By Chogyam Trungpa, "Shambhala -The Sacred Path of the Warrior"
"We tend to think that the threats to our society or to ourselves are outside of us. We fear that some enemy will destroy us. But a society is destroyed from the inside, not from an attack by outsiders... In reality, the only thing that can destroy us is within ourselves. If we have too much arrogance, we will destroy our gentleness. And if we destroy our gentleness, then we destroy the possibility of being awake, and then we cannot use our intuitive openness to extend ourselves in situations properly. Instead, we generate tremendous aggression.
Aggression desecrates the ground altogether: the ground you are sitting on, the walls around you, the ceiling and windows and doorways. In turn, you have no place to invite the dralas* to come in. The space becomes like an opium den, thick and heavy, and the dralas say, 'Yuck, who wants to go in there? Who's inviting us? Who's invoking us with their deception?' They won't come along at all. When the room is filled with YOU and your trip, no sensible person is attracted to that space. Even YOU aren't.
When the environment is stuffy and full of arrogant, self-styled men and women, the dralas are repelled. But then, what happens if a warrior, someone who embodies nonaggression, freedom from arrogance, and humbleness, walks into that room? When such a person enters an intense situation full of arrogance and pollution, quite possibly the occupants of the room begin to feel funny. They feel that they can't have any fun and games anymore, because someone who won't collaborate in their deception has walked in. They can't continue to crack setting-sun** jokes or indulge and sprawl on the floor, so usually they will leave. The warrior is left alone, sitting in that room.
But then, after a while, a different group of people may walk in, looking for a fresh room, a clean atmosphere. They begin to assemble - gentle people who smile without arrogance or aggression. The atmosphere is quite different from the previous setting-sun gathering. It may be slightly more rowdy than in the opium den, but the air is cheerful and fresh. Then there is the possibility that the dralas will begin to peek through the doors and the windows. They become interested, and soon they want to come in, and one by one they enter. They accept food and drink, and they relax in that atmosphere, because it is pure and clean. Because that atmosphere is without arrogance, the dralas begin to join in and share their greater sanity. When the warrior-students experience an environment where the dralas are present, where reality is present, where the possibility of sanity is always there, they can appreciate the mountains, clouds, sky, sunshine, trees, flowers, brooks, the occasional cries and laughter of children... When you are fully gentle, without arrogance and aggression, you see the brilliance of the universe."
*dralas: Energy that is beyond dualism, beyond aggression-energy that is neither for you or against you. The only way to contact that energy is to experience a gentle state of being in yourself.
**setting-sun: an opposite being-set to the way of Great Eastern Sun. The way of the Great Eastern Sun is based on seeing that there is a natural source of radiance and brilliance in this world-which is the innate wakefulness of human beings.
