FORTITUDE

FORTITUDE

Fortitude is defined as a moral virtue that ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good. It strengthens the resolve to resist temptations and to overcome obstacles in the moral life. The virtue of fortitude enables one to conquer fear, even fear of death, and to face trials and persecutions. It disposes one even to renounce and sacrifice his life in defense of a just cause.

It is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason. Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue, where patience, honor, sweet humility, and calm fortitude, take root and strongly flourish. Strength of character and inner fortitude, however, are decisive factors. The confidence of the man in the ranks rests upon a man's strength of character.

Prayer and meditation gives the courage to overcome fear is part of the ethics of virtue rather than the ethics of principle that has dominated modernity. According to virtue ethics, the cultivation and formation of character through virtues such as temperance and fortitude is the essential aspect of the moral life. According to principle ethics, most important is the knowledge of ethical principles -- act from duty, not from desire; maximize pleasure and minimize pain -- which will guide individuals and communities in choosing the good.

The physical thresholds are in fact low and smooth, but they coincide with moral thresholds that are so high and hard that few of us cross them. Those are the thresholds of unencumbered self-determination -- of seductive promises, of self-indulgence and of lack of accountability. A residual tradition or the needs of a loved one occasionally get us on the other side of comfort, and we feel surprised and grateful. But the blandishments of technology will not disappear. The decision to cross the thresholds must be made daily. Steadiness in crossing them can come only from an arduously acquired and faithfully maintained habit -- a virtue, as Aristotle and Aquinas would call it. Courage is not quite the right name for it, but fortitude is. Fortitude needs to become the defining virtue of the postmodern era.

Working with our afflictive emotions takes enormous fortitude. When we begin to face unpleasant emotions such as fear, anger and jealousy, it may feel like we will die in the process since the pain that comes from the presence of those emotions may be so intense. Courage does not mean being fear-less. It means staying present with the experience through the fear of losing our sense of self, our sense of security, and our belief in the reality of our mental images and concepts to which we are so attached.

Most of our definitions of a perfect person include being consistent, calm, loving, compassionate, wise and so forth — in other words, to have a perfect mind. However, there is no such thing as a perfect mind in the modern days.

Inherent to creation is the existence of opposites. Everything exists in contrast: there can be no good without evil, no right without wrong, no pleasure without pain, no security without insecurity, no happiness without unhappiness, no teacher without a student, no parent without a child, no enlightenment without delusion, and so forth. Life moves in cycles going from one extreme to the other.

In actuality, we possess all qualities of mind; everyone does. In truth, when we are looking at what we believe to be "our mind," we are looking at the mind of all humanity. It does not mean that we act based upon any of the unskillful qualities we may find. It is just important to have the courage to acknowledge that they are there.

Ultimate reality, the goal of our spiritual search, is a unity of opposites; in ultimate truth there are no boundaries anywhere. To experience this wholeness, we must reclaim those aspects of our mind that we have denied, pushed away, judged, kept hidden and suppressed. It just means having the courage to be so open with our mental processes that we can recognize what is truly occurring from moment to moment, thereby noticing its true characteristics.