Book review — Way of the Peaceful Warrior, by Dan Millman

Eight years have passed since I read this book for the first time. A neigh­bour from across the hall rec­om­mended it dur­ing a din­ner party, and I was intrigued by the title. I was not sure what to expect, so I was delighted as I read it and found an inter­est­ing and easy to read story. Then I put it away on my bookshelf.

Then I found it again recently. Or maybe it found me. I re-read it. And this time I looked at it with new eyes. Maybe it was my bad mem­ory; maybe I have changed a lot in the last eight years. Either way, this time I was more inter­ested in the story that is writ­ten between the lines.

The main story is pretty straight for­ward. A highly trained gym­nast called Dan walks into a petrol sta­tion one night, finds a strange old man inside serv­ing him, and as he turns away from the sta­tion, he realises that this old man jumped from the floor to the roof of the sta­tion in sec­onds. Intrigued, he pesters the old man (his name is Socrates) for the secret of such pirou­ette. Even he, a trained gym­nast with gru­elling daily rou­tines, could not think of a way to do such a jump. The book then takes us through sev­eral years of Socrates teach­ing Dan about the Way of the Peace­ful war­rior, a code by which to live and be more fulfilled.

Within this story there is a self-help book, in plain sight. As Socrates teaches Dan, he teached me too. This time, though, I paid notice. I took notes. I actively reflected on what I was read­ing. I made some changes in real life. And then put it away, as a ref­er­ence book rather than just as another story I had enjoyed.

I encour­age you to read it. It may give you some insights too. To wet your appetite, I have cho­sen a cou­ple of excerpts that I found par­tic­u­larly interesting.

Enjoy!

~Excerpt 1:

The world was peo­pled with minds, whirling faster than any wind, in search of dis­trac­tion and escape from the predica­ment of change, the dilemma of life and death–seeking pur­pose, secu­rity, enjoy­ment; try­ing to make sense of the mys­tery. Every­one every­where lived a con­fused, bit­ter search. Real­ity never matched their dreams; hap­pi­ness was just around the comer–a cor­ner they never turned.

And the source of it all was the human mind.

~Excerpt 2:

“Dan, you are suf­fer­ing; you do not fun­da­men­tally enjoy your life. Your enter­tain­ments, your play­ful affairs, and even your gym­nas­tics are tem­po­rary ways to dis­tract you from your under­ly­ing sense of fear.”

“Wait a minute, Soc.” I was irri­tated. “Are you say­ing that gym­nas­tics and sex and movies are bad?”

“Not inher­ently. But for you they’re addic­tions, not enjoy­ments. You use them to dis­tract you from what you know you should do: break free.”

Note: If you are plan­ning to buy the book, we will appre­ci­ate if you sup­port our writ­ing by pur­chas­ing through Amazon.com (fol­low this link — Way of the Peace­ful War­rior: A Book That Changes Lives)

Tagged as: Book, Dan Millman, Review