Div.5 Chapter 32

Filling the Mind and Keeping It Empty

“What is important and what is trivial?”

“Principle is important while technique is trivial. Basic is important while application is trivial. What is permanent is important while what changes is trivial.”

Your self is your mind and your body. When emptying and filling your body, you should relax it completely, erasing all superfluous force while filling it with living vitality. Thus emptying and filling your mind you should delete idle thoughts and passions and fill it only with the self-conviction you can subdue the opponent. You must never fear. Whether you have reached life or death, it is nothing more or less than what it is, and fear is required for nothing. If you were not killed even though you failed in Kyorugi you would be disgraced and ashamed, but fear will be of no help here either. Your mind cannot be fully emptied or fully filled owing to this excrescent fear, which breaks the calm of your mind. This is really fear of oneself reflected in the opponent. To erase it completely is to make TAEKWONDO perfect.

Only when you have succeeded in completely erasing your fear is it possible to practice Taekwondo within the complete union of you and the world. Therefore, the Taekwondo-Een never fears nor worries, but reflects deliberately, plans, harmonizes and overcomes. Let me remark upon a persistent fallacy regarding the non-fearing mind. This is the confusion between the conviction that you can subdue your opponent and the obsession that you must subdue him. A conviction differs from an obsession. An obsession oppresses the mind because it is merely a camouflaged fear, whereas a conviction makes the mind comfortable and free of restrictions. It is an emptied fullness.

Where does one obtain the conviction that you can subdue the opponent? You can find it in the confirmation and assurance that you are stronger than he is. What then is the basis of this confirmation and self-assurance? It arises only from a clear knowledge that one’s entirety is stronger than his one even though he might be more aggressive, his skill might excel, or his power might be superior. Such strength is the unbreakable sword forged through self-strengthening in hardship and adversity. Whether one speaks of mind or body, self-strengthening is the only way to obtain such conviction. A strong entirety is obtained when your entire life is built up through transcendental discipline.

True self-confidence is also to be obtained when you open yourself to infinite possibilities through continuous self-mastering. True courage comes only with such confidence and conviction as comes from training and practice. A correct mental attitude cannot be attained without an exact observation of what you are, which demonstrates an actual aspect of a Taekwondo-Een’s true courage. It is the coming together of reality and understanding of what one ought to do, and its name is “Sincerity”. If your mind, emptied through courage, is not also filled with sincerity you can attain nothing even though you may lose nothing either. A tiger exerts its utmost even in pursuit of a small rabbit. Courage that does not arise from confidence based on sincere training, would be nothing but reckless valor, which will lead only to misfortune.

As a strong Taekwondo-Een you will think correctly, act morally and train sincerely to overcome the limits in your life. Accordingly, when you are opposed to your opponent he grows weaker because he lacks harmony in himself, and this is also the reason why he comes to be opposed to you, a Taekwondo-Een. The opponent in Taekwondo is never the opponent himself but only his vice. An opponent who is momentarily excellent, but who is ultimately weak because he is vicious, can be subdued by surpassing one’s own limits. This is also the way of arranging one’s life according to Do. A world beyond the victory of the right is mere illusion. Is it not ironic that the foundation of such strength and confidence arises from an understanding that the world is empty?