Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chogyam Trungpa & Carolyn Rose Gimian

Author:Chogyam Trungpa & Carolyn Rose Gimian
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781590307021
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2009-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

14

Overcoming Arrogance

When you are fully gentle, without arrogance and without aggression, you see the brilliance of the universe. You develop a true perception of the universe.

IN THE LAST CHAPTER we discussed ways to invoke the drala principle. In this and the next chapter we are going to discuss the obstacles to invoking drala, which must be overcome before we can master the disciplines of invoking external, internal, and secret drala. One of the important points in invoking drala is to prepare a ground of gentleness and genuineness. The basic obstacle to gentleness is arrogance. Arrogance comes from hanging on to the reference point of me and other. You may have studied the principles of warriorship and Great Eastern Sun vision, and you may have received numerous teachings on how to rest in nowness and raise your windhorse, but if you regard those as your personal accomplishment, then you are missing the point. Instead of becoming gentle and tamed, you could become extremely arrogant. “I, Joe Schmidt, am able to raise windhorse, and I feel good about that. I am beginning to accomplish something, so I am a big deal.”

Being gentle and without arrogance is the Shambhala definition of a gentleman. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, one of the definitions of a gentleman is someone who is not rude, someone whose behavior is gentle and thoroughly trained. However, for the warrior, gentleness is not just politeness. Gentleness is consideration: showing concern for others, all the time. A Shambhala gentlewoman or gentleman is a decent person, a genuine person. He or she is very gentle to himself and to others. The purpose of any protocol, or manners, or discipline that we are taught is to have concern for others. We may think that if we have good manners, we are such good girls or good boys; we know how to eat properly and how to drink properly; we know how to behave properly; and aren’t we smart? That is not the point. The point is that, if we have bad table manners, they upset our neighbors, and in turn our neighbors develop bad table manners, and they in turn upset others. If we misuse our napkins and our silverware because we are untrained, that creates problems for others.

Good behavior is not meant to build us up so that we can think of ourselves as little princes or princesses. The point of good behavior is to communicate our respect for others. So we should be concerned with how we behave. When someone enters a room, we should say hello, or stand up and greet them with a handshake. Those rituals are connected with how to have more consideration for others. The principles of warriorship are based on training ourselves and developing self-control so that we can extend ourselves to others. Those disciplines are important in order to cultivate the absence of arrogance.

We tend to think that the threats to our society or to ourselves are outside of us. We fear that some enemy will destroy us.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.