Whatever you care too much will torture you.

17
/June 2022

such a story is recorded in the Tan Jing.

one day, when the sixth ancestor Huineng passed by the Dharma Temple, he saw two young monks arguing under the prayer flags.

one of the monks shouted:

Displaying latest trends, our beach wedding dresses are your absolute essentials. These collections perfectly match all occasions.

but another monk retorted:

the two argue endlessly, and no one can convince the other.

soon, the two young monks were surrounded by a group of people, which sparked a heated discussion about "whether the wind is moving or the banners are moving".

Huineng shook her head, sighed, went forward and said to people:

is it the wind, wake up, or heart?

different people may have different opinions, but the words of Huineng, the sixth ancestor, made me feel something.

in life, we often can't help it, and sometimes we don't mean it, and it seems that there are always troubles around us.

but sometimes the good and the bad seem to be in the same mind and heart.

Buddha said: "the heart does not move, everything does not move, the heart does not change, everything remains the same."

worry comes from the heart, all circumstances are created by the heart, everything comes from the heart, everything follows the heart.

what you care about, what will torture you, what you care about, what will bother you.

01

people's annoyance, worry about

Aristotle once said:

A large part of the troubles in life come from the calculation in the heart.

the more you compare your gains and losses, the more painful you are, and the more you care about the truth, the more confused your life will be.

many people have heard the phrase "rarely confused", but have never really understood the meaning of confusion.

once upon a time there was a poor fisherman who accidentally got a large and transparent pearl from a large clam.

however, he was not as happy as he thought.

because he found a small black spot on the pearl.

but he tried all sorts of ways, but couldn't wash the spots off the pearls. Finally, he hesitated and began to polish the surface of the pearl, and as the surface of the pearl was destroyed, the spot became visible to the naked eye.

so he began to polish the pearls endlessly.

you must have guessed the result, and finally the spots disappeared, but at the same time the pearls no longer exist.

when the fisherman only noticed the spots on the pearl, he ignored the light of the pearl itself.

many people think that fishermen are stupid, but they do not realize that we have often become fishermen with only spots in their eyes.

I wonder if you have a similar experience: when you only focus on the troubles in your life, you will feel that the whole world is betraying you.

but in fact, as long as you look elsewhere, you can find a lot of beautiful things, such as the newborn morning sun, steaming breakfast stalls by the side of the road, birds singing in the wind, thriving flowers.

when you begin to find the good, the beauty of the world will be closely linked to you.

in A Dream of Red Mansions, Wang Xifeng, who is so smart, cares about money and power, but ends up being "too clever for calculating Qing Qing's life."

as the saying goes: sometimes you have to have it in your life, but don't force it all the time.

what you get or what you struggle for may not belong to you in the first place.

when the river goes east, the green water flows eastward, but the fate comes and is irresistible; it is difficult to retain when the edge goes.

therefore, only if everything goes well, will everything go well and everything will come true.

02

the bitterness of life lies in persistence

Plato said:

the bitterness of life is persistent. In many cases, senseless persistence is of no use but to bump people's heads and bleed.

understand: when a road is coming to an end, you have to learn to turn.

in 1845, a young man who suffered a series of violent blows in life, with an axe, walked alone to the bank of Walden and began to live in seclusion.

before that, everything went wrong with him.

in his career, he has tried many careers to make ends meet: a primary school principal, an investigator, a pencil worker, a gardener, a craftsman, and even a monitor of snowstorms and storms.

but he was never able to get public office or even a meagre salary.

although he works for a big magazine and writes diligently, he is never appreciated and only gets endless pain.

in love, he and his brother actually fell in love with a woman. In order to maintain their affection, he decided to wait, but in the end, the love came to nothing.

later, his brother died of illness and his lover was never heard from. He was overwhelmed by the continuous shock of life, and after a serious illness, he went to Walden Lake.

he built a cabin there, working at sunrise and resting at sunset.

at first, night fell and a great sense of loneliness hung over him, and he was eager to find a neighbor.

but when he tried to settle down, blend in with the environment and listen to the sighs of the wind and the whispering of the trees, he suddenly realized:

so he gave up his desire to find his neighbors and lived poetically by the lake. and gradually let go of his obsession.

the pain of not being appreciated by the editor in the past gave him motivation;

although he could not get the so-called public office, he also had time to be alone with nature;

as for lost love, no matter how much you miss it, you must "forget each other".

Walden, his travel book of life several decades later, shocked the literary world.

Buddha said: "do not accept the second arrow."

No one can win everything in life, suffering and not getting is the norm.

But what determines the height of life is often not what you get, but what you let go.

clinging to what you can't get will often make you indulge in pain. Only by learning to let go can you be relieved.

it is said in the Book of changes: "if you are poor, you will change; if you change, you will change; if you change, you will be familiar with it for a long time."

only by looking down on honor and disgrace can life stop panicking; only by looking down on gains and losses can life be at ease and leisurely.

choose to let go, not to forgive others, but to let yourself go.

03

the difficulty of life is to let go

to hear such a story.

one day a young man came to the temple and asked the Zen master:

the Zen master nodded and smiled and said, "I don't think there is anything that can't be put down."

the young man hastened to explain, "but it's hard for me to put it down."

after hearing this, the Zen master said nothing, but walked gently to the young man, picked up a teacup and put it in the young man's hand.

he asked the young man to take the teacup and turned to get a pot of water.

then he kept pouring water into the teacup until the water overflowed, and the young man was so scalded that he hurriedly released his hand holding the cup.

the Zen master said:

there is a well-written lyrics:

things are unpredictable, people are complicated, a lot of things, you can't do what you want, a lot of people, not what you want, you can keep.

for the rest of my life, people who look down on me will enjoy the impermanence of the world.

in life, there is always a knot that is difficult to untie. Instead of being stubborn, it is better to let it go. It is your thing, do not fight, do not rob, you are destined to get it.

it's not yours. Even if you make a lot of effort and work hard, you will end up with nothing.

it is better to put it down than catch it.

maybe there is a person in everyone's heart who can't get or see, thinking about it so much that it's hard to fall asleep over and over again, but in the end they go their separate ways.

you fight at the top of your voice, with tears and reluctance, after all, you can't keep a person who has changed his mind.

the journey of life is so long that no one can accompany you to the end, but you should also believe that

all losses are arranged by God, and all encounters are reunited after a long separation.

what should go cannot be stopped, and what should come cannot be stopped.

instead of entanglement, it is better to leave gracefully.

there is a question on Zhihu: "what is the best attitude to interact with people?"

one of them replied: "be yourself and be close."

as Liang Shiqiu wrote in "send-off":

encourage.