Warrior

¡Hola! Everybody...
I am not surprised that a significant number of the Pee Party participants are racist and homophobic, but what really got me was that someone actually spit at Civil Rights leader Rep. John Lewis. That’s just plain nasty. I once had the displeasure of being spit at (spat on?). Some woman took exception to something I said and just hurled a glob of spit at me. She didn’t get to hit me, but being the object of such violence is quite unsettling. That someone thought so little of me that they felt it appropriate to spit at me was a complete violation; an attempt to dehumanize me.

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-=[ The Awakened Warrior ]=-

Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
-- Marie Curie

I sold my son on education using the archetype of the Scholar-Warrior. After watching an old Bruce Lee movie, he wanted to learn the martial arts. Having studied Lee’s original art, Wing Chun, myself, I made a pact with him. We would both study with a master if he took the oath of the Scholar-Warrior. Of course, I made the whole thing up. LOL

Actually, there are precedents for the oath of the Scholar-Warrior. Throughout time and across many cultures, scholar-warriors weren’t just conquerors; they were often learned men and women who were versed in a wide range of disciplines. They were familiar with poetry and the healing arts, for example. They were protectors not destroyers.

We live in a different age, of course, but I would submit that the times we live in are screaming for more Scholar-Warriors to come forth. We cannot count on our leaders and government to be brave on our behalf; they are beholden to legal fictions (aka Corporations) endowed with the rights of personage. I would say that a failure of courage all around is at the root of most our problems today. Doing the right thing is rewarding in and of itself. Scholar-Warriors do not look for credit...

The word courage comes from the French coeur, meaning “heart.” Courage is a power that comes from the integration of the heart and brain. Brave, on the other hand, comes from the word for barbarous and was used by the Romans to describe the courage of the “wild people.”

For me, courage is the willingness to embrace challenge. Courage isn’t a single trait so much as a combination of a range of qualities: willingness, persistence, intent, bravery. Real courage faces reality head on and when change is called for, accepts the need. It also calls for intelligence in that it calculates whether the means justifies the ends.

The irony is that seemingly unremarkable individuals commit some of the most courageous acts. Julia Butterfly Hill was only twenty-three when she climbed 180 feet into an ancient redwood. She lived in the tree for two years, saving it from destruction and in the process inspiring a generation of environmental activists.

I tried to teach my son that within each of us there lies a sleeping scholar-warrior and that part of our life’s purpose is to awaken that warrior. Sometimes it takes an extreme situation for the inner warrior to emerge. Many of the heroes we celebrate were initially reluctant warriors taken by surprise.

I had a friend, Freddie (who has since passed away), who with no thought to his own safety acted on a situation. It was late at night and he was on his way to the corner bodega when he came upon a rape in progress. Without hesitation he tried to save the young woman. The cowards turned on him, beating him so badly that, among other serious injuries, they broke his eye socket, causing him to lose sight in that eye. Freddie was one of the funniest people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing and when asked, he said he wasn’t a hero. For him, he was just doing what needed to be done.

I don’t consider myself a hero. I am just a son of the human species who was taught that an injustice to one person is an injustice to all. If I am a scholar-warrior at all, I am a warrior for Truth.

Today, we’re at the political mercy of a relatively small group of bullies. This is how I view most of what goes under the heading of the Right Wing in America today. Much of what they do is based in fear and loathing. That woman spit at me because she didn’t see me as a human being but as a receptacle for everything she hated. To her I was a thing; I was the “other.” Her fear and ignorance compelled her to see me as a scapegoat for all her frustrations. Bullies bully because they are rarely confronted, growing bolder with time. Push back against a bully, and his or her fear stands exposed. A scholar-warrior can stand up to them.

Lucky Babcock is an example of a spontaneous scholar-warrior. One day she was minding her own business looking out her window when she saw a man throw a woman to the ground and rip her blouse off. Lucky, then sixty-six years old, grabbed her cane and raced down two flights of iron stairs. “I felt like I was flying. I put my hands on the rails and just threw myself down four steps at a time.” She used her cane as a club and drove the man off.

Compassion is a powerful motivator. Scholar-warriors develop a passion for compassion. The compassionate are the true protectors of the earth, moved enough to take a principled stand to wage war against injustice.

A newspaper editor in Uruguay who agreed to a duel with an irate police inspector announced he would turn up without a weapon. He was challenged after his newspaper reported the officer was involved in transporting contraband. “I am not going to bear arms against another human being,” he stated. He stood convention on its head and as a result, he gained the support of the press, many politicians, and much of the public. The exposure resulted in a power shift that saw a new party formed and a new president elected.

I could tell the stories of countless reluctant scholar-warriors who almost never get any coverage, but they all seem to share the same quality of people who simply did what needed to be done.

If everybody who cared actually participated, the world would change. But we can’t count on other people -- only ourselves. If we each do our part, who knows? But if we don’t, I think we know what will happen -- it’s happening now. I’ll tell you today what I tried to teach my son not too long ago. The task of the scholar-warrior is to persist in the face of the greatest opposition. Even if our efforts turn out to be for nothing at one level, our actions still create ripples of effect. Courage isn’t risking our selves for what we believe in, my friends. It’s letting go of the belief that there’s something to risk.

Love,

Eddie

The TGIF Sex Blog [Sexual Energy]

¡Hola! Everybody...
I find interesting that I am sooo not in a good mood right now. Due to a certain situation, my plans to go on a spiritual retreat this weekend -- planned months ago -- have been nixed.

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-=[ Sexual Energy ]=-

As a man I was born with an erection and I will die with an erection. In the time that intervenes, I can learn to use that sexual energy for transformation. For a while now, I have been practicing tantra, a vast system of methods that are natural, life-affirming, and joyful. In tantra, every act becomes part of spiritual practice. Tantra is sexuality in a spiritual context.

Many spiritual paths and Western culture in general have a deeply embedded notion that sexuality is evil and debased. They teach you must choose between “God and the flesh.” What I find inherently contradictory is that they forget their God is in the flesh and is to be found there for full realization. You don’t have to choose -- God is sexual pleasure, used correctly. Tantric practices, forced to go underground for hundreds of years by religions, moralists, and the like, are beginning to come to the mainstream as a vital and joyful means toward spiritual evolution.

Along with the surfacing of Tantra, there is also much misunderstanding. Tantra is not a license for sexual manipulation or abandon. The practice requires a large amount of discipline. The systems of Tantra use the most powerful energy we know -- sexual energy -- to explore spiritual territories. The ancient masters discovered that prolonged sexual union produced a heightened sensitivity to the energy fields of the lovers. Rather than turning away from everyday life, tantric practitioners engage the physical dimension completely. Even my “negative” mood right now is material for my spiritual growth, for example. In mastering their awareness at this level, tantric practitioners can expand their awareness to the next level and follow that path to higher stages of human realization.

It takes a certain amount of courage and dedication to be tantric in your view of sexuality. Our culture is profoundly confused and conflicted about sexuality. On the one hand, there is the cultural pressure inhibiting sexual expression. The problem is that you can never free yourself from sex by repressing it. If you doubt me, ask the closest neocon. Trying to avoid sex creates an obsession. Unexpressed sexual energy turns into neurosis and violence. We are enslaved by our sexuality, and yet not permitted to enjoy it, so hunger that can never be satisfied is created.

Conversely, sex is thrown in your face in every magazine, movie, TV, billboard, etc. Gross sexuality is rampant in our culture. Yet there is little support for the idea that sexuality is essentially an expression of love which is sacred -- all of it is sacred, not just the parts you want to tease out.

You hear people say all the time, “I am angry,” or “I am sad,” yet you almost never hear anyone say, “I am love,” though love is the very essence of you -- of all of us. Historically, civilization has forbidden the expression of love by condemning sexuality. Our postmodern world ignores love while exploiting sexuality in order to get us to buy things. As a tantric practitioner you must break away from the mold and defy moral conventions, for sex is one means by which we can come to know love.

Love is sex energy transformed.

You can come to realize the fundamental truth of love by experiencing the sacredness of sex and learning to worship through the senses, through the flesh. The more accepting you are of sex, the more free of it you become.

A word of caution: tantric practices are extremely powerful and used with the intention to manipulate or control can cause much harm. I addition, these practices will uncover unresolved issues. Phobias, neuroses, resentments, and embarrassments, along with other psychological factors will come to the fore in tantric practice. While extremely effective, this is not a practice one should take lightly.

Love,

Eddie