A farmer saw a rabbit running and knocked its head on a tree. That night, he had a wonderful dinner of rabbit meat. From that day onward, he stopped farming but wait for another rabbit to knock on the same tree. Of course, he never had the same luck again. He had no food and lived in poverty. Waiting and doing nothing can be detrimental to your happiness. Although you don’t chase for success, you must better yourself every day and do what you can to help others. You don’t have to compete with anybody but yourself. You will become successful in one way or another. Your success as measured by others is not necessarily accurate. You don’t have to accept the definitions of success that other people use. You are successful if you can wake up every morning with a smile on your face, knowing it’s going to be a great day.
Like the Star Wars movie, there is a Dark Side which will constantly lure you with “desirable” (可欲) things. These include wealth, colorful life, colorful objects, fame, luxurious foods, and leisure. These are not essential to live a happy life. Instead, these can become burdensome; like unnecessary weight added to your shoulder, or addictive substances you are mis-educated to desire or even develop obsession for them. In the pursuit for these “desirable” things, you will feel worried about getting what you don’t want, and not getting what you want; you will also feel worried about losing what you have, and not losing what you don’t want to have (患得患失). The Dark Side knows you love compassion and righteousness, and it may use these to lure you over. For example, you may be promised the power to show more compassion to your love ones, or the power to right the society so that your compassion can reach more people. Compassion is natural if you express it without thinking. If you desire to show compassion, because of some reasons, it is artificial and unnatural. Natural compassion doesn’t require external power; the use of political power and force to express compassion is unnatural. “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.”
Curiosity to learn is natural in babies; they learn without thinking about the profits of learning. They learn for fun. If you desire to learn because you think the knowledge will get you a better job or some other benefits, it is an artificial and unnatural thought, i.e. not due to curiosity. If you have lost your curiosity, you must find it back. At the meantime, you can live with the artificial and unnatural desire to learn, because it is useful. Useful is not bad. Natural love for learning is a habit. It is best if you love to learn but never think about why you need or want to learn something. Similarly, it is best if you love someone but never think about why you need or want to love him/her. It is a habit, not an artificial afterthought.
When you have no desire, and no emotional attachment to anybody, you will have no fear, obligation, and guilt (F.O.G.). The Dark Side will teach you how to have no F.O.G. but keep enjoying all the “desirable” things. It works by suppressing your true feeling (natural love and compassion) and substitute it with sadness and anger. You will then require drug, alcohol, and entertainment to relieve your depression. It is very evil; and this is the way of the politicians and some bosses. The way of the Dark Side is no doubt very powerful, but you will have to give up your soul to the devil to gain the power. People from the Dark Side will use their power to antagonize certain groups of people in order to show compassion towards their followers; like a big thug leader who robs people but very compassionate towards his followers. They believe they are doing the right things, and they assume their good intention grants them the rights to rob Peter and pay Paul, or to do some other “necessary evils”. They are fearless to do anything; they don’t feel obligated to make sure everybody is safe and well (no qualm to sacrifice a few followers for the benefits of the majority); they have no guilt for whatever mistakes which they made along the way to achieve their organizational objectives or personal gains. The end learns to justify the means. They are not afraid to die. They use anger as a tool to coerce others to give them what they want. Anger is also used as a fuel to drive themselves further toward the Dark Side. They derive their power from anger and sadness.
Buddha, meaning the All-Knowing One, has no F.O.G. and no desire. The Dark Side has no F.O.G. but full of desires. People from the Dark Side obsess for control. They want everything to be in order, spick-and-span, so that everything is under their control. They are FEAR of disorder; a little bit of disorderly can enrage them. They love power more than their own lives; therefore they are not afraid to lose their lives in the pursuit for power. But they are FEAR of losing the power to rebels and also enemies within. They are not really fearless. One cannot be truly fearless if he has desire. Desire leads to fear, fear leads to anger/sadness, and the eventual drift to the Dark Side. Desire will also reveal one’s weakness; he can be enraged and sadden, and led into a trap.
Lao Zi, meaning the Ancient One, said: “There are three important principles that I uphold with determination: the first is unconditional love for others; the second is thrifty, emotionally and financially; the third is dare-not compete to become a leader. One who has unconditional love will be able to be courageous. One who is thrifty will be able to reach out more widely. One who dares not compete to become a leader will be able to lead the accomplishment of various tasks. If we abandon unconditional love but only behave courageously; abandon thrifty but still try to reach out widely; abandon compromise and stay behind but be the first to start a fight; we will face great danger. A leader with unconditional love for his people will be able to win whenever he goes to a war; have a sturdy defense against aggressors when he set up a defensive wall. When the Nature wants to fortify something, it will use unconditional love to sustain it.” (我恒有三宝，持而保之：一曰慈，二曰俭，三曰不敢为天下先。慈故能勇，俭故能广， 不敢为天下先，故能成事长。今舍其慈，且勇；舍其俭，且广；舍其后，且先；则必死矣。夫慈，以战则胜，以守则固。天将健之，如以慈垣之。)
“Having no desire is boring.” That is what the Dark Side keeps whispering to us: “Come over. Come over.” Having a little bit of desires may not kill you if you are thrifty. You can even crossover a little bit further to the Dark Side occasionally, to understand the power of the Dark Side so that you can defeat it when you need to, but you must always remember to come back to the shore before you are consumed. If you are unhappy most of the time, you are probably straying too far into the Dark Side. The sea of suffering is infinite and has no end; you must come back to the shore before it is too late (苦海无边，回头是岸). Choose to have happiness; don’t choose to have control or anything else. If you need something or someone to make you happy, it is not the true happiness.
RESILIENT KID 