1st Class on Being(s)

Beyond fear.

Only Buddhas are beyond fear.

And the topic of fear is challenging because normally, ordinarily we do not like fear but we believe that we cannot survive without fear.

For us survival is most important.

The idea that is at the core of all the education we received is that our only interest is persisting to exist, survive, and as an outcome of that - reproduce.

The idea of survival as a primordial desire is in everything we do and our reproduction is a way of fighting our mortality. We believe that through our work, our ideas, and our off springs we continue to exist.

Such ideas are present and functioning somewhere in our psyche.

They inform how we view, understand our world, and they condition our intentions and our determinations and practices

When we then come to think of fear and who we are as a self/being/person/I

The modern view believes the I is

1. embodied - in the body and in the brain.
2. The I has no core but it is a construct of experiences memories
3. changing all the time

Our view on fear is:

1. Fear is necessary for survival - fear is beneficial
2. You cannot do much about fear