Foundations of Value · Origin & Values

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

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.

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.”

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!

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.

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

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