Empowerment

What does it mean to empower yourself? Does it mean a more powerful body, to be more powerful than the next person? This kind of empowerment is short lived, for as we get older, the body slackens, so not this kind of empowerment; then, could we be speaking about academic matters? To empower yourself through academia is good but this field is vast and probably would not be achievable in one life time. To empower yourself with your chosen field in the world of academia would, of course, be more achievable. Is it possible to empower yourself spiritually in one life time?

For some yes, but for most people no, the quest for enlightenment is a hard road. To recognize that we are on a journey is of the most vital importance, this is (1) acceptance of this difficult road (2) to gain knowledge of the self, of others, of the Earth, and of the Universe; this is the greatest empowerment to achieve.

This we must start by knowing the self. Ask yourself (1) who are we, (2) what are we, (3) did we come from somewhere else, (4) where are we going, (5) what are we doing here, (6) what is our purpose; then we must ask why so many things, why all the suffering, why all the wars, why all the poverty, why all the sickness, why death, why the killing, why rich, why poor, each one of us must challenge ourselves with these questions. Ask why, ask why again and again until you get an answer. This is just the beginning of your empowerment.

To become enlightened, we must first empower ourselves. By heightening our senses, which are our hearing, our sight, smell, taste, and touch, these five senses are the only windows we have into consciousness in this world. These are achieved by studying ourselves in all of these fields, this can be hard work for we need courage to master the self. This is where Kung Fu and Tai Chi come into the fore, as they both build the energy of courage, and as courage is energy, then once we have achieved this, we then go on to our empowerments with this newly found Chi or energy, to empower our minds.

We must learn to think with our hearts, we must learn to listen with our hearts, to see others and also ourselves through our hearts, to feel and touch others with our hearts, with kindness and without judgement or comparison.

I can explain only so much through writing, in other words, I am only informing about the empowerments; the studying takes some more effort, of course, to finally perfect the self is very difficult, this is what the Buddha meant as mindfulness, which requires courage to face the true self. Without all of these qualities or empowerments it is not possible to be mindful, indeed, ‘mindful’ is not possible, for the mind can never be full. If you read and study the many blogs I have posted, it will help you find your path; in Shaolin teachings we can only show you the way, but we can not interfere with the path, for this path must be travelled by you all alone. These are the empowerments.

Bless all of you who are on your path.