Quotes about Warrior

I promise I shall never give up, and that I’ll die yelling & laughing.

The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes or other people's opinions.

For the warrior, there is no "better" or "worse"; everyone has the necessary gifts for his particular path.

For the accomplished warrior, belief is not a form of strategy, nor is it borrowing the stories of previous warriors from books and stories. Trying to theorize and borrow ideas doesn’t seem to help. The notion of belief, or view, here is based on complete simplicity. Your view is not affected by liberalism or conservatism, nihilism or eternalism, at all. Your view is straightforward and simple; it is almost a cosmic domestic view. It is the notion of complete simplicity. When you meet a person, you don’t have to develop a whole style of how to view that person according to either the historic or present situation, the sociological context, his religious connections, or whatever it may be. You don’t have to go through all that. You can have a direct relationship, which is very simple, direct, and straightforward—extremely straightforward.

If you are a warrior, decency means that you are not cheating anybody at all. You are not even about to cheat anybody. There is a sense of straightforwardness and simplicity. With setting-sun vision, or vision based on cowardice, straightforwardness is always a problem. If people have some story or news to tell somebody else, first of all they are either excited or disappointed. Then they begin to figure out how to tell their news. They develop a plan, which leads them completely away from simply telling it. By the time a person hears the news, it is not news at all, but opinion. It becomes a message of some kind, rather than fresh, straightforward news. Decency is the absence of strategy. It is of utmost importance to realize that the warrior’s approach should be simple-minded sometimes, very simple and straightforward. That makes it very beautiful: you having nothing up your sleeve; therefore a sense of genuineness comes through. That is decency.

Do not wait for leaders.  Do it alone, person to person.

A WARRIOR WITHOUT TERRITORY

Student: The idea of a warrior is usually associated with territory or responding to a sense of danger. If we give up all territory, what is the motivation for having the spirit of a warrior?

Chogyam Trungpa: A warrior is not like a samurai who is looking for a job. You are not trying to be hired by anybody, not even by yourself. The idea of a warrior is based on a sense of fundamental fearlessness. There is no reason why you should be a coward. It's as simple as that. You are not being a warrior because a state of war exists in your country. We are not trying to win against the egohood people. We are not trying to fight with them. You are being a warrior because you ARE a warrior. If someone asks you, "Are you twenty-one years old?" you say, "Yes, I am." They don't ask you WHY you are twenty-one years old or how you have done this. You would have no answer for that. You are just twenty-one. Warriorship is a basic sense of unshakeability. It's a sense of immovability and self-existing dignity rather than that you are trying to fight with something else.

From "Meditation: The Way of the Buddha," Talk Four, Naropa Institute, Boulder, Colorado, July 1 1974. Edited from an unpublished transcript.

The warrior of the light listens to what his opponent has to say.
He only fights if absolutely necessary.

It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought:
Whose high endeavours are an inward light
That makes the path before him always bright:
Who, with a natural instinct to discern
What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;
Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
But makes his moral being his prime care;
Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,
And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain;
In face of these doth exercise a power
Which is our human nature's highest dower;
Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves
Of their bad influence, and their good receives:
By objects, which might force the soul to abate
Her feeling, rendered more compassionate;
Is placable--because occasions rise
So often that demand such sacrifice;
More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure,
As tempted more; more able to endure,
As more exposed to suffering and distress;
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.

If you look into the mirror, you see that [every part of you] belongs there and you belong there, as you are.  You begin to realize that you have a perfect right to be in this universe, to be this way, and you see that there is a basic hospitality that this world provides to you.  You have looked and you have seen, and you don't have to apologize for being born on this earth.

Each human being can at once be a fighter and forgiver. When self-doubt tortures him, he most play the role of a fighter. And when his own ignorance humiliates him, he must play the role of a forgiver.

My benefactor said that when a man embarks on the paths of sorcery he becomes aware, in a gradual manner, that ordinary life has been forever left behind; that knowledge is indeed a frightening affair; that the means of the ordinary world are no longer a buffer for him; and that he must adopt a new way of life if he is going to survive.  The first thing he ought to do, at that point, is to want to become a warrior...

"The basic wisdom of Shambhala is that in this world, as it is, we can find a good and meaningful human life that will also serve others. That is our true richness."

“A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.”

“Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid.”

“A warrior knows that he is only a man. His only regret is that his life is so short that he can’t grab onto all the things he would like to. But for him, this is not an issue; it’s only a pity.”