Confucius’ Five Virtues

Confucius was a wise teacher with many famous sayings similar to the proverbs of King Solomon. Confucius’ Five Virtues are:

Ren, the virtue of benevolence, charity, and humanity

Yi, the virtue of honesty and uprightness;

Zhi, the virtue of knowledge or wisdom;

Xin, the virtue of faithfulness and integrity; and,

Li, the virtue of correct behavior, or propriety, good manners, politeness, ceremony, worship.

These are all good things. Against such there is no law.

Bruce Lee and Yip Man

Bruce Lee wrote the book on Mixed Martial arts. It was called the Tao of Jeet Kune do. His original teacher was Yip Man. Yip Man is known as the grandfather of Wing Chung. Yet Wing Chung was a woman. She originally created the style using techniques that would work for a smaller practitioner to use against a larger practitioner.

Yip Man is highly regarded around the world as the patriarch of Wing Chung. He is very small and frail yet very talented and competent. It reminds me of the stories of the small old men who were Kendo masters. They were very relaxed and fast and were amazingly competent. It’s nice to see a smaller guy take out a larger guy using technique not brute force. Everybody likes a David and Goliath story.

Yet in our day, North Americans call for the steroid moneys to over power and control their opponents. It’s sad really. Not only is a huge portion of the arts lost but a large portion of the philosophy is being lost as well.

Royce Gracie put the UFC on the map. He was the man. He showed us how it was done. We need to remember that and respect what he did for the art that we now know as MMA. He was the king of ground fighting. He took a boxer to the ground, mounted him and the boxer tapped out because he had no idea what to do. He took out a much larger and stronger opponent by choking him out with his legs in a perfect triangle choke. He brought us technique before brutal force.

Bruce Lee wasn’t a very large man physically but he was very strong and very fit. His technique demonstrated how not only could a smaller opponent take out a larger opponent but multiple opponents. No a days it’s the old cop out, fight me fight my gang. Now it’s seven guys giving one guy the boots and pretending that has anything to do with manliness.

There was an older movie called the Dragon that was a good portrayal of the Bruce Lee Story. More recently there was a great movie done about (Y)ip Man’s life with Donnie Yen. I’m still not sure if that has been released with English subtitles yet.

There isn’t much Kung fu that has survived the UFC. Just like when full contact Karate became a sport, most of the hand techniques of Karate were dropped and replaced with Western boxing. Thai boxing has survived and risen to be very practical in the cage.



Chi Sao is just a drill but it does have a purpose. It can be done blindfolded to teach wrist sensitivity. The trapping hands of wing chung bridge the gap between stand up and grappling. It is well worth preserving that tradition.

Who’s killing the Rizzutos?

Last night the Fifth Estate ran a segment on the Montreal mafia murders called Who’s killing the Rizzutos? It was an interesting background but cut short before they answered the question. They ended it with the murder of Sal the Iron Worker and the arrest of Raynald Desjardins without a word said about the other Hells Angel associates arrested with him.

In fact the Hells Angels involvement with the Rizzutos and subsequent conflict with them wasn’t even mentioned. Sad. The question is, when Vito Rizzuto gets out of jail in 2012, will he wage war against the Hells Angels for teaming up with his enemies to murder his family? Time will tell. It always does.

Jeff Lynds

Reports are coming in that Jeff Lynds is dead. He was the one who confessed to shooting Randy Mersereau and was charged in two other murders.

Some claim the Hells Angels put a hit on his life for testifying against them so he killed himself in prison. Others claim the Hells Angels did it and it wasn’t a suicide. Either way his testimony shed light on several cold case murders in Nova Scotia tied to the Hells Angels. Now we’re left wondering about Rusty and Ellen.

BTW a big shout out to the Canadian far East. My mother was born in Amherst and my father’s mother was born in Woodstock. I think in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick they have a better understanding of what I’m trying to say about what living the dream really meant for motorcyclists and how a handful of criminals have distorted that dream completely.

Some are wondering if his death is just a transition into witness protection. Who knows. I just think we need to come clean on who killed Rusty and Ellen.

Cocaine seized at UN headquarters in New York

A bag containing 16kg (35.5lb) of cocaine was found at the United Nations headquarters in New York last week, police have said. The drugs were in a bag printed with a version of the UN symbol which arrived at the organisation's mailroom, setting off a security alert. Spokesman Paul Browne said they seemed to have been delivered by accident. There was no name or address on the shipment sent from Mexico City through Cincinnati, he added.



People are wondering if this missing shipment of cocaine has anything to do with the UN gang in the greater Vancouver area. We know they have stamped their logo on bricks of cocaine in the past. People are also wondering if this missing shipment of cocaine has anything to do with the recent murder of a high ranking UN member in Mexico who was alleged to be working off a debt for a previous missing shipment.

I’m wondering how it went missing and ended up at the UN Headquarters in New York. It’s not like someone puts UN on a package and drops it in the US Postal service and they deliver it to the wrong UN by mistake. The people moving the product are supposed to know where it’s supposed to be delivered to. It makes me wonder if the UN’s enemies had anything to do with the shipment going missing.

Oh “They” would never do that you say? But they also said “They” would never sell drugs. “They” would never have anything to do with Robert Pickton. “They” would never report an enemy to the police. Yet they have. It all makes me wonder. I guess that’s why they call me crazy.

Zen in the Martial Arts

What first led me to Zen was a study of the martial arts. Remember the martial arts originally was a way of life. There was a philosophy that was a part of any real martial arts training. In today’s world that seems to be lost entirely.

Old movies like the Karate Kid showed a struggle between good versus evil. Most of the early Bruce Lee movies showed him fighting the bad guys who were smuggling heroin. Bruce Lee was not fighting to promote drug smuggling and greed.

The UN gang tries to take some of the traditional Asian values and twist them into supporting something bad. Honor and loyalty are good but there is no honor in selling crack and loyalty to a criminal enterprise is very misguided. Especially when that criminal organization sells date rape drug.

Zen is very much in the moment. It doesn’t just apply to Buddhism. I can apply to anything. It’s simply thinking outside the box. Looking at the bigger picture and seeing how our actions affect others and the world we live in. No doubt true Zen has a social conscience (Dali Lama) and a passion to protect the environment. Indeed, we are one (Bob Marley).

The purpose of martial arts training was to preserve and protect. It was not to control and abuse. That is the dark side which leads not just to anger and hate but to selfishness, greed , oppression, dishonesty and unfulfillment. It is not only wrong but it is empty and incomplete.

Allan Watts studied Zen. He wrote an interesting booklet that talked about Christianity. In it, he claimed the translation of the Greek word sin literally meant to miss the mark. If our ultimate goal in life is to find peace, happiness and fulfillment, to sin would be to miss the mark like an archer misses his target. To sin then would be to do things that would take away true happiness and real fulfillment.

Martin Luther King taught anyone can be great because anyone can serve. Clearly the dilemma arises when we realize that true happiness comes through service to others. Not slavery, but service. Indeed whosoever shall lose his life shall in so doing find it.
I remember hearing about a Chinese painting of Heaven and Hell. The artist’s image of hell was a dinner table filled with food. Seated at the table the guests had chopsticks longer than their arms. They were too long to get the food into their mouths and were the only way they could eat the feast before them.

As a result everyone was in torment because they were starving sitting in front of a huge feast and unable to eat it. They were miserable. Conversely, the artist’s image of heaven contained the same dinner table with the same eating utensils. Only this scene was very different than the other. In this scene everyone was happy and fulfilled. The only difference was they were feeding each other.

I don’t believe Hell is a place where God spanks us for eternity and repeatedly tells us I told you so. I think Hell is simply having lived a selfish live and being then grouped with people just like us. Living in a society where people rob, rape and murder would be somewhat less fulfilling then living in a society where people aspire to something higher and work together for a common goal. It really is that simple. Is this the real life or is it just a fantasy? You tell me. Perhaps it’s just a Bohemian Rhapsody

Bad Month in Surrey

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, front page of the Surrey Leader reads: “ Bad Month in Surrey 31 days, 8 shootings, 4 gun fatalities.” Then the absurd heading beside it What’s going on? Are more liberal drug laws needed?” No, that’s part of the problem. Look at the difference between the Australian judicial system and the Canadian judicial system. You don’t oput out the forest fire of drug addiction by pouring gasoline on it. The New York model was one of enforcement. You stop letting the crack dealers sell crack in public. Making the fire burn underground is the only way to contain it.

Harper Destroys Canada’s Pension Plan based on a Lie

Well here it is. The devil revealed. This is why we shouldn’t have given Stephen Harper a majority. He is a liar. “They’re all liars, it’s better to have a Conservative liar than a Marxist liar “ you say? Stephen Harper is NOT a Conservative. He is a liar. He is what the master would have described as a liar and hypocrite who has pimped the church for his own personal gain. OK maybe the master wouldn’t say pimped the church but that is what he would have meant. He would have just found a more politically correct term. John’s revelation referred to the great whore of all the earth. Stephen Harpers’ agenda is the same as that great whore John referred to.

Here’s the news: Stephen Harper just announced he’s going to take his majority government and after dropping expensive bombs in Libya and spending a huge amount of money on jets from one of his own lobbyists, he is now going to destroy Canada’s Pension Plan once and for all. Oh the cunning plan of the evil one.

The neo cons have been preparing us for this. They keep telling us money is short, times are tough. Yet the real lie is about the bank bailout that Canada never did but did in secret. The one that took us from a surplus in the millions to a deficit in the billions with one sweep of the devil’s pen.

England had a similar problem. After creating a huge deficit from spending a huge amount of money on the unlawful invasion of Iraq based on a lie, and after spending a huge amount of money dropping missiles in Libya, the neo con government announced massive cuts to education, policing, medical and you guessed it, pensions.

Stealing pensions is the new corporate golden egg that consumes their greed. At first they wanted to tap into the interest of employee pensions seeing the huge amount of money just sitting there waiting to be stolen. The people didn’t like that idea. Pensions are sacred. So instead they stopped giving employees pensions. That was they could have the principle and the interest too. Oh the cunning plan of the evil one.

This is where Stephen Harper has taken us. He wants to steal our pensions because he spent billions of tax dollars on the banks. That is so wrong words cannot express how wrong it is. We need to wake up and smell the coffee. We need to open our eyes and see what the enemy within is doing to our country. It is treason and we need to resist it.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I’ve fallen behind. Yes I will write about Stephen Harpers new announcement to destroy Canadian pensions based on a lie because that is a National Emergency. Before that however, I want to pause for a moment and go retro.

When I was a kid I used to have a book called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I liked it because I rode a motorcycle at the time and I was introduced to zen through my study of the martial arts. Back in the day, the martial arts was a way of life with a profound philosophy. It wasn’t about taking steroids and just ground and pound. That’s for people who never understood what the Gracie’s showed us in Brazilian Ju Jitsu.

Back in the day, riding a motorcycle was about living the dream. It was about freedom. Mobility rights – the freedom to move. The freedom to go where you want when you want. Yet it was more than that. It was about the American Dream. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not the new dream which simply covets greed.

Likewise the MC dream has become tainted. Selling crack and crystal meth has nothing to do with living the dream. Neither does pimping crack hoes or selling date rape drug. Living the dream isn’t about old men on Viagra spending all their time at the strip bar. Somewhere along the line most of those idiots forgot to grow up. Why are “good family men” so obsessed with spending all their time at the strip bar?

Sexual intimacy is a normal part of a healthy marriage. I am most certainly not saying that wives are supposed to be sexual slaves. I’m just saying that if the intimacy has been lost in your marriage, perhaps she’s just not into you any more. Perhaps she has good reason. Perhaps those old men just need to grow up or as we said back in the day, go back to living the real dream and remembering that enlightenment we all once knew when we were young.

I just bought an new copy of the book reprinted in 1999 on the 15th anniversary of the original printing. It came out in 1974 That makes the book 38 years old. Where on earth did the time go? The Book is titled Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance An Inquiry into Values. You don’t need a religion to have values.

Right before the introduction there is a quote that reads: “And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good – Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?” That pretty much sums it up. We don’t need a paid preacher or a corrupt politician to tell us what is good and what is evil. We can see and know that for ourselves. What we need is simply to open our eyes. Once we see the big picture, our lives will never be the same.

So while we talk about the gang war, while we talk about corruption in politics that enables the gang war, I’m going to run a several pary series on the side about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance because ultimately, that’s what I’m talking about.

Kendo - Onegai shimasu

Onegai shimasu is a Kendo term that's hard to translate. It is said when one squares off with an opponent. Some translate it to mean please train with me but that is incomplete. My Kendo instructor told me it meant "Please Show me the way." [to enlightenment] This makes much more sense when you put it in the context of Zen.

Enlightenment is the quest of Zen. When you square off against an oponenet they show you your weaknesses. By overcoming your weaknesses you progress towards enlightenment. I like the term. Kendo Kaponi on the other hand is a Latino rapper that cut a song with Daddy Yankee called Danger. The Latino brothers understand war, hell, resurrection and danger. Indeed the drug dealers life is a dangerous business. Buyer beware.