04-26-2014, 12:00 AM
The Art of the Warrior
Posted on April 6, 2011 by admin
By Wildflower
Repost from: http://koyotetheblind.com/articles/
The Art of the Warrior (Audio)
We live in a world filled with movement, life, death, joy, pain—an intense chaos. The forces of nature are profound and powerful. The societies we have been born into, the ones we re-create moment by moment, drive us, push us, and pull us. We make every attempt to secure a sense of order, of peace, of harmony in the midst of the chaos. We attempt this by devising and exercising mechanisms of control. We build personalities over time, ways of being in the world, ways of dealing with the intensity of the fluctuations. We fight desperately to survive, to understand, to gain stability, in this game we call life. After enough practice, we become experts at dealing with this seemingly chaotic reality. We maneuver through it like machines, desensitized to the underlying reality, conflicted, divided.
The mind is infinitely adjusting, constantly seeking to dissect and digest the intense vibrations of everything and nothing—so much so that we begin to live in the mind. The mind takes notice of every movement. It fills in the gaps of the reality we perceive. The mind, if allowed to dominate, taints our perceptions with meaning, with categories, with expectations.
We live, however, in a reality that is changing, shifting much too rapidly for our mental constructions to endure. Sooner or later we come to a moment when we encounter that which is far too unsettling. We are faced with a reality that disarms us, that wakes us up even if only for a split second. We suddenly feel the intensity of all the chaos falling upon us like a wave that drowns and destroys everything in its path. We can no longer understand or dissect or construct. We are naked in those moments, vulnerable, beautiful. Momentarily experiencing the burning of an inexplicable reality, we are overwhelmed by a transcending emotion. We can either choose to be alive in that small death, to bathe in the beauty of the floodgates, to expand in every direction and allow the flooding fire to burn deeply or we can choose to desperately hold on to what we’ve built. We can die a horrible death this way, never perceiving the beauty of such a moment.
When this momentary death occurs, when the world begins to fall apart before us, when the chaos becomes too overwhelming, there is an opportunity to penetrate the underlying unified stream, the ever-present force, the unwavering clarity that penetrates all.
But how can you adjust to these new bursts, to these new pathways being formed? When the edges of the world become thin, when the backdrops of a familiar world slowly disintegrate, how can you keep moving? How can you allow yourself to feel deeply and be unmoved? Can the intense fear disappear? Or can you simply learn to move in awareness with it, walking towards the bright emptiness with fear on the side as a shadow?
There is a formula, a formula that can be shared but never given. It is already within. The formula, the method, involves a deep stillness that comes only from within. As the world, as the mind swims in the chaos, the powerful force knows exactly how to direct itself. This inner knowledge is never easily accessible, for it has been perceived as lost, almost non-existent, incoherent. But you can come to feel its force as all the elements within begin to unify. This force lies in the heart, in the very center of the being. It is the stream that connects and communicates through higher emotions. When you can see the fears of the mind and its attempts as simple background noise; the divisions and categories as illusions; and the chaos as penetrable, that force within becomes clearer. When you can hold true to intent and never deviate, you begin to strengthen an inner order, to create an inner unification, and through this inner clarity you can walk through the world with deep intensity and unmoving lucidity.
Posted on April 6, 2011 by admin
By Wildflower
Repost from: http://koyotetheblind.com/articles/
The Art of the Warrior (Audio)
We live in a world filled with movement, life, death, joy, pain—an intense chaos. The forces of nature are profound and powerful. The societies we have been born into, the ones we re-create moment by moment, drive us, push us, and pull us. We make every attempt to secure a sense of order, of peace, of harmony in the midst of the chaos. We attempt this by devising and exercising mechanisms of control. We build personalities over time, ways of being in the world, ways of dealing with the intensity of the fluctuations. We fight desperately to survive, to understand, to gain stability, in this game we call life. After enough practice, we become experts at dealing with this seemingly chaotic reality. We maneuver through it like machines, desensitized to the underlying reality, conflicted, divided.
The mind is infinitely adjusting, constantly seeking to dissect and digest the intense vibrations of everything and nothing—so much so that we begin to live in the mind. The mind takes notice of every movement. It fills in the gaps of the reality we perceive. The mind, if allowed to dominate, taints our perceptions with meaning, with categories, with expectations.
We live, however, in a reality that is changing, shifting much too rapidly for our mental constructions to endure. Sooner or later we come to a moment when we encounter that which is far too unsettling. We are faced with a reality that disarms us, that wakes us up even if only for a split second. We suddenly feel the intensity of all the chaos falling upon us like a wave that drowns and destroys everything in its path. We can no longer understand or dissect or construct. We are naked in those moments, vulnerable, beautiful. Momentarily experiencing the burning of an inexplicable reality, we are overwhelmed by a transcending emotion. We can either choose to be alive in that small death, to bathe in the beauty of the floodgates, to expand in every direction and allow the flooding fire to burn deeply or we can choose to desperately hold on to what we’ve built. We can die a horrible death this way, never perceiving the beauty of such a moment.
When this momentary death occurs, when the world begins to fall apart before us, when the chaos becomes too overwhelming, there is an opportunity to penetrate the underlying unified stream, the ever-present force, the unwavering clarity that penetrates all.
But how can you adjust to these new bursts, to these new pathways being formed? When the edges of the world become thin, when the backdrops of a familiar world slowly disintegrate, how can you keep moving? How can you allow yourself to feel deeply and be unmoved? Can the intense fear disappear? Or can you simply learn to move in awareness with it, walking towards the bright emptiness with fear on the side as a shadow?
There is a formula, a formula that can be shared but never given. It is already within. The formula, the method, involves a deep stillness that comes only from within. As the world, as the mind swims in the chaos, the powerful force knows exactly how to direct itself. This inner knowledge is never easily accessible, for it has been perceived as lost, almost non-existent, incoherent. But you can come to feel its force as all the elements within begin to unify. This force lies in the heart, in the very center of the being. It is the stream that connects and communicates through higher emotions. When you can see the fears of the mind and its attempts as simple background noise; the divisions and categories as illusions; and the chaos as penetrable, that force within becomes clearer. When you can hold true to intent and never deviate, you begin to strengthen an inner order, to create an inner unification, and through this inner clarity you can walk through the world with deep intensity and unmoving lucidity.