There are uncertainties built into the fact that we’ve taken on an identity, but the real determining factors as to how much we’re going to suffer come back to our intentions.

"For most of us, whatever was the last big danger we had to face, that’s the fear we’re prepared for. But a lot of other things could go wrong.

Just look at your body. Every part of the body has at least one disease to go with it, sometimes more than one. It’s ready to fall apart, even though we do our best to keep it going. And the mind is even more changeable than that. So it’s no wonder that these are the things that grab our attention right away.

But, the Buddha says, those aren’t the things to be afraid of. The real thing to be afraid of is that you’re going to do something unskillful — particularly in trying to protect this identity you’ve taken on, to ward off whatever you think is going to be the next big danger to threaten it.

There are a lot of really horrible things that people do out of fear. And it turns out the horrible things are the things they really should be fearing more than the other fears they have.

This is why a large part of our training as meditators is to learn to see how our ordinary old fears are not nearly as scary as we think. Of course, the dangers are there — there’s instability, there are uncertainties built into the fact that we’ve taken on an identity. But the real determining factors as to how much we’re going to suffer come back to our intentions. If you act on unskillful intentions, you just make things worse. If you act on skillful intentions, though, there’s a way out.

So we train the mind. As we sit here and meditate, it’s probably the best way, the most direct way to train the mind. But all the aspects of the path, all the aspects of the practice, are training the mind to fear the right thing: to fear making unskillful choices — choices that are harmful for yourself, harmful for others, based on unskillful intentions, laced with greed, laced with anger, laced with delusion.

Notice that the Buddha doesn’t say that fear is necessarily unskillful. It is one of the wrong courses, or agati. You can go wrong based on fear. But not all fears make you go wrong. After all, as he said, if you’re afraid of doing something unskillful, that becomes compunction and that’s actually a virtue. If you realize that your actions will make the difference between whether you suffer or not, and you’re afraid of unskillful actions, that’s heedfulness, and that, too, is a virtue. In fact, as the Buddha said, that’s the basis for all skillful qualities.

So part of the training is getting a different sense of who you are, and how you are a product of your actions. That focuses your attention away from the “me” inside, and focuses it more on the agent and the choices that the agent is making. You want to get practice in good choices. This is why generosity and virtue play such a large role in the training of the mind, because they get you out of yourself. The focus is not so much on the form and feelings and perceptions and what-not that make up who you are, but more and more on the goodness and merit you can create through your actions.

This is an aspect of Buddhist practice that a lot of Westerners look down on. They say people trying to accumulate merit and amassing merit are grubbing, greedy, possessive, victims of spiritual materialism. But even though generosity and virtue are not the highest parts of the practice, they provide you with a really good foundation. And the fact that you’re thinking more about the goodness that you can create, and less about your identity, moves the focus in a healthy direction.

All kinds of things can happen to this body; all kinds of things can happen to your brain which will have an effect on what you can do. But if you’ve been amassing merit, something inside you knows you’ve got something good to depend on."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Fear & Insecurity"