Courage and goodness

I was fourteen years old when I first read The Diary of Anne Frank. And I remember vividly the moment I read the following passage because it struck me as being truly the ultimate in courage:

That's the difficulty in these times: ideals, dreams, and cherished hopes rise within us, only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered. It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet, I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.

I still think that to believe in human goodness is an act of great courage because there is so much about human behavior that would make cynics of us all. Meditation, when you think about it, is predicated on this faith. Meditation is finally about learning to see and access our true nature. If that true nature were not good, that is the last thing we would want to do!