The Real Danger of Fear

The Real Danger of Fear

What is the Water element? It’s the aspect of nature, including human nature, that resonates with the wintertime. It resonates with the coldest, darkest time of year, or the coldest, darkest time of your life, or the coldest, darkest part of your internal terrain. The emotion associated with this part of us, and this part of life, is fear. It really is true that the only thing to fear is fear itself, because fear, when we are working with it in a healthy way, is not scary. It’s “Whoa.” There is something to pay very close attention to. There’s a call to urgent listening. 

The transformation of virtue for Water inside of us is from fear to wisdom, in learning how to, when the fear comes, not be frozen by it, bowled over by it, frittered away in   nervous energy by it, not sunken in dread and going down muttering to ourselves. There are so many ways that fear can take us under. But when fear is transformed to wisdom, it’s because we have learned (and we can teach this and learn it together) how to take heart in the dark, feel that trembling, feel that tremor, and trust it as an indicator that there’s something going on that is actually important, that is relevant, either to survival or destiny, something along that continuum, and that we need to listen up. 

How do we listen? How do we actually enter the dark rather than fear it, so that we can hear those whispers? This is what all of the Chinese medicine practices of the Water element are about. When we listen, and to the extent that we listen, we become wise and we make wise choices. I think that’s a pretty good reason to learn more about the Water element. 

The Difference Between Danger and Evil

What’s the difference between danger and evil? Now there’s a question. The biggest difference between danger and evil is your ego. The determination of whether this is dangerous, or this is evil, is usually an egoic question relevant to when I am threatened by something, how do I respond? If a snake is about to bite me, is it dangerous? Yes. Is it evil? Pause just for a moment here. 
 
Part of the work of our Water element is getting very, very clear about what we fear—which it may actually be a very good idea to fear—but that we can, with wisdom (the virtue of the Water element) come into harmony with, possibly by running like hell. That might be the wisest thing to do, without having to get entangled in these notions of evil that, frankly, cause toxicity in us. 

So let’s work with this somatically. What is evil, and what does it have to do with you? 

See if you can think of something that you find dangerous. Could be a snake, could be a political policy, could be a political party, could be whatever, and just let yourself feel in your body what it feels like to be scared, pure and simple. Oh, scared. You don’t have to go all the way into it. Please don’t cause yourself any greater distress than you’re already in. Just unveil to yourself the places where there is already fear. Just acknowledge, “Oh, that’s fear.”

Next (and again, please don’t dive into this. You don’t have to turn the dial up to max), see what it feels like to feel threat. It’s more than just being afraid. It’s more like “Gah! I’m under threat! Something could happen!” and feel what threat feels like. It’s a different kind of arousal state. It can be very urgent, when imminently threatened. 

Even this is still potentially a call to wisdom, a call to deep resources, a call to the deep cleverness, the intelligence of the Bladder meridian, which is what we use to read the stars, a very few points of data in the darkness. How do we navigate in the dark? 

Now notice as we move from threat, to thinking about the thing by which we are threatened, and considering it evil. What happens in your body, when you are saying to yourself, “It’s evil! They’re evil. Those people are evil. That policy is evil.” Noticing what happens on the inside. 

Unfortunately, one of the things that happens on the inside is a closing of the heart that can make us feel much calmer. The moment that “they are evil,” I can step into self-righteousness, and be justified in a kind of coldness, a literal cold heartedness that says, “Well, we’ll just shoot them down. We’ll stamp them out. We will…”  

Fill in the blank. There’s nothing too devious or too diabolical on our part that can’t fill that blank, once we’re in that calm, cold state of our heart having closed because they’re evil. Now we can do anything to them.

I’m going to ask you to do maybe the bravest and most morally imperative thing you could possibly do, and that is re-transition back from considering them and it evil, into admitting, “I feel threatened. I believe that there is genuine danger here.” 

This is not about saying, “La, la, la, la, la, it’s okay.” It’s not okay! It’s fine to feel fear. It takes courage, in a sense, to choose to feel the sense of danger, rather than that cold hearted, so called moral righteousness. Instead, “I think this is a real threat. I’m going to feel my fear. I’m going to start doing my Qigong and my breathing into my bones so that I can power up my deep sense of agency and open my Bladder meridian so that I can read the stars. What am I going to do that is wise, not because they are evil, but because I don’t want to become evil too. I’m looking for a different kind of solution, one that will also safeguard my health.”

Two Words for Evil

In Chinese medicine, there are two different words that get translated as evil, Xie and Wu. Xie shows a snake that will bite you. It’s a fang-y kind of thing, and this word is used for things like viruses and the flu, COVID is an external pernicious influence, or external evil. It’s a thing that it could kill you, or at least harm you. 

So the implication here, because a cold wind is considered evil—but there’s nothing evil about a cold wind. It’s only an external evil if you are threatened by it, and say, “Wow, this could kill me,” and yes, it could kill you. Or, you could take some extra Yu Ping Feng San (a Chinese herbal formula to help with your wei qi, your protection), and all of a sudden it’s just wind. It’s not evil anymore. 

A snake, a literal rattlesnake that is going to bite you—is it evil? It sure feels that way, if it’s going to kill you in a minute. Can you be a wise snake handler, or run like hell, or do what you need to do, in order not to be a target—to change the dance so that it is no longer considered evil, just a threat? 

When we consider something to be evil just because it is a genuine threat, as we take the stance that “This is evil!”, something happens inside of our own heart. Something twists, and toxin is produced. We are no longer able to make heart connection with that which we have called evil, not because it has changed, but because we have changed. 

This is Wu, the character which shows something in the imperial palace that is twisted. Our seeing something as evil out there causes something to become evil in here. Now suddenly we feel that it is appropriate to do things in response to that evil that now feel morally right, but that absolutely would not seem morally right if our heart had not twisted shut, such that we can no longer feel the heart, the humanity, of the other. 

Yes, you are a threat to me, but you also have a heart, and that allows us to negotiate very, very differently. 

There are things that we will do when we are calling someone or something else ‘evil’ that are, frankly, evil. Thus it is a very interesting question, and I think a valuable question for these times: Can we be with threat, which is definitely the province of the Water element:  “I’m scared of what you’re going to do to me. I’m scared of your policies. They scare me silly.” I want to respond wisely with an open heart, the same way I would deal with a dangerous rattlesnake, not by calling it evil and becoming evil myself, but by calling upon the resources of Water and wisdom.

Just how scared can you be, and just how threatened, before you go over to what is popularly called ‘the Dark Side’ yourself, before you start deciding that any and all means are justified in order to defeat this outside evil? It’s terrifying, what happens to our heart and to our health, when we are not able to bear honestly and with courage the fact that we are afraid; the fact that we are threatened; and to hold that sense of threat morally, healthfully, with heart, and with wisdom. 

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