"Would you tell me how I can know the ultimate truth of Taekwondo?"

"... Have you ever seen the time?"

"Taekwondo" refers to the activity pattern which pursues harmonized growth and improvement of man through spiritual & physical activities supposing in the world the extremely opposed relations for survival to overcome between You and your opponent. Taekwondo just as concrete system of fighting skills can imply all of these meanings.

The extremely opposed relation for survival refers in most cases to the fight at the risk of one's life, yet not confined only to it. Rather, this relation includes all the cases where man fights antagonistically for all of his; for example, every antagonism like the case where a man struggles politically for the life-or-death of his people or where he invests all money and time in a certain business and so on.

The opposed relation for survival means the opposition in what they want to do. Life is continuity of what you want and try and even a trivial opposition is actually related to everything in life. It is natural of everyone to try to overcome such antagonistic relations. However, it is something but Taekwondo if one tries to avoid such opposition just because he is attached to comforts, while it is rather Taekwondo, to the contrary, if he tolerates directly all of those oppositions and antagonisms and further more overcomes them through his own challenges.

That is, Taekwondo pursues that you advance toward the world overcoming oppositions and antagonisms so that you accomplish your improvement and growth. These oppositions and antagonisms exist everywhere in life, so, Taekwondo can contain whole life in it while it is merely a part of life at once. We can therefore educate people in learnig Taekwondo, a concrete system of fighting skills. There is neither a part nor a whole in <Do>, and so is in life.

There is no difference between the two; the figure of Taekwondo stated just above and the TAEKWONDO as the right way along which you can control your mind and body and can live your life. Taekwondo as activity pattern is to body of man what TAEKWONDO as the right way of using your mind and body is to mind of man. Taekwondo can be only after man is while we can also say that man can be only after Taekwondo is, since TAEKWONDO and the <Do> of everything are same with each other. Therefore, it is natural that man and Taekwondo are similar to each other like that.

The form of the relation supposed between you and your opponent in Taekwondo is the extremely opposed relation for survival. This appears as violently antagonized situation in more concrete case. Taekwondo is in the very antagonistic situation ultimately, which may dissatisfy those who evaluate Taekwondo emotionally.

By the way, the oppposed relation as the origin of Taekwondo is the spot where life begins and the possibility which occurs with change when everything changes. This means that the fact of everything's being is same with that of Taekwondo's being in their fundamental meaning. A baby is born through the ghastly pain of his mother as a living thing can evolve only through the gruesome struggle for existence. A historian said that the history is the continuous process of challenges and responses, so there can be no creature in the calm darkness of the planet far from the earth, on the other hand. The essence of life is just a process for that process itself, which is the continuous change maintained in the tension with the world. Ultimately, thus, the matter also emerges in tension and opposition supervening upon the changes of being. Everyone who knows Taekwondo also knows this truth not only by his thoughts but also by his actions and his life.

Taekwondo, of which the source is opposition, is the figure of man who does not stay in the opposition yet progresses overcoming it for the peace of harmony. This is also just like the figure of life, whatever someone may say. Because the falling autumn and the cold winter are to come a plant makes fruits and sows its seeds waiting for the spring, and a beast runs after its prey because of hunger and runs away avoiding its natural enemy. A plant cannot be a living thing without the process of winter endurance of making the fruits and sowing the seeds. Nor can a beast be alive without the process of running after its prey and of running away from its natural enemy. If it were life only to keep its body and shape, then a doll and another things should also be regarded as alive. Thus, similarly there are tensions and oppositions in life of mankind inevitably and there cannot be a life without the process of overcoming it. Taekwondo is like a tree whose root is the essence of life that makes the stem of this tree spread. This tree of Taekwondo spreads its branches so long as somewhere exists its root, i.e. life of mankind.

If you contemplate deep in this truth you will know that the opposition people dislike is neither merely bad nor is the peace only good. Then you can accept all. These are the starting and ending point of what Taekwondo teaches us as the truth on life.