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Quotes from Series 1 of the 1970s TV show starring David Carradine.
Newcomer, why don’t you speak? A man without words is a man without brains.
If one’s words are no better than silence, one should keep silent.
[GH] You cannot see.
[Po] You think I cannot see.
Of all things, to live in darkness must be the worst.
Fear is the only darkness.
[Kan] To hit a target in this manner is to exercise inner strength. Indeed there are 2 kinds of strength, the outer strength is obvious. It fades with age and succumbs to sickness. Then there is the chi, the inner strength. Everyone possesses it too. But is indeed much more difficult to develop. The inner strength lasts through every heat, and every cold, through old age and beyond.
[Han Fei] For every man there is a proper place. But you, a man like yourself, should do what is his calling. Perhaps I was wrong bringing you here.
What happens to a man is already written. Man must move through life as his destiny wills.
True, yet each man is free to live as he chooses. Though they seem opposite, both are true. [laughs] I do not understand it.
You have taken in much, old man, like the waters of the Tao.
[Kan] Between the fragile beauty of the praying mantis and the fire and passion of the winged dragon, there is no discord. Between the supple silence of the snake and the eagle’s claws there is only harmony, as no 2 elements in nature are in conflict. So when we perceive the ways of nature, we remove conflict within ourselves and discover a harmony of body and mind in accord with the flow of the universe. It may take half a lifetime to master one system.
[GH] What is the best way to deal with force?
[Teh] As we prize peace and quiet above victory there is a simple and preferred method.
What is that?
Run away.
[Kan] Perceive the way of nature, and no force of man can harm you. Do not meet a wave head on. Avoid it. You do not have to stop force. It is easier to redirect it . Learn more ways to rpeserve rather than destroy. Avoid rather than check. Check rathery than hurt. Hurt rather than maim. Maim rather than kill. For all life is precious, nor can any be replaced.
Men do not beat drums before they hunt for tigers.
What is the value of truth, Master?
[Kan] It binds one to the reality of oneself.
This is hard for me to understand.
So is truth hard to understand except that which cannot be spoken.
But should I not always speak the truth, no matter the consequences?
Recognize that all words are part false and part true, limited by our imperfect understanding. But strive always for honesty within yourself.
[Po] Arise calmly Grasshopper and brush the indignity off your trousers. You fought blindly Grasshopper.
Yes master, forgive me.
Forgive yourself. You have suffered for it. What is the cause of your anger?
It is anger at myself.
Yes, but what is the reason?
For being a coward. Yesterday when Ho Fong and I were attacked by 5 boys in the market place. He was struck first, and out of fear I did nothing.
What should you have done?
Fought back, helped my friend.
What is cowardice but the body’s wisdom of its weakness? What is bravery but the body's wisdom of its strength? A coward and a hero march together within every man. So to call one man coward and another brave mere serves to indicate the possibilities of their achieving the opposite.
[Kan] Those who speak convincingly of peace must not go armed. Those who speak convincingly of peace must not be weak. So we make every finger a dagger, every arm a spear, every hand an axe or sword.
[Po] Weakness prevails over strength. Gentleness conquers. Become the calm and restful breeze that tames the violent sea.
[Cain] I have senselessly ended a life.
The sin would have been to desert Master Po, or to remain, to senselessly accept your own death. Death does no-one honour. The shame does not lie with you but with the nephew of the emperor. Now go, for you may no longer remain here.
[Master Kan] The rabbit feels rage, the tiger pity, the dragon pain. All creatures, the low and the high, are one with nature. No life is insignificant. If we have the wisdom, all may teach us their virtues.
From the crane we learn grace & selfcontrol. The snake teaches us suppleness & rhythmic endurance. The praying mantis teaches us speed & patience. From the tiger we learn tenacity & power. From the dragon we learn to ride the wind. Life sustains life & all living creatures need nourishment. Yet with wisdom, the body learns to sustain in ways that all may live.
[Cain] Do we seek victory in contention?
Seek rather not to contend.
[Cain] Shall we not then be defeated?
We know that where there is no contention, there is neither defeat or victory. The supple willow does not contend against the storm, yet it survives.
Do you sit by yourself, Grasshopper? What do you think of?
My mother and father, both gone. I am alone.
Do you hear the flock of birds flying overhead? Do you hear the fish? The beetle? In this crowded place, you feel alone. Which of us is the most blind?
[Cain, to boy] To know nature is to put oneself in perfect harmony with the universe. Heaven & Earth are one, so must we seek a discipline of mind & body within ourselves.
Our bodies are prey to many needs: hunger, thirst, the need for love. In one lifetime a man knows many pleasures: a mother's smile in waking hours; a young woman's intimate searing touch; the laughter of grandchildren in the twilight years. To deny these things in ourselves is to deny that which makes us one with nature.
[Grasshopper] Shall we then seek to satisfy our needs?
Only acknowledge them, and satisfaction will follow. To suppress a truth, is to give it force beyond endurance.
[Serenity] - You don't say much, little brother...
To thank you with words would be to cheapen the gift.
Never question good fortune, little brother, the world has far too much of its opposite.
[Master Po] What, sad, Grasshopper?
My sadness is for you.
Is it?
Never to see the clouds. Never to see the sun on the water or the plumage of a bird.
Yet sometimes it is eyes that blind a man.
How can this be?
Because he can see, he does not look. Is the bird only the colour of his plumage? None should think so. To be at one with the universe is to know bird, sun, cloud. How much shall a man lose if he then loses his eyes?
[Serenity] What do you want, little brother? Thanks for saving me for this [blindness]?
You are alive.
Perversity, greed, covetousness. Not theirs, mine. I found the gold. I still had hopes - of what? Soft beds, bright lights. Let it be known, there is a just and angry god.
Are you alive?
Blinded!
Yes.
Helpless!
Not helpless. I could help you. You spoke of a church. Build it.
How?
With your hands - with their help [gestures].
I need supplies.
Yes.
Money!
Find it!
[Serenity]You know what you have done for me?
What you yourself have done.
To say thanks is to cheapen the gift.
I remember.
You taught me to listen beneath the words.
[Coralee] What do you want?
What is rightfully mine. Roots. My heritage.
It's been ten days without food, water. You will die.
Then I will die.
[Serenity] Did you think you would live forever? I know you, Henry Raphael Caine. Drunk, you drove your son out of your house because it shrivelled your soul to see his Chinese wife. Drunk, you closed your ears to your wife when she pleaded to let them stay. Bigot! Womanizer! All these years you've blamed someone else, your son, your grandson, because you didn't have the courage to look at yourself. It was you killed her, old man. It was seeing what you were. [fends off blows] Which one of us, Henry Caine, is blind?
[Soong's son] It is my duty to obey; I respect & revere my father. But I have never been prouder to be his son than last night when he risked my safety, and that of my mother and sister, in accordance with the wishes of the priest.
[Letter from Lin Wu] Do not clutch at pain, and pain will pass... In my country we say there is a time for each to die, it is not the death that is so drear but the fear of death. Fear is the darkness, and I wish you to know that I am not afraid. At the end, it is not riches, not structures of stone, but remembrances of those few people we have joined spirits with.
[Soong] The father learns from the son.
[Cain] But the father learns. That is perhaps enough.
[Grasshopper, discovering abandoned baby] Hunger is everywhere. Is it better to let the infant die than force it to live?
All life is sacred. Thus the joining together of man and woman is always honoured. Apart, there is no life. But from such union, life may proceed.
[Grasshopper] Then life must always be defended.
The thorn defends the rose. It harms only those that would steal the blossom from the plant.
[Cain] The life within you is a thing of beauty. A child cannot be made ugly by the unhappiness that begins it.
[Woman] It's all ugly. The only thing will be to see that sergeant dead.
[Cain] Will that bring beauty to your child?
Nothing could. Do you know about the war?
[Cain] I know about war. It is a word men use to clothe the nakedness of their killing.
Guess that doesn't bother you, does it?
You are hurt? You feel pain? Will vengeance ease your pain?
Yes, it's gonna taste real sweet.
[Flashback - Grasshopper] Is injury wrought by oneself?
No Grasshopper.
Then by another?
No.
Then by oneself and another?
Did your eye meet your own fist?
Then shall I seek ways to repay?
No! What is the debt? Vengeance is a water vessel with a hole. It carries only the promise of emptiness.
Then must I always repay injury with kindness?
[Woman in labour] I'm scared.
See the graceful things around you, hear the peaceful sounds.
I hear my own heartbeat.
The butterfly floating in the sunlight. The incense of sage. The laughter of the wind. Think on these. Trust.
I'm scared.
[Flashback - Master Po] Fear is the enemy. Trust is the armour.
But knowing not what will happen, am I not wise to be afraid?
He who conquers himself is the greatest warrior. Do what must be done with a docile heart.
Master, how will I know if it is possible?
Listen for the colour of the sky. Look for the sound of the humming bird's wings. Search for the perfume of ice on a hot day. If you have found these things, you will know!
[Grasshopper] I am ashamed.
[Master Po] To feel shame for no cause is a waste. To feel shame for a cause is also a waste. For you must rather spend time correcting that for which you are ashamed.
I woke last night... I was afraid... Of death.
He who knows how to live need not fear death. He can walk without fear of rhino or tiger... He will not be wounded in battle. In him the rhino can find no place to thrust his horn, the tiger no place to use his claws, and weapons no place to pierce. Because a man who knows how to live has no place for death to enter!
[Cain] Hate is like salt water - you drink but grow more thirsty. I have seen the silk worm, who weaves a thread to hide behind but who weaves a tomb. Hate is a tomb.
[Cain] I am a man like any other.
[Woman] No, you're different.
Then you have not met enough.
[Grasshopper] Is it good to seek the past, Master Po? Does it not rob the present?
If a man dwells in the past, then he robs the present. But if a man ignores the past, then he may rob the future. The seeds of our destiny our nutured by the roots of our past.
[Grasshopper]I do not understand why Ho Fung was told to leave and not I, when I was equally responsible for trusting the old man.
We do not punish for trust. If building a house, a carpenter strikes a nail, and the nail proves faulty by bending, does he lose faith in all nails and stop building his house?
Then we are required to trust, even if we are often reminded of the existence of evil.
Deal with people through strength, but affirm the good in man through trust. In this way we are prepared for evil but we encourage good.
And is good a great reward for trusting?
In striving for an ideal, we do not seek rewards. Yet trust does sometimes bring with it a great reward, even greater than good.
What is greater than good?
Love.
[Cain] Can a woman be happy alone?
To be alone without one to love is a waste of the body. But to be not alone without one to love is a waste of the soul.
Those are your father's words.
Yet they speak my feelings.
Your father is a very wise man. I have not always understood his words.
[Cain] To write of freedom as your father does, does not bring joy to emperors. Yet did not your father say, "Those who value freedom most must sometimes choose to lose it"?
[Master] What do you feel?
[Grasshopper] Uncomfortable.
The mind, body and spirit are one. When the body expresses the desires of the mind and spirit, then the body is in tune with nature. The act is pure, and there is no shame.
And what is love?
Love is harmony, even in discord.
[Woman] Love borne of betrayal is better lost than lived.
[Cain] Those are your father's words.
[Po] Grasshopper, seek first to know your own journey's beginning and end. Seek then the other journeys of which you are a close part. But in this seeking, know patience. Wear the traveller's cloak that shelters and permits you to endure.
[Master] When you leave these walls, you will come across the many pillars of violence.
[GH] May not a man, at one with nature, seeing such pillars, avoid them?
Other men stumble in the way. They go in eyeless search for peace.
Must I then tumble down these pillars?
Seek always peace. Wear no path for the footsteps of others, unless the soul is endangered. We are all linked by our souls. To endanger one, endangers all.
And if endangered master?
In such times, the soul must be the warrior.
[Sheriff Thoms] There was a reason for it all… But death – you see enough of death, it starts to haunt you, fills your eyes, your ears, weighs in your belly. You come to know it.
[Cain] Each journey of a man crosses this path, and each man sees death in his own mirror.
I've seen death piled around me until the air couldn't gather. I'm afraid of it. Smoked dry, waiting for it. Gone past my luck. Ed Rankin's gone through it like I have but fear has never touched that man, being Indian. They believing life runs flat like a table, and death isn't a fence. But I 'm white, and I know.
What do you know?
That it ends, son. We struggle, and we grow old, and it ends, and that's all there is. And it is black inside that box.
[Master] What the eye sees disappears with a blink, or a wandering puff of breath. Where there was light the eye denied sees nothing. Watch - [blows candle out]
[GH] My eye is denied. No light, no candle, nothing.
Come. [Moves into light] That is what the eye sees. What the souls sees cannot be denied.
Will not the soul too see nothing, when death blinks its eye?
No. The soul sees always.
Yet the body dies.
Does the sun die?
It does not shine at night.
It shines - somewhere. You do not see it.
[Cain] It does not end. The journey goes on from one time to another. Nothing dies that was ever something.
[Sheriff] I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
[Po] Discipline your body, Grasshopper, that you may find a greater power.
But master, what greater power is there?
Those who surrender themselves find inner strength
Will this protect me more than could my arms and legs?
When the heart knows no danger, no danger exists. When the soul becomes a warrior, all fear melts as the snowflake that falls upon your hand.
[Cain] You have the weakness to defend your injury with killing. Have you not the strength to forgive?
[Rankin] Well, we done a little talking, we done a few stunts, we tried to impress each other. But what have we learnt?.... What is you want?
[Cain] The life of Mr Thoms. For your fear - of me. Your fear hangs in the air, like the smell of a man close to death. [Reveals snake pit] You are afraid.
Afraid? Yes, just as a fool would be afraid. You know, a fool would put a pistol to his ear and pull the trigger, and what would you put on his gravestone, "Here lies the body of a brave man"? No. Here lies the body of a fool.
Afraid.
[GH] Master, how does one find the strength within oneself?
[Po] By being one with all that is without himself.
Yet these sometimes contend.
When fire meets ice, which prevails?
Ice.
Yet in prevailing, does not the ice, becoming water, also die?
Will the fire die?
That prevails which refuses to know the power of the other. Where fear is, does not danger also live? And where fear is not, does danger not also die? Where the tiger and the man are two, Grasshopper, he may die. Yet where the tiger and the man are one, there is no fear, there is no danger. For what creature, at one with all nature, will attack itself?
[Rankin] Usteo. Usteo sumiteo.
[Sheriff] There isn't an Indian word for a hero, but there is for a man. What he said is, "Man, Usteo, is often hidden".
[Po] Grasshopper, be yourself, and never fear thus to be naked to the eyes of others. Yet know that men so often mask themselves, thus 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 sound. Yet it falls.
[Po] When I was a boy, I fell into a hole in the ground. I was broken and could not climb out. I might have died there but a stranger came along and saved me. He said it was his obligation, that for help he had once received he must in return help 10 others, each of whom would then help 10 others, so that good deeds would spread out like ripples from a pebble on a pond.
[Mulhare] How will you help me?
To begin any journey you must take the first step.
[Master] The best charioteers do not push ahead. The best fighters do not make displays of anger. The wisest antagonist is he who wins without engaging in battle.
[GH] But master, is this not a contradiction? To train the body thus, yet shun anger and battle?
This is the power of not contending. It is how the weak overcome the strong.
[Po] The hands Grasshopper are the eyes and ears of touch. Through them a man may reach out and see another's feelings or speak his own.
Is it not sad, Master, that the hands of a man may strike as well as caress?
Pain and pleasure are like two bells, side by side, and the voice of each makes a trembling in the other.
Are pain and pleasure then so alike?
Are the eyes and tongue alike? We see the butterlfy and an ugly wound. And the same tongue which screams also laughs.
[Cain] A teacher is as water to the soil. He cannot grow a pomegranate from a mustard seed.
[Po] In the pond there are some lotuses that stand above the water and though their roots feed, they themselves are untouched by it. Some others have risen only to the water’s level, and others are still under water.
[GH] Shall I seek to measure these differences Master? That I may treat them differently, each according to his growth?
Examine the flower. Is not the flower, in each position, yet a flower?
Shall I then treat each man the same?
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all.
Yet the flower beneath the water knows not the sun. Other men, not knowing me, will find me hard to understand.
Accept the ways of others. Respect first your own.
[Po, wants to play paper scissors stone] In games children teach sometimes more than books. Come instruct an old man - and yourself. Look beyond the game as you look beyond the surface of the pool to see its depths.
[GH] Each in turn conquers the other. There is not stronger or weaker.
This is the harmony of nature.
I will treasure this lesson, Master.
I have three treasures which I hold and keep. The first is mercy - for from mercy comes courage. The second is frugality, from which comes generosity to others. The third is humility, for from it comes leadership.
How will I hold and keep these treasures Master? In my memory?
No Grasshopper, in your deeds.
[Binns] A man who fights like ten tigers must have had a lot of training.
I was taught a good soldier is not violent; a fighter is not angry; a victor not vengeful.
[Po Teng] What would you do if you were Po Teng?
I am not Po Teng.
Have you no advice to give me?
Shall I advise you it is right to gain good for some by debasing another?
You do not help by asking such questions.
[Binns] The man of peace, who must fight like ten tigers.
Faced with two evils, must not every man choose?
[GH] Master, how may I walk a peaceful path when the world is seldom peaceful?
[Po] Peace lies not in the world, Grasshopper, but in the man who walks the path.
But in my path may be men not filled with peace.
Then seek a different path.
And if at each turn appear those who would be violent and do not love peace?
To reach perfection, a man must develop equally compassion and wisdom.
But Master, how do I not contend with a man that would contend with me?
In a heart that is one with nature, though the body contends, there is no violence, and in the heart that is not one with nature, though the body be at rest there is always violence. Be therefore like the prow of a boat. It cleaves the water yet it leaves in its wake water unbroken.
[Kwan Chen] But how shall we learn to be one with the universe without you?
The path is known to each man by finding it.
[Master Kan] Look at the world you live in and this pool of fish. There are twelve fish, twelve worlds.
But only one pool.
Many. The one you see, the one I see, and the world of each. The world you live in is mysterious, exciting, unknown; and mine is older, familiar, calm. You will never know my world, or I yours.
Never?
Can you see with my eyes? Think with my brain?
But Master, you are one with the universe. So am I.
We are one, yet we are not the same. Ten million living things have as many different worlds. Do not see yourself as a centre of the universe, wise and good and beautiful. Seek rather wisdom, goodness, beauty that you may know them everywhere.
[Po] Where is evil? In the rat, whose nature it is to steal grain? Or the cat, whose nature it is to kill the rat?
The rat steals. Yet for him, the cat is evil.
And to the cat, the rat.
Yet Master, surely one of them is evil?
The rat does not steal. The cat does not murder. Rain falls, the stream flows, a hill remains. Each acts according to its nature.
Then is there no evil for men? Each man tells himself that what he does is good. At least for himself.
Grasshopper, a man may tell himself many things. But is a man's universe made only of himself?
If a man hurts me and I punish him, perhaps he will not hurt another.
And if you do nothing?
He will believe he may do as he wishes.
Perhaps. Or perhaps he will learn that some men receive injury but return kindness.
[Huntoon] But I don't know nothing - I can't read or write or nothing.
You know pain. You know fear. You know the laughter of the wind and the perfume of the earth.
I owe that Meader a killing.
Why?
For what he done to me.
What of yourself? Do you not owe for what you have done?
You want me to go back so I can hang?
I would not ask that.
First you say one thing, then something else. Now I don't know what you want.
Ask not what I want but what path you yourself have chosen.
[Master Kan] The cobweb is made of silken thread so fine, a puff of breath destroys it. Yet to the spider it is a secure haven.
Still, to me, only a cobweb.
When the wind blows, a feather dances in its wake.
But the feather, much weaker than the wind, can do no other.
Is this the way of men?
There are strong and weak.
You do not see. Which is stronger, these boards or your arm?
The boards.
Strike the boards using your arm as a weapon. [Grasshopper breaks the boards in two] Yet the boards, resisting, do not endure.
Can the weaker be the stronger?
See the way of life as a stream. A man floats, and his way is smooth. The same man, turning to fight upstream, exhausts himself. To be one with the universe, each must find his true path, and follow it.
[Grasshopper] Master, we are taught that the most important gift of our natures is the reaching out to one another. To say and to listen. To teach what we know truly to those who do not know. To send peaceful thoughts over the bridge of words. Yet I am to speak only when spoken too.
Reach out, yet be wary of what you allow yourself to grasp. Go now Grasshopper and guard above all things the purity of your vision.
I have failed in my mission, disgraced your trust in me.
Of shame there is a great variety, but the butterfly scroll of Chuang Chou, only one.
[Thief brought with scroll][Guard] Did he ask to borrow the scroll?
Simply speak the truth.
[Alethea] If I never lie again, can't I be the same me as I was before?
Each waking moment is as a rung on an endless ladder. Each step we take is built on what went before.
Then I'll always be a liar.
But I can take your lie away from you.
How?
I will show you that your lie was indeed the truth.
[Grasshopper] Spare his life!
[Master Po] Because you owe him yours?
Spare his life and take mine.
[Guards leave] When will they come for me?
Nothing more will be taken from you.
But venerable sir, I have lost nothing.
You did not notice then?
But the scroll has been returned!
And your innocence, Grasshopper, how will that be returned?
[Alethea] I'm afraid it isn't straight yet in my head yet, Mr Caine, about the truth.
Is it not better to have it straight in your heart?
But I was wrong when I wasn't lying and right when I was.
The truth is that you are not a liar and I am not a murderer.
[Martin, about Victor] - I hate him.
Is that not a waste?
I do not use archery for killing.
[Martin] What do you use it for then?
A form of meditation.
Meditation? What do you think about?
I think of nothing but to be one with the target.
You think I'm going to believe that? How can you see what you're shooting at in the dark?
Watch my eyes [closes them, shoots]
How do you do that?
I do not do it. It is not done.
What do you mean, it's not done?
It is only experienced. It happens.
Happens?
Pole. Bow. Arrow. All are one. Not many things. Not different things. One.
Well, I see it, but I sure don't understand it.
That's good.
Why is it good?
It remains a puzzle. When you cease to try to understand, then you will know without understanding.
How come you know so much about bows and horses?
The horse lives. I live. We share this with all nature. We are all one.
[Martin]Don't you get lonesome, drifting around with no one to talk to?
I belong to myself.
Me too. Most of the time I wish I didn't though. Did you really mean what you said about not being afraid of death? Do you think you could teach me not to be afraid of it?
It is too soon. It is not something one man may teach another.
I think I know what you mean. You sort of have to teach yourself.
It is rare to ask your questions. It is more rare to listen to the answers.
Back at the creek, were you meditating again?
I cleanse my mind of impurities and disturbances.
How does that work?
It lets me see the nature of things as they are really are.
Is that what keeps you from getting mad?
It is how I can encounter life's many faces with some sense of peace.
Master, I am troubled. We learn to make powerful the force of our bodies. Yet we are taught to revere all against whom we may use such force.
When your life is threatened or that of another, you will be prepared to defend them.
Being thus prepared better than others, should I not always stand and fight?
Ignore the insulting tongue; duck the provoking blow. Run from the assault with a sword.
Are not these the actions of a coward?
The wild boar runs from the tiger. Knowing that each being well armed by nature with deadly strength, running, he saves his own life and that of the tiger. This is not cowardice. This is the love of life.
[Master Po - Cain refuses return of his sextant] You no longer wish to savour the memory of your father through that which was close to him?
Master, you have taught me to claim no possessions, that none may claim me.
The sextant was only a memory, which you could keep not only in your heart but in your hands.
I am of age. I must put away such memories.
Between father and son there is a bridge which neither time nor death can shatter. Each stands at one end needing to cross and meet.
[Cain] Master, are you never lonely?
Do you feel loneliness?
No, but I do not understand why, denied the experience of so many things that men desire, I do not?
Do you remember the first day you came here? You stood in the rain and did not play games with the others.
My mother and father were both dead.
We too were alone.
But you lived here together.
Man, like other animals, is meant to live together with others like himself, but the meaning of belonging to such a group is found in the comfort of silence and the companionship of solitude.
Is that why took me in and taught me?
We taught you, young man, because you already knew.
[Martin] What are you going to do, run?
[Mr Roper] I might.
Well that's what Cain would do, and he's just a coward.
Well, maybe I am too.
How can you just say that? Doesn't it make you sick?
Not really. Kind of a relief to know where you stand.
Is it not your job to be a boy?
I ain't no boy, I'm a man.
A man.
That's right. Takes a man to do what I'm doing.
Is a gun the only measure you know by which a boy becomes a man?
At least I ain't no coward.
[Mr Roper] Given this might be the end of the line, I think I'd like to pray. [Kneels] You?
Do you know the praying mantis?
Tall insect, looks like a stick when it stands up?
Looks like it's praying. It is the position it takes before it kills.
[Master Po] Why do you hesitate Grasshopper?
I am afraid.
What is it that you fear?
I don't know what lies beyond.
It is only a corridor leading to a place that is no longer used. Is there something to fear?
It is very dark.
And is it not also dark in your room?
Yes.
And do you have fear there also? Perhaps there is a greater reason then for your fear.
Master, before I came here, a boy in the marketplace whispered of a corridor of death. He said the place at the end holds the bones of many who entered.
But Grasshopper, what is it that I have told you?
That life is a corridor, and death only a door.
Do you not believe me?
Yes, master, but I am still afraid.
In time, you will learn to fear only your fear itself. We will talk of this again.
[Meaber] Do you not feel the cold? What kind of man are you?
I am no different from you.
Did you learn to fight like that in China?
Yes, and many other things.
Like what?
To celebrate everyman's life in my own.
I've done that before, but not the way you mean it. I've drunk to the health of everyone from the Atlantic to the Pacific and half way back again. And somehow along the way it came to me that I was the only one raising my glass. Now there's nothing to celebrate for. Nothing to celebrate with.
When a man has nothing, it is then he is most able to raise himself up.
I won't have to make the effort.
When we dream, the things we wish for happen by magic. When we wake we know without effort a man is more than nothing.
What's the point? We're all doomed.
Why do you say that?
Because the dead have cursed this place. None of us is gonna get out alive.
[Master Po] [GH walks the length of a beam on the ground twice] At the end of the week I will ask you to cross over a pool of acid on this beam.
But if a student should fall in the pool, will he not be consumed by the acid?
It is essential to always keep one's balance, is it not?
[Caine] Can you trust me? If you trust me completely I can help you. If I tell you you are not in a prison, but that the prison is within you, can you believe that?
I believe it.
Sit, like me. Sit up. Let all effort flow out of your body. All heat flow from your body. The weight of your body becomes less and less, until the body becomes one with the spirit, which is as light as a feather. As a breath. A moment. As nothing at all.
[Meaber] Were you afraid Caine? Is that why you did it? [obeyed command to go back to work when others refused]
To cast away life without true purpose, is that not wrong?
Might be better than dying here.
We will not die. We will endure. Until we remember that we are men.
We're gonna drop one by one, just like Hannibal.
The power to claim life is not superstition, it is destiny. Bow to supersition and you create a new unhappy destiny.
[Po] Watch Grasshopper, and you will see that it is possible to cross safely. [demonstrates on beam] Now it is your turn. [GH sees skeleton] Why do you delay, Grasshopper?
I see where others have fallen. [Walks but falls]
Superstition is like a magnet. It pulls you in the direction of your belief.
[Caine, buried in mine] Use one light. Free the mind from fear.
[Miners] Is there nothing we can do?
There is something. Be still. Do not speak. Try to sleep. Still your heart. And hope.
[Meaber] Caine, I'm afraid to die.
Then think of life.
It's the end. Ain't it, Caine?
Perhaps. As waking is an end to sleep.
[Caine] What will you do?
[Meaber] I've been underground a long time Caine. Dying day by day. Not just in there. Any suggestions?
Live!
[Sheriff] What do you do Caine?
I work, eat, learn.
[GH] My mother, my father, both dead, I could not save them.
[Po] You were only a small boy.
But after that I could no longer be a small boy.
The mountain is beautiful with snow, but after it loses its snow, green grows from underneath. In every loss there is gain, as in every gain there is loss. GH, do you understand that?
I will try.