Former U.S. President Jefferson: Every Person's Soul Should Be Cared For by the Person Himself

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Former U.S. President Thomas Jefferson had a classic saying: every person's soul should be left to himself to take care of.

I have quoted this saying of his many times in my writing, because I love it so much.

When I woke up this morning, a reader sent me a message: "The doubts you previously raised about Longquan Monastery were all correct. The year before last, after reading a book by Master Xuecheng, I especially wanted to become a monk. Later I visited Longquan Monastery a few times and joined several group practices of a Tianjin Buddhist study group, and I felt that Longquan Monastery was brainwashing people and constantly collecting money. Your posts online also confirmed my suspicions. Thank you."

Several years ago, I published on the Tianya Forum and on my own blog some articles expressing my views on Beijing's Longquan Monastery. These articles attracted the attention of some readers, and over the years readers have been contacting me because of that series of articles—this reader among them. Those articles also drew attacks and curses from many Buddhists, especially the faithful of Longquan Monastery. Now Longquan Monastery has suddenly found itself at the eye of a media storm after its abbot, Master Xuecheng, was reported. Wherever there are people, there is a world; the rights and wrongs of Longquan Monastery are too complex to settle in a few words. But just as I wrote several years ago, many of Longquan Monastery's problems objectively exist, and those faithful who once blindly believed in the monastery were not without an element of blind faith. Perhaps this crisis that Longquan Monastery has suffered can prompt them to reflect on whether their way of believing is correct.

Several years ago I refused to follow the crowd in blindly worshipping and idolizing Longquan Monastery; today I also refuse to follow the crowd in running it down.

As far as I know, the overwhelming majority of Longquan Monastery's tens of thousands of ordained disciples and monks are sincere, kind, and wise. Many of the things Master Xuecheng himself did were also upright and beneficial to society, and this cannot be denied. I am past the age of being harshly demanding of others; I am not easily swept into emotional judgments of a person or a group because of a single event.

I also have no intention of debating religious belief. The need for religious belief objectively exists; whether Han Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, or other religions, all have large numbers of believers. The reasons each believer has faith differ, but religious belief is their freedom. Some of my past articles and remarks touching on religious belief were not all correct either; I am myself an imperfect person, and have no standing to judge others' right or wrong.

But there is one thing I have firmly believed from beginning to end: I never hand my own soul over to anyone else to take care of, and I never accept anyone else handing their soul over to me to take care of.

Any faith that superstitionally venerates an individual or an authority is extremely dangerous. One slip, and we become slaves of the spiritual teacher we believe in.

Once a person has taken up religious belief, it is not easy to distinguish true religious belief from cult organizations; some religious organizations sit on the borderline between right and wrong. In general, any religious belief that preaches the personal cult of a living teacher has the potential to develop into a cult.

As Laozi said: "When wisdom appears, there is great hypocrisy." That person who looks kind and benevolent and speaks so philosophically may be a true master, may be a deeply hidden, sanctimonious hypocrite, or may be a swindler with ill intent. Moreover, when faced with temptation, honorable men betray their principles all too often. So it is best not to worship anyone lightly. 2

Human nature is extremely unreliable. I do not believe that other people can overcome human weaknesses, nor do I believe that I myself can overcome them. The best way to prevent human weaknesses from harming us is to retain a little distrust toward everyone—including ourselves.

We should use a system designed to prevent crime to stop crime, rather than always striking at crime after it has occurred. On sensitive matters, one must be on guard.

There was once a young female patient with white lesions on the vulva who insisted that I treat her condition. I declined on the grounds that I was not skilled in treating this disease, but she still insisted that I take a look.

Diagnosing and treating this disease requires examining the patient's genitalia, which I am inwardly averse to. To be honest, I also cannot guarantee that I have such great self-control; I cannot guarantee that, after seeing the patient's private parts, I will not have improper thoughts. I fear both future disputes that would be hard to explain and the possibility that I might lose control, be unable to restrain myself, and sexually assault this female patient. I do not trust myself.

I told this patient that she must bring a same-sex family member with her before I would treat her. In the end she brought her best friend, but during the actual examination she asked her friend to step into the bathroom and wait.

Because, although she felt embarrassed to expose her private parts before a doctor, she felt even more embarrassed to expose them before her best friend. Fortunately, the bathroom was only a meter or two from the room where I examined her. The problem was thus resolved reasonably well.

I once treated a depression patient who had developed depression after being raped by a Tibetan Buddhist lama—an author of many books with disciples all over the world—and infected with a sexually transmitted disease.

I had repeatedly urged her to defend her lawful rights through legal channels, but she said this great Khenpo had all her family's information and had openly threatened her: if she dared report him, he would kill her whole family in retaliation. Moreover, the patient did not want others to know she had been infected with an STD; after all, such privacy would greatly affect her future life.

Worrying about smashing the vase when throwing the stone, she was helpless against this lecher who even now still presents a kind, benevolent face to deceive living beings.

There is another unmentionable reason for this matter, which I suspect: the reason this female patient could be gotten to by this Khenpo was probably that she trusted him too completely, was lax in guarding herself, and, after being raped, had no way to produce evidence.

I hope this female patient's personal experience can serve as a warning to women friends: when you meet your idols, do not, out of complete trust, let your guard down. Even sages and honorable men cannot help the evil in human nature brought by the primitive impulses that objectively exist in our bodies.

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My father practiced qigong all his life. Qigong, as a form of fitness, has deeply rooted popular support in China. It does indeed have a small effect on strengthening the body, but that effect is certainly not as powerful as the "masters" who blow qigong sky-high claim.

Among the cancer patients I have encountered, eight or nine out of ten practice qigong. Guo Lin qigong, the True Qi Circulation method, and all sorts of other qigongs under numerous names all have their adherents.

Not long ago, one of my brain-tumor patients came to Beijing for a follow-up. I took her pulse and found it thin and wiry—a pulse indicating blood-pressure problems—so I asked her whether her blood pressure was off.

The patient said she had indeed had low blood pressure for a while. I took out a blood-pressure monitor and measured her; her blood pressure at that moment was indeed low.

This patient had previously been in fairly good health, so why had she suddenly developed low blood pressure? Later, in talking with the patient and her husband, I learned that she was practicing qigong and, misled by the propaganda of "masters" in a secretive wellness organization, had stopped eating, living entirely on the wellness meals they prescribed. As a result she had lost weight sharply, her blood pressure had dropped, and she occasionally felt dizzy.

The patient's husband told me that, since falling ill, she had frequently associated with this kind of wellness and qigong organization. These organizations habitually confiscate and manage participants' mobile phones, cutting the patient off from the outside world, and then subject them to concentrated ideological indoctrination.

Such indoctrination basically begins with playing Buddhist scriptures and, under the guise of promoting Chinese classics, subjects the patient to mind control. A closed training session generally lasts a week or more; afterward, under the guise of bigu (fasting) wellness, pushing health foods, and qigong masters taking in disciples, they collect all kinds of fees.

The fees are shockingly high; for example, the apprenticeship fee charged by certain qigong masters for taking in disciples is basically no less than 20,000 yuan.

After this patient went through such ordeals, her blood pressure dropped, her weight fell (she had already been a thin person who needed to gain weight), and her physical condition deteriorated.

Another patient I saw yesterday had much the same experience. This patient had joined an organization that claims its mission is spreading Chinese classics; supposedly it provides free food and lodging to participants, but in fact most participants, once inside, end up paying a substantial sum in the form of donations under their hype and persuasion.

After ten days of closed training, this patient came out and began having hallucinations. She constantly felt that those teachers were still lecturing right before her eyes.

Think of the scenes in which police interrogate a suspect in closed, day-and-night sessions until the suspect breaks down and confesses. The training here is no different from police interrogation; in the end it causes some psychologically fragile listeners to break down and have hallucinations.

But within religious groups these hallucinations are explained completely differently; they are taken as signs of enlightenment and seeing one's own nature.

After donating 3,000 yuan, this patient came out and went straight to a psychiatric hospital for treatment for a period.

There are many such institutions in China today doing the same thing among patient populations. Using a combination of cult and pyramid-soup tactics, they subject patients to closed mind control; after the brainwashing, they begin, under all sorts of pretexts, to extort money and prey on women.

I am deeply worried by this phenomenon, but I have no good solution. Perhaps all I can do is write some articles to warn the world, so that people strengthen their guard and are fooled less often.

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There is a classic saying in Chinese Chan Buddhism: "My eyes were originally upright; it was because of the teacher that they became crooked."

Many people originally had a correct outlook on life and values, but by worshipping another person and following him (or her), they gradually accumulated a whole body of wrong views. This is a common sight.

I personally believe that thinking itself matters more than conclusions. Although there is a saying that as soon as man thinks, God laughs, it is even worse not to think but blindly to follow so-called sages and masters. Any belief that has not been carefully thought through is nothing but blind following and superstition.

The oceanographer Jacques Cousteau once did an experiment. From seven in the morning until seven at night, he walked around Paris carrying a clicker; every time someone tried to sell him something he did not need, he pressed it. By the end of the day, he had clicked 183 times.

Many of the things in our lives that look like indispensable necessities come about this way. Someone is working hard to persuade us that we must have these things in order to live better. Over time, life becomes unbearably heavy.

The various beliefs that exist in our minds are, just like these so-called necessities, things others have worked hard to sell us. There is always someone tirelessly telling us that we must do it this way or that, or else we are wrong.

In fact, with or without these material and spiritual "necessities," we can live perfectly well—even more lightly and happily.

Some people who exalt spiritual life mistakenly believe that by materially simplifying as much as possible they can live a simple life. They do not realize that, when they abandon the material and choose the spiritual, they have only escaped from the fence of matter into a fence of spirit.

Truly simple people do not necessarily need these.

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There is a joke that goes:

A seeker went to ask a master what the secret of happiness was. The master said: "The secret of happiness is never to argue with fools about right and wrong." The seeker said to the master: "Master, I completely disagree with your view." The master replied: "You are right."

I have written many articles and drawn all kinds of criticism; many people have attacked me maliciously. But from their words one can see that their understanding of certain issues is very shallow. After joining some organization and taking some "big god" as their teacher, they feel they have already grasped the truth and demand unrelentingly that I change my views and fall into line with them.

Over time I have become silent and too lazy to publish all kinds of articles, because every article I publish attracts unnecessary arguments and wastes my time. But I also know that the world does not become a better place because we choose silence. Some ugly phenomena must be exposed by someone before they diminish.

So I have learned to state without arguing.

I do not want to be a public intellectual, because I am skeptical of the ability and motives of all public intellectuals. Whenever I write, I also doubt my own ability and motives: do I have genuine insight? Do I have the aim of brainwashing people, misleading the young, and pursuing private gain? When I ask myself, neither question is easy to answer.

So I can only remind readers: while heeding the warnings I give you, also be on guard against me.

Do not hand your souls over to others to care for, and do not hand your souls over to me to care for. More importantly, do not point fingers and try to care for my soul.

Let each of us care for our own souls—and only our own souls!