Be Water My Friend by Bruce Lee
Be Water My Friend by Bruce Lee
Be Water My Friend by Bruce Lee
Life can be joyful and sad. Beautiful and ugly. Exciting and terrifying. And yet,
these are the extremes of the whole situation. If we resist on one end of the
experience, we will never reach the heights of the life rewards or the
contentment of life balance.
Let’s look at the entire ecosystem of our being and humanity. Like water, we
can flow quickly or slowly. We can work or train hard while allowing ourselves
to be gentle. The journey of flowing toward self-actualization and wholeness
shouldn’t be taken lightly. It requires your dedicated attention. So now let’s
have our toes in the vast pond of the universe and go a little deeper. Come
on… the water is fine…
“Who is there that can make muddy waters clear? But if allowed to remain still,
it will become clear of itself. Who is there that can secure a state of absolute
repose? But keep calm and let time go on, and the state of repose will gradually
arrest.”
The practices of mindfulness and meditation are similar in that they bring you
back to the presence, the ‘now’. They’re both excellent for learning to empty
our cup. If you practice them everyday, even just for five minutes, you’ll
develop a full sense of energized relaxation and there’ll be more room in your
cup for all sorts of meaningful activities.
“To live with ‘what is’ to be peaceful. There’s ‘what is’ when there’s no
comparison at all.”
The Opponent
Instead of opposing force with force, one should oppose by accepting the flow
of energy from the opponent and defeat it by borrowing from it. In martial
arts, this law could be akin to the idea of using someone’s movement to create
an opening for your own action. This means being so attuned to your
opponent’s energy that you can sense an opportunity almost immediately. In
a challenging personal situation, you can borrow the energy the other side is
giving you and adapt appropriately.
In looking at our opposition, we must not be afraid to uncover our true self and
let that be seen. In being comfortable enough in our own skin to be vulnerable,
we suddenly begin allowing others the comfort of their true identities as well.
Opposites isolate us and create false distance. In reality, there’s no distance.
Everything is connected like one fluid motion of a wave.
The Tools
You’ll never have all the answers to begin. Sometimes you have to begin to
find the answers you’re looking for. We have some serious stuff to unpack and
deal with the task we feel daunting. Yesterday was the best time to act, but
now is the second best time. Learn, create and align your words with your
deeds. Or stop talking and get busy doing.
“When you drop a pebble into a pool of water, the pebble starts a series of
ripples that expand until they encompass the whole pool. This is exactly what
will happen when you give your ideas a definite plan of actions.”
You are the means. All goals aside from the means are an illusion. There’ll
never be means to ends, only means. You can train and practice but never live.
Life is a process, not a goal. A means but not an end. A constant movement
rather than an established pattern.
The Obstacle
There’s always something to learn if you look closely and especially within our
obstacles. Our obstacles are among some of our greatest teachers. They’ll
show us how to benefit most from our strengths and our weaknesses. They’ll
open us up to new realms of understanding and help us develop new skills if
we allow it.
“Do what seems wise to be done, forget it and walk on. Walk on and see a new
view. Walk on and see the birds fly. Walk on and leave behind all things that
would dam up the inlet or clog the outlet of experience.”
My Friend
“Do you know how I like to think of myself? As a human being. Because under
the sky, under the heavens, there is but one family.”
Live your life as if this is the life you’re living right now – not the life where you
think you’ll be living one day. This is it. With every moment and every day that
passes, this is your life. You’re not striving to be anyone but in the cultivation
of you, you become someone who is skilled and fully present, someone who
has great energy that uplifts everyone you come in contact with.
It doesn’t have to come with a name attached – such as greatest martial artist
on earth, the youngest Nobel prize winner, the employee of the year, best
mom ever. Names create limitations. Those labels only describe one aspect of
your total humanity.” But if we have to have a name, then let it be ‘human,
fully expressed.’
“I have to leave you now my friend. You have a long journey ahead of you, and
you must rave light. These paragraphs have been merely ‘a finger pointing at
the moon.’ Please do not take the finger to be the moon or fix your intense
gaze on the finger and thus miss all the beautiful sights of heaven. After all, the
usefulness of the finger is in pointing away from itself to the light that
illuminates the finger and all.”