12 Mindfulness Lessons Listened to at Tsinghua University

Chapter 11 Keep and follow (2)
Lou Shide in the Tang Dynasty had a good understanding of this.During Wu Zetian's reign, Lou Shide was well appreciated for his talents.But he knew that this would inevitably lead to the jealousy of others, so when his younger brother was released as an official, Lou Shide said to his younger brother: "Now that I have been appreciated by Your Majesty, many people have already slandered me in front of Your Majesty, so This time you are an official outside, you must be patient in everything." His younger brother said: "Even if others spit on my face, I can wipe it off myself." Lou Shide said: "This is not enough, If you wipe it off, it is against the wishes of others, if you want to let others get rid of their anger, you should let the spittle wipe it off on your face!"

"He who is good at fighting is not angry." In "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and other costume war movies, the powerful side frequently goes to the opponent's city to scold and fight, and scolds whatever is unpleasant. To be "stabbed under the horse, beheaded under the horse", or "captured alive" by the opponent, at least some soldiers must be lost, in short, there is no good fruit to eat.And a wise defender will often choose not to hold on. You scold me, you scold me under the sun under the city, and I scold you at the top of the city drinking wine. Anyway, you dare not attack the city directly, otherwise you will be beaten The stone waiter, the crossbowman waiter, and the oil pan waiter.You give me a lingerie and some cosmetics, and I will put it on to show you off; you laugh at me for being timid like a woman, but a timid is better than a dead man.However, once you run out of food and grass, and the morale of the army is unstable, I will take advantage of the situation and attack the enemy.As for those like Wang Lang, who died under the horse after being scolded by Zhuge Liang, they were not suitable for the expedition.

"He is strong by him, and the breeze blows the hills; he is horizontal by him, and the bright moon shines on the river. He is self-ruthless and he is evil, and I am full of true energy." Sutra formula.Regarding martial arts, we have no attainments, so we dare not make irresponsible remarks.But we might as well apply it to our life: He is strong by others, build your firewall.For the time being, treat those villains, bad guys, and people with low quality as Trojan horse viruses, and try to kill those who can be checked and killed as much as possible.When your firewall is strong enough, even if someone breaks through the wall, what can you do?

4.stay the same, stay the same
An old Chinese saying goes: "Do your best and obey the destiny." First of all, you must "do your best", otherwise the pie will never fall from the sky to your mouth by itself.But you must "obey the destiny".In the world, there are turbulent waves and unpredictable causes and effects.Only by being able to "do one's best and obey the destiny" can one maintain a balance of mood forever.

——Ji Xianlin (Master of Chinese Studies, academic leader, graduated from the Department of Western Literature of Tsinghua University)
Fate is an abstract Buddhist concept, and it is inevitably biased to interpret it bluntly, so we might as well tell the story directly:

In ancient times, a scholar fell in love with a girl he liked very much, and the girl loved him very much.But a few years later, the girl got married, but the groom was not a scholar.The scholar couldn't stand the stimulation, and when he got sick, he was about to die. At this time, a wandering monk suddenly came outside the door, claiming that he could cure the scholar's illness.The family was very happy and hurriedly took him to see the scholar.The monk didn't prescribe medicine or acupuncture. He just took out an ancient mirror from his bosom and showed it to the scholar.The scholar took a closer look, and the mirror looked like a movie. First, a beautiful woman appeared. She was killed by robbers and her body was exposed in the wilderness.After a while, a passerby came over, took a look, shook his head, and left.After a while, a second passer-by passed by. Seeing that the woman's clothes were disheveled, he took off his robe, put it on the woman, sighed, and left.Finally, a third passerby passed by, he gently picked up the woman's body, found a clean place, and buried her carefully...

The monk said to the scholar: The girl you love is the girl who was killed in the mirror, and you were the passerby who put clothes on for her in your previous life.You put on a piece of clothing for her in the previous life, and she fell in love with you in this life in order to repay your kindness.But your kindness is nothing more than that.The reason why she married someone else was because that person was the one who buried her in the end, and she had to repay him for the rest of her life!The scholar had an epiphany and soon recovered his health.

Regardless of whether this story is true or not, even if it is fabricated, it at least solves the confusion in people's minds: why doesn't the person I love love me?The brilliance of Buddhism lies in its ability to give its own answers to all questions that human beings cannot explain. Whether you believe in this or not, it is at least a way of thinking, a way that can make people no longer obsessed with The brilliant idea of ​​the thing itself.

Not only love needs fate, everything in the world also needs fate.

There is a story in the Buddhist scriptures: Once, the Buddha led his disciples to go out to preach the Dharma. Halfway on the way, the Buddha said to Venerable Ananda: "I am a little thirsty. Go to the small village five miles ahead and ask a man who is standing by the well. The old lady who does the laundry asks for a bucket of water, so try to be as kind as possible."

Ananda nodded, and took the empty bucket to the small village that the Buddha had mentioned.Along the way, he thought that such an easy thing, I must be able to do it easily.Unexpectedly, when he came to the small village, he saluted the old white-haired laundry woman by the well, and after explaining his intention, the old woman said very angrily: "No, this well can only be used by the villagers!" Then the old woman drove Ananda away, despite Ananda's begging and begging.

Ananda had no choice but to return with an empty bucket.He told the Buddha exactly what he had encountered. The Buddha nodded and motioned him to sit down. Then another disciple Shariputra went to borrow water.

Shariputra soon found the small village, and seeing the old woman was still washing clothes by the well, he went up to him and said politely: "Old man, my master is thirsty, I can ask you for a bucket of water." water?"

The old woman raised her head, and when she saw Shariputra, she was elated for no reason, as if seeing a long-lost relative.She said happily: "OK! OK! Come on, I'll fetch water for you..." After fetching the water, the old woman asked Shariputra to wait for her by the well, then hurried home and took some fast food for her. Sheriff takes it.

Shariputra came back with the water in amazement, and told the Buddha all the situations he had encountered. The Buddha nodded and motioned him to sit down as before.All the disciples asked the Buddha what was the reason for this, and the Buddha said: In the life before the long kalpa, the old woman was reduced to the animal life, reborn as a rat, and finally died by the roadside, exposed to the scorching sun. .Ananda was a businessman at the time, and when he saw the dead mouse, he felt loathing and passed by covering his nose. But Shariputra, who was a scholar at the time, felt pity for the dead mouse, and took a handful of earth to bury the mouse.

Similar thoughts have penetrated deep into the bones of Chinese people. For example, when someone suffers or encounters hardships in life, they often say: What evil did I do in my previous life!In fact, no one knows whether there is a past life or an afterlife.However, we will inevitably encounter similar things in real life: the two people in Su Yan's life have no conflicts of interest, but they just look at each other for no reason, or like each other for no reason, no matter how close they are.For similar things, except for a "simple" definition of "fate" and "non-fate", I am afraid that no one can come up with a more convincing answer.

Having said so much, it is definitely not to ask everyone to convert to Buddhism, but to let everyone try their best to follow the fate.If you have to use one word to sum up your life, then the most appropriate word is "helpless".No matter how pious your hands are, you can't change the trajectory of life. The reason why "fate" is called "fate" is that it can be met but not sought, and it cannot be changed.

If you follow the fate, you will have the fate.Give up one tree completely, and you can happily walk through the forest.Not following fate is persistence.Life requires persistence, but too much persistence is obsession.Perseverance depends on whether it is worth it or not. If it is not worth it, there is no need to be persistent.For example, if you fall in love with a girl, the other party ignores you, not only is it not advisable to be obedient, but it may not win the other party's satisfaction. On the contrary, she may regard you as soft bones.That being the case, why not release your eyes from the locked state, where is there no grass in the world?
The same is true of career.We always say that persistence is victory, and there must be a rainbow after the storm, but sometimes, instead of bringing the rainbow, the wind and rain will bring more mud, so persistence is by no means equal to victory.The ancients said: "It is up to man to plan, but it is up to God to achieve it"; Westerners also said: "Effort is one's own business, and success is God's business." All of the above have nothing to do with the attitude of life.Confucius lived a life of ups and downs, and he pursued unswervingly, but Confucius also said that "you know the destiny at fifty", this kind of emotion can only be understood by those who have experienced it.

Those who should follow the fate must follow the fate, but those who should work hard must also work hard. Although it is said that "sometimes in fate must be there, and there is no time in fate, don't force it", but if a person has never pursued it, how can he talk about whether there is fate?Life is like sowing seeds. Drought, flood, locust plague... A little joke from nature can make us lose our harvest, but we can't stop planting just because of the possibility of natural disasters. After all, there are still plenty of harvest years.

5.let everything come naturally
In fact, life is like a high jump.The most important thing for a high jumper is to choose a good height. It should not be too high. If it is too high, it is likely that it will fail to jump and there will be no results. If it is too short, it will waste energy. This is no different from life.There are also three heights in life. The first is the height of meeting the basic needs of life, the second is the height of self-challenge, and the third is the height of challenging one’s own limits. This is the trilogy of life. We must strive to reach the second height , and then strive for the third height.When determining this height, just like athletes, you must have self-knowledge and a clear understanding of your own abilities in order to be more successful.

——Li Zhiqiang (Master of Engineering, Tsinghua University, President of Tsinghua Unisplendour Co., Ltd.)

(End of this chapter)