All reflections · Practice and Realization

The essence of life is creating karma in ignorance and passively receiving its consequences. Karma brings embodiment; the body creates more karma, in an endless cycle. Cultivation means transforming this confused, deluded life into a life of vows and practice.

You should be a great tree, carefully nurtured from a small sapling and gradually growing into a towering tree that reaches the clouds, unafraid of wind, rain, or calamity. Putting down deep roots is extremely important and necessary, so you must hold steady in solitude and endure loneliness. Do not envy those who grow crops and reap a harvest every year, yet depend on the weather for their livelihood: when conditions change, all the wheat seedlings die, leaving not a grain to harvest.

—Grandmother’s advice

There is no fate decreed by heaven, only the “heart’s fate”: where the heart is, there lies fate!

My heart is everything; everything is my heart!

In 2016, through Mr. Yu Shiwei, I worked with Seiwajyuku in China to review its business and operating models. Working with its members introduced me to Kazuo Inamori’s idea of “revering heaven and loving people.” I also began to reconsider my own goals and values.

As we reviewed the operating model, I saw how these ideas shaped decisions, strategy, and everyday work. They concerned how to run a business, how to live, how to treat people, and how to contribute to society.

That work influenced my career and how I understand value. Beyond material wealth, relationships, our treatment of nature, and our contribution to society matter too. Since then, I have taken “revering heaven and loving people” as a principle for my life.

Revering heaven means following nature’s principles and humanity’s right path—that is, Heaven’s Way—and treating people with kindness. In other words, it means upholding the correct way of being human. Loving people means abandoning selfish desires, showing consideration for others, and keeping an altruistic heart.

Revere heaven:

“Revering heaven” means acting according to the nature of things. “Heaven” here refers to objective laws, the nature of things. He upheld carrying the right things through to the end in the right way, proposing twelve management principles: ① Clarify the purpose and meaning of the undertaking; ② Set concrete goals; ③ Hold a strong desire in your heart; ④ Make an effort second to none; ⑤ Seek to maximize sales and minimize expenses; ⑥ Pricing is the foundation of management; ⑦ Management depends on a strong will; ⑧ Kindle a fighting spirit; ⑨ Act with courage; ⑩ Continually engage in creative work; ⑪ Treat people with care and candor; ⑫ Always maintain an optimistic, forward-looking mindset, holding dreams and hope, and engage with the world sincerely. These twelve principles are all requirements of the nature of things. Act according to those requirements, and you will succeed wherever you go.

Love people:

“Loving people” means being human according to human nature. Here, “loving people” means “benefiting others,” the fundamental starting point for being human. Those who benefit others benefit themselves. Shift from being “self-centered” to “other-centered,” making “others” the focus and yourself their servant and helper. For businesses, this means “altruistic management.” These “others” are customers. Customers in the broad sense include buyers, employees, society, and stakeholders. Shift from being “enterprise-centered” to “customer-centered,” serving customers wholeheartedly. Naturally, first serve buyers, considering everything from their perspective and meeting their requirements. So long as a business creates value for customers, it can share in that value.

Revering heaven and loving people includes reverence, gratitude, and altruism!

Begin by establishing, return to goodness, set right and put into practice

“Establish”: ambition, action, virtue, achievement, lasting words;

“Good”: thoughts, heart, causes, conditions, fruits;

“Right”: integrity, decency, justice, the right path, right livelihood;

Begin by establishing

Without action

There is neither establishment nor goodness

Everyone has a starting point, often arising from firm will and determination. “Establishing” has five levels:

● Establish ambition: choose a direction

○ Establishing ambition is the first step of life’s journey, setting a clear direction and goal. As the Great Learning says: “Know where to stop, then you can be settled; settled, you can be still; still, you can be at ease; at ease, you can deliberate; deliberating, you can attain.” Ambition is a kind of “settledness,” and settledness gives rise to insight.

○ It looks toward the future, persists in dreams, and explores life’s meaning. In personal growth, firm ambition enables us to navigate life’s storms and face challenges and difficulties better.

● Establish action: put intentions into practice

○ After ambition comes turning it into practical steps. Establishing action emphasizes doing, putting promises to oneself into practice rather than remaining with theory and dreams. Through practice in cultivation and realization, we can truly understand life’s meaning and the principles by which the world works.

● Establish virtue: develop character through action

○ Like the story of “Mencius’s Mother Moving Three Times,” establishing virtue means character and qualities accumulated through action. It represents moral ideas, values, and attitudes toward life. In personal growth, cultivation, and realization, virtue is the core, determining a person’s value and influence.

○ Throughout life, continually pursue noble moral character and cultivation, striving to become pure in character and upright in conduct. Whatever difficulties or temptations arise, persist in moral principles, letting conscience and morality guide conduct.

○ Virtue is established not only for oneself, but to benefit society. A person of high morality can become a social example, influence others, and bring positive energy to all society.

● Establish achievement: extending influence

○ Like the story of “The Foolish Old Man Removing the Mountains,” after virtue is established, personal values and character influence conduct and decisions, producing profound effects in society, family, and teams.

○ Achievement embodies this influence, affirming and recognizing personal value. Continually strive to create value in different fields and at different levels, bringing positive change to society, family, and organizations. Achievement means not only ideals but practice, advancing the world through actual action.

○ Do not settle for momentary success or results; contribute to society continuously and tirelessly, creating lasting value.

● Establish lasting words: transmitting wisdom

○ Like the story of “The Hundred Schools Contending,” lasting words are the final fruit of personal growth, cultivation, realization, and development.

○ They share experience, wisdom, and insight with others, helping them grow and progress.

○ Lasting words are not merely oral transmission, but examples of conduct, attitudes, and values. Share insights, experience, and wisdom in life through words as well as conduct. Establishing lasting words means taking responsibility for passing on knowledge and ideas, inspiring others and guiding them upward.

○ Lasting words also contribute to later generations. Good words and ideas are seeds that can take root and sprout in others’ hearts, becoming treasures passed through generations.

Return to goodness

Act

Without goodness, there is no basis for establishment

In all pursuits and practices, accumulating goodness is ultimately the highest standard and destination. “Goodness” has five dimensions:

● Good thoughts: the origin of thought

○ Every action and feeling begins with a thought. Good thoughts are our initial positive thinking and intentions, a yearning for kindness and uprightness. They begin all positive conduct, setting the first step’s direction on life’s road.

● A good heart: inner motivation

○ Sustained, accumulated good thoughts form a good heart: sincere feelings toward goodness and its continual pursuit deep within. This is our inner motivation and belief for continuing to do what is right.

● Good causes: the beginning of action

○ A good heart prompts concrete actions. Such positive conduct is a good cause, embodying good thoughts and heart, and directly causing future good outcomes.

● Good conditions: the environment’s response

○ Good causes trigger chain reactions in the external world, creating good conditions. These are positive external circumstances and factors arising from our positive conduct, as well as destined good opportunities and conditions.

● Good fruits: results manifest

○ All good thoughts, hearts, causes, and conditions ultimately lead to a result: good fruits. These complete and reward all previous steps, representing positive outcomes and returns.

Set right and put into practice

Do it

Without rightness, all is empty

In every practice, always maintain uprightness, uphold correct ways of doing things, and ensure conduct accords with moral standards. “Rightness” has five levels:

● Integrity: act honestly and fairly

○ Integrity is every entrepreneur’s inner principle and moral coordinate. It upholds truth, sincerity, and fairness, requiring truthfulness without falsity, concealment, or favoritism at every moment. In business, integrity means fair dealings, honesty and trustworthiness, and authentic self-presentation.

● Decency: treat the team fairly

○ Decency embodies integrity’s principles in teams and organizations. It requires preserving a fair team culture, treating every member equitably, and ensuring the undertaking’s direction aligns with team values.

● Justice: balance in business

○ Justice represents fairness and balance in the external market. In an undertaking, it requires fair and proper dealings with all partners, customers, and competitors, without harming others’ rights and interests, preserving normal market order.

● The right path: the course of development

○ The right path identifies an undertaking’s correct direction and course. It represents long-term, sustained, harmonious development, ensuring that pursuing profit also preserves social and environmental harmony and balance.

● Right livelihood: apply these principles in business

○ Integrity, decency, justice, and the right path ultimately appear in an undertaking’s results: right livelihood. It embodies all positive principles and values in actual business, completes and rewards the previous steps, and is the ultimate sign of success.

Everything that goes against your wishes is the return of your own conduct. Virtue is the root: strong roots make abundant flowers and fruit!

A bitter fate comes from what one brings upon oneself, unrelated to the outside world;

A smooth fate comes from what self-cultivation attracts, unrelated to luck.

Heaven gives birth to all things through yang and brings them to completion through yin. Giving birth is benevolence; completion is righteousness. Thus the sage in a position of authority nurtures all things with benevolence and sets all people right with righteousness. When Heaven’s Way operates, all things follow it; when sagely virtue is cultivated, all people are transformed. Such great harmony and transformation, whose traces cannot be seen and whose workings no one knows, are called divine. Thus the multitudes under heaven have their root in one person. Can the Way be far away? Can its methods be numerous?

Tongshu, Chapter 11, “Following and Transformation”—Zhou Dunyi

Only those who have fallen into the abyss can truly share others’ pain

Wind

Direction

The first stirring of intention

Your original intention

Water

A carrier

The origin of all things

Can carry or overturn

Wind: favorable wind

Rain: timely rain

When the first intention is good

Feng shui is naturally good

Chinese people’s ultimate goals in this world are basically eating well, drinking well, living well, using good things, and mating well!

Achieving these goals requires a strong economic foundation. Thus Chinese people’s actual motivation for existence is one word—money.

Ideals, faith, personal value, social responsibility, and the like, which humans as higher animals should possess, are worth not a penny in Chinese people’s eyes!

So Chinese people mock those with aspirations, saying: “Pretentious bullshit.”

Do not seek karmic rewards in the next life; cultivate only cause and effect in this life.

Lesser teachers teach rewards in the next life, entering “self-seeking and self-attachment,” greed, anger, delusion, and arrogance…

If this life is not lived well, how could the next be good?

Great teachers teach cause and effect in the present life, entering “growth without shame” and living in the present…

If this life is lived well, how could the next not be good?

A bitter fate comes from what one brings upon oneself, unrelated to the outside world;

A smooth fate comes from what cultivation attracts, unrelated to luck.

Everything that goes against your wishes is the return of your own conduct. Cultivating the heart is cultivating fate. I decide whether my heart moves; the outside world does not control it.

There is no fate decreed by heaven, only the heart’s fate: where the heart is, there lies fate! My heart is everything; everything is my heart!

“It makes sense,” “the only answer,” “correct”—these are all appearances. Ordinary people pursue right and wrong; great achievers pursue winning and losing. The underlying core:

Do not be trapped by emotions and desires, or by fame, gain, and public opinion;

Do not be trapped by culture and morality, or by past knowledge;

Speech that helps people and society progress is truth.

A clean soul

Impurity leads into “agitation,” attracting heaps of petty people and layers of bad fortune;

Purity leads into “you are so good,” attracting heaps of helpful people and layers of flourishing energy!

Begin by establishing, return to goodness

Establishing: establish ambition, virtue, achievement, and lasting words

Goodness: be good to others and yourself, benefit others, love broadly

Use “Begin by establishing, return to goodness” as the life creed I pursue by every possible means throughout my life.

Great virtue bears all things

What is great virtue?

Pure intention.

What does bearing all things mean?

How great an undertaking you accomplish.

The greatness of your pure intention determines the greatness of what you can do.

As much responsibility for an undertaking as you can bear, that much you can accomplish;

As much money as you can bear, that much you can command;

As many people as you can bear, that many you can lead.

Cultivating the heart is cultivating virtue! Cultivating conduct is cultivating fate

Vast learning is not for conquering others, but for seeing your own smallness; abundant wealth is not for flaunting luxury, but for increasing your responsibility to promote goodness; eminent position is not for admiring yourself in isolation, but for leading others forward; formidable strength is not for bullying the weak, but for breathing freely;

When a person has energy, it is not to satisfy selfish desires, but to shoulder a greater mission!

“Uprightness” is good, certainly, but if it goes “too far,” does it not become crooked?

“Goodness” is good, certainly, but if it goes “too far,” does it not become monstrous?

“Cleverness” is good, certainly, but if it goes “too far,” does it not become slippery?

“Sincerity” is good, certainly, but if it goes “too far,” does it not become foolish?

See through without disenchantment; to save the world, first enter it. Excessive uprightness becomes odd; excessive goodness becomes monstrous.

What is truth?

“It makes sense,” “the only answer,” “correct”—these are all appearances. Ordinary people pursue right and wrong; great achievers pursue winning and losing. The underlying core

Do not be trapped by emotions and desires, or by fame, gain, and public opinion;

Do not be trapped by culture and morality, or by past knowledge;

Speech that helps people and society progress is truth.

1. A bed can be bought, but sleep cannot. 2. A house can be bought, but a family cannot. 3. A body can be bought, but love cannot. 4. Food can be bought, but appetite cannot. 5. Obedience can be bought, but respect cannot. 6. Entertainment can be bought, but happiness cannot. 7. Flattery can be bought, but loyalty cannot. 8. A clock can be bought, but time cannot.

What I pursue is my family’s happiness

Not my own selfish desires

Every day is a new starting point

There must be progress, gains, and achievements

For my parents’ kindness in raising me, my partner’s kindness in recognizing me, and the support of those around me

So I must treat every day as a starting point

And make my family’s happiness my pursuit

Each of our lives is a river. We always have too many choices and attend to too many things, making our lives seem very broad. You know everything happening in the world, missing nothing. **Everyone is talking about Trump, Musk, and Bob Dylan, but many have forgotten “Who am I?”** Our lives grow increasingly shallow and lack depth.

Yet what a person pursues in life is neither length nor breadth, but precisely depth—what we actually do within our limited time, and what we bring to ourselves, our families, and this world.

First distinguish facts, explanations, and beliefs, then decide on action.

Revere the patterns of things and respect people’s circumstances, putting altruism into concrete relationships.

See results as the return of long-standing choices and actions.

Establish values first, then choose methods; without boundaries set by values, the more effective the method, the greater the deviation.

First understand the nature of things, then decide how to intervene.

Every goal must pass three tests: goodness, integrity, and the long term.

Within a finite life, leave value that can be remembered, used, and passed on.

Only judgments that help people and society continually progress have practical value.

I can choose my path firmly without first judging others’ paths as lower.

I value interest, responsibility, and long-term accumulation, and choose companions by these standards. But one person values stability more, another exploration, each with conditions I have not experienced. Not understanding a choice does not prove shallowness; more complex experience does not automatically qualify me to arrange another’s life.

Working together naturally needs boundaries: agreed duties, truthful information, and acceptable methods must be clear. If conditions do not fit, we may decline cooperation. But rejecting an arrangement and judging an entire person should be separate. Principles help my decisions without becoming tools to judge everyone.

I am willing to explain why I live this way while leaving others different reasons. A conviction sustained only by looking down on others needs further testing. Accommodating different lives lets my choice stand without continually borrowing others’ supposed inferiority.

We must make many choices in life, and the first step is always the hardest. The fact is that the second step is always hidden behind the first. If you do not take the first step, how can you see the second? You must overcome fear and make a choice.

Love family, build a career, establish yourself, build alliances

● Love family

○ Quietly give your all to family; in return, they share your pressure. Within family, speak only of love, with no need to argue reason.

● Build a career

○ Whether the career goes smoothly or not, changes or not, simply invest persistently with the fullest confidence. Success and failure are both results; do not fear failure, and do not give up.

● Establish yourself

○ Persist in improving yourself. In family or career, simply keep a pure heart, maintain a progressive, optimistic attitude, and continually improve yourself.

● Build alliances

○ Set aside interests while using interests to build relationships. Seek resonance of values and union. Setting aside interests allows alliances to develop longer without being disrupted by interests; using interests to build relationships is also a requirement for results, an expression of the alliance’s value.

Find the soul before doing things!

A sense of mission:

Loving someone is happier than being loved!

Three levels of a sense of mission:

First, love those nearby well;

Second, create some value for customers;

Third, contribute to society.

Yet most businesses lacking a mission die at the first level. Many expect to be loved without knowing whom they love, perhaps never having loved. When I found my “love,” I discovered life full of value, meaning, sacredness, gratitude, happiness, and energy. Finding “love” meant finding everything! “Love,” it turns out, is the source of all positive energy!

“Love” gives oneself a direction and pursuit!

“Love” is the root of mission.

I am fortunate to have found my love. I deeply love my current family and friends, and my brothers in business. What about you? Have you found your “love”? Come! Fill in the blanks together; complete them and you are someone with a mission.

For whom do I give? What do I give?

Earning money is only a result, not the fundamental purpose and meaning. Life is not about what you possess, but what you can leave. Birth is accidental, death inevitable; in the end a handful of earth returns to nature. Cherish memories, cherish life, “love” those nearby well, find love, give love, pass love on, and be a real, simple person of positive energy!

When someone cannot forget the past and repeatedly recalls it, creating an inescapable shadow that prevents concentration and interferes with present work, this is called mental illness…

Do not become entangled in the past or worry about the future, and body, mind, and soul will unite, enter the present, enjoy the present, and do the present well.

If you cannot influence people, your inner energy is not great enough.

Once you have thought through the ultimate boundary—death—your energy becomes powerful.

Great people carry dreams, see through the ultimate boundary, and give humanity hope and guidance; great people can rebound even from the depths.

To judge whether someone is outstanding, do not look at how much money they have today, but at their ability to rebound when they were down in the past. Unextinguished conviction is a spark of fire!

Dreams are not for achieving, but for nourishing the soul!

If you knew you could live 10,000 years

Your pursuits would move beyond material needs

Because you would know

Material things are no longer enough to fill the emptiness of your inner spiritual world

For everyone, a doorway may be a barrier. If you cannot cross it, it is a barrier; once you cross it, it is a doorway.

A person’s greatest suffering is not finding life’s foundation. What is life’s foundation? “A way of living.” What is a way of living?

Finding goals, purpose, and a place to belong: having something to pursue, doing meaningful things, and, through doing them, gathering a group of caring, loyal people to live with in old age. Money is merely a tool for realizing a “way of living”! Affection is merely a memory in realizing a “way of living”! Love, hatred, attachment, and enmity are merely recollections in realizing a “way of living”! Temperament, fame, and gain are merely seasonings for realizing a “way of living”!

Life is like a play: a way of living determines life;

Life is like chess: breadth of vision sketches life;

Life is like tea: perception savors life.

Find your way of living, cultivate a broader perspective, perceive the mortal world, and enjoy the existence of everything, good and bad!

“Goals are meant to be achieved.” That is pure bullshit! It only proves the goal is not great enough. Great people never achieve their goals; only ordinary people do. Great people are always on the road toward their goals and do everything possible to make people believe. All political and religious leaders can give humanity hope.

The secret behind goals is uniting people.

Dreams are not for achieving, but for nourishing the soul!

Exert all your strength; await Heaven’s decree

Choices

Miss a choice, and you will choose again

A wrong choice leads to constant choosing

What is most frightening is constant choosing

Why do employees not believe the boss’s goals?

Some say the goals are unreasonable; the goals are useless; employees will not buy it…

These are all appearances

The underlying core is that your inner energy cannot carry your words.

In other words, you cannot boast! The bigger you can boast, the bigger the things you can accomplish. All political and religious leaders can give humanity “hope”!

And when a boast falls apart, there is only one reason: “You do not believe it yourself.”

Why do employees not believe the boss’s goals?

Some say the goals are unreasonable; the goals are useless; employees will not buy it… These are all appearances.

The underlying core is that your inner energy cannot carry your words.

In other words, you cannot boast! The bigger you can boast, the bigger the things you can accomplish. All political and religious leaders can give humanity “hope”!

And when a boast falls apart, there is only one reason: “You do not believe it yourself.”

The first prerequisite for a rich life is being as self-disciplined as reasonably possible and not doing things that harm yourself. The second is preserving a relatively independent, free identity as much as possible, without blindly following others. A couple of days ago I visited Silicon Valley and felt it is especially vulgar now. A few years ago it was full of “.com”; now everything has become “.ai,” showing that Silicon Valley is also a place that follows trends. **If you are an independent individual, someone wholeheartedly intent on living your own life better, maintaining independent pursuits is very important.**

Timing matters when buying into a small business

A man’s unhappiness comes from marrying at the wrong time

If a man marries before establishing himself, his wife looks down on him and feels no admiration, and he cannot become strong and establish himself in the world.

Direct destruction

Ordinary people pursue happiness

Great achievers pursue happily!

What do they pursue?

“The three alignments”

One is alignment between interests and career

One is alignment between love and marriage

One is alignment between body, mind, and soul

When interests and career align,

Your potential can be developed to the fullest

Marriage without love is an immoral marriage, an unstable, false marriage

When body, mind, and soul cannot unite, you become entangled in the past and worried about the future

And cannot enter the present

Happiness need not be deliberately pursued; it requires only unity of body, mind, and soul

Leave suffering and attain joy!

In a job we struggle to adapt to, we easily magnify present feelings into judgments about all of life. A difficult day seems to mean we are incapable; temporarily finding no place seems to mean there will be no future place either. A local difficulty suddenly covers our whole self.

Life is long, and the current job only one stage. This perspective helps narrow the problem: have abilities not caught up, is the role a poor fit, or have organizational conditions changed? Different problems need different actions.

A stage-based perspective also needs a time boundary. Allow room to adapt while watching for change: are we progressing, are conditions improving, can this investment still lead to the next step? If nothing changes for a long time, renegotiate, adjust, or leave.

Returning work to the scale of life lets us take the present seriously while avoiding a lifelong verdict based on one position. Taking on current tasks and preserving future choices can happen together.

One thing I find very happy is that what I do still interests me. Wanting to study, ask further questions, and understand problems sustains motivation at work. When merely completing instructions in exchange for income, people tire more easily.

Interest changes too. Things feel fresh initially, become repetitive once familiar, and later may grow difficult. Keeping interest alive requires finding something worth exploring deeply in concrete work: an unresolved problem, a method that could improve, an ability I want to build over time.

Real conditions also matter. Does it have practical value, support life, and require investment I can afford? When interest connects with these conditions, there is room to continue; if they do not connect yet, small-scale practice can gradually test them.

Interesting things can still be hard and tedious. But knowing why I want to continue gives hardship direction. More than continually seeking novelty, I value the feeling of going deeper and deeper in one direction.

My understanding of freedom relates to the life someone wants in their heart. Better external conditions and more choices certainly increase freedom. But if time remains filled with ever-growing desires and demands, returning to what we truly want to do may become harder.

So when discussing freedom, look at daily life: to whom has this time been given, what was it used for, how much was necessary responsibility, how much personal choice, and how much merely fear of falling behind or being judged? These answers are often more concrete than “I am very free.”

Our own direction also costs something. Focusing on one thing means less attention to others; assuming responsibility means giving up some convenience. Seeing these costs clearly and knowing why we accept them makes choices more our own.

Freedom needs room and discernment. Being able to arrange time, know what deserves investment, and dare stop what does not gradually brings us closer to the life we want. Conditions offer freedom opportunities; daily life determines how we use them.

I place great value on choosing direction. Different industries, roles, and settings can bring the same effort to different results. Looking back and finding my original choice suited me gives confidence to keep investing.

Yet the only path we truly experienced is the one taken. We lack equally complete evidence about industries never entered or whether another choice could also have worked. Using today’s result to write another path’s ending makes judgment too absolute.

A more useful review explains why this path suits me: where my interests lie, how abilities accumulated, which opportunities appeared, and what costs I bore. These reasons can guide the next choice; merely proving I chose correctly then may offer no method.

Direction matters, and effort needs a direction. Clarify discernible conditions and leave the temporarily unknown unknown, so we can choose seriously and adjust when new circumstances appear. Grounded confidence better withstands change.

I once viewed my situation in separate parts: at the levels of survival and everyday life, I felt happy; in pursuing value, I experienced many setbacks. Both judgments can hold at once. Different parts of life need not progress at the same pace.

Measuring all life only by unmet goals obscures every existing good. Conversely, a stable life does not mean pursuits should stop. Acknowledging present happiness can coexist with wanting to make work more valuable.

Distinguishing these levels helps allocate energy accurately. Handle career problems as career problems; develop abilities where growth is needed; people nearby and daily life also deserve careful attention. Do not let disappointment in one area keep overdrawing others.

Pursuit gives direction; happiness gives feeling. The former can reach further into the distance while the latter is seen today. Those whose wishes remain partly unrealized still have the right to acknowledge beauty already present in their lives.

Life continually adds new roles. Joining a team, beginning a relationship, becoming a parent, or assuming management duties all require adjusting previous time allocations and ways of relating. Direction may be unchanged, but daily life has new demands.

At such times, room to adapt is necessary. First clarify new responsibilities, what can be coordinated, and which old arrangements no longer fit. Accelerating everything together often leaves both ourselves and those nearby unsure how to cooperate.

Stability also needs observation and discussion. After a while, check whether current arrangements are sustainable, whether someone has long borne excessive costs, and whether important personal directions have lost all room. Adjust what needs adjusting; temporary stability cannot justify indefinite postponement.

Life plans can advance in stages. Sometimes first make life run smoothly, then gradually return energy to long-term goals. Knowing priorities and willingly changing pace with responsibility also expresses seriousness about goals.

A person’s time and energy are limited. Increasing focus on one direction reduces attention elsewhere. After focusing, we may become poorly informed about many things. This real cost of choice deserves acknowledgment.

Knowing what we do not know reduces unnecessary judgments. Deep accumulation in one direction does not mean clarity in every field; methods effective in our experience need conditions to enter others’ circumstances. Abilities gained through focus should have a clear scope.

Meanwhile, leave an entry for outside information. Hear how different roles describe problems, occasionally encounter unfamiliar things, and maintain basic awareness of important changes. This need not disrupt the main thread, but can keep it connected with reality.

Focus requires giving things up; curiosity requires preserving some room. Together they allow long-term accumulation and revision of judgment. Using what we know well and leaving blanks for what we do not can actually make it easier to go deeper.

Break a long-term goal into one action that can be completed today.

Dreams provide direction; a mission shoulders responsibility. Both must be grounded in specific people and matters.

The quality of a choice depends on clearly seeing costs, boundaries, and the next step.

First answer “Who am I, where am I going, and why set out?” Then arrange each day’s actions.

Do not define a mission by momentary gains and losses; test sincerity through long-term commitment.

Do not be held back by the past, or treat imagined futures as today’s achievements.

A way of living is not a slogan, but the unity of goals, purpose, destination, and daily choices.

First take a verifiable step; only then will the hidden second step appear.

If I know increasingly more yet cannot relinquish a single direction, choosing remains unfinished.

Curiosity reveals new possibilities. Each deserves understanding, every mechanism invites investigation, and many continuing tasks readily appear. Yet knowing more does not increase time. A little energy for every path each week sometimes leaves none enough conditions for depth.

I hope knowledge ultimately helps select and relinquish. What do I most want to test now, which path does existing accumulation support, what will I pause, and what will I not prove for now? Keep material for paused directions without declaring them worthless. What is relinquished is this stage’s investment, not necessarily future possibility.

A choice’s weight often hides in what is given up. Listing what else I want to do easily preserves enthusiasm; clarifying what I will no longer do now creates conditions for what truly matters.

The hardest part of choosing is that what we relinquish is worthwhile too.

Career deserves progress, family companionship, learning persistence, and the body rest. All are right, but do not therefore order themselves. Promising each the best from the same time may only postpone impossibility and leave others facing disappointment for me.

I want to clarify the conflict within a stage: what comes first this time, why, what the other loses, and when it will be rescheduled. Discuss jointly where shared life is affected. Seek ways to accommodate both; where impossible, acknowledge a real cost rather than dismiss it because another goal is greater.

Balance sometimes adjusts proportions and sometimes makes a regrettable choice. Maturity need not perform the preservation of every good simultaneously; it should give tradeoffs reasons and let affected people know how they were considered.

Practice and realization

Buddha

Awakening

Practice to become a Buddha lies in seeking

Realization to understand one’s nature lies in knowing

Practice: use action to discipline one’s nature

Realization: let one’s nature guide action

Practitioners follow external discipline, using rules to govern the mind

The awakened awaken themselves, letting rules arise from the heart

Thus

The foolish follow external discipline, painstakingly scheming

The wise follow the discipline of the heart, doing as the heart desires

Realizing the Way is

Settling

Accumulating

Reflecting and questioning

Buddha

Awakening

Can be realized, cannot be cultivated

.

○ It looks toward the future, persists in dreams, and explores life’s meaning. In personal growth, firm ambition enables us to navigate life’s storms and face challenges and difficulties better.

● Establish action: put intentions into practice

○ After ambition comes turning it into practical steps. Establishing action emphasizes doing, putting promises to oneself into practice rather than remaining with theory and dreams. Through practice in cultivation and realization, we can truly understand life’s meaning and the principles by which the world works.

● Establish virtue: develop character through action

○ Like the story of “Mencius’s Mother Moving Three Times,” establishing virtue means character and qualities accumulated through action. It represents moral ideas, values, and attitudes toward life. In personal growth, cultivation, and realization, virtue is the core, determining a person’s value and influence.

○ Throughout life, continually pursue noble moral character and cultivation, striving to become pure in character and upright in conduct. Whatever difficulties or temptations arise, persist in moral principles, letting conscience and morality guide conduct.

○ Virtue is established not only for oneself, but to benefit society. A person of high morality can become a social example, influence others, and bring positive energy to all society.

● Establish achievement: extending influence

○ Like the story of “The Foolish Old Man Removing the Mountains,” after virtue is established, personal values and character influence conduct and decisions, producing profound effects in society, family, and teams.

○ Achievement embodies this influence, affirming and recognizing personal value. Continually strive to create value in different fields and at different levels, bringing positive change to society, family, and organizations. Achievement means not only ideals but practice, advancing the world through actual action.

○ Do not settle for momentary success or results; contribute to society continuously and tirelessly, creating lasting value.

● Establish lasting words: transmitting wisdom

○ Like the story of “The Hundred Schools Contending,” lasting words are the final fruit of personal growth, cultivation, realization, and development.

○ They share experience, wisdom, and insight with others, helping them grow and progress.

○ Lasting words are not merely oral transmission, but examples of conduct, attitudes, and values. Share insights, experience, and wisdom in life through words as well as conduct. Establishing lasting words means taking responsibility for passing on knowledge and ideas, inspiring others and guiding them upward.

○ Lasting words also contribute to later generations. Good words and ideas are seeds that can take root and sprout in others’ hearts, becoming treasures passed through generations.

Return to goodness

Act

Without goodness, there is no basis for establishment

In all pursuits and practices, accumulating goodness is ultimately the highest standard and destination. “Goodness” has five dimensions:

● Good thoughts: the origin of thought

○ Every action and feeling begins with a thought. Good thoughts are our initial positive thinking and intentions, a yearning for kindness and uprightness. They begin all positive conduct, setting the first step’s direction on life’s road.

● A good heart: inner motivation

○ Sustained, accumulated good thoughts form a good heart: sincere feelings toward goodness and its continual pursuit deep within. This is our inner motivation and belief for continuing to do what is right.

● Good causes: the beginning of action

○ A good heart prompts concrete actions. Such positive conduct is a good cause, embodying good thoughts and heart, and directly causing future good outcomes.

● Good conditions: the environment’s response

○ Good causes trigger chain reactions in the external world, creating good conditions. These are positive external circumstances and factors arising from our positive conduct, as well as destined good opportunities and conditions.

● Good fruits: results manifest

○ All good thoughts, hearts, causes, and conditions ultimately lead to a result: good fruits. These complete and reward all previous steps, representing positive outcomes and returns.

Set right and put into practice

Do it

Without rightness, all is empty

In every practice, always maintain uprightness, uphold correct ways of doing things, and ensure conduct accords with moral standards. “Rightness” has five levels:

● Integrity: act honestly and fairly

○ Integrity is every entrepreneur’s inner principle and moral coordinate. It upholds truth, sincerity, and fairness, requiring truthfulness without falsity, concealment, or favoritism at every moment. In business, integrity means fair dealings, honesty and trustworthiness, and authentic self-presentation.

● Decency: treat the team fairly

○ Decency embodies integrity’s principles in teams and organizations. It requires preserving a fair team culture, treating every member equitably, and ensuring the undertaking’s direction aligns with team values.

● Justice: balance in business

○ Justice represents fairness and balance in the external market. In an undertaking, it requires fair and proper dealings with all partners, customers, and competitors, without harming others’ rights and interests, preserving normal market order.

● The right path: the course of development

○ The right path identifies an undertaking’s correct direction and course. It represents long-term, sustained, harmonious development, ensuring that pursuing profit also preserves social and environmental harmony and balance.

● Right livelihood: apply these principles in business

○ Integrity, decency, justice, and the right path ultimately appear in an undertaking’s results: right livelihood. It embodies all positive principles and values in actual business, completes and rewards the previous steps, and is the ultimate sign of success.

Human nature

Evil is in the flesh

Good intentions are in the soul

The heart and soul’s goodness cannot defeat the flesh’s evil

The two provoke each other

Only thinking and ideas that teach goodness are immortal

More experiences and participation

More transmission and sharing with the world

Though a hundred kalpas pass, deeds do not perish. When causes and conditions meet, one receives the karmic result oneself. Zengzi also said: “When a person loves goodness, though blessings have not arrived, calamity is already far away.”

“Heaven gives birth to all things through yang and completes them through yin. Birth is benevolence; completion is righteousness.” Goodness signifies benevolence; establishing signifies righteousness. Benevolence is essence, righteousness appearance. Begin with righteousness as the first stirring of intention, and return to benevolence as the guide to conduct. Cause and effect cycle, following the rule that without breaking there is no establishing, continually preserving, breaking, and establishing. Reach utmost emptiness, maintain profound stillness. All things arise together; I observe their return.

Life’s three immortalities are establishing virtue, achievement, and lasting words; to these I add ambition and action. Ambition is the starting point. Without it, setting out lacks righteousness and nothing can be accomplished. Without ambition comes no action, hence no virtue, achievement, or lasting words. Thus, at the level of my individual self, I aspire to become a planner, investing immense time and energy. Through experience in one business project after another, I bring upon myself every virtue a planner should possess, thereby establishing virtue. Through consulting, planning, and training that support business development, I establish achievement. Following universal values, I share all my consolidated experience and accumulation unreservedly with those who need it, continually producing content and spreading it through the internet, establishing lasting words. This entire process is ambition, action, virtue, achievement, and lasting words, summarized as “Begin by establishing.”

Benevolence is Heaven’s Way. Heaven creates all things: great goodness, kindness toward others, an altruistic heart, following the life values of revering heaven and loving people. One thought arises: myriad rivers and mountains, prosperity through countless ages; one thought ceases: seas become fields, loss through eternity. Good and evil differ by one thought. Good thoughts nourish a good heart, create good causes, enact good conditions, and produce good fruits. Initially, as a creed, use action to discipline nature and rules to govern the heart; ultimately rise to acting through goodness. The awakened awaken themselves, letting rules arise from the heart. This is summarized as “Return to goodness.”

“Begin by establishing, return to goodness”: eight Chinese characters for continual cultivation and contemplation within finite life. Practice lies in seeking, realization in knowing. Practice uses action to discipline nature; realization lets nature guide action. The awakened awaken themselves, letting rules arise from the heart; practitioners follow external discipline, using rules to govern the heart. Continually cultivate the individual self and realize the transcendent self, cycling repeatedly and improving the capacity for realization.

Brush away worldly splendor, illuminate the original heart: limpid purity, light filling the void.

This folder’s contents record insights arising from everyday matters, saved by category. Some came from exchanges and collisions of ideas with friends nearby, some from reflections summarized from books, and some from teachings by masters.

They concern the outside world, labels, genius, time, life goals, reality, regret, and so forth.

Sichuang Society

Thought: the highest realm

One thought arises: myriad rivers and mountains, prosperity through countless ages

One thought ceases: seas become fields, loss through eternity

In this world, a person’s birth has already determined their level in society. These barriers between levels were formed by the long operation of human social order. Thus the level into which the individual self is born cannot be crossed, but a breakthrough between levels can be made through thought: using logical thinking to contemplate the worldly order of the “human realm” and the great natural law of “Heaven’s Way.” From the perspective of the unity of “humanity” and “heaven,” the universe, heaven and earth, and all things exist full of value and meaning. Through logical thought, we can not only discover this value and meaning through our own effort and gain powerful resources of spiritual motivation; more importantly, we must realize this value and meaning in human society, seeking to construct a reasonable political and cultural order consistent with the great law of “Heaven’s Way.” Thus, whether grounded in the essence of “Heaven’s Way” or the order of “human relationships,” there is every reason to encourage people living in the secular world to “learn below and reach above,” hoping they will devote themselves to moral practices of “benevolence” and “righteousness,” to realize the life’s charge and ultimate value necessarily entrusted to human life as “Heaven’s mandate” flows down into it.

Heaven’s Way and Sagely Virtue

Heaven gives birth to all things through yang and brings them to completion through yin. Giving birth is benevolence; completion is righteousness. Thus the sage in a position of authority nurtures all things with benevolence and sets all people right with righteousness. When Heaven’s Way operates, all things follow it; when sagely virtue is cultivated, all people are transformed. Such great harmony and transformation, whose traces cannot be seen and whose workings no one knows, are called divine. Thus the multitudes under heaven have their root in one person. Can the Way be far away? Can its methods be numerous?

Tongshu, Chapter 11, “Following and Transformation”—Zhou Dunyi

Worldly rules

Money, a tool of the mortal world, is a tool for cooperation that you neither bring at birth nor take at death

Power, a tool of rule, is a management tool affecting the strength and scope of control

Reputation, a tool of word of mouth, is a calling card that lets you move through society’s various strata

As Zhou Dunyi writes in Tongshu, Chapter 11, “Following and Transformation”: “Thus the multitudes under heaven have their root in one person.” From this we can realize that the secular world is not complicated; it all comes down to human nature. Human nature is “power and status, money, material things,” which ordinary worldly people find difficult to escape. We therefore need to understand and accommodate human nature fully.

Concentration Can Give Rise to Insight

● Know where to stop, then you can be settled; settled, you can be still; still, you can be at ease; at ease, you can deliberate; deliberating, you can attain.

● Stillness gives rise to concentration, concentration to insight, insight to wisdom.

● Preserve, break, establish: the steadiest upward spiral

With demons in the heart, everyone looks like a ghost

Turn the heart toward Buddha

When tragedy strikes, you need to let yourself let go; tragedy, after all, cannot be reversed

After tragedy, the road must still be traveled. Only by letting go can you walk well and make life truly rich.

No one wants a life without richness

A lifetime is long

A lifetime is short

Tragedy or richness

Depends entirely on your mindset,

Your thinking determines your fate.

How to practice and realize

As for the causes and conditions of this great matter, everyone inherently possesses it, each complete as they are, lacking not a hair. Yet since beginningless kalpas, the seeds of attachment, deluded thoughts, emotional concerns, and deeply ingrained habits have obscured wondrous clarity, preventing its true use. We have always made our living only among the illusory shadows of body, mind, and world, and so wander through birth and death. Buddhas and patriarchs appeared in the world with countless words and skillful means, speaking of Chan and doctrine, all merely adapting to capacities and circumstances as tools to break attachment. Originally there is no actual teaching to give anyone.

What is called practice merely follows one’s own mind, cleansing deluded thoughts and the shadows of habits. Applying effort here is called practice. If deluded thought suddenly ceases and one thoroughly sees one’s own mind—originally complete, luminous, vast, naturally pure, without a single thing—this is called realization. Apart from this mind, there is nothing else to practice or realize. The mind’s essence is like a mirror; deluded thoughts and grasping shadows are merely dirt upon the true mind. Thus it is said that imagined forms are dust, discriminating feelings grime. When deluded thoughts dissolve, the original essence appears, like polishing a mirror: dirt cleared, brightness revealed. Such is its nature.

Yet our habits accumulated through kalpas are firm, the root of self-attachment deep and hard to pull out. Fortunately, in this life, inherent prajna works inwardly as a cause, and good teachers provide the external condition that awakens it. Knowing it is originally ours, we arouse aspiration toward liberation from birth and death. Pulling up in one stroke the roots of birth and death accumulated through immeasurable kalpas is no small matter. Unless one has great strength, shoulders it stripped bare, and goes straight in with a single blade, it is difficult indeed. The ancients said it is like one person fighting ten thousand: no empty words.

Where to begin practice and realization

Generally, in this age of declining Dharma, many practice but few gain true benefit; many expend effort but few gain effective strength. Why? They have not found a direct starting point. They work only upon previously heard and seen knowledge, interpretations, and words, measuring through discriminating consciousness, suppressing deluded thoughts, and laboring at the gate of light and shadow. They first store ancient subtle sayings in their breasts, treating them as real teachings and their own understanding, unaware that none of it is useful here. This is precisely relying on others’ explanations and blocking one’s own gate to realization.

To work now, first cut away knowledge and interpretations, working solely upon this single thought. Firmly trust that your own mind is originally utterly clean, without a thread attached, perfectly luminous and filling the Dharma realm. Originally there is no body, mind, or world, nor deluded thoughts or emotional concerns. This very thought is originally unborn. Present appearances are all illusory and unreal, only shadows manifested in the true mind. Seeing through this, fix your gaze where deluded thoughts arise and cease: from where do they arise, and where do they cease? Press with effort in this way, and whatever the thought, one press crushes it, instantly dissolving it like ice and collapsing tiles. Never follow its turning or let it continue. This is what Yongjia meant by cutting off the continuing mind. The floating delusive mind originally has no roots; never treat it as a real thing lodged in your breast. When it arises, rebuke it, and with one rebuke it vanishes. Never force it down, or it will manipulate you like a gourd on water. Simply cast body, mind, and world aside and raise this single thought, like a precious sword across the sky. Whether Buddha or demon, cut everything off like tangled threads, pressing ahead with sheer force. This is the straight mind rightly recollecting suchness. Right recollection is no-thought. Observing no-thought may be called approaching Buddha’s wisdom.

At the first aspiration to practice, firmly trust the mind-only gateway. Buddha said the three realms are only mind and all phenomena only consciousness. All the Dharma explains these eight Chinese characters clearly so everyone can trust them. Broadly, the paths of sage and ordinary person are merely the two roads of delusion and awakening within one’s own mind. All good and evil, cause and effect: apart from this mind, not a single thing can be found. Our wondrous nature is natural and originally does not belong to awakening; how could it be deluded? What is now called delusion is merely failing to understand that one’s mind originally contains nothing and that body, mind, and world are originally empty, and being obstructed by them. One has always treated the arising and ceasing mind of deluded thought as real, thus taking the many transformations of the six sense objects and circumstances as real. Arousing aspiration now means turning the current upward. Entirely discard previous knowledge and interpretations; not the slightest clever view or method is useful. See through your present body, mind, and world at one glance: all are floating lights and illusory shadows in your mind, like images in a mirror or the moon in water. Regard every sound as wind through trees, every circumstance as clouds floating in space: all changing and unreal. This applies not only outside; your own deluded thoughts, emotional concerns, seeds of attachment, habits, and afflictions are also floating, illusory, and unreal.

Contemplate deeply like this, and whenever a thought arises, determine to investigate its origin and end. Never let it pass lightly or deceive you. Such work comes somewhat close to the genuine. Dragging in mysterious views and clever methods beyond this has no connection at all. Even speaking of practice is only a necessity, like warfare: weapons are inauspicious tools, used only when unavoidable. The ancients’ Chan inquiry and raising a huatou likewise were expedients. Though koans are many, the huatou of investigating the reality of Buddha-recollection is particularly easy to make effective amid worldly toil. Even so, it is only a tile used to knock on a door, ultimately to be discarded, though one must use it for a time. Working with it now requires full trust, firm reliance, and holding fast, never hesitation. Do not do this today and that tomorrow, fearing nonawakening or disliking its lack of mystery. These calculations are obstacles. Expose them beforehand so doubts do not arise at the moment.

When practice becomes effective, outside circumstances no longer enter, but inner afflictions arise wildly: desires erupt, vexation develops, or varied obstacles leave mind and strength exhausted and helpless. These are seeds of habits stored in the eighth consciousness through immeasurable kalpas, now pressed urgently by practice and appearing together. Here discernment is essential: first recognize and penetrate them. Never be enveloped, manipulated, or treat them as real. Simply rouse the spirit, exert brave vigor, and raise the original huatou. At the very arising of such thoughts, pursue directly: this matter originally does not exist here in me—ask where it comes from and what it ultimately is. Determine to see its source and end. Press ahead until spirits and ghosts weep, their traces vanish and hide. Drive them all out, leaving not a thread. Applying effort thus naturally brings good news.

If a single thought is broken through, all deluded thoughts fall away at once, like illusory flowers dropping from the sky and mirage waves settling. Passing through this brings immeasurable lightness, peace, and freedom. This is an early point of effective practice, nothing mysterious. In lightness and freedom, do not generate delight: delight invites the demon of delight into the mind, adding another obstacle. As for firmly rooted, deeply hidden seeds of attachment and habits in storehouse consciousness, where the huatou cannot exert force and observation of mind cannot illuminate, one cannot work unaided. Bow to Buddha, recite sutras, repent, and secretly maintain the mantra-heart, relying on Buddha’s secret seal to remove them. All secret mantras are Buddha’s adamantine mind-seal. Using them is like wielding an adamantine vajra that crushes all things to dust. The secret mind-seal instructions of Buddhas and patriarchs go no further than this. Thus it is said: “The Tathagatas of the ten directions maintain this mantra-heart and attain unsurpassed complete perfect awakening.” Buddha stated it openly, but patriarchal schools feared ordinary attachment and kept it unspoken, not unused. Set a daily practice; long familiarity brings much strength. Simply do not seek miraculous responses.

Intellectual awakening and realized awakening

Some practitioners awaken first and practice afterward; others practice first and awaken afterward. Yet awakening differs between understanding and realization.

Clarifying the mind through Buddhas’ and patriarchs’ verbal teachings is intellectual awakening. It often falls into conceptual views and is ineffective in circumstances because mind and objects stand opposed and cannot merge. Every encounter becomes a blockage and obstacle. This is called semblance prajna, not true inquiry.

Realized awakening comes through earnest work within one’s own mind, pressing to the end of every road until suddenly one thought ceases and the mind is thoroughly understood. It is like meeting your own father at a crossroads: no doubt remains. Like drinking water, you know its cold or warmth yourself and cannot convey it to others. This is true inquiry and genuine awakening. Then integrate mind and circumstances through that awakening, cleansing present karma and the flowing consciousness until deluded thoughts and emotional concerns melt into the single taste of true mind. This is realized awakening.

Realized awakening also has different depths. Working from the root, breaking the mold of the eighth consciousness, suddenly overturning ignorance’s lair, and directly entering in one leap with no remaining teaching is for those of the highest keen faculties, whose realization is deep. Others practice gradually and realize more shallowly.

Most to be feared is satisfaction with little; never fall at the gate of light and shadow. Since the eighth consciousness’s root remains unbroken, whatever is done remains at the level of discriminating consciousness. Taking this as truth resembles adopting a thief as one’s son. The ancients said: learners of the Way fail to know the true because they have long recognized discriminating consciousness; fools mistake the root of birth and death through immeasurable kalpas for their original person. This barrier especially must be penetrated.

Sudden awakening followed by gradual practice means awakening is already complete, but habits cannot be purified instantly. In every circumstance, raise the power of contemplation through the realized principle, testing the mind through experience. Integrate one measure of circumstance and realize one measure of Dharma body; remove one measure of delusion and reveal one measure of original wisdom. This depends entirely on continuous, meticulous work, becoming more effective through actual circumstances.

Six principles of practice and realization

When people of keen faculties, strong faith, and courageous vigor willingly practice, practical obstacles are easy to remove, conceptual obstacles difficult. A few difficulties are outlined here.

First: do not crave the mysterious

This matter is originally plain, settled, solid, and entirely ordinary, with nothing mysterious. Thus the ancients said: after awakening it is still as before awakening; the same person remains, but not the former way of walking. There is nothing mysterious. When practice matures, plainness naturally comes. Because habits of knowledge and interpretation remain impure, they inwardly perfume prajna; prajna, influenced by habits, produces illusions and clever views that cling to the mind. Mistaking them for mystery, one enters deeply and will not release them. These are precisely the reflected brightness of discriminating consciousness, roots of false discriminating views, also called the thorn of views. Unlike earlier coarse delusions, they are subtle continuous arising and ceasing, also called the obstruction of knowledge, blocking right understanding. Taking them as true generates wild views and is especially to be avoided.

Second: do not wait for awakening with the mind

Our wondrous, complete true mind is originally beyond oppositions. Delusions congealed into opposed mind and objects, faculties and sense objects, producing confusion and karma. Practitioners now need only let go of body, mind, and world in one thought, raise this one thought, and advance. Never concern yourself with awakening or nonawakening; simply work thought by thought and step by step. When practice reaches its point, the original face naturally appears. Why calculate beforehand? If the mind waits for awakening, that waiting mind is itself the root of birth and death. Waiting through endless kalpas will not bring awakening, because one fails to understand the true mind beyond oppositions and imagines something separate. If waiting remains, weariness easily arises and leads to retreat, like searching unsuccessfully for an object and deciding to stop.

Third: do not seek wondrous fruition

Beings’ deluded mind of birth and death is originally the Tathagata’s fruition-body. In delusion, Buddhas’ wondrous powers become deluded thoughts, emotional concerns, and discriminating views; the true pure Dharma body becomes karmic substance of birth and death; the pure wondrous land becomes the realm of the six sense objects. If practice brings sudden realization of one’s mind, it is like a great red furnace melting all forms. This body, mind, and world are originally the Tathagata’s fruition-body; these deluded thoughts and concerns are originally wondrous powers. The name changes, not the substance. Yongjia said: ignorance’s true nature is Buddha-nature; the illusory empty body is the Dharma body. Realizing this gateway lets feelings of grasping and rejecting vanish, delight and aversion cease: every step is the Flower Treasury pure land, every thought Maitreya descending into birth. If the mind first seeks wondrous fruition, that seeking is the root of birth and death, obstructing right understanding. The more one seeks, the farther away; exhausted seeking breeds weariness.

Fourth: do not generate doubts and anxieties

In practice, continually release body and mind, shut out seeing, hearing, and knowing, abandon old tracks, and face the dim unknown with nowhere to settle life. Forward there is no new realization; backward the old dwelling is lost. Calculating ahead and behind breeds doubt, countless reckonings of gain and loss, conjectural views, and deviant thoughts, obstructing right understanding. See through this, decide to enter directly, and cease worrying. Generally, when practice reaches the point where it seems impossible, that is precisely where it becomes effective. Increase spirit and vigor, and you will not retreat or yield; otherwise you fall to the demon of worry.

Fifth: do not generate fear

When practice’s concentrated force presses urgently, deluded thought suddenly stops and body and mind fall into emptiness. Seeing no inch of land on the earth, with limitless depth, one becomes terrified. Without seeing through this, one dares not advance. Or one regards this expansive emptiness as wondrous attainment. Taking this emptiness as real produces grave deviant views denying cause and effect. This is most dangerous.

Sixth: firmly believe your own mind is Buddha

There is no separate Buddha: this very mind is it. Buddha’s true Dharma body is like space. Understanding delusion’s original emptiness lets the inherently possessed Dharma body appear: luminous, silently illuminating, perfectly pervasive, lacking nothing and having no surplus. Do not send the mind chasing outside. Abandoning this mind to seek elsewhere makes limitless dreamlike realms arise within it. These are transformations of discriminating consciousness; never consider them extraordinary. In our pure mind originally there is not one thing, nor one thought. Any stirring of thought departs from the Dharma’s essence.

Today’s practitioners generally do not understand their mind’s deluded thoughts are originally unreal. Mistaking them for truth, they concentrate on opposing them, like children playing with lamp-shadows. The more they play, the less connection it has; continued play brings fear.

Others fear deluded thoughts and wish to seize them all at once and throw them aside. This is like catching wind and grasping shadows: struggling all day, exhausting strength, never resting for a thought. Entangled over time, faith weakens, and they say Chan inquiry has no effect, generating disparagement, fear, or retreat. This is a common beginner’s illness, arising simply from not understanding the abiding true mind and its unborn, unceasing nature, instead treating deluded thoughts as substantial truth. This must be penetrated. To pass this barrier, there is naturally a higher road: inquire apart from mind, intellect, and consciousness; seek apart from deluded realms. Whenever a thought arises, good or evil, cast it aside immediately; never oppose it. Firmly trust that this matter originally does not exist in your mind. Strongly raise the original huatou like an adamantine sword, sweeping away demons and Buddhas alike. Here great courage, great diligence, and great endurance are essential. Never calculate before and after or be timid. With a straight mind and right recollection, stand forth and advance. Naturally majestic and upright, you will not be entangled by these thoughts. Like a hawk freed from its tether, throughout the twelve double-hours you are naturally unbound by any circumstance, attaining great lightness, peace, and freedom. This is the first effective step of beginner’s practice.

These several points are much like drawing legs on a snake: temporary expedient words, neither ultimate nor an actual teaching. At the roadside, one step outside the door risks taking divergent paths, wasting effort and time. One must enter the genuinely correct gateway and emerge onto the wondrously adorned road. Thus it is said: walk evenly and rightly, swift as wind; such progress can make a day equal a kalpa.

In essence, the higher road of Buddhas and patriarchs involves no measured journey. Yet for a beginner’s expedients, one must still pass through here.

Evil is in the flesh

Good intentions are in the soul

But the soul’s goodness cannot defeat the flesh’s evil

The two provoke each other

I asked Buddha, “What do nirvana and rebirth mean?”

Buddha said, “Nirvana is ‘non-arising,’ ‘non-doing,’ ‘non-movement.’ Rebirth is your cause: because of what are you born, and for what do you die? If life and death are meaningless, why seek nirvana or rebirth? Everything arises or does not arise, acts or does not act, moves or does not move, from your heart. When you ask this question, it actually means there is no answer.”

There is no Buddha; Buddha does not speak either. Buddha is awakening; Buddha is yourself. You alone are your own master. Cherish every minute and every second. Learning to cherish is nirvana and rebirth.

Whoever causes me pain makes me strong

Pain is the fastest gateway to self-cultivation for everyone who accomplishes great undertakings

Without difficulties and pain, a person cannot awaken

At this moment we suddenly realize

When we wish friends fair winds and favorable rain, we are actually wishing them a lifetime of mediocrity

For thousands of years, no one who accomplished great undertakings had smooth sailing

Cultivating the heart is cultivating one’s fate

Everything that goes against your wishes is the return of past conduct. There is no past life or future life, only this life.

Without cultivating the heart, life consists only in experiencing life; love those around you well and find happiness

Everything about cultivating the heart is here

My heart is everything; everything is my heart

Complaining is suffering

Gratitude is happiness

Without greed, whence deception?

Without selfishness, whence heartbreak?

View the past through cause and effect

View the present through morality and righteousness

Believing, trust, conviction, faith

1. Believing (believe): recognition and acceptance of a viewpoint, idea, or person. Believing is a judgment based on objective facts or experience. It can rest on reason and evidence, or on personal convictions or emotional experience.

2. Trust (trust): recognition and acceptance of the reliability, integrity, and loyalty of a person or organization. Trust is a relationship based on mutual respect, honesty, and responsibility, and can be built on mutual understanding and experience.

3. Conviction (belief): firm recognition and acceptance of an idea, value, or moral principle. Conviction is a conception based on inner experience and cognition, and may take the form of religious belief, moral ideas, cultural traditions, and so on.

4. Faith (faith): firm recognition and acceptance of a deity, belief system, or religious belief. Faith is grounded in the believer’s mental and spiritual feelings, and may take the form of religious belief, a philosophy of life, values, and so on.

Integrity, clarity of heart, peace of mind, craftsmanship, satisfaction, happiness, ease, enthusiasm, confidence

Look with your heart, not your eyes; the truly precious things in the world are often invisible.

The truth of life is not merely winning achievement and glory, but the courage to continue to the next stop.

A person of great awakening and great freedom is a Buddha

Never utter a word of discouragement. We entrust our souls to great undertakings!

Heaven is in my heart,

The earth is beneath my feet,

Within, a spirit embracing mountains and rivers,

Without, the whole of all beings,

Head reaching heaven, feet planted on earth, a soaring ambition in my heart, fearing nothing!

Only when impermanence arrives do we know this illusory body. I urge you to recollect Buddha often, each thought quieting greed and anger.

Fish tracks in autumn waters, bird traces in the vast sky. Ask where I go: rebirth in the pure realm. Awakened, not deluded; what is born must perish. Returning on the strength of vows, why weep in sorrow?

Our Buddha’s final teaching: take precepts as your teacher. Through precepts cultivate concentration; through concentration develop wisdom. Through precepts, concentration, and wisdom, know suffering and cut off its causes, aspire to cessation and cultivate the path, moving toward liberation.

Purify your own mind: this is the teaching of all Buddhas. Different schools and traditions take different paths to the same destination. Believe this or that; faith is free.

Respect one another, erect no sectarian barriers, practice the six harmonies without contention, unite and help one another. Practice according to the teachings: the five precepts, ten good deeds, four means of embracing others, and six perfections, cultivating step by step.

Not complacent, yet content: happiness. Complacent, yet discontented: suffering.

Observe our body, speech, and mind from within. Do charitable work and build a career with a pure heart.

In this process, your heart will become not only perfected but very strong. You need not ask for any blessings; they will all come naturally.

When you lack blessings, even if someone brings charcoal in the snow, you may not have a lighter at home to light it!

Humanity’s most frightening invisible killer is “falseness,”

One word: “pretending”!

The more you pretend, the faker you become; the faker you become, the more you pretend. In the end, you very truly become a false person. Truth is not realistic; reality is not true. To escape falseness, delete every illusion and enter the root and essence. Liberation now, flowing now.

Arouse intention and cultivate the heart. Without arousing intention, people cannot subdue their troubles. It is like rowing upstream: the current is strong, and unless you row hard upward, you cannot even stay in place; you will surely be swept down. Without arousing upward aspiration and increasing inner wisdom’s strength, how could you simply let go of delusions and troubles whenever you wish?

The foolish follow external discipline, painstakingly scheming

The wise follow the discipline of the heart, doing as the heart desires

What is a person with energy? Someone living for more people!

How does energy come? “Borrowing”

For however many people you live, borrow that many people’s energy.

Simply put, live for all beings and you can borrow all beings’ energy!

Being yourself brings the greatest happiness

Accomplishing it brings the greatest confidence

Your confidence comes from having something unique that no one can match

And that something is valuable and needed by the world

Without good news, where does “joy” come from? How can we find “joy”?

“Joy”! It is not found outside. Before doing something, simply:

Find its sense of value;

Prepare for the worst,

And enter the present. Energy instantly fills you, taking you straight into “joy,” as if divinely helped. The more you live, the more beautiful you become; the more beautiful, the more “alive.” Your state, wisdom, and feeling return one by one.

Life is coming to earth to “have a little fun”!

Unable to emerge, it is hell bound by countless tangled thoughts; able to emerge, it is heaven liberated into boundless seas and skies.

Those of great cultivation enter the mortal world and the ordinary, acting neither strangely nor unusually nor making others’ hair stand on end.

How could the method of inner realization reside in verbal explanations? Is constant Buddha-talk not absurd? Plainness is the Way; ordinariness is Buddhahood.

Buddha

Awakening

Practice to become a Buddha lies in seeking

Realization to understand one’s nature lies in knowing

Practice: use action to discipline one’s nature

Realization: let one’s nature guide action

The awakened awaken themselves, letting rules arise from the heart

Practitioners follow external discipline, using rules to govern the mind

Realizing the Way is

Settling

Accumulating

Reflecting and questioning

Buddha

Awakening

Can be realized, cannot be cultivated

Unrealistic expectations or wishes may become desires you cannot control, and such irrational desire will lead you toward destruction.

When people lack self-awareness, they are one with the surrounding world, without any freedom, but with a sense of security, togetherness, and attachment

* An enticing goal

True cultivation comes from cultivating through action,

Doing more “Buddha’s work” matters more than believing in Buddha,

There are no masters beyond the world: away from the world, no masters exist. There is no cultivating life, only experiencing life.

Seeing through and becoming disenchanted: “the heart dies”; seeing through without disenchantment: “wisdom.”

Not complacent, yet content—happiness

Complacent, yet never content—suffering

Love those around you well and find happiness

Many who study Buddhism wear a Buddhist face and air, fill their mouths with Buddhist words, and look sanctimonious. I try to avoid them, for they have become slick Buddhist operators, entering “Buddhist demonhood.”

True practitioners do not put on a cultivated appearance.

Mouths full of Buddhist terms, no earthly language; a solemn dead expression entering a room and polluting the air; assuming an “empty” appearance free of stray thoughts, separating thoughts away only to enter another world of stray thoughts about “emptiness.” Freed from thought’s ropes, they are bound by the ropes of an “empty form,” entering discrimination. One word: “pretending”!

The secret behind great cultivation: connecting with the mortal world, no empty form, true reality, great ease!

Liberation is studying Buddhism; freedom is cultivating the Way

* Effortless progress

Learn independence; learn to deliver all beings

Many say thought is used to seek truth;

Many argue over right and wrong within others’ ideas;

Many lose themselves before knowledge and ideas.

One word: “delusion”!

What is delusion? Becoming a slave beneath someone else’s ideas.

Ordinary people live under others’ ideas, arguing over right and wrong, their body, mind, and soul controlled by the outside world;

Great achievers create their own independent ideas to deliver all beings. I decide whether my heart is moved.

A Buddha is an awakened person. The moment you awaken, you are a Buddha. If you not only awaken but produce independent ideas to guide all beings to awakening, you are a Buddha lord.

Respect, learn from, and cultivate Buddhahood without believing in Buddha;

Respect, learn from, and cultivate the God of Wealth without being deluded by him.

Great achievers transcend ideas, rise above ideas, create ideas, and use ideas; strengthen the self and hold it supreme, use independent thought to help others grow, and put the energy of all things to their use.

* The tension of unfinished things (the Zeigarnik effect)

Please free yourself from clinging to the familiar:

Many judge problems by past experience, but is the road we travel known or unknown? Why are most Chinese films historical costume dramas while Western films are science fiction? Everything stems from the focus of thought.

Ordinary people are bound by past experience; great achievers pare back past experience to explore the unknown;

Ordinary people look at the past to walk through today; great achievers look to the future and live in the present.

**Seven emotions:** joy, anger, worry, thought, sadness, fear, fright

**Six desires:** eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind

The seven emotions in the Book of Rites are joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, aversion, and desire. The Confucian account likewise gives joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, aversion, and desire; the Buddhist account gives joy, anger, worry, fear, love, hatred, and desire; physicians give joy, anger, sorrow, pleasure, love, aversion, and desire.

Book of Rites, “Evolution of Rites”: “What are human feelings? Joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, aversion, and desire: these seven are possible without learning.”

Three Character Classic: “Joy and anger, sorrow and fear; love, aversion, and desire complete the seven emotions.”

In traditional Chinese medicine, the seven emotions are “joy, anger, worry, thought, sadness, fear, and fright.” Excessive arousal of these seven states may cause imbalance of yin and yang and disrupted circulation of qi and blood, triggering various illnesses. It is thought-provoking that Chinese medicine does not include “desire” among the seven emotions.

According to Master Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals, the six desires arise from life, death, ears, eyes, mouth, and nose. Buddhism names desires for color, appearance, bearing and posture, speech and sound, softness and smoothness, and the thought of a person. Another account lists the desires to survive, know, express, perform, be comfortable, and love sexually.

Master Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals, “Valuing Life,” first proposed the six desires: “What is called complete life is when all six desires receive their due.” Eastern Han philosopher Gao You annotated this: “The six desires are life, death, ears, eyes, mouth, and nose.” Later generations summarized them as the desires for seeing (vision), hearing (hearing), fragrance (smell), flavor (taste), touch (touch), and mental desire.

The Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom identifies the six desires as desires for color, appearance, bearing and posture, speech and sound, softness and smoothness, and the thought of a person. It essentially situates the “six desires” as six innate desires ordinary people have for the opposite sex—what modern people commonly call “sexual desire.”

Do the right thing, and you will never be wrong

Please free yourself from personality:

Ordinary people are trapped by personality. Great achievers keep the whole picture in mind and have no fixed personality. They are not swayed by personality; they transcend it, rise above it, and use it, displaying whatever personality the moment requires. Without fixed nature, self, or form, they manifest the form appropriate to whatever setting they enter.

Do not care too much about anything. Without desire, one is strong.

With more experience, some things no longer cause immediate panic. Knowing there is room to handle matters and that present pain may not last long makes it easier to stabilize action. I value this calm and hope it comes from understanding and experience.

A calm appearance does not prove an absence of feeling. Disappointment remains disappointing; regret remains painful. Someone may arrange things well and still need time to process emotions: that too is a complete response. Hiding pain will not automatically remove it.

When negative events occur, first separate two parts: what needs handling now, and what am I feeling? Do urgent tasks first; express feelings needing explanation at a suitable time. Leave order for action and an outlet for yourself.

Stability deserves practice, and feelings deserve respect. Gradually becoming calm through understanding differs from continually demanding no emotions of oneself. Facing the real self creates more room to face real matters.

Practice means continually correcting conduct; realization means seeing the heart behind conduct.

Letting go does not mean denying experience; it means no longer letting experience rule the present.

Intention determines the direction of action; conviction determines persistence through difficulty.

First observe emotions and desires, then decide whether to let them become action.

True conviction is proved through long-term choices, not declarations.

Settle what cannot be reversed, and reclaim the parts on which you can still act.

Awakening must return to life and relationships and withstand the test of concrete situations.

Desire can provide motivation, but also needs boundaries, rhythm, and awareness of consequences.

Hardship is subjective; so-called hardship is merely your subjective refusal to accept it

Those things unchanged by death are the essence of 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

Please free yourself from life and death: if you do not fear even death, where can fear come from?

You are almost dead—what damn use is money?

You are almost dead—how many regrets remain?

Freedom from life and death naturally frees you from fear;

Freedom from life and death naturally frees you from money;

Freedom from life and death naturally lets you shoulder responsibility.

Those who transcend the mundane stay grounded; those who stay grounded are neither born nor extinguished, drawing on the energy of heaven and earth.

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!

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

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!

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.

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.

Some things we treated seriously at the time still failed to reach the hoped-for result. With some important people, only when we can no longer approach them do we more clearly know their place in our hearts. Some regrets in life truly cannot be repaired.

Accepting this requires room for pain. Handling matters calmly can coexist with sadness; continuing necessary work does not mean the experience no longer matters. Demanding that we immediately move on only leaves real feelings nowhere to rest.

What remains open to choice can be adjusted starting today. Express care earlier, postpone important words less, and be present seriously while there is a chance. Let the irreversible become memory, instead of repeatedly using hypotheticals to demand that reality happen again.

Regret reminds us that time and relationships have boundaries. Bring this reminder into everyday life: care for those still nearby and complete what there is still time to do. Loss cannot be erased, but today can still be cherished.

After ups and downs, I once had a very direct realization: being alive and still physically healthy already deserve cherishing. Other gains are additions to this foundation. While busy pursuing things, this order is easily reversed.

Goals unfinished, income unsatisfying, undertakings incomplete: we keep seeing gaps. Meanwhile, the ability to rest and act, someone to talk to, and the chance to rearrange life—these already existing things gradually become taken for granted.

Seeing them affects concrete choices. Rest when unwell, sleep early for important things tomorrow, and do not exhaust all energy at once. Distant goals remain worth pursuing; the person carrying those goals also needs care.

Cherishing the present need not wait until everything goes smoothly. First acknowledge happiness already possessed, then strive for what else you want, and your inner scale becomes fuller. Life has gaps and can still contain things worth thanking.

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.

After setbacks, people understand things they once could not. It is easy to worry further: if someone’s life stays smooth, might they lack chances to mature? This deserves thought, but does not immediately justify “we must make them suffer.”

Growth contains many real challenges. Taking full responsibility for something, handling a disagreement, choosing with limited resources, and owning mistakes can all reveal the boundaries of ability and judgment. These tasks are difficult enough without additional harm.

When helping others, distinguish costs worth trying from risks that should promptly be avoided. Giving room for trial and error while protecting health and essential safety is not contradictory. We can accompany people in bearing results without praising all pain as education.

Setbacks can become material for growth; smooth progress can begin higher expectations. What truly deserves concern is whether experience improves judgment and responsibility, not how much someone has suffered.

Difficulty is both pressure and feedback testing how prepared we are.

Only by facing the endpoint can we arrange today more clearly.

Impermanence reminds us to cherish the present and to leave flexibility in our plans.

Enter life, observe, experience, and review; only then can abstract principles become lived understanding.

Turn reflection on life and death into cherishing, responsibility, and fewer regrets.

A good life is not one without storms, but one that retains direction through them.

Life’s meaning must appear through the things we are doing and the people we are influencing.

First prepare for the worst, then divide what you can do into small steps and complete them.

A man should have commanding spirit, the ambition to embrace mountains and rivers: the world in my heart, the earth beneath my feet.

A man should have a Buddha’s heart, a heart that delivers all beings, seeing help for others as life’s greatest achievement.

A man should have breadth of mind, seeing every hardship in life as a prerequisite for success.

A man should have backbone: between heaven and earth, only the right path enables him to stand unshaken.

A man should have principles: only by clearly distinguishing black from white can he earn the reverence of all beings.

Unraveling troubles strand by strand requires outside help. The most important part of drawing on outside help is learning to listen. Do not pour out all your troubles and thoughts at once, feel relieved, then think it is over after receiving sympathy and refuse to mention it again. Such communication only produces output without gaining anything. Keep listening to others’ analyses and insights: this is where the exchange begins, and it may solve the root problem. Sharing only draws out strands; only after listening and exchanging ideas might you unravel the cocoon.

Please free yourself from personal loyalty:

Many once told me, “Personal loyalty comes first.” I asked what it meant. They said valuing affection and loyalty. I said these are appearances: personal loyalty divides into “small affections and loyalties” and “the greater righteousness of the whole.”

Ordinary people are trapped by personal loyalty. Great achievers transcend “small affections and loyalties” to see “the whole and all beings,” growing a “compassionate heart”: if I do not shoulder this, who will? If I do not enter hell, who will? Free of emotions and desires, they plead for all beings.

A person is a ball on a slope. Uphill lies gratitude, downhill complaint, and the ball cannot remain neutral: either deliberately enter gratitude or unintentionally enter complaint. Negative energy is seven times positive energy. It is not burning bridges or lacking gratitude, but failing to discover deliberately and forgetting inadvertently. Gratitude deliberately discovers how good you are; complaint inadvertently gets used to receiving.

Evil is in the flesh

Good intentions are in the soul

The heart and soul’s goodness cannot defeat the flesh’s evil

The two provoke each other

Only thinking and ideas that teach goodness are immortal

More experiences and participation

More transmission and sharing with the world

Though a hundred kalpas pass, deeds do not perish. When causes and conditions meet, one receives the karmic result oneself. Zengzi also said: “When a person loves goodness, though blessings have not arrived, calamity is already far away.”

“Heaven gives birth to all things through yang and completes them through yin. Birth is benevolence; completion is righteousness.” Goodness signifies benevolence; establishing signifies righteousness. Benevolence is essence, righteousness appearance. Begin with righteousness as the first stirring of intention, and return to benevolence as the guide to conduct. Cause and effect cycle, following the rule that without breaking there is no establishing, continually preserving, breaking, and establishing. Reach utmost emptiness, maintain profound stillness. All things arise together; I observe their return.

Life’s three immortalities are establishing virtue, achievement, and lasting words; to these I add ambition and action. Ambition is the starting point. Without it, setting out lacks righteousness and nothing can be accomplished. Without ambition comes no action, hence no virtue, achievement, or lasting words. Thus, at the level of my individual self, I aspire to become a planner, investing immense time and energy. Through experience in one business project after another, I bring upon myself every virtue a planner should possess, thereby establishing virtue. Through consulting, planning, and training that support business development, I establish achievement. Following universal values, I share all my consolidated experience and accumulation unreservedly with those who need it, continually producing content and spreading it through the internet, establishing lasting words. This entire process is ambition, action, virtue, achievement, and lasting words, summarized as “Begin by establishing.”

Benevolence is Heaven’s Way. Heaven creates all things: great goodness, kindness toward others, an altruistic heart, following the life values of revering heaven and loving people. One thought arises: myriad rivers and mountains, prosperity through countless ages; one thought ceases: seas become fields, loss through eternity. Good and evil differ by one thought. Good thoughts nourish a good heart, create good causes, enact good conditions, and produce good fruits. Initially, as a creed, use action to discipline nature and rules to govern the heart; ultimately rise to acting through goodness. The awakened awaken themselves, letting rules arise from the heart. This is summarized as “Return to goodness.”

“Begin by establishing, return to goodness”: eight Chinese characters for continual cultivation and contemplation within finite life. Practice lies in seeking, realization in knowing. Practice uses action to discipline nature; realization lets nature guide action. The awakened awaken themselves, letting rules arise from the heart; practitioners follow external discipline, using rules to govern the heart. Continually cultivate the individual self and realize the transcendent self, cycling repeatedly and improving the capacity for realization.

Brush away worldly splendor, illuminate the original heart: limpid purity, light filling the void.

This folder’s contents record insights arising from everyday matters, saved by category. Some came from exchanges and collisions of ideas with friends nearby, some from reflections summarized from books, and some from teachings by masters.

They concern the outside world, labels, genius, time, life goals, reality, regret, and so forth.

If you are not good at speaking, smile and listen. Still waters run deep.

First-rate women discuss ideas,

Second-rate women discuss household matters,

Third-rate women discuss gossip.

First-rate wives understand spiritual guidance,

Second-rate wives help get things done,

Third-rate wives stir up trouble.

Women’s learning and growth determine a nation’s qualities; women’s qualities influence society’s development!

Revere those who stand firm! If you are clear, the world is clean;

If you are simple, the world can hardly become complicated.

If you do not half-resist and half-comply, the world will not become half-black and half-white for you. Some boundaries must be upheld.

The more ground you lose on principles, the more your life falls into ruin.

Life’s greatest change is not the dream you possess, but holding to your decision whatever happens;

Life’s greatest strength is not being encouraged by happiness, but still finding enjoyment while enduring the utmost pain;

Life’s most moving thing is not others’ selfless help, but their sharing life, honor, and disgrace with you while the future’s fortune and success remain unknown;

Life’s greatest thing is not brilliant results, but beginning a pioneering undertaking others consider impossible.

Even amid war’s chaos, with people and horses exhausted, I hold my sword to protect your “vast realm.”

Even amid blanket snow, with heaven collapsing and earth splitting, I hold my sword to defend your “devotion until death.”

Even with ammunition and provisions exhausted, disregarding life and death, I hold my sword, loyal to your “rule over all under heaven.”

Even in the deepest underworld, among Ox-Head and Horse-Face, I hold my sword and obey your command to “slay them all.”

What is nobility?

Everyone will say playing the piano, playing ball, appreciating red wine, and so on.

These are actually all appearances.

True nobility lies in nobility of heart.

Nobility of heart means seeing helping others as the greatest joy.

The more a person helps, the nobler they are.

Monetary relationships are the most real and reliable interpersonal relationships.

* Greed, anger, delusion, hatred, love, aversion, desire: if you wish to control someone, control what they desire

Do not trouble yourself over other people’s faults. Thank those who betray you; thank those who help you grow. Learn to forgive, to be tolerant, and to let life continually restore itself.

Those who accomplish great undertakings encounter people who “betray” them along the way. You need not become entangled; simply draw lessons about human nature.

Human nature has three needs

First, the need for money

Second, the need for a future

Third, the need for a spiritual world

1. Use distribution to meet people’s need for money

2. Use a great strategic vision and employee advancement to meet people’s need for a future

3. Use a sense of the sacred to meet people’s need for a spiritual world

Standing in the same “position” makes you “one group”; without the same “position,” you are not “one group.”

Those who accomplish great things must free themselves from “personal loyalty,” master “human nature,” grow a compassionate heart, and plead for all beings: if I do not shoulder this, who will? Wholeheartedly help subordinates succeed. However many betrayals, however many times you are shattered, keep this heart unchanged and carry on for twenty years, and you will surely accomplish a great undertaking under heaven.

When your tears run dry, your heart becomes strong.

Life is a process of continually breaking and continually recovering!

Thank those who betray you, because they help you stand more steadily.

Thank those who betray you, because they clear your eyes.

Thank those who betray you, because they help you distinguish day from night.

View this world with a pure heart, and you will surely reap a pure life.

Those who accomplish great things encounter betrayal along the way. The larger the undertaking, the more people betray you; more betrayers signify a larger undertaking.

Those who accomplish great things must withstand blows, betrayal, and great storms. Only then can they possess the success available to a few.

Why say those who accomplish great things encounter betrayal? Because the larger your undertaking, the more people it involves and affects. As the saying goes, “A big forest has every kind of bird.” Not everyone can help you, advise you, or lend you a hand. Learn to see through the ordinary conditions of human life, and face everything—including betrayal—with an even heart.

Those whose hearts are devoted

Fear not life

Fear not death

Fear not parting

All things in the world

Undying through love

Are thereby everlasting

Ordinary people assess people by listening to statements; good and bad are entirely in others’ mouths!

Experts assess results: if the person were not good, how could results be good?

The very finest experts assess the true form: how many energetic companions stand behind them!

Changing behavior is not control; the key is helping people understand the “positive” intention behind it.

An intention that gives someone more choices is “love”;

An intention that leaves someone one choice is “control.”

If you can help people understand “love,” you can deliver yourself and others, shining brilliantly!

Life is a process of breaking and restoring. Forgive those who betray you: the greatest beneficiary is actually yourself. The more you keep score, the more you lose; the more you worry about, the more you drop. Look at this world and everyone around you with a grateful heart.

“Love”!

It is not pity, not giving, still less something that ends in a single act, but guidance along a path of light!

Without making dreams, giving dreams, or promising, you will not hurt others;

Without expectations, fantasies, or dependence, you will not be hurt by others.

Pursuing being loved leads to loneliness,

Loving with all your strength leads to abundance.

It is not about having someone who loves you, but being a person who has love.

Life’s greatest happiness is simply “falling in love with someone and becoming fascinated by something.”

Always keep a pure heart. Loving someone is happier than being loved!

Endurance without love is “resentment,” hurting others and yourself; endurance with love is “compassion,” delivering others and yourself; what has nothing to do with me calls for “stepping aside,” with no need to endure. Non-involvement gives rise to insight, unsurpassed wisdom.

Many masters say, “To do great things, find a group of people who love you.” This is complete nonsense!

First, you cannot find them,

Second, if you do, you become useless.

The real secret is finding people whose dreams you are willing to help realize and for whom you are willing to give—in other words, working with people you love.

Because you love them, you appreciate them;

Because you love them, you accept them;

Because you love them, their flaws are strengths;

Because you love them, mistakes are growth;

Because you love them, the great undertaking is all for them;

Because you love them, whatever you do feels good;

Because you love them, you are happy;

Because you love them, you get along;

Because you love them, happiness keeps them close;

Because you love them, encouragement helps them grow quickly;

Because you love them, in time they love you;

Those who would accomplish great things, find a group of people you love!

What is Valentine’s Day?

Celebrating with a lover, sharing romance with a lover…

These are all appearances.

The underlying core is gratitude to those who give affection. It is not about having a lover, but being a person with love.

What does walking with wisdom mean?

Some say it means handling things smoothly, following the middle way.

These are appearances; the core behind them is “taking another’s perspective.”

First see yourself as someone else: this is “selflessness”;

Then see someone else as yourself: this is “compassion”;

Then see others as others: this is “wisdom”;

Finally see yourself as yourself: this is “ease.”

Do not worry about others’ judgments, but take good care of the feelings of those around you!

Experiencing deception is no more than this

Experiencing betrayal is no more than this

Experiencing infidelity is no more than this

Experiencing public judgment is no more than this

Only after suffering can we let go of suffering

Only after attachment can we let go of attachment

Only after concern can we be free of concern

Always keep a pure heart, striving to experience and mature in the mortal world;

Always keep a compassionate heart, striving among all beings to guide people’s growth;

Always keep a grateful heart, striving within heaven and earth to give back to living beings!

When we cherish someone, they must have moved us; when we give someone up, they must have disappointed us.

Only when down and out can we see clearly who pours cold water on us and who offers a heart full of concern. Those who accompany you cannot leave because warmth has created a mutual bond of loyalty; those who understand you do not leave because their care makes them irreplaceable.

Happy people are not actually those who obtained the best things in the world, but those who cherished the people already beside them.

The word heard most often in society lately is “gratitude.”

Many talk about gratitude without understanding the word.

Why does gratitude keep floating in the air, unusable in everyday life?

Why does it never land or connect with life?

All this talk of ten great kindnesses or eight great kindnesses concerns appearances. People have put their focus in the wrong place: the core of gratitude is not the “kindness” but the “awareness.”

“Kindness” is love’s “manifestation”

“Awareness” is love’s “discovery”

Without discovery, how can there be manifestation?

In other words, only discovery lets you recognize kindness; only recognizing kindness makes it present; only with kindness present do you seek to repay it!

Gratitude is the “discovery” and “manifestation” of love

1. What is awareness?

Discovering and sensing the presence of love.

Whom do we discover and sense?

Familiar people.

What are familiar people?

The “sun” you think is unnecessary because daytime is bright enough already.

The moon at night is easily noticed; the sun by day is easily overlooked. Sense the presence within apparent absence, and still more the presence within presence.

“Taken for granted” and “a blessing” differ in whether you have discovered it. Discovered, it is “a blessing”; undiscovered, it is “only to be expected.” My heart is everything; everything is my heart.

What should we sense?

Who protects us, gives birth to us, raises us, educates us, advances us, advises us, rescues us in an emergency, supports us, accompanies us, treats us as a sibling, and understands us.

2. What is kindness?

Manifesting, returning, and passing on love

What does manifesting and returning mean?

Returning means receiving love, giving love, and passing love on.

Work hard to give in everyday life, bringing love back into circulation.

The core of this return is not giving back to the source, but giving back to all beings.

Doing gratitude is better than talking about it; everything shows itself in actual deeds.

The three great kindnesses one must repay in life

The kindness of giving birth

Ten months carrying a child depletes the marrow; after death, the cremated bones are black.

The kindness of raising a child

“I’m not hungry,” “I don’t like eating that,” “I don’t need it,” “I’m not cold,” “I’m not tired”…

Hearts worn out, faces aged—who benefits from their scrimping and saving?

Without resentment or regret, beset by illness and pain—for whom do they toil?

The kindness of education

Without thought, a sack of flesh;

With thought, flowers bloom!

Birth and upbringing take more than ten years; education bestows kindness on generations.

The kindness of upbringing exceeds the kindness of giving birth

The kindness of education exceeds the kindness of upbringing

What is the underlying core?

The core lies not in manifestation and return, but in discovery and awareness;

The core lies not in an unfamiliar world, but in the familiar world;

The core lies not in repaying the source, but in passing kindness on to all beings;

The core lies not in talking about gratitude, but in practicing it.

When a woman’s heart forms the intention to help a man succeed, the man’s heart is instantly won over

When a boss’s heart forms the intention to help employees succeed, employees are immediately won over

Businesses introduce marketing, management, forms… These are appearances. Those who play with blades will die by them. The core behind marketing and management is “the first stirring of intention.”

Form the wholehearted intention to deliver employees, and employees are instantly won over;

Form the wholehearted intention to help customers, and customers are instantly won over;

Form the wholehearted intention to free the boss, and the boss is instantly won over;

As long as the first stirring of intention is pure and compassionate, all beings are instantly won over.

Wholeheartedly deliver others, and they deliver you in return

Wholeheartedly love others, and they love you in return

What is kindness?

Manifesting, returning, and passing on love. What does manifesting and returning mean?

Returning means receiving love, giving love, and passing love on. Work hard to give in everyday life, bringing love back into circulation.

The core of this return is not giving back to the source, but giving back to all beings.

Doing gratitude is better than talking about it; everything shows itself in actual deeds. The three great kindnesses one must repay in life

The kindness of giving birth

Ten months carrying a child depletes the marrow; after death, the cremated bones are black.

The kindness of raising a child

“I’m not hungry,” “I don’t like eating that,” “I don’t need it,” “I’m not cold,” “I’m not tired”… Hearts worn out, faces aged—who benefits from their scrimping and saving? Without resentment or regret, beset by illness and pain—for whom do they toil?

The kindness of education

Without thought, a sack of flesh; with thought, flowers bloom!

Birth and upbringing take more than ten years; education bestows kindness on generations. The kindness of upbringing exceeds the kindness of giving birth. The kindness of education exceeds the kindness of upbringing. What is the underlying core?

The core lies not in manifestation and return, but in discovery and awareness;

The core lies not in an unfamiliar world, but in the familiar world;

The core lies not in repaying the source, but in passing kindness on to all beings;

The core lies not in talking about gratitude, but in practicing it.

Blossoming that lifts those nearby is blossoming; blossoming that cannot lift them is showing off;

Personal charm that benefits those nearby brings “brothers lifting you up,”

Personal charm that cannot benefit them brings “the brothers’ common enemy”!

Please stay away from Western teachings of women’s success. Hidden in major direct-selling businesses, they invade China’s five-thousand-year culture of women’s wisdom like a poisonous current.

A girl is simple, real, and above the mundane, finding joy in helping people. After marriage, she centers her husband, encouraging, caring for, and nourishing him, proud of him and admiring him immensely, happy every day.

One day she happens to encounter direct selling and receives many ideas:

“Women must have their own dreams”

“Women should not center their husbands”

“Women without independence have no status”

“Women without independence are bullied by their in-laws”

“Women must build their own independent world”

“Women must build a career”

“Women should live proudly”

“Women should learn to invest in themselves”

“Conviction first, family second, career third”

Please note: what does conviction first mean? Is it not merely a clever way of saying career first?

In other words, career-family-career silently dilutes the word family…

These ideas overturn her former values and become conviction and faith.

From then on she changes, emphasizing appearance and dress, with somewhat heavy makeup, false smiles, and purposeful enthusiasm. Familiar or stranger, everyone is “darling” or “dear.” Formerly she continually gave gifts to those nearby; now she frantically seeks ways to sell them products. Formerly she honored elders; now she complains and finds fault with them. Formerly calls and texts cared for her husband; now there is not one text in two months. Formerly she centered him; now his excellence makes her uncomfortable and jealous. Formerly she admired her husband; now she worships career beliefs. Formerly a woman’s infidelity was unforgivable; now it has reasons and her conscience is calm. Formerly above the mundane, now vulgar rouge and powder reeking of money, single-mindedly pursuing an illusory particular car or glory.

Three years later, she asks her husband for divorce, demanding the new house he borrowed money to buy at her urging, the car he bought, the garage, and IOUs for hundreds of thousands. She also takes the Sanya retirement house he gave his parents, leaving only their small home, a car an employee gave him whose title cannot be transferred, and nearly a million in debt.

Through all this, the child suffers. Is this not destruction for the next generation and several generations after?

However successful such a woman becomes, will she be happy?

According to statistics, divorce rates among China’s direct-selling workers currently rank among the highest, reaching 67% for female direct-selling workers. In other words, few women in direct selling do not divorce. The source of all this is legitimate products wearing the guise of pyramid selling, whose creed is targets and personal success.

“Women’s success teachings” are not bad in themselves, but excessively pursue personal success and targets;

“Women’s wisdom” pursues overall harmony among those nearby: while independent, women nourish children, partners, parents, family, friends, and society, not fixating on “targets” but realizing fundamental “purpose.”

Women deserve the greatest respect! Men are “yang,” the spirit embracing mountains and rivers; women are “yin,” the spirit nourishing all things.

Learning and growth are important

Learning the right things is more important

I strongly recommend the women’s cultivation course Traditional Chinese Culture

Chinese women, keep going!

Keep going for the future of the next generation and generations after!

Giving money is the lesser strategy, giving ability the middle strategy, giving ideas the highest strategy

**Success itself cannot be copied, but its underlying logic is shared**

Two good friends met Death.

Death said, “Only one of you can live. You

will play rock-paper-scissors; the loser dies.” In the end, one lost… The other held his dead friend and said, “Brother, we agreed both to play rock. Why, when I played scissors, did you play paper?”

However often you are hurt or shattered, always keep a pure heart. My love for you has nothing to do with whether you love me!

Abundance of body, mind, and soul needs no deliberate pursuit. Sincerely love those nearby well, and life is red flowers, green grass, and delighted conversation!

Western thinking:

Women build careers not for money but for dignity;

Women must be independent; women must not depend on their men;

Husbands cannot be relied on; women must have a world of their own;

Women must blossom, love themselves, realize dreams, prove their value, and spend money dressing themselves up… etc. (money, distrust, selfishness, desire, competitiveness, outward beauty)

Chinese thinking: woman is “earth.” A woman’s greatness lies in how many people she nourishes: children (Mencius’s mother), her husband (Soong Ching-ling: “A woman’s greatest undertaking is igniting her man and nourishing him into an unrivaled hero and a model for the children”), and elders. ~Earth gives birth to all things.

Western success teachings have poisoned the wise Chinese “woman” into a selfish “female,” to save five thousand years of Chinese women’s wisdom

The flowers of early spring

The rain of high summer

The leaves of late autumn

The snow of deep winter

And you, in my heart

If affection is the sea

You are its lone island

So vast

Yet the only one

I know

Attraction is instinct

Fidelity can be chosen

Wind passes, sails stir

My heart remains

This is my

Truest answer to you

Thank you

For reveling in the world with me

For letting me dream freely in the night

I pray

May your worldly life be unblemished

May your sweet dreams be peaceful

Today

Let me declare my love to you

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Human nature, beautiful or ugly, is reasonable.

Greed, anger, delusion, and the seven deadly sins all arise from desire. Desire exists objectively; what exists is reasonable.

Some things can be developed, others need restraint: this is being human.

What one believes should be developed or restrained constitutes one’s worldview, outlook on life, and values.

Until something happens, you do not know who is near or far.

Until you discern people, you do not know whose feelings are deep or shallow!

Until benefits run out, you do not know who stays or leaves.

Until you are poor, you do not know who is cold or warm!

Until you associate with people, you do not know who is good or bad

To see through human nature, consider the other person’s needs, pain points, and interests. Once understood, you can handle things with ease. Think matters through, say what needs saying, and get along well with people.

Seeing the strengths in every kind of person brings you to the level of leadership. The human heart has died, the Buddha’s heart arisen; penetrate human nature and command the whole;

Failing to see strengths in every kind of person brings you to the human level, controlled by external emotions and desires, entering entanglement, pain, and brokenness.

Transcend character judgments to penetrate human nature: no one under heaven cannot be employed;

Unable to transcend character judgments, you enter emotions: no one under heaven can be used by me.

Only seeing through the mortal world lets you bear all beings!

Do not lightly define someone’s character. There are no character problems, only understanding problems; no understanding problems, only communication problems. A person consists of one strength and a great pile of flaws. What you see is what they become.

When a boss defines character, they instantly enter the gate of death and cease growing

When a boss defines human nature, they instantly enter the realm of life and continually progress

Those who accomplish great undertakings encounter people who “betray” them along the way. You need not become entangled; simply draw lessons about human nature. Human nature has three needs

First, the need for money

Second, the need for a future

Third, the need for a spiritual world

1. Use distribution to meet people’s need for money

2. Use a great strategic vision and employee advancement to meet people’s need for a future. 3. Use a sense of the sacred to meet people’s need for a spiritual world

Standing in the same “position” makes you “one group”; without the same “position,” you are not “one group.” Those who accomplish great things must free themselves from “personal loyalty,” master “human nature,” grow a compassionate heart, and plead for all beings: if I do not shoulder this, who will? Wholeheartedly help subordinates succeed. However many betrayals, however many times you are shattered, keep this heart unchanged and carry on for twenty years, and you will surely accomplish a great undertaking under heaven.

When relationships are good, much is easily left unsaid. We assume mutual understanding makes it unnecessary to ask who handles what, who may decide what, and who can see which information. But shared intentions do not mean identical understanding. As things proceed, new pressures gradually expose what was left out.

Writing powers and interests clearly lets everyone know where they stand. Who has duties and corresponding room to act; who bears risk and can learn what is happening; who shares in distributions, and on what basis. Discussing these at the beginning may feel awkward; waiting until disagreement emerges often takes more effort.

Rules cannot merely explain cooperation when things run smoothly. Differing opinions, changing roles, or promised resources not arriving all deserve an opening for discussion. Not everything can be written in advance, but we can agree who raises unspecified matters and how they are confirmed, instead of letting the loudest person decide on the spot.

I hope trust makes people more willing to explain, not more afraid to explain. Someone willing to discuss boundaries seriously at least gives the cooperation a chance to endure. Clarity does not automatically remove disagreement, but gives it a place, without repeatedly resolving it by guessing one another’s intentions.

Money is easiest to see because amounts can be recorded, compared, and quickly discussed. Yet accomplishing something also needs people to provide resources, keep working, and bring in relationships accumulated over years. Looking only at initial financial contributions may narrow our view of shared creation too much.

What I want to discuss is how distribution can better reflect real contributions. Different inputs can be rewarded differently; there is no need to force every contribution into the same number. What matters is that participants know which inputs will be recognized and which results connect to their effort, rather than waiting until results appear for others to decide whether their contribution counts.

Recognizing contributions also needs boundaries. Who records and checks them, how overlapping contributions are distinguished, and how short-term achievements and sustained input are understood cannot rest on “everyone knows.” If one side controls evaluation entirely, those whose contributions are hardest to quantify most easily lose the chance to explain themselves.

Fairness need not mean identical treatment, but should allow different contributions to receive justified responses. A rule’s real value depends on whether ordinary participants understand it, can object, and can see predictable connections to their actions. Otherwise, distribution is merely a promise, and collaboration still depends on guesswork and luck.

Two people both saying they want to cooperate does not necessarily mean they envision the same thing. One imagines joint operation, another service provision; one expects long-term involvement, another is prepared only to finish the immediate task. The same word may contain different contributions and different ways of leaving.

When information passes through several people, enthusiasm can amplify these differences. One says there is interest; the next hears an intention; further along, it becomes agreement. Every step looks like progress, while what truly needs confirmation may never reach the parties themselves.

Before cooperation, I think a simple check is worthwhile: what does each person hope to gain, what are they willing to contribute, what has been confirmed so far, and what remains undecided? There is no need for grand language or a rush to prove compatibility. Let differing expectations appear first, so their compatibility can be discussed.

Discovering differences does not mean something is wrong with the relationship. Sometimes it simply means finally moving from imagination to reality. Cooperation that can restate intentions and adjust participation has more room than maintaining superficial agreement throughout. Mutual benefit requires everyone’s separate confirmation; one person’s wishes cannot stamp approval for all.

Wanting to help can easily make refusal feel burdensome. The other person faces difficulties and I see some solutions, so I feel taking the matter on proves goodwill. But who will continue contributing, whether the scope will expand, and whether existing participants agree all require separate answers.

I think goodwill can first appear in pointing out problems, explaining conditions, and offering possible paths. This gives the other person information while preserving my judgment. Help can have different degrees; a conversation need not become endless responsibility, still less a commitment of undiscussed work on behalf of the whole team.

Some requests look like one service but actually contain another kind of ongoing work. If neither party sees this distinction, the more conscientious one may invest increasingly more and later feel wronged. Explaining promptly what I can do and how far I am willing to go is one condition for help to continue.

Refusing an unsuitable arrangement need not also reject the person. We can decline the whole commitment while still explaining the problems we see. A helper with boundaries at least will not create expectations they cannot fulfill merely to appear enthusiastic now. Goodwill should care for the other person while respecting my own and fellow participants’ choices.

After finding we are not compatible, we often seek a painless way to say so. We say we are busy lately, will see later, or continue accepting care. Softer words may make the other person think a chance remains and keep investing time and emotion.

If I already know the answer, that is what needs expressing. I can be gentle and grateful, but should not describe lack of willingness as temporarily unsuitable conditions. The former tells someone to stop; the latter suggests waiting or trying harder might change things.

If still uncertain, I can honestly say so. But I cannot enjoy someone’s continual giving while keeping every choice to myself. No one can guarantee others will not hurt, but we can at least let them decide on reality rather than deliberately preserved ambiguity.

Everyone is free to like someone, and no one need force themselves to like someone. Clear meaning returns the basis for decision to both sides. Ending expectations hurts for a time; knowingly keeping someone waiting without possibility prolongs that hurt.

Liking someone makes us willing to spend time, find solutions, and shoulder things for them. These contributions are real, but prove our own affection, not directly our compatibility, still less an obligation to respond with equal feeling.

I value mutual affection because mutuality means two people independently willing. Displaying our effort and asking why they are not moved turns affection into a debt. They may agree to avoid disappointing us, but unwillingness does not vanish; it merely remains temporarily unspoken.

This does not make giving unimportant. Once people want to be together, they need mutual care, support, and responsibility; prolonged one-sided effort can justify reconsidering the relationship. But what can be negotiated is how to relate, not a demand, through argument, for a feeling that does not exist.

We can earnestly try and can stop when no response comes. Stopping does not prove previous effort worthless; it acknowledges that one person cannot decide affection. Leave choice to the other person, and the choice to continue investing to yourself.

When someone close wants to do something I consider risky, I worry and want to stop them. The more I care, the easier it is to feel my reasons suffice: I am doing this for you, why insist? But this does not answer why they want to do it.

Concern can begin a warning, but does not directly grant authority to decide for someone. State the risks, where the judgment comes from, and what remains unclear. Also hear what they hope to gain. Without their reasons, it is hard to know whether we discuss the same thing or merely seek relief from our own anxiety.

If it requires my money, time, or shared consequences, I can state my boundaries and decide which parts to join. This is clearer than covertly controlling resources or delaying under another pretext. Discussion cannot ensure agreement, but can locate disagreement in real matters.

Caring sometimes means helping verify, sometimes clearly opposing, sometimes admitting I cannot judge. The key is not making concern proof that the other must obey. If we still disagree after mutual understanding, the relationship truly begins facing disagreement.

When caring for others, I first consider what is more useful and worthwhile, sometimes making many tradeoffs for them. But one question cannot be skipped: is this what they want, or what I think they should want? The answers can differ greatly.

They may not know about an arrangement I find meaningful; they may have waited long for a gift I find simple. Something I consider better may exceed a family member’s habits and feel troublesome. How much thought I give and whether they receive needed care are different.

Ask directly, or listen seriously to requests already made. First understand whether they value an object, time, companionship, or a sign they are remembered. If it cannot be done for now, explain why; do not declare their need meaningless to prove your thoughtfulness.

Good intentions need not be denied, but need testing against the other person’s life. The needed adjustment may be spending no more money, simply deciding for them one fewer time. Accepting this gives effort a chance to reach where it is needed.

Two people living together develop a division of work. One earns more, another handles more at home; either may be suitable. But a suitable arrangement does not mean the person carrying more always has energy, or the other may stop asking about home entirely.

Family responsibility includes not only visible tasks, but remembering what matters, when arrangements are needed, and who fills gaps when trouble occurs. If one person takes all this on, the other easily thinks home always runs smoothly, forgetting someone continually maintains that smoothness.

Shared responsibility need not mechanically halve every task. Discuss it according to stage, ability, and time, but know whose shoulders hold which pressures, how handovers work when busy, and who can truly let the other rest. Saying “you have worked hard” differs from providing time free from worry.

I hope caring for a family is both people’s work. A busy career can explain absence for a period, but cannot automatically cancel family duties. True division of work should stabilize life and let both retain lives of their own, rather than depend on one person continually filling every gap.

Leaving our original surroundings and encountering more people and things can make differences with family increasingly apparent. Conversation no longer connects, habits differ, and money and work mean different things. These differences are real, but need not turn family into the flaws of our past.

Parents have familiar ways of living. Having seen better environments and finding some arrangement more respectable does not mean what they like should be hidden. If every meeting is spent correcting and repackaging them, they may feel fit to appear only when remade to their child’s satisfaction.

Respect does not mean leaving everything unchanged. Needed changes can be discussed concretely; safety, convenience, and shared arrangements are negotiable. But judging whether something suits the situation and whether a person is presentable should be separate. The former is discussable; the latter easily turns difference into shame.

My family and I can inhabit different worlds without denying our relationship. After going further, we still need to learn how to explain our life and understand theirs. If experience adds only superiority, not understanding, it instead pushes the nearest people away.

When conflict occurs at home, one sentence easily sums it up: that is just the kind of person they are. Marital problems, parent-child problems, past kindness, and current dissatisfaction then mix together. One matter needing discussion becomes whether this person deserves understanding at all.

The same person can do wrong in one relationship and have taken responsibility in another. The latter cannot erase the former; the former need not automatically explain every action. Separating matters clarifies what needs identifying and handling, rather than washing away anyone’s responsibility.

Children affected by family conflict may express pain and decide how far to participate. They need not reconcile everyone before qualifying to express feelings. Carrying the whole parental relationship often leaves their own life without a place.

Viewing relationships separately allows responsibilities to become clear. Discuss the specific wrong; explain the specific impact. Closeness does not prohibit criticism, and criticism need not negate the whole person. Keeping these separate prevents every argument from putting the entire family on trial again.

When family needs something, we often try every way to solve it. But with limited money, time, and energy, and several needs at once, one person bearing everything may not truly reassure everyone. Sometimes it only avoids one immediate argument while later pressure grows.

Each person often sees their own part. One worries about living, another feels neglected, while the person carrying things calculates how long they can last. Comparing grievances makes it difficult to place needs on the same realistic ledger; meeting one side’s request may unsettle another.

I think families also need clarity about capacity: what is necessary now, what can wait, what needs joint decision. Stating limits does not announce irresponsibility; it gives responsibility a chance to last. Uncertain arrangements cannot be promised simply to avoid disappointment.

We can understand family needs and admit inability to meet them. If limits stay hidden until emotions become unbearable, everyone remembers only the conflict. Present reality earlier so we can discuss facing it together, rather than constantly proving who deserves more care.

When visiting family or someone’s home, advance notice seems small: when we will arrive, how long we will stay, and roughly what is planned. Without it, others must prepare at the last minute and guess what the meeting means.

To me, courtesy first means including others in arrangements. It is neither appearing whenever convenient for ourselves nor making meetings grander to demonstrate importance. Others have their own time, habits, and expectations; advance explanation gives them a chance to prepare and express views.

Courtesy cannot replace everyday relations. A well-arranged meeting does not permit later neglect; little display does not mean disrespect. What matters is respecting actual conditions, fulfilling clarified arrangements, and promptly communicating changes.

Forms can be simple; meaning needs clarity. A well-arranged meeting reduces not all misunderstandings, but avoidable guesswork. Relationships need not always be maintained through money; sometimes one extra explanation means others need not clean up our situation at the last minute.

When a relationship ends, I may feel everything has been explained and not want to answer later contact. But the other person’s return suggests the matter may not have the same answer for them. A clear personal decision and mutual understanding of what follows are different.

I can explain once more what is decided, what follow-up remains, and whether contact will continue. The point is completing present boundaries, not retrying the entire past or offering new hope to satisfy the other person. If things need handing over, handle practical matters separately from feelings.

Explaining again is not an obligation to explain forever. If clearly expressed boundaries are continually broken, I need to protect my life. An omission, temporary difficulty accepting, and repeated crossing each need different responses; neither silence nor continued chatting solves them all.

I think ending a relationship needs two kinds of clarity: my choice, and the information left for the other person. Complete what I can, and promise nothing I cannot decide for them. Dignity does not mean no sadness; it means no longer trapping each other in vague arrangements.

When an acquaintance asks for help, I can find people and introduce resources; the recipient may set aside concerns out of trust in me. The greater the trust, the more carefully I should ask what I actually know. Knowing someone differs from knowing they can do this well.

Some things are hearsay, some seen once, and only some known over time. Calling all of them reliable lends my relationship to an unverified judgment. When things go well, the difference is invisible; when problems occur, the other person bears real losses.

Clearly help where possible: offer information, accompany verification, introduce the parties. But uncertain outcomes should not come with guarantees. When asked about what I do not understand, saying so is more responsible than forcing an answer to preserve a helpful image.

My willingness to contribute does not mean everything can be accomplished through me. Help also gains value by clarifying limits, showing what the other person must still judge. Trust should not reduce verification; it should make the measure of our words more accurate.

After the same loss, some resume life quickly while others remember it much later. Observers easily judge by their own experience: so much time has passed, why still be sad? But they did not live the shared time, and the absence is not in their daily life.

Long companionship leaves many small habits. A place, a sound, waiting at a certain time each day: ordinary before, their constant presence becomes clear after loss. What the other person misses is not an abstract identity, but a relationship that truly existed in life.

We need not feel identically to understand their grief. We can listen or sit quietly for a while. Do not rush to compare a greater loss, or use personal equanimity to set their recovery time. An observer is not suited to ranking grief’s weight.

What I face calmly may not be calm for others. Respecting difference requires no identical feeling, only acknowledgment that everyone’s cherished relationships have their own place. Comfort sometimes needs no victory in reasoning, simply not brushing that companionship aside.

When disagreement arises in cooperation, people easily tighten all their previous collaboration. One unresolved issue stops other things too; feeling misunderstood, we want to postpone confirmed duties until the other person gives way. This increases pressure, but not necessarily the basis for solving the problem.

I think we must first clarify exactly where opinions differ. Arrangements involving that part can be checked again; unrelated parts already accepted by both sides still deserve careful fulfillment. Keeping disputes focused on concrete matters gives both sides a chance to continue talking, without turning all cooperation into a contest of victory and defeat.

Of course, some arrangements are interdependent, and cannot be declared unrelated on our own authority. What needs joint confirmation is the original conditions and present changes. Explain the genuinely affected parts and identify what we merely want to withhold from anger; these cannot be vaguely lumped together.

Not having everything figured out does not mean all responsibilities can be delayed. Do what can be done well first; explain specific uncertainties. Maintain your view while leaving others room not to be implicated in unrelated problems. This may not end arguments faster, but can reduce the expansion of disagreement into new harm.

Wanting others to understand us easily makes introductions increasingly detailed, as if more information makes judgments more accurate. But who sees an introduction and what it is used for matter as much as its length. Information useful to one person need not be open to everyone.

A public introduction can clarify what I do, care about, and welcome discussing. In actual cooperation or personal interaction, explain circumstances relevant to judgment. Private experiences and details need not become files available on demand merely because someone is curious.

Limits on disclosure cannot justify hiding facts affecting others’ decisions. When asking for serious choice, necessary information still needs honest explanation. I can choose to whom and at what stage I speak, but cannot demand responsibility in a relationship while hiding what the other needs to know.

Introductions aim at gradual understanding, not surrendering all of life at once. Deciding beforehand what suits public disclosure and what belongs only in relevant relationships reduces later difficulties of explanation and withdrawal. Letting others know me can be sincere and bounded.

In people-facing work, receiving support makes me want to respond earnestly and avoid seeming cold. But professional gratitude, friendliness, and ongoing exchange do not automatically become a private relationship. Without noticing this distinction, both sides may grow closer with different expectations.

Some want more private details; others expect replies anytime. If uncomfortable but reluctant to refuse because of past support, boundaries gradually shift. The other person may not realize responses are strained and may mistake reluctant acceptance for willingness to continue.

State gratitude clearly and explain the scope of interaction. Respond carefully to work matters, share only as much private information as desired, and return to the original topic when uncomfortable. Keeping choice does not require first making the atmosphere hostile.

Likewise, friendliness should not mislead others into thinking an intimate commitment exists. Support deserves thanks, but gratitude should not be a condition for exchanging private life. Preserving the distinction between work and private interaction helps both know what this connection is doing.

When an agreed arrangement suddenly becomes impossible, I usually know the reasons best and easily feel there was no choice. But the other person may have freed time, contacted others, or awaited this step to plan what follows. Genuine reasons do not erase these effects.

Simply saying sorry, I cannot come leaves the change in their hands. They must reschedule, explain, and coordinate while I merely withdraw. A more useful explanation brings possible remedies with the notice: another time, parts still possible, or other feasible choices.

After offering solutions, let the other person confirm. My convenient time may not suit them; a substitute I consider appropriate may not be acceptable. A unilaterally decided remedy merely hands them a new arrangement to absorb.

Do not make another uncertain guarantee to appear responsible. Verify what can be verified and honestly state remaining variables. After changed plans affect trust, a negotiable, executable remedy lets the other decide anew better than repeatedly explaining why the matter was important.

Express love through companionship, sharing burdens, guidance, and keeping promises.

Personal loyalty needs the support of principles; cooperation needs goals, rules, and review.

Look at motives, actions, results, and long-term relationships together when assessing a person.

Trust accumulates through repeated predictable actions and can fall rapidly through one breach.

Facing betrayal, first protect your boundaries, then review the mechanisms, and finally decide whether to continue cooperating.

Gratitude begins with discovering the good in those nearby, then passing love on through action.

Clear words and explicit boundaries are the starting point of a relationship’s lasting stability.

Understanding human nature means reducing misjudgment and building more suitable cooperation, not manipulating others.

The key difference between a person and a personage is their energy.

Ordinary people consume energy; great achievers borrow energy.

Ordinary people’s energy cannot flow back; great achievers borrow the vitality of heaven and earth.

The secret behind borrowing energy is “being grounded”;

The secret behind being grounded is “transcending the mundane.”

What is “mundane”? The “stench of money”;

What is the stench of money? “Temperament, affection, fame, and gain.”

To be grounded, strive to transcend and free yourself on eight levels:

1. Free yourself from personality:

Ordinary people are trapped by personality. Great achievers have no fixed personality and are not swayed by it; they transcend and use personality, manifesting whatever personality the present requires.

2. Free yourself from personal loyalty:

Ordinary people are trapped by personal loyalty. Great achievers transcend petty affections and loyalties, seeing the whole and all beings, growing a “compassionate heart”: if I do not shoulder this, who will? They plead for all beings.

3. Free yourself from clinging:

Ordinary people are bound by past experience; great achievers pare back past experience and explore the unknown. Ordinary people look to the past to walk through today; great achievers look to the future and live now.

4. Free yourself from confinement:

Ordinary people are imprisoned by past education. Great achievers are not trapped by traditional ideas or moral culture; they transcend past knowledge and establish independent thought. Knowledge divides into surface and lifeline. Ordinary people learn the surface; great achievers enter and use the lifeline directly. Resolve one “point,” and all problems and confusion are readily resolved and vanish.

5. Free yourself from trivialities:

Anything unrelated to the present lifeline is trivial. Ordinary people’s thinking switches jobs over trivialities, their experience exploited; great achievers cut away trivialities and get things done. Ordinary people manage details; great achievers manage and focus on the core.

6. Free yourself from money:

Ordinary people are trapped by money and become its slaves. Great achievers use money as a tool to realize dreams. All resources serve me, and their use serves only all beings. Sacredness arises in the heart; transcend “goals,” realize “purpose,” and enter the root.

The secret behind liberation is “spending money.” Spend a million, be free of a million; spend ten million, be free of ten million; spend a hundred million, be free of a hundred million. In other words, if spending a million leaves you apprehensive, you have never spent a million before.

7. Free yourself from children:

Should parents leave children five million, or spend five million cultivating them into leaders?

Should parents give children skills in mathematics, language, physics… or the ability to lead people?

Do parents want children’s academic credentials, or their independence?

If children are capable, what use is leaving money? If children are incapable, what use is leaving money then?

The greatest wealth parents leave children is an “example.” Children inherit their parents’ spirit and use their own wisdom to create the brilliance of their era.

Ordinary people help children improve grades; great achievers help children build a strong self and gain fundamental wisdom.

8. Free yourself from life and death:

If you do not fear even death, where can fear come from?

You are almost dead—what damn use is money?

You are almost dead—how many regrets remain?

Freedom from death naturally frees you from fear; freedom from life and death naturally frees you from money; freedom from life and death naturally lets you shoulder responsibility.

Lesser beauty is beauty of appearance;

Middle beauty is beauty of bearing;

Great beauty is beauty that transcends the mundane.

Those who transcend the mundane stay grounded; those who stay grounded are neither born nor extinguished, borrowing the energy of heaven and earth

1. If you do not strive while young, old age brings only futile sorrow.—Han Music Bureau ancient verse, “Long Song”

Meaning: Without diligent study in youth, adulthood leaves only vain sadness. This reminds us that time flies and years flow away: cherish youth and strive to accomplish something.

2. Learning advances through diligence and is ruined by play.—Han Yu, “An Explanation of Learning”

Meaning: Study improves through diligence and is neglected through amusement. Whatever we do, achievement requires diligent effort, not wasting time.

3. An inch of time is an inch of gold; an inch of gold cannot buy an inch of time.—Expanded Collection of Wise Sayings

Meaning: A small stretch of time is as precious as gold, yet gold cannot buy it back. This often emphasizes how easily time passes and that we should treasure it like gold.

4. Heaven moves vigorously; the noble person continually strengthens the self.—Book of Changes, Qian, “Image”

Meaning: Heavenly bodies move vigorously without rest; people of ability and virtue should likewise continually improve themselves. This encourages striving and progress. To succeed in an undertaking, fear no difficulty, continually encourage yourself, and persist in self-strengthening.

5. Without firm aspiration, wisdom cannot fully develop.—Mozi, “Cultivating the Self”

Meaning: Those without firm aspirations cannot fully exercise wisdom. This emphasizes aspiration’s importance: firm ambition gives boundless motivation.

6. Blue comes from indigo yet is bluer than indigo; ice comes from water yet is colder than water.—Xunzi, “Encouraging Learning”

Meaning: Blue dye extracted from indigo plants is darker than the plant; ice formed from water is colder than water. The young deserve respect: diligent learning and active progress can let later arrivals surpass predecessors.

7. Let your ambitions be lofty and far-reaching.—Zhuge Liang, “Admonition to a Nephew”

Meaning: Aspirations should be noble and expansive. This encourages young people to broaden vision and mind and establish great ambitions.

8. A man’s ambition spans the four seas; ten thousand li are like neighboring homes.—Cao Zhi, “To Cao Biao, Prince of Baima”

Meaning: Ambitious people set their sights on the world; even ten thousand li apart, their hearts can communicate as closely as neighbors. Cao Zhi wrote these lines while parting from his younger brother Cao Biao. Later people often used them to encourage one another and express high spirits.

9. Those with determination ultimately succeed.—Book of the Later Han, “Biography of Geng Yan”

Meaning: People with aspirations eventually accomplish their undertakings. Later generations use this to say that with determination and perseverance, nothing is impossible.

10. To see a thousand li farther, climb one more floor.—Wang Zhihuan, “Ascending Stork Tower”

Meaning: To see farther, climb higher. Describing an elevated distant view, these lines advocate continual ascent and active progress.

11. I shall reach the highest peak and see all other mountains small.—Du Fu, “Gazing at Mount Tai”

Meaning: One will eventually climb Mount Tai’s summit, where surrounding mountains seem small. These lines express the poet’s bold aspirations and vividly portray a broad mind with lofty ambition.

12. People must know propriety before becoming reverent, and be reverent before respecting and yielding.—Guanzi, “Five Aids”

Meaning: Understanding propriety brings reverence, which then brings respect and courteous yielding. This explains the importance of knowing propriety and its relation to reverence and deference. Knowledge is the prerequisite, reverence the inner response, respect and yielding its transformation into action.

13. Without compass and square, one cannot form circles and squares.—Mencius, “Li Lou I”

Meaning: Without a compass and carpenter’s square, one cannot draw circles and squares. Craftspeople’s reliance on tools illustrates our need to follow certain norms in life.

14. Honor our own elders and extend that honor to others’ elders;

love our own young and extend that love to others’ young.—Mencius, “King Hui of Liang I”

Meaning: Respect the elders of our household, extending it to those of others; care for our children, extending it to others’ children. This expresses a beautiful wish: regardless of closeness, treat every elder and child like family.

15. What makes humans nobler than birds and beasts is propriety.—The Spring and Autumn Annals of Master Yan

Meaning: Humans are nobler than animals because they understand propriety. Later people use this to explain propriety’s importance in life. Observing it demonstrates cultivation and morality.

16. Who says a blade of grass’s heart can repay the radiance of three spring months?—Meng Jiao, “Song of the Traveling Son”

Meaning: Who could say a little blade of grass can repay spring sunshine? These lines portray maternal love’s warmth and greatness and children’s boundless gratitude to their mothers.

17. Even young crows feed their parents; even lambs kneel.

People who do not honor their parents are worse than birds and beasts.—“Song Encouraging Filial Piety”

Meaning: Young crows know to return food to parents, and lambs kneel while nursing in gratitude to their mothers. People who fail to honor their parents are worse than animals! This song urges filial conduct. From birth to adulthood, a person receives immeasurable care and hardship from those who raise them. Everyone should honor the relatives who nurtured them.

18. Each day I examine myself repeatedly: have I been wholehearted in serving others, trustworthy with friends, and practiced what was taught?—Analects, “Learning”

Meaning: Every day I reflect several times: did I give my all when working for others, deal honestly with friends, and review my teacher’s lessons? This famous saying belongs to Confucius’s student Zeng Shen. It shows that learning and self-cultivation alike need frequent reflection to preserve strengths, correct weaknesses, and continually improve.

19. Poor without flattery, rich without arrogance.—Analects, “Learning”

Meaning: Though poor, do not flatter; though rich and honored, do not become overbearing. Confucius’s student Zigong praised this attitude. Confucius considered it good, but “poor yet joyful, rich yet devoted to propriety” better still.

20. In dealing with friends, be trustworthy in speech.—Analects, “Learning”

Meaning: Speak honestly and keep faith with friends. Only by valuing trustworthiness can we gain others’ reliance and make true friends.

21. Sincerity is Heaven’s Way; becoming sincere is the human way.—Book of Rites, “Doctrine of the Mean”

Meaning: Sincerity is the way of heaven; treating others honestly is the way of being human. Sincerity means truth and reality. Heaven, earth, and nature are real, and people should likewise be genuine, without falsity or deceiving themselves and others.

22. Wealth and rank cannot corrupt, poverty and low status cannot sway, force cannot bend.—Mencius, “Duke Wen of Teng II”

Meaning: Wealth cannot confuse the will, poverty cannot alter integrity, and force cannot subdue character. This is Mencius’s image of an upright person. In favorable or adverse circumstances, remain upright and unbending, with independent character able to withstand every test.

23. People must love themselves before others love them; respect themselves before others respect them.—Yang Xiong, Model Sayings, “The Noble Person”

Meaning: One must first love and respect oneself to receive love and respect from others. Self-respect and self-love mean strict expectations for character and conduct, earning others’ respect.

24. A clean source gives a clear stream; an upright form casts a straight shadow.—Wang Bo, “Letter to Right Chancellor Liu”

Meaning: Clean water at the source makes the stream clear; a straight body makes its shadow straight. With noble, unblemished character, a person can always govern themselves and live honorably.

25. It rises from mud unstained, washed in clear ripples yet not seductive.—Zhou Dunyi, “On Loving the Lotus”

Meaning: The lotus grows in mud but stays clean, washed in clear water yet naturally graceful rather than alluring. These famous lines praise the lotus’s purity. We too should keep such character, maintaining fine integrity in every environment instead of drifting with the current.

26. Once spoken, a word cannot be caught by a team of four horses.—Expanded Collection of Wise Sayings

Meaning: Even a carriage pulled by four horses cannot retrieve a spoken word. This vividly describes keeping promises. Once a promise is made, one has responsibility to fulfill it however difficult it becomes.

27. What you do not desire, do not impose on others.—Analects, “Yan Yuan”

Meaning: Do not force disliked things onto others. This expresses kindness in dealing with people: put yourself in their place and consider matters from their perspective.

28. Demand much of yourself and little of others.—Analects, “Duke Ling of Wei”

Meaning: Require more of yourself and less of others. This is Confucius’s principle for treating self and others; he believed it reduces resentment and increases harmony.

29. The noble person is open and at ease; the petty person always anxious.—Analects, “Shu Er”

Meaning: Noble people have open hearts; petty people remain worried. High moral character means inner selflessness and naturally open living; low character is entangled in selfish concerns and cannot live easily or happily.

30. Never forget others’ kindness to me; never fail to forget my kindness to others.—Strategies of the Warring States, “Strategies of Wei”

Meaning: Others’ favors must not be forgotten, while our favors to others should be forgotten. This is a principle of relations admired by the ancients: receiving kindness requires repayment; giving kindness expects none.

31. Those who love others are always loved; those who respect others are always respected.—Mencius, “Li Lou II”

Meaning: Others continually love those who love them and respect those who respect them. Feelings are reciprocal: caring for and respecting others brings their care and respect.

32. The sea rejects no water, hence its greatness; the mountain rejects no earth or stone, hence its height.—Guanzi, “Explanation of Circumstances”

Meaning: The sea accepts every stream and becomes great; mountains accept all earth and stones and become high. To accomplish a great undertaking, do not fuss over small details; have the sea’s breadth of mind and a mountain’s bearing.

33. One branch makes no tree; one tree makes no forest.—Northern Dynasties Music Bureau folk song, “Song of the Purple Bay Horse”

Meaning: A single branch cannot form a tree, nor one tree a forest. These lines show individual strength is limited: great undertakings require uniting people and exercising collective wisdom and strength.

34. Water too clear has no fish; a person too exacting has no companions.—Elder Dai’s Book of Rites, “Zizhang Asks about Entering Office”

Meaning: Excessively clear water holds no fish; excessive demands leave one without companions. Relations require tolerance. Being too exacting obscures others’ strengths, prevents cooperation, and finally isolates oneself.

35. Rejoice in others’ joy and they rejoice in yours; worry over others’ worries and they worry over yours.—Bai Juyi, Forest of Policy Essays

Meaning: Take joy in others’ happiness and they will share yours; care about their worries and they will care about yours. Caring for others matters to both them and ourselves. If everyone shared others’ joys and sorrows, relationships would be more harmonious.

36. Complacency invites loss; humility receives benefit.—Book of Documents, “Counsels of the Great Yu”

Meaning: Complacency brings harm, humility benefits. This identifies their disadvantages and advantages: complacency makes people self-satisfied and stagnant; humility alone enables continual progress and gains.

37. Not displaying oneself, one is clear; not insisting on oneself, one shines; not boasting, one achieves; not exalting oneself, one endures.—Laozi, Chapter Twenty-Two

Meaning: Without self-display, one is discerning; without self-righteousness, one becomes distinguished; without boasting, one establishes achievements; without arrogance and complacency, one lasts. This warns against conceit and self-importance as the way to genuine accomplishment.

38. Stones from other mountains can polish jade.—Book of Songs, “Lesser Odes: Crane’s Cry”

Meaning: Stones from another mountain can polish jade. These lines commonly show that an open mind and learning from others’ strengths are good ways to improve and develop oneself.

39. A foot has its shortcomings; an inch has its strengths.—Qu Yuan, “Divination of Dwelling”

Meaning: Though a foot is longer than an inch, it has weaknesses; though an inch is shorter, it has strengths. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Learn from others’ strengths to remedy your own weaknesses.

40. Know what you know; admit what you do not know: that is wisdom.—Analects, “Governing”

Meaning: Acknowledging knowledge where present and ignorance where absent is a wise attitude. In seeking knowledge and learning, do not falsify or pretend to understand what you do not.

41. When three walk together, one must be my teacher: follow their good qualities and correct their bad ones in myself.—Analects, “Shu Er”

Meaning: Among three people walking together there is surely someone worth learning from. Learn their strengths; use their weaknesses to examine and correct yourself. This expresses great humility in learning. Whoever possesses a skill or insight deserves to be learned from; take warnings from others’ faults and mistakes rather than repeat them.

42. Quick and eager to learn, unashamed to ask those below.—Analects, “Gongye Chang”

Meaning: Be intelligent and studious, unashamed to ask people of lower status or less knowledge. True understanding requires both love of learning and skill in questioning, and both require humility.

43. Who is without faults? To err and then correct it: no greater good exists.—Zuo Commentary, “Duke Xuan, Year Two”

Meaning: Who never makes mistakes? Nothing is better than correcting a mistake after making it. Mistakes are not frightening: recognizing and correcting them enables progress.

44. Seeing goodness, move toward it; having faults, correct them.—Book of Changes, Yi, “Image”

Meaning: Strive to learn from good people and things, and correct mistakes immediately. This promotes learning from goodness and correcting known faults. Continually learning others’ strengths and correcting one’s errors brings progress.

45. To err and not correct it is truly an error.—Analects, “Duke Ling of Wei”

Meaning: Failing to correct an error is a true error. Confucius urges correction, emphasizing that mistakes are inevitable, but leaving them uncorrected can create grave, irreparable wrongs.

46. When others tell him of his faults, he rejoices.—Mencius, “Gongsun Chou I”

Meaning: One is happy when others point out one’s faults: what we call “rejoicing on hearing one’s faults.” Confucius’s student Zilu was rough in manner but possessed this good quality, so Mencius praised him with these words.

47. Knowing shame approaches courage.—Book of Rites, “Doctrine of the Mean”

Meaning: A sense of shame is close to bravery. This connects shame and courage, emphasizing that recognizing mistakes and feeling shame are also forms of courage.

48. A thousand-zhang embankment collapses through a mole cricket’s or ant’s hole.—Han Feizi, “Illustrating Laozi”

Meaning: A vast embankment a thousand zhang long can collapse because of tiny insects. Neglecting small problems can create great disaster. Later people often say, “A thousand-li embankment collapses through an ant hole,” reminding us to prevent small beginnings from growing harmful.

49. Do not commit a wrong because it is small; do not neglect a good deed because it is small.—Records of the Three Kingdoms, “Book of Shu: Biography of the Former Lord,” Pei Songzhi’s annotation

Meaning: Do not do bad things because they seem small, or omit good things because they seem small. Good and bad character both form little by little, so do not disregard small matters.

50. Participate in goodness; withdraw from evil.—Yan Zhitui, Family Instructions of the Yan Clan, “On Affairs”

Meaning: Join good deeds actively and avoid bad deeds. Not only distinguish right from wrong, but enact that distinction: strive to do good and never do evil.

51. A bronze mirror straightens dress; history reveals rise and decline; other people reveal gains and losses.—Old Book of Tang, “Biography of Wei Zheng”

Meaning: A bronze mirror lets one arrange clothes and headwear; history as a mirror reveals patterns of dynastic rise and fall; people as mirrors reveal one’s gains and losses. History and people as mirrors hold special significance for national development and personal growth.

52. Only when the year turns cold do we know pine and cypress are last to wither.—Analects, “Zihan”

Meaning: In cold weather, one sees that pine and cypress wither last. Later people use them to praise strong, determined people unafraid of difficulty in real life.

53. When Heaven will entrust a great task to this person, it first torments their will, exhausts their muscles and bones, starves their body, empties their resources, and frustrates their actions.—Mencius, “Gaozi II”

Meaning: Before giving someone a great mission, Heaven makes their mind suffer, body toil, hunger endure, flesh thin, and undertakings repeatedly go wrong. This profoundly shows how adversity trains will, develops ability, and enables future great achievement.

54. Carve and stop, and rotten wood will not break; carve without stopping, and metal and stone can be engraved.—Xunzi, “Encouraging Learning”

Meaning: Giving up carving halfway cannot cut even rotten wood; continuing can engrave even metal and stone. The carving metaphor shows that doing things requires constancy and perseverance.

55. Stone can be broken but cannot lose its hardness; cinnabar can be ground but cannot lose its redness.—Master Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals, “Integrity and Incorruptibility”

Meaning: A stone can be shattered without changing its inherent hardness; cinnabar ground without changing its red color. These lines illustrate that a determined, noble person does not change inner convictions even under hardship.

56. Where utmost sincerity is applied, metal and stone open.—Book of the Later Han, “Biographies of Emperor Guangwu’s Ten Princes”

Meaning: With utmost sincerity, even metal and stone can be split. Later often phrased “Where utmost sincerity reaches, metal and stone open,” it means that firm will and single-mindedness make anything achievable.

57. Anxiety and toil can strengthen a country; ease and indulgence can destroy oneself.—New History of the Five Dynasties, “Preface to the Biographies of Actors”

Meaning: Concern and labor for state affairs can make a country flourish; pursuing ease and pleasure can bring personal destruction. Like “life comes through adversity, death through comfort,” this emphasizes awareness of danger rather than craving pleasure.

58. Those of old who accomplished great things possessed not only extraordinary talent, but indomitable resolve.—Su Shi, “On Chao Cuo”

Meaning: Ancient great achievers succeeded not only through exceptional abilities but through unwavering determination. To accomplish an undertaking, dare face difficulties, struggle tenaciously, and persist without wavering.

59. A tree that fills the arms grows from a tiny shoot; a nine-story terrace rises from piled earth; a thousand-li journey begins beneath one’s feet.—Laozi, Chapter Sixty-Four

Meaning: A tree needing two arms to embrace grows from a small shoot; a nine-level tower comes from baskets of earth; a thousand-li road begins with the first step. These vivid metaphors show things develop from small to large: do everything practically, beginning bit by bit.

60. Though a scholar has learning, action is the foundation.—Mozi, “Cultivating the Self”

Meaning: Scholars may be learned, but personal practice is fundamental. Book knowledge is indirect and must be tested in practice to become complete; practice itself is also learning’s ultimate aim.

61. The road is long and far; I shall search above and below.—Qu Yuan, “Encountering Sorrow”

Meaning: Though the road is long and distant, I will still seek truth through heaven and earth. Qu Yuan expresses his resolve. Later people often use these lines to express relentless exploration and pursuit of truth and undertakings.

62. Without ascending high mountains, one does not know heaven’s height; without approaching deep streams, one does not know earth’s depth.—Xunzi, “Encouraging Learning”

Meaning: Without reaching a mountain’s summit, one cannot know how high the sky is; without approaching a deep stream, one cannot know earth’s depth. Originally this meant that without reading sages’ books one cannot know learning’s vast depth. Later usage explains that without firsthand practice one cannot understand or transform the world.

63. Without accumulating small steps, one cannot reach a thousand li; without gathering small streams, one cannot form rivers and seas.—Xunzi, “Encouraging Learning”

Meaning: Without step-by-step accumulation, a thousand-li destination cannot be reached; without small rivers converging, great rivers and seas cannot form. This values accumulation and also urges indomitable perseverance and sustained pursuit in everything.

64. Hearing a hundred times is not as good as seeing once.—Book of Han, “Biography of Zhao Chongguo”

Meaning: Hearing others say something a hundred times is less valuable than seeing it once yourself. Do not merely listen to others: go and see personally to gain a firm understanding.

65. Talent grows daily through use; thought remains inexhaustible through guidance.—Wang Fuzhi, Outer Commentary on the Book of Changes

Meaning: Abilities continually increase through use; thoughts remain inexhaustible through being channeled. Only continual use strengthens and improves talent and thought; without practical stimulation, they dry up.

66. People’s livelihood lies in diligence; with diligence, there is no shortage.—Zuo Commentary, “Duke Xuan, Year Twelve”

Meaning: Ordinary people’s livelihood depends on hard work; only diligent labor prevents shortage of goods. This states a simple truth: only hard work creates wealth.

67. Take with measure and use with restraint, and there will always be enough.—Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government, Volume Two Hundred Thirty-Four

Meaning: Obtain resources with planning and consume moderately to preserve abundance. This explains frugality’s importance. Material wealth and resources are always limited and must not be squandered. Careful calculation and living within means alone prevent future worries.

68. Reviewing earlier nations and families, diligence and thrift brought success, extravagance ruin.—Li Shangyin, “On History”

Meaning: Throughout history, states and families alike flourished through diligence and thrift and perished through luxury. These lines draw the historical lesson that thrift and extravagance affect national rise and fall, becoming famous words of warning.

69. From thrift to luxury is easy; from luxury to thrift is difficult.—Sima Guang, “Instruction in Frugality for Kang”

Meaning: Becoming extravagant from thrift is easy; returning from luxury to thrift is hard. Drawing on ordinary human tendencies, this explains the need to consciously remain simple and prevent extravagance.

70. With every bowl of porridge and meal, remember how hard it came; with every half-thread of silk, remember material resources are difficult to produce.—Zhu Bolu, Maxims for Managing a Household

Meaning: Even a bowl of porridge or a meal deserves thought of its difficult origins; even half a strand of silk or thread should recall labor’s hardship. This traditional Chinese household maxim reminds us always to economize and cherish labor’s fruits.

Thought: the highest realm

One thought arises: myriad rivers and mountains, prosperity through countless ages

One thought ceases: seas become fields, loss through eternity

In this world, a person’s birth has already determined their level in society. These barriers between levels were formed by the long operation of human social order. Thus the level into which the individual self is born cannot be crossed, but a breakthrough between levels can be made through thought: using logical thinking to contemplate the worldly order of the “human realm” and the great natural law of “Heaven’s Way.” From the perspective of the unity of “humanity” and “heaven,” the universe, heaven and earth, and all things exist full of value and meaning. Through logical thought, we can not only discover this value and meaning through our own effort and gain powerful resources of spiritual motivation; more importantly, we must realize this value and meaning in human society, seeking to construct a reasonable political and cultural order consistent with the great law of “Heaven’s Way.” Thus, whether grounded in the essence of “Heaven’s Way” or the order of “human relationships,” there is every reason to encourage people living in the secular world to “learn below and reach above,” hoping they will devote themselves to moral practices of “benevolence” and “righteousness,” to realize the life’s charge and ultimate value necessarily entrusted to human life as “Heaven’s mandate” flows down into it.

We all share the same roots and the same soul.

What are our roots and our soul? They are traditional Chinese culture.

Traditional Chinese culture has always attached importance to personal cultivation.

Looking at traditional Chinese culture, we see four aspects: devotion to family and country, social concern, personal character, and cultural cultivation.

Devotion to family and country, for example, involves filial care and patriotism, national feeling, and affection for one’s home region;

Social concern involves benevolence toward people and love for all things, caring about the world, and contributing to society;

Cultivation of character involves honesty and self-discipline, honoring virtue and steadfast resolve, respectful courtesy, modesty, and harmony;

Cultural cultivation involves knowledge of the humanities and history, methods of learning and scholarship, written expression, and the pursuit of scientific and technological invention.

Never be a speck of dust in the ocean of knowledge. Make knowledge serve me: not learning knowledge, but using knowledge.

Those who argue right and wrong are at the level of learning knowledge;

Those who consider winning and losing are at the level of using knowledge.

Never be knowledge’s slave; let knowledge be an addition to me,

Let knowledge become a tool for realizing my dreams.

The prerequisite for possessing learning is trimming learning; the secret behind it is learning the right things.

Knowledge divides into appearance and essence.

Ordinary people see appearances; great achievers go directly into the essence and use it. Solve just one point, and every problem is readily resolved and vanishes.

Contemplate through thought the worldly order of the “human realm” and the great natural law of “Heaven’s Way.” From the perspective of the unity of “humanity” and “heaven,” the universe, heaven and earth, and all things exist full of value and meaning. Through logical thought, we can not only discover this value and meaning through our own effort and gain powerful resources of spiritual motivation; more importantly, we must realize this value and meaning in human society, seeking to construct a reasonable political and cultural order consistent with the great law of “Heaven’s Way.” Thus, whether grounded in the essence of “Heaven’s Way” or the order of “human relationships,” there is every reason to encourage people living in the secular world to “learn below and reach above,” hoping they will devote themselves to moral practices of “benevolence” and “righteousness,” to realize the life’s charge and ultimate value necessarily entrusted to human life as “Heaven’s mandate” flows down into it.

Heaven’s Way and Sagely Virtue

Heaven gives birth to all things through yang and brings them to completion through yin. Giving birth is benevolence; completion is righteousness. Thus the sage in a position of authority nurtures all things with benevolence and sets all people right with righteousness. When Heaven’s Way operates, all things follow it; when sagely virtue is cultivated, all people are transformed. Such great harmony and transformation, whose traces cannot be seen and whose workings no one knows, are called divine. Thus the multitudes under heaven have their root in one person. Can the Way be far away? Can its methods be numerous?

Tongshu, Chapter 11, “Following and Transformation”—Zhou Dunyi

Worldly rules

Money, a tool of the mortal world, is a tool for cooperation that you neither bring at birth nor take at death

Power, a tool of rule, is a management tool affecting the strength and scope of control

Reputation, a tool of word of mouth, is a calling card that lets you move through society’s various strata

As Zhou Dunyi writes in Tongshu, Chapter 11, “Following and Transformation”: “Thus the multitudes under heaven have their root in one person.” From this we can realize that the secular world is not complicated; it all comes down to human nature. Human nature is “power and status, money, material things,” which ordinary worldly people find difficult to escape. We therefore need to understand and accommodate human nature fully.

Concentration Can Give Rise to Insight

● Know where to stop, then you can be settled; settled, you can be still; still, you can be at ease; at ease, you can deliberate; deliberating, you can attain.

● Stillness gives rise to concentration, concentration to insight, insight to wisdom.

● Preserve, break, establish: the steadiest upward spiral

Four things in life

Love family, build a career, establish yourself, build alliances

● Love family

○ Quietly give your all to family; in return, they share your pressure. Within family, speak only of love, with no need to argue reason.

● Build a career

○ Whether the career goes smoothly or not, changes or not, simply invest persistently with the fullest confidence. Success and failure are both results; do not fear failure, and do not give up.

● Establish yourself

○ Persist in improving yourself. In family or career, simply keep a pure heart, maintain a progressive, optimistic attitude, and continually improve yourself.

● Build alliances

○ Set aside interests while using interests to build relationships. Seek resonance of values and union. Setting aside interests allows alliances to develop longer without being disrupted by interests; using interests to build relationships is also a requirement for results, an expression of the alliance’s value.

Everyone’s birth is accidental; death is inevitable. Whether the worldly experience of an entire life is rich depends on one’s worldview and values. People differ tremendously: different cultures, customs, and values shape each person’s social attributes. In the collisions these differences produce, only great love brings unity. These small records, cultivating oneself and guiding others, should be meritorious work. At least they can influence those nearby. This, too, is a kind of love—not giving, not tolerance, not pity, but guidance toward the light.

Perhaps these contents can be regarded as a kind of overarching design for being human.

Logic

Aspiration, Way, framework, technique, tools, momentum, presentation, operation

Aspiration

Aspiration is original intention, the first stirring of the heart: choosing something to do for a lifetime and using all one’s energy to realize it. I think finding such a goal myself would certainly be fortunate. As the title suggests, choosing what kind of person to be matters more than choosing what kind of thing to do. Once chosen, it can calm my restlessness and let me devote myself in the right direction. I may have different experiences along this road, but if my ultimate goal is certain, I know what I should not do. I think knowing what not to do matters more than knowing what to do, because external factors force certain choices. The ultimate goal becomes my standard of judgment: what accords with it can be done; what does not cannot.

The Way

The Way is patterns and natural laws. In one’s industry, grasp the entire sector’s connections and understand its development history, to master its patterns, discover trends, and find present opportunities.

Framework

Framework is guiding principles, rules, institutions, and ideas. After grasping an industry’s structure, gaps and opportunities call for one’s own logic to seize opportunities, establish a system, increase competitiveness, and make achievements in the industry.

Technique

Technique is methods and practical operation. Within one’s system, seek efficiency and low cost in methods and practice, continually improving them, focusing not only on results but on how to keep improving.

Tools

Tools provide assistance. Draw more on tools’ power to accomplish more with less effort. Also cultivate an outsourcing mindset: use professionals for professional work, take responsibility for target results, and achieve them quickly.

Momentum

Momentum is trends and direction. With aspiration and an understanding of Way, framework, technique, and tools, the most important thing is continually watching industry trends develop.

Presentation

Presentation is appearance, the external. It involves five-senses marketing, packaging oneself and one’s company. Whether addressing customers or partners, attend to presentation to increase trust and dispel doubts.

Operation

Operation means operations, luck, opportunities, and a helpful person’s small act of assistance. This requires accumulating connections and resources.

What is wisdom?

Intelligence is ability; insight is the root.

Simply put, it means having the ability to reach the root and put it to use! With energy to master difficulties, this very moment is bliss! With wisdom to solve difficulties, this very moment is heaven!

Lacking energy and wisdom and mastered by difficulties, this very moment is hell!

What is a wise person?

Intelligence is ability; insight is the root.

Simply put, it means having the ability to reach the root and put it to use! With energy to master difficulties, this very moment is bliss! With wisdom to solve difficulties, this very moment is heaven!

Lacking energy and wisdom and mastered by difficulties, this very moment is hell!

Differences between people,

Appear to be differences in wealth, but are actually differences in blessings;

Appear to be differences in connections, but are actually differences in conduct;

Appear to be differences in bearing, but are actually differences in refinement;

Appear to be differences in looks, but are actually differences in cultivation;

People appear much alike, yet their inner realms differ greatly.

Cultivating the heart exceeds everything! Cultivation wins everything!

Two elements are especially important. First, **you must in fact repeatedly listen to other people’s views, then have your own judgment.**

The things you believe and assume

If Western education develops adaptable people, Eastern education mainly develops people strong in logical thinking. This is an important aim of talent cultivation in our country.

If Western education emphasizes breadth of knowledge, Eastern education emphasizes depth and understanding: “Know that it is so, and know why”;

If the West emphasizes practical ability, the East emphasizes reading;

If the West emphasizes individual independence, the East emphasizes collectivism;

If the West makes creativity a thread throughout education, the East greatly values norms, emphasizing that without standards nothing can take proper shape.

Humanity’s most important mode of thought is logic. Today’s rapid technological development results from human logical thinking being executable by computers. Giving human logical thinking to computers to execute involves logic completed jointly by many programmers. Programmers write logical thinking; computers carry and execute it. Artificial intelligence is composed of vast logical systems. Human values also form through viewpoints argued by different logical ways of thinking. Thus the era of strong artificial intelligence should mean the sum of humanity’s systems of viewpoint logic allowing computers to judge the relative prevalence of different viewpoints.

The Franklin effect: companionship, care, and longing—the sum of what one gives to a person

The halo effect: a distinctive personality is more charming than Mr. Perfect

The Romeo and Juliet effect: difficult love is stronger than smooth-sailing love

The Barnum effect: opposition is more likely than praise to earn someone the name of confidant

The suspension bridge effect

The Rosenthal effect

**Data + organization = information;**

Professional books, courses, teachers’ notes, papers, conferences, and so on are data. Organizing them through mind mapping produces valuable information.

**Information + insight = knowledge;**

Valuable information combined with insight from your understanding of the industry and profession becomes valuable knowledge, not rote-memorized content.

**Knowledge + experience = wisdom;**

Putting valuable knowledge into operation and practice yields experience that makes you more seasoned. This combination forms your wisdom.

**Wisdom + imagination = talent;**

Information, knowledge, wisdom, plus imagination and innovative thinking make for great talent.

A work manual can be thick while actual users still cannot find a method. Purpose, principles, and requirements exist, but a specific problem still has no starting point. Such material describes how we want work to look without clarifying how it gets done.

I prefer putting actual tasks first. Run one task through, see where judgment is needed, where it stalls, and what material must be prepared. Retain the process and result, then organize reusable steps. The manual becomes clearer with work; work need not wait for the entire manual.

Useful records distinguish fixed steps from judgment points. Under which conditions can one follow directly, when should one ask again, and who confirms exceptions? These often help newcomers more than elegant principles. Reuse depends on knowing which problems a method fits, not merely remembering actions.

A new role or process may need a brief explanation first; that is fine. After use, add omissions and changes, updating material with work. A manual need not prove the author knows much; it needs to spare the next person guesswork and enable checkable results.

An explanation whose layers fit together without obvious flaws easily creates certainty. It connects phenomena, lays out the future, and may even answer most follow-up questions. Yet however orderly its logical connections, we still need to know whether the initial material is true and key conditions exist.

I value explaining things clearly, and want to ask myself: am I proving a judgment or organizing an account people can easily believe? They can look similar. Making it hard to find faults quickly may show well-prepared expression; a judgment that must bear real consequences needs more kinds of testing.

When data is lacking, more explanation may not fill the gap. A more valuable action may be stating exactly what is missing and separating what provisionally holds from what remains to be confirmed. Being clear about what we do not know lets discussion continue without covering it with a stronger tone.

For a method to go far, it should allow reality to adjust it. When results differ from expectations, I need first to check the original conditions and inferences, rather than immediately adding another explanatory layer that makes every outcome appear anticipated. Logic deserves respect; accepting correction by facts is also a requirement of logic.

When news comes from someone familiar or was once confirmed, we easily carry it into new judgments. Yet circumstances and people change. Resources that really existed before may no longer be available; arrangements viable then may now have different conditions. The message has not changed, but what it refers to has.

Besides a source, information should therefore have a date and status. Who confirmed it directly, how far confirmation went, and which changed conditions require asking again all affect its present usefulness. Secondhand information is not inherently worthless, but every layer of transmission adds distance needing explanation.

Sometimes communication yields no result for a long time not because people are unwilling, but because everyone holds a version from a different time. Someone still discusses the original intention, someone has changed plans, and someone does not know about the change. Aligning information first gets closer to the problem than hastily judging who lacks initiative.

I hope the information I value can update with facts, rather than remain valid forever because it was once confirmed. Rechecking takes time, but may prevent greater misjudgment. Seriously asking “Is it still this way now?” returns familiar information to the present and leaves experience an opening for renewal.

Admitting limitations sounds humble. But if limitations remain merely those words, they hardly help the next judgment. The more important questions are: which material am I missing, which part have I not encountered, and which unconfirmed things have I treated as premises?

Experience helps us understand a category of problems quickly, but may also make us skip unfamiliar parts. Seeing clearly from one position does not mean having equal information from another. Height reveals structure; closeness to concrete situations may reveal exceptions and resistance within it.

Stating a gap clearly is often more useful than continuing to prove how much we know. It tells others what to add and tells us which advice must remain provisional. A judgment with explicit limits can still contribute to discussion; an unlimited judgment easily makes others think full confirmation has occurred.

I want to treat not knowing as a workable state. It neither requires abandoning experience nor permits experience to testify for blanks. First identify missing facts, then ask how to obtain them, and only then decide whether judgment should change. This order grounds confidence in something explainable.

Bringing our ideas to seek advice can easily lead to lengthy explanations. We want to clarify the background and show the effort already invested. Yet more material does not necessarily make the question clearer. If affirmation is what we most want, a long conversation may only add confidence, not understanding.

Before seeking advice, I think it is worth stating what we want tested: the initial premise, an intermediate inference, or a method’s applicability elsewhere? Explain current progress and methods already tried, then locate questions there. This lets the other person’s experience genuinely enter, rather than merely elicit a polite response to an overall picture.

When hearing disagreement, we should distinguish its source. What field does the other person know, what supports their judgment, and does it overlap the matter discussed? Respecting experience need not extend every statement to every problem; maintaining independent thinking cannot mean accepting only comfortable answers.

Seeking advice need not lead to immediate agreement. Finding a condition I had missed or clarifying an unresolved question can help the next decision. I would rather come away with clear questions and reliable grounds than have someone more experienced settle the answer for me.

Making complex things clear is valuable work. A diagram or sentence can quickly reveal structure and focus scattered discussion. But the more concise the expression, the more we must know what was omitted. The omitted parts may be details, or precisely the conditions on which the result depends.

I like laying out material first, then gradually classifying, compressing, and distilling it. This path matters because simplicity has passed through an understanding of complexity. Rushing to seek an essence before fully unfolding the material may produce merely a memorable saying. It helps memory, but not necessarily judgment.

Good simplification should show where further expansion is needed. Confirmed facts, provisional conditions for discussion, and changes requiring recalculation can all have openings beside the concise structure. After understanding the main thread, others can still find questions, rather than merely accept an answer.

I want to treat a diagram as the beginning of understanding, not the end of discussion. If a structure cannot accommodate exceptions, it may simply have hidden them. The more concise an expression, the more it deserves the question: does it still hold in another setting? Simplicity that withstands being unfolded again comes closer to the ease of understanding.

Tools make much formerly laborious work easy. Scattered material can be organized quickly, and an idea rapidly becomes complete text. The convenience of speed is real, but it also changes how we experience completion: a finished product that once took lengthy writing now appears almost immediately.

Once the product appears, several questions still belong to us. Was the initial question stated correctly, what premises does the content use, which sentences do the sources support, and which are merely smooth-looking inferences? Without judgment on these, more complete expression may make gaps harder to find.

I see AI as a tool and acknowledge that it reduces the difficulty and workload of organizing material. Tools can extend human abilities, but someone must still take responsibility for judgment. Skillful use helps me do more; knowing when to verify and when to stop determines whether those things are worth continuing.

I hope to spend some of the time saved by tools checking and thinking. Ask an overlooked question, consult another source, or delete an unsupported claim. Simply repeating the same opinions faster offers little gain.

When someone still has not begun learning, we easily become anxious and start reminding, arranging, and urging. The task may finally move, then stop when reminders stop. What deserves understanding is whether they know why to learn or only that others require it.

I care about how learning moves from willingness to spontaneity, then gradually to organizing oneself and finding methods. Reasons for willingness can be concrete: completing something, entering a beloved field, solving an immediate difficulty. Finding that reason first shows people where they are going more readily than continually adding demands.

Even with willingness, people encounter confusion, fear, and difficulty persisting. We can help them encounter the real process, shrink tasks, demonstrate what is needed, and let them finish a part themselves. Interest, methods, and ability affect each other; they need not form steps everyone must follow identically.

Not every necessary task is enjoyable; its meaning and way of completion can be discussed. Helping someone learn aims to let them gradually arrange things themselves. If only the helper ever knows the destination, learning remains something arranged for them.

Guiding someone through a task often leaves both parties feeling teaching is complete. Steps are clear and results appear. But if different material or a changed condition leaves them unsure where to begin, what they gained may mainly be this one procedure.

Demonstrations should also explain judgments. Why take this step first, which conditions require changing methods, and what information affects later choices? Actions are visible; judgments often hide before them. Remembering only actions risks applying methods to unsuitable problems.

After demonstrating, let the learner handle a similar but different problem independently. Observe how they begin, where they need help, and whether they can explain their reasons. When difficulties arise, first find the difference together, then explain further. This reveals what is understood and what still depends on original prompts.

I hope guided work can become a starting point for later self-learning. The teacher then has less work they must repeatedly do for someone, and the learner gains capacity to keep trying. Mastery must be observed in judgment after conditions change, not confirmed merely by a first successful result.

Writing a theory with complete concepts and structure does not yet mean knowing how to perform each step. Who takes a theoretical role in concrete matters, and what conditions a seemingly smooth theoretical connection requires in practice—these questions need unfolding again.

While writing books, adjusting systems, and drawing interfaces, I repeatedly worked on these together. What deserves keeping is their ability to return to one another. If a concrete arrangement reveals an overly broad concept, return to subdivide it; if a step will not connect, reexamine the original relationship. Application raises questions, and theory should allow those questions in.

This differs from diligently following a set account. Sometimes failure to accomplish something reflects missing abilities or resources; sometimes the difficulty exposes conditions the method did not explain. A finished theory cannot justify attributing every obstacle to implementers. Theory must keep answering what help it offers within what scope.

After practice, summaries should retain more than successful examples. Revised definitions, unexplained phenomena, and parts requiring separate judgment also deserve recording. Keeping a system open to modification connects it continually to concrete matters, instead of preserving an appearance of completeness by leaving problems to its users.

First define the problem, then unpack variables, causality, and verifiable steps.

Maxims provide direction, reading provides material, and practice does the testing.

The result of learning is not collecting knowledge, but changing understanding and action.

Independent thought does not mean rejecting others; it means listening and then forming your own judgment.

Education should pass on knowledge while also cultivating judgment, practice, and independent responsibility.

Methods should be reusable in different situations and open to revision by new facts.

When reading a sentence, ask under what conditions it applies and what action you can take today.

Wisdom must reach the root, solve problems, and become actionable choices.

If a judgment has no conditions for change, more facts may serve only to defend it.

When things go well, I say I foresaw it; when blocked, that more waiting is needed. Support proves direction correct; no support proves others failed to understand. If every outcome confirms the original judgment, what I say may no longer be testable.

Before action, I want to write one more thing: what I currently believe, why, and what is missing; what outcome would make me narrow, pause, or change the conclusion. Conditions need specificity and enough time for verification. If external circumstances genuinely change, conditions may be adjusted, but retain the reasons.

This exposes where I may be wrong and tells others how to discuss matters with me. Willingness to change cannot be assessed only by professed humility, but by whether someone can identify a new fact that would truly change them.

A tool’s skill in understanding my expression does not mean it has tested my judgment.

Given my words and experiences, it can find clues and write clearly, but may also organize scattered reasons into an overly smooth image. The more I like that explanation, the more I should ask which material was selected, which contradictions omitted, and whether others’ circumstances survive only as my description.

I want tools not only to say what kind of person I resemble, but identify unsupported judgments, conflicting passages, and wholly unconfirmed outcomes. Disagreement needs material; agreement needs testing too. A label I first propose cannot become evidence merely because the tool repeats it.

A tool that lets me hear another explanation has more chance to increase understanding. If it only beautifies my certainty, I may have gained a comfortable mirror, but not a reliable test.

One road to success, two to failure.

Who achieves more: someone who takes the successful road from the start, or someone who walks both roads of failure before taking the successful one?

Choosing entrepreneurship means choosing hardship, maturing, then finding a channel to soar in your career.

Find the one path, enter the present, and strive to experience the mortal world!

To succeed, you need friends;

To achieve tremendous success, you need enemies!

Everyone has potential, born in comfort and dying in adversity,

So when facing pressure, do not become agitated.

Perhaps this is merely a small test from life.

Believe in yourself; everything can be handled. Pressed hard enough, a hero can take to Mount Liang.

Circumstances alone create true great heroes.

Thus the poor seek change, and pressure gives people motivation!

What does pressure mean?

It means shouldering greater responsibility and continuing to shoulder it after failure,

Living with value.

Never believe you have reached the ultimate summit. I am always a newcomer.

The mature you

Has things to relinquish

Endless heavy drinking

Boring trivialities

Uninteresting work

An unloving partner

Has things to gain

Confidence on the face

A smile at the lips

Calm within

Ease in the stride

Spring warms, flowers bloom

Grow resiliently

When body, mind, and soul unite and enter the present, wisdom appears. Anyone entangled in the past or worried about the future will suffer. While suffering, one cannot enter the present; without entering the present, wisdom can never appear. I would rather everyone under heaven betray me than betray anyone under heaven. Those who accomplish great things must endure grievances ordinary people cannot endure and experience things ordinary people cannot experience. Without such a heart, do not set a great ambition.

Ordinary people find work and life in conflict; great achievers integrate work and life. Work is life, and life is work, so those seeking great achievements must make accomplishing their work life’s greatest joy.

Consolidate until none can surpass you

Sprint until your opponents tremble

When encountering failure and suffering, do not fill yourself with complaints or blame heaven and others. Endure the test, persist in effort, and accumulate small but definite successes little by little, ultimately turning adversity into favorable circumstances.

In success and good fortune, remain neither arrogant nor impatient. With sincere gratitude, continue working so success can last. Both suffering and success test us.

“I cannot take it anymore” comes not from weak endurance, but from not having prepared for the worst beforehand.

Moving forward needs only one reason; retreating offers a hundred reasons.

Too many people would rather find a hundred reasons to prove they are not cowards than use one reason to prove they are brave. Letting go needs only a moment’s thought; clinging offers a hundred excuses.

Too many would rather find a hundred excuses to deceive their own feelings than break through pain’s cage in a moment. Many things are not impossible; what is lacking is the determination to do them.

What is the core of a person’s growth?

One word: “break”

Without breaking, nothing new can be established

When is training most painful?

The threshold of advancement is painful

Advancement is certainly painful, but its result is certainly joyful

Because you are changing from the old, shabby Huashan sword technique to the unsurpassed Nine Swords of Dugu, and because the Nine Swords of Dugu are less

familiar than the Huashan technique, your results may be worse than before. In the end, what we compete on is who dares face pain and holds

firm conviction.

Growth is the process of moving from awkwardness to ease.

When pressure is greatest, efficiency may be highest;

When busiest, you may learn the most;

When most comfortable, failure often begins;

When cold reaches its extreme, the sun is about to arrive.

Growth depends on diligence, not time;

Time is for use, not wasting;

Affection depends on cherishing, not fate;

Money depends on investment, not accumulation.

In real life, the work we choose is sometimes beyond our control, but we are free to choose the mindset with which we approach it.

Values

Victory depends on intelligence, not physical strength

Success depends on effort, not miracles

Success is not about being dealt good cards; the key is whether you can play the bad cards in your hand well.

Forgo the easy, seek the difficult

Forgoing the easy and seeking the difficult is the shortcut to getting things done

Research that is not guided by customer demands is the way to create outstanding products

Persisting in doing the right thing, however difficult, is success

The team’s predicament

Great determination without clarity about the situation; many methods without a grasp of the facts

The inscription above: a headless fly

Someone doing business for a year or two falls and rises repeatedly, despairs and starts again repeatedly, fails and chooses anew repeatedly. Many say this person is indomitable and will surely accomplish great things.

I do not necessarily think so. These are appearances; the underlying core is “wanting overnight wealth, impatient for success.”

For great achievers, success or failure cannot be judged quickly. Within two years there is no collapse, despair, or failure. Autumn’s fallen leaves cannot be swept clean—why not wait until winter? The poor seek shortcuts; the rich sow seeds!

The poor use cliffs to kill themselves; the rich use cliffs for bungee jumping!

In this society, only effort in the right direction can bring you into the upper reaches of society. The harder you work, the further you move from worldly suffering. Otherwise, you will not even have an admission ticket, let alone perform onstage and influence an era.

The results of action depend on whether the mindset is good or bad

A good mindset can make people diligent, hardworking, and attentive

A poor mindset makes people complain, resist, and become passive

So if you hope to do things well, first adjust the mindset

This means not only your own mindset, but even more the team’s mindset

As a manager, your management focus should be managing mindset

Adjusting mindset requires the manager’s own pure original intention

A pure original intention

Will let you express genuine feeling

Will move the team

The simplest criterion for judging this original intention is “benefiting others”

Preserve: hold on to the present

Break: innovate

Establish: a new foundation

Everyone hopes to rise above others and find a shortcut. Sadly, we ultimately discover there are no shortcuts: without investing time and energy, we cannot gain anything. Comfortingly, once we understand this, we know the path toward success. A path without detours can already count as a shortcut.

Those who know themselves are outstanding; those who overcome themselves are mighty! To accomplish great things, first know yourself and others: whom to trust and whom not to trust. Only by knowing people can you employ them; otherwise they will harm you instead! To accomplish great undertakings, trust everyone who deserves trust and destroy everyone who does not!

Plan quietly, unseen

Win consistently without contention or waste

Stand through the years

Still, yet never vulgar

Keep the delicacy of early spring

Do not ask where you are going

Do not be trapped by former years

Do not fear the days ahead

Brew a pot of moonlight

Pour it over a thorny road

Life turns in a thousand ways

If all is well

Sun or rain matters not

Do not magnify emotions

Do not nurture delusion

The wind is quiet

People should be full of morning vitality

Some say a man builds a powerful self by having a mistress.

Bullshit!

How could he have only one?

A man must have two: one called the gym, one called the training venue

Continually “charge,” “store energy,” and “discharge”!

After ups and downs, I value “steadiness” more. Low points can slow us down and reveal what we missed before. But a long passage of time does not automatically mean someone has consolidated deeply enough.

Consolidation needs identifiable changes. Have abilities been added where we once relied on opportunity? Have constraints been established where control was easily lost? Have unclear directions received more concrete judgment? If we can explain these, waiting has substance.

When setting out again, allow smaller steps too. First settle life and necessary responsibilities, produce results in what can be done, then expand investment according to reality. Rushing to prove we are back can turn the next opportunity into a wager to compensate for past disappointment.

A low point promises no future peak. What we can seek is better preparation for the next action and a stronger ability to protect our foundations amid fluctuations. Such changes already have value, even if not yet conspicuous.

Having accomplished things is important experience. It shows that under particular circumstances and conditions, we did organize resources, bear risks, and achieve results. At low points, these memories can remind us that renewed action remains possible.

But past results contain many factors. Ability, timing, partners, and market changes may all have contributed. Attributing all success to ourselves easily overestimates the next chance; attributing all losses to circumstances misses what needs correction.

Starting again requires identifying what remains. Can abilities work elsewhere, are methods outdated, are relationships and resources still reliable, and have past results truly become today’s foundation? New action must answer these questions.

The past can give courage; today still needs concrete evidence. Begin with small results to reconfirm judgment and methods. Repeatedly accomplishing things gradually brings confidence steadier than a single success.

When results miss expectations, we readily ask why the implementer failed. Looking earlier, expectations may never have been jointly confirmed. One person means this version, another still works on the previous one; previously required content is removed after completion. Rework often begins before hands-on work.

Reducing rework requires retaining key decisions. What is being done, deferred, unsettled, and who can confirm should be visible to those involved. When discussion changes, specify where and how completed work will be handled. A verbal “change it” hardly reveals downstream effects.

Design and execution should listen to each other. A complete-seeming plan may still face difficulty in actual tools and processes. Letting implementers identify likely duplicated labor early helps adjust order. Preparation’s value is reducing roads that must be traveled again, not adding a stack of documents beforehand.

Projects naturally change; everything cannot be anticipated initially. Leave room for adjustable parts and stable grounds for confirmed ones. Update decisions with new facts while acknowledging adjustment needs time and cooperation. This clarifies rework’s origins and helps jointly reduce its recurrence.

Adding relevant people to a group merely lets them see messages. Who understands which part, who confirms decisions, and who implements still need clarification. Without knowing these roles, questions circulate around the group, receiving many answers without resolution.

When collaboration begins, I prefer first knowing the people and tasks: each person’s area, information, and handovers. Connect current tasks to actual owners and mark links between teams. Coordination depends on those links working; lively chat cannot do it for them.

When two parties work on a project, first identify unresolved issues and mark each party’s share. Confirm overlaps jointly and assign gaps explicitly. Reporting progress against the same basis reduces conflicting accounts and reveals unattended areas earlier.

Owners need not personally do everything. They need to know how their part advances and when others’ support is required. Update roles and handovers promptly when tasks change. Clear roles ease cooperation; problems still require actual causal examination, not replacing the entire investigation with a name.

After receiving a task, insufficient time or an impossible step can occur. What is easily overlooked is that I have stopped while others still think work follows the original plan. At the end, the omitted part becomes a surprise result others must face.

When obstacles arise, I think we should return the situation and required decisions. Clarify current progress, the blockage, what continuation needs, and visible effects. If canceling requirements, changing order, or skipping agreed review is proposed, the authorized confirmer must know, rather than discover it afterward.

Matters within explicit authority can be decided promptly within scope. For matters beyond it, offer suggestions and ask relevant people to choose. This preserves implementers’ initiative while letting those bearing consequences join judgment, rather than being summoned only after results go wrong.

Explain difficulties early and clearly. Whoever receives the report should respond and say what happens next, rather than leave the issue unresolved. Tell those involved when circumstances change so they can adjust the plan and continue.

Treat success as a stage’s result and failure as information and an opportunity to revise.

Growth often happens at thresholds of unfamiliarity, discomfort, and necessary change.

Long-term results come from repeated small actions, not a one-off sprint.

Turn a wish into tasks, responsible people, deadlines, and feedback.

Protect important but nonurgent things through a fixed rhythm, records, and review.

Maturity is not losing enthusiasm, but knowing what deserves persistence and what should be relinquished.

Beyond results, review methods, resources, pacing, and boundaries.

Complete the smallest feasible step first, then adjust the next step according to the result.

HESITATE—indecision

Some speak of recklessness, but worse than recklessness is indecision. People who sway like grass atop a wall, however outstanding and strong in other respects, are easily pushed aside in life’s race by the determined. Swift, decisive people inevitably make mistakes, but are far stronger than those who dare do nothing.

Whitehead said, “Fear of error is the destruction of progress.”

PROCRASTINATION

Plans are full-bodied; execution is skeletal. Procrastination is often avoiding problems and laziness: magnifying obstacles, shrinking back, and finding excuses to evade them with the attitude that one more day’s delay is one more day gained, often complaining:

“Boring work”

“A harsh boss”

“I’m too busy”

“Doing it a day later won’t matter”

…

Then we fall into

“Work is increasingly boring”

“Life is increasingly boring”

and its mire, growing lazier and more negative, falling into regret about the past and fantasies about the future. Over time, guilt and self-negation intensify, making us ever more anxious.

The renowned thinker Romain Rolland once said, “Laziness is a strange thing. It makes you think it is comfort, rest, and benefit, but what it actually gives you is boredom, weariness, and dejection.”

NEVER LAST LONG—unable to persist over time

Eighty percent of failures in the world come from giving up halfway. Those with fleeting enthusiasm simply have never experienced the joy of succeeding through persistence, because persisting is always tedious and full of setbacks, while human nature prefers ease and avoids labor. Every year begins with grand plans filling a notebook’s first pages, the rest nearly blank: “I bought a good book, but unfortunately have not started reading it yet…” “I resolved to lose weight, then gave up after about 5 days…”

Almost everyone has experienced “ambitiously making plans and dispiritedly abandoning them.”

AFRAID OF REJECTION

Heavy yet fragile self-esteem. The “pain” we feel in relationships relates to “feeling rejected.” Sometimes rejection is obvious: someone we love suddenly leaves, or friends betray and distance themselves. Sometimes it is subtle: you give someone a smiling glance and they look away, or summon courage to send a WeChat message and get a brief reply much later. Someone who can put self-esteem aside to act focuses on goals and results; someone putting self-esteem first focuses in relationships on others’ attitudes toward them. Thus the more useless someone is, the more attached they become to insignificant boundaries and petty self-esteem.

LIMIT YOURSELF

Killing one’s potential. They often say: I want to do A, but fear I cannot because of reasons B, C, D, and E. Before acting, they negate themselves and find many reasons not to contribute or try. All mediocrity and low achievement become results of self-imposed limits. They assume a “height” within; this “psychological height” continually suggests: I certainly cannot do this well, so good enough will do. This suggestion can shield against frustration from failure and provide a good feeling about oneself, yet deprives them of the opportunity to succeed by “going one step higher.”

La Rochefoucauld said, “Mediocre people always complain about things they do not understand.”

RUN AWAY FROM REALITY

Daydream sufferers: those avoiding reality have 5 characteristics.

1: They frequently daydream, preferring to create a small world of their own.

2: They like an unrestrained life of doing as they please—in plain terms, they yearn for idleness.

3: They become absorbed in games or fantasy novels, which lead into a vast magical world and escape everyday reality.

4: They find the real world cruel, frequently receiving blows from real life while chasing daydreams.

5: They cannot face themselves, because only in the daydream they create can they find certainty and security.

ALWAYS FIND EXCUSES

Always making excuses: it is not my fault. When people make mistakes, their first reaction is often self-defense. Those fond of excuses share traits: no strong commitment to a career, no persistent pursuit, no firm conviction in life. Under pressure and difficulty, they do not and do not want to take responsibility; facing risk and challenge, they retreat. Avoiding responsibility and retreating force them to make excuses. Excuses are easiest: a way to conceal ignorance and seek consolation in it.

FEARFULNESS—timidity

Overcautious cowardice. At work they always feel afraid of criticism from superiors, of others finding them incompetent, of others knowing their shortcomings. They care about evaluations, fear mistakes, and fear effort will not be rewarded. I recall a sentence: I dare not labor hard to polish myself, fearing I will discover I am neither pearl nor jade; yet a thread of hope remains within, and I will not resign myself to the rubble. This is actually weakness of mind, unwillingness to face frustration.

REFUSE TO LEARN

You are not lonely; you simply do not want to learn. Learning takes mental effort; self-growth means continually struggling with yourself—how painful! Better to lie comfortably at home with a phone and movies, then lament bad luck on Moments when peers earn more and live better. “I have never seen someone busy from dawn till night, dragging an exhausted body home, feel empty, lonely, and cold. Most people’s emptiness, loneliness, and coldness basically come from being well-fed with nothing to do.”

As the times develop, some habits may limit our outlook. Once fixed, ideas bring negative effects and stop us considering problems from multiple angles.

Harvard University’s Joyce Matler advises us: “Establish new ideas about creating wealth and act steadily and practically. Do not think becoming rich is difficult!”

So saying that changing even one can bring success is not without reason. Act quickly—are you still hesitating?

What is money?

Money is merely a tool for realizing a way of living. What is a way of living?

Understand who I am, where I go, why, and how: goals, purpose, and belonging. I do not need money, but employees do; I do not need money, but charity does.

Everything serves me; its use serves only all beings!

Find the savor and enter “serving me”; find intention and enter “only for all beings.”

What I want is not money. I find earning it and watching it slowly increase interesting. Every morning going to the office, I feel I am going to church, to paint murals! To deliver more people!

Conversion depends on the five senses; promotion depends on channels; dissemination depends on desire

High conversion means winning; good promotion means victory; widespread dissemination means strength

Money, a tool of the mortal world, is a tool for cooperation that you neither bring at birth nor take at death

Power, a tool of rule, is a management tool affecting the strength and scope of control

Reputation, a tool of word of mouth, is a calling card that lets you move through society’s various strata

As Zhou Dunyi writes in Tongshu, Chapter 11, “Following and Transformation”: “Thus the multitudes under heaven have their root in one person.” From this we can realize that the secular world is not complicated; it all comes down to human nature. Human nature is “power and status, money, material things,” which ordinary worldly people find difficult to escape. We therefore need to understand and accommodate human nature fully.

The paths to earning money are similar; the ways to spend it are varied. Spending along the wrong path will invite disaster.

The skills stage

Almost everyone entering the workplace begins at the skills stage. Skills here are broad, not just a specific professional skill: sales, human resources, and finance also count as skills. At this stage, you yourself are a tool worker, a skilled worker, exchanging skills for compensation. As your skills improve and mature, they expand horizontally and vertically. Horizontal expansion enriches core skills: an editor who learns design, for example, becomes an art editor. Vertical expansion extends into the tasks before and after a job’s core process: in new media work, for example, being able not only to write but also to promote. At the skills stage, be quick and eager to learn, continually progress, and enrich your skills. Your core professional skills must be outstanding, and you must continually learn about management and improve your management abilities and qualities. Only with strong skills and a management mindset can you advance to the next stage: management.

The management stage

With strong skills and a management mindset, entering management is inevitable. Management tests not your own execution, but your ability to organize the team’s execution. At this stage, pay attention to making external contacts, such as industry conferences and managers at partner companies. Contact with the outside world is an important way to accumulate resources. The more people you know, the richer your initial resources. After lengthy consolidation and accumulation, you enter the resource stage.

The resource stage

The difference between relationships and resources is that relationships need maintenance, while resources do not. This depends on whether your own value is great enough and whether you can become a resource for your target resources. Your own value is an important means of exchanging and maintaining resources. The purpose of consolidating and accumulating resources is to continually increase your ability to raise financing. Once you have that ability, you enter the capital stage.

The capital stage

Capital is the top level of business and of the economy. Capital determines business companies’ success or failure. A continuous, unending injection of funds can help a project pass through its simple development phase into maturity. From seed financing through angel investment, venture capital, private equity, and an IPO, capital must continually be deployed strategically. Knowledge and experience of investment and financing must continually grow at this stage. After using capital to develop yourself, you will also make a series of investments to keep expanding capital. What investment values most is people. When results can be controlled, it is investment; when they cannot, it is gambling. Whether they can be controlled depends on your assessment of the person seeking financing. What you investigate is precisely the three stages of skills, management, and resources.

Those who once treated money as dirt are gods revered and worshiped today.

If worshiping the God of Wealth made you rich, would the God of Wealth not be a corrupt official?

Shen Wansan treated money as dirt, saving country and people, winning their hearts and being honored as a God of Wealth.

Guan Yu refused a hundred taels of gold, valuing affection and loyalty, and public sentiment honored him as the Martial God of Wealth.

During national crisis and hunger, selling a measure of rice heaped to a point—no merchant without a heap—won people’s livelihoods and honor as a God of Wealth.

Every God of Wealth was once someone who transcended money and pleaded for all beings.

Worshiping the God of Wealth is worshiping transcendence, compassion, nobility, and spiritual attainment.

The secret behind worshiping the God of Wealth is not asking to become rich:

Revere noble people;

Repent your own vulgarity;

Pray to transcend the mundane.

Transcend the stench of money and attract copper and gold.

Transcend the mundane and become extraordinary; become extraordinary and rise above; rise above and lead; lead and be revered.

How can vulgar rouge and powder cultivate nobility?

How can someone reeking of money become great?

Enhance perceived value through packaging existing value, and share profits from the value created.

Creating something from nothing is planning’s value. Where there is no value, plan value; where value is low, increase it. Consumers buy concepts.

To soar in your career

You must continually change circles

An ordinary boss depends on insight

An expert boss depends on circles

The very best boss depends on a “master”

Ordinary people judge people by listening to talk; good and bad live in other people’s mouths!

[Endure] means having patience inside the casino: do not bet without a good pattern, without confidence, or without luck.

[Wait] means waiting until confident before betting. Disordered thinking is the worst state in which to bet. You must wait, wait, wait.

[Steady] means being settled and stable. Do not bet on ties or pairs, do not place casual bets, and preserve your capital.

[Fierce] means betting fiercely when there is a good pattern, fiercely enough when confident, and even more fiercely when luck is good.

[Leave] means knowing to leave the casino promptly when winning, and knowing to rest and leave promptly when losing.

Deep: deep thought; deep thought creates things

Great: great relinquishment; great relinquishment gathers things

True: true love; true love wins things over

Abundant: abundant virtue; abundant virtue bears things

Broad: broad giving; broad giving sustains things

*Note:*

Deep thought: profound thinking, solving growth problems

Great relinquishment: giving people a sense of security

True love: the world’s greatest force is true love

Abundant virtue: being able to bear this undertaking; a fleeting bloom means you cannot bear it

Broad giving: only continual reserves

A bitter fate comes from what one brings upon oneself, unrelated to the outside world

A smooth fate comes from what cultivation attracts, unrelated to luck

The market measures value through price

A price war with the market is the outward appearance

Its underlying essence is a denial of the value of your own product

Mistakes in product design and positioning have made it converge with competing products

This is a lack of confidence

This is a lack of responsibility

This is a denial of your own value

Business looks like buying and selling; its essence is working with people

Efficiency and effectiveness

Waiting, in this moment

Businesses divide into large and small businesses, or regularity-based and guerrilla-style businesses. Small businesses have no regularity, only obedience: everyone can attend a meeting at two in the morning. Life is work, and work is life; building a successful enterprise is the greatest joy in life.

Why can managers not support the boss?

Poor character, lack of gratitude, disloyalty, failure to understand the boss, lack of a broad perspective… These are all appearances. The underlying core is that they and the boss are not “one of us.”

“One of us” essentially means “one group.”

“One group” essentially means “one position.”

In other words, the secret behind business management is bringing core employees and the boss into one position, one group, becoming one of us.

New: a newly initiated project

Additional: an added item

Transformation: an item involving transformation

Drawing pages as a project begins easily makes everyone feel work has started. Buttons, colors, and layouts exist and give people something to discuss. Yet a page can look complete while what its users must accomplish remains unclear.

I think several questions come first: who uses it, when, and where they go after this step. Feature names are only a contents list; connections between features determine usability. When parties understand usage differently, greater detail may mean more to overturn later.

Before design, walk through one concrete scenario. Explain what each person provides, sees, and ultimately receives. Record inconsistent understandings immediately. Once key questions are settled, turning them into pages gives communication shared grounds.

Of course, some ideas become visible only when drawn. Then use rough sketches to find problems without rushing to treat them as final. Preparation depends on what the next step must resolve. Using design to confirm requirements differs from treating unconfirmed design as development instructions.

“Hard to use” can mean many things. Someone does not know the controls, someone encounters a bug, someone finds the workflow awkward, someone wants an absent feature. Put all these into one change list, and the team quickly gets busy without necessarily solving the same kind of problem.

When problems arise, I prefer first distinguishing their nature. Unfamiliar operation needs explanation or training; promised functionality that fails needs fixing; unreasonable usage needs design review; new ideas need renewed requirements discussion. Different treatments require different participants and completion criteria.

When raising a problem, explain what you did, expected, and actually saw. Retain reproducible observations and let relevant people confirm. Discussion then moves from general usability to specific faults, and it becomes easier to judge whether changes affect existing use.

Classification cannot replace fixing or excuse delay. Advance clear problems and promptly verify unclear parts. Above all, do not call every problem user ignorance; that only deprives the product of feedback. Distinguishing problems first reduces detours and gets genuine needs handled.

Individual features can look normal while the whole task remains impossible. Submitting information does not mean the next person receives it; generating an order does not mean subsequent handling is arranged. Testing page by page easily misses problems between pages, people, and states.

I therefore focus on running the whole business process. From a real user’s position, take realistic data through the beginning, processing, and ending. View who acts, who waits, and who handles problems within one flow. A feature’s existence and a business task’s completion need separate confirmation.

Testing can advance alongside development. Check completed parts, connect available flows, and record and report problems. Waiting until everything ends for the first trial concentrates earlier misunderstandings at the finish, making once-timely adjustments rushed.

This does not mean incomplete versions can go straight to everyone. When unprepared, use sample data within a clear testing scope and know which steps cannot yet be completed. Staged testing finds problems early; final acceptance still returns to the agreed complete use. Judge less by interfaces, more by following the task.

In product discussions, ideas often multiply. Everyone adds a seemingly sensible feature, none apparently unnecessary on the list. But actual design, development, testing, and maintenance all require someone’s effort. Combined, these may leave a product perpetually almost finished.

I think we must return to the current problem. Without this feature, can the main usage flow still finish? Does it solve an existing problem or an imagined possible one? If the main purpose works without it, record it for later judgment after clear user feedback.

Explain cuts too. Tell participants what this round retains, postpones, and why. List fixes for completed parts and truly missing features for unfinished parts. Separating these shows whether the next step repairs the existing product or expands scope.

Doing less does not mean lowering basic quality or using deadlines to excuse unfinished critical flows. Preserve the completeness needed at this stage. Focusing energy on actual usage can bring a deliverable result closer than continually adding impressive-looking features.

When a problem arises, calling a meeting is convenient. Gather people and explain again, and progress seems made. But if the problem needs one confirmation, handover, or document, full attendance may simply make more people wait together.

Before meeting, clarify who provides information, who decides, and who implements decisions. Matters involving few people can be discussed thoroughly by them. Share changes everyone needs to know through a suitable method. Attendance depends on whom the problem involves; room size need not prove importance.

During the meeting, move a blockage forward. Specify missing material, locate disagreement, retain available decisions. Afterward, tell relevant people their next actions and unsettled conditions. Repeating a vision seldom replaces these concrete steps.

Small meetings are not inherently efficient. Without information or authority, attendees still talk in circles. Some work genuinely needs shared understanding by everyone, so allow adequate communication. What matters is the meeting’s task. Connecting those who must collaborate is more useful than making everyone hear identical words.

When progress falters, “poor execution” is easily heard. Pressure then shifts to the worker, who may still not know priorities, required results, or where to find missing things. Tension rises while the original problem remains.

I think we should first check whether the organization has clarified the work. Are directions aligned, tasks conflicting, and materials and support available? One person fills earlier gaps, another awaits another department’s confirmation; both appear unfinished, for entirely different reasons.

For unfamiliar work, training and guided practice are also organizational provisions. Expecting quick onboarding requires showing references and feedback routes. After supplying these conditions, observing results better distinguishes insufficient ability, unclear methods, and poor coordination.

Once conditions are clear, individuals must own their execution responsibilities too. Both can hold together. The organization provides clear support; implementers provide honest feedback and results. Do not rush to cover every detail with one verdict. Unpacking why work stalls makes concrete solutions possible.

With vacancies and much work, we easily hope a newcomer immediately takes over problems. But if they find unclear duties, missing materials, and no handover, later poor performance becomes hard to attribute: inability, or no conditions for starting?

Before hiring, I think we should clarify their first-stage responsibilities. An independent problem-solver and a willing learner needing development require different support. Identical titles may hide very different expectations; “strong ability” cannot substitute for explaining them.

Observe newcomers’ learning speed, questions, and actual results, while also checking our explanations and timeliness of feedback. A clearly bounded task offers better grounds than conversational impressions for judging overall ability. Specify unmet requirements to keep assessing whether improvement is possible.

Some roles genuinely require experience; training cannot solve every deficiency. But if we plan to develop newcomers, include the necessary time and cooperation. Selecting people and preparing work together clarifies the partnership for both sides. The role deserves serious attention, and so does its new occupant.

Studying competitors’ new features is necessary. But we may not know why they built them, for whom, or alongside what business. Rushing to add every new button can turn our product into a compilation of competitors’ features.

I think updates should start with our own usage. Has the business changed, what problems do customers repeat, where is the current workflow awkward? Then examine how outside products handle similar problems. This yields comparable methods rather than a name we must follow.

When discussing features, check their connection to existing flows: who uses them, what information they need, whom completion affects. Without clarity, more features may also increase difficulty. Explaining actual operating needs gives technical updates a steadier direction.

Outside innovation may indeed reveal needs we missed. Try understanding it in a concrete scenario first, then judge adoption. Keep watching competitors while preserving choice. Products need continual change, but each change should ideally explain which user task it improves.

Market support can produce introductions, posters, videos, training, and tools. Everyone may be busy while frontline staff still ask the same question. The volume of content and whether their difficulties decreased need viewing together.

First understand frontline work: which customers, which stalled stage, what customers struggle most to understand. Is a sendable explanation needed, or a presentation for face-to-face use? Only a clear usage scenario tells material what to say and how far to go.

Organize collected needs appropriately. Find common ground among similar questions; handle one-off material according to its purpose. Creators explain what they can provide, frontline staff how it will be used, then check whether delivery helped. This is clearer than mutual guessing.

Not every frontline request should be produced. Some difficulties come from products, some processes, some insufficient individual ability. Finish what content can solve promptly; find appropriate treatment for what it cannot. Support’s value returns to whom it helped accomplish what, not merely file counts.

Seeing a new direction, we most readily discuss its potential and forget to ask what the current team can use. What others already do may require us to begin with learning, hiring, and building processes. The direction may match, but different starting points bring different work after entry.

I think we should first inventory existing accumulation. Which experience helps judge demand, which abilities deliver directly, and can existing customers and partnerships still contribute? If these connect, the new direction has practical foundations; if most cannot be used, seriously account for the time to rebuild capabilities.

This does not mean only doing familiar things forever. Previous accumulation may no longer fit change, and new abilities require active learning. Start with a clearly bounded task to locate specific gaps. Lay out missing people, methods, and understanding, so entering a new direction becomes more than an excited judgment.

Use opportunities while continuing to build your foundation. Reusing accumulation for a quick start and spending time entering unfamiliar territory both have their occasions. Know which you choose and prepare accordingly. Clarifying the starting point is steadier than staring only at where others have arrived.

Watching a number keep growing, it is easy to regard it as our wealth. Yet whether we can withdraw it, when, and at what cost often remain unanswered. Sometimes we own a realized result; sometimes only a possibility awaiting realization. Put these together, and our sense of security can exceed our actual room to maneuver.

When calculating returns, I think we should distinguish what we have received, what we still hold, and what requires additional conditions to realize. This makes results less impressive, but tells us where we stand. Expectations can inform our consideration of the future; today’s expenses still require resources we can actually command today.

This also explains why an apparently promising asset may not suit being someone’s entire compensation. A person taking responsibility in a role also needs certainty in daily life. Tying their income to a project’s fluctuations should be a choice made with full understanding, not merely on the strength of a picture of a better future.

I want to retain a simple follow-up question: setting aside all valuations and expectations for now, what can I actually arrange today? This question will not judge every opportunity for me, but can remind me to keep what I already have separate from what I hope to have.

When funds are scarce, people are more eager for change. Ordinary accumulation seems slow and a leap seems close, so we easily mistake the intensity of our desire for a reason we can bear risk. Yet wanting a quick turnaround and being able to withstand failure are two matters needing separate clarification. Losing the same sum can mean entirely different consequences for different people’s lives.

The amount of capital alone cannot answer our risk questions. What we truly need to see is what task these resources serve, which arrangements could continue if they were lost, and which responsibilities would be affected. Money someone appears able to produce is not necessarily all available for free experimentation.

In my own statements, I once linked having little capital with taking greater risks. Revisiting such judgments, the question worth asking is not whether someone is brave enough, but whether the advice has carefully considered their capacity to bear loss. Urgency can explain a choice, but cannot automatically justify it.

Steadiness cannot remain merely a reflection after experience. It must enter each concrete judgment: do I truly understand the possible costs, or am I temporarily unwilling to see them because I want change so badly? This question does not decide the answer for anyone, but can stop wishes from speaking once more in place of facts.

An experiment that spends less of my own money is certainly worth considering. But I want to keep asking: have we reduced total costs, or merely placed them on someone else? Time, resources, reputation, and waiting can all be real investments. An expense not recorded under my name does not mean no one is paying for the experiment.

Cooperation lets people draw on one another’s strength, but also makes responsibility easier to blur among participants. Someone provides premises, someone technology, someone agrees to be an early user. Their expectations may differ. Participation does not mean we can assume they agree to bear every risk I have imagined.

Daring to say I will bear the consequences if my judgment is wrong expresses responsibility. The real difficulty is seeing beforehand which costs I can bear and which I cannot repair even if I want to. Other people’s time has passed, original opportunities have been missed, trust in relationships has thinned: these all deserve serious consideration before action.

Support for trial and error should therefore come with explanation and choice. Let participants know what they are supporting, have the right to object, and have room to stop contributing. These boundaries may slow progress, but avoid building my courage on others’ unclarified contributions.

Paying a temporary price for a more distant goal is understandable. Learning takes time, cooperation needs adjustment, and some investments yield no immediate result. But if every drain is called a strategic loss, the term may lose its explanatory power. We need to know exactly what today’s losses have bought.

I would rather break this into questions we can keep discussing: what is the next stage, why can we reach it, what signs show we are approaching it, and what circumstances indicate the original idea needs reassessment? Answers may contain uncertainty, but cannot consist only of the wish that things will improve later.

Agreeing on a time to review a stage lets judgment touch reality again. At that point, examine new evidence, capabilities formed, and gaps still present. Heavy past investment only describes past contributions; it cannot alone prove that continued investment is appropriate.

What is often hardest is acknowledging that the goal still matters, but this particular path may no longer be viable. Separating goals from paths allows fresh choice. Whether an adjustment is mature should not be judged only by how much face it preserves, but by whether it reduces losses that keep expanding while no one can say who bears them.

Profit shows an activity has generated income, but cannot alone show whom it has benefited. One person’s gains may arise from shared creation, unequal information or position, or leaving others consequences they are unwilling to bear. Looking only at final numbers easily mixes these differences together.

I have emphasized altruism when discussing cooperation and also discussed how returns arise in markets. Putting these statements together invites a question to myself: when profit opportunities appear, will I still ask whether those affected understand the process, have sufficient choice, and have been told the costs honestly?

A well-intentioned goal cannot automatically explain every means of profit. A useful practice has not thereby answered whether it is fair. Especially when I hold more information and influence, judgment must go beyond what my side gains, to why the other person participates and how much room they have to refuse.

I want to examine altruism through these concrete questions. It can allow reasonable returns, but must also accommodate scrutiny of how profits are made. If a principle holds only in speeches and disappears in the face of interests, the distance between principle and choice is precisely what still needs cultivation.

When I see an opportunity I like, wanting to tell people I know is natural. But “this is very stable” may mean only a relatively favorable assessment to me, while becoming an assurance they can relax to the other person. Trust helps information travel and can give a sentence more weight than intended.

Before sharing, I want to separate a few things: what I know, where the evidence comes from, what remains unverified, and my own investment and interests. Explaining these does not diminish an opportunity’s real value, but lets the other person see how the judgment formed instead of merely accepting its conclusion.

Especially with familiar people, the relationship should not be a reason to omit conditions. Their resources, responsibilities, and ways out may differ from mine. Even if we view the same thing similarly, the consequences we are willing to bear may differ. I can offer material and opinions; the final choice should remain theirs.

Sharing worth cherishing leaves the other person better able to judge, not less able to say no. If a statement needs our relationship to bypass questions that should be asked, that enthusiasm needs examination. Let trust help understanding while also preserving room to question.

Two people continually communicating does not mean relevant managers know the work’s stage. When smooth, this seems convenient. Once a step stalls and remains only between those two, outsiders may first learn of the broken connection through a complaint.

I think management needs visibility into key processes. What is ongoing, complete, awaiting confirmation, or abnormal needs appropriate records and feedback. Shared basic information lets relevant people support before problems grow, rather than rely entirely on ad hoc inquiries.

Records should serve actual needs. Retain information affecting delivery and coordination, with clarity about who updates it, who reads it, and what happens afterward. If growing material does not help next-step judgment, feedback becomes extra burden. Promptly revealing a real blockage is more useful than an apparently complete report.

Managers need not enter every conversation, and implementers need normal working room. But key exceptions cannot remain private. Connect necessary visibility to everyday processes. Handling complaints afterward remains necessary; arranging to detect problems before they grow deserves equal care.

From management, requirements are relatively easy to state: complete materials, clear logic, timely processes, accurate results. Each sounds reasonable alone. In practice, their connections and required time and judgments may not be visible in one sentence.

I think managers should personally walk through key work too. Take a concrete task, follow the standards you set, and examine each step’s inputs, judgments, and cooperation. Hands-on difficulties make vague requirements specific and reveal where methods or sequencing need improvement.

Doing the work need not lower standards. Some details deserve persistence, some requirements need better tools or support, and some repeated labor can be adjusted. What matters is explaining reasons, knowing what you ask others to achieve and what conditions it requires. Such feedback is likelier to help improvement.

This does not mean managers take over all team work. Understand selected key steps, then use that understanding in requirements, support, and judgment. Position grants authority to set standards; practical work reveals their weight. Connecting both makes requirements usable grounds.

Knowing someone has a special background can create hesitation at work. Some questions feel difficult, requirements remain unstated, and even absent responses receive excuses. Over time, task completion blurs and identity blocks the work needing judgment.

I think entering a role means assuming its duties. Identity explains where someone comes from, but cannot replace materials, decisions, and delivery. Confirm what needs confirming and state required results. Respect can also mean taking the person’s work seriously.

Evaluation should return to concrete facts: what was agreed, actual progress, missing conditions, and questions requiring response. Do not assume ability from background or prejudge irresponsibility because of it. Impressions from identity cannot replace knowledge of actions and results.

Those in special positions also need their work open to questions and checks. Explain specific authority or confidentiality limits too; inquiries need not mean demands for all information. Cooperation must preserve fulfilled duties and explainable problems, without making everyone guess out of deference to status.

Marketing should first make real value clear, then design outreach and conversion.

Money is a tool for realizing a way of living; capital is a mechanism for allocating resources and shouldering responsibility.

Every return comes with costs, volatility, and exit conditions.

Organizational efficiency comes from coordination between goals, division of work, rules, and trust.

Look first at cash flow, intended uses, and capacity to bear risk, then discuss scale and speed.

Perceived value can be designed, but it cannot replace real delivery over the long term.

Before committing resources, write down the worst outcome, the stop-loss line, and what you will not do.

The larger the undertaking, the more it needs individual ability to become transferable institutions and team capability.

A principle’s weight depends on whether it can govern the person most empowered to grant themselves exceptions.

Demanding that others follow process while always having special circumstances oneself; demanding prompt explanations while asking only that others understand one’s difficulties. Even called principles, these arrangements may merely make others more obedient. If their author always stands outside the rules, those below can only guess their mood.

When I make a requirement, I should explain how it constrains me too: who checks my decisions, how others object, and how I take responsibility for my mistakes. Different roles may carry different duties. If an exception is genuinely needed, state its reason, scope, and duration so it can be checked.

Putting myself within rules reduces arbitrariness and increases the trouble of explanation. Willingness to pay this price gives principles a chance to become shared support. Otherwise, however upright my words, I merely expand my entitlement to demand things of others.

An organization may lack not judgment, but a route for bad news to reach those empowered to judge.

When problems are reported, first asking who lacked care; when progress changes, first treating those explaining difficulties as uncooperative. After several rounds, people may learn not how to solve problems, but how to describe them more lightly, later, preferably only when they can no longer be concealed.

If I want responsibility, honest feedback needs somewhere to land. First ask facts, then effects and options, finally check responsibility. Deliberate concealment needs addressing, and timely reporting deserves recognition. Treating discoverers as creators of problems teaches the next informed person silence.

Bad news is unpleasant by nature. If I want only comfortable reports, I should not wonder why judgment comes ever later. Willingness to know real circumstances is a necessary cost of deciding.

An absence of opposition sometimes proves only that opposition costs too much.

Within an arrangement, whoever controls evaluation, opportunities, and resources receives nods more easily. No immediate objection may mean agreement, uncertainty, or a belief speaking is useless. I cannot select only the most reassuring explanation and call it consensus.

Where collaboration is needed, separate questioning from obstructing execution. Before deciding, let differing views be fully expressed; afterward, record reasons adopted, disagreements retained, and conditions needing review. Clear duties still require fulfillment, but fulfillment need not mean every inner judgment matches mine.

I am willing to retain opposition because judgment needs to outlive face. If consensus is affirmed only in my presence, it remains far from shared understanding.

Handing someone the consequences is not the same as handing them the matter.

They cannot adjust time, access resources, change requirements, or stop work when risks emerge, yet finally are asked only why they failed. Such responsibility looks clear but may merely concentrate outcomes inconvenient for others beneath one name.

Before holding someone accountable, I should check which steps they can decide, what support is missing, what requires escalation, and who decides afterward. Limited authority does not permit implementers to conceal problems; decision-makers likewise cannot hide their choices inside others’ execution after results appear.

Responsibility can be layered and consequences shared. Each layer should match what it can actually influence. Responsibility without room for judgment often produces going through the motions; the deeper power is hidden, the easier accountability targets the wrong person.

Sometimes what is hardest to stop is no longer the undertaking, but refusing to accept that I misjudged it.

After long investment and many explanations, others know how strongly I believe. Adding more is easily called persistence, while the real driver may be wanting earlier efforts vindicated. Am I investing next resources in the future or protecting my past self? This deserves distinction.

Set incurred costs aside temporarily and reconsider the next step: if this opportunity first appeared today, would present conditions merit investment? Accumulated abilities and resources can count, but spent costs alone cannot justify spending again. Continuing needs new grounds; stopping needs an account of existing responsibilities.

This question does not demand retreat at the first obstacle or reduce long-term work to short-sighted transactions. It reminds me that owning past choices and repeating them differ. Admitting one misjudgment may show more responsibility than continuing to prove I was right.

Work continuing after I leave can sometimes show development better than polished results while I am present.

Someone may know my preferences and follow my answers without knowing their origins. A new problem requires waiting for me; disagreement means guessing my choice. This makes cooperation look smooth without transferring judgment. If I mistake being needed for successful development, I may resist changing that dependence.

Development requires handing over grounds, authority, and feedback together. Demonstrate first, then let the other explain reasons; allow decisions within bearable limits and review afterward together. Key matters may still require review, and inexperience needs accompaniment, but support should gradually increase ability, not merely familiarity with me.

They may eventually judge better than I do or choose another path. Whether I accept that tests whether I am developing a person or someone who continually confirms my importance.

What is a rare genius of our time?

Someone with vast life experience who can express complex theories in plain, everyday language is a rare genius of our time.

A good speech is not about sharp language, still less about being reasonable; it has a soul.

What is its soul?

Understanding clearly

Understanding clearly what to do

Understanding clearly why to do it

Understanding clearly how to do it

A speech is a process of expressing purpose, love, pure intention, and action steps.

The greatest secret behind influence is speaking power;

The greatest secret behind speaking power is inner strength;

The core behind inner strength is “having a strong self” and “having independent thought.”

Speaking is not fluent language but flowing thought: within, a spirit embracing mountains and rivers; without, small bridges and flowing water…

Innovation means daring to imagine; creation means daring to act.

It means acting on an uncertain opportunity sensed by the subconscious.

Minor achievers know how to do things but not what to do,

Great achievers know what to do but not how to do it.

Things that are certain have already lost their opportunity,

Things that offer opportunity always carry a sense of risk.

The very finest masters fear no failure, only missing out on worldly experience, and work fiercely to cultivate vision, breadth of mind, and courage.

First level: only you know what you are saying; listeners do not understand.

Second level: listeners know what you are saying, but not your purpose.

Third level: listeners know your purpose, and their thinking is sparked.

Fourth level: listeners hear the content while thinking, make the decisions you hoped for, and act.

Deeply memorable

Memory = feeling + imagination

The source of feeling

Feeling comes from unexpected collisions in the listener’s thinking

Your words must collide with the listener’s existing ideas

When the wise speak, what matters is not the effect of the content’s own organization on listeners

But that their speech activates the listeners

Activated thought generates tremendous energy

This is the difference between a wise person and a scholar

Learning sparks new ideas and directions in listeners

And prompts deep reflection

True giving does not end in a single act

It leads someone onto a path toward the light

What is the core of truly knowing how to speak?

Confidence, letting go, fearlessness… None is the lifeline. The underlying lifeline is being fully prepared—in other words, knowing what you are talking about.

As long as you know what to say, you naturally know how to say it.

Confidence comes from expertise.

A boast that hits the mark becomes a classic

Why do many teachers’ lectures feel disconnected from everyday life to listeners?

Because they do not know who their listeners are!

That is, their words are too refined and detached from life

Being grounded comes from how listeners feel

Speak of the small, not the grand; the simple, not the complex;

Go deep, not broad; be common, not refined.

Who cannot play at refinement? Let us see who can be common enough.

Teachers nationwide play at refinement. They cannot be common because that requires vast life experience and insight, the ability to express complex theories in plain everyday language: a rare genius of our time.

Common = rooted in everyday life

Common = grounded

Living on earth, you must speak earth’s language. If you speak in obscure classical phrases and clouds of fog, please leave earth.

False teachers directly give listeners methods, fixing them in place, and the entire audience falls asleep.

True teachers use collisions of ideas and answers after mystery to lead listeners into a feeling, finding answers themselves and generating countless methods.

After entering this feeling repeatedly, listeners enter intuitive awareness. Once there, they generate answers at every moment, anytime and anywhere.

The prerequisite for possessing learning is trimming learning; the secret behind it is learning the right things.

Knowledge divides into appearance and core

Ordinary people see appearances; great achievers go directly into the core and use it. Solve just one point, and every problem is readily resolved and vanishes.

Teaching

What others say to you and do to you

Can never determine what kind of person you are

What you say to others and do to others

Alone determines what kind of person you are

Win through thought, win through action

Self-negation is the beginning of growth

Why do we get nervous?

What does nervousness mean?

Nervousness means “not being accustomed”

How can we overcome it?

You are nervous because you care only about yourself

Onstage, think about helping the audience

The core of speaking is helping the audience

As long as you think of helping the audience, nervousness vanishes instantly.

As long as you think of helping the audience, you will not be nervous even speaking at the Bird’s Nest stadium.

As long as you think of helping the audience, you will open the gateway to letting your charm blossom.

The core of speaking is getting the audience to act. As long as you help them, the audience will naturally act.

Speaking is the release of inner strength.

Within, a spirit embracing mountains and rivers; without, small bridges and flowing water;

Within, build a strong self; without, establish independent thought.

The secret behind a strong self is seeing no individuals, but all beings. Seeing no individuals allows you to transcend emotions and desires, untroubled by judgment and public opinion. Regard nothing as above you, grow “compassion” in your heart, and guide all beings to grow. Unless the human heart dies, the Buddha’s heart cannot arise!

The secret behind independent thought is not clinging to convention, breaking convention, transcending convention, and prompting thought. There is no need for blazing passion or shouting yourself hoarse: simply speak normally and tell it calmly…

1. Do not speak with your back to the audience onstage

2. Scan the audience before speaking

3. Interact with listeners immediately

4. Open by explaining how you will help listeners

5. Never expect to help everyone

6. Keep asking simple questions

Does that make sense?

Is it so or not?

Right or wrong?

Do you agree?

Good or not?

Wouldn’t you say so?

Is it or isn’t it?

Everyone, do you agree?

Everyone, right?

7. Stand firmly

8. Look at everyone

9. Keep changing channels, using people or tools

10. Let it flow and blossom from the heart

11. If you forget your words, ask the audience

A good concert: “Sing together”

A good speech: “Where was I?”

12. If you cannot help, speak of your present state of mind

A packed introduction may feel substantial to its creator. In actual presentation, however, the speaker may not know how to connect it and listeners may miss the point. Rich-looking material becomes a script to read, burying the intended message.

Prepare content with its speaker, audience, and desired understanding in mind. Expand what the presenter can explain; do not expect layout to make uncomprehended content clear. Provide training or clarification where needed, connecting material with its user.

Trying the presentation before design reveals problems more easily: necessary explanations, repeated information, where a simple example helps, and how much is enough for the next step. Adjust content through feedback before presentation design, rather than fixing everything immediately.

Cuts must not remove necessary information and leave only pleasing words. Complex parts can be supplementary, available to those wanting more. Main material serves the main purpose; detail serves further explanation. How content will be used belongs in creation, not left for others to solve after completion.

After sending a message and waiting without the desired reply, people easily explain more, or even judge the other person’s attitude for them. By the time the other speaks, the topic is no longer the original issue, but why they are cold and inattentive.

Text chat is not face-to-face. The other person may be thinking or not finished typing. Our many consecutive messages prove only our own urgency, not that they have heard everything or have nothing to say. Treating these as the same builds subsequent hurt on guesses.

Ask the question clearly first, then allow time to answer. If something genuinely needs prompt confirmation, explain the urgency; after a long absence of response, decide whether to keep waiting. But one pause and persistent avoidance cannot receive the same judgment.

I think one kind of effort in communication is resisting immediate conclusions. Let the other finish a sentence before deciding to accept or oppose it. Otherwise two people appear to speak, but one has actually spoken both people’s parts.

When others do not follow my request, I easily ask first: why won’t they cooperate? That question has already judged them, as if only attitude remains to fix. Yet things sometimes stall because money, time, methods, and consequences are unclear.

Willingness to act and readiness to promise are different. Finding something worthwhile does not mean having the conditions to do it now. If the request itself keeps changing, hesitation may avoid an unfulfillable promise. Reading hesitation directly as evasion turns discussable concerns into opposition.

First ask what specifically worries them, what can be done, and what needs another method. Both sides should state what matters most: speed, completeness, or cost. Different priorities make the same proposal look entirely different.

Clarifying does not mean accepting everything. Adjust for justified concerns; question reasons that fail checking. Understanding conditions before judging attitude grounds eventual agreement or refusal, without advancing a task by guessing someone’s character.

Some matters are complex and tiring to explain, so I want to handle them myself without troubling loved ones. This has a caring intention, but may leave them seeing only results: why plans suddenly change, why there is never time, why I seem preoccupied.

Without information about the process, people explain using what they know. Sometimes they infer neglect, sometimes unwillingness to be close. I feel I have shielded them from pressure, while they may feel shut out of life. Both feel wronged, not necessarily because either lacks goodwill, but because their knowledge differs fundamentally.

There is no need to disclose every work detail or others’ privacy. Start with what affects shared life: what currently takes time, which plans may change, what I can handle, and what cooperation I hope for. Even without answers, I can let them know what I face.

Taking responsibility alone and keeping others completely uninformed are two choices. Closeness does not mean guessing everything. Sharing necessary information allows joint arrangements; otherwise shared life easily becomes one person arranging and the other waiting for explanations.

I explain my difficulties hoping for understanding, not necessarily saying the other person is wrong. But opening with how hard things are and how much I gave can sound like: you should no longer feel hurt or express needs.

Both people’s pain can exist simultaneously. I may be under pressure; they may lack companionship or feel neglected. Explaining one side does not erase the other. Rushing to prove stronger reasons turns communication into competition over who is more entitled to hurt.

First ask specifically what matters to them, then explain my circumstances. When discussing pressure, say which part I want understood and what cooperation I need. Otherwise, many words leave them unsure what to do next, only feeling their emotions have been refuted again.

Understanding need not mean accepting every demand; hearing hurt need not mean admitting every decision was wrong. Separating these preserves both actual circumstances and the other person’s feelings. Discussion can then return from who suffers more to reducing this particular difficulty.

When apologizing, we often know we handled some things poorly yet also feel we had difficulties. So after saying sorry, we immediately explain why and hope the other will take our perspective. Even truthful explanations can sound like: though you admit fault, you still need me to understand you first.

We can explain our difficulties while keeping the responsibility we must bear. First clarify what was mishandled, what effects it caused, and what can be repaired. If acknowledging impact is immediately followed by proving they should not mind, the apology pushes responsibility back after taking it on.

Explanation provides information; it does not collect forgiveness. They may understand the reasons and still need time, accept a remedy and remain dissatisfied. Finishing my words does not make further hurt deliberate obstruction.

An apology need not negate my whole self or accept responsibility that is not mine. Identify my share, continue feasible remedies, and discuss other disagreements separately. What makes an apology stand is not an immediate “it’s okay,” but not treating it as an exchange.

Innovation begins with discovering uncertainty; creation brings ideas into reality.

Expression serves understanding first, then action.

Content needs everyday expression, structured organization, and ongoing iteration.

Influence comes from clear thinking, sincere intention, and actionable help.

A real course does not instill answers; it helps learners develop abilities of their own.

Allow small-scale trial and error, replacing daydreaming and following the crowd with real feedback.

A good speech helps listeners understand, reflect, and make their own decisions.

Put complex ideas into language the other person can understand and use.

The more I write about practice and realization, the more places should be open to questioning.

If I write about responsibility, others may ask what I bore; if respect, they may identify an arrangement that ignored their reasons; if altruism, I must allow affected people to say their actual gain differed from the words. Publishing these statements should add a constraint on me.

Writing can aid understanding but cannot return time spent waiting or automatically complete delivery. After acknowledging a problem, decisions, remedies, or clear explanations of what cannot be done remain necessary. Writing insight can begin something; real responsibilities still require handling in real ways.

I hope these short pieces become grounds for others to remind me. If I use them only to explain myself but refuse others their use to examine me, more words mean less cultivation. Practice and realization should ultimately leave more than a self better at giving reasons.

Biological heredity is innate. Having one’s children carry on a legacy or inherit possessions differs fundamentally.

Everyone’s birth is accidental; death is inevitable. Whether the worldly experience of an entire life is rich depends on one’s worldview and values. People differ tremendously: different cultures, customs, and values shape each person’s social attributes. In the collisions these differences produce, only great love brings unity. These small records, cultivating oneself and guiding others, should be meritorious work. At least they can influence those nearby. This, too, is a kind of love—not giving, not tolerance, not pity, but guidance toward the light.

Perhaps these contents can be regarded as a kind of overarching design for being human.

The responsibilities you shoulder determine the compassion you possess

Compassion without “shouldering responsibility” is false compassion

How can you create your own compelling course system?

Learn.

Do not mechanically repeat what you learn: it belongs to others and lacks your own soul! You can only become a cheap wedding dress for someone else. The underlying secret is “kneading it together”!

Knead it until “both refined and common tastes appreciate it,” and you are the “greatest” under heaven, independent of the three realms of people, ghosts, and gods.

As long as it appeals to both refined and common tastes, it will be grounded and inspire belief, making you a truly effective teacher, leading the field!

The secret behind great energy is a sense of the sacred;

The secret behind a sense of the sacred is being admired;

The secret behind being admired is being needed;

The secret behind being needed is helping people succeed;

The secret behind helping people succeed is growing upward;

The purpose behind growing upward is to deliver people.

Deliver ten people, and a hundred will need you;

Deliver a hundred, and a thousand will need you;

Deliver ten thousand, and millions will need you.

Abundance of body, mind, and soul need not be deliberately pursued. Simply carry a heart devoted to serving the world and wholeheartedly deliver others, and life becomes blue skies, white clouds, and a clear, bright

world!

Heaven is in my heart, the earth beneath my feet; within, a spirit embracing mountains and rivers; without, the whole of all beings. Head reaching heaven, feet planted on earth, a soaring ambition in my heart, fearing nothing!

In traditional Chinese culture, one generation cared for the next. The result is that parents today struggle to free themselves, while children cannot become independent.

How can we break free?

Only by starting with today’s parents: shift from caring for children to guiding them. First become independent people who flourish and live as themselves, then guide our children to become such people too.

The secret behind great energy is a sense of the sacred;

The secret behind a sense of the sacred is being admired;

The secret behind being admired is being needed;

The secret behind being needed is helping people succeed;

The secret behind helping people succeed is growing upward;

The purpose behind growing upward is to deliver people.

Deliver ten people, and a hundred will need you;

Deliver a hundred, and a thousand will need you;

Deliver ten thousand, and millions will need you.

Abundance of body, mind, and soul need not be deliberately pursued;

Simply carry a heart devoted to serving the world and wholeheartedly deliver others,

And life becomes blue skies, white clouds, and a clear, bright world!

A teacher who teaches past lives is a demonic teacher

A teacher who teaches future lives is a devilish teacher

A teacher who teaches the occult is a ghostly teacher

A teacher who teaches skills is a strange teacher

A teacher of the present is the unsurpassed teacher

Awakening is Buddhahood

Only without desire or seeking

Can cultivation succeed

Behind a business there must be a great organization; behind an organization there must be a great leader; behind a leader there must be something greatly sacred…

When the sacred falls, the leader falls; when the leader falls, the organization falls; when the organization falls, everyone’s future falls… Once the boss’s heart is pure, the entire organization becomes sacred, and gratitude, responsibility, love, and all positive energies return one by one… However many times you are hurt, however many times you are shattered, always keep a pure heart!

Many open by calling themselves streetwise people of society. In fact, every one of us can be called a person of society. Emphasizing that label means not daring to compete with the truly strong on the same platform. A true person of society helps all beings succeed and delivers people. His name is Shakyamuni.

I hope to leave those who follow not only money and resources, but the ability to think and good character. If the detours I experienced can be explained, they at least provide more material for judgment, so not everything starts unprepared.

But experience comes from specific eras, conditions, and individuals. Methods useful to me may need changing elsewhere. If all we leave is what one should do, later people struggle to know when it applies or recognize that present matters differ from the past.

What deserves passing on therefore includes how judgments were made: what was known, what consequences worried us, what choices existed, and why the decision was made. Clear reasons let others examine, compare, and even raise questions I missed. Inheritance thus has room to keep growing.

Later people may understand my experience yet reach different answers. This possibility must remain. The judgment we hope to give should ultimately help them walk their own path. Leave material, methods, and personal boundaries, then return their concrete life to them, so experience can keep being used.

Establishing achievement means making value real; establishing lasting words means explaining experience clearly and passing it on.

Altruism is not an abstract posture; it gives particular people abilities, choices, and growth.

Passing something on means leaving not just words, but methods, examples, and judgment.

Responsibility means being accountable for results and for the people affected.

First make yourself a reliable helper, then discuss influence on a wider scale.

Give the next generation the ability to live independently and continue creating.

Words, products, organizations, and people’s growth can all become lasting results.

Put goodwill into institutions, resources, and sustainable action.

Writing a mistaken path as one understood all along erases genuine change with it.

Knowing outcomes makes the past easy to connect neatly. Hesitation becomes planning, coincidence foresight, and changed direction appears consistent with one answer all along. Such stories look better but hide what was missing or misjudged then.

When organizing my experience, I hope first to preserve judgments from the time: what I knew, believed, and worried about, and which later information changed my choice. I can add notes today and admit past overstatement, without reinterpreting old words beyond their original meaning to preserve perpetual correctness.

Some changes have identifiable causes; others remain unclear, and may remain so for now. Beyond final answers, what deserves preserving is how someone moved from not knowing to knowing only later.

My unfulfilled wishes cannot become a child’s debt merely because I leave them to the child.

Accumulating experience, methods, and conditions for the next generation expresses care. Yet the more I leave, the more I must distinguish whether they help the child choose or justify requiring continuation in my direction. Parents’ great contributions cannot decide for children what counts as not letting them down.

I hope my experiences can be used, while accepting some may no longer fit, some systems may be unneeded, and some wishes unwanted. The child can understand me and live differently. The resulting disappointment is mine to settle, not pressure the child must repay.

Inheritance contains things to hand over and expectations that must return to myself. Reducing the next generation’s difficulty of starting from zero is help; asking them to complete my life is another arrangement. My unfinished life remains my responsibility.