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a
Introduction
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e
Taekwondo Bible, Vol.1  
<<Division 2. Principles>>


  Chapter 10.
  d
Thinking with All of Myself   
 
 

"What is the reason I cannot use techniques although I've learned them?"

"What is the reason people are not nice although they know they have to be?"


 

To do Taekwondo is not to think with only ideas in brain but to think with whole body, so rather, to have your motion be thought itself. Taekwondo must be in the very thinking with body, hand and foot, and activity, then in stopping thoughts composed of only ideas with representations, which are mere operation of concepts separated from reality. When and how do you think with all of yourself? Only after you erase yourself discarding your thoughts you can think not just with your brain but with everything of yourself at last. And then you can integrate idea with reality. Taekwondo man's mind at this moment be Mu Nyom Mu Sang(the freedom from all ideas and thoughts), which is conscious both of all and of nothing.

The Mu Nyom Mu Sang of Taekwondo is both same with and different from that of Zen1) or that of meditation at the same time. While the Mu Nyom Mu Sang of Zen or of meditation may be trascendetal consciousness attained through deleting every thought one by one in calmness, that of Taekwondo is what can be obtained through expanding thoughts in an intense motion, i.e. in a condensation of life in a moment. When you feel everything at last so that your consciousness reaches the nondistinctive whole and the mediating consciousness of your behaviors is not confined within brain activity but fully enlarged onto your whole body and even onto your whole life your mind can be settled in firm tranquillity, which is the very Mu Nyeom Mu Sang of Taekwondo. It is to transcend to inside of life, not out of life, so positive transcendence. It is, however, same with that of Zen or of meditation in its quality, so it is also said to be not different.

When you think with all of yourself your mind is emptied in tranquillity with every part of your body awakened to dialogue with the world. Since Taekwondo is such like that, Taekwondo man, learning Taekwondo, learns how to think with all of himself with the world. That is, he learns how to be his thought itself. To begin and end this learning is to delete idle thought concentrating your mind into one. Therefore, the right Taekwondo is nothing more than to express change of mind in motion. To have your motion, which is an expression of your mind, harmonized with Nature, it is the way of the best motion man can perform.


<footnotes>

1) Zen refers to the concept of , and Koreans have similar concept to this; Seon. But we can distinguish both like followings : Zen is meditation only in calmness attained in stability while Seon includes both of stable and dynamic one. Thus koreans emphasize meditation in life, in the usual motions. Therefore, we can sum up that whenever Mu Nyeom Mu Sang appears in dynamic motion or in tranquil meditation(Zen), it means Seon. Seon is the name of Zen extended to whole life of man.

 

 

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