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


  Chapter 9.
  d
Erasing Myself in Front of Opponent   
 
 

"I can't know why my opponent defeat me easily."

"Because you don't see the moon yet only the finger that points to it."


 

When you do right Taekwondo your opponent cannot succeed in attacking you although you neither watch out for nor take care of your opponent. This is due to that each part of yours keeps its own position, in its most proper place always. To say different way, you follows the right principle, i.e, the way of Haneul(Heaven). And your opponent cannot make your mind troubled, on the other hand, although you don't try to concentrate yourself on something. This is because you have yourself attached to nothing, thus not being restricted, with your mind empty. Since your mind is empty with no attachment there is no thought to be troubled. Nor can someone else confuse your life although you neither try to keep your life in order nor take care of certain danger. This is due to that your life is in firm harmony with everything around you. All kinds of danger which threaten your safety, mind and life from outside of this harmony will be demolished by themselves. The right principles of Taekwondo are same with those of life.

Then, how is it possible to posit everything of yours in its own proper place according to the way of Haneul(Heaven)? Have oneness of your emptiness and fullness and do both of erasing and picturing yourself at a time. In this way you can keep everything of yours in its own proper position. Then how is it possible to have oneness of emptiness and fullness? Originally emptiness means capacity of accepting something else and fullness of producing something from inside. If something is full it is full only of what fills it and of what can be produced but not of something else, i.e. it is empty of something else. On the contrary, if something is empty it is empty only of what it does not contain, so it is possible that it is full of something else. When a bowl, for example, is full of water it is full only of water, because it can accept no more water, but not of something else, for instance, not of gems or salt. For a bowl, filled with water, can produce no gem and it can accept some salt. Thus, emptiness or fullness is always relative to the object.

So, when you have the oneness of emptiness and fullness the former refers to putting yourself on the very place that makes your opponent unable to do what he wants against you while the latter refers to putting yourself on the very place that makes you able to do what you want. If you can keep the emptiness of TAEKWONDO 'there would be no will of yours' that goes against some motion of your opponent, which makes him feel in vain, so it is called "emptiness". If you can get the fullness of TAEKWONDO 'there would be your will', full of spirit of surpassing your opponent, which produces your motions of suppressing down the opponent's will and of beating his activities. So it is called "fullness". In this unity of emptiness and fullness you think with all of yourself and your consciousness is just awakend but not operated to think, i.e. Mu-Nyom-Mu-Sang(freedom from all of ideas and thoughts,). These lead to the way of Sky that everything of yours moves in its own proper position. When you, a Taekwondo man, think with all of yourself you will 'just have yourself' as a mere harmonized whole beyond yourself. Everything is both empty on one hand and full on the other hand, so full and empty ones fill and empty one another repeatedly into endless changes of the world and of themselves. It is you who put them in order and it is Mu-A(No-self, ) who completes the harmonious order. Since erased already you are to be pictured perfectly.

Then, what is it to erase yourself? It is to delete every distinction between you and the others. And it is also to liberate yourself to everything open beyond the horizon of your subjective and dogmatism. What is it to picture yourself? It is to realize your own wishes firmly in the open beings. Also is it to determine the world with freedom at will. Everything closed belongs to everything open, so it is to erase yourself that you keep yourself in empty mind with no desire unrestrictedly free from your subjective. And then, you can set you free from everything such as formal restrictions, morals, passions, humanities and so on. When you erase yourself you are the all and your opponent is in it, so your opponent's motion is in yours. Then your motion determines your opponent's and the world. Therefore, when you erase yourself perfectly you also picture yourself perfectly.

Erasing myself, it includes not only forgetting everything of yourelf but also even having yourself not exist. When you simply forget everything of yourself you may be able to pay complete attention to a thing achieving unity of your whole. You, however, still do not overcome your opposition to the world. It may be possible that you are still opposed to the world despite of your self-absorption in the unity of yourself. This opposition can be deleted only when you, forgetting yourself, further, erase your existence. Then the distinction between you and what is not you is to be deleted at last. You establish here yourself who are a part of the world over the opposition to world, and further, who include whole of the world, and so, who are expanded up to be the world. Where can your opponent find you then? Your body cannot simply be yourself, and neither your shape of standing there nor your motion such like that is your true figure. Each of them has illusions and faults mixed in it. Therefore when you, a Taekwondo man, erase yourself the opponent cannot find you yet just remains opposed to the whole world. In this way, the Taekwondo man can spar with his opponent in his daily figure as it is, accomplishing the perfection constituted of all necessary elements with even his faults and blind points, and then, he achieves what he wants.

Like above, having oneness of fullness and emptiness and doing both of picturing and erasing yourself at once lead you to the way of Sky. So even though you, who do Taekwondo, move at slower tempo than your opponent's haste he cannot follow your change of motions because you always follow the right way making only necessary motions.

 

 

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