Before you begin reading or listening to this book, a friendly reminder! This book as a whole revolved around cultivation through breaking appearances, so prepare yourself mentally, because it would challenge your habitual understanding of the past. Those with little affinity for cultivation simply would not understand what it was saying and would get caught up in appearances, fretting and arguing over them. Conversely, those with high enlightenment in cultivation would draw inspiration from it.
Friends reading this book, please do not blindly imitate its contents. Everyone's circumstances and understanding differ, so it might not suit everyone.
Most importantly! If you could not persist through the first fifty chapters, then you could leave now. While helping you challenge your understanding, there would inevitably be many places vastly different from what you had understood before. Reading only a few chapters would not only be useless but harmful. Better to leave early, lest I waste your time.
If, after reading this reminder, you still intended to continue, then let me first tell you a real brag-worthy story to open your eyes.
(After my leg was injured and left disabled, permanent screws and steel plates were put into my bones. Specialist doctors passed judgment on me, saying that even in my best recovery, I would only be able to walk, and my leg could bend back only ninety degrees at most—any further was impossible. Yet in merely three years, I recovered completely and could run and jump. This book described how I recovered.)
All right, the bragging is over. Let us begin.
Everyone filled their own stomach, and everyone endured their own hardships.
People experienced their own circumstances in their own environments, forming their own understanding.
These understandings had common ground, yet were not entirely the same.
Simply put, everyone lived in their own world.
This was also the fundamental reason behind the saying that everything was created by the mind and manifested by the mind.
Let us first discuss the source of thought and consciousness. When humans were first born, they had no self-directed thoughts. Or rather, before the age of three, they had no thoughts at all. All joy, anger, sorrow, and delight operated entirely on instinct; even defecating and urinating were instinctive functions.
Gradually, through their parents' education and growing familiarity with this strange world, they developed a self-aware consciousness after the age of three—their thoughts and understanding.
From then on, humans began to take control of their bodies, gradually controlling their behavior and certain physiological states.
After age five, they began to leave behind the habit of wetting and soiling their pants.
At this time, people began distinguishing family from friends, relatives, good from bad, and right from wrong.
Of course, none of this was brought with humans at birth. It was instilled through acquired education.
From this, it was not hard to see that the way an individual human turned out was not innate, but nurtured afterward.
For example, if you were raised in the countryside, all your habits and understanding would form in that environment, cultivating in you the mindset of a rural person.
If you were raised in a city, you would develop the way of thinking that came from city life.
Attentive friends could look into those humans reported online who had been raised by wolves or monkeys. Other than having human appearances, everything else about them was determined entirely by the environments they lived in. Those raised by wolves had wolves' habits and ways of thinking, while those raised by monkeys had monkeys' ways of thinking and habits.
In other words, humans were like vessels. From infancy onward, whatever you instilled in them was what they would become.
I once had an experience raising pigs. For some reason, at a certain stage, the pigs I raised began having disputes and fighting, with several of them ganging up on one.
I did not think too much about it at the time. I was just extremely angry, because the bullied pig was nearly beaten to death. That was several thousand yuan! Besides, I had cared for and raised them myself, feeding and tending to them through every mess. If one or two really died, I would be heartbroken.
They fought for three straight days. Every day, the same plot played out: a group bullying one.
Afterward, I separated the three bullied pigs and raised them in other pens. Only then was the problem resolved.
During that time, my eldest cousin from my maternal uncle's family said something that left a deep impression on me. He said, "You've got personality, so even the pigs you raise have personality, huh? Other people raise pigs for ages without them fighting. This is your first time raising them, and they're already fighting—fighting this fiercely, too!"
(In Northeast China, saying someone "has personality" meant they were very individualistic, or perhaps a little rebellious.)
I kept turning his words over in my mind. Why did pigs fight? Was it because they had emotions? Did they fight only after getting angry?
Then if pigs could get angry and have emotions, did that mean pigs could think? Did they have their own consciousness?
Then aside from outward differences, if pigs could think and had emotions, what was the difference between pigs and humans?
They ate, drank, defecated, urinated, and slept alike; they experienced joy, anger, sorrow, and delight alike, living at ease.
If pigs and humans were not so different, did that mean pigs were simply humans whose appearances differed from human beings?
What about monkeys? Horses? Gorillas, elephants, giraffes, cats, and dogs?
If I viewed all living things in the world from this angle, could I consider that they merely differed from humans in appearance and understanding, while otherwise there was no great difference?
Then what about flies and mosquitoes?
I felt that they all seemed the same.
I knew some friends would say that flies and mosquitoes were pests, and rats were pests too, and so on.
If I said that thinking this way was an extremely selfish thing, I knew many people would curse me, but that was all right.
Let me give another example.
Look, had we not known from childhood that bees were hardworking? That they were beneficial? Because they made honey and spread pollen.
But had you ever considered that their spreading pollen was passive? They were merely gathering materials for making honey, and honey was their food.
You could say they were hardworking, but if they did not work hard, would they not starve to death? Wouldn't they?
It was like farmers. Many people praised farmers for being hardworking and simple. But did farmers want to work that hard? If they did not work hard, would they not fucking starve to death?
What did "simple" mean? Did having no education count as being simple? Did being naively foolish and kind count as being simple?
Did they not want to live like the wealthy, with abundant lives and people waiting on them?
Right?
Now let us talk about rats. People said they were harmful, but if you viewed things from a rat's perspective, it was really only doing what bees did: diligently going out to search for food.
But why was it called harmful? Because it infringed upon human interests—namely, food. It competed with humans for food, so humans defined it as harmful.
If you stole some vegetables in the city, people would say you were immoral; they would not say you were harmful. If you stole some corn in the countryside, people would say you were immoral, but they would not say you were harmful either.
But if it were another living creature, the moment it damaged human interests, it would be deemed harmful.
Humans positioned themselves as higher animals because they had mastered technology and tools.
So they judged all other living beings to occupy positions below humans.
From the human perspective, there was nothing wrong with this.
When tigers ate rabbits or sheep, humans considered it normal. But once a tiger ate a human, it became something humans could not accept.
Let me make one thing clear: I was human too, because I possessed a human body and human understanding. The reason I said these things was not because I was sanctimonious, compassionate, or anything else. I was merely discussing matters as they stood, objectively observing ourselves as humans.
Some said humans were the noblest animals in the world. Some said humans were the most despicable beings in the world.
I did not deny either point. Just as cultivators said, humans were living beings in whom Gods and Devils shared one body, where good and evil coexisted.
Then let me ask: who defined the meaning of good? And who defined the meaning of evil? Was it not humans themselves who defined them?
Killing good people was evil; killing evil people was good. If you thought of something good this second, you were a good existence. If you thought of something evil the next second, you were an evil existence.
Intending to do good could instead become evil; intending to do evil could instead become good. Then how could they be distinguished? Did one also have to mix in one's own thoughts, emotions, or empathy before making a judgment?
So from these matters, it was not hard to see that humans were in fact the most selfish beings in the world.
Precisely because human thoughts were complex and humans shared both good and evil in common, most humans, when thinking, distinguishing, or judging good and evil, right and wrong, began from their own interests.
Therefore, if you asked me, humanity was both great and despicable.
Its greatness lay in that, after feeding itself, it would strive to create living space for other beings in the world.
Its despicability lay in that, once its own interests were infringed upon, it would burn, kill, plunder, and loot beneath the banner of justice.