“putting oneself in the other’s place” (Analects, p. 92)
Don’t Think! Just Act!
“You remember lesson about
balance? Lesson not just
karate only. Lesson for whole
life. Whole life have
balance, everything be better.
Understand?”
Writing on anger, Seneca, another Roman Stoic philosopher, wrote:
Sextius had this habit, that when the day was over and he had retired to his nightly rest, he would put these questions to his soul: “What bad habit have you cured today? What fault have you resisted? In what respect are you better?” Anger will cease and become more controllable if it finds that it must appear before a judge every day.... When the light has been removed from sight, and my wife, long aware of my habit, has become silent, I scan the whole of my day and retrace all my deeds and words. I conceal nothing from myself, I omit nothing. For why should I shrink from any of my mistakes, when I may commune thus with myself?
“See that you never do that again; I will pardon you this time. In that dispute, you spoke too offensively; after this don’t have encounters with ignorant people; those who have never learned do not want to learn. You reproved that man more frankly than you ought, and consequently you have not so much mended him as offended him. In the future, consider not only the truth of what you say, but also whether the man to whom you are speaking can endure the truth. A good man accepts reproof gladly; the worse a man is the more bitterly he resents it.” (Seneca: Moral and Political Essays, Cambridge University Press, 1995, 3.36.1-4)
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
—FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Beyond Good and Evil
When the clouds of bewilderment clear away, there is the true void.
—MIYAMOTO MUSASHI, The Book of Five Rings
Nineteenth-century existentialist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche describes human existence as it appears from a big-picture perspective:
In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there was once a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the highest and most mendacious minute of “world history”—yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.
One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature. There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened. (The Portable Nietzsche, Penguin, 1976, p. 42)
Living the Absurd Life
If Sartre and Nietzsche are right, there is no objective set of values against which we may measure ourselves. We may adopt ideals, but if we are consistent we must admit that they are of our own creation. At the same time, we’re responsible for our choices and actions, and there are no excuses for what we choose to do. Thus, existentialists generally hold that human existence is absurd. We find ourselves living, interacting, and believing, for no justifiable reason. We think of ourselves and our actions as being very important, but ultimately, our actions have no meaning in any frameworks other than those we create and adopt.
The best way of warding off harm is to avoid it in the first place. (If your Karate school doesn’t stress this, get out of there!)
• Never underestimate your attacker. Always assume he’s dangerous.
• Seek to deliver your striking actions to the attacker’s anatomical weak points (eyes, nose, groin, knees) rather than hard, resistant areas (upper arms, thighs).
• After delivering the striking action to your attacker’s target area, don’t lose sight of him. Be constantly aware of the possibility of continuation of attack.
• Get away from your attacker as soon as possible.
Ethics and Value
“I really want to kill you,
but you’re not worth it”
René Descartes (1596-1650) argued that the core of human nature is the mind and its capacity to doubt and think. The body is a mere extension of the mind—the philosophical equivalent of an afterthought.
This separation of the mind from the body is described in philosophy as ‘dualism’. For many philosophers, including us, the separation does not do justice to human life. In contrast to (and in reaction to) Descartes’s dualism, other philosophers have argued that human beings are always embodied: for human beings, the mind and the body are inextricably connected.
The monk Tripitaka and his disciple Monkey were journeying to the West (India), to bring back the Buddhist scriptures to China. They were set upon by six robbers. The robbers demanded they leave their horse and bag, and depart immediately. Monkey, the guardian, refused and challenged them. They attacked him with their swords and spears, without success. Then Monkey reached into his ear and took out a pin, and waved it in the wind. It magically became an iron rod. He attacked the robbers, who ran away. But Monkey pursued them, captured them, and beat them to death with the rod; then stripped them of their clothes, and seized their valuables.
“That’s a terrible thing you have done!” said Tripitaka, “They may have been strong highwaymen, but they would not have been sentenced to death even if they had been caught and tried. If you have such abilities, you should have chased them away. How can you be a monk when you take life without cause? You showed no mercy at all!”
“But Master,” said Monkey, “if I hadn’t killed them, they would have killed you.” Tripitaka said, “As a priest I would rather die than practice violence. Now that you have entered the fold of Buddhism, if you still insist on practicing violence, you are not worthy to be a monk. You’re wicked!” Monkey departed in a huff. (From Wu Cheng-en, The Journey to the West, Chicago University Press, 1977.)
Take No Life, No First Strike, and Stop Before Harm
I should believe only in a god who understood how to dance.
—FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
—WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
“Talk is for lovers, Merlin.
I need the sword to be king”
extractos de:
Martial arts and philosophy : beating and nothingness / edited by
Graham Priest and Damon Young.
