The way of Dying

[garbutt]

Hi,

Do u remeber the wise words of Bruce Lee, which went something like this,

" before you learn how to win you must first learn how to loose, you must learn the art of dying",

What hell did he mean, :),

Thanx
Dave

[HuangKaiVun]

I can't speak for what Lee meant, but I'll give you one of my interpretations of this quote:

Don't cling to your past so much it keeps you from figuring out new ways to improve.

[raving_limerick]

Well, Ol' Brucey's certainly the master at that now. The trouble is, you only get to show it off once...


...okay, okay, that was in bad taste. "Don't speak bad 'bout the dead", as my gramma always used to say.

Anyhow, I personally took the quote to mean that you should learn when to take a struggle to the realm of deadly force-- not every thing is worth fighting to the death over, so save it for things that matter, because there's a very real chance that you might die as well.

But, I dunno, really. I'm certainly no expert.

[red_fists]

Originally posted by garbutt
" before you learn how to win you must first learn how to loose, you must learn the art of dying"

Not exactly sure what he meant.

But it sounds similar to the "Invest in Loss" saying.

By loosing you learn to take defeat, but at the same time you also learn from your mistakes and start loosing your preconceived ideas.

And litle by little your old self will die off, while you are re-born as an improved Person.

Chinese sayings often loose a lot and change their meanings enough not to be fully understood in translations.

Just my take on it.

[Xebsball]

Yeah dude youre gonna die i can feel it

[red_fists]

Originally posted by Xebsball
Yeah dude youre gonna die i can feel it

Yep, every minute we live we get one minute closer to death.
:D :D

[joedoe]

I interpret it to mean that if you want to fight, you must be ready to accept death. If you are not willing to do so, you will not win.

[kungfu cowboy]

I think it means: "Don't trust government cheese."

[Budokan]

Read the Hagakure; it's all about dying, being killed, killing, thinking of killing, how to act after you've killed, how to die, how to die willingly, how to die propery, how to kill properly, how to act properly while you're doing the killing, how to kill and then die yourself and other death permutations too numerous to mention here.

It also explains how if you cut your enemy's face lengthwise, urinate on it and then step on it with your sandals it (the face) will come off in one piece.

How can a book like that be anything but helpful...?

[Qi dup]

I'm with joedoe on this one. It's always interesting to contemplate non existance.

[Mister Hansome]

I interpret it as, that you cannot start to win without first losing, it's like a saying to tell you that you can't be the best at everything, and from your past mistakes you can expand so that you can learn it's weaknesses and from it you can grow and win. It's like saying, to win you first must know what can or will make you lose, so if you learn how to lose you know the basics or reasons why you are losing, so you can build upon that and expand on how to counter those weaknesses, make them your strengths and use them to win, or atleast protect them.

[anton]

Yes this could be a reference to the classic Samurai mentality - Hagakure being one work that disscusses it. The samurai saw the "way of the warrior" as a "way of dying".

The premise was that if you are unattached to life and concepts of defeat or even victory, but only focussed on accomplishing your set task in accordance with "the way" then you are a good samurai and can die with honour. To a retainer this could include doing things in perhaps not the most clever way - but rather the most ddirect way without thinking about the consequnces.For example: When referring to the famous story about the ronin who plotted against the rival lord who had killed their master for many years before taking revenge and committing seppuku (see the movie "ronin"), Yamamoto Tsunetomo suggests that they should have gone after the enemy immediately, even if this was likely to result in failure.

While this attitude is difficult to understand today, and being intent on dying correctly during a fight may not seem like the most optimistic attitude - a non-attachment to death, defeat or victory will be more likely to benefit you.
If you think too much about winning or losing then you are more likely to be tense and lose concentration and ultimately lose - probably true for any undertaking requiring focus.

[shaolinboxer]

I do not think this statement has anything to do with actual physical death, or the acceptance thereof.

I think what Bruce was saying is that you must kill the self, the bundle of opinions, preconceptions, etc that can flood the mind and cloud your instincts. When your mind is clear of fear, doubt, curiosity, or any fixation that comes from being filled with your self, you can become (as they say) like a mirror, and clearly reflect the intent of your opponent back to him.

[guohuen]

I think Cowboy is pretty much spot on with the gubmint cheese idea.

[Repulsive Monkey]

to invest in loss also means to have trust in letting go completely to rid oneself of old habits, i.e. those which require total trust in the Tao. Yin always begets Yang.

[garbutt]

Hi,

Yea i had considered most of those ideas too, that to not think of winning or to not be blinded by the fact that you know what yur gonna do and that you think your gonna win as this will take you from the truththr truth of fighting. However one must consider loosing as this will cause the fighter to be less worried if they loose and less distracted during the fight. But how can sumone not be worried about looseing cos in a real fight wouldnt looseing cause death. How can we not be afraid of death, i was thinking about it. What is it that we are actually afraid of its not the actual death as being dead isnt scary and it dusnt hurt and we are fairly comfortable with it. However the way in which we die does seem to worry us, as this is the main reason if not the only reason people fear death. For example id be scared if sumone told me i was going to die on the street, not because im going to die but because of the way im probably going to die (e.g gun shot).
So how can we not be afraid of the way we are going to die, they only thing i can think of is that if we are the best why should we fear death. So the confidence of being so good (the best) means that we arent scared of death. This means however two things, one that we have now gone in a circle thinking that we are going to win agaian and two that we are again blinded by this fact of confidence thinking we are the best.

Any thoughts?

Thanx
Dave

[garbutt]

If you cant be arsed to read it all just put i agree,
:)
Thanx
Dave

[respectmankind]

i believe it is in reference to ego

[garbutt]

Possibly. whos knows, obviously not any of us, lol,

Dave