Excerpts

Honesty as a Spiritual Warrior

How can we face truths of the universe openly,
if we do not even face truths about ourselves honestly?

— Stonepeace | Get Books

Becoming a [spiritual] warrior and facing yourself is a question of honesty rather than condemning yourself. By looking at yourself, you may find that you’ve been a bad boy or girl, and you may feel terrible about yourself. Your existence may feel wretched, completely pitch-black, like the black hole of Calcutta. Or you may see something good about yourself. The idea is simply to face the facts. Honesty plays a very important part. Just see the simple, straightforward truth about yourself. When you begin to be honest with yourself, you develop a genuine gut level of truth. That is not necessarily cutting yourself down. Simply discover what is there; simply see that, and then stop! So first, look at yourself, but don’t condemn yourself. It’s important to be matter-of-fact, on the spot. Just look, and when you see the situation in its fullest way, then you begin to be a warrior.

When you acknowledge that you feel so wretched, you can be fully cheerful. That is an interesting twist. You are being a wholesome, honest person. Usually, we aren’t this honest. You may think you can cheat the universe, and out of that, you develop all sorts of naughty or neurotic potentialities, convincing yourself that you do not have to look into your situation honestly. However, when you are just there, then, if you see the actual darkness, that will inspire the light or sunrise.

You begin to find that you are a genuine person. You begin to feel good and solid, and beyond that, more than solid, more than real, you realize that you have guts of some kind. Buddha-nature is in you already, because you are so true to yourself, true in the sense of being unconditionally honest. In fact, there is no such thing as the true self, the solidly real self. When you see yourself genuinely, you find that concept of ‘reality’ actually starts to fade. Instead, you find a very large space there, which is unconditional and contains ventilation and breathing space. When you have seen yourself fully, you begin to feel unconditionally good. At the same time, you begin to acknowledge the existence of greater wisdom [to realize].

Smile at Fear: Awakening the True Heart of Bravery
by Chogyam Trungpa
Get it at Amazon

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