Any other Peaceful Warriors out there?

The Peacefull Warrior movie had a real impact on my life. I went from beeing depressed, angry and trying to please everyone around me to my own character, witch is everything I want to be.

I grew up kinda angry, mostly becouse of my parents treatment to my extreme personality, I was kind of a "trubble maker" not in a illegal way but I was that kid that always did what he wasent allowed and never lisened to my parents kid.

So my parents would get angry with me and use the basic Idea of, if you have been bad you will be punished, lose a toy, get a yelling, no real explination or help just 1000 "no"'s.

In middle grade I became a bully for a short while, at first it came natural, I picked on lame people and so on, but after a year I hurt this guy Andree and I could see in his eyes that I had gone to far, so I turned around over night, I am right now his best friend and he is mine.

After that I became fairly posetive in school and sported alot, to get all of my energy out in a posetive way. But my life at home was still bad, I didn't like the treatment my parents gave me and I still dont. So I was still verry angry inside, I got all my energy out but I was burning Inside.

I felt that I was robbed from everything I wanted to do, like they are holding me prisoner in my own life. But I was nice to everyone else, and life was manageble. And time went on and I just kept getting more and more angry inside, I started thinking of hurting people and myself, I started hating other people for their diffrances like my parents had rejected me for not beeing their prodical son.

But I had a life chaning time in my life, around the time I saw this movie, I dont know if it was that I started to see the world as it really is or that I just coulnt go on as I did, I needed/made a change. Peacefull warrior made me realize that this moment is the only thing that matters, no need to squander your time on old grudges or what might happen, you do your best and everything will be all right, whatever happens, it is okey.

But I had already realied that life is not about hate, it's about something so much more that I can never grasp myself so there is no need trying, living is what is important to me.

Now days My life is great, Im on my way of furfilling my dream of becoming a police officer and everyday never has any worries, I have become verry neutral and I dont take anything for granted, nor do I wonder of what I might do, I know what I want so I do exactly that.

I figgure if I was going to write a post it was going to tell the whole story.

Yes I understood the message of the movie as much as my consciousness allowed. Your right “it wasn’t the greatest cinematic form” but it is the message that was important

Before I had seen the movie I had experienced that moment in time and being in total control with out any of that garbage in my head for an entire season. I am an college athlete and can relate to the movie somewhat. I have seen the movie serverl times and just ordered the book. Every time i watch it i get a new message out of it.

I have gotten away from being able to get in that state of mind because at the time i didn't exactly know what it was. It all started with me trying to master my mental side of the game. Every day while i walked to class, layed in bed, sitting in class, going through warm-ups and walking out to the mound (i play baseball fyi) i would go through every single step of my delivery and my thought process all the way until the ball released off the end of my finger. Its almost equivilant to being "in the zone" for those of you who know what that is. I felt completley in control of my self and the skills i was performing, and everything was effortless. I was able to place anyone of my pitches any where on the plate with ease. There was nothing going on in my head besides making every pitch for that pitch. Not to strike out the #3 hitter in the nation or to look good for the scouts, but for the feeling of the ball in my finger tips, the smell of leather in my hand and the sound of the ball as it explodes in the catchers mit. Just like Dano in the movie, i had no emotion to show and did not shove it in anyones face. I success that i never thought i would be able to have during that season. I simply felt...perfect.

I thought i would share my experience with you because i don't know how many people are able to experience this. I am working my way back to getting to that level of concentration now that i know where i was and it will take time and hard work.

Great thread, Max.
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I've been studying (Shambhala) Buddhism for ~9 years, and had been for several years before I saw this movie. But when I saw it, I immediately recognized it as a Buddhist movie- that's the philosophy, it's staring-at-the-sun blindingly obvious to a student of Buddhism. Now I haven't read Millman's books so I don't know if he attributes or acknowledges that, don't know if he gives credit to ~2,500 years of practitioners before he 'discovered' mindfulness, but the movie was clearly giving it a nod with the "Big Buddha"/"Little Buddha" nicknames Soc & Joy had for each other.

So anyway, as to the question of "are there other peaceful warriors out there," wikipedia says there are between 488 and 535 million Buddhists in the world. Just as with Christianity, Islam, etc, I'm sure plenty of those are just "Buddhists" because it's the norm for their culture/country/town/family and the philosophy doesn't mean anything in particular to them, but for the rest who practice mindfulness as a normal part of their lives, I expect that they'd say "yes, there are."

For my own part, I'm mindful when I'm mindful (and not when I'm not), but I've experienced enough of it to know that it's a real thing. Won't be teleporting to any rooftops- that was just a silly metaphor- but living in the moment is a legit practice.


I'm an island- peopled by bards, scientists, judges, soldiers, artists, scholars & warrior-poets.