The Tao of Gung Fu: A Study in the Way of Chinese Martial Art Book

Absolutely blown away. Each line in this book is a precious drop of cool water on a sweltering summer day... savory and refreshing. Few pages, but so packed with jewels you want to stay at each sentence forever, until your DNA, then your soul, ingests it. Long live the great, mighty Bruce Lee.

Quotes :
-----------------

"A simple life is one of plainness in which profit is discarded, cleverness abandoned, selfishness eliminated, and desires reduced. A life of harmony, unity, contentment, tranquility, constancy, enlightenment, peace, and long life."

"One should do nothing that is not natural or spontaneous; the important thing is not to strain in any way."

"When activity (yang) reaches the extreme point, it becomes inactivity; and inactivity forms yin. Extreme inactivity returns to become activity, which is yang. Activity is the cause of inactivity and visa versa."

"From this one can see that the two forces (Yin-Yang), although they appear to conflict, in reality are mutually interdependent; instead of opposition, there is cooperation and alternation."

"Contrary to popular belief, the yin principle, as softness and pliableness, is to be associated with life and survival. Because he can yield, a man can survive."

"The mind is trained to direct the movement of the body. The mind wills and the body behaves."

"The emotions that destroy the inner rhythm of a man are hatred, jealousy, lust, envy, pride, vanity, covetousness and fear." - Glen Clark

"To perform the right technique, physical loosening must be continued in a mental and spiritual loosening, so as to make the mind not only agile, but free."

"A gung fu man has to remain calm and quiet, and practice no-mindedness. No-mindedness is not a blank mind that excludes all emotions. The gung fu man employs his mind as a mirror: it grasps nothing, and refuses nothing. It receives but does not keep."

"No mindedness, then, is 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."

"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. These are the principles of mental hygiene."

"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."

"When dealing with many opponents, as soon as one is disposed of, he will move on to another without permitting the mind to stop with any. This is only possible when the mind moves from one object to another without being stopped or arrested by anything."

"The mind is present everywhere because it is nowhere attached to any particular object."

"The flow of thought is like water filling a pond, which is always ready to flow off again."

"A gung fu man aims at harmony with himself and his opponent. 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."

"Let one's mind alone, trusting it to work by itself."

"Wu wei means the governing action or spirit action, in the sense that the governing force is the mind and not the senses."

"During sparring, a gung fu man learns to forget about himself… he lets his mind remain spontaneous and ungrasped. As soon as he stops to think, his flow of movement will be disturbed and he is immediately struck by his opponent."

"Placidly free from anxiety, one acts with the opportune time; one moves and revolves in the line of creation."

"One who advertises himself too much is ignored." - Lao Tzu

"A gung fu man, if he is really good, is not proud at all."

"Gung fu is aiming at self-cultivation, and therefore the inner self is one's true self. So in order to realize his true self, a gung fu man lives without being dependent upon the opinions of others."

"A gung fu master, unlike the beginner, holds himself in reserve, is quiet and unassuming, without the least desire to show off. To him, fame and status mean nothing."

"Let the mind think what it wants without interference by the separate thinker or ego within oneself."

"When his private ego and conscious efforts yield to a power not his own, he then achieves the supreme action: nonaction."

"Establish nothing in regard to oneself. Let things be what they are, move like water, rest like a mirror, respond like an echo, pass quickly like the nonexistent and be quiet as purity. Those who gain, lose."

"Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know." - Lao Tzu

"The heart is humble, but the work is forceful."

"The highest skill operates on an almost unconscious level."

"Who can make muddy water clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will become clear itself."

"He wins because he cannot choose."

"In the waist, not the limbs, lies the mainspring of the movements of the body. One turning of a big axis is equivalent to hundreds of turnings of small axes."

"Attain complete vacuity, and sedulously preserve a state of repose."

"Mighty is he who conquers himself."

"Inside your energy must not stop, your mind being ahead of your opponent all the time."

"To know the eternal pattern is to be enlightened. He who knows it not will be blasted and withered by misfortune. " - Lao Tzu

"That man in whom truth is bright has no anger."

"The secret waits for the insight." - Lao Tzu


.