Bruce Lee’s True Philosophy Behind Martial Arts

Bruce Lee was an American-born Chinese in the year 1940. Those who are not familiar with his work or philosophy might only think of him as a great martial artist and a famous actor. He shot to international stardom when he was featured in “Batman” and also a season of “The Green Hornet” in 1966-1967. Little is known about his spiritual side which forms the foundation of his fighting art or more accurately, his life. He studied philosophy, drama and psychology during his university years. Perhaps that explains why it has a major impact on him apart from his knowledge in martial arts.
He also describes that the body mechanics works best by unifying the body and spirituality in one of his quote :-
“One of the extremes would be unscientific, another end of it, will turn you into a mechanical man, no longer human. It is through the combination of both where you can express yourself truthfully.” – Bruce Lee
His Teachings
Bruce Lee teaches martial art as a way for his pupil to express their emotions through body movements. He does not believe in any kind of form or structure, he sees them as obstacles to achieving natural expression. His best quote follows…
“Be formless… shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot; it becomes the teapot. Water can flow, and it can crash. Be water, my friend…” – Bruce Lee
Law Of Attraction (LOA)
You might not believe this but Bruce Lee is actually one of my spiritual masters. For me, his teachings are the old school way of practicing Law Of Attraction (LOA) and The Power Of Now (PON) or perhaps he is the only person I know that practices LOA and PON in an entirely different way. He mentioned that to honestly express one’s self is incredibly difficult, it might take years of training, most of the time, a lifetime. The new age LOA teachings describes how we can attract or create the things that we want into our lives. The better you are in LOA, the less time it takes to create or attract the things that we want.
From Bruce’s perspective, he is trying to achieve perfection in expression. I would imagine that his ultimate goal is to achieve a state where he can react in lightning speed to his opponent’s advances countering all possible attacks. We know that this is impossible, he knew that too but he can do one thing, which was to improve every part or components of himself which were his belief, strategy, confidence, physical strength, edurance and speed. This way, he can become closer to his ideal self (the things that he want), very similar to the concept of LOA.
The Power Of Now (PON)
The Power Of Now encourage us to focus on the present moment, and ignore the past and future because ultimately, the present moment is the only time where creation takes place. This can be seen from Bruce’s belief to detach from any form of structure, for example, the attachment to a particular form of martial arts like boxing, kung fu or karate (the past) and also to ignore all related fear, for example, the fear of the unknown which refers to the unknown strategies or moves that the opponent will execute (the future). He focuses only on the “Now” moment, gathering only the existing information that is “present” and come out with a solution or action. This way, he will be super efficient because he has less information to process (only the present data, compared to past, present and future) and he will not have worries or fear in executing his moves.
Closing
“I think of myself as a human being, under the sky there is but one family, it just so happen that people are different”. – Bruce Lee on whether he thinks he’s Chinese or North American.
Bruce Lee will always be remembered as the most efficient fighting machine of all time. Besides that, his work in martial arts will serve as a guide to anyone who wishes to glimpse the ultimate level of physical expression, which can be viewed either from a physical or spiritual perspective.