(The Dojo) 20 best moments of Bruce Lee fighting ever recorded
Was Bruce Lee even a real human?
Real fights break out: Enter the Dragon
(BruceLeeRealFight) Three stuntmen tried to start actual fights
Friday, June 5, 2026
We live in a CAVE? (Plato's allegory)
(Bluntgard) "Standup Philosopher" or "Bullsh*t Artist" (Mel Brooks' History of the World, Pt. 1
The allegory of the cave is presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work Republic (514a–520a, Book VII) to compare "the effect of education (παιδεία) and the lack of it on our nature."
They observe the shadows [images] projected onto the outer wall by objects carried behind the inner wall by people who are invisible to the chained "prisoners" and who walk along the inner wall with a fire behind them, creating the shadows on the outer wall in front of the shackled prisoners.
The only reality for the prisoners of the cave are those shadows and sounds, which are of course only inaccurate representations of the real world. The shadows represent distorted and blurred copies of reality we perceive through our senses, while the objects under the Sun represent the true forms of objects that we can only perceive through reason [or directly through refined intuition].
Socrates explains how a "philosopher" is like a prisoner now freed from the cave who comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not the direct source of the images seen.
(After Skool) The profound meaning of Plato's allegory of the cave
The Allegory of the Cave
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| The unexamined life is not worth living. |
It is written as a dialogue between Plato's brother Glaucon and his mentor Socrates. It is narrated by Socrates. The allegory is presented after the analogy of the Sun (508b–509c) and the analogy of the divided line (509d–511e).
In the allegory, Plato describes people who have spent their whole lives chained by their necks and ankles in front of an inner wall [a screen] with a view of the empty outer wall of the cave.
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| Allegory of Fortune |
The "sign bearers" pronounce the names of the objects, the sounds of which are reflected near the shadows and are understood by the prisoners as if they were coming from the shadows themselves.
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| Allegory of Queen Elizabeth |
Three higher levels exist: (1) natural science; (2) deductive mathematics, geometry, and logic; and (3) the theory of forms.
(T&H) Shut up, Caveman Beatle George Harrison, or we will erase you.
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| Allegory of the Recognition |
A philosopher aims to understand and perceive the higher levels of reality. However, the other inmates of the cave do not even want to escape their chains or leave their prison, for they know no better life [1].
Socrates remarks that this allegory can be paired with previous writings, namely the analogy of the Sun and the analogy of the divided line. More
Is being awake hard, Jimbo?
- After Skool; Jim Carrey, George Harrison (T&H Inspiration and Motivation); Philosopher Mel Brooks; CC Liu, Pfc. Sandoval, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
PROM: Come party at free dance (6/6)
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| It's a prom for adults (21+) and a great chance to relive having missed it in high school. |
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| Sami Gurl, meet m' Mom, Mrs. Willie! |
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| I was looking forward to it, Woody! |
Dress to impress for a chance to win prizes for Prom King, Prom Queen, Best Dressed, and more. No spiking the punch. Book a room at Morongo Casino Resort & Spa. Good times, so it's 21+. Dressing up not required but encouraged. No RSVP required.
- The Woody Show Prom 6/6/26 @ Morongo Casino
- Sammi Marino (@sammimarino) • Instagram
- VIDEO: Hi, I'm Sammi on Instagram w/fat Woody
- VIDEO: Showgirls Sammi, Morgan, Gina... (IG)
- Sammi Marino (IMDb)
- Sammi Marino's Woody Show on Instagram
- The Woody Show | Facebook by Menace
What is a "prom"?
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| I need a new boyfriend. Maybe I can meet somebody at the prom. Hold on, Willie's calling. |
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| High School prom couple portrait |
Other students may be honored with inclusion in a prom court. The selection method for a prom court is similar to that of homecoming queen/princess, king/prince, and court.
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| Date Night at the Clubhouse |
The prom queen and prom king may be given crowns to wear. Members of the prom court may be given sashes to wear and photographed together [6]. Similar events, which may be locally inspired by debutante balls, take place in many other parts of the world. More
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| Gaygory, Fats, Gina Grad, and Fats Junior (plus Morgan, Byork, and Sammi are TWS |
- Sammi Marino (@sammimarino • IG) Productions, Alt 98.7 FM LA; Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Jen B. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
The Perfection of our Imperfections
The art of golden joinery
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| More beautiful for being broken? (Etsy) |
- A crack in a vessel is not a mistake, not an error, but rather a means of allowing light in.
- "NO-MIND" (Japanese mushin, Chinese 無心, wúxīn, Sanskrit acitta, acittika, acintya, nirvikalpa) is a mental state that is important in East Asian religions, Asian culture, and the arts. The idea is discussed in classic Zen (Chan) Buddhist texts and has been described as "the experience of an instantaneous severing of thought that occurs in the course of a thoroughgoing pursuit of a Buddhist meditative exercise" [1, 2].
- It is not necessarily a total absence of thinking, however. Instead, it can refer to an absence of clinging, conceptual proliferation (cycling through an endless hamster wheel), or being stuck in thought [1].
- Chinese Buddhist texts also link this experience with Buddhist metaphysical concepts, like Buddha-nature and Dharmakaya. The term is also found in Taoist literature, including the Zhuangzi. This idea eventually influenced other aspects of Asian culture and the arts. Thus, the effortless state of "no mind" (flow state) is one cultivated by poets, artists, craftspeople, performers, and trained martial artists, who may not even think it is associated with Buddhism or Taoism [3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. More: No-mind
The method is similar to the maki-e technique [2, 3, 4]. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object rather than something to disguise [5] or hide.
History
Kintsugi became closely associated with ceramic vessels used for chanoyu (Japanese tea ceremony) [3].
On the one hand, one theory is that kintsugi may have originated when Japanese shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimasa sent a damaged Chinese tea bowl back to China for repairs in the late 15th century.
When it was returned, repaired with crude metal staples, it may have prompted Japanese craftsmen to look for a more aesthetically pleasing means of repair [2].
On the other hand, according to Bakōhan Saōki (record of tea-bowl with a "large-locust" clamp), such "ugliness" was considered inspirational and Zen-like, as it connoted beauty in broken things.
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| Goryeo ewer with gold repair spout/handle (20th cent) |
The bowl thus became highly valued due to the large metal staples, which looked like a locust, and the bowl was named 'bakōhan ("large-locust clamp") [6]. Collectors became so enamored of the new art that some were accused of deliberately smashing valuable pottery so it could be repaired with the gold seams of kintsugi.
It is also possible that a pottery piece was chosen for deformities it had acquired during production, then deliberately broken and repaired, instead of being discarded [2].
The technique of kintsugi was also applied to ceramic pieces with origins outside of Japan, including China, Vietnam, and Korea [7].
Wabi-sabi, philosophy of embracing flaws and imperfections
(T&H Inspiration & Motivation) What is the most skillful art? Noninterference, flowing, surfing
As a philosophy, kintsugi is similar to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, an embracing of the flawed or imperfect [8, 9]. Japanese aesthetics values marks of wear from the use of an object.
- WABI-SABI (侘び寂び) in traditional Japanese aesthetics centers on the Buddhist acceptance of transience and imperfection [2]. It is often described as the appreciation of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" [3]. It is prevalent in many forms of Japanese art [4, 5]. Wabi-sabi combines two interrelated concepts, wabi (侘) and sabi (寂). According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, wabi may be translated as "subdued, austere beauty," and sabi as "rustic patina" [6]. Wabi-sabi derives from the Buddhist teaching of the Three Marks of Existence (三法印, sanbōin), which states that ALL things are impermanent (無常, mujō), unsatisfactory (苦, ku), and impersonal (or empty, shunyata, devoid of self-nature, 空, kū) [7].
This can be seen as a rationale for keeping an object around even after it has broken. It can also be understood as a justification of kintsugi itself, highlighting cracks and repairs as events in the life of an object, rather than allowing its service to end at the time of its damage or breakage [10].
The philosophy of kintsugi can also be seen as a variant of the adage: "Waste not, want not" [11].
Kintsugi can relate to the Japanese philosophy of "no-mind" (mushin, 無心), which encompasses the concepts of non-attachment, acceptance of change, and fate as aspects of human life [12].
Not only is there no attempt to hide the damage, but the repair is literally illuminated...a kind of physical expression of the spirit of mushin....often literally translated as "no mind," but carr[ying] connotations of fully existing within the moment, of non-attachment, of equanimity amid changing conditions. ...The vicissitudes of existence over time, to which all humans are susceptible, could not be clearer than in the breaks, the knocks, and the shattering to which ceramic ware too is subject. This poignancy or aesthetic of existence has been known in Japan as mono no aware, a compassionate sensitivity, or perhaps identification with, [things] outside oneself.
— Christy Bartlett, Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics
Materials and types of joinery: There are a few major styles or types of kintsugi:
- "Crack" (ひび), the use of gold dust and resin or lacquer to attach broken pieces with minimal overlap or fill-in from missing pieces
- "Piece method" (欠けの金継ぎ例), if a replacement ceramic fragment is not available and the entirety of the addition is gold or gold/lacquer compound
- "Joint call" (呼び継ぎ), the use of a similarly shaped but non-matching fragment to replace a missing piece from the original vessel creating a patchwork effect [13]. More: kintsugi
- CC Liu, Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit
HELP WANTED: WQ assistant trainee
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| What is Zen practice other than the ordinary? |
Our Dharma editor so wowed the crowd and abbot with a powerful talk on the three most important things to understand in Buddhism that we were asked to return again a week later for the Friday night meditation group.
It became clear that Wisdom Quarterly and the Dharma Buddhist Meditation needs help, a personal assistant eager to learn about Buddhism, meditation, yoga, spirituality, vegetarian/vegan health, Meetup.com, and helping organize for-profit events. We will train.
These qualifications are helpful:
- knowledge of social media
- proficiency in cellphone use
- living in Los Angeles or Orange County
- interest in meditation practice
- exercise of some sort (yoga, breathwork etc.)
- interest or knowledge of the various Buddhisms
- love and appreciation of some kind of music
- enthusiastic about beach, prom, helping with live events
- appropriate for shy introverts, situational ambiverts, and even funny extroverts
Introduce yourself and indicate your interest at Dharma Buddhist Meditation (meetup.com/zen-07) or privately in the comments section below
Tuesday, June 2, 2026
Mandy Kahn: Peace not opposite of war
Peace is not the opposite of war
Mandy Kahn (edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly)
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| Inner peace begins when... (Tiny Buddha) |
But peace is not the opposite of war. What they are noticing when they enter the state of peace, the peace state, is the absence of war.
We use this shorthand until we are hamstrung by it, defining peace as absence.
But to define peace by what is not there is to fail to understand what IS there.
What is there? In the peace state, what is there is the experience of honoring all beings.
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| Let's bury them alive? War gives IDF meaning |
What is there is an experience of deep and sustained compassion—a caring for all others as well as self.
What is there is an awareness that one’s true nature is loving and peaceful with a conscious, vibrant experience of one’s loving and peaceful nature.
What is there is a deep remembering of the interconnectedness (intermeshed oneness) of all beings.
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| When genocide is caught on film (NYT) |
In this loving experience of compassion-without-end, war simply does not begin.
It is not that war is not allowed in the peace state—it’s that no one in the peace state ever chooses it.
War not beginning is a result of what is present in the peace state.
It is not that the "absence of war" is present, it’s that compassion-for-all-beings is present. And when compassion-for-all-beings is present, war is never present.
Definition
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| War Force Gives Us Meaning |
This would be like teaching our children, "There is the Golden Gate Bridge, and there is Los Angeles, which is where the Golden Gate Bridge is not." Then our children would grow up to say, "Yes, Los Angeles, that’s the place where the Golden Gate Bridge is not!"
To associate peace with one thing that is not present in the peace state is to be distracted from what is there.
What is inherently present in the peace state is compassion-without-end, the honoring of all beings, the honoring of earth, a sense of the connectedness of all human beings, the knowledge of one’s inherent true nature, and the feeling of love-without-limits and without-end, unconditional love (Buddhist metta, Ancient Greek love).
These presences are all inherent aspects of peace.
When we begin to think of peace in terms of its presences, we begin to understand what peace is, how to build it, how to sustain it, and how to share it.
An experience of peace
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| Then a wave of bliss came over me: metta |
As a result of these presences, we act in ways that are respectful of self and others concurrently. These actions are a result of what we know when we are in the peace state, what we remember we are when we are in the peace state.
Misdefined peace
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| "Let that sh*t go," the Awakened One might say |
A ceasefire is an action taken as a step to end a war.
Peace and ceasefire are two very different things. The fact that we have used one word to mean both indicates our fundamental confusion about the true nature of peace.
A "ceasefire" can only exist in a place where fighting is a possibility. In the peace state, fighting never begins. Therefore, a ceasefire cannot exist in the peace state.
Conflating peace and ceasefire has created profound confusion—one of the greatest of our time.
That’s what makes this moment so powerful. We can begin, right NOW, to learn what peace is—to learn what is present when peace is. We can begin to understand the difference between peace and ceasefire, and to separate them as distinct. Once they are separated, we can begin to learn about peace free of confusion.
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| See you Wednesday for a guided meditation |
A ceasefire is simply a part of the cycle of belligerence.
The peace state is infinitely more powerful than any ceasefire.
To equate peace with a ceasefire is to reduce peace’s power.
To separate the concept of peace from the concept of a ceasefire is to return peace’s power to us.
- Mandy Kahn (mandykahn.com)
- Mandy Kahn (text); Sum of Some Books (War and Peace summary); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly
Bruce Lee: True meaning of martial arts
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| Don't fight like fire; dance like water |
Poet philosopher Bruce Lee was born Lee Jun-fan on Nov. 27, 1940, passing away at 32 on July 20, 1973. He was an American and Hong Kong mixed martial artist, teacher, actor, Hollywood superstar, and filmmaker.
He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy ["Lee-ism"?], which was formed from his experiences in unarmed fighting and self-defense—as well as eclectic, Zen Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian philosophies—as a new school of martial arts thought [2, 3].
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| Standing on the shoulders of giants (symbol) |
Known for his roles in five feature-length martial arts films, he is credited with helping to popularize martial arts films in the 1970s and promoting Hong Kong action cinema [8, 9].
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| I will kill you, Lee! - No, you won't, Tough Guy, because you didn't see this coming. Hah! |
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| Smile. It's good for body and chi. |
Lee's early martial arts experience included Wing Chun (trained under Ip Man), tai chi, boxing (winning a Hong Kong boxing tournament), and frequent street fighting (neighborhood and rooftop fights).
He moved to Seattle in 1959, enrolling at the University of Washington in 1961 [11]. More
- T&H Inspiration & Motivation (video); Pfc. Sandoval, Doggone, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit
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