From friends new Book (Roger Guest...The Tender Heart of Sadness)

When we raise lungta, we become like fully charged batteries: strong, awake and radiant with the life force of confidence. Raising lungta cuts through fixation and transcends aggression, allowing us to harness the power of immediacy. When authentic lungta fills our beings, we can’t avoid the tender sadness of our own hearts. In fact, our intimate relationships with ourselves become beacons of confidence for the rest of the world.

When we speak of a tender heart of sadness, we are not referring to melancholy or mundane disappointment. A warrior’s sadness has little in common with the emotional deflation, depression or self-pity normally associated with the word sadness. Rather, the ‘genuine heart of sadness’ borders on joy. Trungpa Rinpoche called it “the ideal human emotion”. When our longing for sanity melts into an appreciation of sacredness, it leaves us tenderized, transports us to the frontiers of intimacy and invites us to leap. It is one thing to talk about the power of the human heart, but another to step bravely forward and taste its fragile essence.

Trungpa Rinpoche said, “Fear does not allow fundamental tenderness to enter into us. When tenderness tinged by sadness touches our heart, we know that we are in contact with reality. We feel it. That contact is genuine, fresh, and quite raw. That sensitivity is the basic experience of warriorship.” So our challenge is to meet fear with fearlessness and aggression with tenderness. This kind of relationship with power creates an atmosphere of unrequited love, non-conceptual bravery and vulnerability that is quite literal and tangible.

Reading and Contemplation for Class 5

The Path of Fearlessness in "Smile at Fear". (Especially Chapters 12 & 13.)

"Look at hope.  What do you hope for in your life?  How does hope play a role in your experience of fear?  What is the relationship between hope and fear? What role does hope play in your meditation practice?  Keep a list of all the things you hope for in a single day.  See how this list relates to things that you fear."
And don't forget about the celebration!

Just thought I'd share this...

Although this comment from one of my UWM student's final exam is about shamatha practice, it doubles as such a perfect response to why we are not attempting to eradicate fear, but to be with it fully

"Our minds are constantly going, they never stop, and meditation isn’t meant to stop the movement, but rather allow us some sense of steadiness in all the constant movement and action... You are seeing things from a different view now, you’re enlightened to things outside of your usual thoughts and this brings some sense deep insight into yourself and the universe."

Re: Diana & Toby's questions

It's true, the 4 steps are not a prescription to remove one's pain and suffering. It's more like you're taking on a new hue. Try numerous "minor anxiety versions" of the four steps and look at the "you" that arises, not as a victim of your fears, but rather as a more resilient being with even more heart.

4 Steps

The 4 steps are prescribed to you as people with a working relationship with meditation practice: seeing precisely what is arising in your consciousness and being able to let go. Then, seeing more and letting go more. We are becoming more and more skilled in the craft of precision, clarity and bravery.

Encouragement...

Just wanted to encourage reading all the texts, practicing the contemplations, and keeping the radar up for signs of fear in our day-to-day lives. And apply much, much gentleness. The only way out is "in".

Wondering...

I continue wondering why 'fear' was not on the list of destructive emotions in the early dharma texts.
'Impermanence' was the main teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha, and when I experience it, it brings up anxiety and fear immediately -- even before I resort to 3 poisons of passion, aggression or ignorance (or the 5 poison version, adding hatred and jealousy).
It seems so obvious. Of course, I always say that I first connected with "Shambhala, the Sacred Path of the Warrior", when I read the chapter of "Fear and Fearlessness". I realized that CTR's depiction of 'fear' helped clarify the fog of my anxiety, which was always just a vague uneasiness I couldn't grasp. After reading that chapter, I knew I had something palpable to work on/with.