PureInsight | May 12, 2003
[PureInsight.org] I live in Germany. Chinese people who live in Germany like to joke with their friends about the habits of German people. The most often used example is, "When Germans eat grapes, they eat the skin and seeds as well. When eating watermelons, they also eat the seeds." Surprisingly, one day I overheard a German chatting with his German friends about the way Chinese people eat grapes and watermelons, he expressed the opposite opinion, saying, "The Chinese people are so strange that when they eat grapes, they have to spit out the grape skin and seeds. when eating watermelons, they have to spit out the seeds. It's so hard to understand…"
Human beings all treat the conventional ways of thinking they've developed after birth as themselves, and in normal life they all think those habits are correct. Connecting this with cultivation practice, twenty percent of the beings at every level are old forces, and as a result in every layer there are factors keeping one from changing oneself. Many deviated shortcomings of a cultivator that do not belong to the original self of a cultivator are hard to detect, acknowledge and change. It's also hard not to look outward. What to do then? Only when one seriously follows Teacher's requirements can one fundamentally deny the old forces' arrangements.
The above are just a few thoughts to share with the readers.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2003/4/14/21189.html
