You can feel pain through your sensory and interpretation system. That means external factors can make you unhappy. You need to defend yourself from those external factors. If you know how to build a good fortress, it cannot be destroyed by enemy. If you know how to hug, the people you love will not leave (善建者不拔 善抱者不脱). The fortress cannot be destroyed because no one comes to destroy it, because you don’t make enemy with anyone or you don’t make yourself the obvious/easy target. The people you love will not leave because you don’t hug them too tight and you love them, so they don’t want to leave. Hence, the best defense is no need for defensive effort. But you need a backup plan. You need to build fortress; you need to choose carefully who to befriend with. You need to love the people who deserve your love, so that you become deserving of their love. Sometime, you are not loved because they don’t want your love or they don’t think you are lovely; they may have different tastes. You will not feel hurt if you don’t have the desire for their love.
The principles to govern a country are not much different from the ways to govern your family and yourself. Your body is like a solar system (小周天) with orbiting planets; your family is like the Milky-Way galaxy with billions of stars; the country is like the Universe with countless of galaxies. The atom is a nucleus with orbiting electrons.
A disciple of Confucius asked the master about the principles of governing a country. Confucius said: “You only need three things: enough food, enough military defenses, and the people’s trust.” The disciple asked: “If we have no choice but to forego one element, what should we forego first?” Confucius replied: “Forego the military defenses.” The disciple asked again: “If we have no choice but to forego another element, what should we forego next?” Confucius replied: “Forego the food. From ancient time until today, nobody lives forever. If a country loses the people’s trust, it will cease to exist.” (子贡问政。子曰：足食，足兵，民信之矣。子贡曰：必不得已而去，于斯三者何先？曰去兵。子贡曰：必不得已而去。于斯二者何先？曰：去食。自古皆有死，民无信不立。) Surrender and accept unfair peace treaty if you have no choice; don’t ask the people to sacrifice for the country. The people will voluntarily sacrifice themselves for their families and countries if they trust that the government is acting for their best interest. Pay the reparations to the invaders if you have no choice. The only thing you cannot lose is the people’s trust that you are sincere in protecting them although you fail to do it. On a personal level, you need to defend yourself, physically and mentally. You can be financially poor, but you must never lose your integrity and self-respect.
In the modern life, you will face tough time again and again, which are related to sciences, mathematics, healthcare, economics and finance. You can enjoy the challenges better if you have the relevant knowledge and intelligence. You must not only focus on the philosophical-intelligence, unless you are living in a cave. You must never forget that all the things you learned are meant to be useful to yourself, spiritually and physically, first and foremost (古之学者为己，今之学者为人). You can then use your knowledge and intelligence to help others or to work for someone. It is perfectly OK to become a superhero if you have the power; or to become successful, rich and famous, so long as you don’t become a victim of your desire to be useful to others. Not only you might be troubled by fear, obligation, and guilt (F.O.G.) along the way (because you don’t want to get humiliations but honors), the reward itself can also be a burden, like putting on a lot of weight on your shoulder. You may also feel fear of losing the honor that you received. Receiving honor or humiliation can be as alarming as losing them. Honors and humiliations are one super-entity. (宠为上，辱为下；得之若惊，失之若惊，是谓宠辱若惊。) If you want honors, you will also receive humiliations (有成功必有失败).
If you have a higher purpose to do what you do because there is a big problem which threaten everyone including yourself, you can have no fear when you don’t see yourself as a divided or separate entity. The people and you become one. When you forget yourself (小我) because you focus on the greater self (大我), you will become selfless. A selfless you have no body, therefore no fear of getting anything, neither honor nor humiliation. (何谓贵大患若身﹖ 吾所以有大患者，为吾有身；及吾无身，吾有何患﹖) Selflessness is the greatest selfishness (大私无私). A mother may go back into a burning house to save her daughter, because she and her child become one combined self; she considers her daughter as part of herself. The mother becomes selfless, to save her child, because she forgets herself. But she is actually selfish; she won’t do the same for other children. The emotional attachment is like an invisible rope which ties her to her child; the two entities become one super-entity. Nevertheless, it is a great selfishness.
It feels so good to have the philosophical-intelligence which makes your heart so strong like it is shielded by “golden bell” (金钟罩) and “iron cloth” (铁布纱). It feels so good to have the knowledge and intelligence which enable you to solve problems easily. You feel like you have a lot of energy, like the potential energy which builds up as you climb up a mountain. Having a lot of power doesn’t mean you have to use all of them. You don’t have to jump down from the mountain to convert all the potential energy into kinetic energy. Having a lot of power means you can use it for your wellbeing and also to help others, like a superhero. It feels so good to have the capacity to help others. Conversely, it will not be a good feeling to always need helps from a superhero or anyone else. A superhero can save a few people but he cannot save everybody. Nevertheless, he will not feel sad for his shortcoming, otherwise he would have died of broken-heart or depression a long time ago. Storm cannot continue for a very long time. Even the Mother Nature has a limit, so the limit of man and superman will naturally be much lower. (飘风不终朝，暴雨不终日。孰为此？天地而弗能久，又况于人乎！) In tempestuous seasons, when the storm is long past, the ocean is flat again. Tyranny cannot last for a very long time either. Even if you are useless, light will return after the darkness goes away. It happens every single day. Spring will return after winter. It happens every single year. Who said humans are not born to experience sufferings in this world? No, you don’t have to become someone like Batman or Wonder Woman, but you don’t have to become a victim either.
Some people ask: “What is the point of learning if you never want to use it or have the chance to use it?” You learn martial art for physical health and to be able to defend yourself, but not looking to fight or compete. To use martial art in MMA (Mixed Martial Art) fighting competitions, you must train extremely hard and be ready to get hurt badly, and humiliated many times. If you eventually become a champion, you will still be hurt in every fight, physically and mentally. You will continuously be challenged by stronger fighters who desire to take the title away from you. What is the point of competing? Shaolin monks learn Wushu but hope they never need to use it. Wushu is more about avoiding conflict than about fighting. Reading books is for you to talk to bullies courteously. Learning Wushu is for bullies to talk to you courteously. If you are provoked or challenged, you should run if you can. Use your brain to win, not your fists. Winning is about maximizing your benefits and minimizing your losses, not about defeating anybody. Fighting a hundred times and defeating the enemies a hundred times is not the best strategy. Winning without fighting is the best, as suggested by Sun Zi. Having powerful weapons is about avoiding conflict than to use them in a war. Lao Zi (The Ancient One) said: “The courage to dare defying Dao will get you killed. The courage to dare-not defying Dao will keep you alive. These two types of courage, one will bring benefit while the other will bring disaster. The things that the Nature hates, nobody knows what the reasons are. The Laws of the Nature are: never fight but always good at winning, never say a word but always good at responding, never called upon but always come as it wishes, simple but always good at planning. The net of the Nature is extraordinarily wide; there are many loopholes but It never fails to capture anything.” (勇于敢则杀，勇于不敢则活。此两者，或利或害。天之所恶，孰知其故？天之道，不争而善胜，不言而善应，不召而自来，繟然而善谋。天网恢恢，疏而不失。) The greatest courage is cowardice (大勇若怯); it takes great mental toughness and discipline to have the courage to be cowardice. Most people only know the courage to dare for a fight. Very few know the courage to step aside; stay alive for a greater purpose rather than lose your life over a small quarrel. When you engage in a fight, nobody knows who will lose. If you learn the Laws of the Nature, you will focus on winning rather than fighting, responding with actions rather than arguing, make your preferred moves rather than agreeing to fight in the ring, make a good plan which can be simple. Those who defy Dao will fail more often than winning. You can be a winner in your own right without becoming a MMA champion. Winning in a MMA competition may be a lost to one’s life; you have no life if you are not happy. There can be only one champion, so all other MMA fighters will be the losers. That means you will lose regardless of whether you win or lose in the competition; it is very unwise. You are just the entertainment of the crowd. The sense of achievement is no greater than winning a computer game but the price to pay is extremely expensive.
Sun Zi said: “One who doesn’t completely understand the risks of a war will not be able to completely understand the benefits of a war.” (不尽知用兵之害者，则不能尽知用兵之利。) When you make a decision for any undertaking, you must first understand completely the risks involved; and you must not proceed if the consequences of the failure will be overwhelming. Sun Zi also said: “The winners usually engage in a battle after gaining all the advantageous conditions to win. The losers usually engage in a battle and then hope to win.” (胜兵先胜而后求战，败兵先战而后求胜。) Most people are impatient and yet they think they can win; the attribute of impatient itself is already one of the disadvantageous conditions. They want to do something for the sake of doing something, or they think they ought to do something. They think cowardice is a shame and one ought to feel ashamed for being careful and dare not do anything. Their wrong solutions usually create more problems or side-effects than the original problem that they wanted to solve.
Learn to have spiritual intelligence and also cognitive intelligent (智). Cognitive intelligence will enhance spiritual intelligence, and vice versa. Be like the sea, accept all knowledge and don’t divide them into good and bad. Simple division of good and bad (色/有名) is flaw; it is better to keep a flexible nameless (空/无名) classification which encompasses (包容) both good and bad, and everything in between. With the intelligence to understand the significance of nameless classification of things, you will not reject any knowledge but accept all knowledge; and you will become more intelligent. You can use the knowledge without becoming confused or limited by the knowledge. The purpose of intelligence is to be useful to yourself. Knowledge will increase every day, but intelligence means relying less on anything every day; intelligence can create new knowledge, therefore no need to rely on knowledge anymore when you have achieved enlightenment. You will not need to rely on anything when you have no desire (无欲). With no desire, you will not engage in competition (不争) and your emotion will not be restless. You will automatically be a nonviolent person and have a lot of capacity to love others (慈). When you abandon all desires, you will be able to abandon all emotional attachments, and you will have no more suffering. You will have no fear, obligation, and guilt (F.O.G.) (无患). You will be happy because your heart is full of loves.
RESILIENT KID 