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they might at any moment fall out of the sky. When they had gotten into
the back of the bulletproof BMW that met them at the airport, Stengel
asked him about the flight. To which, Mandela leaned in, eyes wide, and
said, “Man, I was terrified up there.” Even if leadership requires a show
of strength during moments of crisis, our humanity is defined equally, or
perhaps even more, by our weakness and vulnerability, a fact that the
Archbishop often says reminds us of our need for one another.
One of my favorite quotes that we included in Mandela’s book Notes
to the Future was on courage: “I learned that courage was not the absence
of fear, but the triumph over it. I felt fear more times than I can
remember, but I hid it behind a mask of boldness. The brave man is not
he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” Archbishop
Tutu said something very similar when we were working on God Has a
Dream. He said, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to act
despite it.” The English word courage comes from the French word
coeur, or heart; courage is indeed the triumph of our heart’s love and
commitment over our mind’s reasonable murmurings to keep us safe.

•           •           •

s the Archbishop had said, it is when this natural fear gets
exaggerated that we experience stress, worry, and anxiety. Many of
us suffer from this general state of unease, during which we have floating
fears and worries that attach to any experience or relationship. It is very
hard to be joyful with stress and anxiety; we have a continual feeling of
being overwhelmed and not being able to handle our work commitments,
our family commitments, or the digital devices that are constantly
reminding us of all the things that we are missing. Juggling so many
things at the same time, we can feel like we are always one step behind.
Jinpa pointed out that modern society has prioritized independence to
such an extent that we are left on our own to try to manage lives that are
increasingly out of control. He explained the life that the Dalai Lama and
his people had in Tibet before the Chinese invasion. In the remote village
of Taktser in the Amdo province, the Dalai Lama’s family house, like the