
from the suffering they feel, and the "rising sun" world, which expects the
world to live and celebrates it in all its painful and joyful
manifestations. The setting sun approach does not like earth. Earth is
where bad things are, so they dump all their bad things there and try to
live elsewhere until death frees them from the world entirely. There is no
point in trying to prolong things by conserving one's resources. Just tear
out what you want and use it and then throw the rest away. Cleaning things
makes people dirty, so they shun the very act of cleaning. It's beneath
them. It seems undignified, demeaning. It's something that those on the
lower rungs of the social hierarchy do for us. Those who see themselves as
part of a sacred whole see the world as a place where everything lives and
does not fear getting dirty. Thus cleaning up is not undignified to them.
It's simply someting one does to keep the balance.

Gurdjieff often assigned his students to hard physical labor, cleaning and
tending gardens. The more "demeaning" it seemed, the more likely he was to
encourage it. This principle of actively encountering the messiness of life
may well have been part of the lesson here.