Spiritual Kung Fu

Recently, I came across a quote I thought was powerful: "So much more suffering comes into the world from people taking offense than from people giving offense." (Ken Keyes) I have also discovered that when one doesn't take offense at a remark that was meant to offend, the bomb meant to destroy is defused. Mr. Spock of Star Trek once said something to the effect that if you did not accept a dagger directed against you as hostile it would not have the power to penetrate you. Eleanor Roosevelt said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your permission." These beliefs give us a lot of power to deflect hurt so that we do not have to enclose ourselves behind walls to protect ourselves.

I have heard people often remark that Jesus' teaching about turning the other cheek is totally stupid. I think that's because they think that Jesus means, "Let yourself be abused." Jesus is not stupid. I call His strategy Spiritual Kung Fu where you let your adversary's momentum against you be used against himself.

Ordinarily, when we see someone advancing upon us to attack us, figuratively speaking, we do unto him before he does unto us. Jesus says not to. As the adversary advances and is practically upon us, we step aside and he runs straight into the wall behind us and knocks himself out. It's already been said: "Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who persecute you. Do not repay evil for evil...(Romans 12)" It's the heart's adventure race!

One of my favorite images about this is a scene from the movie, "The Next Karate Kid." It is the young girl Julie's 18th birthday and Mr. Miyagi's gift to her is a karate demonstration. He stands at one end of the long Buddhist monastery hall and to Julie's dismay, a monk sends an arrow flying straight towards Mr. Miyagi. Just as the arrow reaches him, Mr. Miyagi catches it in his fist and is untouched by it. This is the skill I have been trying to learn in dealing with relationships. Spiritual self-defense.

This is not an easy concept to assimilate so here's another illustration. Mr. Wong had an established restaurant in Chinatown and enjoyed many regular customers. Then, accross the street from him a Mr. Foo opens another Chinese restaurant. Some of Mr. Wong's customers went over to try the new one. They returned to Mr. Wong and told him that Mr. Foo had told them that Mr. Wong's kitchen was unsanitary and vermin-infested, that he used trans-fats and generally tried to discredit him. Mr. Wong responded by saying, "You must have misunderstood him. Mr. Foo is too honorable to malign me like that." Naturally that statement got back to Mr. Foo who, shame-faced, went over to Mr. Wong to apologize for what he had done.

To fight hostility with hostility is like trying to wash a dirty car with mud. We remove dirt with clean water. Repel the darkness with light. We catch the arrow with our hand before it pierces us. We deflect the spears. We love our enemy as Jesus enjoined us. To be hostile to our enemy is to become like him. To deflect the hostility is to remain untouched.