Becoming a warrior and facing yourself is a question of honesty rather than condemning yourself. By looking at yourself, you may find that you’ve been a bad boy or girl, and you may feel terrible about yourself. Your existence may feel wretched, completely pitch black, like the black hole of Calcutta. Or you may see something good about yourself. The idea is simply to face the facts. Honesty play a very important part. Just see the simple, straightforward truth about yourself. When you begin to be honest with yourself, you develop a genuine gut level of truth. That is not necessarily cutting yourself down. Simply discover what is there; simply see that, and then stop! So first, look at yourself, but don’t condemn yourself. It’s important to be matter-of-fact, on the spot. Just look, and when you see the situation in its fullest way, then you begin to be a warrior.

Chögyam Trungpa

from the book Smile at Fear: Awakening the True Heart of Bravery

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Further quotes from the book Smile at Fear:

• Goodness is always there
• Bravery
• Joyful to be here
• Gentleness toward ourselves
• We Have to Be Honest With Ourselves
• An autumn leaf
• Using our intellect to understand life
• Facing ourselves
• We are fundamentally awake
• Cultivating mindfulness
• Becoming the breathing
• Ego finds a name for itself
• Indigestion in the mind
• The strength of fearlessness
• Be there all along
• The warrior is also an artist
• The warrior approach
• Just looking at fear
• Joining fear and uncertainty with genuine confidence