Wisdom and Enlightenment

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Wisdom: forms a quality of a person’s personality and character based on the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement. It is about having qualities of being wise. It is about developing and having a soundness of action and decision with regard to the application of that persons experiences, knowledge, understanding and good judgement. It is having a great body of knowledge and the principles that develop within a certain discipline, social tribal entity and period of time. 

Enlightenment: is a state of being of having knowledge and understanding along with the acts and actions of giving others that knowledge and understanding through teaching, mentoring and lecturing but most importantly through actions and deeds in setting the example. In the teachings of Buddhism it is about reaching a state of the blessed by the absence of desire and suffering. It also represents a period of time in history where societies had that age of reason toward an age of enlightenment, i.e. a philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century.

In our modern age and derived from knowledge skewed due to a lack of documented facts as well as the misunderstanding toward certain Asian belief systems such as Zen Buddhism, etc., karate and martial arts has used the two terms to express an ideal that is yet fully and comprehensively explained. There is only a little effort by a few to seek out a better understanding. 

In karate and martial arts, what ever that truly means, wisdom should use the above definitions to determine if one has reached a state of wisdom, reached a state of being a wise one. Not that age old picture many get in their minds of the aged Ancient grey-bearded Buddha like person sitting on a high mountain outside a cave dwelling sitting seize waiting for others to climb up and ask for advice perceived to come from a wise ancient sage. 

Wisdom in karate and/or martial arts is about attaining a certain quality of character and personality from the concerted effort to study, understand and apply experience, knowledge and good judgement as derived from the practice of the physical and mental disciplines associated with such systems. In the practice, training, study of and understanding of along with its every day applications in thought and deed seen in the soundness of the persons actions and word that has built a great body of knowledge and principles developed through, within and of that certain discipline that leans toward benefit of self and especially others - a wise person. 

Enlightenment in karate and martial arts is about achieving a state of being, a mind-state and mind-set found and built upon those things that make them wise and are always expressed in actions, deeds and words and that are passed down by teaching, mentoring and lecturing and leading by example. It is dynamic cohesive interconnectedness of both wisdom and enlightenment that is complimentary and builds on one anothers development in and over time.

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