Discipline as an Act of Love

Weekly wisdom to bring you home, in 3 minutes or less.

A SHORT STORY

I recently came across the origin of the word discipline, which has stayed with me ever since.

It comes from the same root as disciple, and it means seeing yourself through the eyes of the teacher who loves you.

Growing up in the West, I’ve noticed that we don’t always approach teaching the way many of my friends in the East do. Once, while sitting with my teacher Gurukkal, whom I mention often in these newsletters, he told me that he thinks of me every day.

At first, some part of me resisted that idea. It felt improbable, even symbolic. But over time, I began to understand that within his tradition of Kalaripayattu, the world’s oldest martial art, a teacher’s role does not end when the student leaves the space. The student is carried. The teacher holds an image of who the student is becoming and holds that image with patience, care, and belief.

This way of being, of modeling the path, is something I attempt to carry into my own teaching.

Perhaps this week, you and I can consider how discipline is not an act of willpower, but an act of love, repeated over time. A commitment to live into the person someone once believed you and I could become.

As I return to the acting studio this coming week, I carry that lineage with me. When we practice together as actors, we step into a space where we agree to see one another generously. And slowly, through that shared devotion, we allow ourselves to be seen the same way.

How might discipline change if you treated it as an act of love rather than an act of willpower?

A POEM

“Like You” by Roque Dalton

Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-blue
landscape of January days.
And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.
And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

Grateful,

Michael