Spiritual warrior

The Agganna Sutta elaborates on a history of the world in which the Buddha’s monks and nuns, and the warrior caste from which the Buddha came, are superior to brahmins, who were known for class discrimination. The Buddha’s Shakyan clan context was for warrior-like assembly for brahmins-bashing at that time.

Some scholars consider the Shakyans a republic or federation formed by a group of dominant warriors known as the "sangha", who supposedly followed an aristocratic democratic tradition similar to that of the Greeks during antiquity.[7] However, at the time of the Buddha, the growing influence of the brahminic caste and their religious ideology led to this system of governance being politically anfd culturally undermined.[7]

The Buddha pioneered the establishment of democratic procedures for the monastic sangha, such as regular meetings with secret ballots, subcommittees, and minority group rights to schism. He attempted to preserve his Shakyan clan's tradition, which was ideal for human liberation achievement. In the Agganna, the Buddha says that the monks and nuns have become "children of the Shakyans", the Enlightened One's sons and daughters, and children of the truth. The monastic Sangha was a spiritual warrior society within the historic conflict of the brahmin's struggle. They were heirs to the aristocratic virtues of the Buddha's warrior caste, which are related to democratic progress.[7]

In Tibet a monastic rule derived from a feudal warrior clan society, which was transformed into a spiritual warrior society. While the rest of the world followed feudalistic warrior development during the medieval period throughout Europe and Asia, Tibet uniquely established Lamaism. This was centered around a Buddhist social revolution originating distinctly from India's Hinduism and finding root in Tibet. The Lama (teacher) is a living Buddha for Tibetans who provides a powerful bridge between real and imaginary consciousness worlds, where the self is methodically dissolved into the whole's benefit by tantra practice.

Tibetans imported this order to help change their society to one based on education, social welfare, peaceful progress, with a self-renouncing monastic class of rulers. The monastic sangha (community) were supported and organized like a military; however, they were set on a self-discovery yogic mission for reconnaissance to perfect and develop methods in eliminating ego suffering.

Tibetan Buddhists advanced a form of a non-hereditary succession of title and land-based on reincarnation, which presented living proof that their methods succeeded by extraordinary means. It also ensured that young leaders were well-trained in the monastic canon and it avoided deadly heir feuds seen in the heritable practices within feudalism. Tibetan monastics eschewed materialistic and economic progress for want of virtual visualizations. Monastic warriors were focused on accepting and perpetuating life in contrast to defending or attacking it.

In a highly celebrated and unique victory, Tibetan monastic warriors overcame the native Bon practices which then encompassed services for all of life's needs (birth, marriage, healthcare, death, and spirit exorcism) by incorporating them into their own practices. New Buddhist spiritual technology was integrated with the existing Bon methods, as contrasted with oppression methods seen in other warrior techniques. Transformation and re-purposing of military-warrior symbolism and strategy into new codified tactics within Buddhist practice was a recurring metaphorical theme.

The society flourished to produce one of the best assemblies of peaceful enlightened self-knowledge known to humankind. When modern Chinese communist military-economic industrial forces swept in to dismantle and uproot it based on monarchic upheaval, this caused a spread of the seeds of this spiritual warrior way throughout the rest of the world, which are now taking root in new democratic forms. Displaced Tibetans tend to remain loyal to their exiled leaders and lineage of teachers.[8]

Chogyam Trungpa teaches the way of the spiritual warrior.[9] In 1976, Trungpa established the Shambhala Training program on spiritual warrior-ship grounded in sitting meditation practice. The Sacred Path of the Warrior is Trungpa's book which embodies the practice.[10]

The spiritual warrior archetype helps to constructively answer questions about aggression and competition in a healthy direction. Unlike the soldier character, the spiritual warrior is in touch with the joy, the sadness, the expansiveness in their heart; able to share and give it to others. The warrior knows about death and seizes the day. They have learned to let go with forgiveness and avoids chasing others in revenge. The warrior commits to growing the heart and soul in becoming a creative being. The warrior serves in love of strangers and gives generously while giving to themselves. The spiritual warrior seeks to change others with rational and compassionate decision-making in service of a higher goal.[11]

In Dudjom Jigdral Yeshe Dorje's Nyingma history, spiritual warrior (sems-dpa', Skt sattva), is a technical term applied to bodhisattvas, Subhuti, Vajrasattva, Manjusri, Samantabhadra, Sakya Jugne and Tsangtonpa. Great spiritual warriors have inserted doctrinal treasures into mountains, ravines and woods.[12]

• Bodhisattva
• Shambhala Buddhism
• The Dharma of Star Wars

• "Shambhala: Sacred Path of the Warrior" by Chogyam Trungpa, Shambhala, March 12, 1988, ISBN 0-87773-264-7
• "Everyday Enlightenment: How to Be a Spiritual Warrior at the Kitchen Sink" by Venerable Yeshe Chodron, Harper Collins Publishers PTY Limited, September 1, 2006, ISBN 0-7322-7607-1

• Rosen, Richard, "The Diamond Sutra: The Perfection of Wisdom by Red Pine", Yoga Journal
• Grant, Kara-Leah (2009), "How yoga has the power to transform and release avidya (self-ignorance)", The Yoga Lunch Box, October 13, 2009
• sems dpa'