Running Toward Boundless Radiance in Solitude

For an INFP personality, the best way to heal is solitude. Even when covered in wounds, after a month or two alone he can fully heal himself, sweeping away depression, anxiety, grief, impulsivity, and other negative emotions.

In healing himself, he reads widely, opening one window of knowledge after another. With each window opened, his heart grows brighter. At last, when he has opened all the windows he needs, understood all beings and understood himself, his heart blazes with boundless light.

That boundless radiance is the light of happiness; in its glow the INFP shows his gentle, calm nature, content and happy. His child's heart, after being washed, is purer and simpler than before. I have always believed that the easiest way to live in this world is to be candid with everyone, hiding nothing, even at some cost.

Candor may bring storm after storm, but what remains in our world after the storms and grows green again is what is most indispensable to our lives.

I hold some firm convictions: the pursuit of ideals, the keeping of promises, fidelity to truth, trust in love, gratitude and active repayment, forgiveness of others, frequent reflection and repentance for my faults, courage to go forward, diligent giving, and treating all beings equally and fairly. These are the innermost things in my life, unshakable by anyone.

I also keep to the most frugal life, so as to dissolve excessive desire. The ancients said: he who can chew vegetable root with relish can accomplish anything. When a person lowers his desires to the minimum, life cannot easily bring him down.

People of our personality type are used to seeking peace and ease deep within ourselves, not from outside. Because the peace and ease deep within can never be taken from us by anyone or by any ill fortune. When solitude is enough to make us happy, and we maintain moderate intimate relationships, parent-child bonds, and a few close friendships, troubling no one and not taking on responsibilities that are not ours, we can live neither lonely nor troubled.

One must learn to slow down. Quick reflexes are fine, but most people who react too acutely cannot escape psychological or mental illness. The urge for quick success is the greatest obstacle to happiness. Those accustomed to delayed gratification from childhood are blessed; as adults they more easily live lives of inner peace and quiet.

Those always pursuing instant gratification and immediate pleasure, once in trouble, are like ants on a hot pan, with not a moment's peace. Like hollow men, they have no stable self and little real calm, always relying on noisy living to anesthetize themselves.

Solitude rescues us from the noisy outside and slows everything down. In solitude we need no rushed plans and are not controlled by others; we can calmly think through and handle all our affairs, arranging our time by our own will rather than another's. We can also release our emotions in solitude: grieve when we should grieve, weep when we want to weep. Let every bad emotion out; once released, we are near recovery.

Solitude also lets us adjust our lives, examine our years, and rebuild our souls. It is the best and most efficient method of spiritual cultivation; in it we can converse with our own heart, listen to the truest voice deep within, and find a way out of our confusion.

Actually everyone needs to cultivate the heart often, because the heart matters so much. When we meet the sorrows of birth, aging, illness, death, parting from the beloved, meeting the hateful, not getting what we seek, and the blazing of the five skandhas, if the heart is strong enough we will not collapse at the first blow.

I have seen many patients collapse quickly after falling ill, terrified daily by their disease, fixated on their lesions every moment, with grief, anxiety, depression, and impulsivity woven together with the illness, soon destroying a person. If such patients normally gave themselves more solitude and conversed more with their own hearts, they might not be so fragile.

Moderate solitude trains the ability to live independently. Once we can care for ourselves on our own, we are no longer weak and no longer pin our hope of being saved on others. When we can care for ourselves, another's company and care are the icing on the cake, but we are not enslaved by them. Two independent and free souls, keeping company, are lighter for each other, nourishing and being nourished in love.

I do not fully accept the saying that hell is other people; it holds only when we have no complete self. If we have gained a complete self and the ability not to be manipulated or enslaved by others, others can never be our hell; they may instead be our heaven. One's fate must first be ruled by oneself, and only then can one share joy and sorrow with others. One person's spiritual over-dependence on another, over time, is bound to crush the other and breed resentment on both sides.

So we must learn to grow in solitude, to handle all our bad emotions in solitude, and to revive ourselves in solitude. Once revived, we can walk confidently into the crowd. As social animals, solitude is not our ultimate end; we must eventually go to people. Seeking balance between solitude and going out to people is a lifelong task of cultivation.