In the beautiful village of Naba on the coast of Okinawa, karate Grandmaster Ayato was quite proud on the day his twin sons were born.

A great celebration was held in honor of the newborns and the town’s residents provided the family with many gifts and blessings. The twins were sure to keep the town’s strong karate tradition alive for another generation. And that tradition was no joke. Karate fighters from Naba were the best in their region and routinely defeated rival schools in competitions. Grandmaster Ayato’s teachings were to thank for that success.

Ayato’s new sons were named Shigeru and Mahito. They looked almost identical, but Shigeru’s eyes weren’t fully opened at birth. In fact, they never did. Grandmaster Ayato was saddened. Of his two sons, only one would follow in his footsteps; because while Mahito was completely healthy, Shigeru was blind. Ayato was certain blindness would prevent a life of martial arts excellence for his sightless son. But their mother Kaya was not so sure. She saw something special in Shigeru.

As years passed, the boys grew to be smart and strong. Yet one of them was more driven to succeed than the other and always seemed to know what challenge to take on next. One of them trained harder in karate. He spent hours each day in the classroom and in the training room; while the other grew to be lazy and always found training to be difficult. School work was even considered a bother to him. Those attitudes never changed.

Two decades passed and the twins grew to be young men. Grandmaster Ayato was too old to continue teaching at his school, so he was faced with the task of anointing one of his sons as new Master of the Ayato Karate School in Naba. He could only choose one son to take over, but the decision was an easy one for Ayato.

He had a new black belt and uniform fashioned for the occaision and a ceremony was held to honor the school’s passing into the next generation. Ayato tied the new belt across his son’s waist, looked up into his eyes and prepared to anoint him as the new master. The eyes he met couldn’t see him in return, but Ayato knew that Shigeru was aware of everything around him; for he was to be the new master of the school, not Mahito.

After the ceremony, Mahito was sullen and lonely as usual. His poor attitude and lack of direction kept him locked in that frame of mind. He approached his brother with empty congratulations. “I guess you deserved it Shigeru. But why do you think father chose you as the master and not me?”

Shigeru responded, “Well my brother. I suppose that even though I cannot see, perhaps my vision is better than you expected. Don’t you know it comes from the heart, not the eyes?”