Petty tyrant quotes
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"My benefactor used to say that a warrior who stumbles on a petty tyrant is a lucky one."--Don Juan (The Fire From Within p34)
See: Types of petty tyrants found in people
'A petty tyrant is a tormentor.......Someone who either holds the power of life and death over warriors or simply annoys them to distraction.'--Don Juan
Nothing can temper the spirit of a warrior as much as the challenge of
dealing with impossible people in positions of power. Only under those
conditions can warriors acquire the sobriety and serenity to stand the pressure
of the unknowable.
The perfect ingredient for the making of a superb seer is a petty tyrant
with unlimited prerogatives. Seers have to go to extremes to find a worthy one.
Most of the time they have to be satisfied with very small fry. Then warriors
develop a strategy using the four attributes of warriorship: control,
discipline, forbearance, and timing.
He said that what the new seers had in mind was a deadly manoeuvre in which the petty tyrant is like a mountain peak and the attributes of warriorship are like climbers who meet at the summit.
Control and discipline refer to an inner state. A warrior is self-oriented,
not in a selfish way but in the sense of a total examination of the self.
Forbearance and timing are not quite an inner state. They are in the
domain of the man of knowledge.
The idea of using a petty tyrant is not only for perfecting the warrior's
spirit, but also for enjoyment and happiness. Even the worst tyrants can bring
delight, provided, of course, that one is a warrior.
The mistake average men make in confronting petty tyrants is not to have a
strategy to fall back on; the fatal flaw is that average men take themselves too
seriously; their actions and feelings, as well as those of the petty tyrants,
are all-important. Warriors, on the other hand, not only have a well-thought-out
strategy, but are free from self-importance. What restrains their
self-importance is that they have understood that reality is an interpretation
we make.
Petty tyrants take themselves with deadly seriousness while warriors do
not. What usually exhausts us is the wear and tear on our self-importance. Any
man who has an iota of pride is ripped apart by being made to feel worthless.
To tune the spirit when someone is trampling on you is called control.
Instead of feeling sorry for himself a warrior immediately goes to work mapping
the petty tyrant's strong points, his weaknesses, his quirks of behaviour.
To gather all this information while they are beating you up is called
discipline. A perfect petty tyrant has no redeeming feature.
Forbearance is to wait patiently--no rush, no anxiety--a simple, joyful
holding back of what is due.
A warrior knows that he is waiting and what he is waiting for. Right there
is the great joy of warriorship.
Timing is the quality that governs the release of all that is held back.
Control, discipline, and forbearance are like a dam behind which everything is
pooled. Timing is the gate in the dam.
Forbearance means holding back with the spirit something that the warrior
knows is rightfully due. It doesn't mean that a warrior goes around plotting to
do anybody mischief, or planning to settle past scores. Forbearance is something
independent. As long as the warrior has control, discipline, and timing,
forbearance assures giving whatever is due to whoever deserves it.
To be defeated by a small-fry petty tyrant is not deadly, but devastating.
Warriors who succumb to a small-fry petty tyrant are obliterated by their own
sense of failure and unworthiness.
Anyone who joins the petty tyrant is defeated. To act in anger, without
control and discipline, to have no forbearance, is to be defeated.
After warriors are defeated they either regroup themselves or they abandon
the quest for knowledge and join the ranks of the petty tyrants for life.