Thursday

Reflection on Warriorship and Enlightened Society

Susmita with Mogdala: First morning tea in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Sakyadhita Conference 2009-10

The goal of warriorship is to express basic goodness in its most complete, fresh and brilliant form. As warriors, we train ourselves to rest in basic goodness, in a state of complete simplicity. What the warrior renounces is anything that is a barrier between herself and others. Renunciation is making yourself more available, more gentle and open to others. When you live your life with basic goodness, then you develop natural elegance. Balance comes from joining the practicality of earth with the vision of heaven. The discipline of a warrior is not selective. It is all pervasive. Every moment is a challenge to be genuine.

Letting go here means going further into your life. You can appreciate your life, even in an imperfect situation. The further stage of letting go is to tell the truth, your true feeling without hesitation and self-consciousness. Avoiding truth creates confusion for self and others and defeats the purpose of speech as communication. The final stage of letting go is being without self-deception. Your own hesitation and self-doubt may confuse others and deceive them. In meditation you can experience a state of mind that is fundamentally good, wakeful, unwavering, free from doubt and fear.

The idea of lineage in Shambhala relates to one’s connection with primordial wisdom. Those who have been fearless in their search and fearless in their proclamation belong to the lineage of master warriors, whatever their religion, philosophy or creed. What distinguishes such leaders of humanity and guardians of human wisdom is their fearless expression of gentleness and genuineness. We should venerate their example and acknowledge the path that they have laid for us. They are the fathers and mothers of Shambhala, who make it possible, in the midst of this degraded age, to contemplate enlightened society. [the above is quoted from The Sacred Path of The Warrior]

I feel the task of Shambhala warriors is to constantly nourish and keep the connection with their own basic goodness alive. For the warrior touching the tender heart of sadness again and again gives birth to fearlessness. As the Sakyong said recently, the more challenging the obstacles, the greater the warrior becomes. My first inner glimpse into enlightened society began with a great urge to connect and communicate with the world in early 2001, almost four years before I found my way to Lexington Shambhala. As I was jotting my stream of consciousness down an inner voice stopped me to ask, if I am sure this is something I want to be doing rest of my life? Each time I said ‘yes’. It may seem like a pipedream of a person, but it is not impossible when many hundreds and thousands of us merge in contemplating enlightened society selflessly. I bow peacefully to all those in the seen and unseen who have kept the vision of enlightened society alive in their radiant hearts and awake minds. We cannot co-create a reality that we do not contemplate.