Overview
Violence is too often portrayed as a heroic cultural ideal, one that accepts fighting as an honorable solution to conflict. This attitude has allowed human beings to justify solving the problems of relationship by aggressive, combative means.Karate, as a martial art, is meant to be practiced as an art, as a way to end conflict by nonviolent means, not just by having the confidence not to fight, but, more important, to end conflict at its source within the human mind. This paradoxical intent becomes clear when one begins to understand oneself, which the art of karate gives the student the opportunity to do. In understanding oneself, the student comes into direct contact with the origin of conflict, the foundation of violence. This confrontation with oneself is the essence of the art, the primary reason why serious people study karate.
Karate: The Art of Empty Self is not a manual on self-defense. Nor is this work a philosophical or intellectual interpretation of the martial arts. Instead, this book clearly addresses, as no martial arts book has done before, the underlying intent of karate and the martial arts. In simple, straightforward language, it inquires into the roots of conflict.
As a martial art, karate is a way to end conflict by nonviolent means. In addition to the physical confidence it instills in its practitioners, karate empowers them to curtail conflict at its source: the human mind. These meditations are designed to raise the reader's awareness of how aggression and tension can hold up a mirror to reflect the roots of fear.