Fate Is Set by Heaven, but Its Fulfillment Depends on Human Effort
The word yuanfen (fate/destined affinity) appears with very high frequency in Chinese. We often say that whether a man and a woman become husband and wife depends on yuanfen; whether two strangers become close friends depends on yuanfen; teachers and students have their yuanfen, and business partners have theirs; even Buddhist monks who deliver beings speak of yuanfen; whether a physician can achieve therapeutic effect with a patient is also said to depend on yuanfen.
To understand yuanfen glibly is to easily mistake it for a synonym of destiny. In fact, "yuanfen" is composed of two characters: one is yuan (affinity), the other is fen (sharing/portion). Our ancestors explained yuanfen very aptly: as the old saying goes, "Yuan is set by heaven, but fen lies in human effort." These eight characters tell us that half of yuanfen is ordained by heaven, while the other half depends on human effort; whether one succeeds after encountering an opportunity still depends on the degree of personal effort.
Opportunities are beyond human control, but in fact what we have the least shortage of in life is opportunities. As the saying goes, there is fragrant grass everywhere under the wide sky; if this opportunity is absent, another will appear. But if a person values only opportunity without valuing personal effort, then all opportunities may slip through their fingers.
Why does heartbreak happen in the world? In one case it is indeed a lack of yuan: a man loves a woman, but the woman never loved him from the start—that is no yuan. But if a man and a woman loved each other and finally broke up, that is not a lack of yuan but a lack of fen. Behind the lack of fen is that one or both parties failed to cherish the yuan between them and did not strive to maintain it.
In life there will be many things that slip through our fingers, just as when fishing, fish often unhook and escape. Things where opportunities are plentiful but the goal is ultimately not achieved are mostly because the "human effort" link was not done well. Only by constantly reflecting on what one actually did wrong, rather than glibly attributing failure to the vague phrase "not enough yuanfen," can one progress.
It is not easy to do the "fen" part well, because it usually requires the cooperation of others. And to gain others' cooperation, we ourselves must be someone worthy of others' trust and liking. Some people always lament that they never meet a noble patron, while others encounter discerning patrons everywhere; there is a world of difference between the two. Why these differences? In the final analysis it is a matter of personal cultivation. A person of adequate cultivation makes others feel as if bathed in spring breeze, so that they involuntarily want to cooperate; a person whose cultivation is inadequate makes others uncomfortable in every gesture, and can only watch opportunities slip by.
Cultivation is a basic skill accumulated over years; it cannot be achieved overnight. There is a secret to improving personal cultivation: constant reflection, and through reflection continuously improving and elevating oneself. Cultivation cannot be gifted to us by outsiders; it can only be attained by ourselves through introspection. Therefore, those who blame themselves when things fail often progress rapidly, while those who blame heaven and others mostly waste their lives away. Those who seem blessed and full of yuanfen are not just lucky; they are well cultivated. Likewise, those who run into walls everywhere are not simply ill-fated; more likely the reason is insufficient self-cultivation.