In choosing to resolve our life everyday, we live present. We live fluid. We have no carry over angst for something we should have or could have done better. The remarkable aspect of living with the end in
mind is that we also create or encounter a life without regret-not unconsciously but with intention-consciously. Our emotional and mental domains pretty much remain “thought debt” free. We do no harm and we begin to grow compassion and understanding for harm done. We are then able to see life and death as a continuum, not so much as a start and a finish but as a fluid experience. To quote Bruce Lee: “Be water, my friend”.
Bruce Lee was a pop cultural philosopher and martial arts film phenomenon in the 60’s and until his early death in 1973. He is commonly considered to be the creator and/or the greatest contributor to the popularization of the film genre. His take on pop culture, philosophy and living with the end in mind brought us the coolest most legendary “meditative” fight scenes and thought provoking existential story lines over the past 6 plus decades including The Karate Kid, Kung Fu, his son, Brandon Lee’s film series The Crow, and most recently and probably the most captivating, The Matrix in which the protagonist Neo, is THE quintessential purveyor of “the fluid”. The Matrix franchise is one of many that rifted off Lee’s work and philosophy of living. Bruce Lee was a self proclaimed atheist who paraphrased zen and taught so many the spiritual art of living and, most especially, the art of dying.
Here is a lift from The Bruce Lee Foundation website: bruce lee on the art of dying
“When Bruce Lee spoke about the Art of Dying, he did not mean dying in the literal sense, but as a metaphor for letting go of the past and things that limit you, so you can be a fluid human in the present moment”.
“Empty your mind.
Be formless, shapeless, like water.
You put water into a cup; it becomes the cup.
You put it into a teapot; it becomes the teapot.
You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle.
Now water can flow, or it can crash!
Be water, my friend.”
- Bruce Lee
That’s pretty powerful. Live fluid. Live present. Don't carry over angst. Resolve. Dissolve. Let it go. Let it die. Let go of the gnawing and by doing so give space to others to do the same. Embody conscious effort everyday to live life with the end in mind.
When we clear our conscience in the moment for ourselves and really, for all of life that we engage in everyday, we hold ourselves in accountability for our words and actions and we inspire and guide others into the same. We stop shaming and blaming. We stop doing harm and violence. Even the micro violences like the sharp words and body language that stings or the judgement that creates emotional wounds.
Marvin Gaye sang: “We’re all sensitive people with so much to give”.
When we live with the end in mind, the moments in everyday are embraced as we posture ourselves to recognizing sensitivity in ourselves and others and to give to it and into it. So how do we give to and into each others’ sensitivity? By acknowledging it, by holding space for it when it needs to express itself in difficult emotions. We don’t judge and we don’t react back. We seek and guide towards resolution. We stop pushing for ourselves and against others. When we truly do resolve in every moment of everyday, the difficult emotions between us truly do dissolve. We live present. We live fluid. We live complete. We get through it, whatever that “it” was or is.
We begin to see how those transgressions that wounded us are transformed and are seen through a lens of compassion and understanding. We live through and release the suffering role of victim and perpetrator.
We live complete in the knowledge that we really truly can be without the gnawing sense of things undone or of things becoming undone. We begin to live in hope and faith. To paraphrase the wisdom of an insightful psychic, we learn to have radical faith in the process of life.
Trust becomes us once again, as does beauty and grace. We move through life with a sense of the open hearted joy in knowing that life is dynamic and always changes, that it is fluid like water. Then we get it - that the consciousness that moves through every single aspect of life on earth is part of a continuum. We are born. We live. We die. We do it again and again in perpetuity, in infinity. This is the circle of our existence from every micro, macro and meta experience of it.
When we live fully trusting in the knowledge that we will die and when we do, nothing we have done, nothing we didn’t do or nothing we have said or didn’t say will go with us. We begin to see how to “be with” our fear and anxiety for what will become, or for what could happen. We then start to open ourselves to a deeper sense of who we are, what we have done and how we want to conduct our life. We aspire to our possibilities and inspire others to do the same. We live fully engaged with the world and the world engages back. How fundamentally cool is that?
Let’s consider a story that has been retold in different ways in different times by different people, here a Native American tribe is credited, but it has also been quoted as being a rift on Romans: 18-19.
An (old Cherokee) is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The (old Cherokee) simply replied, “The one you feed.”
When we live with the end in mind, we make choices with purpose and presence. Our thoughts and our actions follow suit. In choosing to resolve our life every moment of everyday, we live present. “The good wolf” inside of us has space to become us, to fill us up. We are fluid. We are water. We live and we die in every single moment, thought, word and action of everyday. We give way to opening our headspace instead of pushing against it. We are trust, beauty, joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. We are grace and we grace others with the beautiful virtues of the two wolves story.
We live the way of the empty mind. We practice the Art of Dying.
”To accept defeat — to learn to die — is to be liberated from it. Once you accept, you are free to flow and to harmonize. Fluidity is the way to an empty mind. You must free your ambitious mind and learn the art of dying.”
“I don’t know what is the meaning of death, but I am not afraid to die — and I go on, non-stop, going forward [with life]. Even though I, Bruce Lee, may die some day without fulfilling all of my ambitions, I will have no regrets. I did what I wanted to do and what i’ve done, i’ve done with sincerity and to the best of my ability. You can’t expect much more from life.”
-Bruce Lee
Live everyday as though it were your first and as though it were your last. Do it with sincerity and to the best of your ability. Expect no more, expect no less. Learn to die everyday. Be free to flow and to harmonize. Live with the end in mind. Be steadfast and be flexible. As Master Po said so many times to his student Kwai Chang Caine: “Patience Grasshopper”.
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