Thinking with All
of My Being
“Though I have learned techniques, why can I not use them?”
“Why is it people are not good though they know they should be?”
To
practice Taekwondo is not to think only with the mind but to think with the
whole body. That is, your motion will be thought itself. Taekwondo must become
thinking with the body, and cease being thought only with ideas and their
representations, which are merely the operation of concepts separated from
reality. When and how do you think with all of yourself? Only after you erase
yourself, discarding your thoughts, can you finally think not only with your
mind but with everything of yourself. Then you can integrate idea and reality.
The Taekwondo-Een’s mind at this moment will be Mu Nyom Mu Sang (freedom from
all ideas and thoughts), which is conscious both of all and of nothing.
The
Mu Nyom Mu Sang of Taekwondo is both the same as and different from that of Zen[1]
or other such meditation. While the Mu Nyom Mu Sang of Zen or meditation may
describe a transcendental consciousness attained through deleting every thought
each by each in an atmosphere of calm and tranquil repose, that of Taekwondo is
what can be obtained through expanding thoughts in intense motion, i.e. in a
condensation of life within a moment. When you feel everything at last so that
your consciousness reaches the non-distinctive whole and the mediating
consciousness of your behavior is no longer confined to the activities of the
mind but fully enlarged onto your whole body and even onto your whole life then
your mind can be settled in firm tranquility, which is the very Mu Nyeom Mu
Sang of Taekwondo. It is to transcend to the inside of life, not out of life,
so it is a positive transcendence. It is, however, the same as Zen or
meditation in its quality, so it is not altogether different.
When
you think with all of yourself your mind is emptied in tranquility with every
part of your body awakened to dialogue with the world. Since Taekwondo is such,
by learning Taekwondo you will learn how to think with all of yourself with the
world. That is, you will learn how to become your thought itself. To begin and
end this learning is to delete idle thought, concentrating your mind into one.
Therefore, correct Taekwondo is nothing more or less than the expression of the
changes of the mind in motion. To have your motion, which is an expression of
your mind, harmonized with Nature is what allows you to perform the best motion
possible.
[1] Zen refers to the concept of 선[禪], and Koreans
have a similar concept to this: Seon. But we can distinguish them as follows:
Zen is meditation only in calmness attained in stability, while Seon includes
both a stable and dynamic nature. Thus, Koreans emphasize meditation in life in
the usual motions. Therefore, we can sum up by saying that whenever Mu Nyeom Mu
Sang appears in dynamic motion or in tranquil meditation (Zen), it denotes
Seon. Seon is the name of Zen extended to the whole life of man.
(Japanese Zen Buddhism was originally transmitted from Korean Buddhism, though
the former has become far more familiar in the West.)
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