Enlightenment Gained from Playing Poker “Struggling Upstream”
Xuefeng
September 16, 2019
The nature of playing poker and Mahjong are very similar. Players have no control over which cards they are dealt, and this has many similarities to life. I have summarized them and wish to present the following nine revelations:
It is impossible to predict what you will draw or which card will come up next. The cards you get are totally beyond your control and you can only resign yourself to your fate. Life is very similar. No one can control the type of family into which they will be born or whether they will be rich or poor; these things are the mere results of fate.
The cards one draws basically determine the results. If one gets a handful of bad cards, then no matter how superb their playing skills are or how profound their wisdom is, their ultimate loss is almost guaranteed. Life is the same; the environment of one’s birth and their early conditions basically determine the direction and result of their life. No matter how hard they work, the result can only be tragic.
Even with a good hand, the results are not necessarily wins. Whether you win or lose is still determined by the overall game. If others have many straights to play while you have all unmatched cards, then you cannot beat them; all you can do is watch them play their cards and you will not even get a chance to play your cards at all. Here is how luck works: if you draw a handful of well-matched cards, then you will win; if you draw all unrelated cards, then you will lose. Life is the same, even if you were born into a superior environment under great conditions and with excellent morality and wisdom but run into bad luck, then your life will still be difficult and unsatisfactory. Looking at those who are less powerful than you yet still managed to thrive in their endeavors, you can only wipe away your tears secretly, sigh, and lament for yourself.
Sometimes the cards in your hand are just so-so with no jokers or twos that are only second to jokers, but their order is good. In this situation, even if the cards you played are very small, others will not be able to outbid you, so you can play all your cards smoothly for several rounds and win. Life is the same; someone might have been born very normal with nothing out of the ordinary, but then they succeed unexpectedly and their journey is unimpeded, which provokes envy and hate in many other “more worthy” people.
In Zheng Shangyou (Struggle Upstream), you can scheme, play petty tricks, and take risks to improve your probability of winning; however, when your unfair methods are discovered by your playmates, no one will ever play with you again. People will look down on you from the bottom of their hearts and you will be regarded as a card hooligan, so the price of cheating becomes very high. Such is also the case with life, where many people get what they want through unfair means, but once they become exposed, their lives become stained and it becomes very difficult for them to ever restore their reputations. They can only spend the rest of their lives with regrets.
In card games, players can conspire; that is, two or three people can unite secretly against a third one. In this way, with three players against one, the probability of the single outsider winning becomes extraordinarily low. It is unfair competition when winning and losing depend on conspiracies and joint dealings. Consider a lion dealing with multiple hyenas. No matter how fierce the lion is, it would be nearly impossible for it to beat the entire cackle and it will eventually become hyena food. Life is similar; no matter how powerful one is, when they fall prey to a group of scoundrels, they get overwhelmed eventually and lose out to them.
In Zheng Shangyou, the more chances you get to play the cards in your hand, the greater your probability to win becomes. If you never have any chance to play it, then you have to watch others swagger around and do nothing but become the last to come. The same is true in life where you have to be your own master several times; the more opportunities you have to do that, the more you can show your own character and value. If you allow others to blindly control you but you have no chance to run your own life, then you will remain at the bottom of the barrel throughout your life.
Now comes the most important revelation. First of all, we must understand that from the beginning to the end, playing cards is just a game; the purpose of which is to make us happy. As long as that purpose is achieved, then winning or losing does not matter very much. Win or lose, any player who treats the game as fun is the king of playing cards. Understand that no matter what cards are in your hand, you must always be relaxed, complacent, and not frustrated, discouraged, or cursing your bad cards. Even if you hold the worst possible hand, you will still feel that it is interesting and you will keep smiling. Then, you will be the master of playing cards; the king of playing cards. Win, and you are happy; lose, and you are happy. You are actually the biggest winner of playing the card game. Life too should also be like this; a game, a Struggling Upstream game. If you want to win desperately above all else, to succeed, to impress others, to be famous, to own luxury cars and mansions, to be powerful and influential, to be obeyed by others, to glorify and illuminate your ancestors and leave a good name forever, then you are a person who is not enlightened and one who does not understand life. You will definitely be the biggest loser in this game. When it is over, when life comes to an end, then everything will end in tragedy. On the contrary, one who plays Struggling Upstream and also plays life with a game mentality is open-minded and has been awakened to life. Such people are saints among mortals and are the greatest winners in life.
Whenever you play a game, play it seriously. If you are cynical in the process of playing, the game will be uninteresting. Sigh when you lose, laugh when you are excited, shout when you feel like shouting, and bang on the table when the time is right. It is a lot of fun and excitement to play like this, to be passionate emotionally, to be calm in the heart, to see through things as saints do, and to be naughty as children are. These are the real masters of playing cards and celestials’ life journeys who have attained Tao.
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