Wu Shen Pai Jiu Mei

Liang 良

GOODNESS

        Good and bad both exist in this world. But humans can choose to have a tendency towards good.  When we are born our parents selflessly support and care for our well-being.  Throughout our lives we also have teachers that dedicate their lives to moral, ethical, and character development.  These teachers are devoted to the our betterment.  They model positive morality, ethics, and character for us.  We can understand these concepts properly because these elders give us the wisdom of their life experiences.  Of course, there exists within nature the opposite of good...bad or evil.  For the evil and negative mind, it is easy to oppose the good positive mind. This antagonistic relationship exists between good and bad, but remember that good develops goodness and bad develops evil.  Think about this, if you go to jail what will you learn? If you go to your parents and teachers what will you learn?  Even though one possesses the innate desire to do good, it is easy to fall toward evil.   Evil disguises itself and makes it seem attractive through the promise of easy life, fame, and quick fortune. However, in the end, it is using our human potential to its fullest and our own hard work, which ensures our success. My teacher often used to say that the longest distance between two points is a short cut.  It is imperative that you choose your friends and your place of study carefully.  If you have a positive mind and you surround yourself with evil minds, it will be easy to lose your goodness.           

        There is a  saying which my teacher often repeated...Even the cleanest person thrown into a pig's pen, will look like another pig soon after.  If you want good things to happen surround yourself with good people, if you want negative things to happen surround yourself with negative people. For the benefit of yourself,  your society, and our art of Wu Shen Pai, work in a positive manner, do selfless service, accumulate virtues, do good deeds, make good use of your knowledge, know right from wrong, give proper guidance, have good intentions, treat people kindly, have good faith, have a charitable spirit, return good actions for evil actions, and know that good will triumph over vice and evil.  Most martial art instructors and masters are practicing and teaching their Tao of good morality.  All traditional Martial Arts, Martial Ways, have a good mentality.  The love and goodness expressed within these Martial Ways, such as Wu Shen Pai, is like that of a family.  The Sifu is always seeking in a selfless manner to promote that which is good for their art's practitioners and its identity.  The Sifu in Wu Shen Pai attempts to teach goodness to their art's students. This trait is crucial for the student to embrace.  Remember, a knife held in the hand of a chef is a useful tool in making delicious food, however if someone with an evil mind holds this knife it will only be used to damage other humans and destroy.  Clinging to the ethic of Goodness is the razor thin line that makes the difference between a tool and a weapon.  Skills in Wu Shen Pai are the same as this knife.