To be a coward or a warrior. That is the question.

“The phenomenal world that all human beings experience is fickle and flexible and also merciless. You often wonder whether you can ride on that fickle and merciless situation or whether it is going to ride on you. To use an analogy, either you are riding on a donkey or the donkey is riding you. Ordinarily, in your experience of the world, it is questionable who is riding on whom. The more you struggle to gain the upper hand, the more speed and aggression you manufacture to overcome your obstacles, the more you become subject to the phenomenal world. The real challenge is to transcend that duality altogether. It is possible to contact an energy that is beyond dualism, beyond aggression— energy that is neither for you nor against you…

The coward lives in constant terror of space: afraid of darkness because he can’t see anything, afraid of silence because he can’t hear anything. The setting sun world teaches you to wear a suit of armor to protect yourself. But what are you protecting yourself from? Space. The challenge of warrior-ship is to step out of the cocoon, to step out into space, by being brave and at the same time gentle.” ~ from Ocean of Dharma by Chogyam Trungpa edited by Carolyn Rose Gimian

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