warrior of spirit

Warriors, in the usual sense, are thought of as destructive killers who are bent on the annihilation of others and preservation of self. Destroying others while keeping self alive is highly valued, both in the military and civilian population (especially in the business world.)

While I was in the Marine Corps and also in my first few years as a martial artist, I adopted this attitude of volatile egocentricity. I could hardly wait for someone to attack me (no one did), so I could be completely justified in pounding them into the ground.

Fortunately, beneath this arrogance of addled essence was a core of heartfelt compassion and strong understanding of others’ sufferings. This compassionate understanding has been present since early memory. I could sense the HeartMinds of others and feel the suffering of their existence. As a result, people often approached to disclose the heart, soul, and circumstances of their existential situations.

It wasn’t long before the realization came that Killer-Warrior principles and practices could be applied to Healer-Warrior ways. Leaving the Marine Corps behind (though it is true: once a Marine, always a Marine), I continued the practice of the martial arts with a gradual movement toward understanding the usefulness of martial arts as a model for conversations in daily life. The Killer-Warrior sat to the rear while the Spiritual-Warrior emerged.

A spiritual warrior focuses on the annihilation of self while attending to the wellbeing of others – the mirror opposite of the Killer Warrior – but using the same strengths and skills that any warrior embodies (centering, relaxing, opening, facing and dealing, allowing no resting place for fear, vulnerability, blending, re-directing, energizing, and halting others in their tracks).

Not surprisingly, I found strong examples of the spiritual warrior in all the religious/spiritual traditions I investigated. What was surprising (at least to me) was that the spiritual warrior exemplars with whom I became familiar embodied martial art principles. Now I know that the same set of universal principles form the basis of the healing arts, martial arts, spiritual arts, and psychological arts, and that these principles are all about stance and relationship.

So far, at least in the lifetime of this small wave in the vast ocean of existence, the martial arts seem to give the clearest and cleanest exposition/demonstration of these universal principles. Maybe it’s because the martial arts allow little room for abstraction or intellectual theorizing. What works, works. What doesn’t work is immediately obvious to all.