since it is the year of the Dragon

If ever there was a wise man, it was the master of himself, the icon for Martial Arts and an inspiration of wisdom and enlightenment…

Bruce Lee … the Dragon!

Bruce Lee 1940–1973

This inspiring story is about Bruce Lee, a legendary martial art master.

“Bruce had me up to three miles a day, really at a good pace. We’d run the three miles in twenty-one or twenty-two minutes. Just under eight minutes a mile [Note: when running on his own in 1968, Lee would get his time down to six-and-a half minutes per mile].

So this morning he said to me “We’re going to go five.”

I said, “Bruce, I can’t go five. I’m a helluva lot older than you are, and I can’t do five.”

He said, “When we get to three, we’ll shift gears and it’s only two more and you’ll do it.”

　I said “Okay, hell, I’ll go for it.” So we get to three, we go into the fourth mile and I’m okay for three or four minutes, and then I really begin to give out. I’m tired, my heart’s pounding, I can’t go any more and so I say to him, “Bruce if I run any more,” –and we’re still running-” if I run any more I’m liable to have a heart attack and die.”

He said, “Then die.” It made me so mad that I went the full five miles.

Afterward I went to the shower and then I wanted to talk to him about it. I said, you know, “Why did you say that?”

He said, “Because you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. 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.”

this story found here … Bruce Lee

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Born in the year of the Dragon on the hour of the Dragon destined Bruce Lee’s name “Little Dragon”

also called, “Small Phoenix” when he was very young.

Bruce Lee, born Lee Jun Fan, changed his name in order to be more like an American when he moved to the States.

nearly fourty years after his death and is still considered the number one martial artist of all times.

Don’t think, Feel, it is like a finger pointing out to the moon, don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.

If you make an ass out of yourself, there will always be someone to ride you

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There will be calmness, tranquility, when one is free from external objects and is not perturbed.

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.

If you don’t want to slip up tomorrow, speak the truth today.

Forget about winning and losing, forget about pride and pain

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The void is that which stands right in the middle of ‘this’ and ‘that’. The void is all-inclusive, having no opposite – there is nothing which it excludes or opposses. It is living void, because all forms come out of it and whosoever realizes the void is filled with life and power and the love of all things.

If you want to learn to swim jump into the water. On dry land no frame of mind is ever going to help you

Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless – like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, 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.

exit, the Dragon