50 pages • 1 hour read
Dan MillmanWay of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1980A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Mind as a Source of Suffering
Through the protagonist’s journey from mental crisis to spiritual growth, Dan Millman explores the nature and reasons for human distress. The graphic description of Dan’s nightmares vividly reflects his inner thoughts and emotions, signaling his mental health crisis amid his athletic accomplishments. The protagonist’s mentor immediately detects Dan’s condition and comments on the reasons behind his feelings and reactions. In Socrates’s philosophical teachings that underlie the narrative, the mind is the source of human suffering and distress, an idea that has roots in Buddhist philosophy.
Even though the mind is at the core of mental exploration, relating to emotions, thoughts, and feelings, Socrates’s philosophy undermines its significance in spirituality. For Socrates, the human mind impedes people from living because it leads them on a constant “search of distraction and escape from the predicament of change, the dilemma of life and death” (42). Therefore, people resist life’s realities and experience frustration and distress in their perpetual pursuit of happiness. Socrates explains that Dan’s mind is “the fundamental source of his suffering” (50); his goals, fears, and regrets are illusions created by his mind that keep him in turmoil. Dan is unable to enjoy life as each of his habits and actions are simply distractions that impede him from confronting his “underlying sense of fear” (50), characterized by the tendency to live either in the past (regret) or the future (anxiety) rather than being in the present moment and accepting what happens. At the core of Socrates’s philosophy, the mind is a “predicament” that resists reality: “It wants to be free of change, free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death” (51). Change is inevitable, and suffering can be alleviated by accepting those changes rather than trying to prevent things beyond one’s control. For Dan to achieve self-growth and embrace a life free of fear and depression, Socrates suggests that he must abandon the illusions of his mind.
The narrative distinguishes the mind from “Consciousness” (198) and awareness. Initially, Dan’s perception of the mind is positive, as he refers to “brilliant minds” (51) in academia. Socrates however, connects the mind to “ego, personal beliefs, history, and identity” (82), traits that fade after death. For Socrates, the mind is a meaningless abstraction that cannot provide inner strength or spiritual sustenance. Instead, it includes “all the random, uncontrolled thoughts that bubble into awareness from the subconscious,” ultimately becoming “an obstruction” (52). Socrates’s methods for overcoming this include physical attunement, meditation, and accepting that many things are uncontrollable.
Dan’s healing, according to Socrates, depends on his will to free himself from the mind’s control and start learning from life’s experiences. As the mind resists reality, it impedes Dan from accepting change and discovering the state of consciousness. By releasing his mind’s tensions and frustrations, Dan reconnects with his body and develops attention and awareness, allowing himself to achieve personal and spiritual growth.
The Futility of Success
Underlying the story’s narrative is the question of how people can be perfectly alive and find purpose and satisfaction. Achievements and success are at the center of the text’s discussion about the self. As the story begins, the protagonist has set goals for himself, but his worldview transforms as his journey advances. Dan is proud of his status as a successful athlete and is invested in becoming a champion. Initially, he values social acceptance and his image as a man, and he is offended by his mentor’s criticism of his way of life. His mental distress, however, signals that his success and reputation do not offer him inner peace and satisfaction.
Dan aligns the dream of success and achievement with a fulfilled life. As he embarks on his college years and his goal of becoming a champion, he believes that “life begins” for him. His mental health crisis is a turning point in his journey, as it unsettles his seemingly perfect life and proves the futility of his expectations. As Socrates alludes that he must, as his mentor, help Dan put his fragmented self back together, Dan retorts by comparing the two men’s social statuses: “I’m a college student; you service cars. I’m a world champion; you tinker in the garage, make tea, and wait for some poor fool to walk in so you can frighten the wits out of him” (20). The fact that Socrates does not define himself through his social success upsets Dan and urges him to reconsider his priorities and values.
Dan’s disillusionment after becoming a champion is an emphatic depiction of the novel’s argument about the meaninglessness of victory and achievement and describes the protagonist’s transforming consciousness. After his motorcycle accident, he proves his perseverance by exceeding his physical predicament. He summons all his strength to recover and follows a training routine along with Socrates’s teachings, which ultimately leads him to his initial goal of winning the championship. Dan considers being a champion a “final test” (153). However, as he accomplishes his goal, Dan feels “drained of ambition” (156). His quest for victory has ultimately led him to a “dead-end.” He thinks of Socrates’s assertions that he lives an incomplete life by aligning happiness with achievements: “I had been sustained by an illusion—happiness through victory—and now that illusion was burned to ashes. I was no happier, no more fulfilled, for all my achievements” (156). Dan remains frustrated and finds no purpose or reason to feel happy. On the contrary, Socrates claims that happiness needs no reason as the ultimate goal is “unreasonable happiness” (157). Ultimately, by illustrating the futility of social status and achievements, the text suggests that only simple things in life can bring satisfaction and happiness.
Finding Happiness in the Present
Through Dan’s journey to self-discovery and Socrates’s teachings, Millman explores how people can achieve happiness and a fulfilling life. Dan’s journey is also a search for the secret of happiness. At the core of the mentor’s philosophy is the idea that life’s experiences are the “only real teacher” (14). From the start of the novel, this emphasis on life as the ultimate source of wisdom delineates Dan’s main goal: to open himself to life and find satisfaction and happiness in every moment.
Socrates’s teachings aim to develop Dan’s mental and physical awareness and, ultimately, direct his focus to the present moment. Through “body wisdom”—Socrates’s idea of the body as an imprint of the universe—Dan will be able to achieve a state of mental and physical “realization,” a connection of the inner self with the body. For Socrates, “life is a mystery” (17); therefore, any question deriving from the human mind has no point beyond distraction from living. To introduce Dan to the life of a “peaceful warrior,” Socrates directs Dan’s attention to the present moment, saying that life requires “right action.” For Dan to become “fully human,” he must assume responsibility for his own life. His mental and physical training as a “warrior” emphasizes the importance of being present. Through breathing and meditation exercises, Socrates illustrates his point on the importance of the connection between mind and body and being present. Breathing exercises root Dan in the present rather than letting him slip into the past or future. Meditation enables Dan to gain insight into his inner self and allows him to develop focus and attention.
According to Socrates, real meditation “[expands] awareness” and “directs attention” (78), key traits of being fully attuned to life. The goal, however, is “to meditate in every action” (84) and incorporate the insights of meditation into everyday life. An example of this emerges in Dan’s gymnastics training after meeting Socrates; by incorporating meditation and breathing techniques into his practice, he becomes a better athlete than ever before. This connects to satori, a Zen Buddhist concept mentioned by Socrates in the text. Satori, meaning deep comprehension of one’s self, is achieved “when the body is alert, sensitive, relaxed, and the emotions are open and free” (145). For Socrates, attention to the present moment results in “freedom from suffering, from fear, from mind” (166); a life of happiness, peace, and satisfaction. This is summed up in one of Socrates’s mantras: “[T]he time is now and the place is here” (162). His “here and now” philosophy emphasizes the importance of being present and focusing on every experience and action with full energy.
For Socrates, a perpetual pursuit of happiness—a search for reasons to feel happy without embracing reality and change—is a distraction from living fully. People can be happy for no reason because the ultimate source of happiness is “the innate perfection of […] life unfolding” (193). Millman proposes that happiness is a state of being in which one embraces life’s gift without hesitations, questions, or doubt. Being present in every moment and learning from life’s experiences is the way to a happy and fulfilling life. Finally, the realization of life’s gift results in finding happiness in every moment.
