DON’T BECOME A DISH BUT BE WATER
Don’t become a dish but be water inside the dish.
--Bruce Lee
***
A handful of water…
If you spill it it becomes a plant,
Then the lovers’ breast fills with a lawn.
Unless you sip,
The ground fills with grass,
At that time will you want
To become a handful of water?!
***
A look can position the sky,
A howl can hold the universe.
A heart as big as the sky --
Tell me, what more do you need?!
(But don’t tell me the universe…)
--tr. Asror Allayarov from "The Gate Opened by Angels"
--tr. Asror Allayarov from "The Gate Opened by Angels"
A Handful of Water -- Miguel Bolacha
Lee Jun-fan, the son of Cantonese opera star Lee Hoi-chuen and Grace Ho of the powerful Ho-tung clan, was born at the San Francisco Chinese Hospital while the troupe was touring the US; the hospital's attending physician, Mary Glover, nicknamed the baby "Bruce." When Bruce was 3 months old the family returned to Hong Kong, where he appeared as a child actor due to his father's influence and also began practicing wing chun, a traditional Southern Chinese kung fu martial art that specializes in close range combat. The family sent him back to San Francisco to live with his older sister, and he majored in drama at the University of Washington while also teaching Jun Fan Gung Fu, his version of wing chun. In 1967 he developed jeet kune do (the way of the intercepting fist). One of his students was Stirling Silliphant, who guided him in a new film career. He was cast as Li Tsung, an antiques dealer and jeet kune do expert in 4 Sillipant-written episodes of the 1971-1972 TV series "Longstreet;" Lee wrote some of his dialogue, including, "Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in 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." He returned to Hong Kong and became an international movie star in Lo Wei's "The Big Boss" (1971) and "Fist of fury" (1972). He was given complete control of his 3rd film, writing, directing, starring in, and choreographing the fight scenes in "Way of the Dragon" (1972) (The movie also featured karate champion Chuck Norris, whom Lee had choreographed in the 1969 film "The Wrecking Crew," Norris' 1st movie role.) He died at 32, 6 days before his 4th film "Enter the Dragon" was released in 1973; costing only $850,000 to make, it grossed over $200 million.
ReplyDeleteThe Falling Leaf
The wind is in high frolic with the rain.
Outside the garden a little yellow leaf
Clinging desperately to its mother branch.
I pick up the leaf
And put it in the book,
Giving it a home.
--Bruce Lee