Bruce Lee was a famous martial artist, movie star and cultural icon but his philosophy has caught fire around the world with a new generation seeking meaning and consciousness. He continues to teach us how to cultivate our truest selves and be in harmony with the world.
His journey of life in brief
Lee was born in Chinatown, San Francisco on November 27, 1940 to parents from Hong Kong while his parents were on tour with the Chinese Opera and was raised in Kowloon.
Bruce Lee was a child actor appearing in more than 20 films. At the age of 13, Bruce took up the study of wing chun gung fu under renowned wing chun master, Yip Man.
Bruce left Hong Kong at the age of 18, came to the United States and made his way to Seattle, Washington where he worked in the restaurant of a family friend. He soon enrolled in the University of Washington where he pursued a degree in philosophy. Bruce began to teach gung fu in Seattle and soon opened his first school, the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute. Two more schools followed in Oakland and Los Angeles. Concurrently Bruce married his wife, Linda and had his two children, Brandon and Shannon.
He got a role as Kato in the tv series The Green Hornet. During this time, Bruce was also developing his own martial art, which he ultimately named Jeet Kune Do.
Bruce encountered resistance while working in Hollywood and so headed to Hong Kong to pursue a film career. In Hong Kong he made 3 films, which consecutively broke all box office records and showcased martial arts in an entirely new way.
Hollywood took notice and soon Bruce was making the first Hollywood / Hong Kong coproduction with a film called Enter the Dragon. Unfortunately, Lee died on July 20, 1973, in Kowloon Tong, before this film was released. This film catapulted him to international fame. Today Bruce Lee’s legacy of self expression, equality, and pioneering innovation continues to inspire people all around the world.
Greatest quotes from Bruce Lee
Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.
Using no way as way; having no limitation as limitation
Always be yourself; express yourself; have faith in yourself.
Be a practical dreamer backed by action
To change with change is the changeless state.
Research your own experience. Absorb what is useful Reject what is useless. Add what is essentially your own.v
