warrior

"The one-after-another is a bearable prelude to the deeper knowledge of the side-by-side." -- Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis

You may realize by now that by "warrior" I do not mean those who slam bullets into human meat. A warrior is one who practices the balance of maintaining his/her own center, yielding that sacred space to no one, while engaging in what the Buddhist warriors, the bodhisattvas, call right relationship; moving in unexpected, unpredictable ways while looking to do no harm.

But as that wonderful old Zen warrior, D.T. Suzuki, pointed out, sometimes the sword swings itself. The story goes that even Mr. Buddha, in an incarnation immediately prior to his riding his buddhacycle, killed a man. And Mr. Jesus certainly whacked that fig tree, and down the road a ways told his buddies that the soft times were over and if they didn't have a sword, to sell their cloak and buy one.

A warrior is one who lives by the spirit, the lifeforce. To do this, one must surrender the ego, must fall into the Ground and die. As Bunan put it, "While living be a dead man, be thoroughly dead -- and behave as you like, and all's well." As the Sufi put it, "Die before you die." It's a paradox. But the warrior lives as paradox, trusting the Mystery that births him.