Overcome both hope and fear.

When you hope for something in your life, if it doesn’t happen, you are disappointed or upset. If it does happen, then you become elated and excited. You are constantly riding a roller coaster up and down. With nothing to hope for and nothing to fear, fearlessness is achieved.

Don’t spell out the truth.  

When you spell out the truth, it loses its essence and becomes either “my” truth or “your” truth. By implying the truth, it doesn’t become anyone’s property. When the dragon wants a rainstorm he causes thunder and lightning. That brings the rain. Truth is generated from its environment; in that way it becomes a powerful reality. From this point of view, studying the imprint of truth is more important that the truth itself. The truth doesn’t need a handle.  To join heaven and earth, go beyond selfishness.

To bring together vision and practicality, you need confidence and trust in yourself. Beyond that, you have to be without selfishness. If someone thinks, “Now I have it! Ha ha!”—that doesn’t work. Joining heaven and earth happens only if you go beyond an egoistic attitude. The master warrior is extremely humble.

Give yourself time to be. 

Give yourself a break. Enjoy that day, your normal existence. We have to learn to be kinder to ourselves, much kinder. Smile a lot, although nobody is watching. Listen to your own brook, echoing yourself. A lot of problems come from self-hatred. Let us let go of that; let us let it go away. Let us be real people. Let us be genuine people. Cheer up. A lot of us feel attacked by our own aggression and by our own misery and pain. However, even in the darkest of the Dark Age, there is always light. That light comes with a smile, the smile of Shambhala, the smile of fearlessness. The cheerfulness is what we call the Great Eastern Sun. We are capable of smiling beautifully, utterly, extraordinarily. We can always cheer up.

Don’t cause the Great Eastern Sun to eclipse. 

Developing meekness is one of the disciplines or dignities of the warrior. Meekness is not feebleness but strength and brilliance that come from resting in a state of simplicity, being uncomplicated and approachable. In that state, simple awareness allows you to refrain from activities that dim the vision of the Great Eastern Sun, the warrior’s vision of wakeful sanity. Then your mind is not filled with ordinary preoccupations. When you are not seduced by trivial situations, there is a sense of uplifted mind and vast vision.

The fundamental doubt is doubting yourself, which occurs when body and mind are unsynchronized. Continuous discipline joins body and mind and brings unconditional cheerfulness.  When discipline becomes a pleasure rather then a demand, you are free from the lower realms, free from living purely for survival. You possess the goodness of the higher realms, meaning you are clear and precise, free from doubt. At this stage, the warrior is always aware and never confused as to what to accept and what to reject.

A good self-existing sword: desire to sharpen it will make it dull.

 When, out of hope and fear, you apply a competitive and comparative logic to your experience, trying to measure how much you have fathomed, how much is left to fathom, or how much someone else has fathomed, you are just dulling you sword, the sharpness of your mind. Instead, have confidence in your awareness and relax in you ability to connect with a larger vision, the experience of vast mind.  

This is part 9 in a continuing series on Shambhala.

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When we see a bright color, we are witnessing our own inherent goodness. When we hear a beautiful sound, we are hearing our own basic goodness. When we step out of the shower, we feel fresh and clean, and when we walk out of a stuffy room, we appreciate the sudden whiff of fresh air. These events may take a fraction of a second, but they are real experiences of goodness. They happen to us all the time, but usually we ignore them as mundane or purely coincidental. According to Shambhala principles, however, it is worthwhile to recognize and take advantage of those moments, because they are revealing basic nonaggression and freshness in our lives—basic goodness. Chogyam Trungpa

A warrior never needs to take time off.

Uplifting your head and shoulders may sometimes give you back pain or a strained neck, but uplifting yourself is necessary. The journey may be demanding, but there is no way of avoiding it.

Always think only of the good of others.

The point of the warriorship is to become a gentle and tamed human being who can make a genuine contribution to this world. The warrior’s journey is based on discovering what is intrinsically good about human existence and how to share that basic nature of goodness with others.

Cultivate authentic presence.

Authentic presence is genuineness that radiates both gentleness and brilliance to others. Cultivate inner authentic presence by letting go of selfishness and regarding other people’s welfare as more important than your own.

Join survival and celebration.

There appears to be conflict between survival and celebration. Survival, taking care of your basic needs, is based on pragmatism, exertion, and often drudgery. Celebration, on the other hand, is often connected with extravagance and doing something beyond your means. For the warrior, ruling your world means that you can live in a dignified and disciplined way, without frivolity, and at the same time enjoy your life.

The warrior is not afraid of space.

The coward lives in constant terror of space: afraid of darkness because he can’t see anything, afraid of silence because he can’t hear anything. The setting-sun world teaches you to wear a suit of armor to protect yourself. But what are your protecting yourself from? Space. The challenge of warriorship is to step out of the cocoon, to step out into space, by being brave and at the same time gentle.

Cultivate natural decorum.

In the warrior’s world, a sense of order or hierarchy is based on allowing things to flower. This comes from the discovery of wakefulness, or the Great Eastern Sun, reflected in everything. You see possibilities of order in the world that are not based on struggle and aggression. This understanding of hierarchy manifests on a personal level as natural decorum, or intrinsically knowing how to behave. Because you experience dignity and elegance that do not have to be cultivated or imposed, you see how to be quite naturally in the world.

Apply the seven principles of richness.

To cultivate harmony in your life, view yourself as the ruler of your world. The ruler’s first richness is to have a mate, a King or a Queen. This represents extending yourself and cultivating decency. Whether you have a partner or live by yourself, you develop decency and reasonability in relationships. The second richness is Minister, representing friends who provide counsel or advice. Third is the General, representing fearless protection, a companion who will take care of you. Then, you need exertion and energy, the richness of the Horse. Next, the principle of the Elephant is that you are earthy, steady, not swayed by confusion. The sixth richness is the Wish-granting jewel, connected with generosity. You are open and hospitable. Finally, you hold the Wheel of command. You take your seat properly in you life, so that all these principles work together.

This is part 8 in a continuing series on Shambhala. Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, or Part 9.

The Shambhala teachings are not based on converting the world to another theory. The premise of Shambhala vision is that, in order to establish an enlightened society for others, we need to discover what inherently we have to offer the world. So, to begin with, we should make an effort to examine our own experience, in order to see what it contains that is of value in helping ourselves and others to uplift their existence.

Chogyam Trungpa

The very moment is always the occasion.

The principle of nowness is very important to any effort to establish an enlightened society. You may wonder what the best approach is to helping society and how you can know what you are doing is authentic and good. The only answer is nowness. The way to relax, or rest the mind in nowness, is through the practice of meditation. In meditation you take an unbiased approach. You let things be as they are, without judgment, and in that way you yourself learn to be.

Let your wisdom as a human being connect with the power of things as they are.

There is no fundamental separation or duality between you and your world. This discovery many arise as an extraordinary smell, a fantastic sound, a vivid color, an usual taste. Any perception can connect you to reality properly and fully. If you are able to relax-relax to a cloud by looking at it, relax to a drop of rain and experience its genuineness-you see the unconditionality of reality, which remains very simply in things as they are. There is some principle of magic in everything, some living quality. Something living, something real is talking place in everything.

Without arrogance, see the brilliance of the universe.

We can’t ignore the phenomenal world. We should always take the opportunity, seize it on the spot. Appreciate the world, which is so vivid and beautiful. Arrogant people are so involved with themselves and competing so much with others that they won’t even look.

Rest with gentle patience and strength.

This slogan is connected with realizing unconditional confidence. Here, confidence does not mean having confidence in something, but remaining in the state of confidence, free from competition and one-upmanship. There is no room for doubt; even the question of doubt does not occur. This confidence contains gentleness, because the notion of fear does not arise; sturdiness, because in the state of confidence there is an ever present resourcefulness; and joy, because trusting in the heart brings a greater sense of humor.

Appreciate the accomplishments of your ancestors

The failure to appreciate the resourcefulness of human existence-which we call basic goodness-has become one of the world’s biggest problems. However, we need to find the link between tradition and the present experience of life. Nowness, or the magic of the present moment, is what joins the wisdom of the past with the present. When you appreciate a painting, a piece of music, or a work of literature, no matter when it was created, you appreciate it Now. You experience the same nowness in which it was created. It is always now.

This is part 7 in a continuing series on Shambhala. Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Pa

rt 4, Part 5, Part 6 or Part 8.

“Other legends say that the kingdom of Shambhala disappeared from the earth many centuries ago. At a certain point, the entire society had become enlightened, and the kingdom vanished into another more celestial realm.” Chogyam Trungpa

The ultimate warrior protects the world

You are willing to be awake in whatever situation presents itself to you. You feel that you can take command of your life, because you are not on the side of either success or failure. Success and failure are your journey. The warrior’s duty is to generate compassion and warmth for others, with complete absence of laziness. Your discipline and dedication are unwavering.

Don’t confuse letting go with arrogance or indulgence

 Letting go is relaxing within the discipline you have already developed, in order to experience freedom… …rather than getting away from the constraints of ordinary life, letting go is going further into your life. You understand that your life, as it is, contains the means to unconditionally cheer you up.

The Warrior’s awareness is like an echo

 When the warrior starts to lose track of discipline, by taking time off or indulging in a setting-sun mentality, a state of mind that is degraded and confused, awareness is like an echo that bounces back on you. At first, the echo may be fairly faint, but then it becomes louder and louder. You are constantly reminded that you have to be on the spot.

Take delight in others and propagate dignity.

People often say that it’s too difficult to work with others, that it’s impossible to help them, but that is not true; it has been done, and you can do so as well. Shambhala vision is not purely a philosophy

Don’t freeze Windhorse into ice

The self-existing energy that comes from letting go is called windhorse in Shambhala teachings. Wind is the energy of basic goodness, strong, exuberant, and brilliant. At the same time, basic goodness can be ridden, or employed in your life, which is the principle of the horse. When you contact the energy windhorse, you can naturally let go of worrying about your own state of mind and you begin to think of others. If you are unable to let go your selfishness, you might freeze the windhorse into ice.

 The practice of meditation also allows you to be completely grounded in reality. Then, if someone asks, “How do I know that you are not overreacting to situations?” You simply reply, “My posture in the saddle, my seat on the Earth, speaks for itself.

This is part 6 in a continuing series on Shambhala.

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“Shambhala vision teaches that, in the face of the world’s greatest problems we can be heroic and kind at the same time.”  Chogyam Trungpa  

This is part 5 in a continuing series on Shambhala.

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Daring to let go, the warrior is great in friendliness.

• We are attracted to our cocoons, our selfishness, and afraid of stepping beyond ourselves.  To overcome hesitation and to commit oneself to others’ welfare, the student warrior has to jump.  A leap is necessary.  This occurs in the practice of meditation when you step beyond the ups and downs of your thinking process and let yourself go with your breath.  Let it dissolve.  By letting go, you develop trust in the strength of your being.  Then, you also find that you have tremendous willingness to give selflessly to others.

 The humble warrior is Supreme.

• You need to cultivate gentleness, so that you remain humble, soft, and open.  Allow tenderness to come into your heart.  Renounce putting on a new suit of armor or growing thick skin.  The warrior who has accomplished true renunciation is completely naked and raw, without even skin or tissue.  You are able to be, quite fearlessly, what you are.

You cannot possess basic goodness.

• The goal of warriorship is to express basic goodness in its most complete, fresh, and brilliant form.  This is possible when you realize that you do not possess basic goodness, but you are the basic goodness itself.

The warrior’s discipline is like the sun.

• The light of the sun shines whenever the sun rises.  The sun does not decide the shine on one piece of land and neglect another.  Similarly, the warrior’s discipline is unwavering and all-pervasive.

Join the arrow of intellect with the bow of skillful means.

• With the sharpness of your intelligence, the arrow of intellect, you can clearly see the setting sun, or any degraded tendencies in yourself or the world.  Then, you need to harness your insight with skillful action, which is the bow.  When the arrow of intellect is joined with the bow of skillful means, you are never tempted by the seductions of the setting-sun world.  Temptation here refers to anything that promotes ego and goes against the vision of egolessness and basic goodness.  Together, the principle of the bow and arrow allows you to say “no” to ungenuineness, to carelessness, crudeness, or lack of wakefulness.

This is part 5 in a continuing series on Shambhala.  Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, or Part 4.

It is said that Buddhism played an important role in the development of the Shambhala society.  The legends tell us that Shakyamuni Buddha gave advanced tantric teachings to the first king of Shambhala, Dawa Sangpo.  These Teachings, which are preserved as the Kalacakra Tantra, are considered to be among the most profound wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism.  Chogyam Trungpa

This is part 4 in a continuing series on Shambhala.  Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 5, part 6, Part 7, or Part 8

  The warrior delights in heedfulness

• Heedfulness here refers to paying attention to what is taking place in your world.  For the warrior, interest happens spontaneously.  You feel that the world is naturally full of interest: the visual world, the emotional world, whatever world you might have.  So interest or heedfulness manifests as raw delight, delight together with rawness or tenderness.

Let the Great Eastern Sun illuminate the way of discipline

• The Great Eastern Sun, sun of human wakefulness, creates an atmosphere in which you can constantly move forward, recharging energy all the time.  It  provides the means to take advantage of your life in the fullest sense.  This discipline is an organic process that expands naturally from your own experiences…You don’t need an architect or a tailor to redesign your world.

When doubt arises, contemplate Warriorship

• Absence of doubt comes from trusting in the heart, trusting yourself.  Being without doubt means that you connect yourself, that you experience mind and body being synchronized together.  When mind and body are synchronized, then you have no doubt.

Propagate health as a basic discipline of warriorship

• The Great Eastern Sun is wakefulness and genuineness reflected in every aspect of your being.  Physically, psychologically, domestically, spiritually, you feel a gut-level sense of health and wholesomeness in your life, as if you were holding a solid brick of gold.  When you feel healthy and wholesome, then you cannot help projecting healthiness to others.

Celebrate the feast of faith and joy

• Faith is based on genuineness, trusting in yourself and your vision.  You are not faking anything, and you are not trying to impress anybody.  Faith inspires discipline.  Here, discipline is not based on punishment or arbitrary rules and authority, but rather on becoming thoroughly gentle and genuine.  When the warrior has unwavering discipline, he or she takes joy in the journey and joy in working with others.  The joy is like music, which celebrates its own rhythm and melody.  The celebration is continuous, in spite of ups and downs of life.   Chogyam Trungpa

Click here for Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3.

In Tibet, as well as many other Asian countries, there are stories about a legendary kingdom that was a source of learning and culture for present-day Asian societies.  According to the legends, this was a place of peace and prosperity, governed by wise and compassionate rulers.  The citizens were equally kind and learned, so that, in general, the kingdom was a model society.  This place was called Shambhala.  Chogyam Trungpa Synchronize mind and body

• When you are completely mindful in the present moment, mind and body are synchronized.  Here, synchronizing mind and body is connected with developing fearlessness, in the sense of being accurate and direct in relating to the phenomenal world.  You begin to realize that you have a perfect right to be in this universe.  You can uplift yourself and appreciate your existence as a human being.  This discovery is the first glimpse of what is called the Great Eastern Sun, which is the sun of human dignity, the sun of human power.

By the dance of the setting sun, the entire world becomes cowardly

• The warrior’s vision of how to lead a sane and dignified life, is based on celebrating life.  It is contrasted to the setting sun what is going down and dissolving into darkness.  Setting-sun vision is based on trying to ward off death.  It is based on fear.  In the world of the setting sun, we are constantly afraid of ourselves, ashamed of who and what we are.

The food of the setting sun fills everyone with grease and fat

• In the setting-sun or degraded approach, you have a giant vision, beyond anything you can consume, and you get bloated and end up throwing things away.  Great Eastern Sun vision is that the world is very sacred, so you have to constantly serve your world and clean it up.  It’s not necessary to overindulge.  Also, because you appreciate the world, you don’t leave a mess in it.

Always return to the primordial ground

• In this world, there are always possibilities of original purity, because the world is clean to begin with.  Similarly, our physical and psychological existence is originally clean.  We may smear the situation with our conflicting emotions, but fundamentally, our existence is all good, and it is all launder able.  This is what we mean by basic goodness: the pure ground that is always there, waiting to be cleaned.  We can always reconnect with the primordial ground.
  

All-Victorious, you have nothing to conquer

• Being all-victorious is not a matter of talking yourself into believing that everything is okay.  Rather, if you actually look, if you take your whole being apart and examine it, you find that you are genuine and good as you are.  In fact, the whole of existence is well-constructed, so that there is very little room for mishaps.  There are, of course, constant challenges.  But for the true warrior, there is no warfare.  You are never at war with your world.

These passages are taken from Chogyam Trungpa’s book Shambhala: the sacred path of the warrior.

This is part 3, in a continuing series on Shambhala by Chogyam Trungpa. Click here if you missed part 1 or part 2, Part 4, Part 5, or Part 8.

The Shambhala teachings are founded on the premise that there is a basic human wisdom that can help to solve the world’s problems.  This wisdom does not belong to any one culture or religion, no does it come only from the West or the East.  Rather, it is a tradition of human warriorship that has existed in many cultures at many times throughout history.  Chogyam Trungpa

Each week I will be posting 5 principles for living a life with fearlessness and gentleness.  This is part 2 of the Shambhala teachings by Chogyam Trungpa

Don’t assume the posture of a wilted flower.

• When you slouch, you are trying to hide your heart, protecting it by slumping over.  Through the practice of sitting still and following your breath as it goes out and dissolves, you are connecting with your heart.  By simply letting yourself be, as you are, you develop genuine sympathy toward yourself.  When you sit erect, you proclaim to yourself and to the rest of the world that you are going to be a warrior, a fully human being.

Hope and Fear cannot alter the seasons.

• The four seasons occur free from anyone’s demand or vote.  The natural law and order of this world is not “for” or “against” you.  There is a natural law and order that allows you to survive, which is basically good.  We often take for granted or reject this basic law and order in the universe, but we should think twice.  We should appreciate what we have.  We should feel that it is wonderful to be in this world.

Awaken the genuine heart of sadness.

• Awakened heart comes from being willing to face your state of mind.  It is a natural situation of fullness.  The genuine heart of sadness comes from this feeling that your nonexistent heart is full. Your experience is so raw, tender, and personal that even if a tiny mosquito lands on you, you feel its touch.

To experience fearlessness, it is necessary to experience fear.

• The essence of cowardice is to not acknowledge the reality of fear.  Fear takes many forms.  Fear is expressed as restlessness: how we move, how we talk, how we chew our nails, how we sometimes put out hands in our pockets uselessly.  We have to realize our fear and reconcile ourselves with fear.  However, acknowledging fear is not a cause for depression.  Because we possess such fear, we can potentially experience fearlessness.

Go beyond Fear.

• When you examine your fear, if you look beneath the veneer of your nervousness, you find sadness.  Nervousness is cranking up, vibrating all the time.  When you slow down, when you relax with your fear, the sadness is calm and gentle.  In the Shambhala tradition, discovering fearlessness comes from working with the softness of the human heart.

Click here if you missed part 1 on Shambhala: The Sacred path of the Warrior, Click here for Part 3, Part 4, or Part 5. 

Today, I will begin a new series on Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior.  Each week I will post 5 new Warrior Slogans on living a life of bravery and gentleness taken from Chogyam Trungpa book Shambhala.  The Slogans are posted for your contemplating pleasure and will present the basic principles and wisdom of Shambhala.   

Don’t be afraid of who you are.

• Examine your experience to see what it contains that is of value in helping yourself and others.  Warriorship is the opposite of selfishness.   Even in the face of great problems, we can be heroic and kind at the same time.

Goodness is the ground of all.

• You are exposed to heaven above and earth below, sandwiched between heaven and earth.  You can’t reject your atmosphere, the sun and the moon, sidewalks and skyscrapers, the landscape or the sea.  This goodness is that basic, that unconditional.  It is not good versus bad.  It is not a “for” or “against” view, just as sunlight is not “for” or “against”.

Goodness dawns like the sun.

• The human potential for intelligence and dignity is attuned to experiencing the brilliance of the bright blue sky, the freshness of green fields, and the beauty of the trees and mountains.  We have an actual connection to the reality that can wake us up and make us feel basically good.

Never give up on anyone or anything.

• In the wakeful vision of Shambhala, which we call the vision of the Great Eastern Sun, no human being is ever a lost cause.  We are always willing to give things a chance to flower.

To overcome uncertainty is utterly good.

• When you don’t punish or condemn yourself, when you relax and appreciate your body and mind, you begin to contact goodness in yourself.  Existence is wonderful and precious.  We don’t know how long we will live.  While we have our life, why not make use of it?  Before we even make use of it, why don’t we appreciate it?

This is  a continuing series on Shambhala.  Click here for Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, or Part 5.