Sometime you think you are happy being useful to others; but you are not really happy, because you have a lot of fears, obligations and guilt. You have no time for your family, because you pressure yourself to show better results every year like paying compounding interest to yourself (for example, you want to generate at least 6% rate of return better than last year, year after year, so that your investment will double in 12 years = 72/6), and you fear being considered useless. You are unhappy to be useless, but the opposite of useless will not bring you the opposite of unhappy. You are also unhappy to be useful. How can you be happy? Can you live with being neither happy nor unhappy? All manmade definitions are false. Similarly, the definitions of happy and unhappy (色) are also problematic. Unhappy is not necessarily the opposite of happy. Unhappy doesn’t necessarily mean the feeling is disturbed and not peaceful; it may only mean there is nothing to make you laugh, and that’s OK. It’s OK to be unhappy; it’s OK to be useless. Again, an open definition (空) is better. Unfortunately, an open definition means it cannot be described with words (道可道也 非恒道也). You can only feel it from experience.
Lie Zi (列子) learned self-levitation method from his master. A disciple wanted to learn the method. The disciple did all kinds of chores at the house of Lie Zi, but was never taught the self-levitation method. He was angry and went back home. A few months later, he came back to Lie Zi. He said: “I know I was too impatient and acted rashly.” Lie Zi said: “In the first three years of training under my master, I learned to stop thinking about right and wrong, and stop talking about benefit and risk, success and failure. Only then, my master started to look at me. Five years later, I achieved another mental level of not dividing right and wrong, benefit and risk. Only then, my master started to smile at me. Seven years later, I naturally didn’t think of right and wrong. My words naturally didn’t touch on benefit and risk, success and failure. Only then, my master let me sit with him. Nine years later, whatever I thought and said wouldn’t touch on right and wrong, benefit and risk. I felt no difference between my external self and inner self. I could hear with my eyes, smell with my ears, eat with my nose, and there was no difference. Thereafter, I could concentrate my mind and body so much so that I forgot myself, and my bones became weightless. Without my knowledge, my body started to levitate. I floated in the air, suddenly to the East and suddenly to the West. In the end, I didn’t know whether I rode the wind, or the wind rode on me. And you, my disciple, only know how to complain. The Chi of the Nature cannot accept any part of your body; therefore, your limbs cannot be lifted. How can you be levitated?” You must not let your five senses decide how you feel about the surrounding; you must filter the signals (色) which you received from the five senses and then decide what to do with the signals. Don’t be quick to judge right and wrong using fixed rules or threshold levels (above which are considered unacceptable). With the same signals, make different interpretations and decisions at different time and space according to the contexts.
The purpose of learning must be for your well-being, not for the benefit of the bosses or the country. You must learn as much as you can, but you don’t have to set a difficult target or to compete with anyone. You need the intelligence and knowledge to really feel and experience the wisdoms of life, not merely knowing and understanding them. A person who hears the wisdoms from a teacher can only follow others to believe in the teachings. A person who personally feels and experiences the wisdoms will not need to trust the words of anyone. You must not believe and grip strongly on any teaching (执于法) simply because it comes from a great teacher or “thought leader”. Having critical thinking means not blindly accepting what is commonly considered correct (or incorrect). You don’t have freedom of thought if you are critical about one ideology/religion but not critical about another ideology/religion. Dao (ultimate truth) which can be expressed with words is not the true Dao (道可道也 非恒道也). (There is an ultimate truth but we say there is no absolute-right because it cannot be expressed with words. The ultimate truth is not a constant; it changes with time and space.) We need to learn it and feel it ourselves, thenceforth deeply believe it and have no doubt about it (不惑). Confucius said: “Obtaining knowledge is not as good as loving the knowledge; loving the knowledge is not as good as feeling comfortable and happy to practice the knowledge and wisdoms (知之者不如好之者，好之者不如乐之者).”
When high intelligent Individuals hear of Dao, they see the subtleness of it and therefore practice it diligently. When middle intelligent individuals hear of Dao, they don’t fully understand it and therefore have some doubts about it. When low intelligent individuals hear of Dao, they laugh because their self-righteous and subjective biases toward an ideology/religion make their minds corrupted with misconceptions and therefore not able to objectively see the truth. Common truth is ordinary; the ultimate truth is uncommon, therefore not easily understood. If common people do not laugh at Dao, that means it is not extraordinary and has nothing subtle (上士闻道，勤而行之；中士闻道，若存若亡；下士闻道，大笑之。不笑不足以为道).
RESILIENT KID 