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WISOM OF THE PEACEFUL WARRIOR

DAN MILLMAN

2006

ISBN -13: 978-1-932073-21-8

ISBN-10: 1-932073-21-3

Life brought rewards, but no lasting peace or satisfaction.

As peaceful warriors, we each keep our head in the clouds but our feet on the ground; we strive for a peaceful heart and a warrior spirit.

This approach may not guarantee permanent peace or satisfaction-nothing can, since emotions pass like the weather-but it represents a realistic and balanced way to live.

There’s a famous story about a wanderer who encountered Gautama and Buddha out walking and sensed something special about him. “Are you a warrior? “ he asked. Gautama shook his head. “ Are you a magician?” When Gautama indicated no, the man persisted: “Well, are you a king or a sage?” Again the Buddha shook his head, so the wanderer pressed on : “Then what is it that makes you different from other men?” he asked. “I am awake,” the Buddha replied.

To the dreamer, finding someone awake, within the dreams is quite an astonishing thing. That alone drew me like the month to Soc’s light ; that alone changed the course of my life.

Short of enlightenment, we remain sleep walker in a subjective reality of our own creation. Yet the term fool seems a harsh one to apply helter-skelter, so let’s just say that we each have our foolish moments, our crazy moments, our peaceful moments.

An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing.

…Life is the only real teacher. It offers many experiences, and if experience alone brought wisdom and fulfillment, then elderly people would all be happy, enlightened masters. But the lessons of experience are hidden.

I view this planet as a divine school, and daily life as our classroom. The challenges we meet along the way-in personal and business relationships, in health, finances, and career-and the consequences of our actions are guaranteed to teach us all we need in order to evolve. Daily life provides the spiritual weight lifting that strengthens our spirits as we ascend the mountain path.

In other words, the way itself creates the warrior. As our course work continues, lessons repeat themselves until we learn them. And if we don’t learn the easy lessons, they get harder. As the saying goes, “Experience is the best teacher, but her fees can be high.”

Every soul must travel through both light and darkness.

…Expect nothing, but be prepared for anything.

Nothing changes, yet everything changes-in a single moment of realization.

Your understanding is based on ignorance. This is why I am a humorous fool, and you are a serious jackass.

Life requires more than knowledge; it requires intense feeling and constant energy. Life demands right action if knowledge is to come alive.

Dream big, but start small. Then connect the dots.

…being active, strong, dynamic, and forthright-not holding back, not wobbling, but acting decisively.

…when you become fully responsible for your life, you can become fully human; once you become human, you may discover what it means to be a warrior.”

No matter what our past experiences, except in the case of severe delusion and mental illness, we retain the power to choose the best course of action we can, within the context of our environment and circumstances. But reclaiming the power to choose requires resolve and fortitude.

…every day offers the opportunity to develop a peaceful heart and a warrior spirit.

…the ignorant are like stones and the wise are like water. Stones do not change; they only break or wear down over time. Yet water remains the same as it adapts perfectly to the shape of its container; even when moving from ice to liquid to gas, its essential nature remains.

Eventually we all learn the inevitability of change and the wisdom of flexibility and acceptance, since nothing stays the same. Until then, we resist, and such resistance creates stress, suffering, and pain.

Awareness of the problem is the beginning of the solution.

As peaceful warriors, as mature human beings, we trust life unfolding and see spirit working in and through the people and circumstances in our lives, in the ups and downs, in friends and adversaries. We find wisdom all around us, but we weigh all that we learn, even from trusted teachers, against the counsel of our own hearts.

The peaceful warrior is invisible to all but those who can recognize a certain twinkle in the eye, a sense of energy, clarity, and balance. This sense of discernment develops over time as a natural result of inner work. As I came to understand the nature of my own mind and heart, I came to see the light in the minds and hearts of (so called) others.

…until I could clearly see the nature of my own thoughts-see through the filter of my beliefs, associations, and interpretations-I wouldn’t be able to perceive anyone or anything else with much clarity.

He reminded me that the only way we can “change our past” is to change our behavior in the present, because the present will soon become our past. We also shape our futures by the actions we take right now.

…Just a certain awareness, a lightness, and orientation toward service, and an expanded perspective born of inner work and life experience. And perhaps we display a little less fear, less worry, less resistance. We live in the same world, yet we perceive reality in a slightly different way even as we pay the bills, mow the lawn, do the laundry. We lives as Socrates did—conventional lives, with unconventional perspectives.

Carl Jung once wrote “Enlightenment consists not of seeing luminous lights and visions, but in making the darkness visible.”

We’re here to discover our own depths, and thereby to understand life itself. To do so, we need to see and acknowledge our shadow as well as our light. As author Stephan Levine has written, “ Mindfulness teaches us the nature of the shadow; heartfulness teaches us the nature of the light. But without those two qualities in balance, we will evolve eyeless in the darkness, or behind by the light.”

…Just as we have to “feel it to heal it”, so we have to “see it to free it.”

“If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever. Your mind is our predicament. It wants to be free of change, free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is a law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.”

“Life is not suffering; it’s just that you will suffer it, rather than enjoy it, until you let go of your mind’s attachment and just go for the ride.”

…When things are bad, we want them to change, at least some of the time-but even then, some of us have remained in painful or abusive situations because they were at least familiar. As the saying goes, “ The devil we know is preferable to the devil we don’t know.”

Most explorers of uncharted territory have found themselves stuck between who they were and who they were becoming.

The willingness to risk is part of the journey-not, foolish risks of bravado, but existential or emotional risks-facing the great fear and finding the willingness to let go of who we think we are. Thus, choosing to live as a peaceful warrior demands and develops qualities of courage, devotion, and endurance.

As St.Augustine wrote, “Pray not for a lighter burden, but for stronger shoulders.”

…Mind is an illusory reflection…all the random, uncontrolled thoughts that bubble into awareness from the subconscious.

…when you can’t stop thinking of that math problem or phone number, or when troubling thoughts and memories arise without your intent, it’s not your brain working, but your mind wandering… the tractor has ran wild.”

Life unfolds as it will, making the best of it is an acquired skill. Beginners in the martial arts tend to resist a force, but masters go with the force and use it to their advantage. This is also a warrior’s approach to life.

You are a story in the making, and no one can predict what the next chapter, the next day, the next moment, will bring,…so take no desperate action; face the fear. Let the ego die, but protect the body. Allow this “death” to become a rebirth. And as day follows night, the dark tunnel will lead to a greater light.

I no longer presume to know how life should come or go: letting go in this way brings a sense of freedom. This doesn’t mean I don’t care or have no preferences. My actions naturally follow the call of my heart, my interests, my values. I make efforts in my personal and professional life in alignment with my goals. But once I ‘ve taken aim and loosed the arrow from the bow, I can only wait with interest to see where it will land.

The world is far more interesting than our thoughts about it. Looking inward has benefits, but so does looking outward.

The peaceful warrior’s way involves the ability to do both with full attention, so that the world around us also become an object of meditation.

“These people needed kindness. The spiritual seekers needed something also to reflect upon.”

The outward appearance or trappings of spirituality are little more than a fashion statement. No matter what we wear or where we live, our behavior remains the most reliable indicator of our state of spiritual maturity. We may understand the domains of consciousness or other esoteric models or concepts, but the real questions remain…

How we live and what we do, moment to moment, tells our story. It has always been so. That’s why Mahatma Gandhi said, “ My life is my teaching.” This was also true of Socrates, and I hope it’s true of me.

I’m referring to focusing on what’s right in front of us and not getting preoccupied with either memories or imagined futures.

…the more we accept paradox humor and change, the more skillfully we ride the river of reality. So let’s make peace with paradox, view the world through humorous eyes, and embrace change without resistance, like the Japanese post Masahide, who wrote, “ Now that my house has burned down, I have a better view of the rising moon.”

Socrates had realized the transcendent secret of our existence, so that even in moments of sorrow or pain or loss, or when facing his own death, he knew who he was; that internal awareness that transcends all play, all appearances, all limitations. He was free and happy, even while changing the oil of an old pickup truck or trying to instill some sense into a naïve and self-important young athlete.

When we cease presuming to know what is ultimately good or bad and instead abide in faith-when we meet each moment without judgment or expectation-we live in a different way. Knowers are an uptight breed, clinging to how things ought to be, solving problems, struggling to make everything come out “right”

Acceptance is one of the universal laws of life-the most creative, assertive , and intelligent response we can make to any moment or experience. It turns out that the Borg on Star Trek were right : Resistance is futile. (And exhaustin!)