Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior (Shambhala Classics)

by Chögyam Trungpa

But when we look back to the cocoon and see the suffering that takes place in the world of the coward, that inspires us to

If we examine our posture, our behavior, our existence, we find that the attributes of the Great Eastern Sun are reflected in every aspect of our being.

For the warrior, interest happens spontaneously because there is already so much health and togetherness taking place in his or her life.

The warrior feels that the world is naturally full of interest: the visual world, the emotional world, whatever world he or she might have. So interest or inquisitiveness manifests as raw delight, delight together with rawness or tenderness.

Usually when you are delighted about something, you develop a thick skin, and you feel smug. You say to yourself, “I’m so delighted to be here.” That is just self-affirmation. But in this case, delight has a touch of pain to it, because you feel sore or raw in relation to your world. In fact, tenderness and sadness, as well as gentleness, actually produce a sense of interest. You are so vulnerable that you cannot help being touched by your world. That is a sort of saving grace, or safety precaution, so that the warrior never goes astray and never grows a thick skin. Whene...

Whatever you may be doing, every minute of every hour is a new chapter, a new page.

For the true warrior, there is no warfare. This is the idea of being all-victorious. When you are all-victorious, there is nothing to conquer, no fundamental problem or obstacle to overcome.

This attitude is not based on suppressing or overlooking negativity, particularly. But if you look back and trace back through your life—who you are, what you are, and why you are in this world—if you look through that step-by-step, you won’t find any fundamental problems.

What the warrior renounces is anything in his experience that is a barrier between himself and others. In other words, renunciation is making yourself more available, more gentle and open to others.

The situations of fear that exist in our lives provide us with stepping-stones to step over our fear. On the other side of cowardice is bravery. If we step over properly, we can cross the boundary from being cowardly to being brave. We may not discover bravery right away. Instead, we may find a shaky tenderness beyond our fear. We are still quivering and shaking, but there is tenderness rather than bewilderment.

Tenderness contains an element of sadness, as we have discussed. It is not the sadness of feeling sorry for yourself or feeling deprived, but it is a natural situation of fullness. You feel so full and rich, as if you were about to shed tears. Your eyes are full of tears, and the moment you blink, the tears will spill out of your eyes and roll down your cheeks. In order to be a good warrior, one has to feel this sad and tender heart. A person who does not feel alone and sad cannot be a warrior at all. The warrior is sensitive to every aspect of phenomena—sight, smell, sound, feelings. He appreciates everything that goes on in his world, as an artist does. Her experience is full and extremely vivid. The rustling of leaves and the sounds of raindrops on his coat are very loud. Occasional butterflies fluttering around her may be almost unbearable because she is so sensitive. Because of his sensitivity, the warrior can then go further in developing his discipline. She begins to learn the meaning of renunciation.

In the ordinary sense, renunciation is often connected with asceticism. You give up the sense pleasures of the world and embrace an austere spiritual life in order to understand the higher meaning of existence. In the Shambhala context, renunciation is quite different. What the warrior renounces is anything in his experience that is a barrier between himself and others. In other words, renunciation is making yourself more available, more gentle and open to...

The sitting practice of meditation provides an ideal environment to develop renunciation.

In meditation, as you work with your breath, you regard any thoughts that arise as just your thinking process. You don’t hold on to any thought and you don’t have to punish your thoughts or praise them. The thoughts that occur during sitting practice are regarded as natural events, but at the same time, they don’t carry any credentials.

In other words, in meditation you can experience a sense of existence, or being, that includes your thoughts but is not conditioned by your thoughts or limited to your thinking process. You experience your thoughts, you label them “thinking,” and you come back to your breath, going out, expanding, and dissolving into space. It is very simple, but it is quite profound. You experience your world directly, and you do not have to limit that experience. You can be completely open, with nothing to defend and nothing to fear. In that way, you are developing renunciation of personal territory and small-mindedness.

In order to overcome selfishness, it is necessary to be daring. It is as though you were dressed in your swimsuit, standing on the diving board with a pool in front of you, and you ask yourself, “Now what?” The obvious answer is “Jump.” That is daring. You might wonder if you will sink or hurt yourself if you jump. You might. There is no insurance, but it is worthwhile jumping to find out what will happen. The student warrior has to jump.

In the practice of meditation, the way to be daring, the way to leap, is to disown your thoughts, to step beyond your hope and fear, the ups and downs of your thinking process. You can just be, just let yourself be, without holding on to the constant reference points that mind manufactures. You do not have to get rid of your thoughts. They are a natural process; they are fine; let them be as well. But let yourself go out with the breath, let it dissolve. See what happens. When you let yourself go in that way, you develop trust in the strength of your being and trust in your ability to open and extend yourself to others. You realize that you are rich and resourceful enough to give selflessly to others, and as well, you find that you have tremendous willingness to do so.

At this point, having completely renounced her own comfort and privacy, paradoxically, the warrior finds herself more alone.

Although the warrior’s life is dedicated to helping others, she realizes that she will never be able to completely share her experience with others. The fullness of her experience is her own, and she must live with her own truth. Yet she is more and more in love with the world. That combination of love affair and loneliness is what enables the warrior to constantly reach out to help others. By renouncing her private world, the warrior discovers a greater universe and a fuller and fuller broken heart. This is not something to feel bad about: it is a cause for rejoicing. It is entering the warrior’s world.

Warriorship is a continual journey. To be a warrior is to learn to be genuine in every moment of your life.

Renunciation, as discussed in the last chapter, is the attitude that over-comes selfishness. The result of renunciation is that you enter the warrior’s world, a world in which you are more available and open to others but also more brokenhearted and alone. You begin to understand that warriorship is a path or a thread that runs through your entire life. It is not just a technique that you apply when an obstacle arises or when you are unhappy or depressed. Warriorship is a continual journey. To be a warrior is to learn to be genuine in every moment of your life. That is the warrior’s discipline.

Even if a situation is very demanding or difficult, the warrior never gives up. He always conducts himself well, with gentleness and warmth, to begin with, and he always maintains his loyalty to sentient beings who are trapped in the setting-sun world. The warrior’s duty is to generate warmth and compassion for others. He does this with a complete absence of laziness.

When the warrior has unwavering discipline, she takes joy in the journey and joy in working with others. Rejoicing takes place throughout the warrior’s life. Why are you always joyful? Because you have witnessed your basic goodness, because you have nothing to hang on to, and because you have experienced the sense of renunciation that we discussed earlier. Therefore, your mind and body are continually synchronized and always joyful. This joy is like music, which celebrates its own rhythm and melody. The celebration is continuous, in spite of the ups and downs of your personal life. That is what is meant by constantly being joyful.

If you take steps to accomplish something, that action will have a result—either failure or success. When you shoot your arrow, either it will hit the target or it will miss. Trust is knowing that there will be a message. When you trust in that message, the reflection of the phenomenal world, the world begins to seem like a bank, or reservoir, of richness. You feel that you are living in a rich world, one that never runs out of messages.

as a warrior, you are willing to take a chance; you are willing to expose yourself to the phenomenal world, and you trust that it will give you a message, either of success or failure. Those messages are regarded neither as punishment nor as congratulation. You trust, not in success, but in reality. You begin to realize that you usually fail when action and intellect are undisciplined or unsynchronized, and that you usually succeed when intelligence and action are fully joined.

When your thoughts wander in meditation or you become “lost in thought,” the echo of your awareness reminds you to label your thoughts and return to the breath, return to a sense of being.

When little things happen—good or bad, right or wrong—you don’t exaggerate them. You constantly come back to your saddle and your posture.

The warrior is never amazed. If somebody comes up to you and says, “I’m going to kill you right now” or “I have a present of a million dollars for you,” you are not amazed. You simply assume your seat in the saddle.

When you live your life in accordance with basic goodness, then you develop natural elegance. Your life can be spacious and relaxed without having to be sloppy. You can actually let go of your depression and embarrassment about being a human being, and you can cheer up.

For the warrior, every moment is a challenge to be genuine, and each challenge is delightful. When you let go properly, you can relax and enjoy the challenge.

Human dignity is not based on monetary wealth. Affluent people may spend a great deal of money making their homes luxurious, but they may be creating artificial luxury. Dignity comes from using your inherent human resources, by doing things with your own bare hands—on the spot, properly and beautifully. You can do that: even in the worst of the worst situations, you can still make your life elegant.

Your body is an extension of basic goodness. It is the closest implement, or tool, that you have to express basic goodness, so appreciating your body is very important.

Being without deception is actually a further extension of telling the truth: it is based on being truthful with yourself. When you have a sense of trusting in your own existence, then what you communicate to other people is genuine and trustworthy.

The result of letting go is that you discover a bank of self-existing energy that is always available to you—beyond any circumstance. It actually comes from nowhere, but is always there. It is the energy of basic goodness.

Experiencing the upliftedness of the world is a joyous situation, but it also brings sadness. It is like falling in love. When you are in love, being with your lover is both delightful and very painful. You feel both joy and sorrow. That is not a problem; in fact, it is wonderful. It is the ideal human emotion. The warrior who experiences windhorse feels the joy and sorrow of love in everything he does. He feels hot and cold, sweet and sour, simultaneously. Whether things go well or things go badly, whether there is success or failure, he feels sad and delighted at once.

In this case, confidence does not mean that you have confidence in something, but it is remaining in the state of confidence, free from competition or one-upmanship. This is an unconditional state in which you simply possess an unwavering state of mind that needs no reference point. There is no room for doubt; even the question of doubt does not occur. This kind of confidence contains gentleness, because the notion of fear does not arise; sturdiness, because in the state of confidence there is ever-present resourcefulness; and joy, because trusting in the heart brings a greater sense of humor. This confidence can manifest as majesty, elegance, and richness in a person’s life.

We need to find the link between our traditions and our present experience of life. Nowness, or the magic of the present moment, is what joins the wisdom of the past with the present.

The way to experience nowness is to realize that this very moment, this very point in your life, is always the occasion.

Appreciating sacredness begins very simply by taking an interest in all the details of your life. Interest is simply applying awareness to what goes on in your everyday life—awareness while you’re cooking, awareness while you’re driving, awareness while you’re changing diapers, even awareness while you’re arguing. Such awareness can help to free you from speed, chaos, neurosis, and resentment of all kinds. It can free you from the obstacles to nowness so that you can cheer up on the spot, all the time.

By regarding your home as sacred, you can enter into domestic situations with awareness and with delight rather than feeling that you are subjecting yourself to chaos. It may seem that washing dishes and cooking dinner are completely mundane activities, but if you apply awareness in any situation, you are training your whole being so that you will be able to open yourself further, rather than narrowing your existence.

Any perception can connect us to reality properly and fully. What we see doesn’t have to be pretty, particularly; we can appreciate anything that exists. There is some principle of magic in everything, some living quality. Something living, something real, is taking place in everything.

In the last chapter, we discussed the importance of nowness as a way of joining together the wisdom of the past with the challenge of the present.

In order to rediscover nowness, you have to look back, back to where you came from, back to the original state. In this case, looking back is not looking back in time, going back several thousand years. It is looking back into your own mind, to before history began, before thinking began, before thought ever occurred. When you are in contact with this original ground, then you are never confused by the illusions of past and future. You are able to rest continuously in nowness.

The way to look back and experience the state of being of the cosmic mirror is simply to relax. In this case relaxation is quite different from the setting-sun idea of flopping or taking time off, entertaining yourself with a good vacation. Relaxation here refers to relaxing the mind, letting go of the anxiety and concepts and depression that normally bind you. The way to relax, or rest the mind in nowness, is through the practice of meditation.

your sense faculties give you access to possibilities of deeper perception. Beyond ordinary perception, there is super-sound, super-smell, and super-feeling existing in your state of being. These can be experienced only by training yourself in the depth of meditation practice, which clarifies any confusion or cloudiness and brings out the precision, sharpness, and wisdom of perception—the nowness of your world.

Discovering drala is indeed to establish ties to your world so that each perception becomes unique.

It is to see with the heart so that what is invisible to the eye becomes visible as the living magic of reality.

Drala energy is like the sun. If you look in the sky, the sun is there. By looking at it, you don’t produce a new sun. You may feel that you created or made today’s sun by looking at it, but the sun is eternally there. When you discover the sun in the sky, you begin to communicate with it. Your eyes begin to relate with the light of the sun. In the same way, the drala principle is always there. Whether you care to communicate with it or not, the magical strength and wisdom of reality are always there. That wisdom abides in the cosmic mirror. By relaxing the mind, you can reconnect with that primordial, original ground, which is completely pure and simple. Out of that, through the medium of your perceptions, you can discover magic, or drala. You actually can connect your own intrinsic wisdom with a sense of greater wisdom or vision beyond you.

When you express gentleness and precision in your environment, then real brilliance and power can descend onto that situation. If you try to manufacture that presence out of your own ego, it will never happen. You cannot own the power and the magic of this world. It is always available, but it does not belong to anyone.

It is possible to contact energy that is beyond dualism, beyond aggression—energy that is neither for you nor against you. That is the energy of drala.