Question to a Warrior

[ShaolinDan]

The biosphere is nothing but a paper-thin skin on a roughly spherical gigantic rock in a humongous universe. Why uplift the scrabbling imperatives of tiny components of the biosphere viewed in isolation to the status of guide to reality?

I like this.

[RenDaHai]

問「武」。曰：「克。」未達。曰：「勝己之私之謂克。」

Scholar: 'Master, what is the meaning of 武 'Martial nature'?

Master: Conquest!

Scholar: I do not understand....

Master: Overcoming your own selfishness is called conquest!

--- Yang Xiong (53 BC --- AD 18)


Seems to me overcoming selfishness would define the sage as well as the warrior.

[MarathonTmatt]

Maybe the question can be rephrased like this:

Suppose an angel appeared and told you that if you put in the effort you will suceed at becoming either:

One of a handful of the very best fighters and martial teachers of your generation (in whatever form of martial art you like)

or

A holy or truly wise person (in whatever religion or philosophy you believe in, a Saint, a Bodhisattva or Arahant, Enlightened being, born-again-saved, Spocklike ultimately rational, Taoist sage or whatever).

But the angel says you can’t be both. The one would exclude the other. In fact gaining the one would make you at best mediocre at the other.

Which would you choose?

Okay well said. In this case there is a clear distinction between the two. IMO when I read this type of logic it is like magically making everything to be black or white. The color green is allowed to exist but the color red isn't. You may use your right arm but not your left. And than I say to myself- life isn't really like this so why bother with questions like this. I am not trying to argue. I see the point. But just sayin'.

[bawang]

If you meet the Buddha, kill him.

The angel too.

reported for death threat

[-N-]

reported for death threat

The death of delusion is freedom.

[SteveLau]

To me, the spiritual is more important. But when the situation is of great stake, the fight is more important.



Regards,

KC
Hong Kong

[rett2]

To me, the reason to bother with questions like this is to clarify to ourselves which aspect is more important to us, as a way of investigating our values.

Of course there is a clear distinction between the two, at least at the obvious level. Arguing that spirituality and fighting can be combined is what’s hard. It requires abstract arguments , such as redefining both of them in order to get them to appear to go together. (Like talking about "fighting selfishness"). A general and a zen master are two incredibly different types of characters. It takes intellectual acrobatics (or fuzziness) to try to say they're "really the same".

We can easily distinguish between green and red paint in isolation. A good painter might see some brown paint and recognize exactly which red and green pigments it contains. In trying to understand the character of a person combining martial and spiritual virtues we should try to do the same.

Perhaps the martial and the spiritual can be combined, but to understand how we need to look at them separately first. Otherwise what's good about each of them easily gets diluted and washed out, and we're left with incense smokescreens and bishops sprinkling holy water on crusaders.

[RenDaHai]

Of course there is a clear distinction between the two, at least at the obvious level. Arguing that spirituality and fighting can be combined is what’s hard. It requires abstract arguments , such as redefining both of them in order to get them to appear to go together. (Like talking about "fighting selfishness"). A general and a zen master are two incredibly different types of characters. It takes intellectual acrobatics (or fuzziness) to try to say they're "really the same".

But clearly we are not talking about isolated actions of fighters and priests, we are looking for an attitude of mind, the thing that is in a higher order that shapes our actions.

Ice, water and steam three incredibly different manifestations but are all the same substance. The actions of the General and the Scholar are very different but the mind is the same. A general who was simply vicious could not be considered a general, a sage who simply denied the darker aspects of human nature would be no sage. Circumstances dictate their difference. If a man would contrive to save his own life at all costs then there is nothing he would not do. Such a man cannot possibly be a warrior or a sage. Accepting that there are things which are heavier than your life is essential to both.

The Non-self state of mind is talked about equally amongst the warriors and the sages in the ancient far-east. The confucians called it 'Reverent composure' the zen sect called it 'void of mind', modern people call it 'being in the zone'. Without making complicated plans or desiring the 'fruits of action' the mind is not 'attached' and therefore free to react in accordance with the nature of the circumstances. A kind of objective view, hence they call it overcoming selfishness (subjectivity). Such a state of mind is said to beget the perfect warrior and the perfect sage.

[bawang]

although this is a troll thread, sanjuro ronin is the only guy that is qualified to answer because he was actually in the military.

this is the forum that made fun of the mma guy that sacrificed his life taking down a robber talking about warrior spirit

all i know about warrior spirit is, not to brag on the internet about your daughter being a pole dancing champion

[mickey]

Greetings,

Posting u tube links to guys wrestling each other in spandex with hard ons for each other has nothing to do with warrior spirit either, bawang.


mickey

[rett2]

I'm just singling out this one sentence because I think it's one of the essential pigments I was asking for, but the whole post was thought provoking.

Accepting that there are things which are heavier than your life is essential to both.

Maybe the dichotomy I'm still seeing here is duty vs freedom. That maybe there's also something that's incredibly lighter than your life.

If you have an extra 20 minutes they are nicely combined in this vid. Among other things a number of astronauts reflect on viewing the globe. Best viewed at at least 480p and full screen.


Where is the room for fighting? What would Patton do up there?

[RenDaHai]

Maybe the dichotomy I'm still seeing here is duty vs freedom. That maybe there's also something that's incredibly lighter than your life.

Indeed, many things are lighter than a life.

But I don’t see a dichotomy of duty and freedom. Surely doing our duty is when we are most free.

When we act out of emotion or desire we are not acting at all, rather we are being acted upon. Our movements are those of a puppet whose strings are being pulled. But when we do our duty we are not acting under the demands of our flesh but rather against them. We are acting on conscience alone and so we are moving from within, not being pulled from without. Only moving from within can be called freedom.

[rett2]

Only moving from within can be called freedom.

Since I'm pushing the dichotomy to see how far it can go:

What about the freedom of not moving, not doing?

It seems to me that the good warrior accepts heavy karma to help others. The sage relinquishes action to help others in a different way, and for the freedom and joy it brings.

They really seem like total opposites to me. The warrior and the sage may both deny their egos, but the warrior’s duty is to obey orders and to use violence.

Most of the Apollo astronauts were military pilots/aviators. But they were ruined for military purposes after viewing the globe in zero g. (at least it appears that some of them were, and I mean that in a good way)

[RenDaHai]

What about the freedom of not moving, not doing?

It is impossible to relinquish action.

It is a corruption of the term WuWei. Non-action does not mean the sage performs no action, that would be impossible, even breathing is action. It means no action is performed on him. The ancient world view is that things push and pull you from outside to desire them. The sage remains unmoved, undeformed from outside but moves from within, from conscience. He still performs action but being undeformed this action is free from desire or aversion and so in accordance with nature, this action is duty.

From the point of view of function/action/manifestation they (warrior and sage) are opposite ends of the spectrum. But from the view of substance/meaning/purpose they are the same. To return the world to the mean.

In the heat of battle the sage becomes a warrior, retreating into the mountains the warrior becomes a sage. They are able to adapt and transform like this because inside they are empty. In a moving world the only way to be still is to move along with it.