Spiritual Warriorship (SW) Practice Group

A Spiritual Warrior is a meditator... who senses a connection with certain types of practices. Some are mental, and some are energy-body meditations. We sense a connection with a philosophy of being awake, alert, and skillful, and we learn methods to increase our abilities in those areas.
The author of our text ("Shambhala...")... gives us many hints and guidances and stories and teachings... to help us recognize the difference between our ignorant states... and our less ignorant efforts. Our practices, (short, formal meditations, and efforts to build or increase awareness during our waking and dreamstate experiences outside of our meditations)...lead us toward recognition of higher influences, inside and outside of us. It's more fun when we have greater awareness! The value of being awake, (or at least, less ignorant of the depth of our unique life experiences)... is that we have greater resources, and more options. Life becomes interactive, in this moment. This sense of beingness, of aliveness in our cells and awareness... is wholely different that our sense-states before we become meditators....

Spiritual Warriorship (SW) Practice Group...
Open to All SPRING 2010


Welcome!
from the Spiritual Warriors in SL!


INTRODUCTION
to Our Group and Practices. a three-part Message

1) SW Logistics
2) Classes and Topics
3) Notes from Class 1

1) The SW Practice Group
LOGISTICS

The Spiritual Warriorship Practice Group meets weekly for personal discussions and questions on growth, and a short meditation practice. Informal meetings may occur at other times.

To stay connected, please join our Interest Group: Energy Practice Group. This is our main contact group for schedule information and virtual practice opportunities.

You may also stay in touch and learn more about meditation practices and personal growth by creating an account with our online forum Spiritual Warriors


You must be approved for membership at the forum, so please discuss your interest with administrators Kaileena Aeon or Sky Singh.


CURRENT SCHEDULE OF CLASSES

The TEG SkyDojo hosts our weekly class, on MONDAYS at 4 p.m. SLT. Please Join Us --no prior experience is required.. Our topics follow the principles and techniques described in the text "Shambhala, the Sacred Path of the Warrior" by the great teacher Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche. SW is a non-secular spiritual growth traditon, open to all with interst.

You do not need to own or have read the text to attend -- however, it is an extremely useful text and the wisdom it contains is our primary "road map" for moving foward to gain wisdom and skillfulness.

Class agenda changes weekly and discussions are personalized to those attending. You are welcome any time you can come.

2) TOPICS (beginning)

Part One of the text teaches us how to become a spiritual warrior for personal growth, and the benefit we can help create for others.

• How To Be a Warrior
  
• Creating an Enlightened Society
  
• Discovering Basic Goodness
  
• The Genuine Heart of Sadness
  
• Fear and Fearlessness
  
• Sychronizing Mind and Body
  
• The Dawn of the Great Eastern Sun
  
• The Cocoon
  
• Renunciation and Daring
  
• Celebrating the Journey
  
• Letting Go
  

TOPICS (intermediate/advanced)

Part Two of our text is a discussion of Sacred World. Now we become more skillful using the methods and knowledge we have acquired in part one. These topics are suitable for those who have completed a basic study of part one.

• Sacredness: The Warrior's World
  
• Nowness
  
• Discovering Magic
  
• How to Invoke Magic
  
• Overcoming Arrogance
  
• Overcoming Habitual Patterns
  
• Sacred World
  
• Natural Hierarchy
  
• How to Rule
  

PART THREE

• Authentic Presence
  
• The Universal Monarch
  
• The Shambhala Lineage
  

3) CLASS NOTES
(a partical transcription of notes from the SW Introduction, periodically offered at TEG)

SPIRITUAL WARRIORSHIP, AN INTRODUCTION
(CLASS ONE) Fall ’07

The Spiritual Warriorship Group offered at the Enlightenment Gallery in SL, is an opportunity for all... to learn basic meditation practices that assit one with spiritual growth.

This "Warrior's Path" Teaching of the Dharma (spiritual truth), is an acient method drawn from various cultures, based on the book: “Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior,” by Chogyam Trungpa, Rimpoche

The SW Practice Group in SL is not affiliated with any other Shambhala or Spiritual Warriorship groups, nationally or internationally. Our group is a leadership peer-training collective, and all are welcome to attend, regularly, or informally.

Our Text ("Shambhala") is inexpensive, available at amazon.com and many other booksellers, and is highly recommended.

SW in SL is led by Peg Strain, (SL's Sky Singh), an rl martial arts master who began her meditation work in 1982. She is a student of Tibetan Buddhism, tantra, and alchemy, and follows the teachings received from Vipassana, Zen, Buddhist, and Bonpo teachers, as well as her matial art masters. Her root guru is mestro Lar Short, an American master of buddist, hindu, and vajrayana traditions.

From Peg:
I came to sl to look for sangha (a community of practitioners), as i live in a very rural spot, in Michigan, USA, and my guru is in New Mexico.

I've been happy to meet other practitioners. However, I believe deeply in meditation as daily spiritual practice, which brings feedback and benefit. And I have not met many here in sl who use these most valuable principles in moment to moment application...so I decided to offer discussions and practice here in SL... as a method for personal growth, and to meet with others seeking the benefit of a community for their spiritual journey.

The Spiritual Warriorship (SW) study group in SL is an offering to this community -- for practice and discussion of authentic methods of self-realization. The tradition of SW is cross-cultural and goes back very far in time, and is a very valuable and useful path for modern-day spiritual practitioners.

In each of our meetings here at TEG, we include a brief meditation -- as an example of how to work with various principles and tools of SW.

From the Group:
hello, i am not involved in meditation because my mind is always talking…always. However I am interested very much.

from Peg:
Ah, then you have all the tools you need...as meditation begins with watching the mind chatter... and choosing to re-direct it.

SW at TEG is presented as an on-going course, for discussion and practice. SW is a philosophy, yet is dependent on practice as it is a discipline for realization even more than a philosophy. Let me share some principles from the teaching.

So... the first principle... has to do with an understanding of the human being as a qualitative aspect of our being. The qualities of our soul are refined energies --energies we develop through our attention, intention, and discipline.

The energies we each encounter in our daily life... come to us as fuel, as food for the growth of our spirit. How we use them, how we develop out of our "daily bread", or, life experience... This is a quetion of learning to consciously apply the practices we are given. Remebering to do so... evolves from our dedication and discipline to our own practice. When we work consciously and appropriately with the energy of our daily life, we refine this energy and can transform it…into subtle energies of a higher nature.

So the first principle... is self-recognition, knowing that we are more than we can know, and realizing that we have tools for our spiritual growth... and then... making a commitment to using them!

SW... begins with recognizing we have choices. And then... developing our choices and our actions... so that we can feed our growth in the most beneficial ways. We want to apply this energy of our daily experience...rather than wasting it.

Another principle of SW is the idea of inherent, basic human goodness. When we can recognize deeply that human goodness is a basic aspect of who we all are, we can be more relaxed and open to our life experiences. This is closer to our natural state of being, than when we are tense, defensive, or always suspicious of ourselves and others.

A third principle of SW is the synchronizing of mind and body. It is suggested that meditation is a perfect tool for this, as the body, the mind, and the emotions... are all simply aspects of our higher selves. When we are not congruent. we spend our energy fighting rather than choosing clear goals and acting in flow to attain them in a sane manner. Through meditation, we develop and can apply the tools and skills that are a part of our “human design.”

So, these are some of the principles, in how to be a spiritual warrior. There are many others, and each is useful. In our group, the SW Practice Group, we discuss these as topics, and learn to work with them in our individual lifes and challenges.

The second part of our text discusses the sacred -- and how to discover magic, overcome obstacles such as arrogance and our habitual patterns. I believe that the intention of this book, and of this course, is for us to learn these tools of warriorship so that we recognize that we are inhabiting a divine space at all times. As we discuss and practice, we grow and become more competent in extending benefit to ourselves and others.

The goal of the Shambhala Teachings is to acquire "authentic presence," a step on our path of self-realization. This is a path I have practiced for many years now. I bring it to those in SL with an authentic interest, because it is the most valuable teaching I have found for every day living, along with the 3-body meditation work with gives us tools for our SL practices.

From the Group: Meditation to me is so soft. I seem to be an aggressive guy. So, I have...i guess troubles meeting in the middle.

Fem: Well, aggression.....is one of the 3 core forces (energies) in Buddhism. Aggression is related to our greed, in its negative aspect. The other 2 forces in their negative manifestations are aversion and ignorance.

The core forces are aspects of our human nature... and the good news is that we can develop the perfections of these forces. The perfection of these energies… result in aim, participation, and contribution.

The purpose of practice, and of an authentic path, is to use all of them, rather than ignoring them, repressing them, or being used by them unconsciously as we continually act them out.

All the energies of our life... can be used for our growth. The other option is to simply run around, acting aggressive, acting like a helpless person clinging to things, running our our life in ignorance, as though we’ve had a lobotomy. Our meditation practices and our discipline... open many doors so that we recognize our presence... and our choices, right here and now.

This begins our life of consciousness, and our path of wrriorship.

Let us try a short practice...

From the Group:
I’m a very erratic person, which... obviously doesn’t help

From Peg:
What I recommend to all is simply a very short daily practice. Five minutes.

This is a gift you give to yourself, a gift you give to your soul. This is your time... to go "inside," to observe, to practice, to ask.... to clarify what it is you are doing, here in this body, here, now… in this virtual body A regular practice... brings regular results... and diminishes our "erratic self"... which is a challenge we all face.

And, what I have discovered...your spiritual life is of such immense value to you, when you consciously feed it, daily…there is a great return .

So... if you will sit up straight, open the posture, expand....

Keep your head up, chin tucked in a bit. Let the hands relax on the legs. We will touch the tongue to the back of the top teeth, a resting spot. This placement... assists the energy flow.

We will sit for 5 minutes... and we will bring our attention to our inner self.

First, take your hand, and use it to rub, to apply friction. Rub it against your belly, just below the physical naval. Rub yourself hard enough that when you stop, you can feel that spot. The sensations remain….

(That is a skill called "body referencing", allowing the body, our livingness...to have a sensation that supports the work our body/mind is engaged in.)

Now, move that spot of sensation inside to the core of the body. Here, we will let it grow, by feeding it with breath. Consider that breath... is the method for spirit (a more subtle energy) to move.

Your attention, your consciousness of your breath, the sensations of it here and now – this is the first tool of meditation, the tool you have to use that energy, direct it, build it.

So... for our practice...we will breath deeply into the head, and allow the energy to expand and become very full, so that it descends gently down through the throat, down into the belly.

Do not concern yourself with how breath works in the lungs in your physiology. We are using the mind, intention, and our attention to work with a more subtle force, and the oxygen of the breath is simply a conduit.

So, we breath energy into the core of our being, allow it to open and expand...like a rain cloud gathering moisture. When you are ready, release the breath, very relaxed and open. We want to take deep and gentle breaths, but do not force.

So, final instructions...
We will sit, relaxed for 5 minutes. We will pull in the energy of the sky, the subtle energy of the divine, the very essence that pervades all existence. Will open and and ask and bring this radiance deep into the core.

Then, add your mental energy, your intention. Ask: " I really want to grow". "I really want to relax more deeply." Or, you may use another sentence, that seems appropriate to you.

Simply allow that vibrant energy to expand, to open, to fill you, to gently descend through your body…and then let it go.

And begin again with another breath, bringing it in, allowing yourself to open.

This is a very small and very useful exercise. You can work with it anytime, and it is simply the task of being conscious with your own livingness, moment to moment.

Alright... let's begin

5 minutes later…

Alright....

Now, simply release all efforts, and simply abide. Let all efforts drop away. Sense the energy within and allow it to be a part of you, now, and throughout this day. And, when you are ready... simply bring your attention back to the group

So.... this has been an introduction to the practice tradition of spiritual warriorship. If i could ask you to remember, to use anything we have done or discussed here, I would suggest, it is useful to remember...

You have a choice, right now.
You have internal tools, right now.
This is a gift of being a human being. We are not bound by our feelings or thoughts, or by our circumstance. There is a much greater universe, surrounding and supporting us at all times. It is our gift to have access to it, and we do this through our choice and our practice.

Thank you all very much for your attention today, and please join us if you are free and feel it appropriate for you.

Notes to Ponder:

I have choices…in this minute.
I have tools within my mind -- am I using them?
What am I Asking For?