One Way to Know Yourself

Xuefeng

July 6, 2020

It is fairly easy to understand others, but more difficult to know ourselves, however when we do not understand ourselves correctly, our lives will be lost, stepped over, and frustrated everywhere. Recently through my work, I found a method to learn about myself, and you are invited to try it as well. To know ourselves, we must first establish a reference point and compare ourselves to it; then we can better understand ourselves.

Over the past three years, I have operated a small hotel in BC, Canada. The nature of the hotel is a B&B which provides housing and breakfasts. Over my last three years of experience, I have discovered the phenomenon that the worse one’s financial condition is, the less their education, self-cultivation, and self-restraint will be; for example, they will leave their rooms dirtier and messier with debris all over the carpets, throw snow-white face towels on the floors randomly after usage, leave the face towels especially dirty by wiping their feet with them, the toilets were left unflushed and smelly, they did not use the quilt covers, but the quilts directly which made the cleaning much more difficult, they left food on their plates after finishing their meals, they argued with and did not greet each other, they rarely communicated, and spilled their drinks on their beds which stained the quilts and sheets. My three sets of large, medium, and small towels, sheets, and quilts are pure white, so once soiled, it becomes next to impossible to restore their original appearances. In contrast, the better one’s financial situation is, the cleaner and neater they leave their rooms and the better they communicate and get along with others. All in all, those who messed things up and could not communicate well were lower-middle class workers, while the more civilized were more intellectual.

My conclusion is that a person’s situation reflects their education, self-cultivation, and self-restraint, as well as their knowledge, realm, and pattern. Do you want to understand and know yourself? Then look at your current situation because it represents you. If you are very poor, have few close friends and confidants, have trouble getting help from others, and your life is rough and difficult, then there must be something wrong with you, and it is not because society is unfair or others are short on love. In Lifechanyuan, there is one value, “The world is faultless; all faults lie within us”. Any trials and tribulations that we encounter are reflections of our own consciousnesses. If we want to live a good life, then we must start by transforming ourselves; this is the “building of our own soul garden” as advocated by Lifechanyuan. Never resent or blame others or your society.

There is another phenomenon; that is, those who are good at communicating with others have relatively easy and satisfactory lives, but those who are not have more difficult and miserable ones. One can understand and know themself from the social circle in which they interact with others. If there are no knowledgeable people in your social circle with big views, it shows that you are a commoner and it will be difficult for you to have a bright future.

From this analysis, we can derive a useful life experience; that is, that one should always put the improvement of one’s education, knowledge, self-cultivation, self-restraint, realm, and pattern first, not rushing to make money, success, to become the best, to glorify your ancestors, or to curry favor with rich and powerful people and celebrities. If you are excellent, then those correspondingly good things will come to you, but if you are not, then do not detest the flies around you. Let yourself be a flower! Butterflies will find you.

By extension, when you are faced with natural and man-made disasters such as epidemics, floods, turmoil, and the like, do not blame the Greatest Creator for being unjust or people for being unkind; all these things are reflections of your human mind and consciousness because you caused and invited them upon yourself. If you want the weather to be favorable, the world to be peaceful, and everyone to be happy and satisfied, then you should first learn to be a decent person, learn how to communicate, always be wary of your thoughts and intentions, and make sure that they are not evil. If you have more negative, passive, and pessimistic emotions, then your lives will become harsher and the world will continue to worsen.

Above is a basic method of how to understand and know oneself. The core of this method is the “root” (quality); that is, if we want everything to be satisfactory, then we must change our “roots”. Do not envy those whose “roots” are bad but very flashy. “If one’s position cannot match their virtue, then disasters will befall them”. Flaunt with bad “roots”, and you will see the results! They must include disasters.