Soul Garbage and Its Classification

Xuefeng

January 2, 2025

Soul garbage falls into eight categories: primitive, habitual, cultural, cognitive, regional, group-affiliation, self-centered, and belief-based.

The definitions and major manifestations of each category are as follows:

1.Primitive Garbage This type refers to the soul garbage we are born with, such as jealousy, fighting, stealing, robbery, loudness, showing off, fear, and the urge to dominate. All the psychological traits and behaviors seen in wild animals, domestic livestock, and even plants fall under this category.

2.Habitual Garbage This type forms through long-term habits and routines. Examples include littering, poor hygiene, making one’s surroundings messy and polluted, belittling or discriminating against the weak, abusing vulnerable lives, judging others by appearance, measuring people by their wealth or status, and the desire to stand out and be envied.

3.Cultural Garbage This refers to soul garbage formed through subtle and long-standing cultural conditioning within a specific ethnicity or nation. Examples include: sayings such as “Books hold golden houses and charming faces,” “Endure the hardest hardship to reach the top,” and “A man must marry; a woman must wed”; beliefs such as “The Thirty-Six Stratagems,” “thick-faced and black-hearted success,” “equalizing the rich and poor,” and “humans die for wealth as birds die for food”; and behaviors like comparison, saving face, flattery, bribery, corruption, and the pursuit of “bringing glory to one’s ancestors.”

4.Cognitive Garbage This category arises from a limited worldview and narrow cognition, resulting in seemingly reasonable yet fundamentally flawed beliefs. Examples include: believing that the sun revolves around the earth; believing “there are only eternal interests, not eternal emotions”; thinking that death means total extinction; assuming humans are the highest form of LIFE; believing life has no meaning, or “without a nation, there is no home”; insisting on the sanctity of private property, or thinking that belief in utopia inevitably brings suffering.

5.Regional Garbage This stems from regional biases and limitations in understanding shaped by one’s living environment. Examples include: believing there are always four seasons in a year; thinking a year only has two seasons—dry and rainy; assuming “Anglo-Saxons are the most superior,” or labeling others as “sick men of Asia,” “outsiders,” or “foreigners.”

6.Group-Affiliation Garbage This type arises from cognitive patterns formed within certain circles based on belief, culture, economy, or wealth. Examples include: “Western imperialists,” “hegemonism,” “working class,” “white-collar class,” “aristocracy,” “racial discrimination,” “disadvantaged groups,” “the poor,” “urbanites,” and “country folk.”

7.Self-Centered Garbage This includes all thoughts and actions driven by self-interest and ego. For instance: “This is mine,” “This is my home,” “This is my country,” “This is my wife (or husband),” “This is my child.” Any thought, word, or deed centered around oneself is soul garbage.

8.Belief-Based Garbage This type arises from views of life, values, morality, LIFE outlook, and worldview built upon one’s belief system. Examples include: “Holy wars,” “All beings are created equal,” labeling others as “heretics,” “cults,” or “cultists,” believing there is “only one truth,” or that “everything was created by the Greatest Creator.”

Conclusion All conflicts, contradictions, worries, and suffering throughout human history have stemmed from soul garbage. If soul garbage is not cleared away, humanity will never achieve peace and serenity. No one—no emperor, billionaire, national hero, or world-renowned figure—can live a truly good life. Without purifying the soul, worries and suffering will persist, and regrets and fears will be inescapable.