[From a teaching by Lama Tashi Topgyal on the Long Guru Rinpoche Tsok Sadhana from the terma of Terchen Barway Dorje. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso. All rights reserved. Please do not reprint without permission. The complete teaching is available as a printed transcript from the KPL Bookstore]
In a sense, dharma practice is warfare. Once you begin practicing dharma, you become a warrior, and you have to be heroic. Unlike conventional warfare, your enemy is not a human: your enemy is dualism. Once you begin to practice, the non-dual wisdom within you declares war on your own dualistic ignorance. You will have started a war between awareness and ignorance, and you only win the war when your non-dual wisdom eventually recognizes that all apparent obstacles are merely the display, or projections, of dualism. Ultimately and finally, the only way you can destroy obstacles is through the recognition of non-duality—through recognition by non-dual wisdom that obstacles are merely projections of dualism; through the realization that even demons and spirits are nothing other than your own mind. Nevertheless, until you achieve that recognition and realization, the warfare will continue, and courage will be needed.