He said, "learn water, my friend!" " Kung fu is like water. When you pour water into a cup, it becomes a cup; When you pour water into a teapot, it becomes a teapot. Metaphoring Taoism with water is an important topic in Laozi's Taoist theory. Tao Te Ching said, "Good is like water. Water is good for everything, so it is good. " There is another cloud: "The world is not weaker than water, but it cannot be stronger." "The world is the softest and the strongest. "
Water is superior to others because it has the closest property to Tao, and one of the properties is "softness". The so-called softness means that water itself has no fixed form, and it can adapt to the environment and turn itself into the form of foreign objects.
If you compare this character with human nature, it is nothing, but the ability to melt yourself and tolerate all changes in the outside world, just like the "open heart" of Tao. This degree of conformity is invisible in other tangible substances.
Bruce Lee's improvement in martial arts is just like that of ordinary Taoists who have "realized" before "gaining the Tao". On one occasion, Bruce Lee faced the dilemma of slow martial arts practice. Ip Man thought he was too nervous, told him to relax, told him to stop practicing and go home and think about it. Bruce Lee stopped practicing at home for a whole week, but he still couldn't figure it out. So he went out to sea for fun and rowed. The more he thought about it, the more annoyed he became, and he used fist water.
It is this kind of water that makes him suddenly wake up: "water, the most basic thing, is not the essence of kung fu?" Water just proved the principle of kung fu for me ... water is the softest substance in the world. That's it. I must like the nature of water. "
So Bruce Lee turned his martial arts into water, and water has no fixed form, so his martial arts has no fixed form: water is invincible, "the softest in the world, the strongest in the world", and boxing can be the softest or the strongest. Water can carry a boat, but it can also overturn it ... This is the scene that Bruce Lee is facing now. The impact of water, boats and water, plus Bruce Lee himself, suddenly became an adult, making the phenomenon of water "shortcut" clear.
Bruce Lee's martial arts principle started from this "Kung Fu is like water" and stepped into the highest embodiment of martial arts in line with "Tao".
So a person should keep an ethereal heart, intangible and impossible, just like water.