I saw a sign on a bus this morning that said 'Knowledge defeats fear'. My immediate thought was 'yes okay, that makes some sense because if I know about something, if that knowledge helps me to understand better then I am less likely to be afraid of that thing or person or country or whatever'.
It is certainly true I think, that the more I am aware of why other people think the way they do or know something about the experiences that have formed them, the more I may be able to see them as unique and interesting human beings. If I see shadows in a dark room, I am much less afraid when I turn on the lights.
But I also know that the older I get the more aware I am that there are some things I cannot know or understand. Like death. Like evil. I experience these things but I do not have any kind of knowledge of them that makes it possible to control or escape them or not fear them . I imagine that you could think of other things like that.
It seems to me that there are also things that we may have knowledge about but still are afraid of. Like violence. Like injustice. Like why I get angry. Like why there is pain.
In all these things we surely face our vulnerability and that can be very, very hard. We can try so hard to control our lives so that we don't feel so vulnerable: so we won't get sick and die, so the people we love won't get sick or hurt or die, so we can keep our job, so our children will be okay and so on. And then we experience something like a gunman who shoots to death 12 innocent people and we learn something about the limits of our control.
Learning to live with vulnerability is a lifetime's task and possibly never entirely successful. But I think peace only comes when we do so. Living fully the present moment , because that is all there is, is maybe a good place to start.
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1 comment:
I think that knowledge can lead to insights that make us more at peace with the world. But I guess we also have to accept that we will never have all the answers to things like death and evil and yet still be able to focus our energies on the good things that bring happiness to ourselves and others, such as love and compassion. We should certainly strive to be healthy, but also understand that sickness and death are unavoidable and that there's no advantage to being afraid of them. In fact, fearfulness may very well bring them on ourselves. I find it comforting to meditate on impermanence. If I'm in a bad mood I know it won't last. Anxiety, anger, sadness will all pass. We do only have the present moment, but we can make each moment such a gift.
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