Quanyin while standing before the gates of paradise heard a cry of anguish from the earth below. Turning back to earth, she renounced her reward of bliss eternal but in its place found immortality in the hearts of the suffering.

Immortality is actually the ability to open and enter the door of infinity and communion within all of us that meditation and stillness brings, and by sharing, serving and being a part of our community instead of hoarding and isolating ourselves from it. The moment you let fear into your heart, you demonise others and society takes a turn toward hell. The current state of our world is due to the propagation of this fear and its resulting aggression.

We convince ourselves that happiness is turning our backs on those that suffer, if we have money, posh cars and hoarded wealth we will be happy, but is that not gluttony?

There is a far deeper form of happiness.

Martial Arts is the way of peace and the peacemaker. We study and train to broaden our perspective and harmonise ourselves first, then with others and our environment. To help and support our community as a peacemaker with a soft front and a strong back, to not demonise those who are different and to make our tribe global is the ‘do’ (tao) of our arts.

We have to understand suffering, aggression and violence to be able to skilfully bring them to peace and harmony.

Quanyin is the reminder to hear the cries of suffering in the world and to not turn our backs and to play our part to develop the compassion to resolve it.