敵を知り己を知れば百戦危うからず
Teki wo shiriono wo shireba hyakusen ayaukarazu
Know your enemy, know thyself, and you shall not fear a hundred battles
The best martial artists strive to know themselves. There is a saying, “Know your enemy, know thyself, and you shall not fear a hundred battles.” To know yourself means that you have an intimate understanding of your own strengths and weaknesses and that you also have a true understanding of what it is you want in life. The normal person usually lives the opposite life where they live knowing little to nothing about themselves and they are pulled her and there by the will of others. True power comes from dealing with and understanding your own darkness. Carl Jung said, "Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.” Understanding this, since the other does not exist, then knowing yourself will enable you to know your enemy and thus not fear a hundred battles. This is the secret to the martial artist’s true power. True power is the ability to control yourself and to not be controlled by anything or anyone. Sun Tzu stated that “all warfare is based on deception” and so knowing oneself enables a martial artist to not be deceived and ultimately manipulated into defeat. Therefore, to be the master of our own domain, we must be in control of our inner life as much if not more than our outer life. Someone much smarter than me once said, “People bring their stuff to the mat.” What he meant was that training has a way of bringing out our true inner selves. Perhaps it is the repetitive movement or the quietude. Regardless, if we have things that haven’t been dealt with, then they can surface before, during, or after class. Typically, the things that come up are the negative or more darker aspects of our psyche. When our inner darkness rears its head, we shouldn’t think of it as a bad thing. Rather, the surfacing of these issues gives us the opportunity to address them and eradicate them. Will Mcavoy in the TV show Newsroom said, “The first step in solving a problem is recognizing there is one.” Thus, Aristotle was right when he said, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” True power is not being physically strong, but rather it is the ability to overcome adversity and we overcome it by knowing who we are. Therefore, if we can know ourselves in the dojo and in life, our lives would be our own and there will be few people who could stop us. That’s why the best martial artists strive to know themselves.
Today’s goal: Spend some time figuring out who you are and what it is you want out of life.