"Jung-Do" excerpted from "Searching for the Forgotten Half in Martial Art"

[진영]

Life itself is a way of moral cultivation (so called 'Do' or 'Tao') of both body and mind.

If one wishes to achieve what they wish or need to do, they must:
First: Understand and accept others;
Second: Serve for others;
Third: Realize and adapt to changes.

Harmony and Balance create Enlightenment, which enables one's mind of what and how to do next. One should never harm others no matter what happens to himself. Harmony and Balance are comparable to Love (Energy), which gives Strength (Power) in life.
Life and death are connected and repeated on one line. If one could come to understand the connection and continuity between life and death through Enlightenment, then you cannot help but accept that neither your body nor even its energy is owned by you. The “Myself of Body” will disappear, but the “Myself of Mind and Spirit” is immortal.

There are ultimately two things one can bring to Nature – all the Love which you create throughout your life and the “Original Mind” that was given to you from Nature before your birth.

“Jung-Do” translates as the “middle way”, but in fact it is all about making the best choices as we propagate our way through life. The Correct Way or Jung-Do can be looked from the two different perspectives: the human being’s view and Nature’s view.

If we visualize Jung-Do from the human being’s perspective of right and wrong choices drawn on the 2-dimensional plane, our path of choices can go in a curved direction trying to escape in the best possible manner the wrong outcomes according to the various situations, OR if we look upon it as a 3D solid conical funnel-like figure, it could be visualized as a straight tube (cylindrical path) among all wrong outcomes. It is a path which finds its straight way through all bad things in life and this path considers its direction and slope according to the principles of Nature and Love.

On the other hand, if we consider the above from Nature’s perspective, that same path can be described as a closed circle which is Jung-Do in itself and holds the Correct Way, the Principle of Nature, Absolute Truth, God, etc.

Our life is a matter of constant motion – both physically and mentally. Our minds and bodies move in all dimensions and our actions lead us to good or bad results. We can feel thrown in many directions both as a body or feelings. We can see this constant motion described as many basic principles of physics, like Centripetal and Centrifugal forces, spinning on a serpentine curve, etc. If we try to visualize the combined representation of Jung-Do (the Right Way) and Kong (the Original Nature or Love) as a simple 2-diamensional diagram, it will be best described as a group of numerous concentric circles with a common center. This common center is Kong and on each circle we have a specific point that represents the right choice of Jung-Do. When we connect all these points we can see how Jung-Do looks like.

In fact, our life is much more complex and choices are made both according to our body in space, but also with our mind and feelings. Therefore Jung-Do will be described in a more concise manner as a sphere formed by a countless number of concentric circles, where Kong is the center of the sphere and Jung-Do is a complex set of numerous rays going from the center of the sphere to each of these circles.

Similarly, the above relations can be described through a countless number of inverted upside-down conical funnel-like figures (like the ones mentioned above), which have again a common center (Kong). This even more complex representation includes in itself a separate view of your Body (the body of each conical figure) and your Soul (the large open end of the funnel that lays on the outer sphere surface.

When Centripetal and Centrifugal forces start to act on the choices we make in our everyday Life, the correctness of our Jung-Do is best shown as the state of Harmony and Balance between these two forces, i.e. Centrifugal force pushes toward the outside and implements in itself the selfish mind and Wrong Way, while the Centripetal force pulls towards the center of Kong and denotes the Way of Original Nature and Love.

- Grand Master Kim, Jeong Seong, "Searching for the Forgotten Half in Martial Arts", Jinyoung Ssangum Ryu.