Wisdom of Life

by Venerable Xiang Yang

In this modern world, everyone wants to live a wealthy, comfortable, happy and healthy life. However, the reality is always against our wish and is very unpredictable. We do not know how to cope with it and, out of despair; we just simply take one step at a time, or even resort to procrastination, or blame it on someone else. Therefore, from a simple and solvable problem, it becomes an unmanageable problem resulting in the rise of mutual animosity, mutual harm, mutual defamation and mutual destruction, culminating in hatred. In a moment of impulse, committing a mistake and a crime and being brought to a court of justice. The punishment meted out is either a fine or imprisonment or both. This has brought misery and grief to a person’s life and he or she simply does not know what to do about it.

Such problem arises due to the following reasons:

The feeling of not a single true friend is willing to extend a helping hand when he or she is facing a problem. Therefore, he or she bears grudge, against his/her friends, over the years such grudge becomes hatred and the person may resort to revenge.

Psychological imbalance as a result of being bullied, teased at, humiliated or even violated during one’s childhood and developed into distrust towards anyone. Slowly, he /she is isolates himself/ herself from this world and lock inside a world of depression. One becomes an eccentric and does something others find it hard to comprehend which will cause panic and worry in the society.

When one is working in a company, he/she is being bullied by the superior, teased by the colleagues and failed to obtain understanding and consolation from family members, it will develop into ill-feeling and will try to seek to take revenge or redress.

A person’s weird behaviour may caused discomfort and dissatisfaction on colleagues, slowly it develop into hatred.

Arrogance and not willing to listen to others will normally mess things up, but pride prevents a person from admitting mistake and causes a person to live in embarrassment. Not being able to face finger pointing from others, one will try to seek revenge.

With wisdom as a directional guides, one could skillfully solve the abovementioned problems. Only by understanding the root causes could a person solve the problems and gain wisdom and live a happy life without worry.

To gain wisdom, may I propose the following 8 methods for your consideration?

METHOD OF PERCEPTION

We must understand our own behavior and action in order to solve the problem that we are facing. First is our visual perception, we receive information through seeing with our eyes. We should know the intricate process from seeing things to understanding and solving things and how it varies from person to person. Visual effect will be quickly recorded in our brain and,

a. Whether it is a still feature such as a building or a tool, it is subjected to transformation, evolution and elimination over period of time. Only be understanding that all beings are impermanent could we become less calculative and live peacefully without worry,

b. or be they buoyant matters like our emotion of joy, anger, sadness or happiness of today and sorrow, enjoyment, departure or reunion of tomorrow. There will liberation from agony of not fulfilling one’s wish and the inevitable cycle of birth, growing old, sickness and death.

This perception has been imprinted clearly in our brain and helped us understand the impermanence of life, so that we will cherish the present moment, be less calculative and live harmoniously with others. We should extend our helping hand readily, admit our mistake and make amendment. We should also help others to turn a new leaf and live a healthy life.

METHOD OF REASONING

After knowing the above mentioned reasons, we will cherish the present moment be it with no family members, friends, colleagues, neighbours or even our erstwhile adversaries. Our previous method of dealing with the issues is based on imbalanced mentality and too calculative which has created animosity that was mutually harmful and made us live in misery. We should treat others with sincerity, equality and helpfulness in order to eliminate calculativeness, hatred, harm, arrogance and evil words and deeds.

There will be sunshine after the rain and with wisdom in our heart; every day is a good day and every year a good year.

METHOD OF WISDOM

Without the entanglement of hatred, tranquility and clarity in thought will emerge. All past mistakes will not recur and a new lease of life begins with the new found wisdom. The light of wisdom will light up a correct path for us to get out of the darkness and move towards brightness.

METHOD OF SEVERANCE

By understanding the root causes, we will be free from confusion and eliminate the evils of greed, anger and ignorance, eventually free us from worry caused by hatred, jealousy and rivalry. By severing from evil perception, we would eliminate all forms of suffering.

METHOD OF PRACTICE

With the practice of living in ease we could live without hatred, confusion, greed, anger or ignorance. We should take good care of our parents. There should be mutual respect between husband and wife and among siblings. We should raise and educate our children properly. We should care for our neighbours. We must be respectful and grateful to our teachers. To our friends, we must be sincere and helpful to them. When working for our company, we must be dedicated in discharging our duties. To our society, we must be will to offer help and to our country, we must prepare to defend it with a sense of loyalty.

METHOD OF POSITION

With sincerity and dedication, we have discharged our responsibilities towards our family members, neighbours, teachers, friends, superiors, our society and our country. Your magnanimity will earn you highest respect from every one and hold you up in a noble position.

METHOD OF CAUSE

Once you have distanced yourselves from the evil thought and have found a correct path without having to live with any suffering.

METHOD OF EFFECT

Because you have severed the entanglement of sufferings, you have the feeling of tranquility which is beyond written description. Only with a worry-free mindset could we perceive such feeling. Such mindset is already in our mind but is being temporarily blinded by our ignorance. To achieve tranquility, we have to let go hatred and worry.