PureInsight | July 7, 2008
[PureInsight.org] When I was a child, every time when I read the Chinese classic Journey to the West,
what I admired most were Sun Wukong's (the Monkey King) piercing and
sharp eyes. Those eyes could see the true shapes of demons, ghosts, and
monsters and so he wouldn't be cheated under any circumstance. Of
course that vision is actually one of the Buddha Fa's Divine Powers. In
the book, ordinary people did not have that ability, and neither did
Tang Seng (Sun Wukong's master) or Zhu Bajie (Sun Wukong's fellow
disciple). Since they couldn't see the truth, Tang Seng and his three
disciples experienced some serious tribulations. They almost died on
some occasions. From this we can see that the result of not being
able to distinguish truth from falsehood or good from evil is horrible.
In today's world, I have seen some people who did not distinguish
righteousness from wickedness and were used by the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP). Eventually they lost their lives.
In order for a person to be able to distinguish right from wrong, to
distinguish truth from falsehood, to distinguish good from evil and to
distinguish the righteous from the wicked, he or she must have a clear
mind and great wisdom. This true wisdom is closely related with a
person's primordial spirit. A person's wisdom is not independent from
his virtue. They are more like the two sides of a piece of paper. If a
person with high moral character understands the truth of the universe,
he will certainly have great wisdom; nevertheless, if a person with low
moral character hankers after petty gains, it is impossible for him to
have great wisdom. What's more, he gets confused very easily by
attractive lies, and he thus ends up either being cheated or doing
wrong things by mistake. Where does true wisdom come from? First of
all, a person needs to have a clean and devout heart. Only when the
heart becomes clear and kind will gods open his wisdom. Actually wisdom
is not about how much modern knowledge one has learned, or how many
scientific theories one has mastered. Those can only be called
"knowledge." Knowledge is not wisdom. The so-called "intelligence" in
the human world is not equal to wisdom either. Great wisdom originates
from gods' guidance, which is enlightened to by the person's sincere
and kind heart. When human minds become more and more complicated and
more and more arrogant, they no longer believe in gods. Their moral
standard gets lower and lower, and their wisdom becomes smaller and
smaller.
This is especially so in modern times when China is controlled by the
evil spirit of communism from the West. The atheist propaganda of
communism impedes people severely. People used to worship and respect
gods and Heaven, but now they don't believe in gods and fight against
Heaven and the earth. They do whatever they like. As a direct
result, the standard of morality in society is declining rapidly. Along
with the collapse of the baseline standard of morality, the society is
beset by various crises. On the surface, it looks like the economy is
developing; however, due to the deterioration of morality, social
problems are increasing which increases the cost of running the
society. Moreover, the CCP solves the society's problems not by
guidance, but by high pressure and coercion. The whole society is
bogged down in crisis. Most seriously, the persecution of righteous
belief is bringing bad consequences to the whole Chinese nation.
An originally hard-working, kind-hearted and wise nation is now facing
an unprecedented life and death crisis.
A person's original nature is pure and kind. However, after
birth, he forms all kinds of notions due to the contamination from
ordinary society. It is precisely these notions that seal off the
person's true original nature and wisdom. As a result, in today's
modern age, all kinds of theories and arguments based on selfishness
are widespread and uncurbed. It may appear that human beings are
becoming smarter, but in fact, today the true wisdom is regarded as
being unworthy of serious consideration by human beings. People talk
about "Dao" and "Dao" related things but "Dao" has just become people's
pet phrase and a way to show-off their knowledge. Actually,
people are now so far away from the true "Dao" that it has become even
more impossible for people to achieve the same fundamental
enlightenment and great wisdom that ancient cultivators achieved.
It is not easy for a being to come to the human world. In this
human world there is indeed something extremely precious, but only a
bright mind can tell the righteous from the wicked. Life is
short. Isn't it sad if a person acts as an accomplice to evil all
his life? The father of Daoism, Laozi, left only five thousand words in
his Dao De Jing (The Book of the Way).
One reason is that the secrets of heaven cannot be revealed to too
many. The second reason is that those who have great virtue and
predestined relationships will naturally attain the Dao. As they
say in the Buddha School, "the Buddha Fa can only be seen by those who
believe." Whether a person believes, i.e. his enlightenment
quality, determines whether that person has good innate potential to
attain enlightenment. The cosmos is going through enormous changes, and
those changes might be related with the continuation of the true life
of each one of us. Laozi once said that great calamities for
human beings originate from having a human body. Perhaps a human
body is just like an article of clothing and it is not our real life.
Thus it is so very important for a person to find his real self. Only
by finding the real self can a person understand his historical
mission, see his future, and know what he should do. Only by
finding his real self can a person have infinite strength and great
wisdom!
Translated from: http://zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2008/6/27/53527.html
