Table of Content:HOW TO RAISE A RESILIENT KID: I AM NOT RIGHT BUT THAT’S OK
You need to have a lot of knowledge in order to have no doubt about how to live your life to the fullest possible. Everything holding you to a life you don’t want to live is a prison created by your own mind. Unfortunately, you can’t just wish yourself into a new life. You have to actively work towards that goal if you really want to be free from that prison.
There is a big difference between knowledge and intelligence. People who have little knowledge usually have a lot of fear. People who have a lot of knowledge but little intelligence also have a lot of fear. The fear is always about “have” and “have-not”, “lose” and “lose-not”. When you have enlightened to the perfection of wisdom, you will have no more fear, regardless of how little knowledge you have about this world. When you have no fear, you are totally free.
You are not free because you are held down by your desires. The less desire you have, the lighter you are and the easier you can levitate yourself. You will be happier. The euphoric effects of gaining wealth, colorful things, relationships, fame, luxurious food, leisure are not much different from the production of excess dopamine in your brain stimulated by drugs. These are neither bad, nor good, but you must know the risk of developing a “substance abuse disorder”.
Zeal to differentiate (明辨) right and wrong, good and bad, more or less, beautiful and ugly, long and short, tasty and tasteless, useful and useless, are dangerous thoughts. The comparison can make you unhappy due to envy, jealous, fear, sadness, anger, hatred, intolerance, depression, anxiety, etc. The electrical signals from your six sensual organs are not the sources of your unhappiness; it is the fault of your mind in reacting to the signals. If you are in control of your mind and always choose to react with a happy feeling, you are already on the happiness path. You don’t have to look very far to find the path to happiness. Happiness is the path. Making comparison is warranted only if it doesn’t make you unhappy.
Be contented (知足) with reality which naturally has highs and lows. Wishing to be lucky every day is judgmental and unrealistic. Choosing to be unhappy is unwise. Don’t compete (不争) to be the one who is better, have more, prettier, cleverer, more successful, closer to God, etc. Don’t desire to be right; instead, don’t be afraid to be not-right, so long as you are not wrong.
Be independent. Learn to depend on no one. You are free when you are able to reject all help and have no fear doing so. In the midst of abundance, you will feel happy to help all living things. The natural compassion is a happy feeling; unconditional love (慈) for others is a kind of self-interest. Selflessness is the greatest selfishness; the selfless act will not make you unhappy if it is not an artificial behavior due to brainwashing by religious institution. But you must be thrifty (俭) with your emotional energy because you don’t have infinity energy.
If you have no self (无身), nothing can do harm to you. You come from nothing and you will be back to nothing when you die. Your body and all your properties (in legal terms) do not really belong to you; these are on loan to you. You are free to use them and protect them. You never really lose anything. Your mind is who you are; not your body. If you have no emotional attachment to your body, and to everybody and everything else, you will have no fear. No fear of having and not-having, losing and not-losing. You are able to let go of everything anytime.
You don’t owe anyone anything. You don’t naturally have any obligation to do anything for anyone. Everything happens the way it needs to happen; no human can single-handedly make things happen or prevent anything from happening. There are invisible hands involved: Dao, Heaven, Earth, and People. Don’t worry about what will happen (无患). It is not your credit, and not your fault. You don’t have to feel proud or guilty, if you have no intention to gain anything or to harm anyone. If you have a role in an accident and given a jail sentence by the laws, accept the punishment peacefully. Guilty feeling is unnecessary and has no effect on the reality. Of course, if your crime is motivated by desire for personal gain or the benefit of a love one, then you are possessed by the Dark Side and you will have fear. You are not free, and you will not be truly happy.
Don’t be rigid in your thinking and actions. Contradicting yourself is not a problem to be avoided. Human distinctions of right and wrong are false anyway. Dao changes with time and space. Don’t be arrogant; don’t assume you are right. Learn from various texts, but never assume any of them is sacred and must be obeyed absolutely. Don’t stays empty minded, although nothing is right and nothing really matter; everything is an illusion. Trust your judgment (but not absolutely, 无我执), trust the texts (but not absolutely, 无法执), and trust nothing and nobody (but not absolutely, 无空执). An empty mind will produce wrong judgment, so is an unthinking mind (which follows rules rigidly), and an arrogant mind (which distrust everything and everybody except yourself).
When you experience the happiness of having no desire, you are very near to Enlightenment. All the above attributes will come naturally. You can follow your heart and yet do no wrong. This is the Perfect Wisdom.
RESILIENT KID 