[हिंदी में पढ़ें]
The conventional reading of the cult classic The Karate Kid (1984) is that given enough dedication and determination, hard work can help you achieve even the toughest of targets. It seems to celebrate grit of a David-Goliath conflict.
But right before the climax, something doesn’t fit this tale of underdog grit.
Mr Miyagi: Win, lose — no matter. […] No need fight anymore. You proved a point.
Daniel: What, that I can take a beating? Every time I see those guys, they’ll know they got the best of me. I’ll never have balance that way, not with them, not with Ali — not with me.
If the film was about achievement through perseverance, why doesn’t Mr Miyagi want Daniel to go back into the ring?
Today let’s unwrap the film’s hidden message.
The Philosophy
Intention matters.
The same action done from the pull of a conditioned self doesn’t help in inculcating awareness. Hard work done out of a fear will create further conditioning, while hard work done to overcome a fear will free us.
Mr Miyagi is a Zen master. He intuitively knows how sufferings, conditionings and afflictions arise in a person.
Daniel has fear and anger. Fear at being left behind and undermined. Anger at being bullied by Johnny. He has sufferings.
Also, he has ego. He wants to win. Success is important to him. He has a girlfriend. He has cravings to prove himself to her.
When his leg breaks after the semifinal, he had already proved himself and got the respect he needed to solve his problems. The rival dojo’s dirty tricks proved that. Yet he does not let it go at that. He wants to still win. To him ‘balance’ is still in winning.
Mr Miyagi seems to know that these cravings are deep-rooted. They couldn’t be solved by Karate alone. The best chance he could get to solve them was to face them in the real world.
The tournament final provided a unique opportunity for Daniel to see through the choices that he had made. To own his condition.
Owning up
Daniel is pushed into a corner by bullies. He feels helpless. He curses the place. He wants to run away.
Mr Miyagi enters his life at a critical juncture, when he needs him the most. He sees the rejection pent up in Daniel. His imbalance. His blame. He feels his pain. He decides to help him because of this compassion.
This help is not about Daniel getting revenge. Or winning. It is about getting him back on his feet. So that he could own up to his circumstances. Accept life, not reject it.
The Elusive Balance
Karate was always about learning balance. But Daniel couldn’t do that bound by his afflictions. Teachings could not reach him in that stage. Even when Daniel practiced Karate, it was for teaching Johnny a lesson and maybe defend himself. For winning. For prevailing. It was not for learning balance.
Mr Miyagi perhaps realised that it was best to let him see that even winning a tournament wouldn’t reduce his sufferings. In the later Cobra Kai (2018) series, this story arc about Daniel being dissatisfied is shown. Relieving his pain before the final was an act of compassion. To let Daniel confront his karma.
If Daniel had been more aware, less conditioned, less afflicted, he would not have asked Mr Miyagi to let him go back. But since he did, it became clear that he was deep into his chains. Mr Miyagi could see that, and the best way to help a pupil was through harnessing their own chains.
Win/loss dichotomy
Karate was never about winning. The version which Mr Miyagi taught was all about defense.
Life’s kicks are seldom soft. The world — domino-like — pulls us in its vast network of causes and effects, and defense is the best chance we get. This defense is not about giving up. It is about accepting the world for what it is — without hate — and working along with it, withstanding the storms of success, defeat, pain, joy. Loving the world regardless.
Balance is about not judging the world for what it always has been. To see others, even those who hurt us, as the conditioned beings they are, just like us. (In the later Cobra Kai (2018) series, Daniel does exactly this for Johnny.) To keep building. Trying. Without any attachments to our delusions — anger, fear or the craving to prove oneself.
This is why Mr Miyagi says that it was an attitude problem all along. Balance comes from realising that success and failure are two sides of the same coin. They are empty of an inherent existence. Whether we win or lose, we keep working with the same rigour, because only the effort matters. It is the effort which changes us, de-conditions us. Our aim should be to attain balance, to be in alignment with the world. To merge in the ocean of causes.
That line stopped me: success and failure as two sides of the same coin, empty of inherent existence.
Mr. Miyagi never uses Buddhist language. But he's teaching what Mahayana traditions have circled for centuries.
In Zen, what keeps suffering in place isn't the situation. It's the craving attached to how the situation resolves. Daniel can't hear a dharma talk. He can only experience his own chains.
The tournament works as a teaching precisely because he wants the outcome so badly. That wanting is the thing being undone.
One thing I'm still sitting with: do you think Miyagi chose to let Daniel go back because he knew winning would leave him just as empty, or because he trusted Daniel would find his own way regardless?