Understanding Is the Foundation of Calm and Tolerance
A patient added me on WeChat. As usual I sent him the link to my "Consultation Guidelines." When he saw that consultation was charged (though it also stated it was free for the poor), he burst out cursing: "Your mouth is full of a doctor's benevolence, but your belly is full of vice."
Not a single word exchanged, yet abused like that—would one not be angry? One ought to be. But I was not; I forgave him, and I let myself off. The heart of anger is in everyone; to say one would not get angry at such a thing would not quite fit biological law. But years of experience have let me accept all this. All in the world suffer; whoever, regardless of reason, attacks others with vicious words must have, deep in his heart, an unknown anguish. Whether by innate genes or by an acquired upbringing, they have formed some personality defect, which has already caused them great trouble in life. For me to blame them further would be unnecessary and unkind.
The Buddhist sutra says: "When an evil man harms a worthy one, it is like spitting up at heaven; the spit does not reach heaven, but falls back on himself." The Buddha was a worthy one; he had the standing to let those who cursed and harmed him reap in the unseen a retribution from on high. I am only an ordinary mortal and have no such standing. But I am a medical man among mortals, and I know that many of the behaviors of people with mental illnesses and personality disorders are beyond their control; so I chose tolerance. Because we understand the logic behind other people's behavior, only our ability is limited and we cannot help them root out the venom that wells up beyond their control.
Deep understanding of others' conduct lets us forgive everything and also gives us peace. Once we understand, we no longer haggle with people, no longer bear a grudge, no longer wish them ill; instead we pity the misfortunes they have suffered and hope they soon meet a good physician who will relieve their physical and spiritual suffering together. Of course, with such patients we set a boundary and do not let them cross it, to avoid personal injury.
For a time I too thought that medical workers should be treated well and not rudely. But in practice I found this idea naive. By statistics, difficult patients make up about 15%; any doctor will find communication with such patients hard. Because among the patients a doctor meets, there is every kind of person. To adapt to his work, a doctor can only keep growing his own heart—read more, understand human nature more. Only when our learning is broad and we understand the logic behind everyone's actions can our breast become wide, so that in actual work we are not easily hurt.
Beyond oncology, I also often read works in psychology and psychiatry; every book I read brings some gain. Most of the patients we meet daily have comorbid physical and mental problems; they may have physical illness or psychological illness, and the two influence each other, compounding their suffering.
Their pain needs a doctor to relieve. If we learn more and understand human nature more thoroughly, we will know that some people's restlessness and others' furious rages actually come from misfortunes they met while growing up, leaving them unable to handle things calmly. So understanding is the ultimate compassion. Idealistic medical workers are engaged in a work of benevolence; to truly put benevolence into practice, we must understand all the unreasonable conduct of the multitudes in this vast world.
To understand people's every action, one must read a great deal of literature, understand the human mind, human nature, and the various mental and psychological illnesses. The great majority of healthy people do not act violently; those who do must have suffered misfortune and formed some pathological personality. If we can heal them, we should heal them rather than haggle with them.
This ideal state demands too much of a doctor, but there is no help for it: once one has entered the medical profession, become a doctor, and taken up this trade, one is fated to deal with the multitudes. And the multitudes each have their own characteristics; we must raise our cognitive level, be able to recognize various neglected illnesses, and ultimately understand and help people from a professional standpoint, rather than bearing grudges and arguing with them. If we do the opposite, we easily provoke medical disputes.
When we understand others' actions, we do not easily give rise to resentment. It is not that we do not hate, but that we cannot bring ourselves to hate. As I have kept growing in life and work over these years, I find I have unknowingly changed a great deal. Earlier I had to strive to restrain my resentment; later my resentment gradually faded; now it is basically gone.
Moreover, after forty I have increasingly felt the call of idealism and unconsciously begun to pursue "abiding in the highest good." Because we have seen too much pain: parting and death happen before our eyes every day; all kinds of physical and spiritual pain leave patients in floods of tears, and we who stand by to comfort them can hardly remain unmoved. I know our ability is very limited, but I always hope to read more literature, understand disease more, think more about ways to relieve patients' suffering, and help them root out their physical and spiritual pain sooner.
So at my present age I feel all the more that time is precious; waste it if you must not. I sleep and rise early and read a great deal every day. I live a bit like an ascetic; were it not for my family's expenses, I would have almost no desire for material things, and I am very diligent and self-disciplined. My father shaped an idealistic personality in me, and my mother a loving one; these two personalities together keep me constantly spurring myself onward—this is probably what is called internal drive.
How can a person have more joy and less pain? Young people have their own answers, and a middle-aged person like me has his own; my answer is: be as unselfish as possible.
This answer smacks of pretended loftiness, but I mean it from the heart. A person is more tolerant and at peace within if he is somewhat unselfish. If we have a selfish heart, we think about possession, about others treating us well; and as we keep thinking, we sink deep into the sea of desire. The sea of desire is the sea of bitterness! Once sunk in, it is hard to pull out. If we are unselfish, we will not have the heart of greed, anger, ignorance, pride or doubt; without them, the precepts, concentration and wisdom naturally arise within.
In the novel The Scholars (Rulin Waishi), the person I most admire is Doctor Yu (Yu Yude). Unlike a scion suchu as Du Shaoqing, who insisted on putting on a show of being a lavish Lord Mengchang and ruined his family, Doctor Yu knew how to protect himself and his family; yet he was not stingy, and when people needed his help he helped. He saw through worldly ways yet was not worldly himself. His mind was detached, delighting in wind and moon, with his own spiritual pursuits; he was not easily entangled by the trivia of life, and lived with easy freedom.
Though he was not a doctor, I learned the way of medicine from him. When we help patients, we too must have boundaries, lest we be wounded by irrational patients, yet also have a humanistic spirit, treating all patients well and never exchanging harsh words. Away from work, back in life, we should still live by these principles; only thus can we live lightly and freely all our days. Otherwise, if body and heart are overloaded, we easily break down.