10 Best Kung Fu Lessons

Because of the movie Office Space, I have been brainwashed by Ron Livingston into thinking that the perfect date contains eating food (preferably Chinese, also conveniently my favorite) and then watching Kung Fu.

As a person who is often wound and anxious, when I watched the seventies TV show a couple years ago I was forever changed. Like other things in my life, Kung Fu is still something that helps me calm down and relax. It's one of my happy places. I feel like even if you don't like David Carradine or think he doesn't qualify as a good cover Asian, you can't deny that this series is very Zen and philosophical.

So, while I wait for my perfect date to happen, here are some lessons I learned from Kung Fu...mostly from Masters Kan and Po

This one is probably the most quoted thing from the show, besides references to snatching pebbles and grasshoppers, but it is very deserved in this recognition.

Young Kwai Chang Cane: Old man, how is it that you can hear these things?

Master Po: Young man, how is that you do not?

Master Po: The bird sings in the forest. Does it seek to be admired for its song? Let tears come, when your heart tells you of its sadness. Let joy come unashed, unplanned

Master Kan: Seek always peace. Wear no paths for the footsteps of others, unless the souls are endangered. We are all linked by our souls. To endanger one, endangers all.

Master Kan: Look to the water at your feet. Does not the sage say: 'what is more yielding than water?' Yet, back it comes again, wearing down the ridged strength, which cannot stand to its strength. What is more forceful than quiet water?

Master Po: Grasshopper, be your self. And never fear thus to be naked to the eyes of others. Yet, know that man so often masks himself. That what is simple is rarely understood. The dust of truth swirls and seeks its own cracks of entry. And a tree falling in the forest, without ears to hear, makes no sense. Yet it falls.

Master Po: As the wise farmer puts back into the land at least as much as he has taken out of it. So soon you must give back to others what you have taken for yourself

Master Po: When the heart knows no danger, no danger exists. When the soul becomes the warrior, all fear melts, as the snowflake that falls upon your hand

Master Po: That which you do not know, the doing will quickly teach you

Master Po: Which is truly the prisoner? The fly, which moving freely, enters unknown danger. Or the spider? Which having spun its web, remains. Never knowing the pleasure or the danger of the fly

Master Po: The mountain is beautiful with snow. But after it loses its snow, green grows from underneath. In every loss there is a gain, as in every gain there is a loss