Don't Be Afraid Of Dragons

 They hiss, they spit, they bare their fangs and snap at us!  

They rise effortlessly above us and just as we hope they have flown away, they come swooping down to breathe fire once more..

I have always dreaded dragons.  There seemed so many of them- waiting to pounce on me when I was a child and they find their way still, when I am asleep - and sometimes (even worse) - when I'm wide awake.

They come in a bewildering array of forms (bringing that sinking feeling which is much more dreadful than the dragon itself) : nagging doubts, gnawing anxiety, dreaded deadlines, tugs of disappointment at things that didn't happen the way I wanted, unachieved 'targets', being the victim of dangerous road rages, vitriolic verbal outbursts, cold shoulders and more..

How, oh how do we deal with all these?  Merely shouting, "Dragons flee!" doesn't seem to help.  

One way forward, I think, is by taking it one moment (and one dragon) at a time and thinking of it as an opportunity for change and self discovery.  Once you make sense of one dragon, you realise they are all the same even if the shapes vary.  They all aim to distract you and disrupt your natural state of equilibrium.

When they succeed in doing so, everything looks bigger and harder to tackle.  So- hold on tight to your inner self, don't let it slip away and you will find your Very Own methods to deal with that particular Dragon in your life.

My seven year old son, brimming with curiosity, peers over my shoulder as I write this blog.

"I'm so happy you're telling people not to be afraid of dragons, Mummy," he says, hugging his special red and yellow dragon, Flamie Jamie.  

"Appa, are you afraid of dragons?  Don't be."

"I think I am," says his father.  "Dragons can be very scary sometimes."

"But that's not real!" exclaims my son.  "They look like they're breathing fire but that's only their mucous which comes in the winter or when they're sick.  That mucous doesn't burn you, it just stops you from seeing clearly.  And what they are asking for is just some medicine and a hanky."

Thought provoking words indeed.  Dragons lead us to despair and destruction.  To battles we wouldn't have chosen for ourselves.  But what lurks within a dragon?  A sense of loss and despair?   A world frozen so many times, it has lost the ability to appreciate warmth?  

Can we provide all that the dragon asks or secretly desires?  No (at least I cannot!). Handkerchiefs and medicinal brews are not so easy to come by (handkerchiefs in particular, in my house, seem to do the vanishing act each time I need them).

Perhaps we can begin by avoiding the usual pitfalls- those flashes of temper, gushes of dislike or cold contempt.  Let's not move away from our inner tranquility (that we have worked so hard to reach).  Hang on desperately to our place of refuge and shelter- our inner core and refuse to budge from there. Use our inner core to throw the dragons off balance as a Tai Chi master might have effortlessly done in days of yore.

The dragons may not disappear but we will feel better about ourselves.  And holding on to this feeling, we might deal with our opponents in ways better than when we were filled with hatred, rage or fear.  The dragons might even just recede,  filled with disgust at our lack of opposition, for perhaps all they wanted was a good old fight.  Perhaps we might even discover that dragons lack weapons with which to approach the deep stillness that lies within us.  The possibilities are endless..

As I think about these things, the words of Lao Tzu echo in my mind-

"...The Tao is empty, yet when applied is never filled up.

So deep it is, Ah! it seems to be the ancestor of all things.

Blunting sharp edges, resolving confusions,

Diffusing glare, uniting the world:

Such depth, Ah! something seems to exist there.

I do not know whose child it is.

It seems to have existed before the Ancestor..."

Perhaps we can use this emptiness to our advantage.  When we are empty, how will dragons find us?