Honor-Respect-Courage
These three words are as old as the Samurai and remain sacred in the Martial Art world. They are the corner stone of humanity, morality, what it means to be. …human! It seems in resent history these words and their meaning have been lost or replaced. Replaced with the idea of science and intellectual material pursuits. We seem to have all that we need…law, medicine, advanced electronic devices and so on. Were did Honor, Respect and Courage go and why do we feel it unimportant.
Honor has to do with honoring ourselves as conscious, compassionate beings. When we truly honor ourselves we realize a profound respect for natural life. However, it takes courage to realize who and what we are and defend our ideals, our true being, ourselves. We can pretend to be honorable, respectful and courageous to impress others, however, that really is not the point. The point is self, self- discovery. How often do we find ourselves becoming codependent to our surroundings just to feel accepted, not believing that we can truly experience our true nature in the presents of others? Realizing and living our true nature does takes a bit of courage. We must understand our love and compassion for ourselves…our divinity.
What does this have to do with the Martial Arts? The word martial has to do with warring or warriors, warriors within and warriors in the physical world. Warriors within deal with spirit life, our battle within to understand life as an aspect of intuition, instinct and inspiration. Where, as warriors in the physical world deal with physical life and must make conscious decisions as to whom they listen before going into battle; intuition, instinct, inspiration or hate, anger and fear.
When we take on the task of physical life we are free to choose how we want to live life. We can choose to live according to the wishes and demands of others or realize our true nature, our true divinity and live that. The Martial Arts has nothing to do with the demands and wishes of others, the color of their skin, their name, the shape of their body or the clothes they wear. True Martial Arts demands utmost respect of others, as well, your behavior must honor that respect, whether Samurai, practitioners of Tai Chi, Kung Fu, yoga, Aikido… all life.
What would our world look like if Honor, Respect and Courage returned!