Freeing the Mind from Every Affair, Peace in Every Place

Cultivate stillness within movement; hold an empty heart as if it held nothing.

— Ren Jiyu

Gradually recovering from a series of physical and psychological traumas, I spent a while in a state of self-doubt: every time a thought arose, I would immediately ask myself, is this thought normal? Am I going insane?

Last year's experiences overturned my previous understanding of myself and the world. For a while I suspected I was mentally unwell—one of the many symptoms of post-traumatic stress. But as time passed, the trauma gradually settled, and many things sank into place; I entered another state: I began to feel released about everything, with an immeasurably peaceful heart.

Of course it is best never to experience suffering, but suffering is not without use. It lets us see the world's truth more clearly, knowing what should and should not be done, what matters and what does not. In life one must sometimes stand at the opposite standpoint and look at oneself; otherwise we can never be objective and complete.

Last year, when I was hospitalized after a car accident, a high-school classmate and my younger cousin came to visit. This classmate told my cousin that back in school, when his leg was injured and no one cared for him, I had carried him on my back and looked after him. Nearly thirty years later, I have no memory of this event and can barely even recall the classmate's name—yet he has never forgotten it.

I still cannot recall the incident, but such things did fit my way of being. I often did such things; I was like a fool among clever people, doing what most were unwilling to do. In the past I always expected everyone to be as warm-hearted about the world as I was, not indifferent to others' suffering. But now I realize this cannot be demanded: selfishness is human nature, altruism is counter-nature, although civilization develops in the direction of altruism.

Only a few people pursue idealism and hope to build a great Commonwealth; the world in their minds is actually a utopia. Utopia is a nonexistent dream world. The idealist's most common error is judging everything by an unrealistically high standard. Thus, unless an idealist can stand at the opposite standpoint and examine themselves and the world, they easily become disappointed with real people and real events. We must stand at the opposite standpoint to better accept all beings and the world.

Truth, goodness, beauty, altruism—these are what idealists aspire to. But the real world is complex, full of conflicting interests. Should one pursue ideals or yield to reality? Who is more normal—the idealist or the realist? People habitually assume their own views are normal; this is natural, after all, since we are all self-centered. But if "normal" means the state of the majority, then idealists are actually the abnormal ones.

My greatest progress has been recognizing that I am "abnormal"—in thinking and in habits. I no longer regard the world as abnormal. The world is normal, and the masses are normal; people like me are the abnormal ones. It is natural for humans to follow the laws of nature, to secure more resources for themselves and their offspring, to protect their interests, not to sacrifice themselves for others, and even to seek comfort—none of this is wrong. Though I have thought this through, I do not plan to become a normal person; I will continue to live my life abnormally.

This shift of mind is momentous for me. Most people may not think it a big deal, because their daily lives already follow the rules of normal people. But for me it truly matters, because it has made me more tolerant and more even-tempered. I now accept other people's behaviors more easily—many of which I once found unlovely, but now I admit they are human nature, normal biological rules, and human common sense. We cannot measure the masses by high standards.

On the other hand, we must also admit that humankind as a species is quite foolish. We cannot praise or call wise just because a behavior is normal. Normal and wise are not the same thing; often, normal and foolish are near synonyms. Our folly has manufactured too many disasters; wars around the world have almost never ceased, flaring up here and there. "Wine and meat rot behind the red gates, while frozen bones lie by the road" repeats again and again. People lament the world's coldness when they themselves are down, yet habitually stand by when others are down; and they remember hatred more easily than gratitude.

I may never understand why human hearts ceaselessly generate so much hatred that it always escalates into mutual revenge and killing. Peaceful coexistence may be too much to ask of our species. Our ancestors, Homo sapiens, slaughtered our close relatives the Neanderthals to extinction. Then we modern humans, descended from those same sapiens ancestors, have been divided by skin color, nationality, ethnicity, religion, and subculture into countless groups, quarreling and even fighting over resources or faith, with countless casualties. Even without these great conflicts, we can hardly live quietly: on roads, in neighborhoods, on buses, in subways, and even within families, people periodically fight bloody battles over trivialities.

I now accept all kinds of social phenomena and all kinds of behavior better than before, but this does not mean I am willing to follow normal people or live a normal life. Nor does it mean I accept that "normal" is the best survival strategy. On the contrary, I feel that a moderate degree of abnormality makes life happier.

A considerable share of psychiatric patients are happier than normal people, because "normal" and happiness are not equivalent. Illness sometimes lets people escape life's drudgery into a more comfortable state; for such people I would not even argue for treating them back to normal. Look at the homeless under the overpasses (many of them mentally unwell): once they have enough to eat and wear, they ask no more. As long as their bodies are free of disease, we have little face left to claim we are wiser or happier than they.

In terms of mere survival, most people need not spend so much time working to live; perhaps less than a third of their effort would suffice for food and shelter, and they might even live longer because they would rest more. Yet they strive after all kinds of unnecessary things—big houses, luxury cars, social status—then lament how hard they work, passing their creed down the generations as if it were natural.

The mind needs a certain width to be more inclusive. I often do mental extreme sports, pushing my cognition ever further into the infinite and increasing my flexibility. The benefit is inner peace: if whatever life brings we can accept, then there is nothing to be unpeaceful about.

The heart (really the brain) is like a vessel. If our vessel is small, holding only the creed we believe in, and we cannot stand what contradicts it, then the vessel is easily burst by what we hear and see. Because whether we like it or not, everything in the world moves like Brownian motion—rulelessly and rudely crowding into every person's vessel. Those with small capacity risk exploding at any moment.

Right and wrong cannot be avoided, but once the sense of right-and-wrong is dissolved, right and wrong cease to be right and wrong; everything can be released. Without right and wrong, all grievances, grudges, love, and hate dissolve into nothing, and no vessel is needed to hold them. When the heart no longer needs to store any grievances, then everywhere in the universe becomes a place to rest body and mind; why should we deliberately seek a pure land away from the world?

I walk through this world smiling, seeing everything as it naturally is, neither grieving nor rejoicing over things, not clinging, not angering, calmly studying the questions I love, and in this way spending the rest of my days.