Life is a battle and to win we need to be strong and fight.
However, the Shaolin fight is very different.
Growing up in poverty
Growing up in the projects I only witnessed property, pain, anger, greed, envy, and violence. As part of that culture that is all I knew. I felt that if I wanted something bad enough I would take it. I would steal because I was poor and hungry and I didn’t understand why this had to me my life and my moms and siblings life. After all, who decides to live like that? Who decides what crib we are going to be born in. Why wasn’t I born in the crib that came with a beautiful family, that had nice clothes, that put food on the table every day and night? Why didn’t I and so many around us suffered that same hardship? I wanted to know why. Growing up with all this confusion and anger carries into the rest of our lives as it did mine.
Well, I did what I had to do to eat and help my mom and siblings eat. I fought to survive, and I did just that. But the anger never left me.
Kung Fu
Then one day when I was in my late teens I was watching a show called Kung Fu. It was about this Shaolin monk who traveled throughout the country and helped everyone he could help along the way. This monk was not greedy or angry. He had great healing powers which he used to help the sick. But this monk had a fighting skill that was beyond anything I had seen.
All of this was very foreign to me. This monk has all the same reasons to be angry as I did and all the kids I grew up with but he was not bitter and all. He was bullied and made fun of everywhere he went. He often went hungry. His clothes were simple. He didn’t care about fashion or the latest popular sneakers. He did not live in the past nor did he let the past affect his future. He defended the weak and just wanted to live a life of peace. The philosophy of this Shaolin monk was fascinating to me. I would think, “Wouldn’t it be so great to have his temperament and just live a life of peace and help all those that needed help?” But that was not realistic to me. “This is great, but so is Disney World. Neither is real, just a great way to escape the pain of normal life.”
Then I started researching these Shaolin monks and what their purpose in life really was. Were they really that passive? Were they really the humble? Were they really that skilled in the fighting arts?
Guess what – they were.
My life gained purpose
From that moment to this, I have spent my life doing everything I can to follow in their path. I have spent the better part of my life studying the Shaolin arts and studying their philosophy. It brought my life into focus, and I have used what I learned to help others find definition and purpose in their lives. If we don’t know where we are and how we got there, then it is almost impossible to know where we are going and how to get where we want to be ultimately.
The boy and the world
There is a story that I heard a long time ago that has resonated with me my entire life. It’s about a very young boy that wanted his dad to read him a story. He went to his dad who was reading the newspaper and asked him if he would read him a story. The dad replied, son as soon as I finish reading the newspapers. The child waited, but the dad was still reading his paper. The child again when to his dad a few more times with no success. Finally, the dad wanted to spend more time reading the morning paper, so he tore a piece of the paper out. It was a picture of the world. He tore it up into pieces and said, “Son, as soon as you put the pieces of the paper together that forms the world I will read you a story.” The son took the pieces of paper and in only a minute showed his dad that it was done. The dad, stunned by how fast his son did that asked, “How did you finish that so quickly.”
The boy replied, “Dad, on the other side of the pieces was a picture of a person. When I put the person together, the world was together.” I learned a long time ago that most of us can’t change the world, but all of us CAN put the person we are back together. This is the Shaolin Path.
The Shaolin path isn’t a “me” journey. It’s a journey to find your purpose in life and to help others find theirs. It is about being fulfilled because you live a life of higher purpose.
There are many ways and many paths, but there is only one Shaolin.