Choosing To Be A Warrior

Sure, we’re all warriors in the law. We fight the good fight (and sometimes the bad).

But what if, in every fight, we could abandon all weapons except wisdom and compassion? Would we still win our cases? Would our clients come back for more?

This is my inquiry for 2024 which feels just a little bit short on wisdom and compassion. What do you think? Are you willing to be patient, not know if this will work but try it, and in doing that, maybe, someday, co-create and live into a future different from the one we seem to be barreling towards now?

Transcript

Hello everyone,

It's Judy Cohen.

This is Wake Up Call 423,

The first Wake Up Call for 2024.

Happy New Year.

Whatever is your aspirations for 2024,

I hope they include leaning into the warrior in you.

And that's why today's call is called Being a Warrior.

And I don't mean aggressive warrior,

And you all know that.

We have a lot of opportunities for that in our profession,

In our world.

What I'm talking about is the Shambhala warrior.

And remember the legend of the Shambhala warrior in the ancient Tibetan legend that says that there will come a time of chaos in the world when powerful opposing forces are going to be trying to annihilate one another and the Earth's future will hang in the balance.

That's literally the legend.

So it might sound like reading the New York Times today.

And then the Shambhala warriors,

What's different is that the Shambhala warriors will step into battle and they'll bring moral and physical courage and these two weapons and only two weapons,

Wisdom and compassion.

And using only those weapons,

They will turn the world into a kinder,

More compassionate and interconnected and just place.

So Heaven Children talks about the Shambhala warrior spirit throughout the places that scare you.

And then in chapter five,

She alludes really briefly.

To the 59 Shambhala warrior slogans,

Which actually if you've been on the wake up call for a long time,

We worked with through Norman Fisher's book and maybe maybe we'll go back to that.

I really love his interpretation.

And those are the slogans which we need in order to cultivate the mind and heart of a Shambhala warrior.

And I work with them a lot.

And my favorite for a little while now has been drive all blames into one.

And I take that slogan to mean take responsibility for everything and turn towards everything and examine everything possible in my own mind,

In my own heart,

Kind of flesh it out,

You know,

Air it out and see where can I take responsibility for things?

And a lot of times it means apologizing,

But it's an apology without self blame.

And instead,

It's it's an apology,

But with some internal self-compassion,

You know,

I'm talking about that sweet spot where it's true and non resentful responsibility,

But in the absence of self frustration or self hatred.

For me,

It's it's really onward leading even if I don't do it as frequently or as gracefully as I hope to be able to do as time moves forward.

And it's a really good way for me to see and not be so invested in my own ego and not therefore not so embarrassed by the times when when I use weapons other than wisdom and compassion,

Which is a lot more often than I would like.

And you know,

I'm talking about tools like aggression and anger and resentment and jealousy and all of the other not useful emotions and the words and actions that come along with them.

And not just see as Pema suggests,

But follow some kind of a process and she suggests I like her process or formula.

She because I love formulas and also because she has some of the best I think and also teachings of mindfulness have some of the best.

So the first thing is acknowledge that we're all churned up,

Right?

So for me,

That's not an intellectual endeavor.

It's much more of a body centered practice for the Yogi's here on the call.

You'll be really familiar with just taking that moment and settling into the body and just noticing what's going on.

Is there tightness?

Is there a sheet?

My throat is often stuck.

Sometimes my voice is raised,

But sometimes my voice isn't raised,

But the tone is higher than usual.

So many ways of checking in with the body and then acknowledging,

Yep,

I'm all churned up.

That's what's happening.

And then second interrupting the pattern.

So for me,

Remembering drive all blames into one and then taking responsibility for whatever other weapons I'm using besides wisdom,

Besides compassion.

That's the topic sentence,

But it still involves the body.

I need to actually sit down or stand where I am and literally relax my body,

Focus on my breath,

Let go.

And it doesn't usually take too long.

I mean,

I've been practicing doing this for a while and in some cases it just takes a moment depending upon who I'm interacting with and how churned up I am,

Right?

But if I skip that step and I go straight to the slogan,

It's too difficult because I'm still churn,

Churning,

Right?

So I need a moment to let the body stop churning.

So interrupt the pattern and then three and I love this because it's so resonant for me.

She says make it a lifetime endeavor,

Right?

And so yeah,

One or two times isn't enough.

It's not going to stick.

I'll still find myself back in my habits and patterns getting churned up and forgetting how to unchurn,

Right?

For me,

It's hard to face the fact that being this kind of warrior,

Shambhala warrior,

Somebody who's willing to look at my own churned up mind,

My own patterns and interrupt them with wisdom,

With compassion.

It's not something I can accomplish,

Right?

It's not something I can accomplish,

Even if I take a month or a year or a decade or in my case,

What,

Three decades of practice,

Right?

It's not something to accomplish because the patterns are old and strong and I don't know if you think about,

I came in with them.

If you don't think that way,

They were certainly inculcated and then I live in a system,

We all do.

We live inside of these different systems where not being a Shambhala warrior,

Being another kind of warrior,

We get such persistent messages to do that and so it's really the work of a lifetime,

As Bema says.

It's the work of a lifetime.

So if one of your aspirations,

And I hope it is,

Is also to kind of lean into that Shambhala warrior in you,

I wanna offer something that's helpful for me called the four reflections.

And the first reflection is just reflecting on the preciousness of being human,

Right?

When I think of all the creatures on the earth and in the soil and crawling through the mud and flying through the air,

I feel like I drew a winning ticket,

Right?

Coming in as a human.

Because it's easy to see that as humans,

We have this level of awareness and at least to our knowledge right now,

The other creatures don't have that.

Maybe they do and we just don't know.

We don't have that awareness but we can know what we're seeing.

We can know that hearing is happening.

We can know that taste and smell and sensation are happening.

When we have an emotion or a thought,

We have the ability to see that thinking is happening,

That emotion is happening,

That anger is happening,

Or sorrow is happening,

Right?

And when we can do that,

When we can remember to do that,

Then we have this fantastic amount of choice.

And then,

You know,

The preciousness of being a human interested in mindfulness,

Small subset of us,

Although growing.

So that awareness that I've just named and also interested in the teachings of mindfulness and how we can cultivate intentional states of mind so that we can be Shambhala warriors and engage in life's battles with those two Shambhala weapons.

And then second reflection that everything is just coming and going.

Nothing is permanent,

Which can be scary or tremendously empowering,

Right?

We're just here for a moment.

So let's make the most of it,

Right?

I have a new tagline on my email from Pirkei Avot,

Which is the ethical teachings of the Jewish rabbis,

Which says it is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world,

But you are not free to desist from it either.

So for me,

A really beautiful articulation of the warrior spirit.

Third reflection is karma.

Yes,

What we say and do really matters.

Adrian Murray Brown's admonition or suggestion that what we practice at the small scale sets the patterns for the whole system and that applies to what we practice in our hearts too.

And then the last reflection,

Which is that suffering is just part of life and the way that we can end our own suffering or enormously reduce it by reducing the proliferation of thoughts and emotions.

And Joseph Goldstein offers this Tibetan Lama's injunction,

Do not rule over imaginary kingdoms of endlessly proliferating possibilities.

Do not rule over imaginary kingdoms of endlessly proliferating possibilities.

So for 2024,

How about it?

As the great scholar and judge Hillel the Elder once said,

If not now,

When?

So let's sit.

Finding the most supportive posture for you in this moment.

Whatever will support stillness.

Maybe using this time to see if there's churning happening.

Maybe you're not all churned up.

Maybe you're just a little bit churned up and just seeing where you can bring relaxation.

What is it possible to let go of right now?

And that might be as simple as letting go and letting the shoulders drop or letting the belly relax,

Especially those of us who received years and years of messaging of holding in the belly.

In our meditation practice,

We want to really let the belly be relaxed.

Sometimes the churning shows up for me in my forehead being crinkled or my eyes being tight,

So checking it and seeing if there's some churning that's showing up as holding in the face or maybe the body is feeling really relaxed and it's just the churning in the mind is still happening.

So seeing if there's a gentle invitation to let go of whatever,

Blanding or ruminating or thinking is happening,

Whatever churning is happening,

Churning in the mind.

Might as well do the same thing,

Mind,

Body.

Relax one,

The other will come along.

At least that's my experience.

Just appreciating the silence or if there's a lot of cacophony for you internally,

Taking that step back and just appreciating being able to see that.

Thank you so much for being on the Wake Up Call today.

And I also wanted to put the link in if you can support the Wake Up Call and say thank you so much to everyone who either bought a subscription or some kind of sponsorship when I mentioned this at the end of last year.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

The Wake Up Call is freely offered in the ancient tradition of mindfulness and that tradition includes that if you benefit that you offer whatever you can back and I'm not tracking this.

I'm glad to see everybody here.

So please come no matter what.

Have a wonderful week.

Be safe out there.

I'll see you next Thursday.