Big Heart
An overlooked aspect in martial arts is to have a big heart. And nothing strengthens a big heart like giving without expectation of benefit in return.
In martial culture, there are basic codes of ethics that we all live by, or at least need to in order to become better martial artists. It is commonly taught that we are in competition within ourselves to become better, stronger, faster… but what about the other codes such as respect, discipline, responsibility? Our world needs these more now than ever.
In Chinese Martial Arts it is Wu De or Martial Virtue and in Japanese Budo, or the Way of the Warrior. I do Chinese Martial Arts so I cannot comment much of Budo because I have not studied it. However, there are commonalities that underlie all schools of training, regardless of where the training has come from.
We have these codes for very good reasons: it enables a practitioner to become extremely proficient in their art. The more we practice, the more we understand that the codes are to teach us to master our minds. Winning in competition is a young person’s game. In older years, competition isn’t as important. We generally start to just either not care to prove ourselves, or there are other things that we want to prove to ourselves or accomplish.
This article is about not what we should already know, but on expanding it to other areas of our lives. If you are a true martial artist, you need to study your tradition’s moral code of ethics.
Modern Martial Value-Giving
I earlier wrote an article about updating Martial Virtues to include environmentalism. Click here to read A Modern Addition to Martial Virtue – Martial Journal, With 2020 behind us, and this year might be much of the same with new Covid variants, the economy, politics… I would like to add another: Giving.
Regardless of our opinion, we are still in the midst of one of history’s worst economic disasters. (If you start to point fingers, you are striving away from Martial Virtue. It is not relevant to your training.) For those of us who are fortunate enough to still have food to eat, clothes to wear, and a comfortable place to sleep at night, this is for you.
In Wu Xia stories from China, the hero selflessly fights for the people, defends the people, helps the people against the evil emperor. These are stories and are full of awesome kung fu choreography. It sensationalizes fighting that generally looks nothing like a real fight. But my question is, how could we be selfless and defending the people? It comes in many forms, and most are nonviolent and don’t even require any physical training.
People in Need
With so many people going without a job, and little or no money coming in, how can we defend these people in need of help? What do we defend them against: The do-nothing congress? Vote them out. Can protest in the streets help? Yes, but no. Many need the most fundamental aspects of life: Food. Shelter. Maybe clothes… The Maslow Hierarchy of Needs show that we cannot have the mental needs without the most basic physical needs met first. We all can easily donate money to the local food bank, church or charity. We can easily clean out our old clothes we don’t wear and donate. These are not sexy martial art moves, but these actions do more for defending the people than any punch or kick can do.
Give Today
I encourage you to donate to your local charities. Donate what you can; money or time or cleaning your house and donating. Food banks are in dire need of money to feed people (food lines were miles long in some cities across the country for Thanksgiving and Christmas), churches help countless of people out of luck, women’s shelter or men’s shelter (yes, they exist) keep the abused safe, help the incarcerated get educated by donating books or money (Prison Library Project is buying dictionaries to distribute to prison libraries across the nation), charities helping veterans (they have an extremely high rate of depression, suicide an average of 22 a day, family problems) and many more. Do a little research, check to see if a charity is financially legit. (Some charities spend lots on administrative things and not much goes to the place that they claim money goes.) Just do what you feel is right in your heart.
Martial art training is perfecting mind, body and ultimately the spirit (however you want to define it). There are very few ways to train the spirit. Giving to those who are in need of help in even simple ways refines and “sharpens” the spirit. It is written within our moral code, if we choose to understand it or not is our choice.
Discipline = Responsibility
With all the discipline martial arts teach, it comes with responsibility. If you are a trained fighter and watch an innocent person get beat up, then the responsibility of ‘means at hand’ is ignored. This goes against our code of ethics. People are in need of our help. If we do not do what we can to help those in need, we are not taking responsibility for our society’s cries for help.
We can all be the unseen hero (like Dr. Yang from Iron Monkey) to many people with simple donations. We can be the wu xia hero in our own time. In our modern era, we don’t need bloody knuckles to be a hero to the downtrodden; just a good heart and a credit card number and a computer. I urge you to do what you can.
I recently finished writing my book on virtue. Please go to my Facebook page of Virtues Path and follow for more essays on virtue. Also, please visit my website thevirtuespath.wordpress.com
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