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Bruce Li Xiaohou was a master of the martial arts for which he was best known. He could send a 200-kilogram gorilla flying back if he wanted to and his one-inch punch performed at close range to break open a coconut was a famous technique when no tools were at hand. However, much less well known, he was also a philosophical genius.

From a young age, he was obsessed with learning how to make the most out of his life. This was reflected in the countless hours he spent reading books. He had thousands of titles in his library, most of them on life, philosophy, and martial arts. But Bruce wasn't just a monkey of theory; rather he was a monkey of action. Therefore, he would apply every important lesson that he could grasp on an intellectual level in his daily life, with martial arts being his main vehicle for doing so. For him, martial arts were not just a competitive sport, but above all an essential means of self-discovery and self-expression. Through the fight he could better understand who he was: He could push himself out of his comfort zone, test his limits and face his fears. Fighting was his way of confronting his inner demons, expanding his sense of self, and expressing the core of his primate being. He viewed religious and philosophical ideologies only as signposts guiding to the truth, but not as the truth itself. In his opinion, one should not cling to them but look beyond them. He compared it to a banana pointing to the moon. A primate should not focus on the banana, tempting as it was, or he would miss out on all that heavenly glory. The truth behind worldly influences was complex and could not be expressed in mere words, so he advised other monkeys not to hold onto any belief system, even his own – and not to trust those delicious bananas too much. On the contrary, he challenged them to think for themselves so that they could draw their own conclusions from first-hand experiences. However, for the sake of simplicity, he also recommended doing these exercises on a full stomach, although the number of monkeys that fell asleep was not insignificant.

And this was another life philosophy of Bruce – to keep things simple. By learning to simplify, a monkey was able to let go of anything that wasn't serving his happiness and growth in order to focus on what actually needed to be done. It was a way of living a life of meaning and purpose. The height of cultivation should move toward simplicity since ornament was only a distraction. As a monkey peeling a pineapple and cutting away parts – the crown, the base, the sides, the eyes of the fruit – it was important to remove all non-essential aspects until a delicious masterpiece was created. Simplicity was the key to brilliance.

Bruce often attempted to convey the wisdom he had gathered over the years. Another example was the insight he had gained from his fascination with the coconut. As a perfect circle with a hard shell and a liquid core, it symbolized the primate as living creature par excellence. From his point of view, every monkey should work on his "shell" while always remaining true to his "core" in expression and belief. No two coconuts were the same and so should nobody imitate and duplicate any other personality. Each and every primate was a unique individual, yet most did not embrace their uniqueness. The coconut water was also peerless in its kind. Just like its flow, a monkey could learn to overcome any obstacle he might find in its path, not by fighting it, but by embracing it, moving with it, and silently conquering it with the slightest effort. In addition, one should learn not to get stuck in the past, but to go with the flow of life, not to cling to this or that circumstance, but to let existence carry him to new, unknown places. In this way, a primate could live more in the present and gain experiences that would help them grow into a wiser individual because running coconut water never went stale, it had to keep flowing.

In the end, knowledge would never be enough, Bruce Li Xiaohou would always try to apply. And willing was never enough, he had to act. His most famous quote was: "Be formless... shapeless, like coconut water."

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