..........from The Eagle's Gift, by Carlos Castaneda.....
The Way of the Warrior is the way of stealth and deception.
The Grandest Principle of Martial Arts is harmlessness. If someone attacks me, I should not get hurt, and also they should not get hurt.
The Warrior's Challenge is overcoming self indulgence, self pity.
The 4 Qualities of a Warrior are: patience, sweetness, cunning and detachment.
The 7 Strategies of Stalking are:
1. Warriors choose their battleground. A warrior never goes into battle without knowing what the surroundings are.
2. Warriors discard everything that is unnecessary.
3. Any battle is a battle for one's life. Apply all the concentration you have to decide whether or not to enter any battle. A warrior must be ready for a last stand here and now. But not in a helter-skelter way.
4. Warriors relax, abandon themselves, fear nothing. Only then will the powers that guide us open the road and aid us. Only then.
5. When faced with odds that can't be dealt with, warriors retreat for a moment. They let their minds meander. They occupy the time with something else. Anything would do.
6. Warriors compress time. Even an instant counts. In a battle for your life, a second is an eternity. An eternity may decide the outcome. Warriors aim at succeeding, therefore they compress time. Warriors don't waste an instant.
7. A warrior never pushes to the front. To apply this 7th principle, one must apply the other 6. Only a warrior can be a master of controlled folly. Controlled folly doesn't mean to con people. It means that warriors aply the 7 basic principles to whatever they do, from the most trivial acts to life and death situations.
.....Applying these principles means that warriors learn never to take themselves seriously. They learn to laugh at themselves. If you're not afraid of being a fool, you can fool anyone. Warriors learn to have endless patience. Warriors are never in a hurry. They never fret. And warriors have an endless capacity to improvise.
.....Warriors know that they are waiting and know also what they are waiting for, and while they wait they feast their eyes on the world. The ultimate accomplishment of a warrior is joy.
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