118: The Waterbending Master

Monk Gyatso:  It is always satisfying to finally reach a destination.  We see our gang of explorers finally land up north, with a warm welcome from the Northern Water Tribe.   

So the first lesson of this chapter:  We should be gracious hosts to travelers and guests, as they will need rest and relaxation as they come into our home.

The central lesson to this chapter is about traditions.  Traditions can both strengthen a person or community in good practices, but can also restrict us needlessly.  It can be difficult to decide whether a tradition needs to be kept rigidly, or if it can be altered or abandoned altogether.   

Since they have lasted a long time, it is not something we should change lightly, but sometimes that change is needed.   

Here in the Northern Water Tribe, the women use their waterbending only for healing, and the men use it for actually moving water about in varying tasks.   

Both types are very important, and the tribe has decided to separate these duties between the sexes.

This chapter presents the idea of the rigid tradition as being unnecessary, but we shouldn’t be too quick to abandon tradition, there is often good thinking behind it somewhere.  What if everyone got excited about moving water about, and then there was no one left to teach healing?   

Katara didn’t know someone could use waterbending to heal, so this art seems to have been lost from the Southern Water Tribe, something that shouldn’t be allowed to happen.   

So the tradition may have its place, or maybe an alternative should be decided upon: have a healing and a bending school, but not base it upon whether someone is a boy or a girl.   

We need to be careful to not get too focused on just one thing, and let it keep us from thinking things through.