Fear is how knowledge of mortality makes itself felt in human experience. It arises as an aspect of evolution, since beings with no fear do not survive. Once beings with intelligence, memory, & so on arise, fear attaches to thoughts about the future & attachment to the body. The terror management matrix of self identity (e.g., “my male culture,” tribe) attempts to control this existential fear. In fact fear is merely pushed into the subconscious; it reappears as anxiety, anger, & other forms of aversion. As long as we believe that the object of the fear—death—cannot be dealt with in the long run, we cling to some terror-management matrix: the existence of a self, which has the flavor of an immortal meaning; the culture that supports that belief; & running battles against anything that threatens the matrix of beliefs (tribes, other groups, ideas, material belongings). Gotama’s teachings can train us to experience life without clinging to the traditional matrix of self & culture, including its newest forms, such as scientific materialism, without giving up common sense. Fear has a common-sense role—just as the ability to feel pain prevents us from burning ourselves without knowing it. Fear can perform its role of preserving the body without creating an experience of existential dread. The gnawing sub-conscious sensations that well up when we cannot see what’s going on in the moment—dukkha—can cease.