Read Online Warrior Philosophy in Game of Thrones by Francis Briers - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Francis Briers
Ads: Link
women are not as good in a fight as men (which, I hasten to add, I don't – I've known some fearsome women!) then I could underestimate a dangerous female opponent. If however, I increase my self-knowledge and realise that I have this prejudice then while I may still disregard women at first glance, there is a chance at least that I will check myself and reassess the situation. If I don't know myself then it will do me little good finding out about my opponent. However I assess them will pass through my many filters and unless I have some knowledge of what those filters are (particularly beliefs and values) then I will dismiss much of the useful information I have gathered.
This all applies just as much in daily life as it does in a martial context. Without cultivating self-knowledge, I could be ignoring potential opportunities left, right and centre. I could be misjudging my friends, misunderstanding my family, passing over business opportunities because I have an unconscious belief that I could never achieve something like that, and just plain missing the beautiful moments in life because I have dismissed it as irrelevant data. All of this could be going on unconsciously, my entire life could be being run by my habitual ways of thinking. Free Will is a result of self-knowledge: You are only as free as you are aware. To quote Jim Morrison:
“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first. You can take away a man's political freedom and you won't hurt him- unless you take away his freedom to feel. That can destroy him. That kind of freedom can't be granted. Nobody can win it for you.”
By now you are probably seeing how vital an internal awareness is to living the Warrior's Path, and how self-awareness is key if you are to stay on that Path with any consistency. For the final part of this chapter I want to look briefly at how you can bring the discipline of self-knowledge to noticing the ways and the places that your internal world, leaks into the external world. In the Hagakure, it says:
“A warrior should not say something fainthearted even casually. He should set his mind to this beforehand. Even in trifling matters the depths of one's heart can be seen.” [xxiv]
At first glance this could look like a paranoid statement about not allowing yourself to be seen as cowardly. I read it differently, and I think the second sentence is the key:
“Even in trifling matters the depths of one's heart can be seen.”
In our smallest acts, our deepest beliefs and values will still be visible. In order to really live consciously, with awareness, and with real self-knowledge we must be dedicated to the task and willing to keep challenging ourselves. It is easy to get a bit more aware, to notice a pattern of behaviour and think “Now I've got it! I won't do that again...” But in my experience it is rarely that simple. I feel like every time I catch myself in a pattern I'm not happy with, the pattern gets smaller. The good news is that as it is smaller then it is less damaging when I next slip up. The bad news is that, as it is smaller, it takes even more attention to spot the pattern before I have slipped and done something I am not happy about. It is said that learning Tai Chi is first done in Feet, then Inches, then Half-Inches, then Quarters, and so on. I think the journey to self-knowledge is the same. If you stick with it, then you can refine the quality of your presence a lot but things also get more complex, and require even more attention to detail as you go. Once you begin down this path I'm not sure there is an end point, I can't promise you you'll ever be
This all applies just as much in daily life as it does in a martial context. Without cultivating self-knowledge, I could be ignoring potential opportunities left, right and centre. I could be misjudging my friends, misunderstanding my family, passing over business opportunities because I have an unconscious belief that I could never achieve something like that, and just plain missing the beautiful moments in life because I have dismissed it as irrelevant data. All of this could be going on unconsciously, my entire life could be being run by my habitual ways of thinking. Free Will is a result of self-knowledge: You are only as free as you are aware. To quote Jim Morrison:
“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first. You can take away a man's political freedom and you won't hurt him- unless you take away his freedom to feel. That can destroy him. That kind of freedom can't be granted. Nobody can win it for you.”
By now you are probably seeing how vital an internal awareness is to living the Warrior's Path, and how self-awareness is key if you are to stay on that Path with any consistency. For the final part of this chapter I want to look briefly at how you can bring the discipline of self-knowledge to noticing the ways and the places that your internal world, leaks into the external world. In the Hagakure, it says:
“A warrior should not say something fainthearted even casually. He should set his mind to this beforehand. Even in trifling matters the depths of one's heart can be seen.” [xxiv]
At first glance this could look like a paranoid statement about not allowing yourself to be seen as cowardly. I read it differently, and I think the second sentence is the key:
“Even in trifling matters the depths of one's heart can be seen.”
In our smallest acts, our deepest beliefs and values will still be visible. In order to really live consciously, with awareness, and with real self-knowledge we must be dedicated to the task and willing to keep challenging ourselves. It is easy to get a bit more aware, to notice a pattern of behaviour and think “Now I've got it! I won't do that again...” But in my experience it is rarely that simple. I feel like every time I catch myself in a pattern I'm not happy with, the pattern gets smaller. The good news is that as it is smaller then it is less damaging when I next slip up. The bad news is that, as it is smaller, it takes even more attention to spot the pattern before I have slipped and done something I am not happy about. It is said that learning Tai Chi is first done in Feet, then Inches, then Half-Inches, then Quarters, and so on. I think the journey to self-knowledge is the same. If you stick with it, then you can refine the quality of your presence a lot but things also get more complex, and require even more attention to detail as you go. Once you begin down this path I'm not sure there is an end point, I can't promise you you'll ever be
Similar Books
