The Way of the Peaceful Warrior

I found that I could not put this book down. I finished it in three days. In this sense it read better than the Celestine prophecy. Though I do not believe that I fully understand all of the pearls of wisdom in this book, I’m going to try and explain those I do as best I can.

The present is all that we have. I believe that both the past and the future are illusions in the mind that keep us from focusing on the present. There was a story about Dan in the midst of a pentacle of dried blood surrounded by corpses and a lady in a white dress. The moment he stepped out of the pentacle to help the woman, she turned into a corpse too. Perhaps that means that the past is dead. Perhaps that means that the moment you succumb to the past you put yourself at risk of becoming dead too. I’m not entirely sure. What I did discover was a question I need to keep asking myself: “when will enough be enough?” Dan thought he would find happiness in a gymnastics championship, it turns out he did not. I have long thought I would find happiness, self esteem and respect in learning, in attaining accolades, in proving my intelligence. I am one year away from graduating and I feel no more fulfilled. I’m constantly pushing, hoping to arrive somewhere, to finally get there. The truth is that the only place I will ever arrive at is “death”. It’s a sobering thought, but it’ll make me appreciate life more. Its true what Socrates said, we all have a terminal disease called life which will eventually kill us. Death will come for us all. When we look back over our lives, will it be with the satisfaction that we truly lived or did we simply live? Did we survive, or did we thrive? Life is like standing on a moving sidewalk. The end comes eventually, but we, if we are not awake, are not convinced it is moving at all, and so we run full tilt toward the grave not even aware of the things we pass by on the way there. I have to wonder if that is really living.

One illusion I have to get rid of is the idea that there is any “there” to get to. Any “time” or “place” I can arrive at. Truly I have only “here” and “now”. There can’t be any time, because naming time, counting it, defining it, gives us the illusion that we can control it. Which is false. I have said, for example, that I want to train as a Jedi, as if Jedi is something that is “finally” bequeathed to me after hard work and dedication. While this is in some way true, I believe that the best thing to do is to start living like a Jedi now. As I do so, the lessons I need will come to me in time. Toward the end of the book Socrates says to Dan, “I have shown you the way of the peaceful warrior, not the way to the peaceful warrior”. There is a slight difference there. Dan certainly did go on a journey. He certainly learned much, but there is, I suppose, no stopping once on the journey; for life is both a journey and a school.

Another illusion I need to get rid of is the mind. The mind has so many expectations and it never seems satisfied, never seems happy. Thinking too much does not allow me to enjoy the present and thus does not allow me to live.

"I thought I had already explained that," he said patiently. "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 onto it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change, free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending can alter that reality”
Even after reading this book I am still not sure how to get rid of the mind, that is “to lose the mind and gain the heart”. I mean there is no set steps to help me. Perhaps that is the problem, that is the major hang up. Maybe I am looking for a road map where there isn’t one. Thinking is a product of the mind and the mind is a product of thinking.

Another illusion I must let go of is this: that I can somehow control my environment. There are two examples of this. In one example Joy, Socrates, and Dan were at a picnic that suddenly got rained out. Dan became angry while the other two enjoyed the rain. Dan became angrier when he found that the other two were not angry. In truth, what can you do about rain or sunshine? As Socrates said, it’s a perfectly legal action of nature. We really have no more control over rain than we do over sunshine. The earth rotates through its seasonal cycle serenely, uncaring of the fact that there are creatures on this planet. The plants and animals don’t demand that the earth change its cycles for them, but they move with the cycles of the earth. They flow with the change, migrating back and forth as it suits them. Only humans are fool enough to build their houses on fault lines or in places where there are other natural disasters.

Am I wrong to think that the truths in this book are few and simple to see? This is why they are so profound. Applying these truths: living in the now, being open to change, letting go of preconceptions and rules and barriers and obstacles that cloud the mind, letting go of the illusion of the mind, letting go of the illusion of control, these are all simple and timeless truths every master of the world has taught us from Buddha to Christ. They are simple truths to grasp, but to truly apply them is a daily process.