be a peaceful
warrior in training BEHAVE ‘AS IF’....
by Alyson McEvoy / Interviewed by Paul Congdon
The Way of The Peaceful Warrior is a story which will be resurrected time and again. The book was published in 1980 after considerable effort on behalf of its author, Dan Millman. It then withered away into silence. Bookstores were simply unable to box it into a clear genre and did not want it lying around, blurring lines. A retired publisher came across the book and was catapulted back into his career by it, determined that light be shed on its pages once more. Grateful are we readers, by the thousands if not more, who have read it since. The conversation we had with Dan Millman recently was a delight. He exudes candidness and warmth, and has an exceptionally bright twinkle in his eye.
WHY THE WARRIOR? Dan encountered bullying as a child. This led to his delving into martial arts at the early age of ten years old. He trained in Judo, Karate (various different styles of Karate), gymnastics, Aikido (in which he received a black belt) and went on to Tai Chi, Stick and Knife fighting and more, as the years went by. These disciplines, Dan emphasises, are not sports. They were practised and honed by warriors. “What is different between Martial Arts and sports is that they began with a lineage of life and death. There is a sincerity and a recognition that physical skill alone is not enough, if the emotions are in turmoil or the mind is distracted. They work with body, mind and spirit. I grew up with the idea of training body, mind and spirit into a spiritual whole.” In his career as an assistant professor of
Physical Education in Ohio, he focussed on creating talent for sport. He sought the ways in which he could increase his trainees’ ability to learn faster and increase their potential. Soon however, his “interest shifted outside of the gymnasium and into everyday life.” “I began to ask, how can we create more talent for daily life, for living, for relationships and finances.” As the shift continued to turn, Dan realised that, “It’s important not to dedicate our life to our sport or training, but we want to dedicate our training to our life. How we do anything is how we do everything.” Hence the warrior’s arena becomes the arena of daily life and the battles are the everyday ones we all face, from within and without.
demons of fear, insecurity, self-doubt. It’s about rolling up our sleeves and marching into everyday life and facing what we need to...I think it’s useful for us to view ourselves as a peaceful warrior in training.” “There have always been warriors in the world; strong, courageous, grounded, but not all of them have had a peaceful heart. And there have always been peacemakers; nourishing, kind, supportive, loving, but not all of those have been effective because they lacked a warrior spirit.” “A peaceful warrior is one who does their best not to harm others but brings a spirit and a strength into everyday life.”
A PEACEFUL WARRIOR’S PERSPECTIVE
The strength which Dan speaks of is the strength to use our free will in the only arena he finds is truly available to us – our actions and behaviour. “I don’t encourage you to feel happy or kind or loving or peaceful or confident or courageous. I encourage you to behave that way...regardless of doubts, behave with confidence, courage, peacefulness. I spent years working on my emotions and my thoughts. This is the reason I now focus on behaviour.” “I don’t have a spam filter in my head – thoughts happen to us. They just pop into our awareness. The same with emotions...feelings are for feeling. They enrich our lives...I’m not saying ignore or deny emotions. They are changing all the time, they are the weather patterns of the body...but I’ve found through my own experience that we have very little control by our own will over our emotions or our
Unreflected upon, it is likely that we view and ‘talk’ to ourselves, and potentially others, through the lens and voice of our early caretakers. However, once we begin to reflect on our perception of ourselves, we can take back ownership of our attitude to Self, life and others. Dan Millman’s perception of Self and others is one which he has spent decades evolving and honing. He invites us to share in this perception of Self and others as a way to face daily life and our engagement with it. “I view everyone as a peaceful warrior in training. Aren’t all of us seeking to live with a peaceful heart amidst the chaos and changes and current events of everyday life? To live with a sense of equanimity in the turmoil? We need an inner warrior, not necessarily to fight, but to fight our inner
SPIRIT, STRENGTH AND A PEACEFUL HEART
