Life Experience · Life & Body
Life & Body · Life Experience
9 reflections
《The Mortal World》 After experiencing and understanding the mortal world, how do I hope to use my life?
Enter the mortal world
Find your own way of living
Enter the mortal world to experience and perceive
Realize the mortal world
The mortal world is life
Gain insight through experience
Only striving to experience lets you see through the mortal world
Leave the mortal world
Not detachment
Not escape
But no longer shedding tears for the mortal world
Enjoy everything that exists, good or bad
Use the mortal world
Life is like a play: your way of living determines life
Life is like chess: breadth of vision sketches life
Life is like tea: perception savors life
Life is accidental
Death is inevitable
Use the accidental richness of life to make the inevitable’s colors more splendid
《Weariness》 Is my exhaustion caused by present hardship, or by not knowing where my heart is going?
The greatest exhaustion is not hard work, but a suffering heart!
The greatest suffering is “weariness of heart,” one word: “lost”! Not knowing where to go.
As long as someone is not “lost,” even owing hundreds of millions can leave them happy;
Once someone is “lost,” even earning hundreds of millions can leave them suffering.
Being “lost” means “not reaching ultimate understanding,” entering the worldly forms of an unhappy, unsettled, impure life.
As long as you live with “ultimate understanding” and know the “end point,” you will not lose your soul and composure, and energy appears instantly!
《Experiencing》 Knowing that everything can only be experienced, how should I treat the present, the past, and what is to come?
Everything that appears in life
Cannot be possessed
Only experienced
Every one of us
Is merely a traveler passing through time
One day
We will part forever with everything
Cherish what is before you
Face what has passed calmly
Gladly accept what is to come
《The Worldly》 Does seeing through the mortal world require withdrawing from life or experiencing it more deeply?
Many masters solemnly say that seeing through the mortal world means avoiding worldly life to become pure and free. I consider them practitioners of ordinary attainment. What is the mortal world? How can one see through it? The mortal world—life.
Seeing through—striving to experience life. What is life?
1. Your own heart (love, hatred, attachment, enmity, temperament, affection, fame, gain)
2. All beings’ human needs (achievement, sacredness, happiness). Great practitioners cultivate a compassionate heart and thoughts for all beings, wholeheartedly delivering themselves and others!
《Curiosity Leaves a Door Open in Judgment》 After gaining experience, how can I retain curiosity about the world?
With more experience, we easily draw conclusions quickly. An industry, a lifestyle, a kind of person: seeing something similar seems enough to know what follows. Experience does save time, but may also let us notice fewer new things.
I value experience and participation, an important part of which is retaining curiosity about the world. Curiosity can be concrete: go see something previously not understood; try occupying an unfamiliar role; when encountering another view, first ask what circumstances produced it.
Of course, every experience has costs. Time and the body are limited, and we have responsibilities. What deserves preserving is willingness to understand; whether to participate and how deeply still require judgment. Curiosity and proportion can coexist.
If a person has only conclusions left, however extensive their experience, they may merely keep proving their former self. Leave a door open in judgment, so new experience can enter and old experience can be corrected.
《How Experience Becomes a Gain》 Does undergoing hardship necessarily mean growing?
I often say experience and participation have value in themselves. When income is low, the people met, matters handled, and self-knowledge gained can become foundations for later work. But “it is all a gain” cannot explain away every loss.
Having suffered only means hardship occurred. How much value remains depends on whether we know what we experienced: which judgment was wrong, which ability insufficient, which condition previously unclear, and what we plan to change next time. Without this step, the same depletion may recur many times.
Review therefore needs two ledgers: one records what was learned, the other what was paid. Learning deserves cherishing; excessive input, unfair treatment, and harm to health also need serious attention. Growth cannot substitute for judging actual conditions.
Experience becomes a gain when it starts influencing the next choice. As we judge better, protect ourselves better, and do things better, past costs have a chance to become abilities usable in the future.
《When an Experience’s Purpose Is Met, You May Stop》 After an attempt achieves its original purpose, should it continue?
Before doing something, clarifying what we hope to gain often matters more than repeatedly comparing results afterward. Some seek long-term operation, some learning, some simply firsthand experience. Different purposes call for different measures of the process.
If the original aim was understanding a role’s difficulties, genuine participation, feeling pressure, and seeing process details may already fulfill it. Later demanding excellent performance may add an unregistered competition to that experience.
Purposes can change, but changes require fresh judgment. Does continuing still have value, how much will investment grow, and am I truly willing to bear it? Having already spent time cannot alone justify sending all remaining time after it.
After meeting the original purpose, allow yourself to stop and organize the understanding gained. Experiences have beginnings and may have endings. Returning to your own direction with what you gained is also a complete completion.
《Turn Principles into Experience through Life》 After understanding a principle, what must I experience for it to become my own insight?
Enter life, observe, experience, and review; only then can abstract principles become lived understanding.
《Keep Your Direction through Storms》 When life brings storms, how can I still keep my direction?
A good life is not one without storms, but one that retains direction through them.