Academy of Jeet Kune Do Fighting Technology
Athens
Greece
Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do Instructor
Vagelis Zorbas
Si-jo Bruce Lee's Writings
Bruce Lee's Daily Affirmations
The basic theory of yin & yang in the Art of Gung Fu
Bruce
Lee's Daily Affirmations
Think on these things
Willpower
- Recognizing that the
power of will is the supreme court over all other departments of my
mind. I will exercise it daily when I need the urge to action for any
purpose; and I will form habits designed to bring the power of my will
into action at least once daily.
Emotion
- Realizing that my
emotions are both positive and negative, I will form daily habits
which will encourage the development of the positive emotions and aid
me in converting he negative emotions into some form of useful actions
Reason
- Recognizing that both my
positive and negative emotions may be dangerous if they are not
controlled and guided to desirable ends, I will submit all my desires,
aims, and purposes to my faculty of reason, and I will be guided by it
in giving expression to these.
Imagination
- Recognizing the need for
sound plans and ideas for the attainment of my desires, I will develop
my imagination by calling upon it daily for help in the formation of
my plans.
Memory
- Recognizing the value of
an alert mind and an alert memory, I will encourage mine to become
alert by taking care to impress it clearly with all thoughts I wish to
recall and by associating those thoughts with related subjects which I
may call to mind frequently.
Subconscious Mind
- Recognizing the
influence of my subconscious mind over my power of will, I shall take
care to submit to it a clear and definite picture of my purpose in
life and all minor purposes leading to my major purpose, and I shall
keep this picture constantly before my subconscious mind by repeating
it daily!
Conscience
- Recognizing that my
emotions often err in their over-enthusiasm, and my faculty of reason
often is without the warmth of feeling that is necessary to enable me
to combine justice with mercy in my judgments, I will encourage my
conscience to guide me as to what is right and what is wrong.
By
Bruce Lee
Some instructors of martial art favor forms,
the more complex and fancy the better. Some, on the other hand, are
obsessed with super mental power (like Captain Marvel or Superman). Still
some favor deformed hands and legs, and devote their time to fighting
bricks, stones, boards, etc.
To me, the extraordinary aspect of gung fu
lies in its simplicity.
Gung fu is simply the direct expression of
one’s feeling with the minimum of movements and energy. Every movement
is being so of itself without the artificialities with which people tend
to complicate it. The easy way is always the right way, and gung fu is
nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of gung fu, the less
wastage of expression there is.
Instead of facing combat in it’s suchness,
quite a few systems of martial art accumulate "fanciness" that
distorts and cramps their practitioners and distracts them from the actual
reality of combat, which is simple and direct and non-classical. Instead
of going immediately to the heart of things, flowery forms and artificial
techniques (organized despair!) are ritually practiced to simulate actual
combat. Thus, instead of being in combat, these practitioners are
idealistically doing something about combat.
Worse still, "super mental this"
and "spiritual that" are ignorantly incorporated until these
practitioners are drifting so much further and further into the distance
of abstraction and mystery that what they’re doing resembles anything
(from acrobatics to modern dance) but the actual reality of combat.
All these complexities are actually futile
attempts to arrest and fix the ever-changing movements in combat and to
dissect and analyze them like a corpse. Real combat is not fixed and is
very much alive. Such means practice (a form of paralysis) will only
solidify and condition what was once fluid and alive. When you get off
sophistication and whatnot, and look at it realistically, these robots
(practitioners, that is) are blindly devoted to the systematic uselessness
of practicing routines or stunts that lead nowhere.
Gung fu is to be looked at without fancy
suits and matching ties, and it will remain a secret when we anxiously
look for sophistication and "deadly" techniques. If there are
really any secrets at all, they must have been missed by the seeking and
striving of its practitioners (after all, how many ways are there to come
in on an opponent without deviating too much from the natural course?).
True gung fu is not daily increase, but daily decrease. Bring wise in gung
fu does not mean adding more, but to be able to get off with ornamentation
and be simply simple – like a sculptor building a statue, not by adding
but by hacking away the unessential so that the truth will be revealed
unobstructed. In short, gung fu is satisfied with one’s bare hand
without the fancy decoration of colorful gloves which tend to hinder the
natural function of the hand.
Art is the expression of the self. The more
complicated and restrictive a method is, the lesser the opportunity for
the expression of one’s original sense of freedom! The techniques,
though they play an important role in the early stage, should not be too
restrictive, complex, or mechanical. If we cling to them we will become
bound by their limitations. Remember, you are expressing the
technique and not doing the technique. When someone attacks you it
is not technique number one (or is it technique number two, stance two,
section four?) that you are doing, but the moment you become aware of his
attacks you simply move in like sound and echo without any deliberation.
It is as though when I call you, you answer me or when I throw something
to you, you catch it, that all.
By Bruce Lee
The phenomenon of wu-hsin, or
"no-mindedness," is not a blank mind that shuts out all thoughts
and emotions; nor is it simply calmness and quietness of mind.
Although quiettude and calmness are
necessary, it is the "non-graspingness" of thoughts that mainly
constitutes the principle of no mind. A gung fu man employs his mind as a
mirror – it grasps nothing and refuses nothing; it receives but does not
keep. As Allen Watts puts it, the no-mindedness is:
- A state of wholeness in
which the mind functions freely and easily, without the sensation of a
mind or ego standing over it with a club.
What he meant is: Let the mind think what it
likes without interference by the separate thinker or ego within oneself.
So long as it thinks what it wants, there is absolutely no effort in
letting it go; and the disappearance of the effort to let go is precisely
the disappearance of the separate thinker. There is nothing to try to do,
for whatever comes up moment by moment is accepted, including
non-acceptance. No-mindedness is, then, not being without emotion or
feeling, but being one in whom feeling is not sticky or blocked. It is a
mind immune to emotional influences.
- Like a river, everything
is flowing on ceaselessly without cessation or standing still.
No-mindedness is to employ the whole mind as
we use the eyes when we rest them upon various objects but make no special
effort to take anything in. Chuang-tzu, the disciple of Lao-tzu, stated:
- The baby looks at
things at things all day without winking, that is because his eyes are
not focused on any particular object. He goes without knowing where he
is going, and stops without knowing what he is doing, He merges
himself with the surroundings and moves along with it. These are the
principles of mental hygiene.
Therefore, concentration in gung fu does not
have the usual sense of restricting the attention to a single sense
object, but is simply a quiet awareness of whatever happens to be here and
now. Such concentration can be illustrated by an audience at a football
game; instead of a concentrated attention on the player that has the ball,
they have an awareness of the whole football field. In a similar way, a
gung fu man’s mind is concentrated by not dwelling on any particular
part of the opponent. This is especially true when dealing with many
opponents. For instance, suppose ten men are attacking him, each in
succession ready to strike him down. As soon as one is disposed of, he
will move on to another without permitting the mind to stop with any.
However rapidly one blow may follow another, he leaves no time to
intervene between the two. Every one of the ten will thus be successively
and successfully dealt with. This is possible only when the mind moves
from one object to another without being stopped or arrested by anything.
If the mind is unable to move on in this fashion, it is sure to lose the
combat somewhere between two encounters.
His mind is present everywhere because it is
nowhere attached to any particular object. And it can remain present
because even when related to this particular object, it does not cling to
it. The flow of thought is like water filling up a pond, which is always
ready to flow off again. It can work its inexhaustible power because it is
free, and be open to everything because it is empty. This can be compared
with what Chang Chen Chi called "serene reflection." He wrote:
- Serene means
tranquillity of no thought, and reflection means vivid and clear
awareness. Therefore, serene reflection is clear awareness of
no-thought.
As stated earlier, a gung fu man aims at
harmony with himself and his opponent. It also stated that harmony with
one’s opponent is possible not through force, which provokes conflicts
and reactions, but through a yielding to his force. In other words, a gung
fu man promotes the spontaneous development of his opponent and does not
venture to interfere by his own action. He loses himself by giving up all
subjective feelings and individuality, and becomes one with his opponent.
Inside his mind oppositions have become mutually cooperative instead of
mutually exclusive. When his private ego and conscious efforts yield to a
power not his own he then achieves the supreme action, non-action (wu wei).
Circle
With No Circumference
Jeet Kune Do, ultimately, is not a matter of petty technique but of highly
developed personal spirituality and physique. It is not a question of
developing what has already been developed but of recovering what has been
left behind. These things have been with us, in us, all the time and have
never been lost or distorted except by our misguided manipulation of them.
Jeet Kune Do is not a matter of technology but of spiritual insight and
training.
The tools are at an undifferentiated center of a circle that has no
circumference, moving and yet not moving, in tension and yet relaxed,
seeing everything happening and yet not at all anxious about its outcome,
with nothing purposely designed, nothing consciously calculated, no
anticipation, no expectation -- in short, standing innocently like a baby
and yet, with all the cunning, subterfuge and keen intelligence of a fully
mature kind.
Leave sagehood behind and enter once more into ordinary humanity. After
coming to understand the other side, come back and live on this side.
After the cultivation of no- cultivation, one's thoughts continue to be
detached from phenomenal things and one still remains amid the phenomenal,
yet devoid of the phenomenal.
Both the man and his surroundings ate eliminated. Then, neither the man
nor his surroundings ate eliminated. Walk on!
One can never be the master of his technical knowledge unless all his
psychic hindrances are removed and he can keep his mind in a state of
emptiness (fluidity), even purged of whatever technique he has obtained.
With all the training thrown to the wind, with a mind perfectly unaware of
its own working, with the self vanishing nowhere, anybody knows where, the
art of Jeer Kune Do attains its perfection.
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. Learning techniques corresponds to an intellectual
apprehension of the philosophies in Zen, and in both Zen and Jeet Kune Do,
an intellectual proficiency does not cover the whole ground of the
discipline. Both require the attainment of ultimate reality, which is the
emptiness or the absolute. The latter transcends all modes of relativity.
In Jeet Kune Do, all technique is to be forgotten and the unconscious is
to be left alone to handle the situation. The technique will assert its
wonders automatically or spontaneously. To float in totality, to have no
technique, is to have all technique. The knowledge and skill you have
achieved ate meant to be '"forgotten" so you can float
comfortably in emptiness, without obstruction. Learning is important but
do not become its slave. Above all, do not harbor anything external and
superfluous -- the mind is primary. Any technique, however worthy and
desirable, becomes a disease when the mind is obsessed with it.
The six diseases:
1.The desire for victory.
2.The desire to resort to technical cunning.
3.The desire to display all that has been
learned.
4.The desire to awe the enemy.
5.The desire to play the passive role.
6.The desire to get rid of whatever disease
one is affected by .
"'To desire" is an attachment. "'To desire not to
desire" is also an attachment. To be unattached then, means to be
free at once from both statements, positive and negative. This is to be
simultaneously both "yes" and "no," which is
intellectually absurd. However, not so in Zen.
Nirvana is to be consciously unconscious or to be unconsciously conscious.
That is its secret. The act is so direct and immediate that
intellectualization finds no room to insert itself and cut the act to
pieces.
The spirit is no doubt the controlling agent of our existence. This
invisible seat controls every movement in whatever external situation
arises. It is thus, to be extremely mobile, never "stopping" in
any place at any moment. Preserve this state of spiritual freedom and
non-attachment as soon as you assume the fighting stance. Be "master
of the house."
It is the ego that stands rigidly against influences from the outside, and
it is this "ego rigidity" that makes it impossible for us to
accept everything that confronts us.
Art lives where absolute freedom is, because where it is not, there can be
no creativity.
Seek not the cultivated innocence of a clever mind that wants to be
innocent, but have rather that state of innocence where there is no denial
or acceptance and the mind just sees what its.
All goals apart from the means are illusions. Becoming is a denial of
being. By an error repeated throughout the ages, truth, becoming a law or
a faith, places obstacles in the way of knowledge. Method, which is in its
very substance ignorance, encloses truth within a vicious circle. We
should break such a circle, not by seeking knowledge, but by discovering
the cause of ignorance.
Recollection and anticipation are fine qualities of consciousness that
distinguish the human mind from that of the lower animals. But, when
actions are directly related to the problem of life and death, these
properties must be relinquished for the sake of fluidity of thought and
lightning rapidity of action.
Action is our relationship to everything. Action is not a matter of right
and wrong. It is only when action is partial that there is a right and a
wrong.
Don't let your attention be attested! Transcend dualistic comprehension of
a situation.
Give up thinking as though not giving it up. Observe the techniques as
though not observing. Utilize the art as a means to advance in the study
of the Way.
Prajna immovable doesn't mean immovability or insensibility. It means that
the mind is endowed with capabilities of infinite, instantaneous motion
that knows no hindrance.
Make the tools see. All movements come out of emptiness and the mind is
the name given to this dynamic aspect of emptiness. It is straight,
without ego-centered motivation. The emptiness is sincerity, genuineness
and straightforwardness, allowing nothing between itself and its
movements.
Jeet Kune Do exists in your not seeing me and my not seeing you, where yin
and yang have not yet differentiated themselves.
Jeet Kune Do dislikes partialization or localization. Totality can meet
all situations.
When the mind is fluid, the moon is in the stream where it is at once
movable and immovable. The waters ate in motion all the time, but the moon
retains its serenity. The mind moves in response to ten thousand
situations but remains ever the same.
The stillness in stillness is not the real stillness; only when there is
stillness in movement does the universal rhythm manifest itself. To change
with change is the changeless state. Nothingness cannot be confined; the
softest thing cannot be snapped.
Assume the pristine purity. In order to display your native activities to
the utmost limit, remove all psychic obstruction.
Would that we could at once strike with the eyes! In the long way from the
eye through the arm to the fist, how much is lost!
Sharpen the psychic power of seeing in order to act immediately in
accordance with what you see. Seeing takes place with the inner mind.
Because one's self-consciousness or ego-consciousness is too conspicuously
present over the entire range of his attention, it interferes with his
free display of whatever proficiency he has so fat acquired or is going to
acquire. One should remove this obtruding self or ego-consciousness and
apply himself to the work to be done as if nothing particular were taking
place at the moment.
To be of no-mind means to assume the everyday mind.
The mind must be wide open to function freely in thought. A limited mind
cannot think freely.
A concentrated mind is not an attentive mind, but a mind that is in the
state of aware- ness can concentrate. Awareness is never exclusive; it
includes everything.
Not being tense but ready, not thinking yet not dreaming, not being set
but flexible - it is being wholly and quietly alive, aware and alert,
ready for whatever may come.
The Jeet Kune Do man should be on the alert to meet the interchangeability
of opposites. As soon as his mind "stops" with either of them,
it loses its own fluidity. A JKD man should keep his mind always in the
state of emptiness so that his freedom in action will never be obstructed.
The abiding stage is the point where the mind hesitates to abide. It
attaches itself to an object and stops the flow.
The deluded mind is the mind effectively burdened by intellect. Thus, it
cannot move without stopping and reflecting on itself. This obstructs its
native fluidity.
The wheel revolves when it is not too tightly attached to the axle. When
the mind is tied up, it feels inhibited in every move it makes and nothing
is accomplished with spontaneity. Its work will be of poor quality or it
may never be finished at all.
When the mind is tethered to a center, naturally it is not free. It can
move only within the limits of that center. If one is isolated, he is
dead; he is paralyzed within the fortress of his own ideas.
When you ate completely aware, there is no space for a conception, a
scheme, "the opponent and I;" there is complete abandonment.
When there is no obstruction, the JKD man's movements ate like flashes of
lightning or like the mirror reflecting images.
When insubstantiality and substantiality ate not set and defined, when
there is no track to change what is, one has mastered the formless form.
When there is clinging to form, when there is attachment of the mind, it
is not the true path. When technique comes out of itself, that is the way.
Jeer Kune Do is the art not founded on techniques or doctrine. It is just
as you are. When there is no center and no circumference, then there is
truth. When you freely express, you are the total style.
It's
Just a Name
There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments
in the hands of others and, thus, free ourselves from responsibility for
acts which ate 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. The strong, too, claim
absolution by proclaiming themselves the chosen instruments of a higher
power - God, history, fate, nation or humanity.
Similarly, 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 ate not alone when we imitate. It is thus with
most of us; we ate what other people say we ate. We know ourselves chiefly
by hearsay.
To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what
we are. Whether this being different results in dissimulation or a real
change of heart, it cannot be realized without self-awareness. Yet, it is
remarkable that the very people who are most self-dissatisfied, who crave
most for a new identity, have the least self-awareness. They have turned
away from an unwanted self and, hence, never had a good look at it. The
result is that most dissatisfied people can neither dissimulate nor attain
a real change of heart. They are transparent and their unwanted qualities
persist through all attempts at self-dramatization and
self-transformation. It is the lack of self-awareness which renders us
transparent. The soul that knows itself is opaque.
Fear comes from uncertainty. When we ate absolutely certain, whether of
our worth or our worthlessness, we ate almost impervious to fear. Thus, a
feeling of utter unworthiness can be a source of courage. Everything seems
possible when we are absolutely helpless or absolutely powerful -- and
both states stimulate our gullibility.
Pride is a sense of worth derived from something that is not organically
part of us, while self-esteem is derived from the potentialities and
achievements of self. We are proud when we identify ourselves with an
imaginary self, a leader, a holy cause, a collective body or possessions.
There is fear and intolerance in pride; it is sensitive and
uncompromising. The less promise and potentiality in the self, the more
imperative is the need for pride. The core of pride is self-rejection. It
is true, however, that when pride releases energies and serves as a spur
to achievement, it can lead to a reconciliation with the self and the
attainment of genuine self-esteem.
Secretiveness can be a source of pride. It is a paradox that secretiveness
plays the same role as boasting - both ate engaged in the creation of a
disguise. Boasting tries to create an imaginary self, while secretiveness
gives us the exhilarating feeling of being princes disguised in meekness.
Of the two, secretiveness is the more difficult and effective. For the
self-observant, boasting breeds self-contempt. Yet, it is as Spinoza said:
"Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and they
can moderate their desires more than their words." Humility, however,
is not verbal renunciation of pride but the substitution of pride for
self-awareness and objectivity. Forced humility is false pride.
A fateful process is set in motion when the individual is released
"to the freedom of his own impotence" and left to justify his
existence by his own efforts. The individual on his own, striving to
realize himself and prove his worth, has created all that is great in
literature, art, music, science and technology. This autonomous
individual, also, when he can neither realize himself nor justify his
existence by his own efforts, is a breeding ground of frustration and the
seed of the convulsion that shakes our world to its foundations.
The autonomous individual is stable only so long as he is possessed of
self-esteem. The maintenance of self-esteem is a continuous task which
taxes all of the individual's power and inner resources. We have to prove
our worth and justify our existence anew each day. When, for whatever
reason, self-esteem is unattainable, the autonomous individual becomes a
highly explosive entity. He turns away from an unpromising self and
plunges into the pursuit of pride, the explosive substitute for
self-esteem. All social disturbances and upheavals have their roots in
crises of individual self-esteem, and the great endeavor in which the
masses most readily unite is basically a search for pride.
So, we acquire a sense of worth either by realizing our talents, or by
keeping busy or by identifying ourselves with something apart from us --
be it a cause, a leader, a group, possessions or whatnot. The path of
self-realization is the most difficult. It is taken only when other
avenues to a sense of worth are more or less blocked. Men of talent have
to be encouraged and loaded to engage in creative work. Their groans and
laments echo through the ages.
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
ate tangible. The cultivation of the spirit is elusive and difficult and
the tendency toward it is rarely spontaneous, whereas, the opportunities
for action ate many.
The propensity to action is symptomatic of an inner unbalance. To be
balanced is to be more or less at rest. Action is at the bottom -- a
swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.
And if it is true, as Napoleon wrote to Catnot, "The art of
government is not to let men grow stale," then, it is an art of
unbalancing. The crucial difference between a totalitarian regime and a
free social order is, perhaps, in the methods of unbalancing by which
their people ate kept active and striving.
We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. Yet, it sometimes
seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its
own talents as well.
The times of drastic change ate times of passions. We can never be fit and
ready for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves and every
radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test; we have
to prove ourselves. A population subjected to drastic change is, thus, a
population of misfits, and misfits live and breathe in an atmosphere of
passion.
That we pursue something passionately does not always mean that we really
want it or have a special aptitude for it. Often, the thing we pursue most
passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and
cannot have. It is usually safe to predict that the fulfillment of an
excessively cherished desire is not likely to still our nagging anxiety.
In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object
pursued.
Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we
win his heart, for we can win a man's heart one day and lose it the next.
But when we break a proud spirit, we achieve something that is final and
absolute.
It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us
against being unjust to our fellow men.
It is doubtful whether there is such a thing as impulsive or natural
tolerance. Tolerance requires an effort of thought and self-control. Acts
of kindness, too, ate rarely without deliberation and
"'thoughtfulness." Thus, it seems that some artificiality, some
posing and pretense, is inseparable from any act or attitude which
involves a limitation of our appetites and selfishness. We ought to beware
of people who do not think it necessary to pretend that they are good and
decent. Lack of hypocrisy in such things hints at a capacity for a more
depraved ruthlessness. Pretense is often an indispensable step in the
attainment of genuineness. It is a form into which genuine inclinations
flow and solidify.
The control of our being is not unlike the combination of a safe. One turn
of the knob rarely unlocks the safe; each advance and retreat is a step
toward one's final achievement.
Jeet Kune Do is not to hurt, but is one of the avenues through which life
opens its secrets to us. We can see through others only when we can see
through ourselves and Jeet Kune Do is a step toward knowing oneself.
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.
Learning Jeet Kune Do is not a matter seeking knowledge or accumulating
stylized pattern, but is discovering the cause of ignorance.
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.
The Basic Theory of Yin and Yang In the Art
of Gung Fu
The basic structure of Gung Fu is based on
the theory of Yin/Yang, a pair of mutually complementary forces that act
continuously, without cessation, in this universe. This Chinese way of
life can be applied to anything, but here we are interested in its
relationship to the art of Gung Fu. the black part of the circle is called
Yin. Yin can represent anything in the universe as: negativeness,
passiveness, gentleness, insubstantiality, femalness, moon, darkness,
night, etc. The other complementary part of the circle is Yang, which
represent positiveness, activeness, firmness, substantiality, maleness,
sun, brightness, day, etc.
The common mistake most people make is to
identify this Yin/Yang symbol, T'ai-Chi, as dualistic; that is Yang being
the opposite of Yin, and vice versa. As long as we separate this
"oneness" into two, we won't achieve realization. Actually, all
things have their complementary part; it is only in the human mind and his
perception that they are being separated into opposites. The sun is not
the opposite of the moon, as they complement and are interdependent on
each other, and we cannot survive without either of them. In a similar
way, a male is but the complement of the female; for without the male, how
on earth do we know there is female, or vice versa. The
"oneness" of Yin/Yang is necessary in life. If a persona riding
a bicycle wishes to go somewhere, he cannot pump on both the pedals at the
same time or not pumping on them at all. In order to move forward, he has
to pump one pedal and release the other. So the movement of going forward
requires this "oneness" of pumping and releasing. Pumping then
is the result of releasing, and vice versa; each being the cause of the
other.
In the Yin/Yang symbol there is a white spot on the black part, and black
spot on the white one. This is to illustrate the balance in life, for
nothing can survive long by going to either extremes, be it negativeness
or positiveness. Therefore, firmness must e concealed in gentleness, and
gentleness firmness, and that is why a Gung Fu man must be pliable as
spring. Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the
bamboo or will bend with the wind. So in Gung Fu, or any other system, one
must be gentle yet not giving away completely; be firm yet not hard, and
even if he is strong, he should guard it with softness and tenderness. For
if there is no softness in firmness, he is not strong; in a similar way,
if one has firmness concealed in softness, no one can break through his
defense. This principle of moderation provides a best means of preserving
oneself, for since we accept this existence of the oneness (Yin/Yang) in
everything, and do not teat it dualistically, we thus secure a state of
tranquillity by remaining detached and not inclining to either extreme.
Even if we do incline on one extreme, be it negative or positive, we will
flow with it in order to control it. This flowing with it without clinging
is the true way to get ride of it.
When the movements in Yin/Yang flow into extremes, reaction sets in. For
when Yang goes to the extreme, it changes to Yin; and when Yin (activated
by Yang) goes to the extreme, it returns back to Yang (that is why each
one is the result and cause of the other.) For example, when one works to
the extreme, he becomes tired and has to rest (from Yang to Yin). This
incessant changing of Yin/Yang is always continuous.
The application of the theory of Yin/Yang in Gung fu is known as the Law
of Harmony, in which one should be in harmony with, and not against the
force of the opponent. Suppose A applies strength on B, B shouldn't oppose
or gives way completely to it. For these are but the two extreme opposites
of B's reaction. Instead, he should complete A's force, with a
lesser force, and lead him to the direction of his own movement. As the
butcher preserves his knife by cutting along the bone and not against it,
a Gung Fun man preserves himself by following the movement of his opponent
without opposition or even striving (Wu-Wai, spontaneous, or spirit
action). This spontaneous assisting or A's movement as he aims it will
result in his own defeat.
When a Gung fu man finally understood the theory of Yin/Yang, he no longer
"fusses" with so-called "gentleness" or
"firmness"; he simply does what the movement requires him to do.
In fact, all conventional forms and techniques are all gone, his movements
are those of everyday movements. He doesn't have to "justify"
himself like so many other masters have, claiming his spirit or his
internal power; to him, cultivation of martial art in the long run will
return to simplicity, and only people of half-way cultivation justify and
brag about themselves.
Bruce Lee,
Oakland, California, USA