Eight years ago, I had a serious illness and almost died, and due to the serious sequelae, I also had problems at work. At that time, I was starting a business, and because of it, I owed some money, and I was harassed by creditors every day.
I started to get depressed at home, I had nothing to do every day, I was too lazy to do things, I lost my temper for no reason, and I couldn't see anything. Life became a mess, I had insomnia every night, I couldn't eat well, and I couldn't understand why God had pushed me into such a desperate situation.
I couldn't figure it out, I just felt that I couldn't get through this hurdle, and there was little hope for the future, so I thought to myself, I might as well go.
There was a small river near my house, and one afternoon, I felt like a walking dead who had lost my soul, and I felt that the world had abandoned me, and nothing could change my mentality, so I came to the river.
At this time, it was already 6 p.m., and the sunset had already come out. The beautiful riverbank shines on me, but for me, this beautiful scenery can't make me feel a little happy.
I looked at the river with no one and thought to myself, wouldn't it be nice for me to jump into it?Let the river take away my sorrows, I thought so in my heart at that time, and began to move my feet towards the river.
At this moment, all of a sudden, someone called me: Hey, do you want to come to my boat for dinner?
I was awakened by this sound, and when I saw it, it turned out to be a canopy boat. About ten meters away from me, there was an old boatman on the boat, he looked like a Taoist priest, wearing a cloth robe, tied his hair, and holding a penny in one hand, while looking at me with a smile.
I was silent, and he continued. I'll catch fresh fish for you to eat, can you come and have a meal with me?We stopped at Jiangxin to eat, and it felt good.
I did have some fun listening to it, thinking that I was not afraid of death, let alone afraid that he would lie to me and harm me. promised him that he had broken the mind of doing stupid things anyway.
He propped the boat over, and I jumped on board. He asked me to sit and rest, take a net and start fishing. After hitting two or three nets, there were also more than a dozen small fish. He let go of the small ones, leaving a few large ones.
He started cooking for me at the bow of the boat. After stir-frying greens and boiling a few fish in water, we ate at the bow of the boat. At that time, it was also dark, and he lit a fish lamp and hung it on the bow of the boat, and the whole river was me and him and a lamp.
While we were eating, we were talking, and he asked me, "Are you unhappy about something, a little worried?"
I listened, and tears flowed from my eyes. So I told him about the dilemma I had encountered in life.
He said: Life is very impermanent, and the heart must be soft.
Impermanence is the truth that we should understand in this world, and he is the only truth in the whole world. If you always want everything to go your way and don't encounter any difficulties and setbacks, then you shouldn't come to this world.
We Chinese say that if you come, you must understand this impermanence, accept this impermanence, and finally adapt to this impermanence, and be able to see through this impermanence, and strive to live a vivid and regretless self in the impermanence.
In the face of these impermanences, your heart must be soft.
I said, "Didn't you say to be strong?"Why does it have to be soft?
He said: True strength is actually softness. Because you can't fight against impermanence, you have to use the softness of your heart to dissolve the thorns and spikes of fate.
The softness of this heart means, ah, to have nothing to do.
I said, "I don't understand, what does it mean to have nothing to do?"
He stirred it in the river with a penny, and there was a wave of waves, and he pointed and said: There is nothing in the world for mediocre people to disturb themselves, this sentence is a truth. There is nothing in the world, you must know that impermanence comes from the original impermanence;Just as the stormy waves come from the body of water, and the changes in the world come from the unchanging, but you are confused by these impermanent appearances, so you interfere with yourself.
He pointed to the water that had calmed down and said, "Look, are there still waves?"
Lao Tzu said in the "Tao Te Ching": With the softest in the world, gallop the strongest in the world. It is to use this original soft heart to deal with and resolve all the collisions, all the confrontations, and all the obstacles.
When you encounter difficulties and disasters, unsatisfactory things, first of all, you have to adjust your mind to an extremely soft state, to accept what has happened, when something has happened, you have to accept it, and stop being upset and anxious about what has happened.
If you don't accept it, you're stuck there, it's gone, but your mind is still stuck at the point before it, and the point that's stuck is, of course, a false point. That's just a point created by your consciousness, for example, if someone is sorry for you, you have been depressed all your life at the point where he did something wrong, in fact, that point is no longer there, but for you, it is still so powerful.
When you accept that everything is happening, your mind can really follow the changes that are happening. This is the true meaning of obedience. A person knows how to follow his circumstances and follow the occurrence of things, so that he will not be deceived by time.
You see, there are some very wise and successful people in society, who encounter any problem, even if it is a big difficulty, they immediately face it and solve it positively, try their best to solve the problem, and are very pragmatic, which is the positivity of Shunshun.
A person is worried about his own predicament, thinking about it and suffering from it, but he is not willing to solve it in a down-to-earth manner, even if it is a little bit. Such a person is a person who does not follow and does not follow the way, and often cannot see the hope of the future, because he always sees and thinks stuck in the past.
A person who follows the rules and never carries the burden of the past can have the state of being able to meet all challenges anytime and anywhere. This state is what Taoism calls "the way of the sage, for the sake of not fighting".
In addition to not arguing, arguing, not fighting, not showing off, there is also a meaning, that is, no concern. Just do what you should do, and don't worry about the rest.
Taoists often say that we should look down on it, that's it, look down on the success and failure of the past, and also look down on the upcoming success and failure in the future, just work hard in the present, do your best, this is - "the way of the sage, for the sake of not fighting".
The ancients had a saying: the heart is selfless and the world is wide. This selflessness, in addition to no selfishness and selfish desires, there is no personal ideological baggage concerns, if your private concerns are too much to hinder, your heart will be narrow, the world will be narrow, and you will not be able to move forward smoothly.
Softness of the heart is actually a kind of spiritual practice.
You see that people do Tai Chi, which is Jiugong, and the word soft is actually an extraordinary state of energy flow.
The soft power, which is actually the most basic Tao of the universe, is an extremely strong force, such as the power of motherhood, the power of water, and the power of air, which are all great forces between heaven and earth. There is a sentence in the Tao Te Ching: "The god of grain is immortal, which is called Xuanyi." The gate of Xuanqi is the root of heaven and earth, which is continuous and does not use it diligently. ”
The root of this gate of heaven and earth is the root of this softness, the source of all things, and the power of the evolution of all things.
Lao Tzu called the "Tao" as the "mother of the world", advocating femininity, noble and feminine, so he said "the use of the weak Tao", most of us do not like to be weak and humble, can not be modest and peaceful, blindly want to fight to grab to be strong and strong, so the troubles are constantly entangled.
And the power of weakness, the power of humility, is the wonderful use of the vast Dao. Therefore, "the softest in the world can gallop the strongest in the world", and "the weak is better than the strong".
Lao Tzu's "Tao" of doing nothing and doing nothing is mainly characterized by softness and obedience to nature. In the Tao Te Ching, short and powerful guidance is also given, such as: "Tranquility often prevails over peonies", "Know its male, guard its female".
Because our heart is also soft, try to return your heart to a soft state, what is a soft state, that is, don't be impatient, don't be in a hurry to make a judgment on anything, the blessings and misfortunes depend on the blessings and misfortunes, the good and evil blessings and misfortunes of yin and yang, are not something you can judge casually, therefore, you have to be patient, deal with what happens, the method can be vigorous and resolute, but the mentality must be soft and stable.
In short, a person is calm and calm, and does not react excessively and excessively to changes in external information and things, in Fan Zhongyan's words, he does not like things and does not feel sorry for himself. In the words of Buddhism, it is the attachment to the state of non-existence.
This is the wisdom of softness.
With this soft wisdom, you can jump out to see your predicament, be an outsider, and from then on, solve problems pragmatically, solve a little bit, make up a little bit and count a little bit, change a little bit is a little bit. Don't torture yourself in your heart anymore, your pattern will change, and you won't lose your courage in confusion and despair.
Because of softness, you will be truly strong!
Tears flowed down my eyes when I heard this, and I stood up and bowed to him. At this time, I looked at the city lights on the shore in the distance, and said, "Teacher, send me back, I know what to do."
This article is a story).