Bruce Lee Podcast

This week we have a special guest on the podcast, Shannon’s mom Linda Lee Cadwell!

Linda joins us to share her firsthand stories of Bruce and their life as a family. She talks about Bruce’s back injury, how Bruce was better than her at English grammar, and how Bruce charmed his way up to first class with the Cha Cha.

It is always a pleasure to have Linda on the podcast, and we love that she was able to join us for this episode. Thank you Linda for sharing your stories with us!

We’d love to hear from you! Please write to us at [email protected] or tag us on social media @BruceLee #BruceLeePodcast.

Help support the Bruce Lee Podcast and check out our Podcast Bundle on the Bruce Lee Store!

"Don't think. FEEEEEEEEL! It's like a finger pointing away to the moon. Do not concentrate on the finger or you will miss all of the heavenly glory!" In this scene from Enter the Dragon, Bruce is teaching his student about the importance of staying fully present in the moment. If you just concentrate on the finger, you’ll miss the glorious experience of the moon. We often take ourselves out of a moment we are experiencing for many reasons—to analyze it, to think about it, or document it. Even when we pause to take a picture of a beautiful sunset, we have to leave the moment of experiencing that sunset to take the picture. When we do this, we lose the feeling of the moment. “There’s too much tendency to look inward at one’s moods and to try and evaluate them, to stand on the outside and try to look inside is futile. It’s like turning on a light to look at darkness. Analyze it and it’s gone.” “Feeling exists here and now when not interrupted and dissected by ideas or concepts. The moment we stop analyzing and let go we can start really seeing, feeling as one whole." An important part of the lesson Bruce is giving in this scene is about the process of relating, being in relationship with the whole thing, not isolated. “To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person, relationship is a process of self-revelation, relationship is the mirror in which you discover yourself. To be is to be related.” “To live is a constant process of relating, so come out of that shell of isolation and conclusion, and relate directly to what is being said." So many of us are hungering for a connection, even if we don’t know to articulate it. What’s driving a lot of the pain in the world is viewing people or the planet as separate from us or as the “other.” “The primary reality is not what I think, but what I live.” “I do not experience, I am experience, I am awareness.” Bruce Lee was living in the present moment all the time. Take Action: Take note when you pull away from an experience to analyze it or try to hold onto it. When you feel the connectedness or excitement of the moment, instead of pulling away just be with it. Compare this feeling to when you pull away and document or think about the moment. Another practice is to have a moment of silence when you feel that connected experience to stay in the moment. #AAHA This week our #AAHA shout-out goes to Sammy Lee, the first Asian American man to win Olympic gold and the first American man to win two consecutive golds in platform diving. Sammy Lee was named to US Olympic Hall of Fame in 1990. Lee was also a physician and served in the US Army Medical Corps in South Korea and coached several Olympian divers. He learned to dive at a public pool in Pasadena, but was only allowed to go on Wednesdays, the only day Latinos, Asians, and African Americans were allowed to use the pool. Then the pool was drained and refilled with clean water. Even after becoming an Olympian, Lee continued to face discrimination, including being told he could not buy a house in a certain neighborhood. Sammy Lee Square is named after him in Koreatown, he has a spot on the Anaheim Walk of Stars, and an elementary school named after him. Sammy Lee, we honor you and think you’re awesome! #BruceLeeMoment This week our #BruceLeeMoment comes from Kristy, read more at brucelee.com/podcast: “Being keen to journal, I previously wrote down my bigger 'why' or purpose and steps to achieving what I most desired. However, I noticed, there it was again...that striver giving me plans, actions, strategies to be better - to become perfect! So, instead after your podcast I decided to revisit my why, and come up with my own affirmations and anchors back to stillness when my mind becomes noisy, not to become perfect, but instead to simply acknowledge and celebrate who I am.” Share your #AAHA and #BruceLeeMoment recommendations or your #ActionItem progress with us via social media @BruceLee or email us at [email protected]

“Don’t think, FEEL.”

This line comes from a scene in Enter the Dragon where Bruce Lee is instructing a student. He tells the student to throw a kick, the student kicks, and Bruce says, “What was that? What is this an Exhibition? You need emotional content.”

The student kicks again and Bruce says, “I said emotional content not anger! Try again, but this time with me. Don’t think FEEL.”

When Bruce Lee says, “Don’t think,” he means, “Get out of your head.” When he says, “FEEL,” he means really feel into the situation and sense what is happening here. When you are kicking you are kicking a person who is present, you are not trying to perform the perfect kick. That is what Bruce was saying when instructing the student to, “Don’t think, FEEL.”

Often we are not fully present because we are instead trying to categorize, calculate, and think of the next five steps, or the situation is uncomfortable so we mentally checkout.

When you “Don’t think, FEEL,” you are turning your body into a sensing organism. What you are feeling in that moment becomes useful information about yourself. When you are not focused just on your emotions, but are sensing with your whole body, you are more open to the use of your intuition.

“Don’t think – FEEL. Feeling exists here and now when not interrupted and dissected by ideas and concepts. The moment we stop analyzing and let go, we can start really seeing, feeling – as one whole. There is no actor or the one being acted upon but the action itself. I stayed with my feeling then – and I felt it to the full without naming it that. At last, the I and the feeling merged to become one. The I no longer feels the self to be separated from the you, and the whole idea of taking advantage of getting something out of something becomes absurd. To me, I have no other self (not to mention thought) that the oneness of things of which I was aware at the moment.”

Bruce Lee is saying in this quote that if we feel what is happening in the now, and we do not over analyze it and we stay present, then we can truly feel the whole of the experience. Then, we feel the whole experience instead of segmenting the parts of the experience we want to analyze. If we can do this without judgment, then what we are feeling and experiencing becomes one thing. We are no longer separate from what is happening around us because we are fully present in the experience.

“Freedom requires great sensitivity.”

To actualize yourself, to truly know yourself, you have to feel yourself.

“It is futility the maintaining of a façade to act in one way on the surface when actually experiencing something quite different inside. Being one’s self leads to real relationships and acceptance of self leads to change.”

In our current culture, we often have an automated response when someone asks us how we are or how we are feeling. We will say that we are “fine,” “okay,” or “good”, even when we are not any of those things. We hide our true feelings behind a façade of niceties because it is easier. It is harder to fake it when we are asked if we are truly “fine,” and by diving deeper we can have a more meaningful exchange and conversation, which can be very nourishing.

“We do not analyze, we integrate.”

In order to integrate, we have to let in the information and experience. If we analyze, then we are keeping the experience at a distance. Thinking is linear and feeling is expansive.

A whole universe opens up when you feel into experiences. Feeling into something does not mean that you are hanging out in an exposed, vulnerable space, but instead it can help you decide how to navigate different situations.

Emotions are clues to things we need to examine more closely.

“To express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, is very hard to do.”

Full Notes: BruceLee.com/podcast

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This week we talk about how Bruce Lee documented his goals, valued mistakes and created a personal definition of success. A dedicated journal writer, Lee consistently wrote down his big and small goals. He believed that all goals did not have to be achieved, they were a way to orient yourself towards a big dream with meaning. They were also an opportunity to make mistakes along the way, learn and adapt as necessary—being in flow, using no way as way. He wrote this big goal for himself when he was 28 years old: My Definite Chief Aim I, Bruce Lee, will be the first highest paid Oriental super star in the United States. In return I will give the most exciting performances and render the best of quality in the capacity of an actor. Starting 1970 I will achieve world fame and from then onward till the end of 1980 I will have in my possession $10,000,000. I will live the way I please and achieve inner harmony and happiness. Bruce Lee Jan. 1969 Bruce Lee also valued mistakes and defeat. To him, "defeat is nothing but education. Nothing but the first step to figuring out something better.” Mistakes were learning moments. He also said "success means doing something sincerely and whole-heartedly.” It was a way of being a human being, not a destination or outcome. The success is in the doing and doing it with your whole heart. Action step for this week: try to write your own Definite Chief Aim. #AAHA (Awesome Asians and Hapas) This week’s shoutout goes to chef and owner of n/naka Niki Nakayama. Niki was born into a restaurant family and tried her hand at the family business with a normal popular sushi restaurant. But her artist’s heart longed for something more connected to her soul. She traveled throughout Japan for 3 years learning kaiseki style cuisine, a formal presentation of courses that accompany Buddhist tea ceremonies at monasteries. She then transformed this ancient cooking style into a modern interpretation that is uniquely her own. Her journey is beautifully documented in the Netflix series Chef’s Table and it’s worth a watch. #BruceLeeMoment (Bruce Lee’s philosophy in action IRL) This week’s #BruceLeeMoment comes from our team member Richard Grewar who runs the Bruce Lee Foundation Richard has struggled with depression for twenty years. On a particularly tough day when he felt like isolating, shutting down and giving up, this quote from Bruce Lee helped him zoom out and notice the world around him along with some frolicking dolphins: “Its like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.” Share your #AAHA and #BruceLeeMoment recommendations with us via social media @BruceLee or email us at [email protected].

“Do not pray for an easy life; pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.” Sometimes this quote is misunderstood—out of context it seems like Bruce is encouraging you to toughen up because winter is coming. But these words are not about praying for the strength to fight against a hard life. Within the context of Bruce Lee’s philosophy of harmony, the “strength” Bruce is referring to is one of calm and flow. An easy life is not something you get because you pray for it or fight for it, the ease comes when you practice self-actualization and achieve peace of mind. If you only look at Bruce Lee as the ripped warrior, it is easy to misinterpret this quote to be about getting tough and developing physical strength to defend against a difficult life. When you understand who Bruce Lee was as a total human being, you know he could not have had the negative mentality that life was a constant struggle to be defended against. Bruce Lee was about keeping the mind on the positive and being in the flow. Endurance is about having the stamina to experience your whole life. It’s about inviting all of the experiences, including the challenges and catastrophes, because every experience has a lesson in it. “The good life is a process, it’s not a state of being. The good life constituted a direction selected by the total organism when there is freedom to move in any direction.” The first step in the good life process is freeing your mind from the limiting thoughts that are preventing you from engaging fully in life. “The cultivation of the spirit is elusive and difficult and the tendency toward it is rarely spontaneous.” You have to work at this, the cultivation of your spirit and root does not happen automatically. You cannot quit when it gets tough. “The true stillness is the stillness in movement.” If you develop your inner being and you have a strong root from which you function, then your life can be moving around you in a spiral of ups and down, but you at the root can maintain your stillness in the middle of it. “Wisdom does not consist in trying to wrest the good from the evil, but in learning to ride them as a cork adapts itself to the crests and troughs of the waves.” Take Action: What happens to you when you get thrown by life’s difficulties? Can you be more flexible and adaptable? Notice what kind of escape fantasy you have and when you have it. What are you praying for to take you out of your current life? Where are you trying to force instead of flow? #AAHA James Wong Howe was a Chinese American cinematographer born in 1899 and worked on over 130 films. In the 1930s and 1940s, Howe was one of the most sought after cinematographers in Hollywood. He was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won twice for The Rose Tattoo (1955) and Hud (1963). Howe was prevented from becoming a U.S. citizen until the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943. Prior to WWII, he met his wife and they married in Paris in 1937. Due to anti-miscegenation laws, the marriage would not be legally recognized in the U.S. until 1949. James Wong Howe died in 1976 at age 76. Howe, you were a creative and social pioneer, and we think you’re awesome! #BruceLeeMoment A moment from Daniel: “My wife and I went out of town to visit our parents over Thanksgiving, and we came back home on Sunday the 27th, I wasn't even aware that it was Bruce Lee's birthday. I previously went out and bought a inflatable Christmas Dragon for the yard, right after Halloween, in Bruce's honor of course. I put it up as soon as we got back home, which just happen to be his birthday, which would come to my attention through your podcast the following day. I just thought the Dragon was perfect and so was the timing, with his work being a more in depth influence on my life, as of the last 2 years.” Share your #AAHAs, #BruceLeeMoments, and #TakeAction progress with us at [email protected] Find the full version of our show notes at BruceLee.com/podcast