Facing What Frightens Us

Halloween is a celebration of scary things. Halloween is a time for making benign things appear frightening -- making a jack-o'-lantern out of a pumpkin; dressing up as zombies and mummies. It's all for fun because we know the zombies and mummies are children and the glowing, scowling face is a big squash with a candle in it.

Buddhism teaches us that the things that really frighten us are just apparitions, also; not "real." But when the apparition is a life-threatening illness or financial ruin, it's hard to realize that.

Barry Boyce and the editors of the Shambhala Sun have published a new book titled In the Face of Fear: Buddhist Wisdom for Challenging Times. It's a collection of essays from many teachers dealing with different facets of facing fear. Many of these essays are old friends -- Pema Chodron on "When Things Fall Apart";  Sharon Salzburg on "Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience"; Chogyam Trungpa on the sacred path of the warrior;  Thich Nhat Hanh on "Healing Pain and Dressing Wounds"; Shunryu Suzuki on transience; John Daido Loori on dealing with stress; Jack Kornfield on transforming desire into abundance.

Some of the essays were new to me.  Zen teacher Norman Fischer writes poignantly about the sudden and unexpected death of a close friend.  The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche writes about "poverty mind," a habit of mind of thinking of ourselves as deprived when in fact we have everything we need. On the whole, this is a useful book for anyone struggling to maintain practice in challenging times.