Podcast Notes: #10 Simplicity, Directness and Freedom

My notes from Chapter 10 of the Bruce Lee Podcast:

"The art of jeet kune do is simply to simplify. It avoids the superficial, penetrates the complex, goes to the heart of the problem and pinpoints the key factors.

It does not beat around the bush, take winding detours, it follows a straight line to the objective. Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points. It favours formless so that it can assume all forms. And since it has no style, it can fit in with all styles.

As a result, it utilises all ways and is bound by none. And likewise, use any techniques or means which serve its end."

Looking at it in its principle and not just "styles". How can I deliver most efficiently and literally create a response through preparation and training and encountering any situation as a tool?

Having already learnt basics of fundamentals and now going beyond to skill. First, you follow a recipe until you understand its reasons and start to free-form based on knowledge attained through the practice and training. 

We are conned into this consumer mode of having everything and buying to be more. But when on vacation being forced to only pack 1 bag we hack away at the unessential and realise how simple we can be to still be effective. Simplifying stuff.

We get cluttered by every possible anticipation. Once you get the clutter out of your mind, it is so freeing not to be bogged down by things you don't need. Authentically being free. 

But to first know what we need, we need to know where we're going. Is our Destination winter? Or summer in Hawaii?

Dying of the old self and being reborn. Deeply investigate your experiences. 

Constraints of form caused enough discomfort that gave this moment of awareness to say "everything I thought I knew is not serving the next phase of my evolution".

In the flow of being present and seeing the full picture - every success also has uncomfortable parts where it was hard and struggled (why did that happen and what was I not prepared for? How can I change things? Why should I even change things?)

The solution is within the problem if you are willing to look within the problem.

Thinking "I got this/nothing more to learn/know everything" takes you out of the present moment. And anticipating the outcome.

"To realise freedom, the mind has to learn to look at life without the bondage of time. For freedom lies beyond the field of consciousness. Don't stop and interpret, "hey I'm free!". Then, you're living in a memory of something that has now gone."

- Bruce Lee

How many times have we done that? When suddenly you realise when something awesome is happening and "oh something awesome is happening, I want to hold on to this!". In the act of trying to hold it, you're taking yourself out of the moment, you're no longer in it. 

Let's get to pure simplicity. Get everything out that we don't need and test it. Then what it's like to be free from ego, form and expressing our true selves. 

Being the observer not the experiencer anymore.

The present moment is the simplest place you can be. To shut off your reptilian brain and just Be. Interconnected and part of an ecosystem of discovering freedom, simplicity and presence. 

Concept 1

Bruce talked about "Pristine simplicity" - free from your own judgement and editorial of the idea. The mark of genius is to express what is simple simply.

When you truly understand something - it is when you can express it simply to someone else. 

Not rasping through your own thoughts and being unclear. The art of teaching is a great practice to being more simple and direct and expressing freely. 

When you have to explain to someone else, if you can't explain with ease, they may not be able to understand with ease.

Concept 2

"False teachers use flowery words."

- Bruce Lee 

Sometimes we are trying to impress with our intellect, or sometimes we can't really pierce the heart of the matter so we dance all around it because we don't exactly know what it is.

Concept 3

The challenge of trying to create a new way of thinking without getting trapped in form and limited thinking. 

Once you write something down people try to interpret everything and challenge it. Instead of a living thing, people deaden and encapsulate this into a box. 

Constantly being in relationship with all knowledge and experiences and there is never an end chapter to the book.

It is a live process. Not the end all be all definitive conversation. So many core conversations can be had if it is not literal. But a beginning glimpse into a continuing process.

"Formless form - have to understand both form and formlessness. If all you understand only structure, you don't get freedom. If you only understand freedom, you don't understand form. True freedom lies in the balance of both."

- Shannon Lee

"Learning Jeet Kune Do is not a matter of seeking knowledge or accumulating stylised pattern, but is discovering the cause of ignorance."

- Bruce Lee

It's about uncovering that which you don't know - encountering it. The thing that is holding you back. The thing that you're struggling with. This idea of being willing to look and uncover yourself. 

So many of us trap ourselves in other's patterns or forms. To be beyond systems and really be in a space to create your essentialness. 

"If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine. The tradition. The shadow. You are not understanding yourself."

- Bruce Lee 

Simplicity is a pathway to being yourself and then expressing it from that point. Taking what applies to you and speaks to you. And function from standpoint of cultivating yourself as opposed to just obeying a tradition/routine. 

Action Steps

How can I be more direct? How can I simplify? What can I let go off? What is cluttering up my life right now?

Making it easier to Flow. Flow. Flow. Through life.

Directness of communication. Directness of action.

Simplicity of space. Simplicity of communication.

Letting go of things that aren't serving you.

What can you look around in your life and see that you can make more simple, more direct, and how can you be more free?

What is the most useful part of this and strip away the useless?

If you want to understand how his philosophies have informed my own on Video and Growing Business, download a free digital copy of my book here.