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THE CAPSULE OF INTENTIONALITY::

THE CAPSULE OF INTENTIONALITY
A Warrior’s Tool and Field Guide for Journeying
into the Strange Wilderness of a New Millennium
© 1996, 2004 by Jonathan Zap

1. Introduction: Application for Human Incarnation
Application for Human Incarnation. A Special Message from the Author. Who the Capsule of Intentionality is for. The Secret of Life.

Chapter 2. "Get Real"—Facing the Darkness and Challenge of the Human Condition
Dazed and Confused. The Industrial Crucifixion. Take the Pain. Don't let go of the Rope. An Authentic and Viable Way to Face Human Suffering.

Chapter 3. The Capsule of Intentionality—A Core Ritual System with Two Levels
The Capsule of Intentionality as a Physical Object. Level One—The Mission Statement. Living With The Capsule of Intentionality. Level Two—Daily Mission Parameters

Chapter 4. The Way of the Warrior—An Authentic Life Stance with Heart
What is a Warrior? Don Juan's Philosophy of Being a Warrior. The Shambala Warrior Teachings. The Cocoon. Fear. Emotions —The Mindfulness Approach. Other Techniques for Dealing with Pain. The Value of "Broken Heartedness." Basic Goodness. Living in the Moment. Vigilance, Skillful Intelligence, and Discriminating Awareness.Warrior Aphorisms. The Modern Warrior: A Manifesto.

Chapter 5. Through a Glass Darkly
White Crows Rising—Evolution, Jung, UFOs, Near Death Experiences, Virtual Reality, and the Approaching Singularity at the End of Human History

6. Conclusion: Facing the Singularity
Turning a Message into Action. Designing your Quest. Helping the Planet. Helping Fellow Human. Re-envisioning Reality. Taking Responsibility for a Precarious Experiment.

I Introduction
Application for Human Incarnation. A Special Message from the Author.Who the Capsule of Intentionality is for and the Secret of Life

© 1996, 2004 by Jonathan Zap

I

APPLICATION FOR HUMAN INCARNATION

Wanted! A few strong souls willing to incarnate and successfully pursue a quest on a world of extreme peril and hardship. Go for human incarnation now and be all that you can be! Remember, it's not just a life time, it's an adventure!

Sounds great! What do I have to do?

The first step is to accept the three conditions.

No problem. What are they?

1. You must accept a fragile, organic body vulnerable to projectile weapons, sharp objects, radiation, numerous microorganisms, toxins, diseases, and innumerable other hazards. This body will, under even the best of circumstances, deteriorate inevitably with age.

2. You must accept complete amnesia of everything that you've learned before this incarnation and be born in a completely helpless, dependent condition under the control of a society of irrational primates who will saturate you with every sort of pernicious illusion possible.

3. You must accept devastating emotional pain, loss, abandonment, betrayal, depression, madness, evil, nuclear and biological warfare, genocide, taxation, frustration,poverty, rejection,torture, crucifixions of various sorts, and other sorrows and trials which can't be anticipated at this time.

Please initial here that you have read and understood these conditions:

X________

Sounds OK, but suppose I find I don't like human incarnation, will it just go on forever?

Absolutely not! If you do run into any difficulties they will be temporary only. In fact, we offer the following ironclad lifetime guarantee:

Guarantee:

Human incarnation is for a limited time only! Better than 99% of incarnates are completely released from the human condition in one hundred years or less, and you are absolutely guaranteed that everything is temporary only!

Sounds easy, but how do I know my soul will survive the experience intact?

You don't for sure, but lots of human incarnates say that it will, and not knowing for sure will definitely add to the drama of an exciting incarnation!

I can hardly wait, but when in human history will I incarnate? I don't want to get stuck in some Stone Age.

Don't worry, if you apply right now we have a limited number of incarnations available during a high tech era with air conditioning, artificial lighting and processed food available almost everywhere. In fact, if you act right now we can incarnate you during the most chaotic, rapidly mutating terminal period in the history of the human species!

That settles it, I'm going! What do I have to do?

Just send legally notarized release forms and proof of full medical coverage in triplicate. An application fee that includes the complete surrender of your soul will be negotiated later.

SPECIAL BONUS IF YOU ACT BEFORE MIDNIGHT TONIGHT:

Accept human incarnation before midnight tonight and we will provide you free of charge (please include $24.95 plus tax to cover profit and handling) with the Capsule of Intentionality and a helpful field guide that will greatly assist you in your human incarnation!

Thanks Gents for the limited time opportunity to experience human incarnation! I fully accept all the conditions and would like to incarnate ASAP!

Your Signature: X

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A Special Message to Fellow Human Incarnates from the Author

     If you are reading these words right now then you must have already signed the application for human incarnation. Don't be surprised if you can't remember, because amnesia is one of the first conditions. It's also possible that you are suffering from repressed memory syndrome as many people find human incarnation traumatic.

    A number of fellow human incarnates who have contacted me recently are finding that this incarnation is causing them inconvenience and difficulties that they feel they weren't sufficiently prepared for, and as a result they are forming a support group. A smaller group of incarnates I've run into recently have decided to accept responsibility for agreeing to human incarnation, even if they don't remember it, and have decided to take all the difficulties they are discovering as a challenge. It is for this second group that I have created the Capsule of Intentionality and Field Guide. If you're a member of this second group you probably already know that you have incarnated during a time of evolutionary transformation and that there is a quest of incredible difficulty which you must fulfill. Please take the Capsule of Intentionality and Field Guide with you on your journey. I hope and believe that they will serve you well.

—Jonathan Zap

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WHO THE CAPSULE OF INTENTIONALTY
IS FOR AND THE SECRET OF LIFE

     The Capsule of Intentionality and the field guide are designed for someone striving to live a worthy life during a rapidly evolving period in human history. They will provide you with: the secret of life on the next page, a questworthy tool for your life journey, and a field guide for human incarnation, facing life as a warrior and journeying into a very strange future. One premise of this field guide is that human incarnation is usually a very difficult enterprise, often requiring the humble and alert stance of the warrior. Another premise is that this particular time in human history especially needs the warrior spirit because it is a critical time, an accelerating vortex of transformation heading toward what Pierre Teilhard de Chardin called "the Omega Point," a singularity in human evolution involving unimaginably radical shifts in human consciousness and the nature of reality.

     But before we address the particular needs and problems of this unusual time let's consider that which is essential to human life in any era including the present. The secret of human life is that for this incredibly difficult incarnation to be worth it you need two key elements. These two elements are the secret to just about all the happiness and meaning possible in a human life. The two elements may be expressed in different words but they are recognized cross culturally and across history by the most varied traditions, religions and sources of wisdom. You can find them in the words of the ancient prophet of your choice, in the spiritual awakening of someone who has had a near death experience, and you can also find them deep in your own heart.

     The first element is learning. You are here to learn and become more aware. Instead of saying learning you could call it growing, evolving, becoming more conscious, achieving wholeness or individuation. Choose whatever words you find most suitable. This element is such a deep human longing that people can be persuaded to join the army to "Be all that you can be." Learning is such a basic drive that it takes years and years of sadistic compulsory education to bring down your desire to learn enough for society to get some use out of you.

     The second element is love. Giving love and helping others is crucial, more crucial than receiving love or help. You'll notice that I referred to helping "others" and not "people." Others is a larger set that includes people as well as any of a number of other sorts of beings from animals to the sentient entity of your choice.

     Loving and learning are the two sides of the secret of life coin. Often they will overlap as showing someone love and helping them be more aware are often the same thing. Beyond a certain point you can't have one without the other.

     Obviously, the secret of life isn't much of a secret. You've probably always known what the secret was. Pretending we don't know what the secret is can sometimes be easier than manifesting the will to take actions to fulfill these two great and ever present purposes. Focusing will and using awareness, wisdom, intuition and compassion to fulfill the secret of our incarnation, which we already know, is what it's all about. If this is what you are trying to do, then The Capsule of Intentionality and the information in the Field Guide can be of some help.

II "Get Real"-----Facing the Darkness and Challenge of the Human Condition Dazed and Confused. The Industrial Crucifixion. Take the Pain.Don't let go of the Rope. An Authentic and Viable way to Face Human Suffering

"Get Real"-----Facing the Darkness and Challenge of the Human Condition

     "Get Real" is a popular expression amongst the young in our culture. (Or it was when I first wrote this in 1995.) How could anything not be "real" so that youth would have to form a popular expression against that which is not real? This phrase comes from the same place of suffering in the human soul that Holden Caufield in The Catcher in the Rye expressed in his anguish at the "phoniness" of the world. Deep in the human soul a cry of "Get Real" is going forth today, resonating ubiquitously in the atmosphere of our world like an all channel SOS. I have found that this is a cry that erupts with a special vehemence among the young.

     Perhaps I should also explain that I have been a place to hear this cry because for fourteen years I have worked with troubled adolescents as an English teacher and counselor in a South Bronx high school and at an alternative school on Long Island. The struggling young persons I have worked with over the years have taught me many valuable lessons about how a civilization in transition lives out its crisis in individual lives. They have also provided me with an intense crucible for testing what sorts of spiritual equipment can actually help an individual struggling to evolve during the present era. Above all they have grounded my perceptions of a transforming species and forced any advice I could offer to "Get Real" and recognize the darkness and complexity of actual lives.

      "Get Real" is a cry with many levels of meaning. It is a cry of protest and spiritual nausea at the masks people wear, the commercially designed false personalities that parade before us while we starve for contact with authentic people. "Get Real" has a close brother in the youth expression, "Get a Life." Both articulate the rage felt at experiencing plastic, hollow, unfelt, meaningless lives. The deep fear in a young person of the shallowness of their own reality and life will cause them to cry out against the unreal other, often a close contemporary, who is the mirror of their own empty darkness. When someone uses one of these phrases as a put down they are unconsciously crying out, "Please God let me be more real, more alive. I am dying in the wasteland. I starve for an authentic life." The nausea and irritation we feel in the presence of phony people living fake lives is the powerful resonance of this fear for ourselves. And this fear is utterly realistic and grounded in the actuality of our culture. Ours is a culture that penetrates us unceasingly with great industrial engines of mind control in the form of mass media, especially advertising, bombarding us night and day with seductive, insistent demands that we be inauthentic, that we live in a manic, compulsive world of surfaces, appearances, mind-warping illusions and consumer goods. We're programmed to expect happiness by fulfilling industrial aims of product consumption. And when we feel the dying agony of our soul in this toxic environment, we are told to kill the pain by spending more on pills, possessions, diets and sexual objects.

     Above all we hear the cry "Get Real" coming forth from a deep core of suffering, the suffering of our collective hysterical denial of the darkness and pain of the human condition. Paradoxically, the denial of suffering and darkness causes suffering and darkness to become virulent and over powering. The denial of darkness has an analogy, which I do not make lightly, with the AIDS retrovirus. AIDS attacks the immune system leaving one unable to resist the dark power of other microorganisms and ailments. The denial of darkness destroys the spiritual immune system, leaving a person utterly vulnerable and helpless before the suffering inherent to human existence.

     Where can we see this denial of the darkness? We see it in the smiling, unblemished faces of euphoric actors in television commercials whose lives have been transformed by a new purchase. We see it in the beatific smile of the New Age guru who wants to share the secrets of eternal bliss with anyone who has a major credit card. We see it in the glowing smiles of factory made people who tell us that our lives can be transformed by lotteries, diets, self help books and other industrial versions of miracles and blessings. We see it in the shattered despair of the discarded homeless, elderly, and dying members of the human family who have fallen off the industrial road to happiness. And we see it beneath the plastic smiles of those who strive for "success", the well adapted workers who have been successfully molded by advertising to keep the wheels and tread mills spinning stimulated by caffeine, sugar, nicotine and the will to obtain the overlapping promised realms of fantasy sexual objects and consumer goods.

      We alienate and torture the young, not to mention the rest of us, with the hysterical denial of the darker aspects of life. Who can be surprised at the destructive rebelliousness formed in response?

     To be authentic, to heal any wounds, we must accept the reality of suffering and darkness. It mocks the reality of peoples' actual felt experience of life to deny the suffering involved in being a human being. To a person struggling with an authentic life advertising images and the unreal expectations pushed in weight loss, self help and New Age programs of self transformation are as artificial and toxic as being sprayed in the face with Rose Bouquet room deodorizer. This book will not turn your life into the perpetual volley ball game on the California beach with the golden boys and girls we see in the magazine ad for mentholated cigarettes. It cannot rid your life of all suffering or promise that you will lose ten pounds the first week. hope that it can, however, reveal some unseen forces at work in our world and suggest ways to adapt and grow with them. I hope that it can show a strong and authentic way to live with the problem of human suffering and be more alive and effective. But before any of these positives can be attempted I feel that we have to look deeper into the darkness.

DAZED AND CONFUSED

     "Dazed and Confused " is the name of a Led Zeppelin song and recent movie that captured the zeitgeist of teenagers in a Texas high school in the Seventies. Sometimes there are new words or phrases that capture something of the deepest essence of a particular zeitgeist or spirit of the times. I've already mentioned "Get real." "Get a life." Let's add "Dazed and Confused", and credit Led Zeppelin and film director, Richard Linklater for their insight. "Dazed and Confused" describes a state that nearly everyone in the unstable, rapidly shifting, complexity of our world bound to feel. Change and complexity accelerate so rapidly that even the source of the change and complexity, the most intelligent and adaptable of primates, cannot help but to feel disoriented. If we look about us we see that many people live in a permanent state of being Dazed and Confused, passively adrift in lives that are muddled, cut off from deeper meaning, and that require compulsive sexual experiences, substance abuse and consumer goods to remain in the words of the Pink Floyd song, "Comfortably Numb."

If you are self reflective enough to read these words than you have seen the confused emptiness in countless faces. But seeing darkness in the eyes of others is a poor substitute for seeing our own darkness. Many painful lessons have taught me that the detachment of the observer does not make one exempt from the dark undertow of the collective. Still, observation is the first step.

THE INDUSTRIAL CRUCIFIXION

     Our society is extremely effective at manufacturing personal suffering This suffering often takes the form of a hungry, restless discontent with our possessions, bodies, relationships and life situations. Suffering in the form of acute envy is manufactured by a bombardment of and misinformation about people----models, actors, and a diverse pantheon of celebrities who actually have, or are made to seem to have, lives more glowing and favored than ours. This manufactured suffering and envy creates a hunger to see that celebrities----as objects of envy and fascination------also suffer. And since any hunger can be used to make a profit, we have products devoted to servicing this appetite. For the price of a bottle of beer you can have a copy of People magazine and enjoy the suffering of all sorts of celebrities including athletes, rock stars, models and movie stars. This is the pleasure offered to us in such magazines, tabloids and various television shows ----- generous, heaping portions of steaming sadism. Whenever we feel jealous and dissatisfied with our lives we can pull out the glossy photos of Nicole Simpson and remember that the home coming queen who got the famous foot ball star also died in a pool of blood. Or we can gawk at Superman become a quadriplegic. These fallen celebrities are the Christs of our age, dying for our sins, suffering publicly that we can both love and gloat over them.

     We've been conditioned to think of celebrity as an ultimate state to strive for, an industrial Nirvana that combines buying power, sexual fantasy and the narcissistic orgasm of global attention. But the striving for celebrity seems to be based on an amazing denial of its darker aspects. Every newspaper and television broadcast tells us incessantly that celebrity means exposure to soul destroying temptations, pressures, addictions and public scandals. Like Jim Morrison, we all want to play Dionysus, even though all the legends inform us that we can play that role for only a season and then we are devoured. Do you really want to be a celebrity? Like Christ, you must be prepared for suffering as well as glory. If you want fame, be forewarned. If you covet public attention and want the collective to celebrate you as a "Star" (the industrial version of being a Messiah), don't forget that it has a voracious appetite for crucifixions. The more they love you the more fascination they will have with your destruction. So if you want to be famous, make sure you get some shots done first and be sure that you'll look good wearing a crown of thorns.

     The stars and us share a common crucifixion trying to keep our bodies in the industrialized version of the divine image. The star knows better than any of us that those who rise with their looks tend to fade with them just as quickly. This is the narcissistic crucifixion. Even objects in our society must suffer this fate. The automobile is certainly the Messiah of consumer goods, the thing , after sex objects, that is sought above all others. The automobile begins life glossy and with all the magazines and television channels trumpeting its glory. We see it posed with a beautiful boy or girl against the sunrise in Monument Valley beckoning us to paradise. But the very next year the sun rises behind a new model, a new divine image, and the gleaming Messiah we purchased becomes the fallen object, the "used" product which has lost the divine spark of corporate profit and has the status of a prostitute who has outlived her charms. It's no wonder that we love our cars because we suffer their fates. In one of the darker passages of The Bible, Ecclesisastes:3:19, we are told,

"For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all [is] vanity. "

     Obviously this is not the stuff of New Age or Madison Ave. optimism. And yet this humbling reminder might actually represent an improvement over our culture where, "What befalls the appliance, befalls the man." We also tend to outlive the glossy brand newness of youth. If a woman lives to be ninety how many of those years will she be the desired "New Model" and how many will she be considered "Used Goods?" It's a rather discouraging ratio even for those particularly blessed with the best looks. This is an industrial crucifixion. A mind warping culture feeds narcissistic obsession with physical beauty and forever torments us with how our possessions, our cars and our bodies fail to compare with the new models in the ads.

    Do you see that advertising is the most brilliant , potent and ruthless technology of suffering ever created? Advertisers are the great black magicians of our time, controlling us through our sexuality, fear and hunger for transformation. How many young women have starved themselves to death on the cross of trying to achieve the industrial divine image, the streamlined, high definition, android-like, androgynous youth? We have been brainwashed into believing that only by perfecting our looks can we enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Choose this well worn, blood-stained path if you want the impossible quest that leads you ever deeper into despair, suffering and madness. And if you do ever succeed in perfecting your body, keep the cyanide pills close at hand because commercially correct physical beauty is a rare and unstable phenomenon that no one can sustain for long. Many people clutching dollars in nervous hands crowd into the beauty factory where powerful industrial engines extract their money and extrude them as hamburger meat.

     Mind warping machinery works day and night to focus our sexuality, hearts and minds on industrial aims. Industrial strength illusions have been created to keep us on the quest of seeking possessions and looks. Illusory images must bombard us constantly so that we "Go for it." We must keep going for "it" even though "it" always seems further and further away and we suffer pain, humiliation and inner poverty. "Do it." "Go for it." Keep moving, keep up the pace and above all don't look at the souring tissue inside, keep your eyes on the video screen and swallow some pills, this car, this diet may really be the one. Just keep moving. Quicken the pace, take caffeine and sugar to keep your spirits up, buy a lottery ticket and a dream, work long hours, keep smiling for the customers and the cameras, above all keep spending, buy now and pay later, keep it moving , and one day you'll be a "success." A "success" is the industrial version of the Saint or blessed person---the one who can buy many things. And what shining grail actually awaits us in the horizon of this quest? New brands of adult diapers and air conditioned buses to Atlantic City.

     The path of the Warrior is based on inner truth and not surface appearance. It transcends looks. That's why we would be very surprised to find Gandhi or Mother Theresa selling us hair care products on an infomercial. Industrial reproductions of Christ show us a movie star handsome guy with excellent muscle definition and no body hair. But where are the original photos? If the crucifixion happened today Christ certainly would have to be slim, androgynous and well toned to get any media attention. Journalists would crowd around and want to know, "Who was your personal trainer? Did you really know Madonna? Who does your loin cloths? Do you ever have to struggle with your weight? "

     Yes, we can buy whole magazines that celebrate, even sponsorthe suffering and humiliation of celebrities. But to make sure that this sadistic fulfillment does not make us too complacent, the very same magazines will tempt us toward the cross. Every other page will be a glossy ad that promises you eternal youth, beauty and sexual popularity if only you are wise enough to buy certain toiletries or other such objects of great transformational power. Those are the pages that fulfill our masochistic hunger and make us feel the bitter agony of not being as beautiful and happy as the boys and girls from Advertising Land. These are the ads that drive us to look for the Philosopher's Stone in the form of consumer goods, some of them quite seductive, like sleek new sports cars that seem ready to accelerate us beyond suffering into a world of high performance luxury. The ads all tell us that our looks and our lives suck royally compared to the folks in Advertising Land with their blonde hair flowing beside the glossy 32 valve convertible as the sun sets over the ocean while we are waiting under the florescent lights in the dentist's office reading a magazine.

    And ours is the culture that tells us that we don't have to suffer! Feverishly, the commercial designers work to manufacture, market and export suffering while telling us that we should expect to be happy all the time, an expectation that is in itself a potent infection of suffering.

Take the Pain

     Suffering is a universal human problem. We may have bodily problems, others who treat us poorly, or any of a number of other causes of human misery. We are often the major source of our own suffering through neurotic complexes, addictions, compulsions and so on. Unlike the blissful smiling faces in New Age catalogues or TV commercials, we cannot always be as eternally happy as the bikini girl playing volley ball on the beach in the magazine ad. Sure, there may be Taoist masters living in the mountains somewhere who are beyond all sorrow, but meanwhile, back on Ranch Earth, most of us pay our dues to the gods of depression, anxiety and so on.

     The time we live in has vast underground reservoirs of despair and anxiety. Even with constant doses of escapism and self medication it's hard not to feel this darkness when it permeates the global atmosphere. And then there is always our personal share of darkness.

     Don't deny your personal share of darkness and pain. Try to remember pain is one of the essential feelings of being alive. Birth is a painful process and life and dying involve their share of pain too. The self hypnosis tape from the New Age book store won't cure you of that. An authentic quest always involves suffering. Don't be surprised or feel picked on when you discover that there are long, dark threads of suffering woven into your life that can't be pulled out without destroying the whole design. Character is formed by consciously dealing with the darkness in loving and life affirming ways.

      We must have respect for other people's suffering and not trivialize it with aphorisms and justifications designed to make us feel better. Particularly offensive are statements like, "God only gives you the burdens you need to bear." That one is often repeated in twelve step groups and has a nice ring to it. I accept for myself that all burdens are valueable learning experiences. I also recommend that stance to anyone with sufficent inner resources. But I wouldn't want to have to be the one to explain it to a child with AIDS. I’ll accept for myself that whatever pain I experience is part of my development. But if a whole continent is undergoing famine I don’t want to glibly explain that away by asserting it is their karma, or that God is giving them the burden they need to bear. Similarly, Nietzche said, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” Some truth to that but it can be pushed too far and long before he died Nietzche went insane from the effects of syphillis.

     "Suicide is painless, and it brings on many changes." the MASH theme song tells us. But if you don't want the path of suicide you must learn to take the pain. If you can't, then you are already on the path of different forms of suicide. I need to belabor this point because we've been brainwashed in our culture to think that TV commercial happiness is our birthright. Your actual birthright is both darker and more brilliant. Your actual birthright is to be authentically alive feeling the joy, hope and wonder of being a human being, but also the darkness, suffering and despair. You are a being of far more dimensions than the flat smiling stick figures in Advertising Land. The authentically struggling person is a more magnificent being with a more interesting life than the woman on TV who is beaming with happiness at the new improvements in Lemon Pledge.

     Compromising with the notion that we must accept suffering is a major cultural aim of American society. We are sold endless means to putting ourselves into anesthetized trances. We are already assumed to be in such a trance that advertisers can amuse themselves with Satanic jokes on us. We see beautiful bodies in sexual posses selling a perfume called "Obsession." This is the truth spoken when the devil knows we are completely under control. What's next, a brand of clothes for teenaged girls called "Anorexia."? We have little doubt or perception of irony when we're sold that pills will "kill" the pain. Recurrent headaches? Don't try to understand the cause or ease the stress, "Bang it back!" with Excedrin.

     Despite all human technological progress human pain seems to be a very elusive pest to wipe out. East or West we find people experience pain, and I'm hardly the first to suggest that is often an ally. Pain can be the great awakener, the great teacher. Lose your pain and you may be very disappointed with the results.

DON'T LET GO OF THE ROPE---- AN AUTHENTIC AND VIABLE WAY TO FACE SUFFERING

     In the Sixties a zeitgeist phrase and activity was to go out and "Look for the meaning of life." A wiser and more thoughtful person pointed out, however, that people out "Looking for the meaning of life." had the question reversed. Meaning in life is not a question that we can ask of life, it is an answer that we have to supply to fill the existential void. We might almost say that life asks, "What is the meaning of your life?" I believe this question is asked to us heart beat by heart beat. Our being and actions define the answer. If our answers are worthy enough, life may conspire with us to set us on a worthy quest. If we don't have answers, but only the conditioned reflexes programmed into us by commercial designers, then life steers us toward the dark, downward flow of the "Dazed and Confused, Comfortably Numb, Get a Life" folks. It's as if a black hole has entered our collective psychic space and weaker souls are being pulled into an immensely powerful gravity which is continually increased as more selves are absorbed into the mass. Don't let go of the rope. The only way to resist the powerful, dark gravity is to hold tight to our life line----the worthy core of meaning in our life. Level one of the Capsule of Intentionality is designed to recognize and strengthen this life line.

     It may be true that the gravity of conformity, passivity and mediocrity has been a power in all human epochs. But it has never been as dangerous or avoidable as it is today. It is more dangerous than ever before because human history has never before been such a boiling chaos ready to bifurcate in unimaginable ways. (We will try to imagine some ways later in the Guide.) But the lack of meaning has also never been more avoidable. With the challenges the world faces today, and the information and possibilities open to us, discovering a Sacred Quest may only require that we look out the window or open a newspaper. If we consider the two great purposes of life discussed earlier, we should realize that this is the richest time in human history. The information readily available to us if we want to learn and evolve grows geometrically. And the availability of opportunities to help others is more than present, it surrounds us, beckoning desperately from every corner of our minds, from a billion video images and from our real time, flesh and blood experience of the world. The problem that haunts us is not where can I find a worthy cause, but Which one? How many can I handle? Any one with the capacity to help others, and that includes all functioning persons who have any empathy at all and the will to act on it, can't help but to be overwhelmed by the profusion of needy souls and worthy causes. This is a golden age for anyone serious about the second purpose of life, helping others. And for anyone interested in the first purpose----- learning, evolving, becoming more aware---- this is a diamond and platinum age, the age of the bewildering overabundance of treasure, an embarrassment of riches.

     I walk across the street to the bookstore and can buy what were once the most guarded esoteric secrets like the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and it won't cost me more than a couple of boxes of breakfast cereal. Esoteric traditions that once guarded their secrets, revealing them only to tested initiates, have spilled them out into the information market, and many have done so because they realize that the spiral of human history is so desperate that it's best to put their knowledge out there with the hope that someone, somewhere can make some use of it. "Western" knowledge is even more available. Any internet enabled computer is a portal into more information than I could tap in thousands of lifetimes. You know this familiar song and dance, and it's easy to mock it as a nerd's paradise, but how many of us are sufficiently grateful for these opportunities that no other humans have ever had? Who among us can say that they can't find the information, experiences or creative endeavors that allow pursuit of the first purpose? You would have to be in a 1984 style Orwellian Dungeon that combined solitary confinement with a technology, pharmaceutical or otherwise, that cut you off from your mind, to be truly without the opportunity to learn.

     Of course there is another side to this case which, as a former school teacher, I know only too well. Most people don't nourish themselves with the available knowledge and culture and instead accept confinement to an Orwellian Dungeon and a life lived in front of the telescreen. Have you ever seen someone walk into a supermarket stocked with an amazing variety of fresh fruits and vegetables and walk out with a cart load of poison as if they were determined to be the first person on their block to develop both heart disease and cancer? Having so much esoteric knowledge and information available means nothing if someone is not inwardly ready to receive it. There is a lot more information out there than knowlege or knowing perceivers. Outward opportunity presumes a self that has the intentionality to take advantage of it. Those lacking the ability or will to be their own teachers are like trees growing in plastic pots. The soil around the pot might be the most fertile, nutrient rich soil possible, but if the roots do not grow into that soil it might as well not be there.

     But those who do have a will to learn can find nourishment in the most toxic environments. There are all sorts of real life examples of people in the worst kind of prisoner of war or concentration camps that were still able to learn. Consider Victor Frankl, a Jewish psychologist who developed a psychology called "Logotherapy" out of the suffering of his internment in a concentration camp. Logotherapy recognizes man's search for meaning as one of his core needs. It is certainly true that many people are not strong enough to learn in environments as stressful and toxic as prisons and concentration camps. The experience overwhelms their capacity to adapt and they become passive and regress. But our world, the world of someone with enough discretionary income and free time to be reading this, is a world, however stressful and toxic, that does not overwhelm our bodily needs or crush the spirit as aggressively as the concentration camp or war trauma. Certainly some are crushed by our world, but many others build their own Orwellian dungeons, numbing their minds through various means and living in an underground space of shadowy illusions.

     Sure, there are a lot of Orwellian dungeon potatoes flicking through channels of mind-warping drivel while the ecosystem burns up around them. But there are also those who, in this richly chaotic period of history, thrive upon the challenge to their adaptability that this time offers. Such people find that no time has presented more opportunities for resourcefulness, creativity, awareness and noble purpose. To enter the field of chaos with worthy purpose and the willingness to take action means being a Warrior. Being a Warrior does not mean being giddily happy all the time like the folks on TV. As a Warrior you might well look about you at this moment with some realistic fear and alarm. A skilled mountain climber would feel these things approaching a steep summit with a storm moving in. But the Warrior welcomes the challenge and strives to adapt and thrive in the chaotic flux of accelerating life. The Warrior chooses to let go of paralyzed fear or numbed out denial of vast forces of nature beyond ego control. The Warrior learns to act despite the fear. This guide is not a survival manual because we are interested in more that just surviving. Survival detached from meaning in not one of the two great reasons to be alive. And as Don Juan says, "There are no survivors on this earth." Life on this plane of incarnation has always been a temporary opportunity to fulfill the two great purposes.

     Your Capsule of Intentionality cannot magically brighten every mood, but what it can do is remind you to act on a stable core of meaning as you watch your feelings coming and going in their usual cycles. Learn to act to carry out your missions despite the feelings. I've learned mountain climbing despite a fairly intense fear of heights. What I discovered was that I could act despite my fear. Feel your moods, your happiness, grief, fear or whatever, but focus your will on doing the actions you need to do. Level Two of the Capsule of Intentionality works on that focus, and the chapter on the way of the Warrior develops an authentic, effective stance in relation to the darkness and rich chaos of the world.

     The way of the Warrior is , among other things, an authentic response to the inescapable human problem of suffering. I have field tested this approach in the darkest moments of my own life and found it viable. Let's openly discredit the pain killers that the suffering makers sell us and take our pain. The world desperately needs Warriors who can take the pain and stay true to their quests. Let's acknowledge our pain and grief and get on with life.

     (For more on dealing with, thriving with the pain of human incarnation see
A Guide to the Perplexed Interdimensional Traveler)

III. The Capsule of Intentionality—A Core Ritual System with Two Levels

The Capsule of Intentionality as a Physical Object.
Level One--The Mission Statement.
Living With The Capsule of Intentionality.
Level Two----Daily Mission Parameters

The Capsule of Intentionality as a Physical Object

     The Capsule of Intentionality is an object both functional and symbolic. On the functional level it is a water proof cylindrical capsule or container of some sort. You can find these in various places. A small version can be found in many pet stores in the name tag section----little screw together barrels or cylinders. Some hardware stores have slightly larger key chain versions. A larger one can often be made by taking the batteries and other loose parts out of a disfunctional waterproof flashlight. The capsule gives you a few cubic centimeters of portable, secure sacred space. This sacred space is to be filled by you with your most sacred essence----your quest, or the meaning you are living for. The meaning or quest is completely up to you, and therefore this is a nondenominational ritual system. The Capsule of Intentionality will work for you if you are Christian, Buddhist, Jew, Taoist, or unaffiliated.

     There are two levels of participation in the system. Level one will take zero seconds per day to perform. Level two builds on level one and will take five minutes or less per day.

Level One----The Mission Statement

     Level One participation in the Capsule of Intentionality ritual system requires that you compose a Mission Statement. Mission Statement is capitalized because it will consist of the most important words in your life. The Mission Statement is a twenty-five word or less statement of your deepest intentions----the purposes, goals, meanings you are living for.

     Writing twenty-five words or less does not take long, but composing these words is worth all the time and soul-searching that it takes to come up with them. If you can't formulate a Mission Statement then your life is adrift. I can't imagine waking up in the morning, and certainly can't see walking out the front door to do anything without an implicit Mission Statement. The fact that you may never have written down a Mission Statement, of course, doesn't mean you lack one. Your Mission Statement may well be implicit in your thoughts and actions. But it is a major step toward clarity, focus and effective action to clarify your Mission Statement , writing it on paper so that it becomes a concrete object that you carry with you always. (If you prefer not to deal with a metal capsule, another option is to take yor mission document and have it laminated at a copy shop. You could them carry it in a wallet, a back pack or other bag that is usually with you, hang it up somewhere in your living space where you can see it all the time, or all of the above.)

      In the beginning was the word...

     Our world is composed of language. If you are sitting in any sort of a room and look about you you will see that most of what you are seeing is congealed language. The furniture, clothing, appliances and other human artifacts almost all began as language symbols---words, numbers, perhaps two dimensional schematics or design drawings. Someone used language to fulfill their intention to make these objects real. Your body is composed of language. The DNA molecule you are based on is a complex structure of molecular coded information that uses protein syntax to fulfill an intention to bring the complex organic forms we consist of into being. Your mind is a language processor. Its word/thought making continues almost non stop. Breathing is an important function under both voluntary and involuntary control. Most of us, however, can go twelve seconds without breathing if we choose to. At the end of this sentence I'd like to challenge you to go twelve seconds without thinking in words....

START

12 SECONDS

STOP

      Were you able to? Thinking in words is as much a reflex as breathing. In most traditions of magic words or language are considered the key to changing reality. To know the name of a person or thing is to have power over them or it.

     When you have created your Mission Statement you will have an object of power. In writing down your Mission Statement you create an object which is both symbolic and concrete that expresses your deepest intentionality. Your Mission Statement is like the DNA molecule of your soul, a living, informational structure that creates form and life. It is a truly sacred thing and it belongs close to you in sacred space. The Capsule of Intentionality is your portable sacred space. It is waterproof and impervious to the elements. If your body can survive it, your capsule certainly will. It is your lifeline of purpose and meaning in the chaos and uncertainties of the world. Of course you could simply memorize your Mission Statement and carry it around with you that way. Memorizing your Mission Statement would be a helpful exercise. But I also think it is important that it become an external, tangible, concrete object. Your Mission is not just internal. Your Mission must involve bringing some internal intention out into the world. The ritual of taking your internal Mission Statement, writing it out and turning it into a concrete object is a true ritual of power. It is a step both symbolic and concrete toward realizing your dreams. And it is a major step, a step that logically comes before other steps. If you want to create a chair or a computer or a house you will probably start with a piece of paper on which this goal will be expressed in language or symbolic elements of some sort. If this is the logical step in building something as simple and easy to manifest as a chair, what is required to build something as complex and difficult as a meaningful life? A life formed without a Mission Statement is likely to work as well as a computer assembled intuitively, with no prior design.

Creating Your Mission Statement

     A wise man once advised me to consider everything I did in the light of whether or not I would remember it well on my death bed. Being aware of our mortality is certainly one way to cut through the trivial and superficial noise of life and discover what is most important. What will make you feel fulfilled when the day inevitably comes to let go of everything on this plane?

      Will you feel you're a winner because you died with more toys than someone else? Consider the two great purposes discussed earlier. My feeling is that a worthy Mission Statement should be congruent with these two great purposes. The design of your Mission Statement is completely up to you and what I say are merely suggestions. Use them if they are helpful, discard them if they aren't.

     A way of structuring your Mission Statement you might consider is the inverted pyramid. Reporters phoning in a breaking story use the inverted pyramid to get the most important information out first-----the who, what, where, why and when----in case they are cut off. Newspapers articles are usually written with an inverted pyramid structure so that you can learn the basic facts, often in the first sentence, and can read further if you want more details. To incorporate this inverted pyramid structure in your Mission Statement you would start with the deep, universal principles in your life and work toward the more specific and particular. I believe that the two great purposes of life are worth considering for the top of your inverted pyramid. You can incorporate the two great purposes in just two words. For example, All you could choose a word like Grow, Learn or Evolve and combine it with the word Love. Grow /Love, Learn/ Love, and Evolve/ Love work both as pairs of separate words and also connected as positive commandments: Grow Love. Learn Love. Evolve Love. Again, you may find a more poetic way of expressing this. I'm just trying to provide an example. If you are religious you could draw a Cross, Star of David or other appropriate symbol at the top of your Mission Statement. Perhaps there is some other symbol that represents something essential to your quest.

    Once the top (base) of the inverted pyramid has been created you can now move toward the more particular. For example, love can become Nurture my Family or Love filling in the name of your most significant other(s). Notice that if you begin with the unmodified word love, and then go on to specify particular persons, you are not disavowing the universal intention of love. You are not saying, "Only nurture my family and not anyone else's." You are rather making the universal principle of love specific and personal. As we will discuss further when we consider level two, moving from universal principles to specifics is the path of action and fulfillment.

     Examples of more specific derivatives from the Learn/Grow/Evolve principle would be such things as reading books, practicing meditation, remembering and studying your dreams, working on your body through an exercise program or a mind/body discipline such as dance, yoga or martial arts. Any of these could be expressed in one word. For example:

EVOLVE LOVE

Love my Family and Friends.

Tai Chi

Dreams

Reading

     Notice that the four items listed under "Evolve Love" are worthy enough aims that they fulfill aspects of both Evolve and Love. Learning balance and wholeness through Tai Chi or by understanding your dreams creates personal evolution and also allows someone to be better able to love. "Love my Family and Friends" must necessarily be an experience of continuous learning and evolution. Reading may promote personal evolution obviously, but could also be connected to love. Knowledge increases our capacity to understand the world and others, and that may allow our loving actions to be more appropriate and effective. Reading particular books or documents may help one to have a worthy career that helps the world and provides financial sustenance for yourself and/or family. As we move down toward the apex of the pyramid we write goals that tend to be more specific and/or temporally limited. For example, someone who has a life aim of writing, and a specific aim of finishing their present novel would write,

Writing

Finish Novel

     As we move further down the pyramid we may also want to include aims that are not necessarily ends in themselves but essential means to something above them in the pyramid. For example, if you have a job that is not fulfilling in itself, but that is essential for you to pay your way through college, or to feed your family, you might put this down at the bottom since it is an essential means. Means such as keeping your house and finances in order might be listed in this area. If you are a recovering addict of some sort you could put down something like, "No Alcohol." But don't put down "No Cigarettes" if you are still smoking and only have a future intention of doing something about it.

      Keep in mind that this category of means is more specific, but not necessarily less important, than any other. If you are a recovering alcoholic, not drinking may be the most essential part of your Mission Statement to allow growth and love of yourself and others. The job that is a means to an end may provide money which is sometimes useful for personal growth and/or caring for others. Such a job may not be very fulfilling, but it probably provides some useful service or product. If it doesn't, find one that does. Being a stocker at the supermarket may not be very fulfilling, but people do need to buy food and there must be stockers. Performing this humble task can be considered an act of love, as much a contribution to the community as anything. If you strive to do such a job with the most perfect efficiency you may find that it promotes personal growth by developing your discipline, concentration, mindfulness and humility. But you would also do well to strive to find the most creative and fulfilling livelihood you possibly can.

     Spend as much time as necessary to create the most incisive, concise and inclusive Mission Statement you can. When you are satisfied that you have come up with a Mission Statement that clearly states your deepest intentions in life then commit it to writing on a small piece of paper sized to fit your capsule. Roll the paper into a cylindrical scroll and put it in your Capsule of Intentionality. Now your Capsule of Intentionality is a functional, individual symbol of your quest. Keep it close. As Gandalf told Frodo in the Fellowship of the Ring movie, “Keep it secret, keep it safe.”

Living With The Capsule of Intentionality

     Your Capsule of Intentionality should be with you all the time. It is designed to be what I call a "quest object." It is both symbolically and functionally essential to your quest. A religious symbol worn on a chain is a symbolic object that may also have an ornamental jewelry aspect. The Capsule of Intentionality is different. It includes the symbolic and (if you wish) ornamental aspects, but it is more. Your Mission Statement could include a Cross or Star of David or other symbol essential to your life. But your Mission Statement itself is more than symbolic. It is representative of your intentionality, but it is also the literal, functional, language coded core of your life. And since that Mission Statement is a sacred, vulnerable physical object, your Capsule of Intentionality has an essential physical functionality in maintaining protected sacred space for this sacred object.

     The Capsule of Intentionality should be made to be "questworthy." A questworthy object should be rugged and durable enough that you could take it into the wilderness or into any environment in which a human being could survive. A questworthy object should be constructed so that it will not wear out in a life time. If you wear your Capsule of Intentionality on a chain it will keep your deepest intentions close to your heart. In stressful situations, or if you feel yourself wavering from your intentions, you can feel the capsule and the chain. They are your life line.

      If you decide to wear your Capsule of Intentionality on a key chain consider that your keys are also objects that are both functional and symbolic. They give access to some of your most valuable resources as your car, your home and the people within. Even without the Capsule of Intentionality attached to your keys it is always a practical mindfulness discipline, and necessary security measure, to know where your keys are. Keys are sometimes essential survival equipment. In this world we need to create secure boundaries and should only give our keys to people we love or at least trust. Losing your keys, or not being mindful of them, may mean that someone can invade the sacred space of your home. The practical and security aspect of being mindful of your keys takes on an added symbolic dimension when you attach your Capsule of Intentionality. Now your keys not only give access to sacred space but also contain a few cubic centimeters worth of portable sacred space. We all know that there is always a man near the President of the United States that carries the "foot ball"----- a briefcase that contains the secret codes for launching thermonuclear weapons that could likely end the world as we know it. Think of your Capsule of Intentionality as containing the Secret Code for keeping your world alive. Be vigilant in protecting the capsule and the principles contained within it. On the practical level I recommend that you have the sort of key chain where you can easily detach car keys or any other key that you might have to give to someone else so that you never have to surrender your Capsule of Intentionality. Also, I recommend that you apply a little adhesive----glue sticks are great for this---- to the threads of your capsule (assuming it is the type that screws together) so it won't unscrew inadvertently.

     Your Capsule of Intentionality represents your striving to stay true to certain principles and aims, and to maintain continuity of will through time as the chaotic storms rage inside of you and in the world about you. This does not mean that your Mission Statement needs to be unchanging. In level two of this ritual system you will be taking out and copying over your Mission Statement every day. At any time you can modify or radically change your Mission Statement. But you should never do this for superficial reasons or without careful thought and reflection. Before you change your Mission Statement you need to go into your deepest self to be sure about what you are doing. Take your Mission Statement out and copy it over once a day before sleep or upon awakening if you wish. As an absolute minimum, I would take out the Mission Statement and reexamine it, and how well you are living by it, every birthday.

LEVEL TWO ------Lifeline Mission Parameters

     Level two involves a daily ritual that builds on level one. Every evening or every morning take out your Mission Statement and write it out on another piece of paper. Then on the back of this paper write down specific goals, tasks, actions that are congruent with the goals of your Mission Statement. You can call this side of the page Lifeline Misson Parameters. For example, visit with a friend, go to work, write in your journal, exercise, buy groceries, are all examples of specific activities. You'll know at the end of the day whether you wrote in your journal or bought groceries or not. I would avoid generalities like "work harder" or "try to relax." This is a place to write down specific goals rather than self admonitions. This list is different than a to do list. First, you must make sure that every important part of your Mission Statement has a corresponding action on the Lifeline Mission Parameters side. If you have long term goals then make sure you have a corresponding activity listed on the Lifeline Mission Parameters side of the paper. If you have long term goals it is important to take some action on them every day, even if it is only ten minutes worth. If it seems silly to write down something as inevitable as "go to work" do it anyway, because the immense energy involved deserves recognition on the paper and you deserve the recognition of a major item to check at the end of the day. If there are items on the paper that you might forget, record them elsewhere so you can keep them in mind. Each one of these activities should be a "Lifeline Mission Objective" meaning something that helps to further or sustain your life. Buying groceries or picking up an application may not be very glamorous, but they are absolutely authentic parts of your quest. In fact, whether or not you carry out these actions will be the real test of your intentionality. Remember, intentionality is revealed by actions, not wishes.

(The Way of the Warrior is Chapter IV of The Capsule of Intenitonality, copyright 1995, 2004 by Jonathan Zap)

IV       The Way of the Warrior------An Authentic Life Stance with Heart

What is a Warrior? Don Juan's Philosophy of Being a Warrior. The Shambala Warrior Teachings. The Cocoon. Fear. Emotions ----The Mindfulness Approach. Other Techniques for Dealing with Pain. The Value of "Broken Heartedness."Basic Goodness. Living in the Moment. Vigilance, Skillful Intelligence and Discriminating Awareness.Warrior Aphorisms. The Modern Warrior: A Manifesto.

The Way of the Warrior------An Authentic Life Stance with Heart

What is a Warrior?

     Being an interdimensional traveler (which all of us are, see Part 1 of A Guide to the Perplexed Interdimensional Traveler) involves an arduous journey, and the stance that I recommend for this journey is that of the Warrior. Why is being a Warrior important, and what is meant by being a Warrior anyway? Language is so often a barrier to understanding. The word, "Warrior," for example, presents many problems. Sometimes the best available word has a shadow, a dark area of connotations that may be alien or even contradictory to what we are trying to convey. We want to convey the possibility of a more effective focus in our lives and the word "discipline" comes to mind. But "discipline" can also mean to punish, and our Puritan heritage gives the word an unwanted sadistic resonance. In Sanskrit the nearest word to discipline is "Tappas" which means conserving energy. There's no sadistic connotation to Tappas, but it is not a word readily available to most people. Warrior is a word that is readily available, but with much unwanted baggage. The word "war" is in Warrior, for example, and the connotations of aggression and violence are obvious. But Warrior is also a word that in certain circles has been undergoing major redefinition or rediscovery. Here's the best definition of a Warrior that I can come up with that reflects this deeper meaning: A Warrior is someone who strives to live alertly, intelligently attuned to the moment in order to serve transpersonal values.

Don Juan's Philosophy of Being a Warrior

(see also Warrior Quotes which contains many of Don Juan's greatest statements on the warrior path)

         My first contact with the unexpected positive significance of "Warrior" was in the writings of Carlos Casteneda. Casteneda writes about his apprenticeship with a Yaqi Indian sorcerer and although much question has been raised about the authenticity of these writings (Casteneda is certainly a trickster), there is less question about the great wealth of esoteric knowledge they contain. (Since I first wrote this I've seen pretty conclusive evidence that Casteneda was a compulsive liar, but this doesn't erase the genius of his books, though it does debunk his claims of veracity. If you have any doubts that Casteneda was more fantasy writer than anthropologist read any of the Richard De Mille books that thoroughly and comically debunk him. ) During his apprenticeship (real, imagined or imaginatively amplified), Don Juan tells and shows Carlos what being a Warrior means through powerfully evocative words and deeds. Being a Warrior is a total life stance, a way of facing the unspeakable difficulty of a human incarnation with grace and skill.

     Don Juan uses the word "impeccable" to describe the behavior of the Warrior. The Warrior makes decisions and acts strategically, and efficiently to carry them out. Many of the statements Don Juan makes about the Warrior are aphoristic and beautiful. Here are some examples, a few of them slightly paraphrased:

The ordinary man views everything as either a blessing or a curse. The warrior takes everything as a challenge.

Life for a warrior is an exercise in strategy.

There are always cubic centimeters of chance that power makes available to the warrior. The warrior's art is to be perennially fluid in order to pluck them.

A warrior does not allow himself to become obsessed and does not abandon himself to anything.

To be a warrior means to be humble and alert.

A warrior must be fluid and shift harmoniously with the world around him.

One needs the mood of a warrior for every single act. Otherwise one becomes distorted and ugly. There is no power in a life that lacks this mood.

The warrior performs even the most trivial of his tasks impeccably to store power.

The warrior starts off with the certainty that his spirit is off balance. Then by living in full control and awareness, but without hurry or compulsion, he does his ultimate best to gain his balance.

A warrior is never under siege. To be under siege implies that one has personal possessions that could be blockaded. A warrior has nothing in the world except his impeccability and impeccability cannot be threatened.

Being a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the last moments of our lives.

No one is born a warrior, you must choose to make yourself one.

Impeccability can exist only in the present.

Impeccability is always available.

A warrior should strive to meet any conceivable situation, the expected and the unexpected with equal efficiency. To be perfect under perfect circumstances is to be a paper warrior.

      Don Juan's spin on being a Warrior is powerfully existential. Don Juan continually emphasizes the value of being aware of your own death. He encourages Carlos to experience death physically and directly as a shadowy presence standing on his left. Death is described as a powerful ally that has the particular virtue of absolute honesty. In an interview with Sam Keen Castaneda remarks,

"...Don Juan's approach has a strange twist because it comes from the tradition in sorcery that death is a physical presence that can be felt and seen. One of the glosses in sorcery is: death stands to your left. Death is an impartial judge who will speak truth to you and give you accurate advice. After all, death is in no hurry. He will get you tomorrow or next week or in fifty years. It makes no difference to him. The moment you remember you must eventually die, you are cut right down to size."

      Awareness of our mortality makes us more alive in the moment. It is also cuts through the trivial and superficial. As I mentioned earlier, a wise man once advised me, "Only do things that you will remember well on your death bed." Absolute honesty is a core characteristic of the Warrior, and the denial of death, the illusory belief that we can put things off, is the cardinal self deception that keeps us from becoming Warriors. As Don Juan says, "Our greatest enemy is that we never believe what is happening to us." and "There are no survivors on this planet."

     There is a strong relationship between being a Warrior and the practice of mindfulness meditation where you become alertly attuned to the present moment. Only by being in the Now can you effectively engage the world. The path of the Warrior makes you a more alive, aware and engaged presence in the world. In the same interview with Sam Keen, Castaneda comments,

"It has been this element of engagement in the world that has kept me following the path which Don Juan showed me. There is no need to transcend the world. Everything we need to know is right in front of us, if we pay attention. If you enter a state of nonordinary reality, as you do when you use psychotropic plants, it is only to draw from it what you need in order to see the miraculous character of ordinary reality. for me the way to live----the path with heart----is not introspection or mystical transcendence but presence in the world. This world is the warrior's hunting ground."

The Shambala Warrior Teachings

     The most highly evolved writings, that I know of, on the way of the Warrior are the Shambala Warrior teachings of Rinpoche Chogyam Trungpa. Trungpa was born in Eastern Tibet, the son of peasants. At a very early age he was recognized as a tulku, or incarnate lama. Rinpoche began work on the Shambala teachings during his years in Tibet, where he was the supreme abbot of the Surmang monasteries where he received, at the age of eighteen, the degree of Khyenpo (comparable to a doctorate in theology, philosophy, and psychology). As he was fleeing from the Communist Chinese over the Himalayas in 1959, Rinpoche wrote a spiritual account of the history of Shambhala, which unfortunately was lost on the journey. Rinpoche fled to India where he was appointed by the Dalai Lama to serve as spiritual advisor to the Young Lamas' Home school. In 1963 he traveled to England, where he attended Oxford University as a Spaulding Fellow, studying Western philosophy, religion, art and language. Rinpoche began teaching the Sacred Path of the Warrior in 1976 in the American South West. In Boulder, Colorado Rinpoche founded the Naropa Institute and a Shambala Warriorship training program.

      (Interestingly, the two foremost writers on the way of the Warrior---Trungpa and Casteneda both had some warrior and some very unwarrior like aspects in their personal lives. Trungpa was a spiritual genius, but also a womanizer who drank himself to an early death in his forties. As Jung said, "The larger the man, the larger the shadow." Jung was 6'5", and had a shadow to match, so it was wise for him to leave that aphorism behind. Teachings are not necessarily invalidated when we find that the teacher was not always walking the talk. No one does, but there also seems to be an inevitable ironic and paradoxical reality that things tend to manifest in contradictory pairs, and each of these geniuses had intense light and dark in their characters. An intense dynamic tension between opposing characteristics is almost typical of genius. As a Tom Robbins character said, "You don't get a big top without a big bottom." This seems part of the yin/yang nature of the Tao.)

     The Shambala teachings are founded on the premise that there is basic human wisdom that can help to solve the world's problems. This wisdom does not belong to any one culture or religion, nor 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.

     What is to follow is my way of understanding the Shambala teachings. I would encourage you to read the Shambala material first hand. I would also encourage you to read Jeremy Hayward's book, Sacred World----A Guide to Shambala Warriorship in Daily Life. Hayward studied with Trungpa for years and was asked by him to write a book from a student's point of view. My summary of the Shambala teachings is not so much an objective summary but more like variations on a theme inspired by Shambala. Please don't hold the Shambala teachings responsible for any excesses of language or individual spins that I may put on their concepts. I will also quote many passages from their books directly so that you can experience their message directly.

The Cocoon

     Trungpa refers to the little world of self limiting habits with which we retreat from the world as "The Cocoon." One of the first steps in becoming a warrior is to recognize this all too familiar cocoon with which we seal ourselves off from the world. We build a Cocoon of self deception ultimately because we don't accept ourselves and the world we live in. We shroud our radiance in a membrane of forgetfulness to buffer ourselves from the vivid, sometimes harsh intensity of the world. The cocoon has a strong relationship to what Jung called "the shadow," a dark area of the personality, thought to be inferior, that we would much rather not look at. The Cocoon is the claustrophobic, neurotic place we go to retreat from the intensity of life.

     But these are some pretty abstract words and the Cocoon is as real and familiar as yesterday's dirty dishes sitting in the sink. We have to be wary about abstractions in talking about the Cocoon because abstracting this shadowy place can be another form of hiding in the Cocoon. What does a Cocoon look like? Every Cocoon is as unique as the psyche it encapsulates. To get a more concrete feeling of this concept let's take a caricatured look at "Bob's Cocoon." Bob is a stereotyped Cocooned American male. Although a Cocoon is an inner psychic space we'll represent it metaphorically as a physical place.

     Bob's Cocoon as a cramped, stuffy room. The room is cluttered, sloppy, and lit with electric lights. The windows haven't been opened in years and are covered with heavy, opaque, dusty curtains. All sorts of mirrors of different sizes and shapes are screwed into the walls. Bob paces around in his underwear nervously examining himself first in one mirror and then in another. The glass in each of these mirrors is subtly warped. One mirror makes Bob look big and fat, another makes him look like a little nothing, in another he looks dangerous and powerful, in another he looks like a square jawed movie star, in another he looks puffy and out of shape. Looking at all these varying reflections makes Bob anxious and restless. On the television in the background a seductive woman is extolling the delights of a Carnival Cruise to nowhere and we see flickering images of tables weighted down with rich food and people dancing in a disco. She begins to croon, "If your friends could see you now!"

      Bob sits down on the couch, lights up a Marlboro and flips through the pages of the Sharper Image catalogue. His eyes settle on a piece of expensive, high tech exercise equipment that seems for a moment like it might be just what he needs to turn his life around, but then he thinks about the cost and his overdue credit cards bills. This reminds Bob of his exgirlfriend who still owes him money. Bob calls her on the phone and gets her answering machine. He leaves a somewhat nasty, sarcastic message. He hangs up the phone, opens a can of Budweiser and inserts a well worn porno tape into the VCR and... well, you can fill in the rest.

     Certainly there are people who don't live in a Cocoon. But most of us sometimes regress into a personal, little ghetto of narcissistic self reflections, egoistic wants and self pity. Sometimes the world seems too much for us and self acceptance too difficult. At other times, perhaps during certain moments of peak or optimal experience, we feel what it is like to be more fully alive. At those times it may be wise to pause for a moment and look back with compassion at the cocoon behind us.

     What causes us to retreat into that Cocoon sometimes? Fear is the answer that comes most readily to mind. But fear, in itself, is not able to make us do anything. Rather it is a fearful way of relating to fear that is the real problem. Fear can be worked with. It is the attitude that wants fear to go away, that wants to be comfortably numb, that causes us to pull away, to disengage from life and hang out in our Cocoon.

Fear

     The warrior's way is to acknowledge fear, accept it, even make friends with it. Fearlessness is the willingness to face fear. When fear comes up, try greeting it with acceptance, like an old friend, and then go about your business. Someone came up with a clever redefinition of fear as “the energy to do your best.” Another well known, and valid, principle is, “Feel the fear, and do it anyway.” When I got involved in mountain climbing I found that my intense fear of heights did not go away. But what I did find is that I could reach for the next hand hold, I could continue to climb, to take actions, while I felt intense fear. Fear became one more natural element like the wind, the cold, or the density of the rock. The change I experienced in relationship to fear is fairly typical, and it may be worthwhile to further develop this personal example to see how fear can become an ally.

     My first experience with mountain climbing was during an Outward Bound course in the Cascade Mountains of Northern Washington. I was placed near the front of a line of a dozen or so people as we climbed a particular mountain. While we climbed I was so busy looking for the next hand hold or foot hold that I didn't have time to fully experience my fear of heights. But then we got to the summit which was unusually small and sloped on both sides (like the roof of a large dog house). Sitting on top of it was completely safe, but when you looked on either side there was a drop of thousands of feet. My fear of heights seems to work visually, it doesn't matter how much real danger there is, but rather how much distance I can see between where I am and what's below. And now there was what seemed like a very long wait while some technical problems developed and people made it to the summit one by one with agonizing slowness. There was nothing for me to do but sit there, that huge drop off all around me, feeling the most intense fear and vertigo. Adrenaline raced through my blood and I felt my heart pounding. The energy of the fear was intensely physical and felt like electricity running through my inner thighs and into the center of my stomach. I felt the sun beating down, the gusts of cold wind and the rough surface of the rock on my exposed skin. It was a remote area of the Cascades and there was no sign of anything man made, not even a trail, in the green valley below. The sky was clear and empty, undisturbed by aircraft or vapor trails. I looked at the rust colored lichen growing on the slope I sat on and suddenly felt the rock that was supporting me, that was keeping me from falling, was the living tissue of an organism, the Earth, that was sustaining my life heart beat by heart beat.

     The intensity of my fear had awakened my senses, physical and spiritual, and I felt the tenuous living connection I had with the earth. Fear helped to pull back the veil, helped me to experience death as an ally sitting close by. Iit stripped away my comfortable Cocoon and allowed me to be more alive and aware. It allowed me to feel the world, the earth, in a more immediate and powerful way than I had ever experienced.

      So fear is not the problem. Fear can be a powerful ally, a great and wise teacher, if it is accepted and embraced. Fear is an intense energy that can help us to awaken to the full brilliance of reality.

SUMMONING WARRIOR ENERGY

      "Being on line with Warrior energy creates a point of concentration and focus beyond physical fatigue and emotional mood swings. Correctly accessing the Warrior brings energy and clarity." In the Shambhala tradition, invoking this heightened state of energy or "Chi" is referred to as "raising windhorse." By using your will to take actions when laziness, fatigue or temptation try to slow you down you create this type of energy. In the classic Yoga Aphorisms of Pantajali, it is written that, "Energy is like a muscle, it grows stronger through being used."

The Value of "Broken Heartedness"

     One aspect of the Shambala teachings that I especially admire is the acknowledgment of the pain and suffering of the human condition. It will profoundly change how you deal with the reality, but it will not pretend to eliminate the inherent suffering. With long sustained work, your relationship to suffering can change significantly. For myself, I have found that the mindfulness approach to emotions and thoughts, and a way of accepting and flowing with life based on the principles of the I Ching, have greatly reduced my experience of depression and anxiety. (For an updated discussion of the minduflness approach to emotions see A Guide to the Perplexed Interdimensional Traveler, Part III, on the website) That’s been a great reprieve, but new challenges could bring those forces back into my life at any time. If and when that happens I expect to be learning new lessons and a new level of wakefulness. Trungpa goes even further than that acknowledgement and states that there is a particular type of emotional pain that is characteristic, even prerequisite, to being a Warrior. This is a refreshing change from the New Age catalogue where every sort of practitioner, whether they are doing hypnotherapy, rolfing, reflexology or past life regression has been photographed with the identical beatific, blissed out smile.

We've already discussed at great length how the denial of the shadow, the dark aspect of human existence, greatly promotes suffering. Also a willingness to engage the pain and darkness within is an essential ability on the path of self development and truth seeking. Consider the poem "The Wayfarer," by Stephen Crane.

The Wayfarer

The Wayfarer,

Perceiving the pathway to truth,

Was struck with astonishment.

It was thickly grown with weeds.

"Ha," he said,

"I see that no one has passed here in a long time."

Later he saw that each weed

Was a singular knife.

"Well," he mumbled at last,

"Doubtless there are other roads."

-----Stephen Crane

     The way of the Warrior has never been a way to escape suffering or become comfortably numb. Rather, it is a way to actively engage suffering, to accept it from a strong and centered stance that allows you to continue to take appropriate actions while feeling pain. As Don Juan says, "A Warrior cannot avoid pain and grief, but only the indulging in it. A Warrior acknowledges his pain, but does not indulge it."

     Sadness is not a sign of being screwed up or in need of medication. If you look at the world and the human condition it should be obvious that sadness is one of the most appropriate emotions. The Buddhists say, "All being is sorrow." Jeremy Hayward writes,

"Pointing to the place of sadness in the Warrior's path or any spiritual path was one of the most profound teachings of the Dorje Dradul (Chogyam Trungpa). So much spiritual teaching and systems of therapy nowadays are oriented toward finding contentment, joy, love, wisdom, and all the other wonderful things. Sometimes they seem like another version of the inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. People who feel genuine sadness are told that they are sick. Psychologists list sadness as one of the symptoms of clinical depression, and the latest wave of self-help books label depression---and by implication sadness---as one of the most common diseases of our time. Perhaps people feel genuinely sad that their lives feel so empty, that the society they were born into is such a mess, and that they and others are suffering so much. People feel this kind of sadness for others, often without being aware of it..." (129)

     Trungpa and Hayward make a case that sadness is not merely inevitable, it is actually a desirable state for a Warrior. Sadness can be an authentic state in which a Warrior is in touch with his or her own feelings and feels empathy for others. Sadness can be a strangely fulfilling awareness of the depth of the human heart and the poignant mystery of human existence. Hayward writes,

"An open heart realizes that the human heart is sad when it is genuine. Early American blues and Spanish flamenco---songs of love and separation of any time and place---reveal a sadness that is less an expression of depression or misery than of the depth of the human heart. In the best of these songs there is always something timeless and beyond the personal drama. It rings true to us, and we feel glad. The root of the word sad is the Latin satis, which is also the root of the word satisfied. So sadness is related to being completely full, completely satisfied."

Trungpa describes sadness as a state of heightened awareness characteristic of someone who is fully alive:

"You feel sore and soft, and if you open your eyes to the rest of the world you feel tremendous sadness. This kind of sadness doesn't come from being mistreated. You don't feel sad because someone has insulted you or because you feel impoverished. Rather, this experience of sadness is unconditioned. It occurs because your heart is completely exposed. Your experience is raw and tender and so personal."

"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."

"Arrogant warriorship does not work. It does nothing to benefit others. So the discipline of renunciation also involves cultivating further gentleness, so that you remain very soft and open and allow tenderness to come into your heart. 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 had 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. By renouncing his private world, the Warrior discovers a greater universe and a fuller and fuller broken heart. This is not something to feel bad about: it is a cause for rejoicing. It is entering the Warrior's world."46

"Experiencing the upliftedness of the world is a joyous situation, but it also brings sadness. It is like falling in love. When you are in love, being with your lover is both delightful and very painful. 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."

Basic Goodness

     The preceding discussion of the need to accept fear, painful emotions and being broken hearted should not give a false impression that being a Warrior means increasing the pain and unhappiness we already feel. The way of the Warrior is far more likely to eventually create a more positive feeling about self and life. An aspect of the Shambala teachings that seems unique to me in writings on the way of the Warrior, and related to a more positive feeling about life, is an emphasis on what Trungpa calls "basic goodness." Trungpa writes,

"If we are willing to take an unbiased look, we will find that, in spite of all our problems and confusion, all our emotional and psychological ups and downs, there is something basically good about our existence as human beings."

     Recognition of basic goodness in ourselves and the world is a wonderful antidote to the entrenched pessimism, cynicism and low self esteem that plague so many today. Denial of the shadow in our culture creates a paradoxical focus on everything that is wrong with us, everything in us and our lives that falls short of a commercial ideal. Images of perfect bodies bombard us from magazine ads, movies and television. When we look in the mirror, therefore, we tend to view our bodily reality with negative judgments about how imperfect it seems compared to the airbrushed magazine images. We may perceive our bodies as basically bad and impose punishing diets or regimens to try to make them more like the idealized images. Similarly, we look at our lives and see all the ways they seem empty or to fall short. We may also look into a harshly psychoanalytical mirror and see all the dark aspects of our personality and relationships.

     Recognition of basic goodness reverses this morbid focus. To recognize basic goodness in your body, for example, consider the fact that you have a beating heart keeping you alive moment by moment. Even while you sleep your heart works to keep you alive. If you have eyes, consider what a gift they are, what a fantastic variety of forms and colors they allow you to perceive. Recognize that your psyche has sufficient intelligence to read these words and comprehend their meaning and that you are capable of understanding and creating complex language structures that allow you to communicate with others. Appreciate that you came into this world in a helpless, dependent condition and other human beings fed you, sheltered you and gave you a chance at life. We may see how much speed and aggression there is among human beings, but consider how much cooperation there is. People may crowd a side walk or cars crowd a freeway and most of the time people are working vigilantly to avoid injuring anyone else. Go through a day and notice all the moments in which people work cooperatively with you, acknowledge you, and show some form of simple manners. When you eat food consider how much work has gone into the creation of it so that you could be nourished. Consider the basic goodness of the fact that you probably have sufficient food and water to sustain your life. Feel the warmth of the sun, the fresh feeling of your skin after a shower, the wonderful reprieve of sleep, the solace of talking to a friend and having other human beings to relate to. Trungpa writes,

"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 that you are the basic goodness itself. Therefore, training yourself to be a Warrior is learning to rest in basic goodness, to rest in a complete state of simplicity."

Basic goodness can also be expressed as "basic trust." Hayward writes,

      Feeling and opening your genuine heart of sadness is the key to letting go of your preconceptions and your interpretations of the world. By letting go, you leave your familiar and snug world behind, at least for a moment, and relax into the sacred and strange space of the real world. To do this, you need to have basic trust. Basic trust is not trusting in something but simply trusting. It is very much like breathing. You do not consciously hold on to your breath or trust in your breath, yet breathing is your very nature. When you breathe out, you trust that the next breath will come in---you don't think about it, or wonder about it, you trust. When you take a step, you trust that the earth will support you. When you eat, you trust that your stomach will digest the food. This is basic trust.

To be trusting is your basic goodness; trusting not only the basic functions of breathing, eating, and walking, but the sacredness of your whole world. Such trust grows as you step over the threshold of fear again and again and discover that the world beyond your fear is supporting you.

Your basic trust relaxes you and lets you be. It is simple, unremarkable, ordinary experience, but at the same time it is very powerful; it has a quality of fulfillment. Like the vast, profound, blue sky that is free from clouds yet accommodates everything, from the small white fluffy clouds of a summer's afternoon to the violent cumulus of a thunderstorm, you let yourself be with whatever you are feeling.

But trust can be even more basic. Even when your body is not working according to your idea of "health," you can still trust your fundamental well-being. Usually we don't experience this level of trust except in life-threatening situations, but it is a basic state of mind that is always there for us." 135

"he strange but real world is trustworthy because it is always present and, so long as we are genuine, it always responds to us. As long as we do not interpret that response in terms of success or failure, it always gives us a way to go forward. Instead of working so hard to get everything in your life just right, you can profoundly trust and let go. When you learn to let go further, you can let the intelligence of basic goodness determine the course of your life, as it does in any case. It brings great joy and relief to be able to let go in this way.

Here's how Trungpa describes basic trust:

The sense of trust is that, when you apply your inquisitiveness, when you look into a situation, you know that you will get a definite response. If you take steps to accomplish something, that action will have a result. When you shoot your arrow, either it will hit the target or it will miss. Trust is knowing that there will be a message...

When you trust in those messages, the reflections of the phenomenal world, the world begins to seem like a bank, or reservoir, of richness. You feel that you are living in a rich world, one that never runs out of messages. A problem arises only if you try to manipulate a situation to your advantage or ignore it. Then you are violating your relationship of trust with the phenomenal world, so then the reservoir might dry up. But usually you will get a message first. If you are being too arrogant, you will find yourself being pushed down by heaven, and if you are being too timid, you will find yourself raised up by earth.

Ordinarily, trusting in your world means that you expect to be taken care of or to be saved. You think that the world will give you what you want---or at least what you expect. But as a Warrior, you are willing to take a chance; you are willing to expose yourself to the phenomenal world, and you trust that it will give you a message, either of success or failure.

Living in the Moment

     An essential application of the principles of basic goodness and basic trust is being in the now and accepting and working with your situation as it is. Generally, this means respect for, and complete presence in the everyday, mundane world. As Ram Dass said, "Be here now." Trungpa advises that we apply the principles of warriorship by being fully present and mindful in our ordinary domestic life. By bringing order and healthfulness to our own household we create a healthy foundation from which we can bring healthfulness to the world. Trungpa writes,

The way to experience nowness is to realize that this very moment, this very point in your life, is always the occasion. So the consideration of where you are and what you are, on the spot, is very important. That is one reason that your domestic everyday life is so important. You should regard your home as sacred, as a golden opportunity to experience nowness. Appreciating sacredness begins very simply by taking an interest in all the details of life. Interest is simply applying awareness to what goes on in your everyday life---awareness while you're cooking, awareness while you're driving, even awareness while you're arguing. Such awareness can help to free you from speed, chaos, neurosis, and resentment of all kinds.72

It may seem that washing dishes and cooking dinner are completely mundane activities, but if you apply awareness in any situation, then you are training your whole being so that you will be able to open yourself further, rather than narrowing your existence.

You may feel that you have a good vision for society but that your life is filled with hassles---money problems, problems relating to your spouse or caring for your children--and that those two things, visions and ordinary life, are opposing one another. But vision and practicality can be joined together in nowness. 73

The most practical and immediate way to begin sharing with others and working for their benefit is to work with your own domestic situation and to expand from there.

(Note: In some of the following quotes Trungpa uses the term "drala." Hayward defines dralas as "...patterns of living energy and wisdom in the world that you can connect with when you open your mind and heart.")

... your physical environment...may be as small and limited as a one-room apartment or as large as a mansion or a hotel. How you organize and care for that space is very important. If it is chaotic and messy, then no drala will enter into that environment.... For the Warrior, invoking external drala is creating harmony in your environment in order to encourage awareness and attention to detail. In that way, your physical environment promotes your discipline of warriorship.

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. 84

If you want to solve the world's problems, you have to put your own household, your own individual life, in order first. That is somewhat of a paradox. People have a genuine desire to go beyond their individual, cramped lives to benefit the world But if you do not start at home, then you have no hope of helping the world. So the first step in learning how to rule is learning to rule your household, your immediate world. There is no doubt that, if you do so, then the next step will come naturally. If you fail to do so, then your contribution to this world will be further chaos.

Vigilance, Skillful Intelligence and Discriminating Awareness

    Whether in the most ordinary, mundane circumstances, or a catastrophic emergency, the Warrior strives to maintain vigilance, skillful intelligence and discriminating awareness. It is the Warrior's duty to remain, as Don Juan put it, "humble and alert." In a world so filled with suffering and in need of help, anyone capable of conscious, effective actions has continual responsibility. Although it is worthwhile to be relaxed in the sense of "letting go"----a state in which one is fluid and adaptable without unnecessary bodily tension or psychic rigidity and clinging---it is not good to be relaxed in the sense of a slouchy, careless attitude. There is a need to maintain conscious disciplines and to be prepared for anything.

     One thing to be prepared for is that certain people may experience this type of vigilance as a subtle threat, or as a disturbing contrast to the slackness which they find comfortable. Such people prefer the path of the party goer and believe that life is meant to be a mellow, pleasurable experience you can passively float through. Such people are likely to suggest that you, "take it easy" and "go with the flow." The Warrior's focus on impeccability and presence in the moment may cause them to be unpopular company for those who want to hang out and kill time.

     A Warrior is always vigilant and in some way is never "off duty." Don Juan and Trungpa both describe being a Warrior as a continual journey in which one must earn warriorship moment by moment. (Note: in some of the following quotes Trungpa refers to "the setting sun world." This term describes the modern "wasteland" world-----the toxic environment in which so many modern lives occur.)

The important point to realize is that you are never off duty. You can never just relax, because the whole world needs help.8-9

The Warrior never neglects his discipline or forgets it. His awareness and sensitivity are constantly extended. Even if a situation is very demanding or difficult, the Warrior never gives up. He always conducts himself well, with gentleness and warmth, to begin with, and he always maintains his loyalty to sentient beings who are trapped in the setting-sun world. The Warrior's duty is to generate warmth and compassion for others. He does this with complete absence of laziness. His discipline and dedication are unwavering.

The Warrior is constantly reminded that he has to be on the spot, on the dot, because he is choosing to live in a world that does not give him the setting sun's concept of rest.

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

Warrior Aphorisms

Finally, I'd like to conclude our discussion of the way of the Warrior with a small collection of what I consider "Warrior aphorisms." They are in no particular order, some are written by me and some are written by others, but they all express aspects of being a Warrior. Some of the "aphorisms" are actually paragraphs, but can stand on their own like aphorisms. After the collection of aphorisms I've included "A Modern Warrior's Manifesto." This document of principles was created by Akido Master George Leonard.

"If not now, when? If not me, who?" ---Jewish saying

"Grace under pressure." ---Hemingway's definition of heroism

"To serve, to strive and not to yield." ---Outward Bound Motto

The Chinese language contains much wisdom in its symbols. The two-part character "wel-ji" is equivalent to our word for crisis. One character means danger and the other opportunity. We in the western world focus only upon the danger. Yet the Chinese know the word means opportunity as well. We can open may doors and enrich our lives simply by ceasing to focus only on our fears and by looking more at the creative possibilities for action and change that can arise from a state of fear, anxiety. Outward Bound proposes that we recondition our reflexes to find energy and enthusiasm in the stirrings of fear and stress.

----From the Outward Bound Philosophy

But I will say this: the rule of no realm is mine, neither Gondor nor any other, great or small. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail of my task, though Gondor should perish, if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in the days to come. For I also am a steward. ---- Gandalf In the Ring Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien

"Man's great passion isn't sex, power or money---it's laziness."----C.G. Jung

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

------The litany against Fear ----from the Dune books by Frank Herbert (Anyone who has trouble relating the Warrior archetype to women would do well to read these visionary novels.)

Yesterday is ashes.

Tomorrow is wood.

Only today, the fire burns brightly. ---Indian Saying

"An advance always begins with individuation, that is to say with the individual, conscious of his isolation, cutting a new path through hitherto untrodden territory." ----Carl Jung

"When a pick pocket looks at a saint, he sees only his pockets." ----Indian Saying

There is no harm in falling down. The only harm is in not picking yourself up again.

----Chinese Saying

"Act on what the world is presenting to you in the moment rather than what you think of the world."-----Jordan Scott

The following is a collection of aphorisms and paragraphs I've created for myself. Some were written in journals or at odd moments when an insight occurred to me.

Magic is something to reach for when you've gone to the furthest limits of what is possible through ordinary means.

When the Warrior finds that a certain pattern of behavior or thinking never seems to produce the desired results, he will try something else.

The following defines the stance I call "existential impeccability."

     The immature attitude toward transformation is to see impeccability as a sacrifice to gain a reward. It degrades the present into a sacrifice for an imaginary "transformed" magical future. The immature approach turns all efforts into their opposite, light into dark. True impeccability is existential, it is done for its own sake, not in the expectation of anything. Only such a stance has the detachment from result to achieve the fluidity and adaptability to mean a lasting value. This type of impeccability is not "for" transformation. It is in itself the revolutionary transformation you seek. Transformation occurs when you strive to give up the expectant attitude and replace it with a lasting effort to seek impeccability as an end in itself.

     The Warrior must be aware that the psyche is conservative in nature preferring old, self destructive neurotic patterns to the unknown. The Warrior must have the insight and determination to break those patterns, particularly those created by early childhood situations.

"Don't crack under pressure."---Ad slogan for Tag Heuer Sport watches But I would rephrase it: "Don't crack under pressure, but if possible, release the pressure."

Impeccability, like being in touch with the body, brings a feeling of connection with the world: being in the moment, being connected to the world, connected to the body that's in the world.

Professionalism is another way of saying pride in impeccability---Warrior like. The professional acts impeccably under great stress.

Focus on your physical actions in your physical realm. Physically, do the work.

Intentionality is shown by the act itself. By your actions you reveal yourself, rather than by looking at yourself.

Make a decision for the moment and act on it.

Leaving the moment is self deception. Being in the moment is self love.

The bodily stance of the Warrior brings freedom and strength.

Lingering in the shadows of reflection is such suffering while the path of positive action awaits.

Fight this moment for what life has to offer.

Insight may be irrelevant and recursive when will is the issue.

     Pain is part of the beauty of the now. Pain, when experienced in long moments of time is like a fire burning in the soul. It burns and consumes the oxygen of self love with terrifying speed threatening to turn us into cold ashes. But then the cycle turns and the pain becomes sadness and one is capable of deeper reflection. By accepting the pain and sadness that you feel in the moment you enter the moment with your heart and become fully authentic and alive. Accepting that pain is an act of moral courage. Our darker thoughts and feelings, and the realities they may correspond to, are not easy to accept as what's so. But when we do accept what's so and continue to act mindfully we become a Warrior. This is the true test and making of a Warrior. How you chose to handle the problem of being when the setting sun of the West burns you with its radioactive rays and your spirit is nauseous and oppressed by flickering shadows. How well do you act toward others while you may happen to be mutating and decomposing at the same time? The Warrior must act impeccably under all circumstances, inner or outer. The Warrior must maintain balance while dark inner chaos whirls about like winds howling in radioactive ruins after the end of the world.

(end of warrior quotes I authored)

The Modern Warrior: A Manifesto

by George Leonard

1. The Modern Warrior is not one who goes to war or kills people, but rather one who is dedicated to the creation of a more vivid peace.

2. The Modern Warrior honors the traditional Warrior virtues: loyalty, integrity, dignity, courtesy, courage, prudence and benevolence.

3. The Modern Warrior pursues self-mastery through will, patience, and diligent practice.

4. The Modern Warrior works to perfect himself or herself not so much as a means to achieving some external goal as for its own sake.

5. The Modern Warrior is willing to take calculated risks to realize his or her potential and further the general good.

6. The Modern Warrior is fully accountable for his or her actions.

7. The Modern Warrior seeks the inner freedom that comes from the study of esthetics, culture, and the wisdom of the ages.

8. The Modern Warrior respects and values the human individual and the entire web of life on this planet. To serve others is of the highest good. To freely give and accept nourishment from life is the Warrior's challenge.

9. The Modern Warrior reveres the spiritual realm that lies beyond appetites and appearances.

10. The Modern Warrior cherishes life and thus conducts his or her affairs in such a manner as to be prepared at every moment for death. In this light, he or she is able to view all complaints, regrets, and moods of melancholy as indulgences.

11. The Modern Warrior aims to achieve control and act with abandon.

12. The Modern Warrior realizes that being a Warrior doesn't mean winning or even succeeding. It does mean putting your life on the line. It means risking and failing and risking again, as long as you live.

For more on the path of the warrior I reccomend the following all on this site:

Warrior Quotes
The Taoist Path
Taoist Quotes
A Guide to the Perplexed Interdimensional Traveler

Chapter V
White Crows Rising—Evolution, Jung, UFOs,
Near Death Experiences, Virtual Reality,
and the Approaching Singularity at the End of Human History

© 1996, 2004 by Jonathan Zap

Through a Glass Darkly

     When we talk about the future we attempt to look, through a glass darkly, at a landscape that is unknown and unformed. Prophecy is a notoriously tricky and unreliable enterprise. Many people who have sought to look through that dark glass saw images that were distorted reflections of themselves-----of their hopes, fears and expectations. If there is a universal theme in the visions of prophets it is the prediction that extremely dramatic events would be happening in their lifetime. The authors of New Testament Revelations, for example, described events that they believed were going to happen in their life times, a fact rarely mentioned by born again doom sayers. It is quite possible for someone to have a genuine revelation and then be completely mistaken about the time frame, or fall into the trap of being literal and concrete about what they have seen.

     Certain predictions about the future require little vision beyond the ordinary sort. A concise summary of what ordinary vision should tell us about the future is: "We're in trouble, and we're due for radical changes." The fact that we're in trouble seems too obvious to even mention. Overpopulation rises exponentially while ecosystems spiral downward. More and more children are trying to suck greedily at the breasts of a mother who has cancer and grows weaker daily. And to this likely terminal situation you can add any of your own favorite force vectors of potential disaster: plague, nuclear or biological terrorism, global economic collapse, pandemics, toxification of the environment, climate change, natural or unnatural disasters, insane mass movements and despotic governments. The fact that we're due for radical changes is sufficiently proven from the fact that we're in such a troubled, unstable set of circumstances. But it is also obvious that the metabolism of the species, and therefore the metabolism of events on this planet, have heated up to feverish intensity. An evolutionary process is rapidly approaching critical mass. Just consider how much change has occurred since 1900. A pretty safe prediction is that we are not heading into a quiescent plateau.

      So what is on the horizon if not a plateau? How can we contemplate the future development of our own species in a planetary situation that boils over with an infinite array of variables? And how can we possibly transcend the inherent subjectivity of being fully vested members of the species we're trying to predict?

Analogical Analysis

     When the human mind is confronted with the task of analyzing an impossibly complex phenomenon, like the fate of the species, one way it can assist itself is by creating an analog, an analogy to some simpler phenomenon that is of a size more workable for our type of intelligence. This type of analogical analysis can often work surprisingly well because there seems to be an aspect of the universe that is very much like a hologram or a fractal----a small part, the microcosm, seems to recapitulate the essential pattern of the larger part, the macrocosm. To apply analogical analysis to the human species let's consider the analog of a single human individual.

     A single human individual is a phenomenon at the very boundary of human comprehension. Since we are social primates, our brains have adapted and struggled heroically to understand individuals of our own species more than any other phenomenon. We are marvelously equipped to understand each other and yet each individual personifies all the deepest mysteries that defy understanding. Also, the variables affecting the future of an individual are a magnitude of infinity perhaps greater than those affecting the future of the species because the future of the species is itself an included variable in the life of an individual. So although an individual of our species is certainly a sufficiently complex microcosm, and a phenomenon that obviously parallels the larger phenomenon of the species, it is, unfortunately, an \almost equally intimidating phenomenon to attempt to analyze or predict. But pursuing this analogy as a thought experiment may lead us along a convoluted path to some place interesting.

John, a Thought Experiment in Prophecy

      To make our thought experiment more concrete let's give our human individual a specific identity.

     I propose that our human sample be named John Doe, and that he be a seventeen year old male living right now in a suburb of Los Angles, California. Of course you may be wondering why I didn't pick Olga Pietrowski, age fifty-six, mother of three grown children and a clerical worker at the People's Agricultural College in Northern Ukraine or Lee Chung, age thirty two, an unmarried Taiwanese poultry butcher suffering from a rare kidney ailment, or any of a number of other possible human samples.

     I picked an adolescent, first of all, because I feel that adolescence is the time of life, at least in this culture, that most closely resembles the present developmental stage of the species. It is a time of intense energy and change when identity is unsure, life is unstable and it feels like almost anything might happen. I picked a male adolescent because our species is in an immature masculine phase of acting out, often destructively, testing the limits, enamored of speed, aggression, and power. Like perpetual adolescents we are obsessed with looks and sex. And like John's life in a suburb of Los Angles, we are aware of so many critical problems all around us, while below there are tremors in the San Andreas fault.

     To continue our thought experiment, let's fill in some of the gaps in John's case history. John's parents are wealthy, but his father, a high powered advertising executive, a workaholic John rarely sees, is also a big spender and heavily in debt. John's mother has malignant breast cancer and is currently undergoing aggressive chemotherapy and radiation treatment which has left her in a state of exhaustion and despair. And although John goes about his life at a frenetic pace, driving along at high speeds in his red, V 8 Firebird, using his charismatic looks and charm to pick up a series of girls for sexual encounters which he later boasts about to his friends, he is actually not without feeling, and is deeply disturbed by his mother's condition. But what can he do? His mother is under the care of the most highly paid experts and they say her condition is "under control." As much as possible, John tries not to think of his withering mother hooked up to all those machines and tubes at the hospital.

     His feelings tend to alternate between acute undifferentiated rage and a crushingly dark despair. When in the rage state he is capable of violent outbursts. John has studied martial arts, and when another teenage male called him an insulting name in the parking lot outside of Dark Frenzy, an LA dance club, John beat him senseless. While still in the adrenaline rush of this conquest John felt exultant about his victory, but later that night the other boy's bloodied face appeared in a nightmare and John's victorious feelings turned to anxiety and regret. When in the despair state John can barely get out of bed. He misses school, steals Valium from the medicine cabinet and watches television, utterly bored and lethargic.

      But John's life is not wholly filled with darkness. He has a great facility with computers and a fascination with virtual reality. And, although it might not be readily apparent, John is still capable of love. When John hangs out with his friends they typically insult each other in joking put down contests, but there are also h

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THE CAPSULE OF INTENTIONALITY::