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Moral Courage
By Bruce Boyd
Courage, what is it? Everyone wants it, but nobody seems to know for sure what the word means. To me, a definition of courage without a spiritual basis is useless. My guru was certainly the most courageous person I have ever known. He dedicated his entire life to his ideology and proved that he was ready to sacrifice his physical existence at any moment for that ideology. From my observations he seemed to be without fear. Furthermore, his writings provided insight into the very meaning of the word courage that was astounding. It seemed he considered fear to be a fundamental block to spiritual progress and warned seekers against "worshipping" their fate out of fear. "A man must be bold. He must boldly face all troubles, all reactions to past actions!" is but one small example of his take on the importance of moral courage.
Normally, we think of bravery as something involving confrontations with other people or at least some emergency that pops up suddenly and separates the "men from the boys", but my guru used the concept in reference to facing day to day events large and small, in stark contrast to being subjugated by them. Why would we worship fate? For the same reason that primitive people worshipped volcanoes; fear.
I remember an old song with the line: "As we lick the boots of death out of fear...." Ultimately what do we fear? Death, pain and related unpleasantries, disease, poverty... So, I suppose the courageous are more willing to face these things than most. Are the courageous free from fear? Or are they just willing to undergo fear for the sake of some greater ideal? And what ideal might that be which could inspire them to face the ultimate loss, physical death? Something more substantial than our physical existence perhaps.
So, is risking one's life for something proof of a belief in God? Not necessarily. During the depression folks were committing suicide because they lost their fortunes. They were Intentionally losing their lives, because they felt life was too painful without money. So people will probably risk their lives for the sake of money and a variety of other things which they value more than their own physical existence: money, romantic partners, friends, family. Not only that but we often hear of folks killing themselves not over loss, but out of aversion to something in their lives, or something soon to come: disfiguration, incapacity of some sort, public humiliation, painful disease. So, there are apparently lots of things that people fear more than death; lot's of stuff folks don't want to do, or have done to them to the point they will face almost certain death.
So, suffice it to say that courage is tough to nail down. It's got to be something strong enough to help us to face things even worse than death!
Myself, I try to live by certain ideals. I believe there is a God, a benevolent entity that created this universe we live in, and one who maintains contact with his creation in a way that has profound importance to us. A way that invites us to participate in a practical process whereby we achieve personal joy and fulfillment on the one hand and the ability to provide great benefit to our fellows on the other hand. OK, so that is what I do. I am involved in this relationship with God project, and that largely dictates my daily activities.
Most of those activities are very pleasant, but if it were all that easy, we would be bumping into enlightened beings at every corner, and that is hardly the case in my neighborhood anyway. So, many of these activities (let's call them 'yoga' in the larger sense of the word) require discipline... AND I would go so far as to say many of them require what I would call courage. So maybe we are talking about some sort of stuff that is variably referred to as discipline, will power, hutzpah, guts, courage etc etc. Where does discipline end and courage begin? Probably that is a moot point; just different amounts of the same stuff, though I suppose few are going to salute us and exclaim "that took guts" when we get out of bed and brush our teeth in the morning.
So, perhaps a working definition of courage might be action performed against resistance of some sort, and we might add the particular that some risk is present.
Now
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the "moral" part; maybe this will separate us from the suicides and folks facing danger to save their financial empires. This leaves us with facing danger for the sake of an ideology (some sort of higher belief system).
At this point, I would like to descend from the theoretical to the mundane quite suddenly. I've noticed in my life lately the presence of two distinct forces, both trying to get me to behave in a certain predictable pattern. Let's call them the the "low road" and the "high road". I've already mentioned that I try to live by a certain set of ideals. That would be the "high road". The low road is an amalgam of crude but quite normal tendencies: hunger, lust, greed, pride, and these two roads are often if not always in with one another. Both forces have a life of their own with rewards and punishments at their disposal, and treading either road therefore requires some sort of courage in order to make progress.
Let's take a look at the "low road" for a moment. Maybe it's not really all that "low"; let's just call it the "normal life", "unexamined life" or something like that. You get up in the morning, you eat, you make money, you reproduce your species, you fill up your free time with entertainment. As long as no-one interferes with these activities, life goes on comfortably, but if someone gets in the way, what happens then? Probably you want to annihilate him, no? In any case, a occurs and you have to choose between fighting and walking away from the conflict. Probably neither of these two options is very inviting.
OK, now let's look at the "high road." How does it differ? There is an interesting Zen saying: "Before Zen, chopping wood and carrying water. After Zen, chopping wood and carrying water." So, you still get up, you eat, you go to work, you get married, you fill up your free time, but now you do it for the sake of your ideology. Not as a means of accumulating stuff, but as a means of achieving a spiritual goal, getting enlightened.
OK, cool, but what happens now when someone tries to interfere? Now things get interesting. If you have spent most of your life in "low road" modality, your gut is going to tell you to waste the guy, but now there is this "high road" voice beckoning and so you stop and think. Do you just let the guy take your stuff now that you are all spiritual and everything? Maybe he even wants to kill you.
I spent some time in India over the years, and I noticed one peculiar thing: there are no Buddhists: lots of Hindus, lots of Muslims, lots of Sikhs, but no Buddhists. Now how can that be? Buddha was born in India and spent his entire life there. What happened to all the Buddhists? They were exterminated by various invading armies over the centuries. In some cases, they just lined up in an orderly fashion while they were beheaded one by one. Is that moral courage? Not if you think that Buddhism is good for the world.
OK, facing danger is courage, right? But what if a man is drunk? What if a guy gets blind drunk and starts a fight? Is that courage? No, of course not. What about drugs? No, that isn't courage either, is it? Then what about anger? What if a man is in a blind rage and punches someone. Is that courage? I don't think so. I'm not striking an idealistic pose here. This is science. I just don't think it is of any value for us to consider an angry man courageous. The rage might serve to intimidate others, but it isn't courage in my book. It's no different from any other drug.
There is a well-known scripture in Hinduism called the Bhagavad Gita. It is particularly appropriate to a discussion on courage, because the entire book consists of a conversation between a warrior and God immediately before an enormous battle. A battle which actually took place about 3500 years ago in India. The conversation is initiated by the warrior, Arjuna, because he has decided that fighting this battle is not the right thing to do, and the rest of the book/conversation is about courage, ideology, the nature of God and the universe; stuff like that. Arjuna is without fear, without anger, and considers the obvious moral issue of warfare and after taking God's counsel finally decides he should and must fight. He survives and guides the human civilization of that era on to a new and brighter era.
Now my life seems very small in comparison, but it is all I have to work with, and I reckon I might as well take it seriously anyway. Despite it's size, it bares a striking resemblance to the life of Arjuna however, in that I have lost my taste for fighting over the table scraps of this worldly existence in favor of the pursuit of more spiritual pleasures if I may be so bold as to say that. I find myself wanting to walk away from "battles" that I used to routinely wage out of anger and the fear of embarrassment. I get some sort of slap in the face challenge, yet figure I really don't need the contested item, and prepare to walk away from the conflict. For better or worse, it just doesn't work like that. I get this feeling like I'm supposed to take some sort of action for the good of the equilibrium of the cosmos, but in that moment, I have a hard time figuring out where the heck I am going to come up with the strength to fight "the good fight" as we used to say in Aikido in my Japan days. I've gotta say though, that some magic often happens in these moments. It doesn't come easily, but it comes and brings with it a new found peace and strength. Dare I call it courage?
Peace and Love to you all.
Copyright 2007 Bruce Boyd and BabaNam.com
Article Source: http://www.articlerocket.com
Bruce Boyd has been a spiritual seeker since the early 70s and spent most of his life overseas (Japan, India, Nepal, China, Ireland, Germany and Thailand), studying and teaching yoga and martial arts, and playing music. He now lives in Eugene, OR with his wife and three kids. babanam.com
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