Subdue Your Own Heart; Do Not Fight with Others

I love reading Jin Yong's novels because the characters Mr. Jin Yong portrays are very real. The human world is a jianghu, but in the end this jianghu originates within our own hearts. If there are no waves in our hearts, however great the storms outside, they cannot affect us.

In Jin Yong's "Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain," there is a character called the Poison-Hand Medicine King. His dharma name was originally "One Anger"; as he cultivated and cultivated it became "Slight Anger"; then, further cultivating, it became "No Anger." His junior fellow apprentice was called Shi WanChen (Ten Thousand Anger). Shi WanChen was embroiled in many quarrels, while Master No-Anger attained enlightenment.

I used to love fighting with others too and also had anger; now I may gradually have cultivated to the level of "slight anger"—occasionally I flare up, but immediately let it go. Perhaps in a few more years I can enter the realm of "no anger." Buddhism urges people to "constantly cultivate precepts, concentration and wisdom, and extinguish greed, anger and delusion." In the Buddhist view, although anger seems to be provoked by others, its essence is that our precept-concentration-wisdom practice is insufficient; if it were sufficient, greed, anger and delusion would already be extinguished, and no one could make us angry.

When it comes to people who come looking for trouble, most of the time I do not respond with a single word and just block them. Buddhism might not approve. The Buddha wanted to deliver all beings; even toward those who came looking for trouble, he hoped to transform them. Fortunately I am not a Buddhist, so blocking people carries no psychological burden.

Things are not as simple as the Buddha thought; differences between people are not easy to eliminate. Personally I believe that those who follow different ways should not work together, which is best. As far as I know, the result of debates between famous historical Buddhists and heretics was not who transformed whom, but who killed whom. The Buddha and his cousin Devadatta were also irreconcilable.

In ancient India there was a tradition: the losing party in a debate had to commit suicide or maim itself as apology; some were killed in debate. So some famous Buddhists, such as Aryadeva, Nagarjuna's disciple, also met this fate, dying at the hands of externalists whom he had defeated in debate. This tradition was a bad one. Even if we cannot harmonize despite differences, everyone can follow their own way; why must one physically eliminate the other?

People are naturally contentious. If nations do not fight, a country splits internally into groups that fight; if a country has no internal fighting, the family fights, and members fighting to the death is all too common. TCM and Western medicine fight; within TCM, schools fight; even members of a given school fight.

Laozi's "Daodejing" says: "It is precisely because he does not contend that no one under heaven can contend with him." But those who can truly not contend are as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns. In life I have encountered countless fights, and I myself took part in countless fights. Slowly I became a disciple of Laozi and Zhuangzi, cultivating the art of not-contending, trying my best not to fight with others, retreating and doing my own work well.

But Laozi-Zhuangzi thought, taken to extremes, also becomes an abuse. For example, the well-known Chinese philosophy of looking after only one's own doorstep and minding no one else's business evolved from Laozi-Zhuangzi thought. It has provided fertile soil for much that is ugly in China and ultimately harmed everyone.

So this non-contention should still have a boundary. I personally limit it to the private sphere, striving for non-contention between individuals; when the public sphere is involved, one should still contend a little. Of course this is not easy. Not contending with others requires, on one hand, raising one's own wisdom and tolerance, and on the other, minimizing interpersonal contact as much as possible. The tree wants to be still but the wind does not cease; often it is not that we want to fight, but that others, like fighting cocks, come looking for a fight, and if we do not fight they are unhappy.

But when a person has subdued his own heart, the vast majority of fights can be uprooted. If we eliminate our own competitiveness and comparative spirit, we cannot get into disputes with others. If one does not want to fight, avoidance and forbearance are the best ways to handle it.

I am not actually unsociable; at school I had wide friendships. But these years I have hung out a sign of being unsociable, keeping people at a thousand-li distance. No other reason: I dislike fighting. Interpersonal relations always begin with feeling it is a pity we did not meet sooner, but two people who feel that way can, as they associate, easily develop to the point of wanting to kill each other.

So the ancients said, "No beginning is without its end, but few are able to sustain it to the close," and also, "If life were only as when we first met, what would there be for the autumn wind to grieve over the painted fan? Casually the old friend's heart changes, yet one says that the human heart is ever prone to change." I have not made a particularly close new friend in nearly twenty years; some readers want to become close to me, and I keep them at a distance. Having eaten an egg, one need not befriend the hen. The friendship of gentlemen is bland like water; keeping a certain distance, friendship endures and stays evergreen; getting too close, absolutely no fighting is very hard.

Master Hsing Yun said he has not been very close to anyone in his life; this is the elder monk's cleverness. Elder Benhuan, in his old age, went to court to sue a lay practitioner, reportedly because the lay practitioner borrowed money from him and did not repay; Elder Benhuan had suffered from being too close to people.

I am not a monk; I have a few close relatives and friends, but not many. This is good: not going about alone, yet not having many drinking-and-meat friends, so as not to get into needless anger. Raise one's own cultivation a bit more, and in limited contact with outsiders, yield as much as possible and be silent at the right time; then there will basically be no interpersonal conflict.