Small Minds Are Clever, Big Minds Are Foolish - Shrewd but Unwise

Xuefeng

It was a summer day in 1976 when I, aged 19, served as the deputy secretary and document officer of the production brigade. This brigade comprised five natural villages with a total of eleven production teams. Five teams were made up of relocated residents from the Liujiaxia Reservoir, while the other six were local residents, including two Muslim villages.

Due to the diverse composition, I handled matters and spoke with extreme caution. I never dared to offend any production team. The best way to maintain smooth production operations, I learned, was to be fair and humble, respecting all the elderly. My father taught me, "Wherever you go, as long as you respect and show politeness to the elderly, you will not have major troubles."

Therefore, I always held respect for all the elders in the brigade close to my heart and translated it into my actions. Strangely enough, just this tactic of respecting the elders allowed me to serve as the “local emperor” for three years peacefully and smoothly.

Among all the elders in the brigade, there was one who left an indelible memory with me. He was a landlord. His family's courtyard walls were the highest and thickest, and their gate tower was the most magnificent. Before liberation, he gradually gave his land to tenant farmers and distributed his property among relatives and neighbors. Therefore, after liberation, the government gave him the classification of an enlightened landlord. He escaped the hardships of various political movements, including the Cultural Revolution. He also sent his son (in the 1950s) to Tsinghua University.

I knew this elderly man was quite astute. Whenever I met him, I was always respectful. He seemed to have some fondness for me, a son of a poor farmer. Between us, there seemed to be no "class hatred," and certainly, there was no "ethnic resentment."

That day, in my "leadership" capacity, I went to the Greening Station for an "inspection," wanting to assess the survival rate and growth status of the fruit trees planted there. Coincidentally, this elderly man was there too, and we started chatting. First, I praised the young people in their village for being smart. During our middle and high school years, several young people from their village dropped out to earn money and support their families. All those who continued their education ultimately returned to the village to farm, seemingly wasting a few years of their time.

Unexpectedly, this elderly man said something that deeply resonated with me. He said, "Those young people have clever small minds and foolish big minds!"

"What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled.

He adjusted his beard and explained, "In a person's life, especially during adolescence, laying a good foundation is essential. If the foundation is poorly built, no matter how much effort you put in later, there will not be much future. With a solid foundation, efforts pay off double; without it, efforts pay off half as much. Those with clever small minds are always lazy in laying foundations, eager for fame and profit, while those with clever big minds prioritize laying a solid foundation, even if it means temporarily giving up fame and profit. The result is that those eager for fame and profit end up with nothing, while those who temporarily gave up fame and profit for the foundation eventually achieve fame and profit. Those young people in our village who didn't go to school but went to earn money may seem to have gained a lot, but they’ve ruined their lives. So, I say they have clever small minds and foolish big minds."

"Small minds being clever and big minds being foolish" has been a guiding light for me since then.

If one seeks mere survival, having a clever small mind is sufficient. But to attain wisdom and expand the meaning of life, the smarter one's small mind, the more they cause trouble and harm. One must abandon small cleverness and strive to develop a clever big mind.

Although both small cleverness and big cleverness are forms of intelligence, they operate in vastly different dimensions of time and space. One is concerned with pursuing immediate gains in the present moment, while the other looks to the future, seeking long-term gains.

Ordinary people are clever with small minds but foolish with big minds. Only those accomplished saints and sages possess a "foolish" small mind and a clever big mind.

The clever small mind focuses on the present, while the clever big mind plans for the future.

The clever small mind is eager to display itself, while the clever big mind is busy seeking the truths of the universe.

The clever small mind aims for the brilliance of life, while the clever big mind aims for the eternal nature of LIFE.