Five Tenets: The sixth tenet(?????)
One dark evening in rural England, probably about fifteen years ago, I was, as per usual in the village memorial hall (every village has them) with the familiar smell of the broad cloth stage curtains from the stage at one end, and the more immediate smell of quite a few sweaty people in doboks doing Tae Kwon Do. My teacher was a man of real spirit, he taught me what it was to be a martial artist, even if some of the technicalities of technique were perhaps a little absent. he said something that has stuck with me forever (weird how things do that sometimes eh?) he said to a small group of us: "There used to be six tenets of Tae Kwon Do, and the sixth one was humility."
Humility will always be my favourite non-tenet. It is a constant challenge and a constant friend. I feel Te Kwon Do really lost a vital aspect of itself when it left Humility out of it's core values. Humility is the missing aspect and key to true self-growth. Having the personal honesty to "Think it possible that you may be mistaken" as the 17th Century English radical and Quaker George Fox said.
Don't be proud, even if it might be seen by others to be merited. For pride fills our cup and if it is full how then are we to receive the un-countable blessings of the world? Be empty and allow yourself to be filled. Always empty yourself. The Ocean is below all rivers, and yet all rivers flow to it and there they realise their greatest potential. Allow yourself to be like the river, through humility you will allow yourself to flow down and transform and in that transformation you will loose the restriction of your banks, and gain that which is beyond words.