After cultivating oneself, there was no need to force oneself to save others either—just like someone I had encountered before.
He sent me a private message, asking if I wanted to know the truth of this world.
I laughed and asked, "What truth?"
"The truth of this world! I summed it up in sixteen sentences. Do you want to know?"
"No. I just save people as fate allows."
"Is that so? Doing things your way won't solve the root problem. Everything will still be a heap of loose sand. I know your heart and virtue must be good, but isn't this no different from doing nothing?
So-called Buddhas pass down their teachings everywhere in pursuit of a different kind of peace, right? Follow me, and I'll show you my other account, how about it?"
Hearing that, I was utterly speechless. This was the classic case of living inside one's own understanding. He imagined what a Buddha was like, imagined what I was like, then wanted to force what he believed onto me. Wow, hahaha, speechless.
But out of compassion, I still chatted with him for a while. Thus came the following conversation.
"What account? I don't pass down teachings either."
"I used sixteen sentences to write out all the problems in the myriad things of the world and their solutions."
"Haha, sounds nice."
He continued, "Follow me and maybe you'll understand."
I said, "I don't have any problems, and there's nothing I need solved. Why do you keep asking me to follow you?"
Then he suddenly said,
"Really? Can I send you screenshots?"
I asked, "What screenshots? What are you talking about?"
"The sixteen sentences I mentioned. Let me send them to you. You'll understand once you see them."
For fuck's sake, wasn't that something? No matter what I said, he had to make me look at those sixteen sentences he'd written.
I truly wasn't curious, so I said, "Huh? No need. Our understandings are different. You just do your own thing. There's no need to insist on showing me."
I said no, but it was as though he couldn't see my words at all. He continued, "Look at it and you'll understand. Put simply, the gods, Buddhas, demons, monsters, ghosts, and all the myriad states of life beneath the heavens cannot escape the two words 'survival.' Am I right? I'll send you the sixteen sentences."
I laughed again.
"If you think it's right, then it's right. I'm not you either, haha."
Then he began,
"First, it is nothing more than how to stay alive.
Second, however one stays alive, one must pay accordingly.
Third, however one pays, one receives returns.
Fourth, however one receives, one must give up.
Fifth, how can one give up in order to receive fairly?
Sixth, how can unequal gains be balanced?
Seventh, how can balance form a cycle?
Eighth, how can a cycle avoid ending?
Ninth, only by not ending can it last long.
Tenth, how can it last long without changing?
Eleventh, how can it remain unchanged? Only through unity.
Twelfth, how can unity be fair?
Thirteenth, how can fairness be achieved? Only through one heart.
Fourteenth, how can there be one heart? Only when those above and below are united in purpose.
Fifteenth, how can those above and below be united in purpose? Because of survival.
The sixteenth, put together, is four words: for the sake of survival.
I'm done. Savor it carefully.
The myriad facets of life—if everyone is selfish and self-serving, forget cultivating the heart; even finding a patch of pure land would be a luxury. In the end, cultivating the heart is merely about letting people survive."
For fuck's sake, he was really determined to tell me.
I said helplessly, "Haha, cultivating the heart is about seeing oneself clearly, about knowing what one's true self is like."
Then he started again,
"All your benefits are given by others; all your good fortune is built by others. You think cultivating yourself well means becoming your best self? Then all you cultivate is selfishness and self-interest. What difference does cultivation make? In the end, you're still you; without cultivating, you're still you. I hope you cultivate the Great Dao rather than yourself."
After that barrage of incoherent nonsense he threw at me, it was obvious that this person had already fallen into his own fantasies. He treated things he had personally thought up as truth and insisted on telling me about them. Ah, but this poor Daoist was kindhearted, so I gave him a few pointers, hoping that one day he might wake up.
"Quite the opposite. If you don't cultivate yourself first, how can you teach others to become better? You look at the masses from an individual perspective. That is what selfishness is."
"This isn't an individual perspective. I'm speaking from everyone's perspective."
I fucking...
"You treat what you believe and what you think as truth, then demand that others think exactly as you do. Isn't that selfish? This is the greatest selfishness beneath the heavens. You are not everyone. You can only represent yourself."
He still stubbornly said, "Keep cultivating and you'll understand. You will come to understand."
Hearing him say all that, I had the urge to immediately break character and curse him out, but then I thought, forget it. Hahaha, everyone's understanding was different. If he was unwilling to wake up, there was no need for me to wake him.
I truly didn't want to keep talking, because people like this were difficult to enlighten. So I said,
"You might not understand what I'm saying. Our understandings are different, so let's leave it here, haha."
"Is it me who doesn't understand, or you? Raise your understanding a little more and you'll know. The money you earn comes from others. If you don't live well yourself, can you live well? Everyone is selfish; that is reality. To make money, you cannot do without other people. There is only unity or going with the current of filth; otherwise, you won't even have a chance to make money."
Patiently, I continued, "Selfishness is an innate attribute of human nature. I cultivate myself in order to see myself clearly, to look at myself and all living beings only after shedding the self—not to do this or that for money."
"If you don't make money, you won't even have the chance to live. What we fear is people lacking one heart and one virtue. Think carefully about it."
"It is impossible for people to share one heart, because individual understandings are not entirely alike. A person's thoughts and understanding can only represent that person. Only through constant study and insight can one see oneself clearly. Individuals live within their own understanding."
"I understand. If I didn't even understand that, would I have come to talk to you? If each person remains each person, what do you think the final result will be?"
I reminded him, "You see, everything you say is judged from your own personal perspective. If you don't believe me, scroll up and look."
He disbelievingly asked, "Am I not in your perspective?"
That made me so angry. Ah, hahaha, I asked him,
"Are you inside my perspective? What am I thinking right now? What will I be thinking a moment later?"
Then he started spouting nonsense again,
"How will you make money? If you only have yourself and don't go through others, how will you make money?"
For fuck's sake, hearing that, I said, "Can you stop treating your own thoughts as truth and believing in them so firmly? This is just your wishful thinking."
He rebutted, "You're wrong. Once your understanding is high enough, you'll understand. Remember this: the only reason all Buddhas, Daoists, immortals, demons, monsters, and ghosts can survive is because they share one heart and one virtue while doing one thing together. So if people are not united, the result will not be good."
I deliberately asked him,
"What do you say a Buddha is? Do you not even know what a Buddha is?"
"I don't know? A Buddha is a person."
I advised him, "How about this: go read some books first. Figure out what a Buddha is, what gods are, and all that, then come talk to me."
"How could I not know? A Buddha is a person!"
"Then who is Buddha?"
"Buddha was a person from ancient times."
"And then?"
"And that's it."
"Fuck! Who told you that?"
"I heard it. Buddhas have to make money and eat too. All gods and Buddhas are like that, so there must be unity."
"You keep saying unity, unity. What exactly do you mean by unity?"
He explained, "First unite some people, then sell them things. Each takes what they need, and everyone benefits each other. Isn't that how those pyramid-scheme people operate too?"
Damn it, hearing that, I was about to get angry. It would have been normal enough if he had merely been trapped in his own delusions and unable to pull himself out. But after all that beating around the bush about unity, unity, his goal was to fool a group of people and then sell them things. Fuck me, I was truly speechless. I really didn't want to pay him any attention.
"Buddy, go do your own thing. We're not walking the same road. Stop talking."
Ordinarily, after hearing someone say several times that they didn't want to talk anymore, a person would know when enough was enough.
Yet he continued, "How are we not on the same road? We're all the same! The result is the same: we need to survive! To survive, we must unite."
I...
For fuck's sake! He fucking called this unity?