As long as a person is involved with warfare, trying to defend or attack, then his action is not sacred; it is mundane, dualistic, a battlefield situation.
Interpretation
Warfare and conflict strip actions of their sacredness, reducing them to mundane tasks.
This quote by Chogyam Trungpa emphasizes that when individuals engage in warfare, whether in defense or attack, their actions become tainted by the dualistic nature of conflict, lacking spiritual significance and transforming into mere tactical maneuvers. The author's perspective suggests that true sanctity is found beyond the realm of violence and struggle, highlighting a deeper philosophical understanding of actions in their purest form.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the ethics of war in a philosophy class.
Meditation _x000D_ practice begins by sitting down and assuming your seat cross-legged on _x000D_ the ground. You begin to feel that by simply being on the spot, your _x000D_ life can become workable and even wonderful. You realize that you are _x000D_ capable of sitting like a king or queen on a throne. The regalness of _x000D_ that situation shows you the... dignity that comes from being still and _x000D_ simple.
If you must begin then go all the way, because if you begin and quit, the unfinished business you have left behind begins to haunt you all the time.
The basics teachings of Buddha are about understanding what we are, who we are, why we are. When we begin to realize what we are, who we are, why we are, then we begin to realize what we are not, who we are not, why we are not. We begin to realize that we don't have basic, substantial, solid, fundamental ground that we can exert anymore. We begin to realize that our ideas of security and our concept of freedom have been purely phantom experiences.
Warriorship does not refer to making war on others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution. Warriorship is the tradition of human bravery, or the tradition of fearlessness.
Our life is an endless journey; it is like a broad highway that extends infinitely into the distance. The practice of meditation provides a vehicle to travel on that road. Our journey consists of constant ups and downs.
But again and again, we should reflect back to the darkness of the cocoon. In order to inspire ourselves forward, we must look back to see the contrast with the place we came from. You see, we cannot reject the world of the cocoon - which out which we may create a new cocoon. When we see the suffering that occured in the old cocoon, that inspires us to go forward in our journey of warriorship. It is a journey that is unfolding within us.
The mill wheel turns, it turns forever, though what is uppermost remains not so.
Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people's pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else's responsibility and not our own.
It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.
Lies are told only to convey to someone that one has no need either of him or his good opinion.
I wanted to swallow myself by opening my mouth very wide and turning it over my head so that it would take in my whole body, and then the Universe, until all that would remain of me would be a ball of eaten thing which little by little would be annihilated: that is how I see the end of the world.
This is the bravoβs dance, the water dance, swift and sudden. All men are made of water, do you know this? When you pierce them, the water leaks out and they die.
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