Many people talk about “peaceful warriors” to the point that it has become a cliché, not to mention an oxymoron because war is not peaceful. If you are a real warrior, in the classic sense of the word, it means that you’re going to have to go out and fight, beat people up, kill them and be involved in war.

Now for most people this is terribly unrealistic and not something they want to do. As a matter of fact the majority of people who have to go through war really wish they hadn’t.

That said if you are a spiritual warrior, at least from an Eastern point of view, you are someone who will fight every battle until you become enlightened, giving no quarter to anything inside you that prevents you from persevering.

It’s a fairly courageous act and one that, frankly speaking, most people haven’t got the guts to tackle. The idea is really great. Everyone loves the concept and it’s not that the concept isn’t wonderful, but actually doing it is rough.

The Qualities of the Warrior

If we look at some of the qualities that warriors have, the first is perseverance through hardship. They seek to win a war knowing there are many battles and they do not make excuses for failure. In the face of defeat they simply state the facts as “I did my best and we lost” without trying to justify their actions. They must stoically and objectively assess what did not happen that needed to so that in the next battle people remain alive rather than die.

They have to be capable of and willing to see things for what they are. They have to be realistic-not crying into their beer when they lose nor jumping up and down after winning. Well, except maybe for a day or so to blow off some of the pressure, but warriors don’t kid themselves that winning a battle is winning the war-not if they’re going to stay in the military, not if they’re going to be a soldier in any time or place in history.

Only in the rarest of occasions do warriors always win. Most lose some battles and when that time happens there is a great tendency to fall down, to internally disintegrate and to find themselves in direct conflict with how they thought they were wonderful, magical and god-like.

They must come to the realization that they are human and human beings don’t always get it right. True warriors actually have to do their best to get it right even if it means going back to completing an unfinished and, often times, undesirable deed. In war the biggest concern of the average soldier-not the high-ranking generals, not the politicians who order them but the warriors themselves-is just to get through the chaos alive and intact. Conversely, in sports and business everybody jumps about and pounds their chests with shouts of “We won!” and then the rewards are passed out.

If you want to talk about competition and winning, then it is fair to say that warriors have the spirit to win. It’s what they do. If you’re on a battlefield, whether fighting with guns, swords, bows, arrows or by hand there is no person who wants to lose. Dying or being maimed for the rest of your life is not a wonderful option, so you want to win.

On one level, embodying the warrior spirit is useful because in daily life we have to compete, make money, and if we always lose then we end up with less and the trials of daily living become dramatically harder. However, you can’t get too carried away with your expectations and complexes about how responsible you are for what happens because at the end of the day no one knows how much they’re going to win or how much they’re going to lose.

People with equivalent talent, intelligence, ingenuity and creativity don’t always have the same luck-some end up being incredibly successful while others are not. All warriors know that there is a certain amount of luck involved in everything and so the seeds of genuine humility are sewn.

They’re not humble because they should be rather because they have the realization that thinking or believing they have all the answers is terribly unrealistic. Not everything will go your way and when it does it’s usually not all about your good actions. Likewise, nobody who fights in real wars glorifies the victory. The hero mentality is best saved for competitions-the mat, field, track, rink, ring, octagon, and even the high-rise building-but not for the battlefield.

Real wars are not about duels as portrayed in westerns or duels between two samurai. There are thousands of people on the battlefield and you can get hit by an arrow from behind while fighting the man in front of you. Recognizing this possibility and the skills needed to get through it alive are very valuable metaphors for the way in which we approach life: making money, becoming accomplished or winning competitions of any kind.

Equally, soldiers are known for having very close relationships with one another. They have to deal with the immense grief of losing people and it has been said that the friends you make in the middle of war are friends you keep for life.

In fact, they often become the strongest relationships warriors have, stronger than the ones they have with their wives/husbands, girlfriends/boyfriends, family members and other friends because the bonding comes from what you could call the ultimate pressure. They carry forward with disparity all around them yet are able to appreciate the delicate balance inherent to the human condition. If the person next to you doesn’t cover your butt, you’re dead. If you have the attitude that you’re so great that everything is going to work out just fine, you might not be around long enough to take that self-delusion any further.

Good warriors accept human frailty because in war you see human frailty all the time. Good warriors also accept human courage because in war you frequently see tremendous human courage. What comes with that is the ability to carry the baggage-self-sacrifice-for those who could not carry it for themselves without dismissing the people who lack the courage.

With humility all genuine warriors take incredible risks while carefully examining whether any risk makes sense. In war you’re up against a whole army, so any move can be fatal. Yet if you don’t take some calculated risks you’re absolutely going to be filleted for breakfast. The warrior spirit rises above the natural tendency to internally disintegrate, the “Oh my god!” and the wishing for death out of exhaustion, fear and grief. The warrior must be ready to fight when the next battle presents itself.

Catching and Finding Happiness

For most of us, this spirit is immensely valuable both in terms of the joyous and the horrible events of life. Warriors have the ability to catch and find happiness at any moment because in war you might only get a few hours a month where you really can be happy. If it’s there to be had you take it and you learn how to take it.

Many people in life have every reason to be happy, most everything is going their way and yet their own internal world is so unwarrior-spirit-like that they can’t even enjoy what’s right in front of them.

Many of the people who rise up to the top and become successful at anything-business, sports, politics-have usually gone through trials and tribulations. The difference is that businessmen might lose their money, married couples may divorce or the star batter may strike out, but not too many of them lost their arms, legs or eyes over it. The warrior spirit enables us to get past even the most tragic and desperate events.

You can witness this spirit in some of the kids coming back from the war in Iraq. The news covers fatalities, but there are boatloads of others who have been seriously injured. Modern technology allows us to triage in a way incomprehensible 30 years ago.

We see a lot more soldiers with artificial limbs, bound in wheelchairs, blind and so on, banding together to participate in marathons and getting involved in all kinds of competitive challenges. It’s the indomitable warrior spirit that goes forward. This quality is very sadly lacking in civilian society. Many people just don’t have the kind of grit needed to pick themselves off the floor when everything seems to have gone wrong.

The spirit of a warrior can be summed up in two simple words: humility and courage, real courage. The ability to have genuine perseverance that breeds courage under the hardest of circumstances is the warrior spirit, which can be embodied by any of us who are up for the challenge.

Like to hear your comments below…Stay good, Bruce

Death Valley (Photo by: H Dragon)

A lot of people don’t know this about me, but when I was young I was an avid reader. I could read a 500-page book in a day and a half or two and actually digest it. Then, I went through a long period where I didn’t read at all, especially not in English.

I didn’t particularly like fiction when I was young. In fact, I almost exclusively read non-fiction with two exceptions. I actually really liked  Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, which is about the French Revolution. In junior high school, when I was 12, I picked up the book The Hobbit on a Friday afternoon and I had read the entire Lord of the Rings series before the weekend was out.

Even still,  I really didn’t care for fiction. I still find most fiction novels boring as hell.

One of things that I did when I came back from China, at some point in the 90’s, was pick up the book Dune by Frank Herbert because a friend of mine said that it was really cool. I found that there are many ideas in Dune that mirror those in Taoism…

The Dune Series and Taoism

I read a big chunk of the Dune series. It’s one of the few fiction books I’ve enjoyed, and there are a lot of things about the book that are very interesting. It has an immense number of quotes and ideas that either parallel Taoist philosophy or let’s just say they can appreciate the point of view–whether or not they agree with it.

I think there are a lot of things in the Dune series that are relevant to my blog subscribers and my students. I would say that my personal appreciation and the Taoist appreciation is that if anything is true you are going to find it popping up in all sorts of different places, times and ways. It isn’t like something is true only for this moment. Truth has a way of repeating itself throughout history.

Contrary to the idea that history begins at breakfast, it actually started before you were born.

So there are lots of points in the Dune book that are relevant. Frank Herbert is a great writer. His message is delivered in a very concise way and leads into some points with which Taoism is concerned. The guy hit the nail on the head on a lot of points.

Fear is the Mind Killer

The Dune series is based 10,000 years into the future. In the world at that time there is a small segment of the population called the Bene Gesserit. “The Bene Gesserit are a powerful and ancient order of women whose objectives and actions formed a critical element in the evolution of humanity and many of the major plot developments.” These women have, shall we say, taken all the esoteric sciences to the highest level and are able to do the most spectacular things with their body chemistry, such as literally changing it at will, and changing their biochemistry if they get a disease.

The Bene Gesserit are trained from a young age and part of their training is learning to tame and use the mind. This of course is one of the purposes of Taoist meditation.

In the Dune series, when fear appears, the Bene Gesserit would repeat an incantation to help move their minds past the fear. The Litany goes as follows:

“I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.”

Now this is a nice way to look fear in the face and to dissipate its effects when faced with a dangerous situation. It helps to focus the mind inward and to have courage. However, this incantation does not really get to the root of fear and how it arises…to get to that point you have to go much deeper.

Two Perspectives of Fear

When it comes to going beyond fear you can use two different methods. One is the method of hypnosis, which is offered in a lot of the self-help material these days. The other, which is very different, is the method of meditation.

The perspective of hypnosis, to a great degree, uses mind tricks for dealing with fear at a moment in time. Repeating “The Litany Against Fear” in Dune induces a hypnotic state, so as to allow fear to wash over you.  That lasts for a few seconds but it doesn’t necessarily get you beyond fear. It is useful in the moment, but the change is not everlasting, for that we must dig deeper.

From the perspective of Taoist meditation, to get beyond fear you have to go to a place where the mind simply has the ability to stay open–allowing anything to flow through it.  Anything occurring in your outer environment does not close down that space within your mind. Fear is essentially a closing down of the space at the center of the mind and spirit or soul (depending on which term you care to use).

It is impossible to go beyond fear permanently by only having this trick or that trick that can help you for a few minutes. To get beyond fear, you essentially must change your internal landscape. So when fear attempts to grab hold of you, you reside in a place where it can’t.

Part of the process to get beyond fear will involve strengthening your kidneys. At a biological level, at least in terms of the way the Taoists and Traditional Chinese Medicine thinks of fear, it’s essentially a bodily reaction that is rooted in your kidneys.

Once your kidney’s are strong, then that fear-trigger won’t be activated as much. You can then go beyond fear to where the space of the mind, the openness of the mind, the flow of the mind is able to maintain that which allows spontaneity.

Real Fear and Fake Fear

If fear arises it may be a real fear, such as I’m going to walk over a cliff, then you just step back. Or, if a car is moving toward you at a high speed, you must be motivated to move out of the way. But that’s not really the kind of inner fear I’m discussing.

It’s the kind of fear that eats away at your insides. Real fear is nothing more than heightened awareness. That is awareness of a real situation and the fear that arises to protect you.

It is important to recognize that most fear has nothing to do with reality. Most of the time people are afraid of things that will never happen to them. This is an effect of the mainstream media and news constantly bombarding the public with negative images. This puts people in a weakened state of fear and decreases the immune system of the body. Often your mind picks up these pictures and replays them, creating a story about them. This is not useful nor is it good for the body.

So to go beyond fear, one of the first steps is to recognize that fear which is truly helpful: It makes you more aware, in real situations, in real time. Inside your fear is something that says, “Wait a minute, I think we have to do something sensible and prudent here,” rather than running around like a chicken with your head cut off, or becoming paralyzed and ducking under a chair, hoping that everything will pass one day.

Next, to really go beyond fear, you must summon the courage to look at all the fears that are inside you. Fears arise from childhood experiences and from terrible events that have happened to you or that you witnessed.

When you find these fears you can use meditation to get to a place where you simply can move to the space of awareness. Otherwise, you’ll too easily go to a space that contracts your awareness into a tiny, little box that scares the living hell out you.

As you move into the space of awareness, you can then release what is not real. This is the path to finding a peace place inside. This is a destination that can be achieved through Taoist mediation.