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I have a very sweet, six year old friend whom I recently visited with in his home. He proudly showed me the knight’s shield that he had made and I noticed a heart glued on to the outside of it. When I asked him about it, he carefully explained to me that as a knight he was not really a fighting knight but a “heartening” knight. I love that he made up a word and so I asked him to explain “heartening” to me. He seemed to have given this a lot of thought and was very deliberate in his explanation. He told me that he had a heart on his shield because he was a knight that was not wanting to fight but  rather wanting to use his heart instead. A brilliant child I thought to myself. I assumed that someone must have explained the virtues of being a knight to him and this had appealed to his developing personal values.

This idea of a spiritual warrior filled me up and I thought about what being a “heartening” knight might mean. I considered the Buddhist path of the awakened heart. Buddhists describe the awakened heart as the bodhicitta path. The awakened heart has the wish that none will suffer. We can choose the path of the bodhicitta and keep our hearts soft and open like a childs. I wonderd if maybe the way of the awakened heart is upon us?

The heart warrior is committed to the path of truth and and I think that many are drawn to this path. A lot of change is happening in the world. People are demonstrating their frustration at the archiac systems of power in our government, social services and production of goods that overlook the human factor in business. The age of transparency is growing where people want true accountability for economic and political actions. Every day can be an opportunity to be our higher warrior self no matter what our current circumstances or positons. We can demonstrate honesty, love, fairness and compassion and be accountable for our actions

Chogyam Trungpa describes the idea of the heart practice. “Warrior-ship does not refer to making war on others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution. Here the word “warrior” is taken from the Tibetan “pawo,” which literally means, “one who is brave.”  The spiritual warrior’s main character is open heartedness and being open to any pain requires courage. Remember the Jedi knights and the galactic order of warriors of peace and justice?  They were committed to the path of the awakened heart and harnessed the power of the Light energy to transform evil systems. We  too are drawn to the path of the heart as seen by the many movies made that depict this internal struggle for good over evil and the celebration of personal redemption. The movement is growing and hearts are awakening. May the Force be with you.