Don Juan did not discuss the mastery of awareness with me until months later. We were at that time
in the house where the nagual's party lived. "Let us go for a walk," don Juan said to me, placing his
hand on my shoulder. "Or better yet, let us go to the town square, where there are a lot of people,
and sit down and talk." I was surprised when he spoke to me, as I had been in the house for a couple
of days by then and he had not said so much as "hello". As don Juan and I were leaving the house,
la Gorda intercepted us, and demanded that we take her along. She seemed determined not to take
no for an answer. Don Juan in a very stern voice told her that he had to discuss something in private
with me. "You are going to talk about me," la Gorda said, her tone and gestures betraying both suspicion
and annoyance. "You are right," don Juan replied dryly. He moved past her without turning to look at her.
I followed him, and we walked in silence to the town square. When we sat down I asked him what on
earth we would find to discuss about la Gorda. I was still smarting from her look of menace when we left
the house. "We have nothing to discuss about la Gorda or anybody else," he said. "I told her that just
to provoke her enormous self-importance. And it worked. She is furious with us. If I know her, by now she
will have talked to herself long enough to have built up her confidence and her righteous indignation at
having been refused and made to look like a fool. I would not be surprised if she barges in on us here at
the park bench." "If we are not going to talk about la Gorda, what are we going to discuss?" I asked.
"We are going to continue the discussion we started in Oaxaca," he replied. "To understand the
explanation of awareness will require your utmost effort and your willingness to shift back and forth
between levels of awareness. While we are involved in our discussion, I will demand your total concentration
and patience." Half-complaining, I told him that he had made me feel very uncomfortable by refusing to talk
to me for the past two days. He looked at me and arched his brows. A smile played on his lips and vanished.
I realized that he was letting me know I was no better than la Gorda. "I was provoking your self-importance,"
he said with a frown. "Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it. What weakens us is feeling
offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of
our lives offended by someone. "The new seers recommended that every effort should be made to eradicate
self-importance from the lives of warriors. I have followed that recommendation, and much of my endeavors
with you has been geared to show you that without self-importance we are invulnerable."
As I listened, his eyes suddenly became very shiny. I was thinking to myself that he seemed to be on the verge
of laughter, and there was no reason for it, when I was startled by an abrupt, painful slap on the right side of
my face. I jumped up from the bench. La Gorda was standing behind me, her hand still raised. Her face was
flushed with anger. "Now you can say what you like about me and with more justification," she shouted. "If
you have anything to say, however, say it to my face!" Her outburst appeared to have exhausted her because
she sat down on the cement and began to weep. Don Juan was transfixed with inexpressible glee. I was frozen
with sheer fury. La Gorda glared at me, and then turned to don Juan and meekly told him that we had no right to
criticize her. Don Juan laughed so hard he doubled over almost to the ground. He could not even speak. He tried
two or three times to say something to me, then finally got up and walked away; his body still shaking with
spasms of laughter.
I was about to run after him, still glowering at la Gorda- at that moment I found her despicable- when something
extraordinary happened to me. I realized what don Juan had found so hilarious. La Gorda and I were horrendously
alike. Our self-importance was monumental. My surprise and fury at being slapped were just like la Gorda's feelings
of anger and suspicion. Don Juan was right. The burden of self-importance is a terrible encumbrance. I ran after him
then, elated, the tears flowing down my cheeks. I caught up with him and told him what I had realized. His eyes were
shining with mischievousness and delight. "What should I do about la Gorda?" I asked. "Nothing," he replied.
"Realizations are always personal." He changed the subject and said that the omens were telling us to continue our
discussion back at his house, either in a large room with comfortable chairs, or in the back patio which had a roofed
corridor around it. He said that whenever he conducted his explanation inside the house, those two areas would be
off limits to everyone else. We went back to the house. Don Juan told everyone what la Gorda had done. The delight
all the seers showed in taunting her made la Gorda's position extremely uncomfortable. "Self-importance can not be
fought with niceties," don Juan commented when I expressed my concern about la Gorda. He then asked everyone
to leave the room. We sat down and don Juan began his explanations. He said that seers, old and new, are divided
into two categories. The first one is made up of those who are willing to exercise self-restraint and can channel their
activities toward pragmatic goals which would benefit other seers and man in general. The other category consists
of those who do not care about self-restraint or about any pragmatic goals. It is the consensus among seers that
the latter have failed to resolve the problem of self-importance. "Self-importance is not something simple and naive,"
he explained. "On the one hand, it is the core of everything that is good in us; and on the other hand, the core of
everything that is rotten. To get rid of the self-importance that is rotten requires a masterpiece of strategy. Seers
through the ages have given the highest praise to those who have accomplished it." I complained that the idea of
eradicating self-importance, although very appealing to me at times, was really incomprehensible. I told him that I
found his directives for getting rid of it so vague I could not follow them. "I have said to you many times," he said,
"that in order to follow the path of knowledge, one has to be very imaginative. You see, in the path of knowledge
nothing is as clear as we would like it to be." My discomfort made me argue that his admonitions about self-
importance reminded me of Catholic postulates. After a lifetime of being told about the evils of sin, I had become
callous. "Warriors fight self-importance as a matter of strategy, not principle," he replied. "Your mistake is to
understand what I say in terms of morality." "I see you as a highly moral man, don Juan," I insisted. "You have
noticed my impeccability, that is all," he said. "Impeccability, as well as getting rid of self-importance, is too vague
a concept to be of any value to me," I remarked. Don Juan choked with laughter, and I challenged him to explain
impeccability. "Impeccability is nothing else but the proper use of energy," he said. "My statements have no inkling
of morality. I have saved energy, and that makes me impeccable. To understand this, you have to save enough
energy yourself." We were quiet for a long time. I wanted to think about what he had said. Suddenly, he started
talking again. "Warriors take strategic inventories," he said. "They list everything they do. Then they decide which
of those things can be changed in order to allow themselves a respite in terms of expending their energy."
I argued that their list would have to include everything under the sun. He patiently answered that the strategic
inventory he was talking about covered only behavioral patterns that were not essential to our survival and
well-being. I jumped at the opportunity to point out that survival and well-being were categories that could be
interpreted in endless ways, hence, there was no way of agreeing what was or was not essential to survival and
well-being. As I kept on talking I began to lose momentum. Finally, I stopped because I realized the futility of
my arguments. Don Juan said then that in the strategic inventories of warriors, self-importance figures as
the activity that consumes the greatest amount of energy, hence, their effort to eradicate it. "One of the first
concerns of warriors is to free that energy in order to face the unknown with it," don Juan went on. "The action
of re-channeling that energy is impeccability."
He said that the most effective strategy was worked out by the seers of the Conquest- the unquestionable
masters of stalking. It consists of six elements that interplay with one another. Five of them are called the
attributes of warrior-ship- control, discipline, forbearance, timing, and will. They pertain to the world of the
warrior who is fighting to lose self-importance. The sixth element, which is perhaps the most important of
all, pertains to the outside world and is called the petty tyrant.
He looked at me as if silently asking me whether or not I had understood.
"I am really mystified," I said. "You keep on saying that la Gorda is the petty tyrant of my life. Just what is a
petty tyrant?" "A petty tyrant is a tormentor," he replied. "Someone who either holds the power of life and
death over warriors, or simply annoys them to distraction."
Don Juan had a beaming smile as he spoke to me. He said that the new seers developed their own classification
of petty tyrants. Although the concept is one of their most serious and important findings, the new seers
had a sense of humor about it. He assured me that there was a tinge of malicious humor in every one of their
classifications because humor was the only means of counteracting the compulsion of human awareness to
take inventories and to make cumbersome classifications.
The new seers, in accordance with their practice, saw fit to head their classification with the primal source of
energy- the one and only ruler in the universe- and they called it simply 'the tyrant'. The rest of the despots
and authoritarians were found to be, naturally, infinitely below the category of the tyrant. Compared to
the source of everything, the most fearsome and tyrannical men are buffoons. Consequently, they were
classified as petty tyrants, pinches tiranos.
He said that there were two subclasses of minor petty tyrants. The first subclass consisted of the petty
tyrants who persecute and inflict misery but without actually causing anybody's death. They were called
little petty tyrants, pinches tiranitos. The second consisted of the petty tyrants who are only exasperating
and bothersome to no end. They were called small-fry petty tyrants, repinches tiranitos, or teensy-weensy
petty tyrants, pinches tiranitos chiquititos.
I thought his classifications were ludicrous. I was sure that he was improvising the Spanish terms. I asked
him if that was so.
"Not at all," he replied with an amused expression. "The new seers were great ones for classifications.
Genaro is doubtless one of the greatest. If you would observe him carefully, you would realize exactly
how the new seers feel about their classifications."
He laughed uproariously at my confusion when I asked him if he was pulling my leg.
"I would not dream of doing that," he said, smiling. "Genaro may do that, but not I, especially when I know
how you feel about classifications. It is just that the new seers were terribly irreverent."
He added that the little petty tyrants are further divided into four categories- one that torments with
brutality and violence, another that does it by creating unbearable apprehension through deviousness,
another which oppresses with sadness, and the last which torments by making warriors rage.
"La Gorda is in a class of her own," he added. "She is an acting, small-fry petty tyrant. She annoys you
to pieces and makes you rage. She even slaps you. With all that she is teaching you detachment."
"That is not possible!" I protested.
"You have not yet put together all the ingredients of the new seers' strategy," he said. "Once you do that,
you will know how efficient and clever is the device of using a petty tyrant. I would certainly say that the
strategy not only gets rid of self-importance, it also prepares warriors for the final realization that
impeccability is the only thing that counts in the path of knowledge."
He said that what the new seers had in mind was a deadly maneuver in which the petty tyrant is like a
mountain peak and the attributes of warrior-ship are like climbers who meet at the summit.
"Usually, only four attributes are played," he went on. "The fifth, will, is always saved for an ultimate
confrontation when warriors are facing the firing squad, so to speak."
"Why is it done that way?"
"Because will belongs to another sphere, the 'unknown'. The other four belong to the 'known'; which
is exactly where the petty tyrants are lodged. In fact, what turns human beings into petty tyrants is
precisely the obsessive manipulation of the known."
Don Juan explained that the interplay of all the five attributes of warrior-ship is done only by seers who
are also impeccable warriors, and who have mastery over will. Such an interplay is a supreme maneuver
that cannot be performed on the daily human stage.
"Four attributes are all that is needed to deal with the worst of petty tyrants," he continued. "Provided,
of course, that a petty tyrant has been found. As I said, the petty tyrant is the outside element; the one
we cannot control, and the element that is perhaps the most important of them all. My benefactor
used to say that the warrior who stumbles on a petty tyrant is a lucky one. He meant that you are
fortunate if you come upon one in your path; because if you do not, you have to go out and look for one."
He explained that one of the greatest accomplishments of the seers of the Conquest was a construct he
called the three phase progression. By understanding the nature of man, they were able to reach the
incontestable conclusion that if seers can hold their own in facing petty tyrants, they can certainly face
the unknown with impunity; and then they can even stand the presence of the unknowable.
"The average man's reaction is to think that the order of that statement should be reversed," he went
on. "A seer who can hold his own in the face of the unknown can certainly face petty tyrants. But that
is not so. What destroyed the superb seers of ancient times was that assumption. We know better
now. We know that 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."
I vociferously disagreed with him. I told him that in my opinion tyrants can only render their victims
helpless, or make them as brutal as they themselves are. I pointed out that countless studies had been
done on the effects of physical and psychological torture on such victims.
"The difference is in something you just said," he retorted. "They are victims, not warriors. Once I felt
just as you do. I will tell you what made me change, but first let us go back again to what I said about
the Conquest. The seers of that time could not have found a better ground. The Spaniards were the
petty tyrants who tested the seers' skills to the limit. After dealing with the conquerors, the seers were
capable of facing anything. They were the lucky ones. At that time there were petty tyrants everywhere.
"After all those marvelous years of abundance things changed a great deal. Petty tyrants never again
had that scope. It was only during those times that the petty tyrants' authority was unlimited. The
perfect ingredient for the making of a superb seer is a petty tyrant with unlimited prerogatives.
"In our times, unfortunately, seers have to go to extremes to find a worthy one. Most of the time they
have to be satisfied with very small fry."
"Did you find a petty tyrant yourself, don Juan?"
"I was lucky. A king-size one found me. At the time, though, I felt like you. I could not consider myself
fortunate."
Don Juan said that his ordeal began a few weeks before he met his benefactor. He was barely twenty
years old at the time. He had gotten a job at a sugar mill working as a laborer. He had always been
very strong, so it was easy for him to get jobs that required muscle.
One day when he was moving some heavy sacks of sugar a woman came by. She was very well
dressed, and seemed to be a woman of means. She was perhaps in her fifties, don Juan said, and
very domineering. She looked at don Juan and then spoke to the foreman and left. Don Juan was
then approached by the foreman who told him that, for a fee, he would recommend him for a job in
the boss's house. Don Juan told the man that he had no money. The foreman smiled and said not to
worry because he would have plenty on payday. He patted don Juan's back, and assured him it was
a great honor to work for the boss.
Don Juan said that being a lowly ignorant Indian living hand-to-mouth, not only did he believe every
word, he thought a good fairy had touched him. He promised to pay the foreman anything he wished.
The foreman named a large sum which had to be paid in installments.
Immediately thereafter the foreman himself took don Juan to the house, which was quite a distance
from the town, and left him there with another foreman; a huge, somber, ugly man who asked a lot
of questions. He wanted to know about don Juan's family. Don Juan answered that he did not have
any. The man was so pleased that he even smiled through his rotten teeth.
He promised don Juan that they would pay him plenty, and that he would even be in a position to
save money, because he did not have to spend any, for he was going to live and eat in the house.
The way the man laughed was terrifying. Don Juan knew that he had to escape immediately. He ran
for the gate, but the man cut in front of him with a revolver in his hand. He cocked it and rammed
it into don Juan's stomach.
"You are here to work yourself to the bone," he said. "And do not forget it." He shoved don Juan
around with a billy club.
Then he took him to the side of the house and, after observing that he worked his men every day
from sunrise to sunset without a break, he put don Juan to work digging out two enormous tree
stumps. He also told don Juan that if he ever tried to escape or went to the authorities he would
shoot him dead- and that if don Juan should ever get away, he would swear in court that don
Juan had tried to murder the boss.
"You will work here until you die," he said. "Another Indian will get your job then, just as you are
taking a dead Indian's place."
Don Juan said that the house looked like a fortress, with armed men with machetes everywhere.
So he got busy working and tried not to think about his predicament. At the end of the day, the
man came back and kicked him all the way to the kitchen, because he did not like the defiant look
in don Juan's eyes. He threatened to cut the tendons of don Juan's arms if he did not obey him.
In the kitchen an old woman brought food, but don Juan was so upset, and afraid, that he could
not eat. The old woman advised him to eat as much as he could. He had to be strong, she said,
because his work would never end. She warned him that the man who had held his job had died
just a day earlier. He was too weak to work and had fallen from a second-story window.
Don Juan said that he worked at the boss's place for three weeks and that the man bullied him
every moment of every day. He made him work under the most dangerous conditions doing the
heaviest work imaginable under the constant threat of his knife, gun, or billy club. He sent don
Juan daily to the stables to clean the stalls while the nervous stallions were in them. At the
beginning of every day, don Juan thought it would be his last one on earth. And surviving meant
only that he had to go through the same hell again the next day.
What precipitated the end was don Juan's request to have some time off. The pretext was that
he needed to go to town to pay the foreman of the sugar mill the money that he owed him. The
other foreman retorted that don Juan could not stop working, not even for a minute, because
he was in debt up to his ears just for the privilege of working there.
Don Juan knew that he was done for. He understood the man's maneuvers. Both he and the
other foreman were in cahoots to get lowly Indians from the mill, work them to death, and divide
their salaries. That realization angered him so intensely that he ran through the kitchen screaming
and got inside the main house. The foreman and the other workers were caught totally by surprise.
He ran out the front door and almost got away, but the foreman caught up with him on the road
and shot him in the chest. He left him for dead.
Don Juan said that it was not his destiny to die. His benefactor found him there and tended him
until he got well.
"When I told my benefactor the whole story," don Juan said, "he could hardly contain his excitement.
"That foreman is really a prize," my benefactor said. "He is too good to be wasted. Someday you
must go back to that house."
"He raved about my luck in finding a 'one in a million' petty tyrant with almost unlimited power. I
thought the old man was nuts. It was years before I fully understood what he was talking about."
"That is one of the most horrible stories I have ever heard," I said. "Did you really go back to that
house?"
"I certainly did, three years later. My benefactor was right. A petty tyrant like that one was one in
a million and could not be wasted."
"How did you manage to go back?"
"My benefactor developed a strategy using the four attributes of warrior-ship- control, discipline,
forbearance, and timing."
Don Juan said that his benefactor, in explaining to him what he had to do to profit from facing that
ogre of a man, also told him what the new seers considered to be the four steps on the path of knowledge.
The first step is the decision to become apprentices. After the apprentices change their views about
themselves and the world, they take the second step and become warriors, which is to say, beings
capable of the utmost discipline and control over themselves. The third step, after acquiring forbearance
and timing, is to become men of knowledge. When men of knowledge learn to see they have taken the
fourth step and have become seers.
His benefactor stressed the fact that don Juan had been on the path of knowledge long enough to have
acquired a minimum of the first two attributes- control and discipline. Don Juan emphasized that both of
these attributes refer to an inner state. A warrior is self-oriented, not in a selfish way, but in the sense
of a total and continuous examination of the self.
"At that time, I was barred from the other two attributes," don Juan went on. "Forbearance and timing
are not quite an inner state. They are in the domain of the man of knowledge. My benefactor showed
them to me through his strategy."
"Does this mean that you could not have faced the petty tyrant by yourself?" I asked.
"I am sure that I could have done it myself, although I have always doubted that I would have carried
it off with flair and joyfulness. My benefactor was simply enjoying the encounter by directing it. The idea
of using a petty tyrant is not only for perfecting the warrior's spirit, but also for enjoyment and happiness."
"How could anyone enjoy the monster you described?"
"He was nothing in comparison to the real monsters that the new seers faced during the Conquest.
By all indications those seers enjoyed themselves blue dealing with them. They proved that even the
worst tyrants can bring delight, provided of course, that one is a warrior."
Don Juan explained that 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.
That knowledge was the definitive advantage that the new seers had over the simple-minded Spaniards.
He said that he became convinced he could defeat the foreman using only the single realization that
petty tyrants take themselves with deadly seriousness while warriors do not.
Following his benefactor's strategic plan, therefore, don Juan got a job in the same sugar mill as before.
Nobody remembered that he had worked there in the past. Peons came to that sugar mill, and left it
without leaving a trace.
His benefactor's strategy specified that don Juan had to be solicitous of whoever came to look for another
victim. As it happened, the same woman came and spotted him as she had done years ago. This time
he was physically even stronger than before.
The same routine took place. The strategy, however, called for refusing payment to the foreman from the
outset. The man had never been turned down and was taken aback. He threatened to fire don Juan from
the job. Don Juan threatened him back, saying that he would go directly to the lady's house and see her.
Don Juan knew that the woman, who was the wife of the owner of the mill, did not know what the two
foremen were up to. He told the foreman that he knew where she lived because he had worked in the
surrounding fields cutting sugar cane. The man began to haggle, and don Juan demanded money from
him before he would accept going to the lady's house. The foreman gave in and handed him a few bills.
Don Juan was perfectly aware that the foreman's acquiescence was just a ruse to get him to go to the
house.
"He himself once again took me to the house," don Juan said. "It was an old hacienda owned by the
people of the sugar mill- rich men who either knew what was going on and did not care, or who were
too indifferent to even notice.
"As soon as we got there, I ran into the house to look for the lady. I found her and dropped to my knees
and kissed her hand to thank her. The two foremen were livid.
"The foreman at the house followed the same pattern as before. But I had the proper equipment to
deal with him. I had control, discipline, forbearance, and timing. It turned out as my benefactor had
planned it. My control made me fulfill the man's most asinine demands. What usually exhausts us in a
situation like that 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.
"I gladly did everything he asked of me. I was joyful and strong, and I did not give a fig about my pride
or my fear. I was there as an impeccable warrior. To tune the spirit when someone is trampling on you is
called control."
Don Juan explained that his benefactor's strategy required that instead of feeling sorry for himself as he
had done before, he immediately go to work mapping the man's strong points, his weaknesses, and his
quirks of behavior.
He found that the foreman's strongest points were his violent nature and his daring. He had shot don
Juan in broad daylight and in sight of scores of onlookers. His great weakness was that he liked his job
and did not want to endanger it. Under no circumstances could he attempt to kill don Juan inside the
compound in the daytime. His other weakness was that he was a family man. He had a wife and children
who lived in a shack near the house.
"To gather all this information while they are beating you up is called discipline," don Juan said. "The
man was a regular fiend. He had no saving grace. According to the new seers, a perfect petty tyrant has
no redeeming feature."
Don Juan said that the other two attributes of warrior-ship, forbearance and timing, which he did not yet
have, had been automatically included in his benefactor's strategy. Forbearance is to wait patiently- no
rush, no anxiety- a simple, joyful holding back of what is due.
"I groveled daily," don Juan continued, "sometimes crying under the man's whip. And yet I was happy. My
benefactor's strategy was what made me go from day to day without hating the man's guts. I was a
warrior. I knew that I was waiting and I knew what I was waiting for. Right there is the great joy of
warrior-ship."
He added that his benefactor's strategy called for a systematic harassment of the man by taking cover
with a higher order, just as the seers of the new cycle had done during the Conquest by shielding
themselves with the Catholic church. A lowly priest was sometimes more powerful than a nobleman.
Don Juan's shield was the lady who got him the job. He knelt in front of her and called her a saint every
time he saw her. He begged her to give him the medallion of her patron saint so he could pray to him for
her health and well-being.
"She gave me one," don Juan went on, "and that rattled the foreman to pieces. And when I got the servants
to pray at night he nearly had a heart attack. I think he decided then to kill me. He could not afford to let me
go on.
"As a countermeasure, I organized a rosary among all the servants of the house. The lady thought I had
the makings of a most pious man.
"I did not sleep soundly after that, nor did I sleep in my bed. I climbed to the roof every night. From there
I saw the man twice looking for me in the middle of the night with murder in his eyes.
"Daily he shoved me into the stallions' stalls hoping that I would be crushed to death, but I had a plank of
heavy boards that I braced against one of the corners and protected myself behind it. The man never knew
because he was nauseated by the horses- another of his weaknesses, the deadliest of all, as things
turned out."
Don Juan said that 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.
The man knew only the violence with which he terrorized. If his violence was neutralized, he was rendered
nearly helpless. Don Juan knew that the man would not dare to kill him in view of the house, so one day, in
the presence of the other workers, but in sight of his lady as well, don Juan insulted the man. He called him
a coward who was mortally afraid of the boss's wife.
His benefactor's strategy had called for being on the alert for a moment like that, and using it to turn the tables
on the petty tyrant. Unexpected things always happen that way. The lowest of the slaves suddenly makes fun
of the tyrant, taunts him, makes him feel ridiculous in front of significant witnesses, and then rushes away without
giving the tyrant time to retaliate.
"A moment later, the man went crazy with rage, but I was already solicitously kneeling in front of the lady," he
continued.
Don Juan said that when the lady went inside the house, the man and his friends called him to the back, allegedly
to do some work. The man was very pale, white with anger. From the sound of his voice don Juan knew what
the man was really planning to do. Don Juan pretended to acquiesce, but instead of heading for the back, he
ran for the stables. He trusted that the horses would make such a racket that the owners would come out to see
what was wrong. He knew that the man would not dare shoot him. That would have been too noisy, and the
man's fear of endangering his job was too overpowering. Don Juan also knew that the man would not go where
the horses were- that is, unless he had been pushed beyond his endurance.
"I jumped inside the stall of the wildest stallion," don Juan said, "and the petty tyrant, blinded by rage, took out
his knife and jumped in after me. I went instantly behind my planks. The horse kicked him once and it was all over.
"I had spent six months in that house and in that period of time I had exercised the four attributes of warrior-ship.
Thanks to them, I had succeeded. Not once had I felt sorry for myself or wept in impotence. I had been joyful
and serene. My control and discipline were as keen as they had ever been, and I had had a firsthand view of wha
t forbearance and timing did for impeccable warriors. And I had not once wished the man to die.
"My benefactor explained something very interesting. Forbearance means holding back with the spirit something
that the warrior knows is rightfully due. It does not 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."
"Do petty tyrants sometimes win, and destroy the warrior facing them?" I asked.
"Of course. There was a time when warriors died like flies at the beginning of the Conquest. Their ranks were decimated.
The petty tyrants could put anyone to death simply acting on a whim. Under that kind of pressure seers reached
sublime states."
Don Juan said that that was the time when the surviving seers had to exert themselves to the limit to find new ways.
"The new seers used petty tyrants," don Juan said, staring at me fixedly, "not only to get rid of their self-importance,
but to accomplish the very sophisticated maneuver of moving themselves out of this world. You will understand that
maneuver as we keep on discussing the mastery of awareness."
I explained to don Juan that what I had wanted to know was whether, in the present, in our times, the petty tyrants
he had called small fry could ever defeat a warrior.
"All the time," he replied. "The consequences are not as dire as those in the remote past. Today it goes without saying
that warriors always have a chance to recuperate, or to retrieve and come back later. But there is another side to this
problem. To be defeated by a small-fry petty tyrant is not deadly, but devastating. The degree of mortality, in a
figurative sense, is almost as high. By that I mean that warriors who succumb to a small-fry petty tyrant are obliterated
by their own sense of failure and unworthiness. That spells high mortality to me."
"How do you measure defeat?"
"Anyone who joins the petty tyrant is defeated. To act in anger, without control and discipline, to have no forbearance,
is to be defeated."
"What happens 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."
