WAY OF THE PEACEFUL WARRIOR: A Book That Changes Lives

by Dan Millman

then mope around if the training doesn’t go well one day. But when you begin transcendental training, focusing your best efforts, without attachment to outcomes, you will understand the peaceful warrior’s way.”

I’d rise at 6:00 A.M., stretch, then meditate before class. I completed homework quickly and easily. Then I’d sit and just do nothing for about half an hour before workout.

Finally I saw through the clouds. I saw that I had never learned how to enjoy life, only how to achieve. All my life I had been busy seeking happiness, not finding it.

“You ‘fell’ from grace when you began thinking, about — when you became a namer and a knower. It’s not just Adam and Eve, you see, it’s all of us. The birth of the mind is the death of the senses — it’s not that we eat an apple and get a little sexy!”

You’ve become bored with things because they only exist as names to you.

The dry concepts of the mind obscure your direct perception.”

“You now see everything through a veil of associations about things, projected over a direct, simple awareness. You’ve ‘seen it all before’: it’s like watching a movie for the twentieth time. You see only memories of things, so you become bored, trapped in the mind. This is why you have to ‘lose your mind’ before you can come to your senses.”

So keep practicing, Dan. Refine your senses a little more each day; stretch them, as you would in the gym.

Finally, your awareness will pierce deeply into your body and into the world. Then you’ll think less and feel more. That way you’ll enjoy even the simplest things in life — no longer addicted to achievement or expensive entertainments.

or, you cultivate a simple lifestyle of few desires; that way you always have enough money. “A peaceful warrior has the insight and discipline to choose the simple way — to know the difference between needs and wants. We have few basic needs but endless wants. Full attention to every moment is my pleasure. Attention costs no money; your only investment is training. That’s another advantage of being a warrior, Dan — it’s cheaper!

The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”

“Wrong! The time always was, is, and always will be now! Now is the time; the time is now. Is it clear?”

is that the only thing you know absolutely is that you are here, wherever here may be.

From now on, whenever your attention begins to drift off to other times and places, I want you to snap back. Remember, the time is now and the place is here.”

I had finally released my expectation that the world should fulfill me; with that, my disappointments had vanished. I would continue to do whatever was necessary to live in the everyday world, of course, but on my own conditions. I was starting to glimpse a profound sense of freedom even as I lived an ordinary life.

“Understand this above all,” he interrupted. “You can do nothing to change the past, and the future will never come exactly as you expect or hope for. There have never been past warriors, nor will there be future ones. The warrior is here, now. Your sorrow, your fear and anger, regret and guilt, your envy and plans and cravings live only in the past, or in the future.”

But the mind is like a phantom that lives only in the past or future. Its only power over you is to draw your attention out of the present.” I bent over to tie my shoe when I felt something touch my temples.

“Stay where you are. The pentacle is the present moment. There, you’re safe. The demon and his attendants are the past. The door is the future. Beware.”

“Don’t let anybody or anything, least of all your own thoughts, draw you out of the present. Surely you have heard the story of the two monks:

“Your business is not to ‘get somewhere’ — it is to be here.

This is freedom from suffering, from fear, from mind. When thoughts touch the present, they dissolve.”

I was awakening to the world and, like a child once again, was coming to my senses. The sky seemed brighter, even in the foggy days of May.

where I ran like the wind through the hills, losing track of the distance, racing by jackrabbits. Sometimes I would stop to meditate beneath the trees or just smell the fresh breeze coming off the sparkling San Francisco Bay far below.

“It doesn’t matter what you do, only how well you do it.

“There are no well-defined edges of reality, Dan. The earth isn’t solid. It is made of molecules and atoms, tiny universes filled with space. It is a place of mystery, light, and magic, if you only open your eyes.”

The Presence I once felt — It started your heartbeat.” He nodded. “You were feeling It.”

No matter how strong we appear, each of us has a hidden weakness that may be our ultimate undoing.

House Rules: For every strength there is a weakness — and for every weakness, a strength. Even as a child, my weakness has always been my heart. And you, my young friend, have another kind of ‘heart trouble.’”

“Yes. You haven’t yet opened your heart fully, to life, to each moment. The peaceful warrior’s way is not about invulnerability, but absolute vulnerability — to the world, to life, and to the Presence you felt. All along I’ve shown you by example that a warrior’s life is not about imagined perfection or victory; it is about love.

Love is the warrior’s sword; wherever it cuts, it gives life, not death.”

“Better to live until you die,” he said. “I am a warrior, so my way is action. I am a teacher, so I teach by example. Some day you may teach others as I have taught you — then you’ll understand that words are not enough; you, too, must teach by example what you’ve realized through experience.”

A mother brought her young son to Mahatma Gandhi. She begged, “Please, Mahatma. Tell my son to stop eating sugar.” Gandhi paused, then said, “Bring your son back in two weeks.” Puzzled, the woman thanked him and said that she would do as he had asked. Two weeks later, she returned with her son. Gandhi looked the youngster in the eye and said, “Stop eating sugar.” Grateful but bewildered, the woman asked, “Why did you tell me to bring him back in two weeks? You could have told him the same thing then.” Gandhi replied, “Two weeks ago, I was eating sugar.” “So remember, Dan, embody what you teach, and teach only what you have embodied.”

“Reading the future is based on a realistic perception of the present. Don’t be concerned about seeing the future until you can clearly see the present.”

“Special powers do in fact exist, Dan. But for the warrior, such things are beside the point. Don’t be deluded by shiny baubles. A warrior can rely on the power of love, of kindness, of service — and the power of happiness. You cannot attain happiness; it attains you — but only after you surrender everything else.”

“A warrior is not something you become, Dan. It is something you either are, in this moment, or something you are not. The Way itself creates the warrior. And now forget me.

“Consider your fleeting years, Danny. One day you’ll discover that death is not what you might imagine; but then, neither is life. Either may be wondrous, filled with change; or, if you do not awaken, both may turn out to be a considerable disappointment.”

“Wake up! If you knew for certain that you had a terminal illness — if you had little time left to live — you would waste precious little of it! Well, I’m telling you, Dan — you do have a terminal illness: It’s called birth. You don’t have more than a few years left. No one does! So be happy now, without reason — or you never will be at all.”

I am in darkness at the foot of a great mountain, searching under every stone for a precious jewel. The valley is covered in darkness, so I cannot find the jewel. Then I look up at the shining mountain peak. If the jewel is to be found, it must be at the top. I climb and climb, beginning an arduous journey that takes many years. At last I reach my journey’s end. I stand bathed in the bright light. My eyesight is clear now, yet the jewel is nowhere to be found. I look upon the valley far below, where I began the climb many years ago. Only then do I realize that the jewel had always been within me, even then, and that the light had always shined. Only my eyes had been closed.

“Enlightenment is not an attainment, Dan; it is a Realization. And when you wake up, everything changes and nothing changes. If a blind man realizes that he can see, has the world changed?”

From the start, I have shown you the way of the peaceful warrior, not the way to the peaceful warrior. As long as you tread the way, you are a warrior. These past eight years you have abandoned your “warriorship” so you could search for it. But the way is now; it always has been.”

A warrior is happy without reason. That’s what makes happiness the ultimate discipline — above all else I have taught you. Happiness is not just something you feel — it is who you are.”

Act happy, be happy, without a reason in the world. Then you can love, and do what you will.”

“Feelings change, Dan. Sometimes sorrow, sometimes joy. But beneath it all remember the innate perfection of your life unfolding. That is the secret of unreasonable happiness.”

I realized now that the Grim Reaper, the Death Dan Millman had so feared, had been his great illusion. And so his life, too, had been an illusion, a problem, nothing more than a humorous incident when Consciousness had forgotten Itself.

I laughed often, because every time I looked around — at the earth, the sky, the sun, the trees, the lakes, the streams — I realized that it was all Me — that no separation existed at all.

All these years Dan Millman had grown up, struggling to “be a somebody.” Talk about backward! Dan had been a somebody in a fearful mind and a mortal body.

All searches, all achievements, all goals, were equally enjoyable, and equally unnecessary.

I had lost my mind and fallen into my heart. The gate had finally opened, and I had tumbled through, laughing, because it, too, was a joke.

everyone was perfectly being what they believed they were.

There is no need to search; achievement leads to nowhere. It makes no difference at all, so just be happy now! Love is the only reality of the world, because it is all One, you see. And the only laws are paradox, humor, and change. There is no problem, never was, and never will be. Release your struggle, let go of your mind, throw away your concerns, and relax into the world. No need to resist life; just do your best. Open your eyes and see that you are far more than you imagine. You are the world, you are the universe; you are yourself and everyone else, too! It’s all the marvelous Play of God. Wake up, regain your humor. Don’t worry, you are already free!”