Cognition

Of course, this isn't unique to humans.

For instance, lions and tigers won't attack other animals once they're full, but humans aren't like that.

Even after humans are full, while they might create space for other living beings to survive, they still aren't satisfied and will continue to fight for resources to ensure their own future prosperity.

Although everyone knows the saying "you can't take it with you when you die," fighting for more resources only solves basic needs like food, clothing, shelter, and transportation.

However, due to the complexity of human thought, desires constantly expand: having ten thousand makes you want a hundred thousand, and having a hundred thousand makes you want a million.

You'll feel immense envy seeing others drive cars worth hundreds of thousands, but once you have a car worth hundreds of thousands, you'll start envying those with million-dollar cars.

This is the mentality of comparison. I can't say it's entirely bad, as human ambition and the drive to compare often go hand in hand.

Because you desire something, you strive to achieve it.

As I mentioned in the previous chapter, humans are beings who live within their self-perception. Sometimes your efforts are called ambition, and other times they are called comparison.

This isn't determined by individual self-assessment but by how others perceive your actions.

If you have a hundred thousand and buy a twenty-thousand-dollar car, people will say it's normal. If you have a million and buy a two-hundred-thousand-dollar car, they'll also say it's normal.

But if you have a hundred thousand and buy a hundred-thousand-dollar car, people will call you pretentious.

If you believe such talk, then you too become the person others describe.

I believe it's a fortunate thing to be human and walk this world. But if you constantly live according to others' expectations and not for yourself, then your life has truly been in vain.

Many people live their entire lives in a daze, not knowing how they should be or how to live. They sacrifice for family and friends, only to be met with criticism like "you're incompetent" or "you're worthless."

If you say they're incompetent, they still manage to support a family through physical labor. If you say they're competent, they haven't created a particularly good living environment.

Objectively speaking, who is to blame for this? In truth, no one is to blame; everyone's life is predetermined.

The environment you're in, the experiences you have, and the perceptions you form all dictate the outcomes you'll have later.

They say, "Only after enduring the bitterest hardships can one rise above others." Everyone believes that enduring hardship can lead to great happiness or a prosperous life.

But what they don't realize is that "enduring hardship" doesn't refer to physical labor; it refers to the struggle of learning.

Only by continuously striving to learn and improving one's understanding can one change certain things.

There's a very well-known saying: people cannot earn wealth beyond their comprehension. Conversely, only by constantly improving one's understanding can one potentially create wealth previously unimaginable at a certain point.

That saying is "wealth is compensation for comprehension," but this applies only to ordinary people, not those from privileged backgrounds, because their parents' comprehension is already higher than average. Thus, they are born into privilege.

Actually, I don't see this as a good thing or a bad thing.

There's a saying: where there's gain, there's loss; where there's loss, there's gain.

We might experience much more hardship and find it difficult to rise up and change our lives. However, once we achieve enlightenment, we can see the various principles of the human world more clearly.

Those born into privilege, on the other hand, need to go through a long period of life experience before they can understand these principles.

For example, yesterday I flipped through a book called "Transcending Life and Death" by the martial arts superstar Mr. Li. I only read a small section, and I realized that he spent decades of cultivation to understand what he calls the relationship between the heart and the nature of the heart.

I, however, achieved this in less than two years.

You could say Mr. Li's life was incredible, right? But in terms of cultivation, he was incredibly slow.

To the point that in his book, I even saw things about social interactions, like how when he went to a certain place, people, seeing his family's dedication to cultivation or something, would personally teach him and his family.

But he didn't consider that if he didn't have such great fame and wealth, ordinary people, no matter how devout, would still not receive such special attention.

For this reason, I didn't continue reading the book. From my individual perspective, Mr. Li was merely using the understanding of Buddhism to break through worldly perceptions, simply put, borrowing form to break form. He was still within the realm of form and hadn't escaped it.

If he had truly understood the relationship between the heart and the nature of the heart, he might not have needed a pháp sư to give him special tutoring.

A simple phrase like "seek within" and "inherently complete" would have explained everything.

"Many monks and Daoists before the gates of hell" – the reason is that by borrowing form to cultivate form, one cannot escape the suffering of reincarnation; it only brings temporary relief.

Because you dwell in cause and effect, your desire for liberation is the cause, and your learning from a master for liberation is the effect. Both of these, in turn, become other causes and effects.

But within this relationship of cause and effect, this itself is a form of reincarnation.

Therefore, still trapped in reincarnation, from my understanding, he is just one step away, but that single step is as difficult as reaching the heavens.

He needs to break all his previous perceptions, even those learned through Buddhist cultivation, because things that are instilled are not innate but acquired. To achieve success, one must discard the acquired and utilize innate power.

In my understanding, great cultivators can leave this world at any time or extend their time in this world.

This is because everything in this world is form. As the soul's consciousness, or rather the Primordial Spirit, continuously elevates, it can selectively return to the origin of consciousness.

This is what is called cosmic consciousness, or collective unconsciousness, or heaven's Sukhavati, or other high-dimensional universes, etc.

But these things are still within human perception.

Taking my own experience as an example, when I was in my teens, for a period, I had lucid dreams every day. Lucid dreams are also called clear dreams, or dream control.

It's when you know you're dreaming within the dream and can freely control the dreamscape, and do anything you want within the dream.

Many cultivators enter this state during meditation. They merely believe they are powerful if they can slightly alter the changes within the scene.

If you say you can arbitrarily change things and do anything, they will forcefully explain that meditation is different from your dream control.

What bullshit! It's not different. I can even hear changes in my surroundings and choose to wake up or not, block out physical sensations, or shut off my perception of the surroundings.

It's still within a realm. Scientifically speaking, in a state of absolute relaxation, consciousness rests, and the subconscious operates instinctively. Cultivators practice by secretly merging consciousness into the subconscious to operate without the subconscious being aware.

This is also called Primordial Spirit detachment! In other words, consciousness is what cultivators call divine sense, and the subconscious is the Primordial Spirit. Cultivation, by merging consciousness into the subconscious and entering other realms akin to dreams, is called Primordial Spirit detachment.

In daily life, through continuous self-practice, using self-consciousness combined with the subconscious is essentially cultivating innate power.

The power of the subconscious is innate power!