Dealing With Fear

"A balanced fear of our delusions and the suffering to which they inevitably give rise is therefore healthy because it serves to motivate constructive action to avoid a real danger. We only need fear as an impetus until we have removed the causes of our vulnerability through finding spiritual, inner refuge and gradually training the mind.

Once we have done this, we are fearless because we no longer have anything that can harm us, like a Foe Destroyer (someone who has attained liberation, defeated the foe of the delusions) or a Buddha (a fully enlightened being).

All Buddha's teachings are methods to overcome the delusions, the source of all fears."

Fearlessness begins with protecting others from danger or harm.

This is called "acting with fearlessness." — http://www.tharpa.com/background/dealing-with-fear.htm

If such protection is no longer necessary, then one may make prayers and offerings to release ourselves from the danger (stress) of concern for others.

Praying for others to be released from their delusions, especially that of self-grasping (the delusive belief in the ego as real and in need of protection), which is the root of fear itself.

Once you eliminate the cause of most fears, it is the fear of fear itself that remains, for fear itself is an aspect of the ego.

How tightly we hold onto the ego as something real shows how much fear we have.

I feel that self-grasping is at the root of the fear of the outsider.

In a relationship setting, a woman may fear a man because his whole lifestyle is foreign to her. Until she finds things in common with him, her fear is justifiable.

Thus it is up to the man to find things in common with her.