Xuefeng Chats with Young People

Xuefeng

October 22, 2020

After more than sixty years of springs, summers, autumns, and winters, I have some insightful life experiences to share with young people. They may not be correct, but they are just for reference.

Life is the perception and experience of LIFE in the human world. The richer that experience is, the deeper its perception is; the deeper that perception is, the clearer its truth is. Therefore, life is about experiences, and only those experiences form the wealth that LIFE possesses. Some of those experiences are frustration, disappointment, failure, despair, love, friendship, kinship, sex, holy love, the spring, summer, autumn, winter, wind, clouds, rain and snow endowed by nature, joy, freedom, happiness, satisfaction, sacredness, solemnity, beauty, infinity, the coming and leaving of predestined relationships on the trajectory of life, and the cycles of causes and effects.

When you are young, do not pursue vanity and trends, be engulfed by the trends of the times, compare yourself with others, or pursue material possessions, such as buying real estate, cars, expensive consumer goods, high-end supplies, and so forth. If you focus on material abundance and possessions, then you are heading towards decadence, corruption, depravity, pain, troubles, and death; rather, you should spend your time and energy on learning scientific knowledge and skills, how to behave, the teachings of gods, Buddhas, and celestials, and how to enhance the value of your life. Do not study metaphysics or enter religious groups, political groups, or various cultivation groups because they are all problematic. Especially do not learn anything about magical powers, special abilities, or spell powers. I do not even advocate the premature learning of Buddhism, Taoism, or Divine Law, let alone supernatural powers. Learning is to enrich one’s understanding and to improve the quality of their LIFE, not to be an official or make money, glorify and illuminate one’s ancestors, or to be outstanding, let alone to build your good fame forever, but to experience life more deeply and to experience fun and wit of LIFE.

Why is the most important thing in life to enrich one’s understanding and improve the quality of LIFE? You can only understand it if you look at and study stones. From diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, opals, aquamarine, tourmaline, moonstones, and garnets, to pebbles, each of their values are completely different. Although we cannot always be human diamonds and emeralds, we cannot let ourselves become the pebbles among people. The more precious the stones are, the more embedded they are into the most sacred places and the rougher they are, the more they are laid under people’s feet. If some day, someone can become a god, you will know that the purer their quality of LIFE, the more they will live in a free and perfect world, and the lower their quality of LIFE, the more they will live in a world of control and dilapidation.

When you are young, do not waste your mind on building relationships with people because the cost of doing so is very high. Many people spend their precious time, energy, and even wealth on maintaining relationships, but it is not worth it. As long as they are people, they will part ways with you. Lasting relationships are almost impossible to maintain. Following predestined relationships is best but not maintaining them deliberately. True confidants will appear on your road to strive forward instead of in the relationships you maintained by racking your brains. If you are a precious gemstone, then you will not need to establish relationships deliberately because people will chase you; if you are a cobblestone, then no matter how you rack your brains to establish relationships, people will abandon you.

We are currently living in the era of network information and the biggest characteristic of it is impetuousness; people are impetuous, markets are impetuous, society is impetuous, religion, and political parties are all impetuous. There are bubbles everywhere and they will burst at any time; therefore, learn to calm down and think and study those that can last longer. According to my observation and analysis, ninety-five percent of the internet’s content, including social media, is rubbish. Therefore, if you invest your time and energy with social media on the internet, you will be collecting rubbish and you will be dealing with rubbish. In the long run, you will become a garbage collector.

There are three major wealths in life: material wealth, spiritual wealth, and soul wealth. When you are young, you should pursue soul wealth first, then spiritual wealth, and material wealth last. If you have a healthy body, that is equal to having material wealth; it can be said that health is the first material wealth of life. Thus, you should take good care of your body, do not stay up late, do not smoke, avoid drugs and alcohol, do not overeat, but eat in an orderly manner, and do not do so indiscriminately to satisfy your appetite.

Your first priority in life is to honor your parents. How your parents treat you is their business, but as children, do what children should do. There are many ways to do this, the most important is to not let your parents worry about you and rush about and overwork for you. You may not be able to provide superior material wealth for your parents, but at least do not let your parents work hard to provide you with superior material conditions because you are a human, not a pig, and your parents raised you to adulthood. After you have reached the age of eighteen years, you have to walk on your own and you can no longer rely on your parents for your survival. In this way, even if you cannot afford to support your parents in their old age and bury them, at least you will not have too much guilt in your heart, and in the eyes of heaven, you will be regarded as a reasonable person, a person who can be blessed.

I have compiled a book, “Treasures of Classical Advice”, which is the essence of the wisdom and experiences of human sages. It is worth reading. I hope that you will read it when you are free, because you will definitely benefit from it.