Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

Shambhala The Sacred Path of the Warrior

by Chogyam Trungpa

Shambhala is about the path of warriorship, or the path of bravery, that is open to any human being who seeks a genuine and fearless existence. The title Dorje Drawl means the “indestructible” or “adamantine warrior.”

This book is a manual for people who have lost the principles of sacredness, dignity, and warriorship in their lives. 

This book shows how to refine one’s way of life and how to propagate the true meaning of warriorship.

PART ONE How to Be a Warrior

1 Creating an Enlightened Society

The Shambhala teachings are founded on the premise that there is basic human wisdom that can help to solve the world’s problems…it is a tradition of human warriorship that has existed in many cultures at many times throughout history.

Although the Shambhala tradition is founded on the sanity and gentleness of the Buddhist tradition, at the same time, it has its own independent basis, which is directly cultivating who and what we are as human beings.

The Shambhala teachings are founded on the premise that there is basic human wised that can help to solve the world’s problems.

It is a tradition of human warriorship that has existed in many cultures at many times throughout history.

Here the word “warrior” is taken from the Tibetan pawo, which literally means “one who is brave.” Warriorship in this context is the tradition of human bravery, or the tradition of fearlessness.

You are near off duty. You can never just relax, because the whole world needs help.

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.

Unless we can discover that ground of goodness in our own lives, we cannot hope to improve the lives of others. 

Discovering real goodness comes from appreciating very simple experiences. 

We are speaking here of the basic goodness of being alive—which does not depend on our accomplishments or fulfilling our desires. We experience glimpses of goodness all the time, but we often fail to acknowledge them. 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 the 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.

Humor here does not mean telling jokes or being comical or criticizing others and laughing at them. A genuine sense of humor is having a light touch: not beating reality into the ground but appreciating reality with a light touch. The basis of Shambhala vision is rediscovering that perfect and real sense of humor, that light touch of appreciation.

2 Discovering Basic Goodness

By simply being on the spot your life can become workable and even wonderful. You are capable of sitting like a king or a queen on a throne. The regales of that situation shows you the dignity that comes from being still and simple. 

When you sit erect, you are proclaiming to yourself and to the rest of the world that you are going to be a warrior, a fully human being.

3 The Genuine Heart of Sacredness 

4 Fear and Fearlessness

In order to experience fearlessness, it is necessary to experience fear.

From the coward’s point of view, boredom should be avoided, because when we are bored we begin to feel anxious. We are getting closer to our fear. Entertainment should be promoted and any thought of death should be avoided. So cowardice is trying to live our lives as though death were unknown. 

5 Synchronizing Mind and Body

Gentleness comes from experiencing the absence of doubt, or doubtlessness. Being without doubt has nothing to do with accepting the validity of a philosophy or concept.

Absence of doubt is trusting in the heart, trusting in yourself. Being without doubt means that you have connected with yourself, that you have experienced mind and body being synchronized together. When mind and body are synchronized, then you have no doubt.

When we say sun here, we mean the sun of human dignity, the sun of human power. The Great Eastern Sun is a rising sun rather than a setting sun, so it represents the dawning, or awakening of human dignity—the rising of human warriorship. Synchronizing mind and body brings the dawn of the Great Eastern Sun.

6 The Dawn of the Great Eastern Sun

The Way of the Great Eastern Sun is based on seeing that there is a natural source of radiance and brilliance in this world—which is the innate wakefulness of human beings. 

The dawn of the Great Eastern Sun is based on actual experience. It is not a concept. Whether you are a gas station attendant or the president of your country doesn’t really matter. When you experience the goodness of being alive, you can respect who and what you are.

The world around us is regarded as very sacred, so we have to constantly serve our world and clean it up. The setting-sun vision is that washing things and cleaning up should be the domain of hired help.

An oppressive social hierarchy in the setting-sun world; there are those who get rid of other people’s dirt and those who take pleasure in producing the dirt. Those people who have money can continue to enjoy their food and ignore the leftovers. They can pay for luxury and ignore reality. In that of doing things, you never see the dirt properly, and you may never see the food properly, either. Everything is compartmentalized, so you can never experience things completely. We are not talking purely about food; we are talking about everything that goes on in the setting-sun world…

In the vision of the Great Eastern Sun, even criminals can be cultivated, encouraged to grow up. In the setting-sun vision, criminals are hopeless, so they are shut off; they don’t have a chance.

In working with ourselves, cleaning up begins by telling the truth. We have to shed any hesitation about being honest with ourselves because it might be unpleasant. 

We can always return to that primordial ground. That is the logic of the Great Eastern Sun.

7 The Cocoon

The way of cowardice is to embed ourselves in a cocoon, in which we perpetuate our habitual patterns. When we are constantly recreating our basic patterns of behavior and thought, we never have to leap into fresh air or onto fresh ground.

Propagating health to our world becomes a basic discipline of warriorship. By discipline we do not mean something unpleasant or artificial that is imposed from outside. Rather, this discipline is an organic process that expands naturally from our own experience. When we feel healthy and wholesome ourselves, then we cannot help projecting that healthiness to others. [Discipline becomes self love]

For the warrior, interest happens spontaneously because there is already so much health and togetherness taking place in his or her life. The warrior feels that the world is naturally full of interest: the visual world, the emotional world, whatever world he might have. So interest or inquisitiveness manifests as raw delight, delight together with rawness and tenderness.  

8 Renunciation and Daring

What the warrior renounces is anything in his experience that is a barrier between himself and others. In other words, renunciation is making yourself available, more gentle and open to others.

Tenderness contains an element of sadness…It is not the sadness of feeling sorry for yourself or feeling deprived, but it is a natural situation of fullness. You feel so full and rich, as if you were about to shed tears. Your eyes are full of tears, and the moment you blink, the tears will spill out of your eyes and roll down your cheeks. In order to be a good warrior, one has to feel this sad and tender heart. If a person does not feel alone and sad, he cannot be a warrior at all. The warrior is sensitive to every aspect of phenomena—sight, smell, sound, feelings. He appreciates everything that goes on in his world as an artist does. His experience is full and extremely vivid. The rustling of leaves and the sounds of raindrops on his coat are very loud. Occasional butterflies fluttering around him may be almost unbearable because he is so sensitive. Because of his sensitivity, the warrior can then go further in developing his discipline. He begins to learn the meaning of renunciation. 

In the Shambhala context, renunciation is quite different. What the warrior renounces is anything in his experience that is a barrier between himself and others. In other words, renunciation is making yourself more available, more gentle and open to others. 

Renunciation does involve discrimination. Within the basic context of openness there is a discipline of what to ward off, or reject, and what to cultivate, or accept. The positive aspect of renunciation, what is cultivated, is caring for others. But in order to care for yourself, or the attitude of selfishness. A selfish person is like a turtle carrying its home on its back wherever it goes. At some point you have to leave home and embrace a larger world. That is the absolute prerequisite for being able to care for others. 

In practice of meditation, the way to be daring, the way to leap, is to disown your thoughts, to step beyond your hope and fear, the ups and downs of your thinking process.

The warrior who has accomplished true renunciation is completely naked and raw, without even skin or tissue. He has renounced putting on a new suit of armor or growing a thick skin, so his bone and marrow are exposed to the world. He has no room and no desire to manipulate situations. He is able to be, quite fearlessly, what he is. 

Although the warrior’s life is dedicated to helping others, he realizes that he will never be able to completely share his experience with others. The fullness of his experience is his own, and he must live with his own truth. Yet he is more and more in love with the world. That combination of love affair and loneliness is what enables the warrior to constantly reach out to help others. 

9 Celebrating the Journey

Warriorship is a continual journey. To be a warrior is to learn to be genuine in every moment of your life.

Training yourself to be a warrior is learning to rest in basic goodness, to rest in a complete state of simplicity.

It is impossible to be a warrior unless you have experienced egolessness. 

Whatever the result that comes from your action, that result is not an end in itself. You can always go beyond the result; it is the seed for a further journey.

In the process of losing your awareness, you regain it because of the process of losing it. 

You can take command of your life altogether, because you are not on the side of either success or failure. Success and failure are your journey.

10 Letting Go

As long as you feel that discipline comes from outside, there is still a lingering feeling that something is lacking in you.

If you are waiting for your discipline to become immaculate, that time will never come, unless you let go. When you begin to enjoy the discipline of warriorship, when it begins to feel natural, even though it may still feel very imperfect, that is the time to let go.

Your body is an extension of basic goodness. It is the closest implement, or tool, that you have to express basic goodness, so appreciating your body is very important. The food you eat, the liquor you drink, the clothes you wear, and getting proper exercise are all important. You don’t have to jog or do push-ups everyday, but it is important to take an attitude of caring about your body. Even if you have a physical handicap, you don’t have to feel that you are imprisoned by it. You can still respect your body and your life. Your dignity extends beyond your handicap. In the name of heaven and earth, you can afford to make love to yourself.

Avoiding the truth defeats the purpose of speech as communication. 

The final stage of letting go is being without deception. Deception here does not refer to deliberately misleading others. Rather, your self-deception, your own hesitation and self-doubt, may confuse other people or actually deceive them.

When you have a sense of trusting in your own existence, then what you communicate to other people is genuine and trustworthy. [This is perhaps many people’s life’s work]

Self-deception often arises because you are afraid of your own intelligence and afraid that you won’t be able to deal properly properly with your life. You are unable to acknowledge your own innate wisdom. Instead, you see wisdom as some monumental thing outside of yourself. That attitude has to be overcome. In order to be without deception, the only reference point you can rely on is the knowledge that basic goodness exists in you already. 

The result of letting go is that you discover a bank of self-existing energy that is always available to you—beyond any circumstance. It actually comes from nowhere, but is always there. It is the energy of basic goodness.

This self-existing energy is called windhorse in the Shambhala teachings. The wind principle is that the energy of basic goodness is strong and exuberant and brilliant. It can actually radiate tremendous power in your life. But at the same time, basic goodness can be ridden, which is the principle of the horse. By following the disciplines of warriorship, particularly the discipline of letting go, you can harness the wind of goodness.

You feel both joy and sorrow. That is not a problem; in fact, it is wonderful. It is the ideal human emotion. The warrior who experiences windhorse feels the joy and sorrow of love in everything he does. He feels hot and cold, sweet and sour, simultaneously. Whether things go well or things go badly, whether there is success or failure, he feels sad and delighted at once.

PART TWO Sacredness: The Warrior’s World

11 Nowness

Nowness, of the magic of the present moment, is what joints the wisdom of the past with the present. When you appreciate a painting or a piece of music or a work of literature, no matter when it was created, you appreciate it now. You experience the sameness in which it was created. It is always now.

The way to experience nowness is to realize that this very moment, this very point in your life, is always the occasion.

Appreciating sacredness begins very simply by taking an interest in all the details of your life. Interest is simply applying awareness to what goes on in your everyday life.

When corruption enters a culture, it is because that culture ceases to be now; it becomes past and future. Periods of history when great art was created, when learning advanced, or peace spread, were all now. Those situations happened at the very moment of their now. But after now happened, then those cultures lost their now.

12 Discovering Magic 

In order to rediscover nowness, you have to look back, back to where you came from, back to the original state. In this case, looking back is not looking back in time, going back several thousands years. It is looking back into your own mind, to before history began, before thinking began, before thought every occurred. When you are in contact with this original ground, then you are never confused by the illusions of past and future. You are able to rest continuously in nowness.

By primordial we mean unconditioned, not caused by any circumstances. Something primordial is not a reaction for or against any situation. All conditionality comes from unconditionality. 

In meditation you are neither “for” nor “against” your experience. [The essence of vipassana]

The realm of perception is limitless, so limitless that perception itself is primordial, unthinkable, beyond thought. There are so many perceptions that they are beyond imagination.

Your sense faculties give you access to possibilities of deeper perception. Beyond ordinary perception, there is super-sound, super-smell, and super-feeling existing your state of being. These can be experienced only by training yourself in the depth of meditation practice, which clarifies any confusion or cloudiness and brings out the precision, sharpness and wisdom of perception—the nowness of your world. 

So drala literally means “above the enemy,” “beyond the enemy.” Drala is the unconditioned wisdom and power of the world that are beyond any dualism; therefore drala is above any enemy or conflict.

Discovering drala is indeed to establish ties to your world, so that each perception becomes unique. It is to see with the heart, so that what is invisible to the eye becomes visible as the living magic of reality. There may be thousands or billions of perceptions, but they are still one.

13 How to Invoke Magic

When you express gentleness and precision in your environment, then real brilliance and power can descend onto that situation. If you try to manufacture that presence out of your own ego, it will never happen. You cannot own the power and the magic of this world. It is always available, but it does not belong to anyone.

It is possible to contact energy that is beyond dualism, beyond aggression—energy that is neither for you nor against you. That is the energy of drala.

Drala is not a god or spirit, but fundamentally it is connecting the wisdom of your own being with the power of things as they are. If you are able to connect those two things, out of that, you can discover magic in everything. 

The basic definition of drala is “energy beyond aggression.” The only way to contact that energy is to experience a gentle state of being in yourself. So the discovery of drala is not coincidental. To connect with the fundamental magic of reality, there has to be gentleness and openness in you already.

Usually if we say someone is brace, we mean that he is not afraid of any enemy or he is willing to die for a cause or he is never intimidated. The Shambhala understanding of bravery is quite different. Here bravery is the courage to be—to live in the world without any deception and with tremendous kindness and caring for others. You might wonder how this can bring magic into your life. The ordinary idea of magic is that you can conquer the elements, so that you can turn earth into fire or fire into water or ignore the law of gravity and fly. But true magic is the magic of reality, as it is: the earth of earth, the water of water—communicating with the elements so that, in some sense, they become one with you. 

You see that you can actually organize your life in such a way that you magnetize magic, or drala, to manifest brilliance and elegance in your world. The way to do this is divided into three parts, which are called the three ways to invoke drala.

The first is invoking external drala, which is invoking magic in your physical environment.

For the warrior, invoking external drala is creating harmony in your environment in order to encourage awareness and attention to detail. 

You cannot own the power and the magic of this world. It is always available, but it does not belong to anyone.

The attitude of sacredness towards your environment will bring drala. You may live in a dirt hut with no floor and only one window, but if you regard that space as sacred, if you care for it with your heart and mind, then it will be a palace.

Invoking the external drala principle is connected with organizing your environment so that it becomes a sacred space.

Invoking internal drala, which is how to invoke drala in your body. Basically, the experience of internal drala is that you feel oneness in your body…

You invoke internal drala through your relationship to your personal habits, how you handle the details of dressing, eating, drinking, sleeping.

Internal drala also comes out of making a proper relationship to food, by taking an interest in your diet. 

Finally, there is what is known as invoking secret drala, which is the product of invoking the external and internal drala principles. Because you have created a sacred environment around you and because you have synchronized your body so beautiful, so immaculately, therefore you provoke tremendous wakefulness, tremendous nowness is your state of mind. 

Windhorse is a translation of the Tibetan lungta. Lung means “wind” and ta means “horse.” Invoking secret drala is the experience of raising windhorse, raising a wind of delight and power and riding on, or conquering, that energy. Such wind can come with great force, like a typhoon that can blow down trees and buildings and create huge waves in the water. The personal experience of raising windhorse, raising a wind of delight and power and riding on, or conquering, that energy. Such wind can come with great force, like a typhoon that can blow down trees and buildings and create huge waves in the water. The personal experience of this wind comes as a feeling of being completely and powerfully in the present. The horse aspect is that, in spite of the power of this great wind, you also feel stability. You are never swayed by the confusion of life, never swayed by excitement or depression. You can ride on the energy of your life.

Secret drala is experiencing that very moment of your state of mind, which is the essence of nowness. You actually experience being able to connect yourself to the inconceivable vision and wisdom of the cosmic mirror on the spot.

14 Overcoming Arrogance

The basic obstacle to gentleness is arrogance. Arrogance comes from hanging on to the reference point of me and other. You may have studied the principles of warriorship and Great Eastern Sun vision, and you may have received numerous teachings on how to rest in nowness and raise your windhorse, but if you regard those as your personal accomplishment, then you are missing the point. Instead of becoming gentle and tamed, you could become extremely arrogant. “I, Joe Schmidt, am able to raise windhorse, and I feel good about that. I am beginning to accomplish something, so I am a big deal.”

We tend to think that the threats to our society or to ourselves are outside of us. We fear that some enemy will destroy us. But a society is destroyed from the inside, not from an attack by outsiders. We may imagine the enemy is coming with spears and machine guns to kill us, massacre us. In reality, the only thing that can destroy us is within ourselves. If we have too much arrogance, we will destroy our gentleness. And if we destroy gentleness, then we destroy the possibility of being awake, and then we cannot use our intuitive openness to extend ourselves in situations properly. Instead, we generate tremendous aggression. [This is what is happening to the USA]

Whatever exists in our world is worth experiencing. Today, perhaps, there is a snowfall. There is snow sitting on the pine trees, and we can watch as the mountains catch the last rays of sun above their deep iron-blue foreground. When we begin to see details of that nature, we feel that the drala principle is there already. We can’t ignore the fantastic situations in the phenomenal world. We should actually take the opportunity, seize it on the spot. Invocation of the drala principle comes from that fascination that we have  and that we should have—without arrogance. We can appreciate our world, which is so vivid and so beautiful. [Drala is Zen]

15 Overcoming Habitual Patterns

Lack of gentleness comes from relying on habitual patterns of behavior. So habitual patterns are also an obstacle to invoking drala. By clinging to habitual behavior, we are cutting ourselves off from the warrior’s world.

On a more subtle level, we use habitual patterns to hide our self-consciousness.

Our standard emotional responses are often reflections of habitual patterns, as are mental fatigue, restlessness, irritation over something we don’t like, and many of our desires. We use out habitual patterns to seal ourself off to build ourselves up.

That is a precise description of habitual behavior, which is a manifestation of animal instinct. Habitual patterns allow you to look no further than three steps ahead of you. 

16 Sacred World

According to the Shambhala teachings, we have to recognize that our individual experience of sanity is inherently linked to our vision for a good human society..If we try to solve society’s problems without overcoming the confusion and aggression in our own state of mind, then our efforts will only contribute to the basic problems, instead of solving them. [Metamoderism is making the same point.]

Still, it would be extremely unfortunate if Shambhala vision were taken as purely another attempt to build ourselves up while ignoring our responsibilities to others. The point of warriorship is to become a gentle and tamed human being who can make a genuine contribution to this world. 

The sacred world is Great beaches of its primordial quality. That is, sacredness goes back and back through history to pre-history to before history, before thought, before mind had ever thought of anything at all. So experiencing the greatness of the sacred world is recognizing the existence of that vast and primordial wisdom, which is reflected throughout phenomena. This wisdom is old and young at the same time, and it is never tarnished or diminished by the relative problems in the world.

You begin to see possibilities of natural hierarchy or natural order, which could provide the model for how to conduct your life. 

You see possibilities of order in the world that are not based on struggle and aggression. In other words, you perceive a way to be in harmony with the phenomenal world that is neighed static nor repressive. So the understanding of hierarchy manifests as a sense of natural decorum, or knowing how to behave. That is, you see how to be naturally in this world, because you experience dignity and elegance that do not have to be cultivated. 

The challenge of warriorship is to live fully in the world as it is and to find within this world, with all its paradoxes, the essence of nowness. If we open our eyes, if we open our minds, if we open our hearts, we will find that this world is a magical place. It is not magical because it tricks us or changes unexpectedly into something else, but it is magical because it can be so vividly, so brilliantly. However, the discovery of that magic can happen only when we transcend our embarrassment about being alive, when we have the bravery to proclaim the goodness and dignity of human life, without either hesitation or arrogance. Then magic, or drala, can descend onto our existence. [Map to the Holy Grail]

17 Natural Hierarchy

…lha, yen, and lu. These three principle are not in conflict with the principles of heaven, earth and many but as you all see, they are slightly different perspective. Lha, nyen, and lu are more rooted in the laws of the earth, although they acknowledge the command of heaven and the place of human beings. Lha, nyen, and lu describe the protocol and the decorum of the earth itself, and they show how human beings can wear themselves into that texture of basic reality. So the application of the lha, nyen, and lu principles is actually a further way to invoke the power of drala, or elemental magic.

Lha literally means “divine” or “god,” but in this case, lha refers to the highest point on earth, rather than a celestial realm. The realm of lha is the peaks of snow mountains, where glaciers and bare rocks are found. Lha is the highest point, the point that catches the light of the rising sun first of all. It is the places on earth that reach into the heavens above, into the could; so lha is as close to the heavens as the earth can reach.

Psychologically, lha represents the first wakefulness. It is the experience of tremendous freshness and freedom form pollution in your state of mind. Lha is what refecyls the Great Eastern Sun for the first time in your being and it is also the sense of shining out, projecting tremendous goodness. In the body, lha is the head, especially the eyes and forehead, so it represents physical upliftedness and projecting out as well.

Then, there is nyen, which literally means “friend.” Nyen begins with the great shoulders of the mountains, and includes forests, jungles, and plains. A mountain peak is lha, but the dignified shoulders of the mountain are nyen. In the Japanese samurai tradition, the large starched shoulders on the warrior’s uniforms represent nyen principle. And in the Western military tradition, epaulets that accentuate the shoulders play the same role. In the body, nyen includes not only your shoulders but your torso, your chest and rib cage. Psychologically, it is solidity, feeling solidly grounded in goodness, grounded in the earth. So nyen is connected with bravery and the gallantry of human beings. In that sense, it is an enlightened version of friendship: being courageous and helpful to others. 

Finally, there is lu, which literally means “water being.” It is the realm of oceans and rivers and great lakes, the realm of water and wetness. Lu has the quality of a liquid jewel, so wetness is connected here with richness. Psychologically, the experience of lu is like jumping into a gold lake. Lu is also freshness, but it is not quite the same as the freshness of the glacier mountains of lha. Here, freshness is like sunlight reflecting in a deep pool of water, showing the liquid jewel like quality of the water. In your body, lu is your legs and feet: everything below your waist.

The interaction of lha, nyen, and lu also can be seen in human interactions and behavior. For example, money is lha principle; establishing a bank account and depositing your money in the bank is nyen; and drawing money out of the bank to pay your bills or to buy something is lu. Or another example is as simple as having a drink of water. You can’t drink water out of an empty glass, so first you pour water into the glass, which is the place of lha. Then you pick up the glass in your hands, which is nyen. And finally you drink, which is the place of lu. [Three fold action, constitute]

Bowing is giving away basic goodness and windhorse to others. So in bowing you are surrendering potential power and magic, and you do that with real, proper feeling. It is a threefold process: hold, feel, and give. First you have to hold; otherwise you don’t make any statement. If you bow to someone by just flopping down that is a very gullible bow. It does not have any heart to it. The witnesser of that bow, the person you bow to, will regard you as an untrustworthy person. The idea is that the magic of the bow, the power of the bow, actually confirms both people. When you bow to your friend or to a good, trustworthy person who also possesses that power, then your are sharing something together. If you bow to the setting sun, if you bow to Mickey Mouse, you are degrading yourself. The warrior never does that. So the bow is based on acknowledging someone else’s worth, his or her lha, nyen, and lu existing in front of you. And, as a mark of respect, you do not rise for your bow until the other person rises. 

The bow represents a complementary exchange of energy, as well as being a mark of decency, loyalty and surrender.

The discovery of natural hierarchy has to be a personal experience—magic is something you must experience for yourself.

18 How to Rule

You can combine survival and celebration. 

Normally, there appears to be a 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. The notion of ruling your world is that you can live in a dignified and disciplined way, without frivolity, and at the same time enjoy your life. You can combine survival and celebration. The kingdom that you are ruling is your own life: it is a householder’s kingdom. Whether or not you have a husband or wife or children, still there is a structure and pattern to your daily life. Many people feel that the regularity of life is a constant imposition. They would like to have a different life, or a different menu, every second, at every meal. It is necessary to settle down somewhere and work at having a regular disciplined life. The more discipline that occurs, the more joyous life can be. So the pattern of your life can be a joyous one, a celebration, rather than obligation alone. That is what is means to rule the kingdom of your life. [Discipline = Freedom]

This proclamation of self-sufficiency was one way, and a powerful one, of promoting dignity based, not on material possessions, but on one’s inherent state of being.

The first richness of the ruler is to have a queen. The queen—or we could say wife or husband, if you life—represents the principle of decency in your household.

The second richness of the universal monarch is the minister. The principle of the minister is having a counselor. You have your spouse who promotes your decency, and then you have friends who provide counsel and advice. It is said that the ministers should be inscrutable. The sense of inscrutability here is not that your friends are devious or difficult rot figure out but that they do not have a project or goal in mind that clouds their friendship with you. Their advice or help is open-ended.

The third richness is the general, who represents fearlessness and protection. The general is also a friend, a friend who is fearless because he or she has no resistance to protecting you and helping you out, doing whatever is needed in a situation. The general is a friend who will actually care for you, as opposed to one who provides counsel.

The four richness is the steed, or horse. The steed represents industriousness, working hard and exerting yourself in situations. You don’t get trapped in laziness, but you constantly go forward and work with situation in your life. 

The fifth richness is the elephant, which represents steadiness. You are not swayed by the winds of deception or confusion. You are steady like an elephant. At the same time, an elephant is not rooted like a tree trunk—it walks and moves. So you can walk and move forward with steadiness, as though riding an elephant. 

The sixth richness of the ruler is the wish-granting jewel, which connected with generosity. You don’t just hold on to the richness that you achieve by applying the previous principles, but you let go and give—by being hospitable, open and humorous.

The number seven is the wheel. Traditionally, the ruler of the entire universe holds a gold wheel, while the monarch who rules this earth alone receives an iron wheel. The rulers of Shambhala are said to have held the iron wheel, because they ruled on this earth. On a personal level, the wheel represents command over your world. You take your seat properly and fully in your life, so that all of the previous principles can work together to promote richness and dignity in your life.

PART THREE Authentic Presence

19 The Universal Monarch 

The warrior, fundamentally, is someone who is not afraid of space. The coward lives in constant terror of space.

Cowardice is turning the unconditional into a situation of fear by inventing reference points, or conditions, of all kinds. But for the warrior, unconditionality does not have to be conditioned or limited. It does not have to be qualified as either positive or negative, but it can just be neutral—as it is.

The setting-sun world is afraid of space, afraid of the truth of nonreference point. 

20 Authentic Presence

The basic idea of authentic presence is that, because you achieve some merit or virtue, therefore that virtue begins to be reflected in your being, your presence. So authentic presence is based on cause and effect. The cause of authentic presence is the merit you accumulate, and the effect is the authentic presence itself.

Inner authentic presence comes, not just from being a decent, good person in the ordinary sense, but it is connected to the realization of primordial space, or egolessness. The cause or the virtue that brings inner authentic presence is emptying out and letting go. You have to be without clinging. Inner authentic presence comes from exchanging yourself with others, from being able to regard other people as yourself, generously and without fixation. So the inner merit that brings authentic presence is the experience of non fixed mind, mind without fixation. 

He has earned authentic presence by letting go, and by giving up personal comfort and fixed mind. 

The abrupt and spontaneous process that brings authentic presence is raising windhorse, or lungta, which is basically rousing the energy of basic goodness into a wind of delight and power…Raising windhorse is a way to cast out depression and doubt on the spot…raising windhorse invokes and actualizes the living aspect of fearlessness and bravery. It is a magical practice for transcending doubt and hesitation in order to invoke tremendous wakefulness in your state of mind. And when you have raised lungta, authentic presence occurs.

Your experience of authentic presence may be only a glimpse. In order to sustain that glimpse and manifest that presence fully, there is a need for discipline. So there is a developmental process for deepening and furthering authentic presence. This process is called the warrior’s path of the four dignities.

The four dignities are meek, perky, outrageous, and inscrutable. All human begins experience the four dignities in some form. Meekness is basically experiencing a humble and gentle state of being, while perkiness is connected with uplifted and youthful energy. Outrageousness is being daring and entering into situations without hope and fear, and inscrutability is the experience of fulfillment and uncontrived, spontaneous achievement. 

Unless there is actual discipline and awareness apply, there is no fundamental sense of going forward in your life, and the four dignities are buried as part of your habitual pattern rather than becoming a path towards egolessness. So fundamentally, the four dignities must be connected to the path of warriorship. The warrior is able to realize the four dignities only after he or she has developed an unshakable conviction in basic goodness.

Egolessness is both the ground and the fruition of this journey.

The Warrior of Meek

Meekness is the first dignity. Meek here does not mean being feeble; it just means resting in a state of simplicity, being uncomplicated and, at the same time, approachable.

The second stage of meekness is the expression of unconditional confidence. The analogy for meekness is a tiger in its prime, who moves slowly but heedfully through the jungle…the image of the tiger expresses a combination of self-satisfaction and modesty. The tiger walks slowly though the jungle, with mindfulness.

The fruition of meekness is that, because the warrior possesses extraordinary exertion, he is able to accomplish whatever purposes or objective he is trying to fulfill.

The Warrior of Perky

The principle of perky is symbolized by a snow lion who enjoys the freshness of the highland mountains. The snow lion is vibrant, and also youthful.

Perky does not mean that one is perked up by temporary situations, but it refers to unconditional cheerfulness, which comes from ongoing discipline. Just as the snow lion enjoys the refreshing air, the warrior of perky is constantly disciplined and continuously enjoys discipline. 

The modesty, mindfulness, and brilliance of meek bring a natural sense of delight. From that joyful mind, the warrior of perky develops artfulness in whatever actions he performs. His action is always beautiful and dignified. The second stage of perky is that the warrior of perky is never caught in the trap of doubt. The fundamental doubt is doubting yourself, which occurs when body and mind are unsynchronized.

The Warrior of Outrageous

Outrageousness does not mean being unreasonable or, for that matter, wild. Outrageousness here refers to possessing the strength and power of warriorship. Outrageousness is based on the achievement of fearlessness, which means going completely beyond fear. In order to overcome fear, it is also necessary to overcome hope. 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. Because he has never encountered any doubt about himself at all, therefore the warrior of outrageous has nothing to hope for and nothing to fear. So it is said that the warrior of outrageous is never caught in the ambush of hope, and therefore fearlessness is achieved.

Outrageousness is symbolized baby the garuda, a legendary Tibetan bird who is traditionally referred to as the king of birds. 

Outrageousness is accomplishment without a sense of accomplisher, without reference point. 

The Warrior of Inscrutable.

Inscrutability is represent by the dragon. The dragon is energetic, powerful and unwavering. But these qualities of the dragon do not stand alone without the meekness of the tiger, the perkiness of the ion, and the outrageousness of the garuda.

The state of inscrutability is conviction that doesn’t need confirmation.

Inscrutability is a state of wholesomeness within which there is no gap or hesitation.

What is wrong with spelling out the truth? When you spell out the truth it loses its essence and becomes either “my” truth or “your” truth; it becomes an end in itself. When you spell out the truth you are spending your capital while no one gets any profit. It becomes undignified, a giveaway. By implying the truth, the truth doesn’t come anyone’s property. 

Truth is generated from its environment; in that way it becomes a powerful reality. From this point of view, studying the imprint of the truth is more important than the truth itself. The trust doesn’t need a handle.

The vision of inscrutability is to create an orderly and powerful world full of gentle energy. So the warrior of inscrutable is not in a rush. You begin at the beginning. First you look for the ignition. Then cultivating that beginning, you find a sympathetic environment in which to start the action. By not jumping to conclusions, you discover both positive and negative conditions. Then you find further starting points. By not holding on to what you have, but by generating more sympathetic environments, you playfully proceed to the next step. That provides refreshment; you are not suffocated by the course of action you are taking. The warrior never becomes a slave of his own deed.

So the action of inscrutability is to create an environment which contains fearlessness, warmth, and genuineness. If there is no appreciation of or interest in the world, it is difficult to accomplish inscrutability. Fearfulness and cowardice bring depression. Not having a sense of delight brings no room to be inscrutable. [Part of the Way of the Warrior in Trongpa’s explanation seems to include the Lover archetype with its emphasis on genuineness]

A sense of wholesomeness makes life worth living.

The experience of inscrutability is not a calculating one. When you are at ease, you find a state of true healthy mind. The cultivation of inscrutability is to learn to be.

Inscrutability is a spark that is free from any analytical scheme. When meeting a situation, challenge and interest occur simultaneously. You proceed with an open mind and with direct action. [This is Zen]

Inscrutability comes from giving rather than taking. As you give, you find services available automatically—thus the warrior conquers the world. Such a notion of generosity brings freedom from inhibition. Then relaxation develops. [What are you giving? Yourself. Your authentic presence]

21 The Shambhala Lineage

…primordial wisdom…is accessible and extremely simple, but also vast and profound.

Making the journey of warriorship depends first of all on your personal realization of genuineness and basic goodness…in order to tread the path of the four dignities and achieve authentic presence, it is necessary to have a guide—a master warrior to show you the way. [Having an authentic guide is extreme privilege]

The notion of lineage in the Shambhala teachings is connected with how the wisdom of the cosmic mirror is transmitted and continued in human life…the quality of the cosmic mirror is that it is unconditioned, vast open space…space beyond question. In the realm of the cosmic mirror, your mind extends its vision completely, beyond doubt. Before thoughts, before the thinking process takes place, there is the accommodation of the cosmic mirror, which has no boundary—no center and no fringe…the way to experience this space is through the sitting practice of meditation. 

…inner drala can be transmitted to a living human being…by realizing completely the cosmic mirror principle of unconditionality and by invoking that principle utterly in the brilliant perception of reality, a human being can become living drala—living magic. That is how one joins the lineage of Shambhala warriors and becomes a master warrior—not just by invoking but by embodying drala. So the master warrior embodies the outer drala principle. 

He finds that the Great Eastern Sun has entered his heart completely, so completely that he actually manifests the brilliance of the Great Eastern Sun, extending its light rays to sentient beings who suffer in the twilight of the setting sun. The master warrior sees the complete path of warriorship, and he is able to extend that path, provide that path, to warrior students—to any human being who longs to fulfill his or her precious human birth. [Bodhisattva way] 

You have to be without selfishness. If someone thinks: “Now I have it? Ha, ha!”—that doesn’t work. [Freedom from the known] Joining heaven and earth happens only if you go beyond an egoistic attitude. No one can join heaven and earth together if he is selfish, because then he has neither heaven nor earth. He is stuck instead in a plastic realm, an artificial realm, which is horrific. Joining heaven and earth comes only from being beyond desire—beyond your selfish needs. It comes from passionlessness, transcending desire. If the master warrior were drunk on his own authentic presence, then it would be disastrous.

When you work with others, you realize the need to be patient, to give space and time to others to develop their own understanding of goodness and of warriorship. [My task]