Buddha crossing a predestined person: Dharma and wisdom in life

Chapter 74 Cultivating the Mind of Wisdom with the Buddha’s Mind——Great Enlightenment, Infinite Wisdom (3)
Therefore, the bird reduced its food intake appropriately every day according to its own ideas.As a result, its body became thinner and smaller, but its feathers remained smooth and moist. Finally, one day it was able to get out of the cage and realize its wish.There are ups and downs in life, whether it is taking off against the wind or climbing out of the mud, it is a part of the life situation.There are opportunities hidden in headwinds, and crises in tailwinds.To make life smooth, the most important thing is the attitude and wisdom to face life.

When we are at a low ebb, we should actively adjust ourselves.We cannot change the direction of the water flow, but we can adjust the most suitable swimming posture with the water flow.Which direction the wind blows is beyond our control, but no matter how the wind blows, we can still adjust our gestures and fly the kite high and far.

During a chess match many years ago, a player named Frank Marshall made a move that was often hailed as "the most beautiful move".In that decisive game, he was evenly matched with his opponent, a Russian master.Marshall's queen was under siege, but there were still several ways to break out of the siege.Since the queen is the most important attacking piece, those who watched the game thought that Marshall would follow the routine and move the queen to a safe place.

Marshall thought hard about the board, and when the time came, he picked up the queen, paused for a moment, and then played in the most unreasonable square - where the enemy had three pieces that could capture the queen.

Marshall gave up the queen at a critical moment, which was incredible, and both the spectators and Marshall's opponents were taken aback.

Then it dawned on the Russian chess player and others that Marshall had made a brilliant move.No matter which piece the opponent uses to capture the queen, they will fall into a decline.The Russian chess player saw that he was doomed, so he had to admit defeat.Marshall outmaneuvered his opponent with a daring, rare move: he sacrificed his queen and won the game.

In fact, it doesn't matter whether he can win the game, or even his coup d'oeuvre, what matters is that he can put aside traditional thinking and consider this move.He was not bound by conventional means, and was willing to take the risk according to his own judgment, and his own judgment alone.Regardless of the outcome of the game, Marshall was the real winner.

"Is it time to abandon the queen?" Does this sentence come to your mind in unexpected circumstances?
Around us, there are many people who run away from home due to quarrels, those who intend to commit suicide because of failing the college entrance examination, those who give up because of emotional entanglements, and those who have mental breakdowns due to employment pressure.Especially among young people, life attitudes such as pessimism, drifting with the tide, doing one's own way, and cynicalism have even become a fashion in some people's minds.In today's society, with fierce competition and rapid development, people have to face challenges at any time. Instead of wasting time on complaining and complaining, it is better to adapt to society, face up to difficulties, and walk out of a life without regrets.

If you give up at the right time, you may feel heartache for a while, and you may be reluctant to part with it.But be willing, be willing, only be willing to have something.Once upon a time, a famous Zen master named his pet dog "put down". He always called his dog everywhere every day, shouting: "put down! put down!" I always thought that the Zen master liked this dog so much that he couldn't leave it anywhere.But who knows, he is actually saying to himself: "Let it go! Let it go!" Should you and I also remind ourselves from time to time, "Let it go! Let it go!"?Only in this way can one's "heart" be "peaceful" and "peaceful" forever.

The wisdom of the Buddhas is not about words

Those who take a master's degree and a bachelor's degree firmly, this is called the coffin of the dead.All knowledge is an antique of the dead, unable to resist life and death.If you really let go of this practice, you will achieve enlightenment very quickly. At that time, the knowledge in the world will naturally be thorough, and you don't even need to memorize it. You can understand it as soon as you mention it.

There is a story:
The craftsman who made the wheel saw the emperor reading, so he asked what book he was reading.The emperor replied that it was the book of the ancients.The craftsman laughed and said that the ancients are dead, and the book is just the garbage of the ancients, not worth reading.The emperor was displeased, thinking that a craftsman knows what books are not, so he asked patiently: "How do you know that it is the garbage of the ancients?" The craftsman made an analogy: "My son and I have been learning to make wheels for ten years. I teach him hand in hand every day, but I still can’t fully understand. The ancients have been dead for so long, what can I get from reading his books?” The emperor felt reasonable after hearing this, and put down the book in his hand.

The story may be exaggerated, but the artisan has a point.Words are just symbols to convey thoughts and deeper spiritual messages.The information conveyed by symbols is no longer the source information, and it deviates further after being translated through symbols.It is impossible for the best language masters to express their meanings completely and accurately, so most of the books in the world are just like cats and tigers, and they are even full of fallacies.Moreover, any correct understanding of "semantics" must correspond to an ideal "context", otherwise "Wangwen" often produces "false meanings".That's why Mencius said: "Believe in books, it is better to have no books." The ultimate purpose of reading is to understand the truth and improve the state. You can't just ask for the quantity, just pick the words, but focus on understanding the original meaning of the words, and get them through the book. confirmed.This is the requirement of reading out of the situation.

Zen Buddhism understands this truth very well, so it establishes its sect with "no writing".However, he had to rely on writing to pass on his mind, so he had to compose some riddle-like koans, quotations, and gatha to enlighten future generations, which can be regarded as "Zen Mind Points to the Moon".It's a pity that many people in the world don't understand that "finger" is not the moon, and words are not the principle of Zen, so they play games on "Little Finger" and practice Zen all day long. As a result, the words are cut off, and only mantras and words are left.This may be the reason for the decline of Zen Buddhism.

If Zen Buddhism is like this, other learning can be imagined.This is one reason to read carefully.

Furthermore, knowledge, experience, reasoning, etc. all have their limits of applicability, especially in the realm of the mind, where many aspects cannot be reached by "logic", but require an ethereal state, bold negation, and extraordinary courage and wisdom. It cannot be solved by other people's experience and common sense.That's the real "spiritual adventure".It is this truth to say that learning increases day by day, and Taoism loses day by day.Reading is nothing more than addition and subtraction.Beginners use plus, the more you read, the thicker the book, the more tired you become, the more garbage in your mind will "rise up"; Keep the essence, abandon knowledge and seek wisdom, the book will gradually become thinner and thinner, and in the end it may become a "book without words".

In fact, people are a real big book.Everyone has such a "Book of Heaven" that can be romantic without writing a single word.Reading wisely is actually reading your own "book from heaven" through other people's books.Without books, we may not be able to open our own "book from heaven"; and if we believe in books, we will be confused by books.

Books must be read, and you must not read them dead.

There is an article "Old Scholar", which is very interesting.

An old pedant, on his way one night, suddenly ran into a dead friend. This person had always been upright and strong, so he was not afraid, and asked his friend where he was going?The deceased friend told him that he was on an errand in front of the Hades Palace, and now he was going to capture a ghost in a village in the south, and happened to be on the road with the old pedant, so they walked side by side.When he came to a dilapidated house, the deceased friend pointed to the scholar and said, "There is a scholar living here." The scholar was surprised and asked how the friend knew, and the deceased friend said: "Generally, a person is busy during the day and mentally exhausted. Inspiration is exhausted, and only at night, after falling asleep, will one not think a single thought. The words of the book read in the chest emit light, emitting from the pores of the body. The brilliance flickers and complements each other. The size of the light is related to the depth of a person's common sense. The greater the knowledge, the greater the light. Even the least knowledgeable ones are shimmering, like an oil lamp illuminating the windows. Humans cannot see it, only ghosts and gods can see it. The light in this dilapidated house is as high as seven or eight feet, so I know." The old pedant asked again: "I have been studying all my life, how high should the light be in my sleep?" The deceased friend hesitated to speak, and said: " Passing by the old brother's library yesterday, I was taking a nap, I saw a sermon, five or six hundred ink scrolls, seven or eighty scriptures, thirty or forty strategies in my chest, the words turned into a cloud of black smoke, covering the house. The voices of the students reading aloud seem to come from the dense clouds and fog. I really don’t see the light, so I dare not speak casually.” The pedant was furious and scolded his deceased friend, who laughed and left.

From this article, we can see that the author is also full of sarcasm for people who read rote books, thinking that a person who reads rote books has no knowledge at all, only knows how to copy rote, and cannot use what he has learned, and the articles hidden in his chest, but It's a cloud of black air, without any insight.It can be seen that the ancients were also extremely disapproving of the behavior of dead reading in that era.

People are alive, but books are dead.Living people read dead books, and they can read books alive.If you read a living person by dead book, you can read a dead person.

There is an old saying in China that "A book does not say enough, and what it says does not mean", which means that what is written in a book is always less than what the person who wrote it said, and what he said is always less than what he meant .What is written in a book should always be simple, not as wordy as what he wants to say.There are ways to overcome this shortcoming.As long as he is not afraid of being wordy.Fortunately, pens, inks and papers are very cheap, and writing a bit more wordy is nothing more than spending a little more pens, inks and papers, which is not a big deal.But there is no way to overcome the difficulty of incomplete words.Because language is always inseparable from concepts, concepts are never completely suitable for specific things, but are just a general outline.

For example, a person said that he had a toothache.Tooth is a concept, pain is a concept, and toothache is another concept.In fact, he didn't stop at toothache.That pain has a special pain method, has a certain size range, and has a certain depth.This is a very complicated situation, and it cannot be explained clearly by just the word toothache. No matter how wordy he is, he will not be able to express it. This is the difficulty of incomplete words.Therefore, when reading, even if you can recognize all the characters and understand all the words in the book, you may not be able to understand the meaning of the person who wrote the book.

The predecessors said that you should pay attention to the lines between the lines when reading, and that you should get "the sound outside the string and the taste outside the string" when reading poetry.This is all about experiencing its spiritual essence outside of words.This is knowing what it means.Sima Qian once said: "A person who is eager to learn and think deeply knows his meaning." The meaning is inseparable from language, but some words cannot fully express it.If it is only limited to language and characters, and clings to the language and characters, it will become a dead book.A person who reads hard is a nerd.Language and writing are crutches to help understand the meaning of a book.Now that you know what that means, it's best to throw away the walking stick.This is what the ancients called "forgetting words when one is proud".In human relationships, it is immoral to cross rivers and tear down bridges.However, in reading, it is to cross the river and tear down the bridge.

Under the above-mentioned "books can't say enough" and "words can't make sense", we can add another sentence "meaning can't make sense".Reason is objective truth; meaning is the subjective understanding and judgment of the person who wrote the book, that is, the subjective reflection of objective truth.Since reason and meaning are subjective and objective, meaning and reason cannot be completely consistent.

People are always people, not omniscient and omnipotent.There is always a certain gap between his subjective reflection, experience and judgment and the objective truth, and there are big or small mistakes.Therefore, it is not enough to read only to get the meaning, but also to understand the reason, so as not to be misled by the meaning of the predecessors.If I understand the reason, I will have my own ideas.My opinion is of course subjective.It may not be entirely in line with objective reasoning.But I can compare my ideas with those of my predecessors, complement each other, and correct each other.This may have a more correct meaning.This idea is mine, and I can use it to handle affairs and solve problems.It seems that I walk with my own legs, as long as I want to walk, the legs will go naturally.Reading to this level is considered to be able to use what you have learned, and to read the book alive.Those who can read can read dead books alive; those who can't read can read living books to death.If you read the dead book alive, you can use the book for me, and if you read the living book to death, you can use me for the book.If you can use the book instead of being used by the book, you can read well.

Someone once said: "The Six Classics annotate me, and I annotate the Six Classics." When I understand those objective truths, I have my own intentions, and I use the opinions of my predecessors as a reference. This is "the Six Classics Annotate me".If you don't understand those objective truths, and even don't get all the ideas of the ancients, but only deliberate on the language and characters, that is "I annotate the Six Classics".Only when you reach the level of "annotating me in the six classics" can you truly "annotate me in the six classics".

ordinary to supreme
The most ordinary is the highest, and the real truth is in the most ordinary.

Li Ao in the Tang Dynasty admired the virtues of Chan Master Weiyan very much, so when he was governor of Langzhou, he invited Chan Master Weiyan many times to go down the mountain to attend Zen talks, but he was politely declined by Chan Master Weiyan.There was no other way, so Li Ao had no choice but to visit Zen Master Weiyan in person. On the day he went, he happened to be reading scriptures under a tree by the mountain.

Although it was the prefect who came to visit him in person, the Zen master had no intention of welcoming him and showed no intention of paying attention to Li Ao.Seeing this, the waiter reminded Weiyan: "The prefect has been waiting for you for a long time." Zen master Weiyan pretended not to hear, and just kept closing his eyes to rest his mind.

Li Ao was a hot-tempered person. Seeing Zen Master's indifferent attitude, he couldn't help scolding him angrily: "It's better to be famous than to meet!" After speaking, he shook his sleeves and wanted to leave.

At this time, Zen Master Weiyan slowly opened his eyes, and asked slowly: "Why does the eunuch look at Zhongyuan's ears and despise the near eyes?"

These words are aimed at Li Ao's "what the eyes see is not as good as what the ears hear".Li Ao was also very surprised when he heard this, he hurriedly turned around and apologized, and asked what is "Jing Ding Hui".

"Precepts, concentration and wisdom" is a gradual form of cultivation advocated by Beizong Shenxiu, that is, precepts first, then concentration, and then wisdom from concentration.But Zen Master Weiyan is the heir of Zen Master Shitou Xiqian, and belongs to Huineng's Southern School. What he pays attention to is not gradual cultivation, but sudden enlightenment.

Therefore, Chan Master Weiyan replied, "I don't have such idle and useless furniture here!" The second monk Li Aozhang couldn't figure it out, so he had to ask, "What's your name, Master?" Chan Master Weiyan said, "It's this time. "

(End of this chapter)