Traditions of Respect

This story was told to me a long time ago. I like the lesson in it.

A proud man came to learn martial arts from a well known Master because he had heard of his reputation for being a good teacher.

When the man went to the school, he noticed the students bowed a lot to each other and referred to their teacher as "Mr." or "Master". The man thought to himself, "I will not bow to anybody", and "who does he think he is that I cannot address him by his first name?"

The Master noticed that the man did not bow to anyone and that he addressed everyone informally, so he came over to speak with him. Before the Master began to speak, he bowed to the man and addressed him as "Mr."

Now the man thought to himself, "Why would a Master of the martial arts bow to anyone, or extend me courtesy?"

Then the Master said, "I have noticed you will not bow to anyone, nor properly address me or your fellow students and seniors. Why is this?"

The man replied, "I will not subservient to anyone, It makes me uncomfortable, I will not humiliate myself this way!"

The Master smiled and said, "We do not bow to show subservience, on the contrary, we bow to show the highest respect for each other. The same with addressing people formally...it is a way to show great respect for that person. Do you like to be respected? Do you have respect?"

The man replied, "Yes, I do have respect, but it seems my pride and insecurity has clouded my judgement and kept me from seeing the true meaning of these formalities!"

Again the Master smiled, "You can be assured there are very important reasons for these traditions and customs, and they will become clearer to you as you continue on your path of martial arts training."

The man felt greatly relieved. He bowed deeply to the Master and went back to training. After years of practice and even though he now possessed a mastery of skills, he found the aspect of the martial arts he enjoyed the most was the tradition of respect.