Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Just Bruce Lee on Philosophy

The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.

If you want to succeed, focus on the tasks you should do. Set up a distraction free environment when you’re working. If you know that you will most likely get distracted by your smartphone, keep it in another room when you are working. Or disconnect it from the internet.
We can’t deny the fact that most of us have short attention spans, but, we can do something about it. Find a way to help yourself concentrate. Set a schedule for yourself to disconnect from the world and focus on the most important tasks at hand.

“Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.”


We all know about the power of knowledge, as a wise man once said: “Knowledge is power.” But, often we forget that character, in some ways are more important than knowledge.
Do you like people who are arrogant or do you prefer people who are kind-hearted? The answer is obvious. No matter how intelligent you are, it doesn’t matter that much when it comes to earning respect from others. It is your character which counts!

“A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.”


How many times have you lost your temper in the past? Countless times I suppose? And what happened next? Did the things you were angry about become better, or did it get worse? Admit it, your quick temper worsens the situation almost every time.
Everyone experienced it before. We all know that letting our anger loose is harmful to us. We want to change that, but it is not easy to take control of our temper. We are only humans after all.
So, what can you do to control your temper? Well, there are many things you can do, but the best advice I can give is to take a deep breath and think it through. You still need oxygen when you’re angry after all. Remember, always control your temper before it controls you!

“Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.”

A teacher once asked his students, is admitting our mistakes shameful? 8 out of 10 said ‘No’. The other two students who were siblings thought that admitting mistakes is something shameful. It’s the environment we grow up in that shapes the way we think. Some may perceive mistakes as something bad. They think that it’s shameful to admit their mistakes. This could not be further from the truth.
There is nothing wrong with making mistakes in our lives. The most important part is how we respond to it. Do we admit and acknowledge our mistakes, eventually learning from it? Or do we avoid talking about it and pretend nothing happened? The worst mistake you can make is, not admitting your own mistakes.

“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at"

 
A goal is our target to aim at. It is our source of motivation. Having a goal gives us a clear direction in our lives. We aim for it and work towards it. It gives us a clear destination in our lives.
But the main point here is that goals aren’t always meant to be reached. So, it’s okay not to hit your goals within a time frame. It’s okay to fail, but never give up. Sometimes, you just have to believe. Aim for it and work towards it until you achieve it. Clement Stone once said that: “Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star.”
Even if you fail to hit your goals after all the hard work, it is okay, because you will still have achieved something. If you never try, then the chances of you achieving something will be zero.

“If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.”


Reflect on your life so far, how did you spend your time in the past? Doing things that are meaningful to you, things which add value to people around you or did you just procrastinate most of the time?
I bet every single one of us is clear that we only live once, but how many of us really make use of our precious time wisely? Think about it, you don’t want to waste the rest of your life doing meaningless tasks right? Starting from today, make good use of the time you have.Live everyday like it is the last day of your life. It might sound cliche, but it is true.

“It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.”
“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”


If you want to improve your life then it’s tempting to want to add more. One problem with this may be that you don’t really have the time or energy to do more though. And so your efforts to improve become short-lived.
Adding more and more just creates more stress and anxiety. Removing clutter and activities, tasks and thoughts that are not so important frees up time and energy for you to do more of what you really want to do. And as the clutter in your outer world decreases the clutter in your inner world also has a tendency to decrease. This has the added benefit of making it easier to actually enjoy whatever you are doing even more while you are doing it.
Adding more thoughts and thinking things over for the 111th time may create a sense of security. It’s also a good way to procrastinate and to avoid taking that leap you know you should take. And the more you think, the harder it gets to act. Perhaps because you want to keep that comforting sense of security and avoid the risk of wrecking that feeling.
Thinking has its place. It can help you plan a somewhat realistic route to your goal and help you avoid future pitfalls. Overthinking is however just a habit that will help you waste a lot of time. It’s more useful to replace that habit with the habit of just doing it.

Learn about yourself in interactions : “To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.”

The one person that is the hardest to get to really know may be yourself. Studying yourself while you are alone may result in some insights. But it’s also likely to produce a lot of made up thought loops and doubts in your mind. A good way to really learn more about yourself is study yourself in interactions with other people. How people react and act in these interaction can over time teach you a lot. And what you think and how you react can perhaps teach you even more.
What you see, feel and hear in other people may be a reflection of you. The things you learn by thinking this way may not always be pleasant, but they can be enlightening. They help you to see yourself and also how you may be fooling yourself. And these powerful insights can be very valuable for your personal growth. So, in interactions with others, try asking yourself: what is reflected?

Be proactive : “To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.”

It’s easy to get locked into a reactive mindset. You just follow along with whatever is happening. You do what the people around you do. You react to whatever is going on.
And so you get lost in your circumstances. This way of thinking doesn’t feel too good. You tend to feel powerless and like you are just drifting along.
A more useful and pleasurable way of living is to be proactive. As Bruce says: to create opportunities despite the circumstances around you. This feels better and provides better results. But on the other hand it’s also more difficult. It’s easier to just drift along in the reactive stream of life. And if you want to be proactive then you may have to take the lead quite often. And that can be scary.
Still, living proactively is so much more rewarding and exciting.

Be you : “Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.”


Just being yourself is a hard thing to do. You may do it sometimes. And other times you may forget or fall back into old thought patterns. Or you may imitate someone else.
And that comes through too. And it may work.

What are you really thinking about today? “As you think, so shall you become.”

Perhaps the most basic statement of how we work. Think about what you are thinking today. What do those thoughts say about you? About your life? And how well do they really match your plans for your life and your image of yourself?

Do not divide : “Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.”

This is a very useful and powerful thought. It is also one that obviously is hard to live by. Why? I believe it’s because the ego loves to divide and find ways to “add more” to itself. It want’s to feel better than someone else. Or more clever. Or prettier. Or cooler. Or wiser.
How can you overcome this way of thinking and feeling?
To me it seems to boil down to not identifying so much with your thoughts or feelings. That doesn’t mean that you stop thinking or feeling. It just means that you realize – and remember in your everyday life – that the thoughts and emotions are just things flowing through you.
You are not them though.
You are the consciousness observing them.
When you realize and remember this it enables you to control the thoughts and feelings instead of the other way around. It also enables you to not take your thoughts too seriously and actually laugh at them or ignore them when you feel that your ego is acting out. When you are not being so identified these things you become more inclined to include things, thoughts and people instead of excluding them. This creates a lot of inner and outer freedom and stillness. Instead of fear, a need to divide your world and a search for conflicts.


" Zen is not " attained " by mirror-wiping meditation , 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 me."


“Above all, never cheat on any exercise; use the amount of weight that you can handle without undue strain.” 


Learning is definitely not more imitation or the ability to accumulate and conform to fixed knowledge.
Learning is a constant process of discovery and never a concluding one.
The enemy has only images and illusions behind which he hides true motives. 

Destroy the image, and you will break the enemy.

"Don't fear failure.  Not failure, but low aim is the crime.  In great attempts it is glorious even to fail." Don't let fear stop you!


Do not run away ; let go.
Do not seek, for it will come when least expected..


The localization of the mind means its freezing. When it ceases to flow freely as it is needed. It is no more the mind in its suchness....


Classical forms dull your creativity. Condition & freeze your sense of freedom. You no longer "be" . But merely "do".


"Artless art" is the artistic process within the artist ; its meaning is " art of the soul " ...
All vague notions must fall before a pupil can call himself a master....
We have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate.
We cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything that has its roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone: we are not alone when we imitate. It is thus with most of us!
We are what people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.

Meditation :
So before I go and spend sometime within my mind, if you are seeking out an answer, some peace, or are looking to cultivate the life you want. If you are looking to move forward and leave behind the perils of the past or the anticipation of the future. Do yourself a favor and find meditation in your life.

To understand your fear is the beginning of really seeing...
What is defeat? Nothing but education;
Nothing but the first step to something better.
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.

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.

A good fight should be like a small play, but played seriously. 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. When he contracts, I expand. And when there is an opportunity, I do not hit. It hits all by itself.

“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.”

"I am not easily discouraged, I readily visualize myself as overcoming obstacles, winning out over setbacks, achieving 'impossible' objectives."


“Martial arts, like any art, is an unrestricted athletic expression of an individual soul.”
“Today, your sidekick became a tool to unlock a spiritual gate. There was spiritual loosening along with physical loosening, a sort of unconcerned immersion in oneself. The original sense of freedom was there. Congratulations! The sidekick took the place of the ego.”


"With emotional content, not anger!"


“Students should learn something new each class, but one or two new actions are enough for one session. Each lesson should reward the student with pleasure, satisfaction of achievement, and the sense of vigorous, joyous movement.”


To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion,
to be worthy not respectable
and wealthy, not rich;
to study hard, to think quietly,
to talk gently, act frankly;
to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely,
await occasions, hurry never.
in other word,to let the spiritual,unbidden,
and unconscious grow up through, the common.”
 

“The unconditioned mind intuits truth – 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.”

“Void-ness 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.”
“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.”
 

Are you putting limits on your own life? Believing that you're not capable of something? As Bruce Lee warns, limits don't stay on what you've put them on. They spread and infect like a poison, all aspects of your life. Limits are like a deadly virus, weakening your mind, telling you "you can't". Reverse these limits by removing your fear of failure. You can achieve your goals, some may take longer than others, but THEY ARE POSSIBLE to reach. Allow yourself success, and go above and beyond your dreams!
 

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.

The law of non-interference with nature is a basic principle of Taoism [stating] that one should be in harmony with, not rebellion against, the fundamental laws of the universe. Preserve yourself by following the natural bends of things and don’t interfere. Remember never to assert your self against nature; never be in frontal opposition to any problems, but to control it by swinging with it.
 

To doubt is to think, and thought is the only thing in the universe whose existence cannot be denied, because to deny is to think.

" Remember, my friend, to enjoy your planning as well as your accomplishment, for life is too short for negative energy. "

Yin & Yang : Do you really know what it means?
Basically, all process is cyclic, everything contains its opposite, it’s the forever who came first, the chicken or the egg?  With Yin and Yang, there is no separation.  As you can see in the symbol itself, when the dark part starts to become its fullest, the white part begins.  And when the white part seems to end, the dark part begins.  You will also notice that there is a spot of white in the dark part, and a spot of dark in the white part.  The whole concept that you cannot have light without darkness, and vice versa.  And, nothing is necessarily good or bad, just the cycle of life.  All states, events, and circumstances can all have Yin and Yang qualities.
What’s Yin?: it’s at the core, sinking, condensed, and internal.  Think substantive, cold, watery, heavy, soft, delicate.  Yin is considered female. (Now, don’t get uppity with me here, ladies, everything balances out!)
What’s Yang?: is at the surface, rising, dispersed, and external.  Think active, expanding, dry, large, loud, hot.  Yang is considered male.

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.

“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” 


"Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fiery, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older. our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable."


Use only that which works, All knowledge leads to self-knowledge..
Thank You
 

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