this morning i walked to work

this morning i walked to work, originally uploaded by emdot.

Okay, I guess this is Dharma Friday! ;) I read this a couple days ago and it was something I wanted to share.

Warning:
It uses some words that could put you off of the message. For me, those words are "warrior" and "victorious." I have to watch it because if I don't like the terminology, I might dismiss the message entirely. But, I put my biases aside and took the meat of the message instead.

For the Shambhala warrior, the actual, basic notion of victory is not so much that you have one-upped your enemy and therefore you are victorious. Rather, no enemy exists at all; therefore, there is victory. This is the idea of unconditional warriorship and unconditional victory. In connection with this, the concept of sacredness is that fearlessness is carried into everyday life situations, even brushing your teeth. So fearlessness occurs all over the place, all the time. Fearlessness here is also unconditional. In this way, fearlessness becomes cheerful and very light. There's no need for cowardice or fear at all, or any moments of doubt. Actually what we're talking about is doubtlessness, we could say, rather than fearlessness. There's no doubt. There are no second thoughts. Everything is a complete warrior's world. So here victory is not having to deal with an enemy at all. It is the notion of no enemy. The whole world is a friend.

— Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

The same day while driving to work I heard an NPR segment about the Dalai Lama's visit to Seattle. (We are so lucky to be alive while this guy is alive. Seriously.). The basic jist was

"Destruction of your neighbor or enemy is destruction of yourself."

I agree with that so much.

I really hope we can all get a little more sane and a little more open-handed and open-hearted and brave and all the rest. Wouldn't that be something else?