“Life is actually really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” By Confucius

Confucius

The above quotation by Confucius has a history of more than 2000 years.  If we were to just observe around the world, we can see the world today is very chaotic, disordered, muddled, confused, messy, unruly and etc.

Why is it that the wise of the ancient has spoken of the above quotation so many years ago and yet until today we are still not awakened?

Basically our needs are indeed few for us to survive. Food, shelter and clothing are what we actually need for survival. We actually have more than ample. Besides the basic needs we still have more than ample to provide some for our desires.

The problem here is despite having abundance we still do not know what enough is. We also do not know how to share with others. We want more and more and more and the question here is, why?

It is simply because human being does not understand human being. And it is becoming more and more chaotic and confused.

What has made the world become so chaotic and confused?  

It is due to our human ignorance that greed and hatred was inherited. 

Greed here means wanting more and more and not knowing what is enough. With greed, desire is born. Desire here means craving, yearning or longing for more.

What are we craving for?

All the nice things for as long as our mind and the senses can perceive. We try to satisfy our mind and senses with the best of things and there are no limitations to these desires. 

Hatred here means harbored anger, intense dislike or ill-will. Hatred has a very negative impact and is dangerous to the mind. People who harbor hatred in their mind can be very dangerous.  If their possessions or belongings are threatened they can kill to protect. Or if there is anything they do not like or have been offended, they can also kill.

If you were to look at the News Paper or media today you can read all kinds of misery around the world caused by human ignorance i.e. greed and hatred. Ignorant human being will do anything to satisfy their desire and will also do anything to protect their possessions or belongings from being taken away.

We have been influenced or brain washed by the media, TV advertisement and all sorts of advertisement promoting a product to arouse or stimulate our desire.  The advertisement will try to influence and make you want to own them. Even after having them, they will improve their product features to make you wanting to change for the better one. This will go on and on and it will not stop.

Because of greed and hatred, law abiding and people of upright character and behavior have fear. Fear of being harm. Fear is human agony.

Look at animals, how do they behave?

Basically there are two types of animals, the herbivorous and the carnivorous.  The herbivorous animals are those feed on plant whereas the carnivorous animals feed on meat.

The herbivorous animals are very peace loving animals and many are kept as pet by us. The carnivorous animals will prey on other animals for food to satisfy their hunger. Once these carnivorous animals have satisfied their hunger for that day they will not kill to accrue or save some extra food for their next meal.

They never fear having not enough food. All they need to do when they are hungry is to go and hunt for food.  It is the ecological system that will provide sufficient food for them.

From the TV discovery channel, we can see the animal behavior.  There is no greed and hatred in animals. There are fierce animals.  These fierce animals have no hatred, i.e. they do not harbor anger.

We can see the herbivorous and the carnivorous animals together. The herbivorous types of animals have to watch out for the carnivorous types of animals as they will prey on them anytime when they are hungry.  The herbivorous types of animals do not hate or have any harbored anger over the carnivorous animals.

There is no greed and hatred among animals and that is why there are no wars among the animals.  Even when animals fight, they did not plan for it.  They have no intention of it. It is their instinct. You will never see or hear that this group or types of animals terrorize another group or types of animals because of possessions or belongings. They only prey on them for food.

If we can have a dialogue with animals to find out whether they are living happily or do they suffer or do they have misery, anxiety, depression, mental stress & etc. like human being, how interesting can it be?

What do you think their reply will be to us if we can have a dialogue with animals?

Although we are not able to have a dialogue with animals, we can see from their facial expression that they are actually living serenely. Even when these carnivorous animals are hunting for their food, they are very calm and they do not glare at their target. They will only glare at their foe when they are about to fight or fighting. It just indicates that animals during normal time other than fighting, they are serene and calm.

Animals are lucky that human being have difficulties having a dialogue with them otherwise most of the fierce carnivorous animals will be make use by human being for their corrupt practices like the film, Doberman film in 1997, the leader of a dangerous gang of bank robbers is targeted by a corrupt police official at their underground party. They trained these Doberman dogs to rob the bank. This is abusing of human intelligence.

We ignorant human being will terrorize, bully, fight, steal, snatch, cheat, bluff, con and etc. you name it they can do it to other human being to gain possessions of others belongings.

Off late we can see or hear from news, in one part of the world the government is trying very hard to save their people life from disasters and another part of the world the government is killing their people alive for trying to take away their possessions.

All the above are due to our greed and hatred.


There are no books teaching us to con, cheat or harboring hatred but somehow we just know.  This is human intelligence.

There are books to teach us to live a proper way but somehow we choose not to learn. This is human ignorance.

We ignorant human being has abuse our intelligence and wrongfully make use of the mind. There are no limitations to our greed. Being ignorant and naïve of our greed, we just want more and more. With the slightest threat we will try to defend at all cost.

The hatred mind is a mind harboring anger and is dangerous because we do not know when they can pound on us. They may just pound on us when we are the least prepared.

Just imagine if we can just do what we can or do to our best instead of doing what is expected of us, how ideal this world can be.

Why is it that we have to do what is expected of us? 

It is all because of greed, wanting to perform better and better so that we can be better off. The sacrifice or the price that we pay for is just not worth the while. The stress, anxiety, strain, hassle, pressure and a not balance family life is a very expensive price and not to mention some may be suffering from depression, despair, misery, and etc.

And why is it that it is not acceptable for us to just do what we can?

It is because people are smart they will take advantage of the situation and will not be discipline enough to just do what they can. People need incentive to motivate them to perform. One of the reasons we are making life complicated is trying to perform better than others.

You have to pay the price. You will find that everything in life exacts a price, and you will have to decide whether the price is worth the prize, quoted by Sam Nunn.

If we ignorant human being can get rid or reduce our greed and hatred, how peaceful the world can be?

This will eradicate, reduce or lessen all our stress, anxiety, strain, hassle, pressure and we can have a balance family life. This will be ideal and will be very difficult to achieve but not impossible. Then we can just live in simplicity.

Just Simplicity

Is there a way to overcome our greed and hatred?

Yes there are ways to overcome them.

To overcome greed, we have to share, give or do more donations. If we are not use to it we have to learn. We will have to share, give or donate on a regular basis and over a period of time it becomes part of us.

When we give, we give from the heart and without a thought i.e. to say we expect nothing in return.  The amount does not matter.  The lesser you have even better because it is not the amount but the percentage of what you have.

For example, if you have only 10 dollars and you donate 1 dollar, you are donating 10% of what you have.  Now you have a million dollar, you donate 50,000 dollars, you are only donating 5% of what you have.  From the heart the one donating 10% of what he has is more generous. 

As I have mentioned above, when we give, give without a thought and expect nothing in return. We are cultivating a habit of giving and this will slowly overcome our greed. We can feel the peace and happiness at heart.

Another point to note is besides giving and donating is sharing. Sharing what we have is also very important because what we are today are because of all our surroundings. It is all the people surrounding us that mould us to be what we are today. Without them we cannot be what we are today.

Just imagine if we are brought up from the jungle, how smart can we be?

Therefore it is all the people that have mould us to be what we are today and it is appropriate for us to share some of what we have to the society.  By sharing some of what we have to the society will not make us poorer.  It can only make the society become richer. It is like using your lighted candle to light up other candles.  The place can only become brighter.

And to overcome our hatred, we have to shower them with love, sympathized with them. Like Jesus Christ says forgive them for they know not what they are doing.

Hatred will never overcome hatred. Only love can overcome hatred, quoted by the Buddha.

Do you think there will be war if there are no greed and hatred among human being?



During war time, even a breast feeding
mother has to be arm to fight the war to
protect the country.



Without greed and hatred among human being then we can live in simplicity and how ideal and wonderful the world can be.  Life is really simple.



Tzun Dai Chi Pu Sat Pendant





(Posted on 18^th April 2011, Chinese calendar 16^th Day, 3^rd Lunar Month, to mark Tzun Dai Chi Pu Sa Day)

Wisdom



Wisdom                                                   

What is wisdom?

Wisdom comes from the word wise.  The word wise in the Oxford Dictionary is defined as having or showing experience, knowledge, good judgment, prudence and etc. 

Smart as defined in the Oxford Dictionary is having a good or quick brain, showing ingenuity, clever and intelligent but perhaps dishonest.

Clever as defined in the Oxford Dictionary as quick in learning, understanding of things and showing of ability and skills.

Human being would like to be in any of the above 3 categories and nobody would like to be stupid, ignorant, a fool, an idiot or naive. Do we have a choice or can we acquire wisdom?

Basically there are different in elements of meaning and explaining of the 3 words, i.e. clever, smart and wise.

The word clever as quick in learning, understanding of things and showing of ability and skills and do not have elements of insincerity or deceitful.

The word smart is skewed more towards of being shrewd and has elements of outwit or outsmart and skewed more towards benefiting own self more than others. Human being always likes to be smart.  They felt smart is cleverer than clever.

The word wise is noble because it has elements of being righteous, knowledgeable, good judgment, and prudent. Basically to be wise is to be able to differentiate the rights from the wrong, the appropriate from the inappropriate and the good from the bad.

Why we need to be wise?

We are all governed by a set of laws depending on the country that we are staying in. If there is anything that we do that have violated the law and being caught, we will be charged and punished by the law.

There are no laws to govern our mischievous and unruly behavior or being cunning and etc.  We will not be punished by the law if we behave as mentioned above.  The difference between the wise and the smart are the wise will be on guard of their mind and behavior while the smart might take advantage to outwit others.

The proverb, as sly as a fox, what does it mean?

Being cunning or tricky and will not be easily caught. Even if they are caught they will be able to get away scot free, i.e. will not be able to charge them under the law.

The wise will be able to differentiate the rights from the wrongs and will not do things that are morally wrong even if they do not violate the law of the country.

Many parents would like their children to be smart.  They felt smart is cleverer than clever.  As from conversations very often we can hear parents praising their children being smart.  Very seldom you will hear parents praise or dare to praise their children are wise.  Many people do not know or really understand the word wisdom.

Parent being ignorant of the word smart which has elements of insincerity or deceitful will feel proud if their children are smart. They will feel that their children will be one up or on the advantage side when compared to children who are clever and not to mention about children who are not so clever.

There are many parents who like to praise their children of being smart to friends with their presence.  This is indeed not a wise action because it will further encourage their smart children to outwit other children as most children do not know how to differentiate the rights from the wrongs.

Smart children know how to hide some of their wrong doings, i.e. to say, they know some of their doing are not proper or not correct and yet they do it. They will know how to explain of their short coming by painting a different picture to hide their inappropriate action. Sometimes, by the time their parents find out their wrong doing it can be already too late for corrections. Parents must be aware of the underlying negative effect of their smart children.  The question here is which is more inferior, to beg or to cheat? The choice is yours.

For the wise, if their children are smart, they will be very careful and concerned and will take all measures and efforts to help and guide their children to the right bringing up. The wise do not want their smart children to abuse their intelligence to take advantage of those who are lacking in terms of intelligence. The smart children are supposed to help those children who are no smarter than them and not taking advantage of them.

Another point to note is, we human being like to hear sweet words or being praised but we are easily insulted or offended and get agitated, disturbed, or hurt by words of mouth. This is real human weakness.

The worst part is when people praised us we get pleased, delighted or trilled but only for a very short while and we forget about it. If we had been insulted or offended we get disturbed, troubled or uneasy for quite a while. It may affect us over a couple of days or maybe longer and maybe cannot be forgiven for what they have spoken.

The question here is, from the same cause i.e. by word of mouth, why is it that the impact is different? 

Are we aware of the vast difference in impact?

Do we want to be caught in these types of situations? Think about it.

Can we stop people from talking? Absolutely cannot.

A wise man knows that he cannot stop people from talking but he can choose what he wants to hear. People get into all sorts of problems, issues, conflicts, misunderstandings, disagreement, quarrel and etc, etc because they hear everything and not knowing that they have a choice to choose what they want to hear. People say filter, sieve or select of what you want to hear and remember you cannot stop people from talking. Or just simply do not pay attention to what they are talking so you will not hear everything. It is just like attending a lesson or training session where the participants are dreaming or not paying attention.  When you asked them a question, they cannot answer you because they did not hear what you were talking. It is so simple.

How to acquire wisdom?

Can we acquire wisdom? Yes we can otherwise it serve no purpose writing this article.

Allow me to quote a few wisdom quotations from the wise.

1)  “Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it”

2)  “It is strange how often a heart must be broken before the years can make it wise”

3)  “When we are young, we go and learn a lesson and then take a test. When we have grown up and working, we go and take a test and learned a lesson”

4)  “Life can only be understood backwards but we must live forwards”

From the above quotations we can understand that wisdom is not born with but a process of the lifelong attempt of acquiring it.  It also does not mean if you are literate or 80 years of age, you will be wise.  It also does not mean an illiterate is not a wise person. If a person is not aware of his surroundings, no realization, not observant of nature, no awakening, there will not be wisdom.

Wisdom can be acquired. Wisdom is the process of the lifelong attempt of acquiring it.  It means as we live our life, we can acquire wisdom from:

1)  What we have learned

2)  Our experiences

3)  Our observations

4)  Our realizations

5)  Our awakenings

6)  And put it into practices what we have learned

How do we learned from the above 6 steps?

We may have come across some quotations from reading or what we have heard from our elders.  Initially we may not be able to understand that quotation. From our daily life experiences and observations, we will encounter some experiences of the quotations. Then we realized and understand the quotations of the wise. This will awakened us. If there is awakening, there is wisdom.

To quote an analogy of the above, for example:

“Contentment is the highest of wealth”

When we first come across the above quotation we may not be able to understand and believe the above quotation is true especially the young’s.  We thought that when we are contented there will not be any progress anymore.  Contentment means we have enough and are able to live within our mean and will not commit things not within our means. When we are able to live within our mean, there will be peace of mind. With this peace of mind we will be able to focus on what we want to do. Being able to focus on what we want to do, results will follow. With results, remunerations and status will follow.

If we are not contented and we focus on remunerations or status, results will not be as per expectations.

As the saying goes, if you focus on results, there will not be change. If you focus on change, there will be results.  That is why contentment is the highest of wealth.

Another way of acquiring wisdom is also to understand the teaching of Lao Tzu. He taught of the “Ying & Yang” theory.  Lao Tzu has a history of a couple of thousand years. Since then until today and even tomorrow, the “Ying & Yang” theory will not be proven wrong by anyone. In fact it does synchronize with the Buddha’s teaching of the “Universal Law of Unsatisfactory”.        

Refer to diagram below.

What does the “Ying & Yang” theory explain?

It simply explains that in anything there is white and black.  In the white there is some black.  In the black there is some white. The white refer to good whereas the black refer to bad. Or the white and black just simply refer to the pros and cons of things.

It simply means that in any phenomenon, there is always the good and bad side of things. No matter how good, there will be some bad or short comings. No matter how bad, there will be some good in it. In another word, there is no perfection. If we can only see the white or the black then we have yet to acquire wisdom. To be wise we must be able to see the whole diagram of the “Ying and Yang” theory for us to know and understand the pro and cons of phenomenon.  We have to be awakened and lead a life that flows with nature to acquire wisdom.

A lotus flower picture was use as the heading of the title to resemble wisdom and how do we explain it?

As you are aware lotus flower emerge from the pond murky water and yet the beautiful lotus flower is not dirtied, stained or tarnished by the murky water. Not even one drop of the murky water is able to blot, mark or blotch the lotus flower.

This is where we have to learn from nature. We are living in this dishonest, untrustworthy, deceiving, cunning, cheating or corrupted society. We can also emerged beautifully or an orderly person and not being affected, tarnished by the corrupted society if we choose to learn to live the correct way.

We have been taught and only know how to read books with words. Nature is book without words. We must also learn from book without words and that is nature. Nature was there, is there and will be there. It was there since the beginning of time. It is like the words are already there in the dictionary and we also know quite a lot of the words. To be wise is if you able to arrange the words in a way to form a meaningful sentence that they call it a quotation.  Most of the wisdom quotation words are words that we know.  The only difference is we do not know how to arrange in a manner to make it a meaningful sentence. That is the difference between the wise and the smart.

Currently and the future regret is, human being is destroying nature and will be destroying more and more nature as we progress.  Books without words are being destroyed and becoming less and less as we progress into the modern world. It is like the global warming, human being cannot decide whether to save the Earth or the Economy? There is a price for everything. 

In the next few decades, we will have a multi trillion dollars questions to answer.  Our children, grandchildren or great grandchildren will ask us:

Why at that time you all had a chance to save Earth and why did not do so?

You have to pay the price. You will find that everything in life exacts a price, and you will have to decide whether the price is worth the prize, quoted by Sam Nunn.

If you have watch the video of the recent 2011 tsunami that happen in Japan, you can see vehicles, boats, ships, houses and manmade things being washed or swept away. That is the power of nature. The question here is did you see grass or even one blade of grass being swept away? Anything that go against or obstruct the flow of the tsunami will be swept away but not even one blade of grass was being swept away although it is so flimsy and fragile. It is because grass knows how to maneuver or sway to the direction of the tsunami was going.

If we human being also knows how to maneuver or move with the flow of the wind or things, we will not suffer. That is what we meant by to lead a life in accordance with nature.

A wise man does not mean he knows everything.  He is aware that there are things he does not know. Although he does not know some of the things, he will know what to do next.

The wise will know how to seek for advice, counseling, recommendations or opinions from others who knows to help him. He is able to differentiate the proper and the not proper. He will not abuse his intelligence to take advantage of others if it is morally wrong.

What are the qualities of values and behavior of a wise man?

It is indeed difficult to:

1)  Control one self

2)  Govern one self

3)  Restrain one self

4)  Blame one self

5)  Understand one self

6)  Discipline one self

It is easy to control others especially if you are in possession of authority. Anything to do with one self will be difficult to manage.  It is very difficult to acquire the abilities to manage ourselves of the above mentioned values. It will take time and effort to slowly learn to manage and able to control one self.

A wise man is able to control and managed of him well. He governs and disciplined himself from a set of good ethics. And he will refrain or restrain himself from violating the laws or immoral or unethical activities. These will make him become an upright, well respected and a wise person.

A wise man will not blame others for his short comings.  He will correct himself to overcome his short comings.

If you want to trust do not blame. If you want to blame, do not trust, quoted by Sunny Goh.

Below is the photo of Confucius. He was known for his wisdom and was in the same era with Lao Tzu. He was the man who taught us to lead a life that flows with nature.



This is wisdom.

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