> 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.