Читать книгу Bruce Lee Artist of Life. Inspiration and Insights from the World's Greatest Martial Artist онлайн

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A yielding will has a resposeful ease, soft as downy feathers,

A quietude, a shrinking from action, an appearance of inability to do.

Placidly free from anxiety, one acts

with the opportune time; one moves and revolves in the line

of creation. One does not move ahead but responds to the fitting influences.

Establish nothing in regard to oneself. Let things be

what they are, move like water, rest like a mirror,

respond like an echo, pass quickly like the nonexistent,

and be quiet as purity. Those who gain, lose. Do not

precede others, always follow them.¹¹

The natural phenomenon which the gung fu man sees as being the closest resemblance to wu wei is water:

Nothing is weaker than water,

But when it attacks something hard

Or resistant, then nothing withstands it,

And nothing will alter its way.¹²

The above passages from the Tao Te Ching illustrate to us the nature of water: Water is so fine that it is impossible to grasp a handful of it; strike it, yet it does not suffer hurt; stab it, and it is not wounded; sever it, yet it is not divided. It has no shape of its own but molds itself to the receptacle that contains it. When heated to the state of steam it is invisible but has enough power to split the earth itself. When frozen it crystallizes into a mighty rock. First it is turbulent like Niagara Falls, and then calm like a still pond, fearful like a torrent, and refreshing like a spring on a hot summer’s day. So is the principle of wu wei: