Haneul Ch.3-10

Sincerity

On the other hand, it is the way of Haneul to make steady and persistent training without haste. “Sincerity is the way of Heaven. the attainment of sincerity is the way of men. He who possesses sincerity is he who, without an effort, hits what is right, and apprehends, without the exercise of thought; - he is the sage who naturally and easily embodies the right way.”¹⁾ Hence we say sincere training is the way of Haneul.

Reflecting its original meaning, to train yourself is to be not idle, making sincere efforts. There is nothing you can obtain without this efforts. To say differently it is the sincerity in training to make steady efforts. If you desire to improve your Taekwondo without this sincerity you “are like people who dwell in cruelty while disliking disgrace” and like “those who are content to dwell in a low-lying place while disliking dampness.”²⁾

In this manner to be sincere is to be not indolent, and not slothful. “Earnest among the slothful, awake among the sleepy, the wise man advances even as a racehorse does, leaving behind the hack.”³⁾ Therefore diligent and sincere training produces such absolute superiority over the opponent that it enables everything of technique. The foundation that enables everything, it is what Haneul symbolizes.

What is it that sincerity means specifically? It is that training is not in your thought or in your knowledge but in executing your own training. Mencius said, “goodness alone is not sufficient for government; The law unaided cannot make itself effective.”⁴⁾ Why should it be only concerned with political things?

Particularly, we can see many cases that Taekwondo practitioners feel satisfied with only knowledge of technique when they have some misunderstanding. If they, however, just understand with ideas yet not train themselves of technique of Taekwondo they cannot use it when necessary, which is same as that good law unaided cannot make itself effective, and not different from cowherds counting the cows of others. Warning this mistake Buddha taught us; “Even if he recites a large number of scriptural texts but, being slothful, does not act accordingly, he is like ad cowherd counting the cows of others, he has no share in religious life.”⁵⁾

The importance of sincerity that attends to every corner of daily and entire life, this is what the way of Haneul means in training. Its inner ideology is verily the self-discipline as the way of Saram.⁶⁾

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<footnotes>

1) The Doctrine of the Mean, 20-18 誠者 天之道也 誠之者 人之道也 誠者 不勉而中 不思而得 從容中道 聖人也 誠之者 擇善而固執之者也.
2) Mencius, Book II, Part A, 4; 今惡辱而居不仁, 是猶惡濕而居下也.
3) Dharmapada, 29. 不自放逸 從是多寤 寯馬比良 棄惡爲賢.
4) Mencius, Book IV. Part A. 3; 徒善不足以爲政, 徒法不能以自行.
5) Dharmapada, 19, 强誦習多義 放逸不從正 如牧數他牛 難獲門果.
6) Refer to Ch.5-9(Self Discipline) of this volume.