Jason Scott Lee: Primal Man 3/6 | Asian American Personalities

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Jason Scott Lee: Primal Man

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GS: How can you keep it going if you're away for months at a time?
JSL: What's happened is that I don't do as many movies as I used to. It's sort of an evolution of the mind, I guess. For me it was never about career that I got into acting and it was never about fame. Those were not priorities. I did it because it was something I had a talent in, as well as in martial arts, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to open a school of martial arts.

GS: But you actually opened a farm though.
JSL: I didn't open the farm. My farm is just my place that I live in.

GS: How many acres is it?
JSL: I only work within a three- or four-acre area.

GS: That's a lot for one person.
JSL: Yeah, I'm busy. That's why I'm never not on the farm.

GS: Is the point of it that the actual act of cultivating is good for your soul and evolution or that the fruits of it are healthful for your body?
JSL: The reason I got into it is because I felt it encompassed everything. It encompassed art, it emcompassed life, it encompassed politics, it encompassed a lot of the wholeness of life, not just one aspect of it. I'm not doing it to create a separatist feeling in my mind. I'm trying to create a wholeness in my mind. If I can maintain that path, than everything else will be better for it -- relationships, career, acting ability, martial arts ability, observing nature and learning by the observation of those things.

GS: So it's more a part of your effort at self-actualization then.
JSL: Sure, yeah.

GS: So you see it as a way to balance out your acting and other areas of your life?
JSL: I don't think “balance out” is what I'm doing.

GS: Is that your spiritual home, the farm?
JSL: You know in the sense that, cultivation and farming, if looked at in a narrow way is just that, farming for maybe profit or maybe for sale. It's not that. I'm looking at it not just as a plot of land. It's everything around it. It's like, instead of just having an open field, but knowing that all the insects in that area are affecting that field. You know that you'd better start planting trees that give nutrients to the soil because what's around you is just as important as your little focus of attention. The whole collapse of industrial agriculture -- they focus on that one plot of land to produce as much as they can and leave out everything else around it. So what happens is that everything around it turns to desert. That's what I'm trying to rebel against, that mindset of just looking at something for human benefit.

GS: So when did you get involved enough to actually buy the farm.
JSL: I bought the farm about five yearsa ago. Then I was introduced to Fukuoka about three years ago. That took my interest to a higher place by meeting this mentor.

GS: Does anyone else live there with you or do you use it a retreat for yourself?
JSL: No, it's just my place. I have friends that have worked with me here and every once in a while I'll hire a hand if it's heavy work or some friends of mine visit and they pitch in. My idea originally was to have a place as an artists' retreat for fellow artists and friends I've met through the years in the business of acting. Everything from physical artists like actors to poets to writers and painters. I've always wanted to engage like that and sort of preserve the art of conversation with artists. This was the kind of place that I was able to start establishing. I found that the best place to do that was in nature because it allows you a whole different perspective. Hopefully by having a place like this where people can come and not only engage in art but engage with the earth, engage with the land and sea, the art will maybe say a lot more. Hopefully the art will fluorish as presenting a whole perspective rather than just a perspective that's a piece of the pie.

GS: So you're being a patron of the arts in the sense that you're trying to help these artists evolve to a more holistic sense of themselves.
JSL: To whatever perspective they achieve. All I know is that the closer you are to nature, the better off you are. The further away from nature civilization moves, the more confused it gets.

GS: So you're actually getting back to being a primal man.
JSL: Yeah, and that's the same idea in the martial arts as simplicity. Like Bruce said, the hardest thing to convey is simplicity. And I'm realizing what those words mean. Something that you do on a daily basis is something with your actions, the way you see the world, those are the things that catapult you to a different frame of mind.

GS: So was this evolution toward a holistic philosophy catalized by your role in Dragon?
JSL: The catalyst was my original interest in acting. But I didn't know that's what I was looking for in acting -- and I think a lot of actors will attest to this -- is to find the road back to nature. In acting class they tell you to be like an infant, discover things anew, be fresh. That means nature. And my work with Jerry Poteet -- him being my mentor and me being the student -- all the conversations that we had over tea were just that, about that road back to nature, finding simplicity in action and reaction and you do that with an empty mind. So when you find an interest in philosophy that feeds you that same source of knowledge, such as buddhism, when they speak of all is nothing, you realize what they're trying to say. In a sense, this is a path. It's just a path.

GS: What part of your day do you devote to martial arts?
JSL: [Laughs] Every day.

GS: In the holistic sense?
JSL: But the actual fighting training, is that what you're getting at?

GS: Right, the physical training.
JSL: Say someone is a Shaolin martial artist. What does a Shaolin marital artist do? He lives the life of a monk. He sweeps the floors, he carries buckets of water on his shoulders, he chops wood. Maybe he'll have a session with the high lama, or high teacher, and go through the series of movements and things, imitating animals, imitating natural things, observing a praying mantis. I'm not looking at martial arts in the modern sense of looking at these certain techniques. I've spent enough time with Jerry Poteet to realize that a lot of techniques, once you learn them, are really fundamentals and the only way to exercise those fundamentals is through the mental aspect. I don't believe in overworking the body and training and training and trianing it like Bruce did. I think the path I'm taking is more being the average man, the normal, the simple man with a lot of slow gardening movements, pulling weeds, cutting things. I chop wood, I carry water, I do these things but the emptying of the mind is much more of an important practice than the actual physical practice.

GS: I understand you're not practicing martial arts for the fighting aspect necessarily, but that is one aspect of it.
JSL: It has martial applications. I studied under jeet kune do. That's the most offensive art there is, but I'm saying to reach a higher sensitivity and awareness, [I have to] reach not a higher physical level but a metaphysical level. I stopped doing martial arts after Dragon because I pretty much felt that I was peaking physically. But mentally I had no place to go until I came back to Jerry Poteet again and said, “I have these questions.” And he said, “I've waited two years for you to come back to ask me these questions.” After that we went and advanced into the metaphysical world of martial arts.

GS: So your feeling is that by moving to the metaphysical plane you've also improved the physical aspect of your martial arts.
JSL: Oh yeah. There's no question.

GS: Your reactions are quicker?
JSL: Yeah, my reflexes are much more refined.

GS: Is that the ultimate, to be so atuned to your sense of being that you react with the least amount of resistance?
JSL: Yes, that is the same philosophy as what I've learned in natural farming, is don't try to do more, try to do less. But by doing less in the daoist sense, you accomplish more.

GS: So you're not fighting yourself.
JSL: Exactly, you're not fighting nature, you're not fighting the land. If you take a field and you say, “I'm going to plow it and till it”, already you've started on the wrong foot because you've destroyed something that has been developed over millions of years, destroyed the topsoil by turning it over. You're not working with nature. That's not helping the earthworms. You're just killing everything off. So in a sense, what people are trying to do in the martial arts to reach a metaphysical plane is to find how to lose the ego. And the only way to lose the ego is to look at things and try to benefit not just you but the things around you.

GS: At this point are you trying to attain the ultimate level of martial arts?
JSL: I don't know what the ultimate level is. I don't think there is an end road.

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GS: A higher level than the physical level.
JSL: Once you gain a sense of awareness and high sensitivity in the physical body, sensitivity in your martial arts, that has to go somewhere. So if your awareness increases, how does it increase? It has to increase into the external world. So the external world eventually effects you as much as your internal world. So by cultivating the internal and external on both the physical and metaphysical planes, there is a cohesive sensibility there that cannot be attained by the intellect.

GS: To bring it down to practical application, you're saying when you reach a certain plane, you can address a lot of the physical conflicts with your mind, or get rid of the need for physical confrontation.
JSL: Yeah, yeah. I was always a surfer, but I no longer care for surfing because I don't really care for competition. I don't think competition is really a natural thing. I think challenging oneself is a natural thing, but challenging yourself doesn't mean competition necessarily.

GS: So most of your physical exercise comes from doing everyday things on your farm rather than actually practicing forms or movement.
JSL: Exactly. What Bruce tried to teach is that practicality is the essence of simplicity. I started discovering that that was true but I wanted to know for myself not just take his word. As I started doing all these practical chores and things, it's like, Yeah now I feel inside, outside what this means. But you never get the feeling unless you do it. Same thing with the martial arts. You're not gonna get anything out of it unless you put something into it.

GS: Do you actually make your own herbal medicines?
JSL: There are herbal drinks and tonics that I take that I am religious about, but I'm just on the tip of the iceberg with that. That is a whole world that is fascinating to me but I'm not going to dedicate my time to it because it's everywhere. People can grow herbs. I'm sure there are higher levels of herbalists like Chinese herbalists who can take your pulse from your hand or your wrist and diagnose you and these things but I'm just more with herbalism. There are herbs in my forest that I take and that I use for tea and such things and growing certain vegetables that you dry out and use for some kind of tea or tonic. That's my level of herbalism. I'm not a very enlightened herbalist. PAGE 4