The Bulletproof Archive

a coeur vaillant rien d’ impossible
[to a valiant heart, nothing is impossible]

New ideas indicate good meditation.

The secret of success is to discipline your life so that you support your deepest purpose and minimize distractions and detours.

A Week In Montana from Preston Kanak on Vimeo.

There is a land where a man, to live, must be a man. it is a land of granite and marble and porphyry and gold, and a man’s strength must be as the strength of the primeval hills.

It is a land of oaks and cedars and pines, and a man’s mental grace must be as the grace of the untamed trees.

It is a land of far-arched and unstained skies, where the wind sweeps free and untainted, and the atmosphere is the atmosphere of those places that remain as god made them, and a man’s soul must be as the unstained skies, the unburdened wind and the untainted atmosphere.

It is a land of wide mesas, of wild rolling pastures and broad, untilled valley meadows, and a man’s freedom must be that freedom which is not bounded by the fences of a too weak and timid conventionalism.

In this land every man is, by divine right, his own king; he is his own jury, his own counsel, his own judge, and, if it must be, his own executioner… in this land, a man, to live, must be a man….

Always imagine yourself on the battlefield under the fiercest attack; never forget this crucial element of training.

There is a distinct tendency for strengths and weaknesses to propagate themselves. The weak grow weaker; the strong strive to increase in strength still more.

Because to remain faithful to your life requires vision and commitment which must constantly be renewed…

…thus, according to the greatest poets, whether the man knows his fate or not, he cannot avert it, and every conscious or unconscious act of his is a step towards it.

This is how i will lay the foundation for my life; the control and power to enact this is entirely in my hands; all that is required is the will, daily affirmation of my commitments, and dedication.

This is the Way for men who want to learn my strategy:
Do not think dishonestly.
The Way is in training.
Become acquainted with every art.
Know the Ways of all professions.
Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters.
Develop intuitive judgment and understanding for everything.
Perceive those things which cannot be seen.
Pay attention even to trifles.
Do nothing which is of no use.

– Miyamoto Musashi, sword saint of Japan, one of the greatest warriors in recorded history

There is tremendous power in daily consistency – find good things to do and do them every day.

Tell me… what is strength?

In poetic terms, strength is that which exalts the natural majesty of man.

And in concrete terms?

Strength is that which promotes thought and daring.

…by taking your attention away from your present limitations and placing it upon that which you aspire to be. Do not attempt this in wishful thinking but in a positive manner. Claim yourself to be the thing desired; I am that. All that is asked of you is to accept your desire. If you dare claim it, you will express it.

I still have a soul (HBO Boxing)

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And - which is more - you’ll be a Man my son!

…comes from continuing to overcome those biases of nature that are difficult to conquer.

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…can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not; Genius will not; Education will not;

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

The questioner asks:

“What is release?”

Sri Ramana Maharshi answers:

“Inquiring into the nature of one’s self that is in bondage, and realizing one’s true nature is release.”

Over 50 years of age (Senior Citizen, Honored Elder, Master Warrior) Seeks to gain power from hardship Takes full responsibility for his own life Seeker of truth and wisdom Reflects on life; introspective Strong sense of purpose Seeks to serve family and the world Never ‘retires’ from life; arises to the struggle Seeks to be a man of honor and wisdom Values deep conservation and has ready access to his own depth Well wisher of humankind Aspires to health and fitness Aspires to mental power, hpysical power, spiritual power Committed to the development of virtue and fairness Recognizes the right of each to be his / her real self as long as the expression of self is done in a respectful and real manner Seeks to always serve the Will God and / or his highest values Seeks to have and manifest constructive thoughts Seeks to serve his destiny and true greatness Seeks fulfillment more than comfort Can laugh at himself Is genuine and original Aware of mortality, and gains perspective and motivation from this awareness Has a thirst for knowledge Humble; knows that the good that comes from him is not of him but from God or from his highest values

Always keeps his word Knows his identity Chooses his own thoughts Trusts his intuition, hunches, and insight

http://www.nerenberginstitute.com/master_warriors.php

To strip away every deep-seated and negative tendency, to bring myself to a mindful silence that can witness how I run away from my innermost and innate freedom.

“[this]…involves deep inquiry into ourselves and honesty with ourselves.

This deep inquiry involves looking into what we are really seeking to gain from our desires and whether or not these desires can really give us peace.

This self-honesty involves looking into our habitual tendencies that upset our inherently relaxed nature…”

AND THE REMOVAL OF BARRIERS ‘The awakening of spiritual consciousness can only be understood in measure as it is entered. It can only be entered when the following conditions are present: purity of heart, and strong aspiration, and the resolute conquest of each sin.’

Times, places, and conditions in which it is best to meditate:

1. Very early in the morning (4 - 6AM)

1. Immediately before meals

1. In solitude

1. In the open air or in a plainly furnished room

1. While sitting on a hard seat

1. When the body is strong and vigorous

1. When the body is modestly and plainly clothed

Times, places, and conditions in which meditation is difficult:

1. At night

1. In a luxuriously furnished room

1. While sitting on a soft, yielding seat

1. When in company

1. When the body is weary

1. If the body is given too much food

Times, places, and conditions in which meditation is impossible:

1. At, or immediately after meals

1. In places of pleasure

1. In crowded places

1. While walking rapidly

1. While lying in bed in the morning

1. While smoking

1. While lying on a couch or bed for physical or mental relaxation

The indications of meditation are:

1. Increase of both physical and mental energy

1. A strenuous striving after wisdom

1. A decrease of irksomeness in the performance of duty

1. A fixed determination to faithfully fulfill all worldly responsibilities

1. Freedom from fear

1. Indifference to riches

1. Possession of self-control

It is easy to mistake reverie for meditation. Reverie is a loose dreaming into which a man falls; meditation is strong, purposeful thinking into which a man rises. Reverie is easy and pleasurable; meditation is at first difficult and irksome.

Reverie is first alluring, then sensuous, and then sensual.

Meditation is first forbidding, then profitable, and then peaceful.

Reverie is dangerous; it undermines self-control. Meditation is protective; it establishes self-control.

The indications of reverie are:

1. A desire to avoid exertion

1. A desire to experience the pleasures of dreaming

1. An increasing distaste for one’s worldly duties

1. A desire to shirk one’s worldly responsibilities

1. Fear of consequences

1. A wish to get money with as little effort as possible

1. Lack of self-control

It will be seen by the foregoing instructions that ease, luxury, and indulgence (which induce reverie) render meditation difficult, and when strongly pronounced make it impossible; while strenuousness, discipline, and self-denial (which dispel reverie) make meditation comparatively easy.

Think strongly;

attempt fearlessly;

accomplish masterfully.

1. Assessing Present Thoughts:

As an immortal spirit, are these the thoughts, feelings and memories I choose to carry for eternity?

1. Attaining Inner Freedom:

What is most important is not how others are treating me – what is most important is how I am treating others.

1. Expressing Inner Power:

I am a well of happiness, overflowing into the lives of others.

1. Attuning to Good Fortune:

I am part of a Living Whole that wants the best for me and all others at the same time.

1. Ennobling this Lifetime:

Because everything is sacred, so am I.

1. Relax

1. Buy a journal

1. Write in that journal every day;

Observe Analyze

Synthesize

The point is to write, ask questions, and most important, to think.

…when after innumerable and apparently unsuccessful attempts, some ingrained fault of character is at alast cast out to trouble its erstwhile victim and the world no more. The striver after virtue - he who is engaged in the holy task of building up a noble character - tastes at every step of conquest over self, a joy which does not again leave him, but which becomes an integral part of his spiritual nature.

…and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result.

1. Define who you want to become.

1. When challenged, refuse to be anyone else.

…when you have enough is to be immune from disgrace;

to know when to stop is to be preserved from perils.

A lecture to the student body of

The Marine Amphibious Warfare School,

Quantico, Virginia

Tuesday, 18 April 1995

…I’m going to concentrate on a major mind game today: stoicism…To get my message today, you have only to have a general understanding of the message of one man: the philosopher Epictetus… we will discuss the worthiness of what I’ll call Epictetus’s ‘Code of Conduct’… and what it had to say about personal conduct, how a man should think, and behave. “What do I care”, Epictetus asked, “whether all existing things are composed of atoms, or of indivisbles, or of fire and earth? Is it not enough to learn the true nature of the good and the evil?”

…His message: A man must think hard and live simply to do well.

I met old Epictetus back at Stanford graduate school in 1962. It was my great luck; in fact, it was a fluke that put us together. My favorite professor gave me one of Epictetus’s books as a farewell present as I left to deploy. He had never mentioned him in class. He just thought Epictetus and I would make a good pair, and he was certainly right. That last morning, Rhinelander told me, “As a military man, I think you’ll have special interest in this. Frederick the Great never went on a campaign without a copy of this handbook in his kit.” I had never heard of Epictetus; in fact,

today his name recognition is in about the third tier of philosophers. But his mind is first tier.

Everything I know about Epictetus I’ve developed myself over the years. It’s been a one-on-one relationship. He has been in combat with me, leg irons with me, spent month long stretches in blindfolds with me, has been in the ropes with me, and has taught me that my true business is maintaining control over my moral purpose, in fact that my moral purpose is who I am. He taught me that I am totally responsible for everything I do and say; and that it is I who decides on and controls my own destruction and my own deliverance. Not even God will intercede if He sees me throwing my life away. He wants me to be autonomous. He put me in charge of me… "It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishment the scroll. I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.“

…The Stoic demand for disciplined thought naturally won only a small minority to its standard, but those few were the strongest characters of that time. In theory a doctrine of pitiless perfectionism, Stoicism actually created men of courage, saintliness, and goodwill. Rhinelander singled out three examples: Cato the Younger, Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus.

Cato was the great Roman Republican who pitted himself against Julius Caesar. He was the unmistakable hero of our own George Washington; scholars find quotations of Cato in Washington’s Farewell Address - without quotation marks.

Emperor Marcus Aurelius took the Roman Empire to the pinnacle of its power and influence. And Epictetus, the great teacher, played his part in changing the leadership of Rome from the swill he had known under Nero to the power and decency it knew under Marcus Aurelius.

Epictetus drew the same sort of audience Socrates had drawn 500 years earlier - young aristocrats destined for careers in finance, the arts, public service.

The best families sent him their sons in their middle 20s -to be told what the good life consisted of, to be disabused of the idea that they deserved to become playboys, and to be taught that their job was to serve their fellow men.

Epictetus explained that his curriculum was not about "revenues or income, or peace or war, but about happiness and unhappiness, success and failure, slavery and freedom.”

His model graduate was not a person “able to speak fluently about philosophic principles as an idle babbler, but about things that will do you good if your child

dies, or your brother dies, or if you must die or be tortured.

”…Let others practice lawsuits, others study problems, others syllogisms; here you practice how to die, how to be enchained, how to be racked, how to be exiled.“

A man is responsible for his own "judgments, even in dreams, in drunkenness, and in melancholy madness.” Each individual brings about his own good and his own evil, his good fortune, his ill fortune, his happiness, and his wretchedness.

Epictetus was telling his students that there can be no such thing as being the “victim” of another. You can only be a “victim” of yourself. It’s all in how you discipline your mind. Who is your master? “He who has authority over any of the things on which you have set your heart.

What is the result at which all virtue aims? Serenity.

…His manner of speaking was not that of a prissy moralist. He often phrased his pithy remarks in the athletic metaphor: "Difficulties are what show men’s character. Therefore when a difficult crisis meets you, remember that you are as the raw youth, with whom God-the-trainer is wrestling.”

…He asks and answers the question: What do you do for friends as you ascend the ladder of intellectual sophistication? Do you hang in with your old pals, or concentrate on intellectual peers? “If you do not drink with old friends as you used to drink with them, you cannot be loved by them as much. So choose whether you want to be a boozer and likeable to them, or sober and not likeable.”

Then he makes it clear that in his mind, satisfaction and self-respect are best served by escalating friendships apace with your education.

“But if that does not please you, turn about the whole of you, to the opposite; become one of the addicts to unnatural vice, one of the adulterers, and act in corresponding fashion. Yes, and jump up and shout your applause to the dancer!”

…Now neither of these eight volumes of Epictetus’ “lectures”, hallway talk, and private conversations, nor their “executive summary”,The Enchiridion (means 'ready at hand’), were compiled by Epictetus. He couldn’t have cared less about being in print. They were taken down in some kind of frantic shorthand by a 23- year-old student, a remarkable man, Flavius Arrianus, usually known as just Arrian… an aristocratic Greek born in a Black Sea province of Asia Minor… In his dedication of his final manuscript, he writes: “Whatever I heard him say, I used to write down, word for word, as best I could, endeavouring to preserve it as a memorial, for my own future use, of his way of thinking and the frankness of his speech. Let those who read these words be assured of this: that when Epictetus

spoke them, the hearer could not help but feel exactly what Epictetus wanted him to feel.” That is the mark of a good teacher!

….The time interval between my finishing graduate school and becoming a prisoner was almost exactly three years, September 1962 to September 1965. That was a very eventful period in my life. I started a war (led the first-ever American bombing raid on North Vietnam), led good men in about 150 aerial combat missions in flak, and throughout three 7-month cruises to Vietnam I had not only the Enchridion, but the Discourses on my bedside table on each of the three aircraft carriers I flew from…

I want to step off the chronology escalator for just a minute and explain what memories of the Enchridion and Discourses I did have “ready at hand” when I ejected from that plane. What I had in hand was the understanding that the Stoic… always keeps separate files in his mind for: (a) those things which are “up to him” and (b) those things which are “not up to him” or another way of saying it, those things which are within his power and those things which are within the grasp of his free will.

Among those relatively few things that are up to me, within my power, within my will, are my opinions, my aims, my aversions, my own grief, my own joy, my moral purpose or will, my attitude toward what is going on, my own good, and my own evil.

All these things, as are all things of real importance to the Stoic, are matters that apply principally to your inner self, where you live.

Now I’m talking like a preacher here for a bit. Understand that I’m not trying to sell anything; it’s just the most efficiently way to explain it. Stoicism is one of those things that, when described analytically, sounds horrible to some modern people. Stoic scholars agree that to describe it effectively, the teacher must “become, for the time being atleast,” a Stoic.

…I want to quote Alexander Solzhenitsyn from his book Gulag Archipelago, when he talks about that point in prison when he gets his act together, realizes his residual powers, and starts what I know as “ascending”, riding the updrafts of occasional euphoria as you realize you are getting to know yourself and the world for the first time.

'It was only when I lay there on he rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to

the astonishment of those about me, bless you prison, for having been a part of my life.’

I understand that. He learned, as I and many others have learned, that good and evil are not just abstractions that you kick around and give lectures about, and attribute to this person and that. The only good or evil that mean anything are right in your own heart: within your will, within your power, where it is up to you.

…What is not up to you? Beyond your power? Not subject to your will? For starters, lets take your “station in life”. As I glide down toward that little town on my short parachute ride, I’m just about to learn how negligible is my control over my station in life. It’s not at all up to me.Of course, I’m going right now from being the wing commander, in charge of a thousand pilots, crewmen, and maintenance men, responsible for nearly a hundred airplanes, to being an object of contempt. “Criminal”, I’ll be known as.

But that’s not half the revelation that is the realization of your own fragility, that you can be reduced by the natural elements, or men, to a helpless, sobbing wreck - unable to control even your own bowels - in a matter of minutes. And more than that even, you’re going to face fragilities you never before let yourself believe could be true. Like after mere minutes, in a flurry of action while being knocked down and then sat up to be bound with tourniquet tight ropes, with care, by a professional, hands cuffed behind, jack-knifed forward, head pushed down between your ankles held secure in logs attached to a heavy iron bar, that with the onrush of anxiety, knowing your upper body blood circulation has been stopped, and feeling the ever- growing pain and the ever-closing in of claustrophobia as the man standing on your back gives your head one last shove down with his heel and you start to gasp and vomit, that you can be made to blurt out answers, probably correct answers, to questions about anything they know you know. I’m not going to pull you through that explanation again. I’ll just call it “taking the ropes”.

No, “station in life” can be changed from that of a dignified and competent gentleman of culture to that of a panic-stricken, sobbing, self loathing wreck, maybe a permanent wreck if you have no will, in less than an hour.

So what?

So - after you work a lifetime to get yourself all set up, and then delude yourself into thinking that you have some kind of ownership claim on your station in life, you’re riding for a fall. You’re asking for disappointment. To avoid that, stop kidding yourself, just do the best you can to make your station in life what you want it to be, but never get hooked on it.

Make sure in your heart of hearts, in your inner self, that you treat your station in

life with indifference. Not with contempt, only with indifference.

And so onto a long list of things which some unreflective people assume they’re assured of controlling to the last instance - your reputation, for example. Do what you will, it’s at least as fickle as your station in life. Others decide what your reputation is.Try to make it as good as possible, but again, don’t get hooked on it.

In your heart… don’t let “reputation” get mixed up with what’s within your moral purpose, what’s within the power of your will, in other words, what is up to you.

Make sure it is in the bottom drawer, filed under “matters of indifference”, and so too with your health, your wealth, your pleasure, your pain, your fame, your disrepute, your life, and your death. They are ALL externals, all outside your control in the last instance.

For a Stoic… the will [projected by desires, aims, aversions, judgments, attitudes, and of course, your good and your evil], is the only repository of things of absolute value. Whether they are projected wisely or foolishly, for good or for evil, is up to you.

When his will is set on the right course, a man becomes good; when it’s on a foul course, he becomes evil. With the right course comes good luck and happiness, and with the foul course, bad luck and misery.

…I know the difficulties of gulping all this down right away. I know the difficulties of gulping all this down right away. You keep thinking of practical problems. Everybody has to play the game of life. You can’t just walk around saying: “1 don’t care about my health, or wealth, or my reputation, or whether I’m sent to prison or not.”

In this case, Epictetus said everybody should play the game of life-that the best play it with “skill, form, speed and grace.” But like most games, you play it with a ball. Your team devotes all its energies to getting the ball across the line. But after the game, what do you do with the ball? Nobody much cares. It’s not worth anything. The competition, the game, was the thing. You play the game with care, making sure you are never making the external apart of yourself, but merely lavishing your skill in regard to it. The ball was just “used” to make the game possible, so just roll it under the porch and forget it, let it wait for the next game.

Most important of all, just don’t covet it, don’t seek it, don’t set your heart on it.

It is this latter route that makes externals dangerous, makes them the route to slavery. First you covet or abhor “things,” and then along comes he who can confer or remove them…

…I would like to say straight off that I have read through and studied the Discourses, at least 10 times, to say nothing of my many excursions into the Enchiridion, and I have never found a single inconsistency in Epictetus’s code of tenets. It is a put-together package, free of contradictions. The old boy may or may not appeal to you, but if he turns you off, don’t blame it on incoherence; Epictetus has no problem with logic.

I think more needs to be said about good and evil. After all, the Stoic is indifferent to everything but good and evil. In Stoic thought, our good and our evil come from the same locus. “Vice and virtue reside in the will alone.” “The essence of good and evil lies in an attitude of the will.” Solzhenitsyn locates it in the heart, and Epictetus would buy that, or will, or moral purpose, or character, or soul, he’s not a nitpicker about things like that.

What he bears down on is that your good and your evil are the essence of you. You are moral purpose. You are rational will. You are not hair, you are not skin, you are moral purpose -get that beautiful, and you will be beautiful.

…This self-knowledge that you have betrayed yourself, destroyed yourself, is the very worst harm that can befall a Stoic. Epictetus says:

“No one comes to his fall because of another’s deed.” “No one is evil without loss or damage.” “No man can do wrong with impunity.”

…Somebody asked Epictetus: “What is the fruit of all these doctrines?” He answered with three sharp words: “Tranquility, Fearlessness, and Freedom.”

The foundational nature of gaining mastery over one’s soul, Plato continues,

“is the chief reason why it should be our main concern that each of us, neglecting all other studies, should seek after and study this thing - if in any way he may be able to learn of and discover the man who will give him the ability and the knowledge to distinguish the life that is good from that which is bad, and always and everywhere to choose the best that the conditions allow.”

A man that makes this pursuit his aim, and allows it to guide all his thoughts and actions, “will gladly take part in and enjoy those which he thinks will make him a better man, but in public and private life he will shun those that may overthrow the established habit of his soul.”

a body of optimal health and strength,

my senses under total control,

a mind well disciplined, clear, and calm,

an intellect as sharp as a razor,

a will as strong and pliable as steel,

a heart full of unconditional love and compassion,

an ego as pure as crystal,

and a life filled with supreme peace and joy.

All paths are the same.

They lead absolutely nowhere.

At the end of your life you will be in the exact same position except you will be able to look back with either regret or satisfaction on the choices you made. It is the path that is important, not the destination. It is better to have a followed a path in your life that brought you happiness in the moment, than to have followed a path that promised happiness at your destination. Using death as your guide will promote a distinct change in your level of presence and naturally lead you to living in the moment and choosing the correct path. The warrior who chooses his highest calling is also the one to achieve the greatest success, further strengthening the chance of the survival of his bloodline…

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A man is what he wills himself to be

Life is the divine interplay between imagination and manifestation

The body is the servant of the mind

Man is a being of divine power, intelligence, and love; the master of thought, the molder of character, and the maker and shaper of condition, environment, and destiny.

Learn to focus willpower

Trust and follow instincts

Truth is the only remedy against cowardice

Mean what I say

Work on the win-win compromise

Respond to sincerity

Assume nothing

Yet hold on loosely

Remain calm at all times and see what is really going on

Forgive all offenses, deviations, and mishaps

Rest in reason, move in passion

Live as if I am already dead

There must be no holding back.

…of any kind is to supply favorable conditions for the action of the universal life force which does the real healing work, just as food, water, and air supply the materials to this same force for the repair of tissue and the regeneration of cells…

DISPERSION is weakness; concentration is power. Destruction is a scattering, preservation a uniting, process. Things are useful and thoughts are powerful in the measure that their parts are strongly and intelligently concentrated. Purpose is highly concentrated thought.

All the mental energies are directed to the attainment of an object, and obstacles which intervene between the thinker and the object are, one after another, broken down and overcome. Purpose is the keystone in the temple of achievement. It binds and holds together in a complete whole that which would otherwise lie scattered and useless.

Empty whims, ephemeral fancies, vague desires, and half-hearted resolutions have no place in purpose. In the sustained determination to accomplish there is an invincible power which swallows up all inferior considerations, and marches direct to victory.

All successful men are men of purpose. They hold fast to an idea, a project, a plan, and will not let it go; they cherish it, brood upon it, tend and develop it; and when assailed by difficulties, they refuse to be beguiled into surrender; indeed, the intensity of the purpose increases with the growing magnitude of the obstacles encountered.

The men who have molded the destinies of humanity have been men mighty of purpose. Like

the Roman laying his road, they have followed along a well defined path, and have refused to swerve aside even when torture and death confronted them. The Great Leaders of the race are the mental road makers, and mankind follows in the intellectual and spiritual paths which they have carved out and beaten.

Great is the power of purpose. To know how great, let a man study it in the lives of those whose influence has shaped the ends of nations and directed the destinies of the world. In an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon, we see the power of purpose when it is directed in worldly and personal channels; in a Confucius, a Buddha, or a Christ, we perceive its vaster power when its course is along heavenly and impersonal paths.

Purpose goes with intelligence. There are lesser and greater purposes according with degrees of intelligence. A great mind will always be great of purpose. A weak intelligence will be without purpose. A drifting mind argues a measure of undevelopment.

What can resist an unshakable purpose? What can stand against it or turn it aside? Inert matter yields to a living force, and circumstance succumbs to the power of purpose. Truly, the man of unlawful purpose will, in achieving his ends, destroy himself, but the man of good and lawful purpose cannot fail. It only needs that he daily renew the fire and energy of his fixed resolve, to consummate his object.

The weak man, who grieves because he is misunderstood, will not greatly achieve; the vain man, who steps aside from his resolve in order to please others and gain their approbation, will not highly achieve; the double minded man, who thinks to compromise his purpose, will fail.

The man of fixed purpose who, whether misunderstandings and foul accusations, or flatteries and fair promises, rain upon him, does not yield a fraction of his resolve, is the man of excellence and achievement; of success, greatness, power.

Hindrances stimulate the man of purpose; difficulties nerve him to renewed exertion; mistakes, losses, pains, do not subdue him; and failures are steps in the ladder of success, for he is ever conscious of the certainty of final achievement.

All things at last yield to the silent, irresistible, all conquering energy of purpose.

Russian Kyokushinkai full-contact karate fighter and instructor Oleg Ignatov gives the following examples of bodyweight drills that develop these three types of strength :

• Pushups: the one-arm pushup (max strength), the clapping pushup (explosive

strength), and the repetition pushup (strength endurance)

• Squats: the one-legged squat (max strength), low-rep vertical and broad jumps

(explosive strength), vertical and broad jumps for up to 50 reps (strength endurance), repetition squats (strength endurance)

… It is a fact: respectable strength can only be built with high-resistance, lowrep exercises that impose high levels of tension on the muscles.

Note that I said ‘resistance’, not ‘weight’. A case in point: There are a lot more double-bodyweight benchers out there than men who can chin themselves with one arm .

Strength is built by tensing the muscles harder, not by exhausting them with countless reps. High resistance is one of the two requirements of high tension. The other is mental focus on contracting the muscles harder. The tension-generating skill is the most important variable in getting stronger - much more important than muscle mass. If this were not true, Alexey Sivokon would not have benched 500 pounds at 148 pounds of bodyweight and matching height.

Since strength is a skill, training must be approached as a ‘practice’, not a ‘workout’.

You will practice every day, throughout the day; you will focus on max tension; and you will totally avoid muscle fatigue and failure. Strength gains will come fast and furious.

The skill of tension-generation is the most important variable in getting stronger; it is much more important than the building of muscle mass.

How do lifters really train?

A book on max strength training, and when it comes down to it, it makes no difference whether you are lifting a barbell or your own body, would not be complete without tipping a hat to the people who have made strength their only pursuit: Olympic weightlifters and powerlifters.

How do these specialists train? If you don’t belong to this exclusive community, chances are that you lump together lifters and bodybuilders into the same category and presume they follow the same “do or die” reps-to-failure shtick. Nothing could be further from the truth.

A limited number of exercises, mostly the two competition lifts and their variations, done in 6 to 10 sets of 1 to 3 reps each is the classic Olympic weightlifting blueprint for strength. Powerlifters follow a similar schedule, although their reps climb up to 5 and even 6 because the powerlifts are not as technically demanding as the snatch and the C&J. Powerlifters tend to do fewer sets because the deadlifts are more exhausting than the snatches. Weightlifters train almost daily, often twice or even three times a day. Many powerlifters still practice each lift once a week, but this practice is quickly becoming obsolete. It’s hard to ignore the fact that the victorious Russian men’s national powerlifting team benches up to 8 times a week.

Neither group trains to failure. Weightlifters don’t do more than 3 reps even with half their max. Powerlifters are the same way. The great ones rack the bar with at least a rep or two in the bank, unless they are in a meet.

Both breeds of strength athlete know that training continually with the same intensity or volume will flatline their strength gains. So, they play the game of “two steps forward, one step back”: first pushing ahead and then backing off .

Lifters practice the generation of greater tension relentlessly. Bench press record breaker George Halbert crushes the bar to pulp. World champion powerlifter Ernie Frantz practiced tensing up his whole body throughout the day. World record squatter Dr. Judd Biasiotto visualized tensing his muscles in the perfect sequence for each lift.

Once you strip away the drama and demagoguery, strength building, whether with

your body or with iron, is simple and straightforward:

Engage a skeleton crew of full body exercises ; perform multiple sets of up to 5 reps, never going to failure and with plenty of rest between sets; employ total focus on technique and tension; and vary volume and intensity continuously.

…And no, there is nothing magical or mysterious about your bodyweight versus iron that suddenly changes all the laws of strength training.

If we have only so many pounds of weight to work with, how can we make the exercise hard enough in 6 reps or less?

Simple : By redistributing your weight between your limbs, manipulating the range of motion, training in an unstable environment, varying the leverage, and minimizing bounce and momentum.

…Say no to the bounce and momentum. You can also increase the difficulty of bodyweight exercises by minimizing bounce and momentum. There are two ways of doing this. The first is ‘dead starts’. Using the one-arm pushup example, you would not touch your chest to the deck and go. You will lie down and totally relax on the deck, then flex again and power back up.

The second technique is dynamic isometrics. It involves pausing for a few seconds and staying tight at the sticking points of the exercise before moving along. Going back to the one-arm pushup example, you pause for 1 to 5 seconds with your chest almost touching the deck. Pain is good!

Specificity + frequent practice = success

Your technique will become so good from doing so many submaximal sets (in other words, from practicing) that once you decide to go all out, more ‘ nerve force’ will reach your muscles because your nerves will have become superconductors.

The result? A PR (personal record), even though you will never have come close to your limit in training!

It is critical for the program’s success that you avoid muscle failure. Do not come even close to failure, whether you train for max or reps!

Strength is a skill. Professor Vladimir Zatsiorsky, a Soviet strength expert who jumped ship to America from the Dark Side, has summed up this notion by saying that an athlete must “do as much work as possible while being as fresh as possible.”

My point is this: Do fewer exercises and pay attention to details. Street fighters who have polished one or two moves always dominate black belts who know 10 ways to block a punch.

“It is a mistake to think that Physical Training becomes more satisfactory and attractive according to the number of exercises used,” wrote K.A. Knudsen, chief instructor of gymnastics for Denmark in his 1920 A Textbook of Gymnastics. “The teacher of gymnastics must learn the art of limiting himself. Far too often the short time given in the school curriculum to Physical Training is wasted on exercises of little value. There fore the first thing required of a teacher of gymnastics is that he should be capable of estimating the value of the exercises he uses.”

…Spectacular levels of strength can be achieved by increasing the intensity of the muscular contraction.

“Why does correct bodyweight conditioning work so well?” asks gymnastics coach Christopher Sommer. “There are several [reasons], the first is contraction. Basically, the harder the contraction over a greater part of the body during an exercise, the more effective the exercise. For maximum improvement, training to failure is not necessary but maximum contraction is. One of the main advantages to these advanced bodyweight exercises is that they require a complete, full-body contraction. In fact, at advanced levels, they are so demanding that it is simply not possible to complete them any other way. ”

Tension = Force . The tenser your muscles are, the more strength you will display and build.

Over the centuries, martial artists, as well as gymnasts, lifters, and some other tough hombres have quietly developed a number of highly effective techniques that greatly enhance strength by channeling the body’s scattered energy into the target muscles.

…In one-arm upper body exercises, fire the gripping muscles of your free hand at the sticking point.

“All my attention, all my training, all my thinking is centered on my abdomen.”

• Mas Oyama

Tensing your abs will amplify the intensity of the contraction of any muscle in your body.

Karate great Masatoshi Nakayama used to say, “Motive power comes from the powerful thrust of the supporting leg; the principle is the same as that of the jet engine… . The vital core of the movement is the reaction between the supporting leg

and the floor. The greater this reaction is, the faster the body advances. ”

….Focus on applying maximum pressure to the deck with your foot when doing the pistol and with your palm when doing the one-arm pushup. Push straight though the platform, as Olympic weightlifters like to say.

“I always stomp a few hard ones with each foot before a heavy squat, and can always grind out a few more pounds as the result,” says Dan‘ Garm’ Bescher, RKC, whose tough guy record includes combat with the Recon Marines, a world drug free powerlifting title, and an impressive martial arts background. “I try to hit with a flat foot, and really send a shock wave back up the leg. This is a common technique in Xinyiquan kung fu.”

Here is what Dan “Garm” Bescher says about reverse breathing: “When one wants to express power, the most effective breathing pattern is an exhale where the abdomen moves outward?we see this in our lifting every day. In the context of internal martial arts, most reverse breathing is done in yang/hard gong. The grunt in the striking exercises quickly moves the abdomen out on exhale, and is designed to quickly move Qi from the Tan tien to the area of the body upon which your mind is focused.”

The lungs are reservoirs of air, and the air is the lord of strength. Whoever speaks of strength must know of air.

• Jui Meng, a Shaolin monk, 1692

The stronger your midsection and the more skilled you are at maximizing the intra-abdominal pressure, the stronger you will get.

Remember the wisdom of William C. C. Chen: It is not the breathing but the compression that matters. Take care of the latter and the former will take care of itself. But no matter how you breathe, remember two rules.

First, if you choose to hold your breath, don’t hold it longer than a couple of seconds. You can breathe shallow while staying tight for long exertions, such as isometric and dynamic isometric drills.

Second, don’t take in too much or too little air. As Russian martial arts strength and conditioning expert V. N. Popenko has said, “A person must never have too much or too little air in his lungs.” Having too much air prevents maximal tensing of the abdominal muscles, and having not enough air is just as bad.

“When you exhaust your complete breath, a weak spot occurs,” warned karate master Kanbun Uechi. Oriental martial arts masters generally believe that you are at your strongest when you have expelled half of the air from your lungs. Russian

research has found 75 percent to be ideal for strength. You don’t need to worry about exact percentages. Just remember never to exhale or inhale all the way.

….“Fail to master breath control and you can do nothing in karate except possibly a few cute tricks,” stated the late great Mas Oyama. Strength training is no different.

…Shrugging your shoulder and/or letting it move forward will destroy your shoulder and your power alike, whether you are punching, benching, or doing pushups. You are in effect ‘disconnecting’ your arm from your powerful torso muscles.

Masatoshi Nakayama used to say, “The shoulders must always be kept low… If the shoulders rise, … the muscles in the side of the body will soften, and power cannot be concentrated.”

The master was speaking about the punch, but the one-arm pushup is no different. “Hips, chest, shoulder, arm ,

wrist and fist?all must be firmly linked together, and all muscles must function fully. But if the shoulder is raised when punching, or leads the movement of the body, the muscles around the armpit will not contract properly, no matter how much arm muscles are contracted. Then the impact will probably cause the fist to rebound from the target. ”

Many top powerlifters keep their shoulder pressed down into the bench and toward their feet. As a result, they put up heavier poundages and suffer fewer shoulder injuries. This is no different when you are pushing your bodyweight.

“ Throughout the punch [and the one-arm pushup], minimize tension on the outside of the arm and over the shoulder to maintain a smooth arch [of energy transmission], tensing the latissimus dorsi and serratus anterior muscles (along the ribs) to transfer stress,” insists Lester Ingber, doctor of physics and karate sensei. In other words, push from your armpit, rather than your shoulder. “Keep tensions under the arm and avoid stiff shoulders that can disconnect the block from it source of speed and mass, the body, ” suggests Ingber.

While it may seem counterintuitive to you right now, once you master this concept of armpit power, you will wonder how you ever did without it. It’s going to pay off big in your one-arm pushups, punches, and bench presses, if you do them.

…“The twisting motion [of a karate punch] contributes to setting a true course,” explained the late Nakayama. “The principle is the same as that of rifling in a gun barrel. Without the rifling, the bullet would tumble end over end and veer from its course. Because of the rifling, the bullet spins and travels a true course… Twisting the forearm concentrates power and amplifies it. This is true because the twisting causes an instantaneous tensing of all the muscles involved in

the technique.” A threaded firearm is superior to a flat-barreled one. Rotation, or spiral tension, increases the stability and power of almost any action.

This is the essence of the corkscrew principle. Gripping the rifle while isometrically twisting both hands in opposite direction - the right clockwise and the left counterclockwise - made a dramatic difference for bayonet fighting in the U.S. Marine Corps Martial Arts Program. The Marines’ thrusts became more powerful and much harder to deflect.

….A decent arm wrestler loads all his muscles with high-strung tension before the ref yells ‘Go!’ A top arm wrestler will load even before he grips up with his or her opponent. And an amateur who waits for the referee’s command to pull before turning on his biceps finds himself pinned without knowing what has hit him.

According to the father of plyometrics, Russian sports scientist Yuri Verkhoshansky, isometrically tensing your muscles before a dynamic contraction can improve your performance by up to 20 percent.

…Russian military hand-to-hand combat instructors emphasize two important principles of power generation: “summation” and “wave”. Both refer to the skill of initiating an effort from the core of the body and then dynamically passing it along to the striking limb while adding force from every muscle along the way.

Whenever you exert yourself, always start tensing in your lower abdomen. Then send that tension outward to be amplified by the tension of the muscles closer and closer to the periphery.

“The great power of the hips is concentrated and transmitted like chain lightning through the chest, shoulder, upper arm and forearm to the attacking surface of the fist,” as Nakayama put it…

…offers an angry person release by walking the emotion out of his or her system in a straight line across the landscape; the point at which the anger is conquered is marked with a stick, bearing witness to the strength or length of the rage….

When it happens, I will be ready.

Here’s one way to find out whether you qualify for work as a Hotshot. Stuff what you think you need for a week into a backpack, making sure it weighs at least 50 pounds. If you don’t need to carry that much food, add rocks to your pack till it weighs at least that much.

Start hiking cross-country, and make sure you’re going at a good clip for at least 10 hours per day on steep slopes – and make sure you’re awake for at least 20 hours per day.

If you see big movable stuff, such as rocks and logs, pick them up and move them. The bigger they are and the farther and faster you move them, the more it counts.

Fall down a lot, and bang yourself up on rocks and roots as often as possible. Thrash around in the brush, get good and scraped, and go without food and water as much as possible.

Practice sleeping while standing up. This is critical. Practice it enough to where you sort of get to like it.

Try to attract as many mosquitoes and yellowjackets and bees and flies and snakes as possible, and get bit by as many as you can in as many places as possible. Get as wet and muddy as possible, and get as hot and dusty and generally filthy as you possibly can. WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T BATHE.

Keep this up for a week. If you’re still alive, and if you think you’re having a good time, you may just make it as a Hotshot. If you’re genuinely having the time of your life and you want more of this, someone may want to hire you.

Author unknown

From the ages of 7-12, the training mostly consisted of:

Running Wrestling Stone throwing Archery and hunting Dancing Ball playing, both one on one and in teams Othismos (literally:tree-fucking): an exercise of pushing a shield into a tree; The students would locate a stout oak tree and position their shields in the back of the student in front of them and push forward against the tree while marching in unison. The idea was that if the squires transferred their body force from shield to body to shield to body etc. as in a chain, they could literally push the tree down. Sometimes this went on for days, as the student’s ground against each other until the task was complete. Many squires died under this drilling. Free for all, weaponless, mock battles in teams There was a footrace in Sparta each year among the boys. They ran ten miles, barefoot, carrying a mouthful of water. The boys were not allowed to swallow any of the water but had to spit it all out at the end of the race

From ages 13-20:

Running, both bare and in armour Heavy stone lifting and throwing Wrestling Boxing Pankration Othismos, line against line Training for festival ball tournaments (a big deal at festivals) Forced marching Heavily violent mock battles Hoplomachia: Applicable military drills Oktonyktia (eight nights): A forced march in full armour and kit for four nights, resting during the day. For the first four days and nights they drilled almost continuously, breaking only for short rests. For those first four days, they were on half-rations, the two after they had no food, and for the final two days…no food or water.. The experience was designed to prepare the warrior for marching to a battle and finding that the countryside had been razed to deny food and drink to their army. Thus these warriors would have to fight under the worst conditions possible. The Spartans were always prepared for a hostile reception and were trained to live with it, ignoring basic human needs for sustenance and rest. Their goal was to win whatever the cost as they saw that the price of losing would be the loss of their state that they pledged to defend with their shields and their lives.

Leave the heart and the mind behind you, go forward, take the third step.

Free yourself from the simple complacency of the mind that thinks to put all things in order and hopes to subdue phenomena.

Free yourself from the terror of the heart that seeks and hopes to find the essence of things.

Conquer the last, the greatest temptation of all: Hope. This is the third duty.

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It was no longer about doing the jujitsu, preparing for an opponents hands, or anything else. “Just scrap” was how I would approach this fight - taking all I had learned over the years and no longer worrying about what my opponent could do to me, and just going for broke. The same way I never worried about the biggest guy at the party, the toughest guy at the beach. or in the streets; it was going to be a full on brawl. It was not going to be about one thing I had learned or fifty things, It was just scrap. Once this attitude sunk in, mentally, I could not be beaten.

B.J Penn

to finding out the deepest truth of my own existence

and the investigation,

the realization,

the embodiment of true freedom

When the Persians under Cyrus the Great (who came from the harsh Zagros Mountains, in what is today Iran) conquered the lowland Medes 2700 years ago, the royal advisors assumed that Cyrus would abandon his barren, rocky homeland and settle in to the good life in the Medes’ fertile valleys. But Cyrus knew, as the proverb declares, that “soft lands make soft people.” His answer became famous throughout the world: Better to live in a rugged land and rule than to cultivate rich plains and be a slave…

…There’s a well-known gunnery sergeant in the Marine Corps who explains to his young Marines, when they complain about pay, that they get two kinds of salary - a financial salary and a psychological salary. The financial salary is indeed meager. But the psychological salary? Pride, honor, integrity, the chance to be part of a corps with a history of service, valor, glory; to have friends who would sacrifice their lives for you, as you would for them - and to know that you remain a part of this brotherhood as long as you live. How much is that worth?

…it also embodies the ancient precept that killing the enemy is not honorable unless the warrior places himself equally in harm’s way - and gives the enemy an equal chance to kill him.

The samurai code of Bushido forbade the warrior from approaching an enemy by stealth. Honor commanded that he show himself plainly and permit the foe a fighting chance to defend himself…

…When they were boys, Alexander and his friends were forced to bathe in frigid rivers, run barefoot till their soles grew as thick as leather, ride all day without food or water and endure whippings and ritual humiliations. On the rare occasions when they got to rest, their trainers would remind them, “While you lie here at ease, the sons of the Persians are training to defeat you in battle.”

…The greatest counterpoise to fear, the ancients believed, is love - the love of the individual warrior for his brothers in arms. At Thermopylae on the final morning, when the last surviving Spartans knew they were all going to die, they turned to one of their leaders, the platoon commander Dienekes, and asked him what thoughts

they should hold in their minds in this final hour to keep their courage strong. Dienekes instructed his comrades to fight not in the name of such lofty concepts as patriotism, honor, duty or glory. Don’t even fight, he said, to protect your family or your home. Fight for this alone: the man who stands at your shoulder. He is everything, and everything is contained within him.

The soldier’s prayer today on the eve of battle remains not “Lord, spare me,” but “Lord, let me not prove unworthy of my brothers.”

Courage is inseparable from love and leads to what may arguably be the noblest of all warrior virtues: selflessness…

When speaking of Bushido, the three qualities considered essential are loyalty, integrity and courage. When these three virtues are perfectly combined in one man, he is called a samurai of the highest quality. It is easy to link these three in one breath, but a weighty matter to understand them in one’s heart and then put them into practice.

Thus, it has been said since ancient times that it is rare to find a samurai of the highest quality even among a hundred or a thousand warriors. In this connection it is an easy thing to discern a warrior of loyalty or a man of integrity, as these qualities appear in one’s everyday behavior.

But there is some doubt if a man of courage can be distinguished in this uneventful period of peace. Such a doubt, however, is not justified. The reason is that the courage of a warrior is not exhibited for the first time when he dons his armor, takes up spear and halberd, faces the field, and is locked in battle.

A man’s ordinary life at peace reflects his courage or cowardice just like a mirror.

Why is this so? A man born with a sense of courage will advance in high spirits all that is good, and avoid in the same way all that is bad.

In his dealings with his lord and parents he will make his endeavors with unparalleled loyalty and filial piety. Having the least bit of spare time, he will put his mind to

learning, and not be negligent in his practice of the martial arts.

Being careful to avoid extravagance, he will dislike wasting even a penny. One should not think, however, that this is due to a mean or shabby spirit, because for necessary things he will spend without regret sums with which others would not part.

Having such a disposition, he will be deeply mindful of his own constitution and be moderate in his desires for food and drink. He will give wide berth to and be very prudent in matters of sex, that primary deluder of men, and, other than that, will endure anything.

He will protect his health fully and will keep in mind the desire to perform at least once in his life a great meritorious deed.

All these evidence a man’s courage…

Boy

Seeks acknowledgement Power is for me Center of the universe I will live forever Ruled by emotions No responsibility for actions Wants a mother

Man

Has a mission Power is for sharing Part of the universe I am mortal Stands with emotions Full responsibility for actions Seeks relationship with feminine

…is a means for the maintenance and acquisition of character.

Values: the ideals and standards that I live by, regardless of external pressures or incentives Willpower: the ability to perform an action despite a negative emotional state Discipline: how closely my day-to-day behavior reflects the person that I wish to be; a daily self-direction in all my actions; remembering what I want

EXCELLENCE.

DO MORE THAN IS REQUIRED.

The body is the servant of the mind. It obeys the operations of the mind, whether they be deliberately chosen or automatically expressed. At the bidding of unlawful thoughts the body sinks rapidly into disease and decay; at the command of glad and beautiful thoughts it becomes clothed with youthfulness and beauty.

Disease and health, like circumstances, are rooted in thought. Sickly thoughts will express themselves through a sickly body. Thoughts of fear have been known to kill a man as speedily as a bullet, and they are continually killing thousands of people just as surely though less rapidly. The people who live in fear of disease are the people who get it.

Strong, pure, and happy thoughts build up the body in vigor and grace. The body is a delicate and plastic instrument, which responds readily to the thoughts by which it is impressed, and habits of thought will produce their own effects, good or bad, upon it.

Men will continue to have impure and poisoned blood so long as they propagate unclean thoughts. Out of a clean heart comes a clean life and a clean body. Out of a defiled mind proceeds a defiled life and corrupt body. Thought is the fountain of action, life and manifestation; make the fountain pure, and all will be pure.

Change of diet will not help a man who will not change his thoughts. When a man makes his thoughts pure, he no longer desires impure food.

If you would perfect your body, guard your mind. If you would renew your body, beautify your mind. Thoughts of malice, envy, disappointment, despondency, rob the body of its health and grace. A sour face does not come by chance; it is made by sour thoughts. Wrinkles that mar are drawn by folly, passion, pride.

I know a woman of ninety-six who has the bright, innocent face of a girl. I know a man well under middle age whose face is drawn into inharmonious contours. The one is the result of a sweet and sunny disposition; the other is the outcome of passion and discontent.

As you cannot have a sweet and wholesome abode unless you admit the air and sunshine freely into your rooms, so a strong body and a bright, happy, or serene countenance can only result from the free admittance into the mind of thoughts of joy and good will and serenity.

On the faces of the aged there are wrinkles made by sympathy, others by strong and pure thought, others are carved by passion. Who cannot distinguish them? With those who have lived righteously, age is calm, peaceful, and softly mellowed, like the setting sun. I have recently seen a philosopher on his deathbed. He was not old except in years. He died as sweetly and peacefully as he had lived.

There is no physician like cheerful thought for dissipating the ills of the body; there is no comforter to compare with good will for dispersing the shadows of grief and sorrow. To live continually in thoughts of ill will, cynicism, suspicion, and envy, is to be confined in a self-made prison hole. But to think well of all, to be cheerful with all, to patiently learn to find the good in all - such unselfish thoughts are the very portals of heaven; and to dwell day to day in thoughts of peace toward every creature will bring abounding peace to their possessor.

Pure thoughts crystallize into habits of temperance and self control, which solidify into circumstances of repose and peace;

Thoughts of courage, self-reliance, and decision crystallize into manly habits,which solidify into circumstances of success, plenty, and freedom;

Energetic thoughts crystallize into habits of cleanliness and industry, which solidify into circumstances of pleasantness;

Gentle and forgiving thoughts crystallize into habits of gentleness, which solidify into protective and preservative circumstances;

Loving and unselfish thoughts crystallize into habits of self-forgetfulness for others, which solidify into circumstances of sure and abiding prosperity and true riches.

A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances.

A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances.

Nature helps every man to the gratification of the thoughts which he most encourages…

…radically alter his thoughts and he will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will effect in the material conditions of his life.

…As he alters his thoughts towards things and other people, things and other people will alter towards him…

Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot; it rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstance.

… the effect of wrong thought in some direction. It is an indication that the individual is out of harmony with himself, with the law of his being.

The sole and supreme use of suffering is to purify, to burn out all that is useless and impure.

Suffering ceases for him who is pure… but not until a man has extricated every sickly, bitter, and impure thought from his mind, and washed every sinful stain from his soul…

The circumstances which a man encounters with suffering are the result of his own mental disharmony; the circumstances which a man encounters with blessedness are the result of his own mental harmony.

VALOR …is evidenced by composure - calm presence of mind. Tranquility is courage in repose. It is a statical manifestation of valor, as daring deeds are a dynamical.

A truly brave man is ever serene; he is never taken by surprise; nothing ruffles the equanimity of his spirit. In the heat of battle, he remains cool; in the midst of catastrophes he keeps level his mind.

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A warrior thinks of his death when things become unclear. The idea of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit…

Only the idea of death makes a warrior sufficiently detached so that he is capable of abandoning himself to anything. He knows his death is stalking him…

The spirit of a warrior is not geared to indulging and complaining, nor is it geared to winning or losing. The spirit of a warrior is geared only to struggle…

A warrior takes responsibility for his acts, for the most trivial of his acts. An average man acts out his thoughts and never takes responsibility for what he does…

Whenever a warrior decides to do something, he must go all the way, but he must take responsibility for what he does. No matter what he does, he must first know why he is doing it, and then he must proceed with his actions without having doubts or remorse about them….

When a man embarks on the warrior’s path he becomes aware, in a gradual manner, that ordinary life has been left behind. The means of the ordinary world are no longer a buffer for him and he must adopt a new way of life if he is going to survive…

The only possible course that a warrior has is to act consistently and without reservations. At a certain moment, he knows enough of the warrior’s way to act accordingly, but his old habits and routines may stand in his way…

The self confidence of the warrior is not the self confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that

humbleness.

Power rests on the kind of knowledge that one holds. What is the sense of knowing things that are useless? They will not prepare us for our unavoidable encounter with the unknown…

A warrior doesn’t need personal history. One day, he finds it is no longer necessary… and drops it.

A warrior must learn to make every act count, since he is going to be here in this world for only a short while.

To seek the perfection of the warrior’s spirit is the only task worthy of our temporariness, and our manhood.

1. Hardship

1. Physical Challenge

1. Risk

1. Mentorship

1. arable land with a clean, dependable water supply and timber

1. the guns and guts to defend it

Read frequently. Memorize and internalize these statements.

The only way I will have freedom is to build businesses myself. Success will not come without temptation to quit. Expect to win and succeed. Play to win, not to not-lose. Create the demand from customers who don’t know what they want until they see or hear it. No quitting. No whining. No complaining.

No self-doubting. No excuses. Lack of energy or fatigue is not an excuse. Replace “I don’t have the money.” with “How can I pay for it?”; replace “I can’t” with “Here’s what I will do.” Always present a professional image. Always have the mentality and bearing of an authoritative professional. Help people / provide a solution / give people something they want. If I believe in what I am offering, I will get others to believe in it as well. “The bad news: It’s going to take years to get what I want. My overnight success could take 10 years or more; The good news: Most people are quitters and will never stick with anything. If you simply stick with it, you will end up in the top 1% of all people on earth.“ F.O.C.U.S = Follow One Course Until Successful

….men were taught from a very early age to not let themselves be overcome by weak feelings and emotions. They learned to suck it up, to go against them and to act upon them anyway. That wasn’t achieved through sensitivity training or by considering the great importance of

inclusive language.

It was done by developing willpower and courage, by going through hardships over and over and over again to gain the necessary confidence to face greater and tougher obstacles.

It was first taught firmly and vigorously by the fathers, then further honed and polished by the timely shaming and punishment from peers of any display of weak behaviors, such as crying or complaining in the heat of action.

Our ancestors did not know evolutionary psychology, but they knew from a thousand generations of experience and wisdom that being emotional when performance is needed is a recipe for disaster…

…is one who disciplines himself not to rely on others to the extent that most people do. He has, then, a certain inner strength, as well as the judgment to know how self-interested and inconstant most people are, so that there is always a danger in relying on them. For once experience has shown him that both the minds and characters of most of his fellow human beings are badly lacking and thus imprudent to associate with, he goes his own way, is indifferent to what most think of him, and simplifies his manner of life so that he is answerable to his fellow human beings as little as possible…

Seneca concludes, “withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach.”

…to finally attain the rank of warrior, Ohiyesa did what all the young men were encouraged to do: take to the woods alone.

“…for in solitude I found the strength I needed. I groped about in the wilderness, and determined to assume my position as a man. My boyish ways were departing, and a sullen dignity and composure was taking their place. The thought of love did not hinder my ambitions. I had a vague dream of some day courting a pretty maiden, after I had made my reputation, and won the eagle feathers.

In this wild, rolling country I rapidly matured, and laid, as I supposed, the foundations of my life career, never dreaming of anything beyond this manful and honest, unhampered existence.”

SILENCE? “They are self control, true courage and endurance, patience, dignity, and reverence.”

“Guard your tongue in youth and in age you may mature a thought that will be of service to your people.”

1. Accept everything just the way it is.

1. Do not seek pleasure for its own sake.

1. Do not give preference to anything among all things.

1. Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.

1. Be detached from desire your whole life.

1. Do not regret what you have done.

1. Never be jealous.

1. Never let yourself be saddened by a separation.

1. Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself nor others.

1. Do not let yourself be guided by the feeling of lust or love.

1. Do not seek elegance and beauty in all things.

1. Be indifferent to where you live.

1. Do not pursue the taste of good food.

1. Do not hold on to possessions you no longer need.

1. Do not act following customary beliefs.

1. Do not collect weapons or practice with weapons beyond what is useful.

1. Do not fear death.

1. Do not seek to possess either goods or fiefs for your old age.

1. Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help.

1. You may abandon your own body but you must preserve your honor.

1. Never stray from the Way.