JKD philosophy

[patson]

Could someone explain in layman's terms what Bruce Lee meant in following scene from Enter the Dragon:

Teacher: What is the highest technique you hope to achieve?
Bruce: To have no technique

Teacher: What are your thoughts when facing an opponent?
Bruce: There is no oponent.

Teacher: Why is that?
Bruce: Because the word I does not exist
A good fight shal be like a small play but played very seriously.
A good martial artist does not become tense but ready. Not thinking but not dreaming, ready for whatever may come. When the oponent expands I contract. When he contracts I extract. When there is an oportunity, I do not hit. (pointing to his fist) It hits all by itself.

Teacher: The enemy only has images and illusions behind which he hides his true motives. Destroy the image and you will break the enemy. The 'it' you refer to, is a powerful weapon...
=============================================
There is no opponent? It hits by itself? 'I' does not exist? Destroying the image? Was he referring to not being intimidated by size and weight of the opponent?

Could some shed some light on these concepts? Thanks in advance

[jm1978]

It was the Eastern idea that everything is one, plurality and change are illusory.
In the west this was represented by Parmenides, Zeno, and Spinoza. As a philosophy student BL favored Spinoza. This is not Taoism or Zen, even tho' those were BL's main influences. In Mahayana Buddhism there is a belief that the historical Buddha transcended time and space to become a master of cosmic law, above even the gods.
Bruce was talking about his Buddha nature.

[eXcessiveForce]

Sounds more like he is talking about being in the moment, thusness, no-mind, or whatever you want to call it.

[Michael Wright]

I don't intend to shatter illusions, but I always feel it prudent to point out when people use Enter the Dragon to discuss JKD philosophies, that Bruce Lee wasn't talking about anything.....he was reading lines from a script. Enter the Dragon was written by Michael Allin, an American screenwriter commission by Fred Weintraub to write the script for the movie (yes, its a movie). Just to get that out of the way.

Anyway, as the other responses have indicated, what Michael Allin is talking about in this scene is the philosophy taken from a range of cultures both Eastern and Western pertaining to the notion of "no mind". All of the concepts found within Jeet Kune Do are derived from other arts or philosphies, although Bruce Lee was never great at directly crediting his sources. He was, however, exceptional at the articulation and demonstration of them, of that I have no argument.

[Mike Brewer]

Outstanding answer, Michael. You hit the same high points I was planning to.

I think, after all these years of training with a lot of the people who trained with Bruce Lee (and especially with Dan Inosanto) that people make far too much out of the philosophy side of things anyway. Bruce Lee went to school for philosophy, so it makes sense that those sorts of things were on his mind and that he was exposed to them from all sorts of different angles. It makes sense that they'd appear in his writings. But I really believe from all I've seen that his martial art was more about getting past all the usual ritual and lunacy in training and just simply being able to say: I don't need to learn a style or a method or a system. I just want to learn to fight.

Borrowing from boxing or wing chun or savate or this or that isn't the point. Those systems don't own techniques. You're not throwing a "boxing punch" or a "savate kick" but simply punching and kicking. That's true because the second you do it from your own structure, you've changed what it is from a boxing point of view or a savate point of view. A savate guy watching JKD people would probably make a lot of corrections in the kicking tools, but as a JKD guy, you don't care if it's proper savate. You care if it serves the function. That's the "no way" and "no style" part of JKD.

As for the movie lines, it was a bit of Buddhism and a lot of set-up so we would get the metaphor of the hall of mirrors at the end of the movie. "Shattering illusions" was played out as "shattering reflections in a mirror" at the end of the movie, and that part of th script was designed to give the audience a better grasp on the idea, and to tie the fight in with the story instead of having action for action's sake.

[GQchris]

It basically means.. "be water my friend"....

[Michael Wright]

between 55% and 78% of me already is

I'm on the path to enlightenment

[nathan rd]

Originally Posted by Michael Wright

I don't intend to shatter illusions, but I always feel it prudent to point out when people use Enter the Dragon to discuss JKD philosophies, that Bruce Lee wasn't talking about anything.....he was reading lines from a script. Enter the Dragon was written by Michael Allin,

Bruce Lee's widow, Linda Lee Cadwell, said on the bonus disc for the 2-disc DVD version of Enter the Dragon that Bruce Lee got a hold of the script that Allin wrote and heavily edited it with JKD philosophy. The same disc also says that Allin knew very little about martial arts or Hong Kong. Someone with very little knowledge of martial arts would hardly have been able to pepper a movie with JKD ideas throughout, from beginning to end, which is what one sees in Enter the Dragon.

To have no technique is a fundamental idea in JKD. The idea is to use all forms as your form, instead of one specific form. So you have no form. This is what is meant by the formless form in Tao of Jeet Kune Do.

"A good martial artist does not become tense but ready. Not thinking but not dreaming" I think comes from some of Bruce Lee's writings. I've read very similar statements in many of his writings, available in books such as Bruce Lee: Artist of Life. The basic concept is yin and yang, which is embodied in the JKD logo.

"When the oponent expands I contract. When he contracts I extract." I think extract here should be expand. Yin and yang again.

I do not hit. (pointing to his fist) It hits all by itself. Bruce Lee took this from samurai philosophy, which taught the sword was an extension of the body, and should be used without having to think about it (mu shin no shin in Japanese). He applied the same idea to the fist.

A lot more of Bruce Lee's philosophy in the film--too much to list. Read Bruce Lee: Fighting Spirit, and The Warrior Within for more insight into these issues.

[aseepish]

Originally Posted by Michael Wright

between 55% and 78% of me already is

I'm on the path to enlightenment

Between 55% and 78% of me is beer.

[patson]

Thanks for your reply Nathan.

Could you explain what was meant by, 'There is no opponent?'

[Michael Wright]

shadowboxing

[Joe Hubbard]

To become dispassionate about who you are fighting as not to evoke anger or fear. The enemy becomes faceless, so you can concentrate on the task at hand.

Out

Joe

[Joe Hubbard]

“Because the word I does not exist.”

Taking the “ego” out of the equation and adapting to the “here & now”- the moment!

Out

Joe