My view on “Suffering” and “Entitlement”

Whether for a person or a society, entitlement and suffering often excludes and reinforces each other: the more entitled one feels, the less one is willing to suffer; and/or the deeper one would feel suffered if the associated entitlement were taken away or became less entitled, so they are related somehow.

In my opinion, sacrificing is the highest level of sufferings: mostly voluntary but could be involuntary, but often for a higher/more global/grandeur purpose or goal.  To be able to sacrifice is less possible when even the will to suffer is diminishing or scarce.

Moreover, the threshold of ‘suffering” is decreasing, we would “suffer” for something today that we would not yesterday.

On the bright side, person or society tends to correct its self to the norm through sharp turn at the extremes, reaching some acceptable balanced status between suffering and entitlement.  one can always start from oneself, one at a time, eventually change will be coming.

Also, there are many “beneficial’ virtues on suffering often been either overlooked or under appreciated, such as:

 -Bo Fu

CITIZEN SOLDIERS

The ultimate goal for martial arts training is to develop personal growth and in turn become a greater asset to others. So many have the misconception that their personal training is just that- personal. Some enter the training and remain focused on WIIFM throughout. For them, all roads lead to personal gains; new belts, competition medals, technical expertise, fighting championships, ego boosting, status building, etc.

Little attention is focused on the big picture - where in this big world do you fit and what unselfish contributions have you made or plan to make for the greater good? In martial arts training, the visible, tangible experiences may appear to only be geared towards one's physical growth, technique improvements, poomse development, flexibility improvement, etc. These all have their value, but they are incomplete without the important parallel benefits. One should be made aware of the value of having faced increasingly difficult challenges, struggled through, and persevered. These experiences and lessons last well beyond one's physical abilities and can be useful in all aspects of one's life. Through the struggles, one realizes their strengths and weaknesses, their independence and interdependencies, leadership and personal responsibilities, their esprit de corps.

Training, indeed, is a time for self-reflection and evaluation, of setting and meeting goals, and having met those, seeking higher goals and areas of improvement. We often talk about "body-learning" and "feeling" when determining when something is right or wrong. In my church, I've often heard the term, "When you know that you know". These terms relate to a satori (enlightenment) that takes one from a simple physical act or a reading of words to a place of confident application and to a place where this new enlightenment can be shared more thoroughly and freely with others. Without enlightenment, I believe one's training will reach only certain heights, the same heights as those who are satisfied with only their personal gains, greed and selfishness. These people are either comfortable with their "hills" and/or don't know about the "mountains" just beyond their field of view. In fact, in an effort to keep all that one has, one often loses out on other possibilities that may result from sharing, sacrificing, and relationship building.

The American Moo-Do Kwan's system, along with its traditional oriental philosophies, utilizes a military style regimen, not just as a means of keeping order or uniformity, but as the most proficient and expedient way of building "citizen soldiers". Students quickly learn about group dynamics, the value of a common spirit, about failing and succeeding as a group. The desire or drive to do better becomes more than for the self, but more importantly, for the benefit of the group. Students learn about healthy competition, about empathy and about encouragement. Students go from "ego" to "we go". Again, these extra-physical things are the ones that last and make one a more useful citizen. If this is indeed the ultimate result of our training, then we can truly claim a victory and we will have honored our military, our school, parents, and society at large. Our jobs then are to constantly seek to improve ourselves through our struggles and personal growth and thereby put ourselves in a better position to make more deposits instead of withdrawals from society.

-Terry L. Owens