One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.
If one loves, one need not have an ideology of love.
Sorrows are our best educator. A man can see further through a tear than a telescope.
True refinement seeks simplicity.
Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Each moment that passes changes you…You can’t even own yourself. How can you ever hope to own anyone or anything else.
I think of myself as a human being.
The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.
Cease negative mental chattering. If you think a thing is impossible, you’ll make it impossible. Pessimism blunts the tools you need to succeed.
A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready. Not thinking, yet not dreaming. Ready for whatever may come. When the opponent expands, I contract; and when he contracts, I expand. And when there is an opportunity, “I” do not hit, “it” hits all by itself.
Simplicity is the key to brilliance.
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.
Learn it all, then forget it all.
There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.
A man strikes you, make him bleed. He makes you bleed, you break his bones. He breaks your bones, kill him. Being hit is inevitable, strike back twice as hard.
Put every great teacher in a room, and they’d agree about everything, but put their disciples in there and they’d argue about everything.
I have come to understand that life is best to be lived and not to be conceptualized. I am happy because I am growing daily and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies.
Probably the most badass guy who ever lived on this planet!
As long as we separate this oneness into two we won’t achieve realization.
I’m a philosophy major. That means I can think deep thoughts about being unemployed.
Defeat is a state of mind; no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality.
Do not allow negative thoughts to enter your mind for they are the weeds that strange confidence.
Remember no man is really defeated unless he is discouraged.
There is “what is” only when there is no comparing and to live with “what is” is to be peaceful.
In the middle of chaos lies opportunity.
Only the self-sufficient stand alone – most people follow the crowd and imitate.
It is not a shame to be knocked down by other people. The important thing is to ask when you’re being knocked down, ‘Why am I being knocked down?’ If a person can reflect in this way, then there is hope for this person.
Art reaches its greatest peak when devoid of self-consciousness. Freedom discovers man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make.
Observe what is with undivided awareness.
Long-term consistency trumps short-term intensity.
The mind is like a fertile garden in which anything that is planted, flowers or weeds, will grow.
Let the spirit out – Discard all thoughts of reward, all hopes of praise and fears of blame, all awareness of one’s bodily self. And, finally closing the avenues of sense perception, let the spirit out, as it will.
We have great work ahead of us, and it needs devotion and much, much energy. To grow, to discover, we need involvement, which is something I experience every day – sometimes good, sometimes frustrating. No matter what, you must let your inner light guide you out of the darkness.
Zen is not “attained” by mirror-wiping mediation, but by “self-forgetfulness in the existential ‘present’ of life here and now.” We do not “come”, we “are.” Don’t strive to become, but be.
Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. I’ll not willingly offend, nor be easily offended.
The martial arts are based upon understanding, hard work and a total comprehension of skills. Power training and the use of force are easy, but total comprehension of all of the skills of the martial arts is very difficult to achieve.
Never waste energy on worries or negative thoughts, all problems are brought into existence -drop them.
The perfect way is only difficult for those who pick and choose. Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference and heaven and earth are set apart; if you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between ‘for’ and ‘against’ is the mind’s worst disease.
Satori – in the awakening from a dream. Awakening and self-realization and seeing into one’s own being – these are synonymous.
Knowledge earns you power, character earns you respect.
Bring the mind to a sharp focus and make it alert so that it can immediately intuit truth, which is everywhere.
The three most difficult things in life are: 1. To keep a secret. 2. To forget an injury. 3. To make good use of leisure.
When we suddenly awake to the realization that there is no barrier, and never has been, one realizes that one is all things mountains, rivers, grasses, trees, sun, moon, stars, universe are all oneself. There is no longer a division or barrier between myself and others, no longer any feeling of alienation or fear there is nothing apart from oneself and therefore nothing to fear. Realizing this results in true compassion. Other people and things are not seen as apart from oneself but, on the contrary, as one’s own body.
Since weight training involves repetitions, a great deal of energy must be exerted. Therefore, weight training should be practiced only every other day.
Know the difference between a catastrophe and an inconvenience. – To realize that it’s just an inconvenience, that it is not a catastrophe, but just an unpleasantness, is part of coming into your own, part of waking up.
Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.
A good teacher can never be fixed in a routine… each moment requires a sensitive mind that is constantly changing and constantly adapting. A teacher must never impose this student to fit his favourite pattern; a good teacher functions as a pointer, exposing his student’s vulnerability (and) causing him to explore both internally and finally integrating himself with his being. Martial art should not be passed out indiscriminately.
A self-willed man has no other aim than his own growth.
Live a life worth remembering.
As long as I can remember I feel I have had this great creative and spiritual force within me that is greater than faith, greater than ambition, greater than confidence, greater than determination, greater than vision. It is all these combined. My brain becomes magnetized with this dominating force which I hold in my hand.
Optimism is a faith that leads to success.
We are told that talent creates opportunity, yet it is desire that creates talent.
Seek freedom from the conformity of styles
Self-knowledge is the basis of jeet kune do because it is effective not only for the individual’s martial art but also for his life as a human being.
I don’t believe in getting something for nothing.
In life, what more can you ask for than to be real?
People try to hold onto the sameness. This holding onto prevents growth.
I’ve come to understand that life is best lived, not conceptualized.
Anxiety is the gap between the NOW and the THEN. So if you are in the NOW, you can’t be anxious, because your excitement flows immediately into ongoing spontaneous activity.
Sincere thought means thought of concentration (quiet awareness). The thought of a distracted mind cannot be sincere
Do not have an attitude, open yourself and focus yourself and express yourself. Reject external form that fails to express internal reality.
Recognizing that the power of will is the supreme court over all other departments of my mind, I will exercise daily when I need the urge to act for any purpose; and I will form habits designed to bring the power of my will into action at least once daily.
What we are after is the root and not the branches. The root is the real knowledge; the branches are surface knowledge. Real knowledge breeds ‘body feel’ and personal expression; surface knowledge breeds mechanical conditioning and imposing limitation and squelches creativity.
Once I slow down because I think I have reached my peak, then my skills will go nowhere but down
One will never get any more than he thinks he can get. YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES. Look back and see your progress – damn the torpedo, full speed ahead!
In building a statue, a sculptor doesn’t keep adding clay to his subject. Actually, he keeps chiseling away at the nonessentials until the truth of his creation is revealed without obstruction.
You must accept the fact that there is no help but self-help. I cannot tell you how to gain freedom since freedom exists within you.
The past is no more; the future not yet. Nothing exists except the here and now. Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at our hands.
Jeet Kune Do does not beat around the bush. It does not take winding detours. It follows a straight line to the objective. Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points.
I believe in having a few pupils at one time as it requires a constant alert observation of each individual in order to establish a direct relationship. A good teacher can never be fixed in a routine… each moment requires a sensitive mind that is constantly changing and constantly adapting.
The highest art is no art. The highest form is no form
The idea is that flowing water never goes stale, so just keep on flowing.
The more aware you become, the more you shed from day to day what you have learned so that your mind is always fresh and uncontaminated by previous conditioning.
Though they play an important role in the early stages, the techniques should not be too mechanical, complex, or restrictive. Remember, you are expressing the techniques and not doing the techniques. When attacked, your response is not technique 1, 2, 3, 4, 5-rather you simply move in like sound and echo, without any deliberation. React as when I throw something to you, you catch it. Nothing else.
You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup.
Either you understand or you don’t, and that is that.
Any technique, however worthy and desirable, becomes a disease when the mind is obsessed with it.
Put ‘going the extra mile’ to work as part of one’s daily habit
An instructor should exemplify the things he seeks to teach. It will be of great advantage if you yourself can do all you ask of your students and more.
I hope martial artists are more interested in the root of martial arts and not the different decorative branches, flowers or leaves. It is futile to argue as to which leaf, which design of branches, or which attractive flower you like; when you understand the root, you understand all its blossoming.
A man must constantly exceed his level
Efficiency is anything that scores.
My strength comes from my abdomen. It’s the center of gravity and the source of real power.
The reward is found in the work.
For those who kept saying it can’t be done: Never are the victories or the honors won. But, rather, By the believing, doing kind, While the doubters watched From Far Behind.
Preparation for tomorrow is hard work today.
To change with change is the changeless state
Since life is an ever evolving process, one should flow in this process and discover how to actualize and expand oneself.
Understanding requires not just a moment of perception, but a continuous awareness, a continuous state of inquiry without conclusion
Styles tend to not only separate men – because they have their own doctrines and then the doctrine became the gospel truth that you cannot change. But if you do not have a style, if you just say: Well, here I am as a human being, how can I express myself totally and completely? Now, that way you won’t create a style, because style is a crystallization . That way, it’s a process of continuing growth.
I am not afraid of a person who knows 10000 kicks. But I am afraid of a person who knows one kick but practices it for 10000 times.
All knowledge leads to self-knowledge.
We do not become. We simply are.
No matter what, you must let your inner light guide you out of the darkness.
Knowing is not enough, You must apply
Because one does not want to be disturbed, to be made uncertain, he establishes a pattern of conduct, of thought, a pattern of relationship to man etc. Then he becomes a slave to the patter and takes the pattern to be the real thing.
Those who are unaware they are walking in darkness will never seek the light.
Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless – like water.
The More we value things, the less we value ourselves
The principle of martial arts is not a thing that can be learned, like a science, by fact-finding and instruction in facts. It has to grow spontaneously, like a flower, in a mind free from emotions and desires.
Independent inquiry is needed in your search for truth, not dependence on anyone else’s view or a mere book.
Learning is a constant process of discovery – a process without end.
Dedication, absolute dedication, is what keeps one ahead. A sort of indomitable obsessive dedication and the realization that there is no end or limit to this because life is simply an ever-growing process, an ever-renewing process.
The point is the doing of them rather than the accomplishments . There is no actor but the action; there is no experiencer but the experience.
Its not what happens that counts… It’s how you react.
Belts are only good for holding up your pants
The poorer we are inwardly, the more we try to enrich ourselves outwardly.
Willing is not enough, one must apply.
The founder of any branch must be more ingenious than the common man. However, if his achievement is not carried on by disciples of the same ingenuity, then things will only become formalized and get stuck in a cul-de-sac; whereby breakthrough and progress will be almost impossible.
The deluded mind is the mind affectively burdened by intellect. Thus, it cannot move without stopping and reflecting on itself. This obstructs its native fluidity.
Dedication, absolute dedication, is what keeps one ahead!
All types of knowledge ultimately lead to self-knowledge. So, therefore, these people are asking me to teach them, not so much how to defend themselves or how to do somebody in. Rather, they want to learn to express themselves through some movement, be it anger, be it determination or whatever. So, in other words, they’re paying me to show them, in combative form, the art of expressing the human body.
I do not fear the man who practices 1,000 kicks one time each. I fear the man who practices 1 kick 1,000 times.
Jeet Kune Do: it’s just a name; don’t fuss over it. There’s no such thing as a style if you understand the roots of combat.
Too much horsing around with unrealistic stances and classic forms and rituals is just too artificial and mechanical, and doesn’t really prepare the student for actual combat. A guy could get clobbered while getting into this classical mess. Classical methods like these, which I consider a form of paralysis, only solidify and constrain what was once fluid. Their practitioners are merely blindly rehearsing routines and stunts that will lead nowhere.
Be a practical dreamer backed by action.
A good fighter must sense rather than perceive his chance to strike.
when one is not expressing himself, he is not free. thus, he begins to struggle and the struggle breeds methodical routine. Soon, he is doing his methodical routine as response rather than responding to what is.
…The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity … the ability to express the utmost with the minimum. It is the halfway cultivation that leads to ornamentation…
Taoist philosophy is essentially monistic. Matter and energy, Yang and Yin, heaven and earth, are conceived of as essentially one or as two coexistent poles of one indivisible whole.
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.
Everyone wants to learn how to win, but no one wants to learn how to accept defeat.
All knowledge, is ultimately, self knowledge.
From form to formless and from finite to infinite
A kung fu man lives without being dependant on the opinions of others, and a master, unlike the beginner, holds himself in reserve. He is quiet and unassuming, with no desire to show off.
Be a calm beholder of what is happening around you.
A kung fu man who was really good was not proud at all. Pride emphasizes the superiority of one’s status. There has to be fear and insecurity in pride, because when you aim at being highly esteemed and achieve such status, you automatically start to worry about losing status.
How can there be methods and systems to arrive at something that is living? To that which is static, fixed, dead, there can be a way, a definite path, but not to that which is living. Do not reduce reality to a static thing and then invent methods to reach it. …Truth has no path. Truth is living and, therefore, changing. It has no resting place, no form, no organized institution, no philosophy. When you see that, you will understand that this living thing is also what you are. You cannot express and be alive through static, put-together form, through stylized movement.
A good martial artist does not become tend but ready, not thinking but jet not dreaming. Ready for whatever may come.
Remember… you are expressing the technique, not doing the technique.
The best form of endurance exercise is the performance of the event.
Even today, I dare not say that I have reached a state of achievement. I’m still learning, for learning is boundless.
You and your opponent are one. There is a coexisting relationship between you. You coexist with your opponent and become his complement, absorbing his attack and using his force to overcome him.
The usefulness of the cup is its emptiness.
Remember, success is a journey not a destination. Have faith in your ability. You will do just fine.
A teacher is never a giver of truth; he is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student must find for himself.
To understand your fear is the beginning of really seeing.
To me defeat in anything is merely temporary. Defeat simply tells me that something is wrong in my doing; it is a path leading to success and truth.
To me, ultimately, martial arts means honestly expressing yourself.
Where there is no style, there is no slave. Martial Arts mean honestly expressing yourself. No style. No slave.
The more complicated and restricted the method, the less opportunity for expression of one’s original sense of freedom.
A martial artist has to take responsibility for himself and accept the consequences of his own doing.
Emotion can be the enemy, if you give into your emotion, you lose yourself. You must be at one with your emotion, because the body always follows the mind.
If you knew you had to fight for your life tomorrow, would you change your training today?
To me, ultimately, martial arts means honestly expressing yourself. Now, it is very difficult to do. It has always been very easy for me to put on a show and be cocky, and be flooded with a cocky feeling and feel pretty cool and all that. I can make all kinds of phoney things. Blinded by it. Or I can show some really fancy movement. But to experience oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, and to express myself honestly, now that is very hard to do.
Water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend.
Things live by moving and gain strength as they go.
Like everyone else, you want to learn the way to win, but never to accept the way to lose – to accept defeat. To learn to die is to be liberated from it. So when tomorrow comes you must free your ambitious mind and learn the art of dying!
I am learning to understand rather than immediately judge or to be judged. I cannot blindly follow the crowd and accept their approach. I will not allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowled
Using no way as a way, having no limitation as limitation.
Life is an ever-flowing process and somewhere on the path some unpleasant things will pop up – it might leave a scar, but then life is flowing, and like running water, when it stops it grows stale. Go bravely on, my friend, because each experience teaches us a lesson. Keep blasting because life is such that sometimes it is nice and sometimes it is not.
I wish neither to possess nor to be possessed. I no longer covet ‘paradise’. More important, I no longer fear ‘hell’. The medicine for my suffering I had within me from the very beginning but I did not take it. My ailment came from within myself, but I did not observe it, until this moment. Now I see that I will never find the light unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel, consuming myself.
…good technique includes quick changes, great variety and speed. It may be a system of reversals much like a concept of God and the Devil. In the speed of events, which one is really in charge?…to put the heart of martial arts inyour own heart and have it be a part of you means total comprehension and the use of a free style. When you have that you will know that there are no limits.
Self-knowledge involves relationship. To know oneself is to study one self in action with another person. Relationship is a process of self evaluation and self revelation. Relationship is the mirror in which you discover yourself – to be is to be related.
For it is easy to criticize and break down the spirit of others, but to know yourself takes a lifetime.
The world is full of people who are determined to be somebody or to give trouble. They want to get ahead, to stand out. Such ambition has no use for a gung fu man, who rejects all forms of self-assertiveness and competition
Linda and I aren’t one and one. We are two halves that make a whole – two halves fitted together are more efficient than either half would ever be alone!
Learning is never cumulative, it is a movement of knowing which has no beginning and no end.
Remember my friend to enjoy your planning as well as your accomplishment, for life is too short for negative energy.
Art is never decoration, embellishment; instead, it is work of enlightenment. Art, in other words, is a technique for acquiring liberty.
Success means doing something sincerely and wholeheartedly.
Instead of dedicating your life to actualize a concept of what you should be like, actualize yourself.
The martial arts are ultimately self-knowledge. A punch or a kick is not to knock the hell out of the guy in front, but to knock the hell out of your ego, your fear, or your hang-ups.
I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude.
To develop the creative attitude, analyze and focus on the wanted SOLUTION; seek out and fill your mind with the FACTS; write down ideas, both sensible and seemingly wild; let the facts and ideas simmer in your mind; evaluate, recheck, settle on the creative ideas.
One must be truthful and honest in his approach; a constant independent inquiry and not blindly following a certain blue print laid down by others
Many people dedicate their lives to actualizing a concept of what they should be like, rather than actualizing themselves. This difference between self-actualization and self-image actualization is very important. Most people live only for their image
The past is an illusion. You must learn to live in the present and accept yourself for what you are now. What you lack in flexibility and agility you must make up with knowledge and constant practice.
A person cannot forget someone who is good to them.
Success is not in reaching the destination, but in making the journey.
For something that is static, fixed, dead, there can be a way or a definite path; but not for anything that is moving and living.
Awareness is without choice, without demand, without anxiety; in that state of mind, there is perception.
The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus and a chair that’s not obtained from Craigslist that keeps poking into his back.
In Buddhism, there is no place for using effort. Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water and when you’re tired go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand.
…we have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything which has its roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone and we are not alone when we imitate. It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.
It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.
If I tell you I’m good, probably you will say I’m boasting. But if I tell you I’m not good, you’ll know I’m lying.
The man who is really serious, with the urge to find out what truth is, has no style at all. He lives only in what is.
Voidness is that which stands right in the middle between this and that. The void is all-inclusive, having no opposite-there is nothing which it excludes or opposes. It is living void, because all forms come out of it and whoever realizes the void is filled with life and power and the love of all beings.
I’m moving and not moving at all. I’m like the moon underneath the waves that ever go on rolling and rocking. It is not, “I am doing this,” but rather, an inner realization that “this is happening through me,” or “it is doing this for me.” The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action.
Bring the mind into sharp focus and make it alert so that it can immediately intuit truth, which is everywhere. The mind must be emancipated from old habits, prejudices, restrictive thought processes and even ordinary thought itself.
If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow – you are not understanding yourself.
Having totality means being capable of following “what is,” because “what is” is constantly moving and constantly changing. If one is anchored to a particular view, one will not be able to follow the swift movement of “what is.
Effort within the mind further limits the mind, because effort implies struggle towards a goal and when you have a goal, a purpose, an end in view, you have placed a limit on the mind.
There is no mystery about my style. My movements are simple, direct and non-classical. The extraordinary part of it lies in its simplicity. Every movement in Jeet Kune-Do is being so of itself. There is nothing artificial about it. I always believe that the easy way is the right way.
In order to control myself I must first accept myself by going with and not against my nature.
One great cause of failure is lack of concentration.
Time means a lot to me because, you see, I, too, am also a learner and am often lost in the joy of forever developing and simplifying. If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.
Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.
Learn the principle, abide by the principle, and dissolve the principle. In short, enter a mold without being caged in it. Obey the principle without being bound by it. Learn, master, and achieve.
When one has reached maturity in the art, one will have a formless form. It is like ice dissolving in water. When one has no form, one can be all forms; when one has no style, he can fit in with any style.
If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.
Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.
If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.
A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.
Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.
Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.
I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.
A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.
Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.
The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.
Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.
I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.
To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.
To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.
Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.
A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.
It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.
As you think, so shall you become.
The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.
Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.
Obey the principles without being bound by them.
To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.
All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.
The possession of anything begins in the mind.
Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.
Real living is living for others.
Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.
You just wait. I’m going to be the biggest Chinese Star in the world.
Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.
Training is one of the most neglected phases of athletics. Too much time is given to the development of skill and too little to the development of the individual for participation.
Forget about winning and losing; forget about pride and pain. Let your opponent graze your skin and you smash into his flesh; let him smash into your flesh and you fracture his bones; let him fracture your bones and you take his life! Do not be concerned with escaping safely- lay your life before him!!
Low aim, not failure, is the crime.
Be self aware, rather than a repetitious robot
If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.
The doubters said, “Man can not fly,” The doers said, “Maybe, but we’ll try,” And finally soared In the morning glow While non-believers Watched from below.
Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.
Not being tense but ready. Not thinking but not dreaming. Not being set but flexible. Liberation from the uneasy sense of confinement. It is being wholly and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come.
Boards don’t hit back.
The stillness in stillness is not the real stillness; only when there is stillness in movement does the universal rhythm manifest.
The great mistake is to anticipate the outcome of the engagement; you ought not to be thinking of whether it ends in victory or defeat. Let nature take its course, and your tools will strike at the right moment.
Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.
Art calls for complete mastery of techniques, developed by reflection within the soul.
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 either spend or waste and it is our decision what to do with it. But once passed, it is gone forever.
Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there.
A good teacher protects his pupils from his own influence.
Now I see that I will never find the light Unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel, Consuming myself.
If you don’t want to slip up tomorrow, speak the truth today.
If there is a God, he is within. You don’t ask God to give you things, you depend on God for your inner theme.
Don’t fear failure. – Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.
The spirit of the individual is determined by his dominating thought habits.
The word “superstar” is an ilusion
To live is a constant process of relating, so come on out of that shell of isolation and conclusion, and relate DIRECTLY to what is being said. Bear in mind I seek neither your approval nor to influence you. So do not make up your mind as to “this is this” or “that is that.” I will be more than satisfied if you begin to learn to investigate everything yourself from now on.
I create opportunities.
Do not be tense, just be ready, not thinking but not dreaming, not being set but being flexible.
When one has no form, one can be all forms.
Finally, a Jeet Kune Do man who says Jeet Kune Do is exclusively Jeet Kune Do is simply not with it. He is still hung up on his self-closing resistance, in this case anchored down to reactionary pattern, and naturally is still bound by another modified pattern and can move within its limits. He has not digested the simple fact that truth exists outside all molds; pattern and awareness is never exclusive. Again let me remind you Jeet Kune Do is just a name used, a boat to get one across, and once across it is to be discarded and not to be carried on one’s back.
I did what I came here to do. What I’ve done I’ve done with sincerity and to the best of my ability. You can’t expect much more from life.
Take what’s useful, discard what is not.
What you habitually think largely determines what you will ultimately become.
It is true that the mental aspect of kung-fu is the desired end; however, to achieve this end, technical skill must come first.
After all, all knowledge simply means self-knowledge.
Fear comes from uncertainty; we can eliminate the fear within us when we know ourselves better.
I refer to my hands, feet and body as the tools of the trade. The hands and feet must be sharpened and improved daily to be efficient.
Practice all movements slow and fast, soft and hard; the effectiveness of Jeet Kune-Do depends on split-second timing and reflexive action, which can be achieved only through repetitious practice.
Choose the positive. You have choice, you are master of your attitude, choose the positive, the constructive. Optimism is a faith that leads to success.
‘What is’ is more important than ‘what should be.’ Too many people are looking at ‘what is’ from a position of thinking ‘what should be’.
There will be calmness, tranquility, when one is free from external objects and is not perturbed.
Do not run away; let go. Do not seek; for it will come when least expected.
Believe me that in every big thing or achievement there are always obstacles-big or small- and the reaction one shows to such obstacles is what counts, not the obstacle itself.
Success only means doing something sincerely and wholeheartedly. I think life is a process. Through the ages, the end of heroes is the same as ordinary men. They all died and gradually faded away in the memory of man. But when we are still alive, we have to understand ourselves, discover ourselves and express ourselves. In this way, we can progress, but we may not be successful.
Running water never grows stale.
If you make an ass out of yourself, there will always be someone to ride you.
Life itself is your teacher, and you are in a state of constant learning.
I don’t believe in different ways of fighting now. I mean, unless human beings have 3 arms and 3 legs, then we will have a different way of fighting. But basically we all have two arms and two legs so that is why I believe there should be only one way of fighting and that is no way.
I have always been a martial artist by choice, an actor by profession, but above all, am actualising myself to be an artist of life.
There is no such thing as maturity. There is instead an ever-evolving process of maturing. Because when there is a maturity, there is a conclusion and a cessation. That’s the end. That’s when the coffin is closed. You might be deteriorating physically in the long process of aging, but your personal process of daily discovery is ongoing. You continue to learn more and more about yourself every day.
Make at least one definite move daily toward your goal.
Love is like a friendship caught on fire.
Jeet Kune Do favors formlessness so that it can assume all forms and since Jeet Kune Do has no style, it can fit in with all styles. As a result, Jeet Kune Do utilizes all ways and is bound by none and, likewise, uses any techniques which serve its end.
If you want to learn to swim jump into the water. On dry land no frame of mind is ever going to help you.
When you say that something is impossible, you have made it impossible.
If I should die tomorrow, I will have no regrets. I did what I wanted to do. You can’t expect more from life.
The primary Reality is not what I think, but that I live, for those also live who do not think.
Circumstances hell! I make circumstances!
The future looks extremely bright indeed, with lots of possibilities ahead – big possibilities. Like the song says, We’ve just begun.
The timeless moment. – The “moment” has no yesterday or tomorrow. It is not the result of thought and therefore has no time.
Maturation is the development from environmental support to self-support.
You have to create your own luck. You have to be aware of the opportunities around you and take advantage of them.
Loneliness is only an opportunity to cut adrift and find yourself. In solitude you are least alone.
Give recognition where it is due. Compliments stimulate more effort and desire to improve. Be generous with honest praising.
If there is always light, you don’t experience light anymore. You have to have the rhythm of light and darkness.
Let yourself go with dis-ease, be with it, and keep it company. This is the way to be rid of it.
We shall find the answer when we examine the problem, the problem is never apart from the answer, the problem IS the answer, understanding the problem dissolves the problem.
As you think, you shall become
There’s so much myth and baloney. Like a 80-year-old man able to manhandle a 300-pounder with his little finger. Ridiculous. Or this matter of breaking bricks and boards wth the edge of your hand. Now I ask you, did you ever see a brick or a board pick a fight with anybody?
Art requires imagination. It requires Creativity. Creativity requires experience and experience comes from your life. And your life is expressed in your art.
The aim of art is to project an inner vision into the world.
If every man would help his neighbor, no man would be without help.
I have the absolute confidence not to be number two, but then I have enough sense to realize that there can be no number one.
You must have complete determination. The worst opponent you can come across is one whose aim has become an obsession.
Are you going to let the obstacles in your life be stumbling blocks or stepping stones? Choose the positive. You are the master of your attitude.
Humility forms the basis of honor, just as the low ground forms the foundation of a high elevation.
There are no limits…If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.
I don’t want to do anything halfway. It has to be perfect.
Defeat is not defeat unless accepted as a reality-in your own mind.
Art lives where absolute freedom is because when it is not, there can be no creativity.
Training for strength and flexibility is a must. You must use it to support your techniques. Techniques alone are no good if you don’t support them with strength and flexibility.
I am happy because I am growing daily and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies. To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude.
He who wants to succeed should learn how to fight, to strive and to suffer. You can acquire a lot in life, if you are prepared to give up a lot to get it.
To express yourself in freedom, you must die to everything of yesterday. From the ‘old’, you derive security; from the ‘new’, you gain the flow.
Evaluation by others is not a guide for me.
You cannot force the Now. – But can you neither condemn nor justify and yet be extraordinarily alive as you walk on? You can never invite the wind, but you must leave the window open.
Truth cannot be structured or confined.
Your state of mind is everything.
Can you look at a situation without naming it? Naming it, making it a word, causes fear.
The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.
The intangible represents the real power of the universe. It is the seed of the tangible.
All goals apart from the means are illusions; becoming is a denial of being.
The meaning of life is that it is to be lived.
Practice makes perfect. After a long time of practicing, our work will become natural, skillfull, swift, and steady.
If you want to be immortal live a life worth remembering
Art is the way to the absolute and to the essence of human life. The aim of art is not the one-sided promotion of spirit, soul and senses, but the opening of all human capacities – thought, feeling, will – to the life rhythm of the world of nature. So will the voiceless voice be heard and the self be brought into harmony with it.
The second-hand artist blindly following his sensei or sifu accepts his pattern. As a result, his action is and , more importantly, his thinking become mechanical. His responses become automatic, according to set patterns, making him narrow and limited.
I am not teaching you anything. I just help you to explore yourself.
In order to taste my cup of water you must first empty your cup.
The knowledge and skills you have achieved are meant to be forgotten so you can float comfortably in emptiness, without obstruction.
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.
Life is wide, limitless. There is no border, no frontier.
Life is never stagnation. It is constant movement, un-rhythmic movement, as we as constant change. Things live by moving and gain strength as they go.
Endurance is lost rapidly if one ceases to work at its maximum.
A powerful athlete is not a strong athlete, but one who can exert his strength quickly. Since power equals force times speed, if the athlete learns to make faster movements he increases his power, even though the contractile pulling strength of his muscles remains unchanged. Thus, a smaller man who can swing faster may hit as hard or as far as the heavier man who swings slowly.
One should be in harmony with, not in opposition to, the strength and force of the opposition. This means that one should do nothing that is not natural or spontaneous; the important thing is not to strain in any way.
The athlete who is building muscles though weight training should be very sure to work adequately on speed and flexibility at the same time. In combat, without the prior attributes, a strong man will be like the bull with its colossal strength futilely pursuing the matador or like a low-geared truck chasing a rabbit.
Fear comes from uncertainty; we can eliminate the fear within us when we know ourselves better. As the great Sun Tzu said: “When you know yourself and your opponent, you will win every time. When you know yourself but not your opponent, you will win one and lose one. However, when you do not know yourself or your opponent, you will be imperiled every time.
Understanding comes about through feeling, from moment to moment in the mirror of relationship.
The biggest adversary in our life is ourselves. We are what we are, in a sense, because of the dominating thoughts we allow to gather in our head. All concepts of self-improvement, all actions and paths we take, relate solely to our abstract image of ourselves. Life is limited only by how we really see ourselves and feel about our being. A great deal of pure self-knowledge and inner understanding allows us to lay an all-important foundation for the structure of our life from which we can perceive and take the right avenues.
When we hold to the core, the opposite sides are the same if they are seen from the center of the moving circle. I do not experience; I am experience. I am not the subject of experience; I am that experience. I am awareness. Nothing else can be I or can exist.
Flow in the living moment. – We are always in a process of becoming and nothing is fixed. Have no rigid system in you, and you’ll be flexible to change with the ever changing. Open yourself and flow, my friend. Flow in the total openness of the living moment. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.
The moment is freedom. – I couldn’t live by a rigid schedule. I try to live freely from moment to moment, letting things happen and adjusting to them.
Truth has no path. Truth is living and, therefore, changing. Awareness is without choice, without demand, without anxiety; in that state of mind, there is perception. To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person. Awareness has no frontier; it is giving of your whole being, without exclusion.
To reach me, you must move to me. Your attack offers me an opportunity to intercept you.
Martial arts, like any art, is an unrestricted athletic expression of an individual soul.
All martial arts is simply an honest expression of one’s body – with a lot of deception in between.
Simplicity of expression rather than complexity of form.
I personall do not believe in ‘style’. Because of ‘styles’, people are separated. They are not united together because styles became law.
Turn your sparring into play – but always play seriously.
If people say Jeet Kune Do is different from this or from that, then let the name of Jeet Kune Do be wiped out, for that is what it is, just a name. Please don’t fuss over it.
A fight is not won by one punch or kick. Either learn to endure or hire a bodyguard.
A quality martial artist is always ready for any move, and trains oneself invincible.
To tell the truth, I could beat anybody in the world.
I personally do not believe in the word style. Why? Because, unless there are human beings with three arms and four legs, unless we have another group of human beings that are structually different from us, there can be no different style of fighting.
More and more I believe in the fact that you have two hands and two legs, and the thing is how to make good use of yourself – and that’s about it.
Use karate, judo, aikido, or any style to build your counter-offensive. It will be interesting!
You will never get any more out of this life than you expect.
To be bound by traditional martial art style or styles is the way of the mindless, enslaved martial artist. But to be inspired by the traditional martial art and to achieve further heights is the way of genius.
Forget about winning and losing, forget about pride and pain
A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready.
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.
Because of styles people are separated. Research your own experience, absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is essentially your own.
There’s only one basic principle of self-defense- you must apply the most effective weapon, as soon as possible, to the most vulnerable target.
If your opponent is at a distance, kick him in the groin. If he gets close, poke him in the eyes, bring up your knee, pop him with an elbow, dig a corkscrew punch to his stomach.
Through my own observations. I am convinced that an absolutely honest and direct inquiry into oneself will lead to understanding.
If you want to learn to swim you have to throw yourself in the water.
An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind. It is not satisfied with explanation, with conclusions. Nor is it a mind that believes, because belief is again another form of conclusion.
We have more faith in what we imitate than in what we create
Like a cobra, your strike should be felt before it is seen.
The more relaxed the muscles are, the more energy can flow through the body. Using muscular tensions to try to ‘do’ the punch or attempting to use brute force to knock someone over will only work to opposite effect.
The core of understanding lies in the individual mind, and until that is touched everything is uncertain and superficial. Truth cannot be perceived until we come to fully understand our potential and ourselves. After all, knowledge in the martial arts ultimately means self-knowledge.
There are lots of guys around the world that are lazy. They have big fat guts. They talk about chi power and things they can do, but don’t believe it.
I’m not a master. I’m a student-master, meaning that I have the knowledge of a master and the expertise of a master, but I’m still learning. So I’m a student-master. I don’t believe in the word ‘master.’ I consider the master as such when they close the casket.
Unfortunately, now in boxing people are only allowed to punch. In Judo, people are only allowed to throw. I do not despise these kinds of martial arts. What I mean is, we now find rigid forms which create differences among clans, and the world of martial art is shattered as a result.
Before I studied the art, a punch to me was just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick no longer a kick. Now that I’ve understood the art, a punch is just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. The height of cultivation is really nothing special. It is merely simplicity; the ability to express the utmost with the minimum.
Out of chaos, find simplicity, From discord, find harmony.
When you fight, if it is a real fight, use every tool that you have, use your whole body. Use your fists, your legs, your fingers, your head if you have to, and hit them in every vulnerable spot, the balls, the eyes etc. to win.
The best fighter is not a Boxer, Karate or Judo man. The best fighter is someone who can adapt on any style. He kicks too good for a Boxer, throws too good for a Karate man, and punches too good for a Judo man.
All types of knowledge, ultimately mean self knowledge.
The aim of art is to project an inner vision into the world, to state in aesthetic creation the deepest psychic and personal experiences of a human being. It is to enable those experiences to be intelligible and generally recognized within the total framework of an ideal world.
Give up thinking as though not giving it up. Observe techniques as though not observing.
Nothingness cannot be defined; the softest thing cannot be snapped.
When you feel pain, you know that you are still alive.
Ideas are the beginning of all achievement.
If you want to do your duty properly, you should do just a little more than that.
The measure of the moral worth of a man is his happiness. The better the man, the more happiness. Happiness is the synonym of well-being
Emptiness the starting point. – In order to taste my cup of water you must first empty your cup. My friend, drop all your preconceived and fixed ideas and be neutral. Do you know why this cup is useful? Because it is empty.
To become a champion requires a good mental attitude toward preparation. You have to accept the most tedious task with pleasure.
One rule is to not use complicated techniques unless they are necessary to achieve your goal. First, use simple movements, and if they don’t work, then introduce the more complex ones.
Don’t indulge in any unnecessary, sophisticated moves
Action is a high road to self-confidence and esteem. Where it is open, all energies flow toward it. It comes readily to most people, and its rewards are tangible.
By adopting a certain physical posture, a resonant chord is struck in spirit.
I hope martial artists are more interested in the root of martial arts and not the different decorative branches, flowers or leaves.
It’s not what you give, it’s the way you give it.
Man, he is constantly growing and when he is bound by a set pattern of ideas or way of doing things, that’s when he stops growing
Truth comes when your mind and heart are purged of all sense of striving and you are no longer trying to become somebody; it is there when the mind is very quiet, listening timelessly to everything.
You need emotional content….
If mere mechanical efficiency can make everyone a martial artist, then all is well. Unfortunately, combat, like freedom, is something that can not be preconceived.
The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action.
It is easy for me to put on a show and be cocky..but to express oneself honestly not lying to oneself, now that my friend is very hard to do
Here I am as a human being…how can I express myself, totally and completely?
Its like a finger pointing away to the moon. Dont concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.
In combat, spontaneity rules; rote performance of technique perishes.
My style? You can call it the art of fighting without fighting.
The abdominal and waist region coordinate all parts of the body and act as the center or generator. Therefore, you can promote the ability to control the body’s action and master your will more easily.
Faith makes it possible to achieve that which man’s mind can conceive and believe.
Persistence, persistence, and persistence. The Power can be created and maintained through daily practice – continuous effort.
If you think a thing is impossible,you’ll only make it impossible.
If there is always light, you don’t experience light anymore. You have to have the rhythm of light and darkness.
Every morning like a scholar at his first class I prepare a blank mind for the day to write upon.
There are too many stars and too few actors.
With every adversity comes a blessing because a shock acts as a reminder to oneself that we must not get stale in routine.
Prosperity is apt to prevent us from examining our conduct; but adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is beneficial to us.
Before me now there is only one real fact – Death. The truth I have been seeking – this truth is Death. Yet Death is also a seeker. Forever seeking me. So – we have met at last. And I am prepared. I am at peace. Because I will conquer death with death.
Nowadays you don’t go around on the street kicking people, punching people – because if you do (makes gun shape with hand), well that’s it – I don’t care how good you are.
When you’re talking about fighting, as it is, with no rules, well then, baby you’d better train every part of your body!
There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses. Both the strong and the weak grasp at this alibi. The latter hide their malevolence under the virtue of obedience: they acted dishonorably because they had to obey orders. The strong, too, claim absolution by proclaiming themselves the chosen instrument of a higher power – God, history, fate, nation, or humanity.
When there is freedom from mechanical conditioning, there is simplicity.
To tolerate is to insult.
Self-will seems to be the only virtue that takes no account of man-made laws.
Don’t be forecasting evil unless it is what you can guard against. Anxiety is good for nothing if we can’t turn it into a defense.
Defense is attack, attack is defense, each being the cause and result of the other.
The success of an assailant’s attack depends on surprise, and if you’re sufficiently alert to prevent a surprise, your counterattack is already halfway to being successful.
False teachers of the Way of life use flowery words.
It is useless to try to stir the dirt Out of the muddy water, As it will become murkier. But leave it alone, And if it should be cleared; It will become clear by itself.
Everybody has to think for himself. A right way for a big man may not be a right way for a small man. A right way for someone who is slow may not be a right way for someone who is quick. Each person must understand his weaknesses and his strengths.
What can you take from me which is not already yours?
Fluidity is the way to an empty mind. You must free your ambitious mind and learn the art of dying.
Conditioning obstructs our view of reality. We do not see IT in its suchness because of our indoctrination, crooked and twisted.
The Western approach to reality is mostly through theory, and theory begins by denying reality – to talk about reality, to go around reality, to catch anything that attracts our sense-intellect and abstract it away from reality itself. Thus philosophy begins by saying that the outside world is not a basic fact, that its existence can be doubted and that every proposition in which the reality of the outside world is affirmed is not an evident proposition but one that needs to be divided, dissected and analyzed. It is to stand consciously aside and try to square a circle.
Genius: The capacity to see and to express what is simple, simply!
Faith is a state of mind that can be conditioned through self-discipline. Faith will accomplish.
It is not what happens that is success or failure, but what it does to the heart of man.
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.
The change is from inner to outer. We start by dissolving our attitude not by altering outer conditions.
To contemplate a thing implies maintaining oneself OUTSIDE it, resolved to keep a distance between it and ourselves.
Knowledge , surely, is always of time , whereas knowing is not of time. Knowledge is from a source, from accumulation, from conclusion, while knowing is a movement.
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.
Take inventory of everyone with whom you have contact.
The Now is indivisible. Completeness, the now, is an absence of the conscious mind to strive to divide that which is indivisible. For once the completeness of things is taken apart it is no longer complete.
To realize freedom the mind has to learn to look at life, which is a vast movement, without the bondage of time , for freedom lies beyond the field of consciousness care for watching, but don’t stop and interpret “I am free,” then you’re living in a memory of something that has gone before.
Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one
In order to realize our true self we must be willing to live without being dependent upon the opinion of others.
Every man today is the result of his thoughts yesterday.
Self-Conquest is the greatest of victories. Mighty is he who conquers himself.
Without frustration you will not discover that you might be able to do something on your own. We grow through conflict.
The most important thing to me is, how, in the process of learning how to use my body, can I come to understand myself ?
The essence of fighting is the art of moving at the right time.
It’s the law of averages: put in more, come out with more.
Learning is definitely not mere imitation, nor is it the ability to accumulate and regurgitate fixed knowledge. Learning is a constant process of discovery – a process without end.
Understand your limitations and capitalize on them.
To live is to express oneself freely
The meaning of life is that it is to be lived, and it is not to be traded and conceptualized and squeezed into a patter of systems.
Everything you do, if not in a relaxed state will be done at a lesser level than you are proficient. Thus the tensed expert marksman will aim at a level less than his/her student.
What comes after victory? Why do people value victory so much? What is ‘glory’? What kind of victory is ‘glorious’?
To see is to be decieved. To hear is to be lied to. To FEEL is to believe.
We have great work ahead of us, and it needs devotion and much, much energy. To grow, to discover, we need involvement.
Flow in the living moment – We are always in a process of becoming and nothing is fixed.
Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference and heaven and earth are set apart.
Art is the way to the absolute and to the essence of human life.
The attitude, ‘You can win if you want to badly enough,’ means that the will to win is constant. No amount of punishment, no amount of effort, no condition is too ‘tough’ to take in order to win. Such an attitude can be developed only if winning is closely tied to the practitioner’s ideals and dreams.
The ideal is unnatural naturalness, or natural unnaturalness. I mean it is a combination of both. I mean here is natural instinct and here is control. You are to combine the two in harmony. Not if you have one to the extreme, you’ll be very unscientific. If you have another to the extreme, you become, all of a sudden, a mechanical man No longer a human being. It is a successful combination of both. That way it is a process of continuing growth.
To live is to express, and to express you have to create. Creation is never merely repetition. To live is to express oneself freely in creation.
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.
Flow in the living moment. – We are always in a process of becoming and nothing is fixed. Have no rigid system in you, and you”ll be flexible to change with the ever changing. Open yourself and flow, my friend. Flow in the total openness of the living moment. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.
The moment is freedom. – I could’ live by a rigid schedule. I try to live freely from moment to moment, letting things happen and adjusting to them.
There’s only one basic principle of self-defense- you must apply the most effective weapon, as soon as possible, to the most vulnerable target.
The measure of the moral worth of a man is his happiness. The better the man, the more happiness. Happiness is the synonym of well-being
If there is always light, you do’ experience light anymore. You have to have the rhythm of light and darkness.
There is no such thing as maturity. There is instead an ever-evolving process of maturing. Because when there is a maturity, there is a conclusion and a cessation. That’s the end. That’s when the coffin is closed. You might be deteriorating physically in the long process of aging, but your personal process of daily discovery is ongoing. You continue to learn more and more about yourself every day.
Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth.
Have no rigid system in you, and you’ll be flexible to change with the ever changing.
Let nature take its course and your tools will strike at the right moment.
To take responsibility for one’s own actions, good and bad, is something else.
Relationship is the mirror in which you discover yourself – to be is to be related.
To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery.
While it may come as a profound surprise to those of us who are in the throes of an emotional or life crisis, the fact remains that the answer to virtually all of our problems resides within us already. It exist in the form of a vast reservoir of free-flowing energy that, when channeled to our muscles, can give us great strength and, when channeled to our brain, can give us great insight and understanding.
Either push your limits or die.
To be honest to oneself, and that is very hard to do.
Remember, Life is a journey, not a destination.
The highest technique is to have no technique. My technique is a result of your technique; my movement is a result of your movement.
It is better to live as a broken piece of jade, than to live as a useless clay.
There is no love without friendship. Passion alone does not form relationships of value.
When you freely express, you are the total style.
It is the man that has nothing to lose or is willing to lose everything to beat you that I am afraid of. If a man is willing to lose his life to bite off my nose then I don’t care how good I am or what I do to him- he’s gonna get my nose.
The unfolding of the bare human soul…that is what interests me.
Get maximum effect from minimum effort.
True observation begins when devoid of set patterns; freedom of expression occurs when one is beyond system.
To me, racial barriers do not exist in reality. If I say that ‘everyone under the sun is a member of a universal family,’ you may think that I am bluffing and being idealistic. But if anyone still believes in racial differences, I think he is too backward and narrow in his perspective. Perhaps he still does not understand man’s equality and love.
When you point to the moon, what do you see in front of your finger; Your task is to feel, not to think, when you can understand that the lesson will be learned.
Voidness is that which stands right in the middle between this and that.
Running water never grows stale. So you just have to ‘keep on flowing.
Nowadays you don’t go around on the street kicking people, punching people – because if you do, well that’s it – I don’t care how good you are.
Soon my fists began to swell from hitting his hard head. Right then I realized Wing Chun was not too practical and began to alter my way of fighting.
A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready. Not thinking, yet not dreaming. Ready for whatever may come. When the opponent expands, I contract; and when he contracts, I expand. And when there is an opportunity, I do not hit, it hits all by itself.
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!
There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.
When there is freedom from mechanical conditioning, there is simplicity. The classical man is just a bundle of routine, ideas and tradition. If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow – you are not understanding yourself.
Neither. I think of myself as a human being.
In Jeet Kune Do, it’s 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.
None whatsoever.
To be perfectly frank, I really do not.
I believe in sleeping.
Whether or not we can get together, remember well that art lives where absolute freedom is. With all the training thrown to nowhere, with a mind (if there is such a verbal substance) perfectly unaware of its own working, with the self vanishing nowhere, the art of JKD attains its perfection.
Jeet Kune Do rejects all restrictions imposed by form and formality and emphasizes the clever use of the mind and body to defend and attack.
As an instructor, you must be able to distinguish between poor performance caused by lack of ability or aptitude on the part of the student and poor performance caused by lack of effort. You should treat the first with patience and the latter with firmness. You must never apply sarcasm and ridicule.
Possession of anything begins in the mind.
Thoughts are things.
Life lives; and in the living flow, no questions are raised. The reason is that life is a living now! So, in order to live life whole-heartedly, the answer is life simply is.
The meaning of life is that it is to be lived, and it is not to be traded and conceptualized and squeezed into a pattern of systems.
The aphorism as a man thinketh in his heart so is he contains the secret of life.
Meaning is found in relationship. – Meaning is the relationship of the foreground figure to the background.
Life is never stagnation. It is constant movement, unrhythmic movement, as we as constant change. Things live by moving and gain strength as they go.
The timeless moment. – The moment has no yesterday or tomorrow. It is not the result of thought and therefore has no time.
Knowledge, surely, is always of time, whereas knowing is not of time. Knowledge is from a source, from accumulation, from conclusion, while knowing is a movement.
To realize freedom the mind has to learn to look at life, which is a vast movement, without the bondage of time, for freedom lies beyond the field of consciousness – care for watching, but don’t stop and interpret I am free, then you’re living in a memory of something that has gone before.
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.
Seek to understand the root. – It is futile to argue as to which single leaf, which design of branch, or which attractive flower you like; when you understand the root, you understand all its blossoming.
What we are after is the ROOT and not the branches. The root is the real knowledge; the branches are surface knowledge. Real knowledge breeds body feel and personal expression; surface knowledge breeds mechanical conditioning and imposing limitation and squelches creativity.
The Now is indivisible. – Completeness, the now, is an absence of the conscious mind to strive to divide that which is indivisible. For once the completeness of things is taken apart it is no longer complete.
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.
Conditioning obstructs our view of reality. – We do not see IT in its suchness because of our indoctrination, crooked and twisted.
True thusness is without defiling thought; it cannot be known through conception and thought.
Reality is apparent when one ceases to compare. – There is what is only when there is no comparison at all, and to live with what is, is to be peaceful.
Reality is being itself. – It is being itself, in becoming itself. Reality in its isness, the isness of a thing. Thus isness is the meaning – having freedom in its primary sense – not limited by attachments, confinements, partialization, complexities.
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.
Taoist philosophy… is essentially monistic…. Matter and energy, Yang and Yin, heaven and earth, are conceived of as essentially one or as two coexistent poles of one indivisible whole.
Voidness is that which stands right in the middle between this and that. The void is all-inclusive; having no opposite, there is nothing which it excludes or opposes. The all illuminating light shines and is beyond the movement of the opposites.
Balance your thoughts with action. – If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.
The change is from inner to outer. – We start by dissolving our attitude not by altering outer conditions.
Choose the positive. – You have choice – you are master of your attitude – choose the POSITIVE, the CONSTRUCTIVE. Optimism is a faith that leads to success.
Cease negative mental chattering. – If you think a thing is impossible, you’ll make it impossible. Pessimism blunts the tools you need to succeed.
Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water, and when you’re tired, go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand.
The happiness that is derived from excitement is like a brilliant fire- soon it will go out.
Reality is apparent when one ceases to compare.
Concentration is the root of all the higher abilities in man.
Ultimately the greatest help is self-help.
What Is, is more important than What Should Be.
The height of cultivation runs to simplicity. Halfway cultivation runs to ornamentation.
Art reaches its greatest peak when devoid of self-consciousn ess.
Never take your eyes off your opponent… even when you bow…
Know the difference between a catastrophe and an inconvenience.
To be what I term a ‘quality’ human being one has to be transparently real and have the courage to be what he is.
Stop wasting time in playing a role or a concept. Instead, learn to ACTUALIZE YOURSELF, your potential.
You will never learn anything new unless you are ready to accept yourself with your limitations. You must accept the fact that you are capable in some directions and limited in others, and you must develop your capabilities.
I don’t know what is the meaning of death, but I am not afraid to die – and I go on, non-stop, going forward [with life]. Even though I, Bruce Lee, may die some day without fulfilling all of my ambitions, I will have no regrets. I did what I wanted to do and what I’ve done, I’ve done with sincerity and to the best of my ability. You can’t expect much more from life.
Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.
If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.
Go toward self-actualization rather than self-image actualization… Search within… for honest self- expression.
Be happy, but never satisfied.
We should devote ourselves to being self-sufficient and must not depend upon the external ratings by others for our happiness.
The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.
What is true stillness? Stillness in movement.
If you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread into your work, into your morality, in your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.
Don’t ignore the five senses in search of a sixth.
Pain is weakness leaving your body.
Pessimism blunts the tools you need to succeed.
People fear what they do not understand.
When finger point at moon, don’t look at finger or you’ll miss the moon.
The unconditioned mind intuits truth.
Open yourself and flow, my friend. Flow in the total openness of the living moment.
I am learning to understand rather than immediately judge or to be judged.
Do’ indulge in any unnecessary, sophisticated moves
Be like water, my friend.
The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.
Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.
