On Courage

For some reason when I think of courage, I think of some ridiculously masculine quality, like a hero blasting through enemy lines to save a damsel in distress, and maybe some babies, too. You know, something like Rambo.


This of course, is extraordinarily silly. Though war-time heroes romanticize the notion of courage and make for good cinematic value, real courage comes in many forms, most of them far more subtle.

Even if it's not blood, guts, and burning bodies, sometimes the courage involved in self-control is as admirable as any heroic conquest. It takes a tremendous amount to know that before you can run, you need to walk. And sometimes, on a hurt ankle, you may need to stand still for a while before you can go anywhere at all.

It takes great strength to utter the words "I'm not sure". We spend all our lives trying to be so sure of ourselves, that we forget that we don't always need to have all the answers. The act of creating the needed time and space between yourself and the sources of your confusion is a challenging, honorable task. We always forget this. We think the world demands us to figure out our problems 'right now', which is probably half the source of our problems.

Perhaps the most courageous thing of all is realizing that as life changes, our needs change. That our seemingly natural attachment to that which brought us a sense of completeness and satisfaction isn't always natural after all, and the courage comes in braving the storm of breaking old bonds to form the new ones that are needed to allow your heart to grow.

Of course, there is a balancing truth that sometimes we are taken from that which is really most important to us by the passions of the present moment, looking at the world through rose coloured glasses. This too, takes tremendous courage to deal with. Gently stepping away from temptation back to which makes you feel wholesome and skillful is no easy task.

To me, a very difficult practice has been to acquire a "don't know" mind. A mind that finds itself attracted to the wholesome and gently detached from the unwholesome without any prejudice about how 'Things are supposed to be'. It takes a lot of guts to be able to live this way and simultaneously offer a sense of stability and fidelity to those you love. However, wouldn't it be great to master this skill?

Sometimes courage involves knowing what not to say, and when not to say it. So I'll stop writing now. :)