Bruce Lee (1940 – 1973)
Chinese American martial artist and actor who is widely regarded as the most influential martial artist of the 20th century.
You must have complete determination. The worst opponent you can come across is one whose aim has become an obsession. For instance, if a man has decided that he is going to bite off your nose no matter what happens to him in the process, the chances are he will succeed in doing it. He may be severely beaten up, too, but that will not stop him from carrying out his objective. That is the real fighter.
To spend time is to pass it in a specified manner. To waste time is to expend it thoughtlessly or carelessly. We all have time to spend or waste, and it is our decision what to do with it. But once passed, it is gone forever.
Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.
True thusness is without defiling thought; it cannot be known through conception and thought.
Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.
A self-willed man obeys a different law, the one law I, too, hold absolutely sacred the human law in himself, his own individual will.
In Jeet Kune Do, its not how much you have learned, but how much you have absorbed from what you have learned. It is not how much fixed knowledge you can accumulate, but what you can apply livingly that counts. Being is more valued than "doing".
In Science we have finally come back to the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, who said everything is flow, flux, process. There are no "things." NOTHINGNESS in Eastern language is "no-thingness". We in the West think of nothingness as a void, an emptiness, an nonexistence. In Eastern philosophy and modern physical science, nothingness no-thingness is a form of process, ever moving.
Liberate yourself from concepts and see the truth with your own eyes. It exists HERE and NOW; it requires only one thing to see it: openness, freedom the freedom to be open and not tethered by any ideas, concepts, etc. ... When our mind is tranquil, there will be an occasional pause to its feverish activities, there will be a let-go, and it is only then in the interval between two thoughts that a flash of UNDERSTANDING understanding, which is not thought can take place.
To contemplate a thing implies maintaining oneself OUTSIDE it, resolved to keep a distance between it and ourselves.
True thusness is the substance of thought, and thought is the function of true thusness. There is no thought except that of true thusness. Thusness does not move, but its motion and function are inexhaustible.
Balance your thoughts with action. If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done.
What IS is more important than WHAT SHOULD BE. To many people are looking at "what is" from a position of thinking "what should be."
The aphorism "as a man thinketh in his heart so is he" contains the secret of life.
You know what I want to think of myself? As a human being. Because, I mean I don't want to be like "As Confucius say," but under the sky, under the heavens there is but one family. It just so happens that people are different.
Concepts vs. self-actualization. Instead of dedicating your life to actualize a concept of what you should be like, ACTUALIZE YOURSELF. The process of maturing does not mean to become a captive of conceptualization. It is to come to the realization of what lies in our innermost selves.
Concentration is the ROOT of all the higher abilities in man.
When I was having dinner with Chuck Norris I did ask him: "If you and Bruce would be in a real fight to death, who would win?", and he said without thinking: "Bruce of course. Nobody can beat him."
Life is better lived than conceptualized. This writing can be less demanding should I allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that and I've come to understand that life is best to be lived not to be conceptualized. If you have to think, you still do not understand.
Don't think, feel....it is like a finger pointing a way to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory!