Being a warrior has nothing to do with fighting or winning. She doesn’t battle for the sake of harming or stealing anything away from others. In fact she doesn’t battle anything at all, except maybe, her own mind.  She remains strong and fair and open, true to herself and to everyone and anything that crosses her path.

A warrior doesn’t shy away from being frightened or angry or confused. She embraces and learns to work with every emotion and circumstance that comes up simply because she is endowed with bravery and open-heartedness.

A warrior learns to lean into these very scary places even though and especially because they are utterly overwhelming. She learns to tame her mind which is the only way to tame the world, one person, one experience at a time. 

We are all born with these very human qualities. It may take a lifetime to uncover this golden gift. Our open and wakeful heart and mind is our birthright. Once we realize our fortune we must learn to own it and to act on it, for the sake of helping ourself and others.

I was taught this simple yet extraordinary golden gift of being human many decades ago by a Buddhist teacher. He was a Tibetan tulku who escaped Tibet in 1959 during the Chinese invasion of his Himalayan homeland. Chogyam Trungpa, the 11th incarnation of the supreme abbot of the Surmang Monastery was, like us all, an imperfect human being. His brilliance and pristine knowledge of Buddhist dharma was astounding. But as a human he, like all of us, made mistakes that adversely affected others. Thus, I learned that if he could make mistakes then any of us can. Our actions are based on our intentions. Our intentions are based on our karma (the law of cause and effect). If we are fortunate, we learn to understand and live by wholesome versus unwholesome intentions in order to create a better world. 

 I’ve yearned to develop these qualities so I could pass them on to others, especially those I love and who love me. If one lives by this golden gift one eventually learns that everyone falls under the category of ‘those I love’. 

How do we get to this realization? We get here by developing our minds. It all  comes down to how we intend to view our world. How we choose to think about all with whom we share it. It’s about the effort we put in to develop the proper way to communicate and act compassionately toward each other. We get to this understanding if we effortfully contribute our unique skills, our work life, with kindness and mindfulness. The healthy choices we make will allow us to leave the world in a better place than when we got here. 

There’s no time like the present to realize our obligation to alleviate the suffering of our pandemic-laden planet. We’re losing our civilization because we haven’t acted upon the wholesome choices which are and have always been right in front of our faces.  It is critical that we learn to accept that our unwholesome choices are always driven by selfishness and ego gratification. It’s as simple as that. 

These are the lessons I’ve learned from my 68 years on this earth; Generosity, Morality, Patience, Joyful Effort, Concentration and Wisdom. These lessons are known as the six Paramitas or transcendent perfections. This is Buddhism in a nut shell. If we practice the paramitas wholeheartedly we can benefit our world. 

Why am I bringing all this to mind? Because it relaxes me and gives me great confidence and faith to contemplate and practice the dharma (buddhist teachings). 

That’s what I’m always seeking, especially at this very moment; relaxation and confidence, faith and love. I’m seeking it through my own mind and through yours as well. 

I am starting hospice this week. My cancer treatment over the past 25 years has given me the precious opportunity to be right here in this world with my family, my friends . . . all of you. Yet, we all know that nothing is permanent. There are dear ones in my metastatic cancer group who had only a moment to be with us before departing. I miss each and every one of them and all the lessons their living and dying have taught me. 

My treatments have become too toxic for me to continue the harshness of chemo. We have to shelve the intense chemical onslaught to my body as it is only palliative care, not curative medicine at this point. That’s what my doctors say and that’s what I know to be true. 

I prefer to feel better in these present moments, to stop coughing, to get out of bed and return to as much joy as possible, pandemic or not. I prefer to walk around the yard and play with my doodles. I prefer to have deep conversations with those I love and to continue to work with my mind as best I can before I die.  

Of course I prefer to be in the world. I also know that the time has come to simply be here and enjoy all of you, to enjoy all I’ve learned, to constantly train in becoming a warrior and to utterly delight in such a luminous view we all share, the art of simply being human.