Red Roses

by Venenable K. Sri Dhammananda

Fear and worry are born of the imaginings of a mind that is influenced by wordly conditions. They are rooted in craving and attachment. In fact, life is like a motion picture in which everything is constantly moving and changing. Nothing in this world is permanent or still. Those who are youthful and strong have fear of dying young. Those who are old and suffering worry about living too long. Locked in between are those who craze for merriment all the year round.

Joyful expectations of the pleasant seem to pass off too quickly. Fearful expectations of the unpleasant create anxieties that do not seem to go away. Such feelings are natural. Such up and downs of life play with an illusionary self or ego like puppets on a string. But the mind is supreme unto itself.

The training of the mind, otherwise known as mental culture, is the first step towards taming mental unrest. The Buddha has explained:

“From craving springs grief,
from craving springs fear
For him who is wholly free from craving,
there is no grief, much less fear”.

All attachments will end in sorrow. Neither tears nor long goodbyes can end the transitoriness of life. All compounded things are impermanent.

Old and young suffer in this existence. No one is exempted. Many teenagers have growing pains. Being neither frogs nor tadpoles, teenagers are understandably inexperienced at building stable relationships with members of the opposite sex. They try to show off their beauty in trying to impress their opposite sex who are flattered to see themselves as sex objects. Both try to behave not as they really are but as what they think is adult. They are afraid that if they behave naturally they will be laughed at. Beheviour like this has the potential for exploitation. There is fear of rejection as well as worry about deflated egos. Unrequited love will often “break” many teenagers hearts because they feel they have made “fools of themselves”. Some are driven to commit suicide. But such traumas could be avoided if life is seen as it really is. Young people must be taught the Buddhist approach to life, so that they can grow into maturity the correct way.

‘Wheresoever fear arises, it arises in the fool, not in the wise men’. says the Buddha. Fear is nothing more than a state of mind. One’s state of mind is subject to control and direction; the negative thought produces fear, the positive use realizes hopes and ideals. The choice rests entirely with ourselves. Every human being has the ability to control his own mind. Nature has endowed man with absolute control over one thing, and that is thought. Everything a man creates begins in the form of a thought. Here is the key to help one understand the principle by which fear may be mastered.

Source: www.dhammatalks.net