By William Wright

While I am not a particularly religious man, I want to share a story that I think everyone should know.  It is from the Bible and it is about the Good Samaritan.

The story, in essence, goes like this:

One day a traveling man was robbed, beaten, and left for dead by a group of thieves on a dangerous curve of a road on the way from Jerusalem to Jericho.  The robbers beat the man so badly, in fact, that he was too broken to help himself and could barely manage to lie moaning in the road, hoping for help.  Luckily, he heard footsteps, and his hopes were raised, yet the man who came passed him by.  It turned out that this man was a priest who, upon seeing the beaten man, decided was too busy and turned to avoid him.

Nearer to death now, the robbed man had no recourse but to lay hoping for help, and when he heard more footsteps, this time he cried out as best he could, but again he was passed by.  The man who passed was a Levite (a renowned teacher in the temple) who looked at the man and decided again that helping him was not his duty.

Finally, a man came and, upon seeing the robbed man bleeding on the path, got off of his beast and helped the broken man by using his own cloth to treat his wounds and his own donkey to carry him to a nearby inn.  This man, who was from Samaria, typifies what Jesus taught as love for thy neighbor.

While not explained in the Bible, there are likely a number of reasons why the priest and the Levite did not stop to help this needy man.  It is possible that they were busy and could not be bothered or that they were afraid to stop thinking that they themselves would be attacked on that dangerous road.  Or it is possible that they thought the man was faking and that he was luring them into a trap.  Whatever their reasons, the fundamental difference between these men and the Samaritan was what they asked themselves upon seeing the situation.  For the Levite, it was "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But the Good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"

[Here at the Academy], there is a saying: “Don’t be reactive, be proactive.”  This is not merely a saying, however, and should not necessarily be thought of as such.  Instead, this phrase should be thought of as a state of being worth striving for and a recognition of the fact that the problems that are around us, while they may not be our problems, will eventually become so.  In a sense, I bring this up because I believe that while the Good Samaritan can be thought of as both a good neighbor and a good Christian, this man also embodied strength and the spirit of pro-activity that is fundamental to the spirit of Hwa Rang Do.  Pro-activity is the essence of leadership, and leadership is a core tenant of Hwa Rang Do.

But what is leadership?  Is it an egotistical desire to receive praise and fame?  I argue that it is not.  It is instead recognition of that fact that, like the Good Samaritan, if we do not take action to solve the problems we see in the world, who will?  Ultimately, ignoring an injustice is itself an injustice and forgetting a crime is itself a crime.

Of course, the priest and the Levite were absolutely correct.  By stopping to help, the Samaritan risked his own person.  Similarly, a leader wears the heavy mantle of responsibility for those that he or she leads and the proactive man suffers the ridicule of those who would prefer the status quo.  Yet success, glory, and honor are not available to those who do not take risks and lead, nor does Hwa Rang Do teach the value of just getting by.  Hwa Rang Do embodies the concept of leadership and pro-action - whether this is to improve the student as both an external or an internal leader.  If self, community, or global improvements are to be achieved, we need to think more proactively, as the Samaritan did, and ask ourselves more frequently, “If I don’t do what is right, who will?”