The Way of the Warrior—A Life Stance for Anyone Who Wants to Lead an Effective and Engaged Life

text and top photo copyright Jonathan Zap, 2011

Edited by Austin Iredale

photo: Manhattan store front window with reflections

Zones of inner jeopardy [...]

Chris, airborne, seconds before injury.

What does it mean to push the envelope? The answer is more complex and charged with [...]

One of the most potent of spells or enchantments that can bind you into the matrix is to live under the compulsion of always having to imagine getting more in the future. Under this spell you become a donkey forever hypnotized by an imaginary carrot just up ahead.

A very practical and grounded way to navigate your pathway through a chaotic world.

photo and text copyright Jonathan Zap 2006

I’ve been getting a lot of messages from people that reflect a deep unhappiness [...]

“Mechanical resistance” is one of the great defining aspects of the matrix in which we are presently incarnated. It is a force in our lives as powerful as gravity or mortality and it overlaps and influences almost any area or parameter of our incarnation we can possibly think of—-corporeality, illness, aging, money, sexuality, time, objects, consumerism, computers, technology, art, travel…

Introduction. © Jonathan Zap 2004

Someone once described stories as “equipment for living.” Quality fiction does fit that definition and, of [...]

This is chapter IV of my book, The Capsule of Intentionality, in which I present a summary of the warrior stance from personal experience and a variety of traditions.

The following quote collection has been culled from the Casteneda books and represents a distillation of Don Juan’s philosophy of the warrior. Regardless of what you may think of the literal veracity of these books(they have been pretty successfully debunked as truthful encounters), they were for many in our culture, including me, the first encounter with the philosophy of the warrior. Don Juan’s teachings about the Warrior stance have the perfection of a Samurai sword or arrows shot by a master Zen archer. Their concise, penetrating power is unequaled, and they pierce ego illusions like diamond bullets. Taken together they amount to a Toltec Warrior Manifesto. Someone once defined stories as “equipment for living.” Don Juan’s warrior teachings are also equipment for living, something never to leave behind, like a blade of impervious metal, a powerful ally to accompany you into any sort of wilderness.

The following quotes come from Back to Beginnings, Reflections on the Tao by Huanchu Daoren, translated by Thomas Cleary. They [...]