Warrior's Way: Asian

  The compassionate warrior also figures prominently in the Tibetan
psyche. In the Tibetan heroic public vision, King Gesar of Ling takes
center stage. His cycle of stories comprises the national epics of
Tibet and Mongolia. His origins are so cloaked in the mists of time
that the nomadic bards who still recite his exploits by heart present
them through the combined cultural and perceptual filters of the
paleolithic shaman, the bonpo, and the Buddhist. The Gesar
epic presents, mythically, the battle between the powers of illumination
and the forces of darkness. It is the story of a spiritual warrior's
quest for order - not of some totalitarian kind - but one that is in
synchrony with the cosmos (tashi).
  Gesar bards sing of a time on earth when all was in disorder. So a
sky divinity sent one of his sons to earth by means of a rainbow mu
cord. He became the leader of the people. Since the father divinity
was associated with a sacred mountain's summit and the mother was a
queen of the serpentine lu powers, this made Gesar (according to this
pre-Buddhist version) the son of earth waters and sky's ethereal
light - much like the Navajo unit that is Monster Slayer (conceived of
a sunbeam) and Child Born for Water (conceived by a streamlet from a
waterfall).
  Gesar encountered numerous hazards in the world at large and from
within his own family. But, like the Navajo twins, he received
assistance on his quest; in his case it was from a powerful flying
horse. With the animal's help he won a fiercely contested horse race
and became ruler of the Kingdom of Ling in the Kham region of eastern
Tibet.
  On becoming king of Ling, Gesar was clothed in a magical helmet and
armor. Mounted on his turquoise-colored windhorse, he led his fellow
spiritual warriors on campaigns to dispel demons and giant monsters
haunting the people and their world.
  With their work completed, Gesar and his spiritual warriors were said
to have taken divine rebirth in Shambhala. There, they presently await
the command of the king of Shambhala to venture forth through a door in
a rock on the eastern shore of the soul-lake of Shambhala. Gesar, who
(according to the Buddhist view) is now an emanation of the bodhisattva
Boundless Love, will lead his army against barbarian hordes who will
have destroyed Buddhism outside the pure land of Shambhala. According
to this prophecy, they will vanquish the enemies of righteousness and
other demonic powers, to usher in an eon of peace and light in the
world.
  Trungpa Rinpoche illuminates the importance of the concept of
warriorship on the spiritual path of life in his guidebook:
Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior. The book, in fact,
is dedicated to Gesar of Ling. In it, Trungpa unveils the deep essence
of spiritual warriorship. He writes that "warriorship ... refers to
realizing the power, dignity and wakefulness that is inherent in all
of us human beings. It is awakening our basic human confidence which
allows us to cheer up, develop a sense of vision and succeed in what
we are doing." By heroically realizing the wisdom of the world, one
discovers the magic of reality: "the primordial wisdom of the world
as it is," concludes Trungpa Rinpoche.
  Trungpa Rinpoche calls this natural wisdom and pure awareness drala,
meaning "above or beyond the enemy." The la particle (related to the
words for the consciousness principle and mountain pass) signifies
"existing above something," while dra refers to an enemy or obstacle.
Trungpa Rinpoche likens the drala principle to "wisdom beyond aggression,"
saying: "the drala principle is realizing that your own wisdom as a
human being is not separate from the powers of things, as they are."
So, by understanding one's connection with the font of reality and power,
and using the motivation of selfless compassion, one becomes empowered
to confront the demons and obstacles in life. One gains drala - one
stands above the enemy.
  Tibetans and Navajos recognize that the cosmos is replete with entities
with which one must become reconciled. This is accomplished through
realizing a balance of powers within one's own bodymind and immediate
environment. In Trungpa's drala teachings, the spiritual warrior creates
a sacred (geomantic) space out of the immediate environment (outer drala),
then relaizes the unity of his or her inner, bodily reality with the
natural architecture of of things (inner drala). Eventually, and most
important, one arrives at what Trungpa calls that "tremendous wakefulness,
tremendous nowness in your state of mind." He calls this "secret drala."
  The pursuit of secret drala is undoubedtly connected with the unique
Tibetan custom of stringing up lines of prayer flags, known colloquially
by the name of the windhorse printed at the center. Secret drala is,
according to Trungpa Rinpoche, "the experience of raising windhorse,
raising a wind of delight and power, and riding on, or conquering, that
energy."
  In raising the cloth versions of the windhorse, one ritually begins to
cut through the enemy obstacles of life and bodymind with the principle
of drala. In calling upon the peaceful protector gods by means of the
offering rite of which the flags are a part, one wields the elemental
powers of earth, water, fire, air, and space (as indicated in the flags'
five colors). One is borne along by the energy of the windhorse, like
a mounted warrior of Shambhala, heroically re-creating one's ordinary
reality in the manner of a sacred world.
  To accomplish this mission, the spiritual warrior must possess a
compassionate heart, must have seen reality with the clear light of
awakened mind (illuminated, as if by the clear, first rays of dawn's
light), and act appropriately to dispel the veils (the enemies or
obstacles) that block one from experiencing reality as a "sacred world."

  - "Navajo & Tibetan Sacred Wisdom: The Circle of the Spirit"
    by Peter Gold

"My enemy is my best teacher."
  - Tenzin Gyatso, The XIV Dalai Lama




  Chögyam Trungpa was recognized and trained in Tibet as a terton, a
person who has the ability to discover terma, which are teachings left
in the safekeeping of protector dralas by great teachers of the past. They
are discovered or revealed, somewhat like taking dictation (rather than
authored), by great teachers like Chögyam Trungpa, who have been
thoroughly trained to do so. Tulku Thondup Rinpoche describes the terma
tradition in Hidden Teachings of Tibet: "The tradition has two aspects.
First, appropriate teachings can be discovered by realized beings, or
they will appear for them from the sky, mountains, lakes, trees, and
beings, spontaneously according to their wishes and mental abilities.
Second, [realized beings] can conceal teachings in books and other forms
and entrust them to gods ... to protect and hand over to the right
person at the right time."
  The terton process is a form of shamanism that probably derived from
the ancient Bon tradition of Tibet. However, it was adopted into the
Buddhist tradition by Padmasambhava, the great saint who introduced
Buddhism to Tibet in the ninth century AD. Thereafter, the terma
tradition became a way for a fresh perspective, and fresh teachings
appropriate to the time, to enter into the stream of Tibetan Buddhist
teachings and enliven the more systematic teachings passed down from
teacher to student in the usual way in the formal monastic schools.
  Shortly before his year-long retreat in 1977, Chögyam Trungpa had
discovered the first Shambhala texts as terma, and it was based on
these Shambhala terma that Chögyam Trungpa taught the Shambhala path
of sacred warriorship after his retreat. His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse
Rinpoche, one of Chögyam Trungpa's first teachers and himself recognized
as one of the great tertons of Tibet, later confirmed the Shambhala
texts as genuine terma...
  In his ability, as a terton, to journey between the mundane world,
the earth dimension, and the more subtle dimension of the dralas,
Chögyam Trungpa showed the characteristics of a shaman as well as
being as great teacher and leader in the Buddhist tradition. However,
there are some differences between Chögyam Trungpa's shamanism and the
shamanism of older, more local cultures. Generally, in the past, shamans
have arisen within a particular tribal culture and provide teachings
and healing within that tribal family. Chögyam Trungpa, on the other
hand, opened up the teachings and powerful warrior practices and
ceremonies of Shambhala for anyone who cared to journey on that path.
He was proud of the fact that his family name was Mukpo, the same
tribe in Tibet from which the great warrior Gesar came, and he would
often say to Shambhala students, "You are all the Mukpo family,"
By this, he did not mean to be exclusive, nor that students should
reject their own family heritage, but that the Shambhala teachings are
open to the whole world, whatever one's racial background or family
creed. Whoever wants to practice these teachings is welcomed into the
great Mukpo clan and introduced to the Mukpo dralas and the dralas of
the ancestral Shambhala lineage of warriors. These drala of Shambhala
have the particular pwoer to protect and help propagate the teachings
of spiritual warriorship...

  - "Sacred World: The Shambhala Way to Gentleness, Bravery and Power",
    by Jeremy & Karen Hayward




  By warriorship we are not particularly talking about the skills
necessary to wage war in the conventional sense. We are not talking
about learning how to handle lethal weapons and crank up our
aggression and territoriality so that we can burst forth and conquer
all our enemies. Warriorship here refers to realizing the power,
dignity and wakefulness that is inherent in all of us as human beings.
It is awakening our basic human confidence which allows us to cheer up,
develop a sense of vision and succeed in what we are doing.
  Because warriorship is innate in human beings, the way to
become a warrior - or the warrior's path - is to see who and
what we are as human beings and cultivate that. If we look at
ourselves directly, without hesitation or embarrassment, we find
that we have a lot of strength and a lot of resources available
constantly. From that point of view, if we feel we are without
resources, if we feel incompetent or as if we were running out of
ideas, it is said that we are being attacked by the enemy of
warriorship: our own cowardice. The idea of warriorship is that
because of our human potential we can go beyond that, step over
the enemy of cowardly mind and discover further banks of resources
and inspiration within ourselves.
  Cowardly mind is based on the fear of death. Ordinarily we try
to ward off any reminders that we are going to die. We constantly
produce artificial environments to shield ourselves from any harsh
edges. We weave ourselves warm cocoons in which we can live and
feel comfortable and sleepy all the time. We try to keep everything
under control so that nothing unexpected will pop up and give us a
nasty shock, reminding us of our impermanence, our mortality. By
doing this we are trying to defend ourselves from death, which we
could say is the opposite of celebrating life. By maintaining our
defensive attitude we keep ourselves surrounded by a familiar fog.
We wind up breeding depression and general unhappiness. In fact, that
unceasing atmosphere of depression is what makes our little created
environment feel so familiar and nestlike. But because it is based
on struggle, this cowardly approach of ours is very far from the
sense of real joy and playfulness that is associated with warriorship.
  Becoming a warrior means that we can look directly at ourselves,
see the nature of our cowardly mind, and step out of it. We can
trade our small-minded struggle for security for a much vaster
vision, one of fearlessness, openness and genuine heroism. This
doesn't happen all at once but is a gradual process. Our first
inkling of that possibility comes when we begin to sense the
claustrophobia and stuffiness of our self-imposed cocoon. At that
point our safe home begins to feel like a trap and we begin to
sense that an alternative is possible. We begin to have tremendous
longing for some kind of ventilation, and finally we actually
experience a delightful breath of fresh air coming into our stale
nest.
  At this point we realize that it has been our choice all along
to live in this restrictive, and by now somewhat revolting,
mentality of defensiveness and cowardice. Simultaneously we
realize that we could just as easily switch our allegiance. We
could break out of our dark, stuffy prison into the fresh air
where it is possible for us to stretch our legs, to walk, run,
or even dance and play. We realize that we could drop the
oppressive struggle it takes to maintain our cowardice, and relax
instead in the greater space of confidence.
  It is important to understand what we mean by confidence of the
warrior. The warrior is not developing confidence 'in' anything.
He is not simply learning one skill, such as swordsmanship, in
which he feels he could always take refuge. Nor is he falling
back on some mentality of choicelessness, a sense that if only
he can hold out long enough and keep a stiff upper lip, then he
is bound to come out all right. Those conventional ideas of
confidence would simply be further cocoons, based once again on
yet further styles of defensiveness and fundamental aggression.
  In this case we say the warrior has self-existing confidence.
This means that he remains in a 'state' of confidence free from
competition and any notion of stuggle. The warrior's confidence
is unconditional. In other words, because he is undistracted by
any cowardly thoughts the warrior can rest in an unwavering and
wakeful state of mind, which needs no reference points whatsoever.
  On the other hand we do not mean to say that once the warrior
has uncovered his innate confidence there is nothing left for
him to do. In many ways the path of the warrior is very similar
to the Buddhist notion of the bodhisattva path of selfless action.
The bodhisattva is a practitioner who isn't satisfied with the
possibility of liberating himself from the pain of samsara, but
heroically commits himself not to rest until he has helped saved
all sentient beings. In the same way the confident warrior does
not simply feel proud of having seen the nature of his cocoon and
stepped out of it. He cannot rest in any sense of smugness at his
achievement, or even in the sense of freedom and relief itself.
Rather his understanding and personal experience of the
claustrophobia of cowardly mind serve as an inspiration for the
warrior to free others as well as himself. He actually cannot
ignore the suffering and depression he sees in those around him.
So from his unconditional confidence, spontaneous compassion
naturally arises.
  The warrior's compassion manifests in different qualities,
which all arise from the nature of his basic confidence. Because
the warrior's confident state of mind is self-existing,
unmanufactured by aggression, he is not bloated or arrogant.
Instead he is humble, kind and self-contained in relating with
others. The warrior is not captured by doubts, therefore he is
humorous, uplifted and perky in his dealings. He is not trapped
by the pettiness of hope and fear, so his vision becomes vast
and he is not afraid of making mistakes. Finally his mind itself
becomes as fathomless as space, so he attains complete mastery
over the phenomenal world. With all of these qualities the
warrior has a tremendous sense of forward vision. In other words,
he is not deterred or depressed by obstacles, but with genuine
inquisitiveness and cheerfulness he includes all of them as part
of his path.
  The confident warrior conducts himself with gentleness,
fearlessness and intelligence. Gentleness it the warm quality
of the human heart. Because of the warmth of his heart the
warrior's confidence is not too hard or brittle. Rather it has
a vulnerable, open and soft quality. It is our gentleness which
allows us to feel warmth and kindness and to fall in love. But
at the same time we are not completely tender. We are tough as
well as soft. We are fearless as well as gentle. The warrior
meets the world with a slight sense of detachment, a sense of
distance and precision. This aspect of confidence is the natural
instinct of fearlessness which allows the warrior to meet
challenges without losing his integrity. Finally our confidence
expresses itself as innate intelligence, which raise ordinary
gentleness and fearlessness to the level of warriorship. In
other words, it is intellegence that prevents gentleness from
becoming purely macho. Intelligence is our sense of wakeful
inquisitiveness towards the world. It is what allows us to
appreciate and take delight in the vivid qualities of the world
around us.

  - Chögyam Trungpa, in his introduction to Alexandra David-Neel's
    translation of the classic asian tale "The Superhuman Life of
    Gesar of Ling"

Participant Comments follow below
Warriorship is not within the ken of selfish people.
Arun Singh    a_Singh@bigfoot.com