Chogyam Trungpa is the teacher of Pema Chodron. It was Pema’s work Places That Scare You that opened my eyes to the beauty of Buddhism. It was pure delight going back to the source and reading about his vision of enlightenment. I can clearly remember riding a bus from Bacolod to Sipalay while reading The Shambhalla Warrior and I must have smiled the smile of an enlightened soul reading about wisdom, courage, and compassion while the bus was winding its way around roads hugging steep cliffs, the sun’s rays shining on me, and a magnificent view of the sea serving as a backdrop.
Chogyam teaches us to be genuine every moment. Being genuine means seeing ourselves as we are, and seeing our world as it is, and having the courage to live every moment unencumbered by ego. It means having compassion for others and for the self in recognition of the suffering we all bear as human beings. Life is full of suffering because of our failure to see and accept the world as it is, a world that is impermanent and full of pain, but also a world full of beauty and wonder if we only learn to keep the mind still.
Mindfulness is the key to becoming a Shambhalla warrior. To live mindfully is to be self aware and to have respect for other beings. It is difficult to live mindfully if one has to think about so many problems at work and at home, but it is precisely through watching our thoughts and focusing on our breath during meditation that we learn to stay still and stop resisting the reality of life. It is not by running away from the stressful, and hectic life in the 21s century that one becomes enlightened. It is precisely by living in the middle of all of this chaos and finding inner peace that one becomes a warrior.
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