[Explosive] Heaven and Earth are ruthless, treating all
things as straw dogs. Many viewers have left messages
wanting me to talk about the *Tao Te Ching* and
discuss Taoist thought. To be honest,
I've never dared to actually start
because what I'm about to say
might not be what you want to hear.
But recently I've realized something – I'm afraid of being criticized.
If I truly understood the Tao, I
wouldn't care about such criticism.
Ultimately, it's my underlying Confucian system that's locked me in. So, starting with this "If History Could Be Hypothesized" series, I will speak more thoroughly and directly, trying to help everyone understand what the *Tao Te Ching* is really about,
and to understand
why Confucius exclaimed: "Lao Tzu is like a dragon!"
This is the most fundamental difference between the two: one represents the Way of Humanity, the other
speaks of the Way of Heaven. So
what exactly is this Way of Heaven like?
But before I officially begin,
I must give you a sincere warning – what follows will
definitely make you very uncomfortable.
If you hear a part where you
feel your worldview shattered, please
stop immediately,
turn off this video, and
return to your normal life.
I'm serious.
Even a properly functioning Windows system,
even with its flaws... It's better
than a complete collapse.
Today's content is
only for those whose cups still have room.
If your cup is already full,
I can't pour anything in. Hello
everyone,
I'm Wang Lijie. In
today's content,
I'll start by giving you an analogy.
I'll
compare Confucianism to the Windows operating system we commonly use. For
2,500 years, the
education you and I have received from childhood to adulthood, the ethical rules we have followed, the
social norms, and the judgments of right and wrong in our hearts have
all been based on this operating system.
Its user base is enormous,
almost monopolizing the entire market. As for Lao
Tzu's five thousand words, the
,
it's more like the Apple Mac system.
It has always been there
and is very good,
but its market share is extremely small.
After the last video was released,
many friends left comments saying: I've long felt that there are problems with Confucianism.
I've been using independent thinking and first principles to
re-examine my cognitive system.
This is certainly good,
but I must be honest with you about one thing: You think you're using the Apple system,
but your Apple system is still
running on a virtual machine.
Your underlying core is
still the Windows system.
Here, the "you" I'm referring to is
not a specific person, but
also includes myself.
This is a limitation of language expression.
All the "you" I mention later
include myself. It's
not that I'm trying to offend anyone;
I'm offending myself. This is my most profound reflection from the last ten years.
Many adults only realize,
after experiencing the trials and betrayals of life and society, that
this Windows operating system
has serious problems.
What is a virtual machine?
It's installing software on a Windows system
and running an Apple system within that software. On
the surface,
you are indeed using Apple's interface, Apple's logic, and Apple's applications.
But at its core,
every instruction
must first be translated and forwarded by the Windows system, resulting in
significantly reduced performance and
compatibility issues, often leading to
crashes.
This is the true predicament of most "independent thinkers"
: you question Confucianism,
you study Taoism,
you think you've transcended it,
but the thinking tools you use for questioning—
your language habits, your standards of right and wrong,
your "shoulds" and
"shouldn'ts"—are themselves
part of the Confucian system.
You're using the command line of a Windows system to
try to understand the underlying architecture of an Apple system. No matter how
brilliant your analysis,
the direction is wrong from the start.
No matter how hard you try,
as long as Confucianism remains your underlying operating system...
You can never truly understand the Daoist concept of the Way of Heaven.
So what do you do?
Format it,
reinstall the system.
How?
Lao Tzu already wrote down the method:
six words: "Attain utmost emptiness, maintain steadfast stillness.
" "Attaining utmost emptiness" is
not simply about clearing away distracting thoughts; it's about
letting your primordial spirit
enter the deepest part of the Great Void.
"Maintaining steadfast stillness" means that
after reaching that state,
your values ​​are irreversibly rewritten.
You naturally settle into a completely new state. In
today's terms,
this is a formatting and reinstallation at the operating system level. It's
not about installing an Apple virtual machine on a Windows system,
but about formatting the entire hard drive and
directly installing the native Apple system.
But do you know how difficult this is? It's incredibly difficult.
Even most practitioners who can easily enter a meditative state through meditation may
not be able to do it.
They sit there, their
bodies and minds are quiet,
entering a particularly comfortable state—and then what?
They begin to crave that state.
"Wow,
so peaceful,
so pure, so
comfortable!
" In Buddhism, this state has a specific name:
"the craving for meditative bliss." What
you crave is no longer money or fame,
but the pure and comfortable feeling during meditation.
Essentially, there's no difference.
You've simply replaced your attachment to money with an attachment
to the joy of meditation, and your attachment
to fame and fortune with an attachment to the idea that "
I am practicing spiritual cultivation." The contents
of the cup have changed,
but the cup is still full. The
operating system hasn't changed;
only the desktop wallpaper has. So
what can you do?
If formatting and reinstalling is a
dead end for most people, are there
other options? Yes,
although it's a fallback.
I can't format and reinstall the system for you—
that's your own spiritual practice—
but I can do one thing: translate for you what those who have truly "been there" and
experienced "oneness with nature" brought back.
Their descriptions
might make you extremely uncomfortable
because they're completely incompatible with your Windows system.
But at least
you'll know what another operating system looks like and
what applications it can run.
This in itself has immense value.
Even if you can't install it right now,
just knowing it exists is a
huge upgrade in your understanding.
Okay,
now I'll give you a few core conclusions.
These aren't my inventions,
nor are they my own realizations.
I'm just a translator,
but my 47 years of life experience
allow me to fully accept this entirely new system.
I'd also be willing to be the translator. Let's
look at the original text first. The silk
manuscript version of the *Tao Te Ching* reads: "Heaven and earth are not benevolent; they treat all things like
straw dogs. The
sage is not benevolent; he treats
the people like straw dogs.
Between heaven and earth,
it is like a bellows—empty
yet inexhaustible,
moving and ever-producing. Excessive
hearing leads to exhaustion;
better to abide in the center." The
more familiar transmitted version reads: "Heaven and earth are not benevolent; they treat all things like
straw dogs. The
sage is not benevolent; he treats
the people like straw dogs.
Between heaven and earth,
it is like a bellows—
empty yet inexhaustible,
moving and ever-producing. Excessive talking leads to exhaustion; better to
abide in the center.
" On the surface, they seem similar,
but the last sentence
has a crucial difference. The silk
manuscript version reads "excessive hearing leads to exhaustion," while the
transmitted version reads "excessive talking leads to
exhaustion." The
interpretation of "excessive talking leads to exhaustion" that we've heard for two thousand years
is simply that talking too much
easily leads to a dead end,
so one should speak less—
silence is golden—
treating it as a communication skill.
But the meaning of "excessive hearing leads to exhaustion" is
completely different.
"Hearing"...
It's about listening, learning, and acquiring information. The
saying "Too much knowledge leads to exhaustion" means that knowing too much
can lead to a dead end. Do
you feel the devastating impact of this difference?
Here, we must first clarify a fact: the transmitted versions of the *Tao Te Ching* have
long been modified by Windows systems. Almost
all later versions are
interspersed with translations and modifications by Confucian scholars.
Therefore, we
cannot accept ancient texts wholesale,
including everything I've said today.
As for the silk manuscript version,
I'm not sure if it's Lao Tzu's true transmission.
I'm just using it to
interpret the new cognitive system passed down to me by that master.
The phrase "Too much knowledge leads to exhaustion" in the silk manuscript version
directly targets the core Confucian value – broad learning and extensive knowledge.
Confucius said, "To learn and practice what you have learned," "To review the old and learn
the new," and "To be learned in literature." The
cornerstone of the entire Confucian education system is: the more you learn, the better; the more you
know, the stronger you are.
But the silk manuscript version of Lao Tzu says: No,
knowing too much is not as good
as guarding your center.
This is not against learning;
it's saying – The "learning" method you use to understand the Way of Heaven is
fundamentally flawed.
You think that reading more books, attending more classes, and doing more analysis
will bring you closer to the truth.
Lao Tzu said
you've gone in the wrong direction; the more you
learn, the further you stray.
"It's better to abide in the center"—guard your center,
guard that which is inherently perfect without any external information.
Returning to the core of this chapter: "Heaven and Earth are ruthless, treating all
things like straw dogs.
" For two thousand years,
what has been the mainstream interpretation of this statement?
"Heaven and Earth treat all things equally,
without bias,
just like straw dogs used in sacrifices—use them and throw them away
without any emotion.
" This interpretation isn't wrong,
but it only scratches the surface.
If you put this statement into the complete framework of the Way of Heaven,
it speaks of something far deeper than "treating all things equally": the Way of Heaven doesn't
operate within your moral compass.
What is "benevolence"? Benevolence
is the highest Confucian definition of "correct interpersonal relationships."
"Heaven and Earth are ruthless"
doesn't mean that Heaven and Earth are cruel,
but rather that the way Heaven and Earth operate
doesn't exist on the dimension of "benevolence" or "unbenevolence."
"Benevolence" is a concept invented by humankind, a
symbol of human language. It
's an application in your Windows operating system.
Heaven doesn't actually have this application installed.
It doesn't recognize this coordinate system.
Spring rain
doesn't check if you're good or bad before it falls.
Earthquakes
don't deliberately avoid kind villages.
The sun shines on everything,
not giving you an extra second of light just because you did a good deed.
If Heaven were truly benevolent and compassionate,
it wouldn't have allowed demons like Hitler and Yamamoto Isoroku to descend to earth.
But
they did come into this world and
committed heinous crimes. Is Heaven benevolent
?
Heaven has its own rules of operation,
but these rules are beyond
your moral system's comprehension. Judging Heaven
using "benevolence," "goodness," or "
fairness"
is like using a thermometer to measure length—the tool is fundamentally flawed.
Once this understanding is established,
several extremely disruptive conclusions
naturally emerge.
The first conclusion: Don't actively intervene in other people's karma. What makes you so sure
your intervention will make things better?
Heaven has its own reward and punishment mechanism. The
predicament a person is experiencing
may be a necessary lesson in their karma.
You rushed in to "solve" his problem,
but his karmic seeds remain.
He hasn't completed the full process from seed to result;
the seed hasn't been truly transformed.
Next time, the
same pattern
will return with even greater force.
You think you're helping, but in
reality,
you might be delaying or even hindering his growth that should have been completed at this moment.
Your intervention
might not only make the outcome worse
but could even backfire on you.
Haven't you experienced this? The
Tao follows nature. Chapter
25 of the silk manuscript clearly states: "Man follows the Earth,
Earth follows Heaven,
Heaven follows the Tao, and the Tao follows
nature.
" What is nature? It's
not about the beautiful natural world;
nature
is "naturally"—things operate according to their inherent laws,
without needing you to push, pull, or forcibly intervene.
If you don't actively intervene in someone else's karma, what about those who come to you for
help? Should you
help them?
My understanding is:
don't do things that create conflict.
If you can easily help one person
without harming another,
then you might be the node in the karmic chain.
You can wave your sleeve and
do a favor
without taking anything away.
If the matter faces many obstacles... It
might even harm innocent people,
so you'd better keep your distance. The
second conclusion: Heaven has rewards and punishments,
but it doesn't need you to act on its behalf. Heaven isn't chaotic;
it has its own balancing mechanism. However, the
timescale and dimensions of this system's operation
far exceed your perception.
You often see
a bad person living a smooth life while a good
person suffers misfortune,
so you say "Heaven is unjust."
That's because you only saw one frame.
The movie "Heaven's Way"
has tens of thousands of frames.
You only saw one frame and drew a conclusion, so
of course you think the plot is unreasonable.
More importantly—what virtue or ability do you have to dare
say you're acting on behalf of Heaven?
The phrase "acting on behalf of Heaven"
is a monstrosity, a typical Confucian thought
grafted onto the concept of Heaven's Way.
Heaven doesn't need you to act on its behalf; it
will operate on its own. You
think you're upholding justice, but in
reality,
you're using your own interpretation of humanity to
impersonate the will of Heaven.
You're using Windows antivirus software
to scan an Apple system—
that's not following Heaven;
that's usurpation. The silk
manuscript version continues this chapter: "Between Heaven and Earth,
Qi is like a bellows and..." "
Empty yet not dry,
moving yet ever-flowing.
" The universe
is like a giant bellows – empty inside,
but never running dry. The more you push and
pull, the
more air comes out.
This system operates on its own; you
don't need to force it. What
you need to do
is "guard the center" – guard your own center,
manage your own cause and effect, and
smooth out your own operating system. The
greatest arrogance in the world is never
looking down on others,
but believing you can act on behalf of Heaven. The
third conclusion: Enlightened people are
not necessarily compassionate. Compassion is a human label,
not a rule of Heaven.
This conclusion
is perhaps the most difficult to accept today.
Our culture – not only Confucianism
but also popular Buddhism – has
instilled a deeply ingrained equation: Enlightenment = Compassion.
An enlightened person
should be compassionate, gentle, and compassionate towards all beings.
But if you look back at the original text of the *Tao Te Ching*: "Heaven and Earth are not benevolent; they treat all
things like straw dogs.
The sage is not benevolent; he treats the
people like straw dogs.
" Heaven and Earth do not speak of
benevolence, nor do sages. Lao Tzu
never said that
sages should be compassionate.
He was referring to the sage's "lack of benevolence."
This doesn't mean the sage is cruel,
but rather that a person truly aligned with the Way of Heaven
doesn't operate on the dimension of "compassion" or "lack of compassion."
What is "compassion"?
It's a label,
a concept, a
moral classification in your visual system. The
moment you feel "I should be compassionate,"
your Manas consciousness—that is, the deep program in Yogacara Buddhism
that's always grasping "this is me, this is mine"
—immediately activates.
It constructs a "compassionate self"
and then desperately tries to maintain this identity.
You help others
not because of the act of helping,
but because you need the label of "helping others"
to define yourself.
Your compassion
becomes a tool of the Manas consciousness,
like helping an old lady cross the street and then
specifically writing it in your diary.
These are Confucian norms, human conduct,
not the Way of Heaven.
What is the state of truly aligning with the Way of Heaven? It's doing what
you should do
without attaching any labels. If
you help someone, you
don't feel "I'm doing a good deed." If
you don't help, you
don't feel "I'm a cold-blooded person." There is no moral judgment
between helping and not helping.
Only the natural flow of causes and conditions. The
Diamond Sutra says, "Giving without attachment"—giving
without dwelling on the thought of "I am giving."
This is the state of a sage.
Don't force yourself to be compassionate, nor force
yourself to be uncompassionate.
Completely forget this concept.
Do what you do naturally.
Don't use Confucian humanistic thought
to judge the natural way of Heaven.
Fourth conclusion: Your wealth in this life has
nothing to do with your blessings. This
might offend many people. The
popular saying now is that
rich people feel they cultivated well in their past lives,
so they enjoy blessings in this life.
Poor people comfort themselves
by saying they didn't cultivate well in their past lives, so they cultivate
well in this life and
will be rich in the next.
This argument sounds flawless,
but it has a fatal flaw:
it treats a concept invented by humans as the
operating logic of Heaven.
What is
money? Money is a tool of exchange in human society, a
product of consensus. The
essence of value is consensus.
Money is not a concept of Heaven at all.
In the system of Heaven, there is
no variable called "currency."
Talking about "wealth" with Heaven
is like talking about a "faucet" with the ocean.
The scales are completely different. So
what exactly is going on with your material conditions?
Within the framework of the Way of Heaven,
everything you possess in this life—
money, health, talent, connections,
even the era and family you were born into—is a toolkit. It's a set of conditions and tools configured by the Way of
Heaven for your specific mission in this life.
Money
is just one tool, no
more special than the others. Some
people's missions
require a lot of money, so the Way of
Heaven provides them with a lot of money. Some people's missions
don't need money at all, so the Way of
Heaven doesn't provide them with any.
This has absolutely nothing to do with "rewards" or "punishments."
Therefore, the
question you should really care about is
never "how to make more money,"
but rather "what exactly is my mission?"
Once you find the right mission,
resources will
naturally gather towards you in ways you can't imagine—because the conditions are met.
But if you are attached to money itself,
you are
forcibly installing Windows software on an Apple system—sorry, it
simply won't run.
Fifth conclusion: Spiritual practice is
not the same as enlightenment. Saying this
might offend many friends in the spiritual community,
but I still have to say it.
If you don't know what the Way of Heaven is, and don't understand what the Way of
Heaven is like... If
you can't grasp the fundamental difference between the Heavenly Dao operating system and the Confucian operating system,
then your
cultivation can at best only bring you inner peace, make your life a little
more comfortable, and
make you appear a little more enlightened than those who don't cultivate,
or rather,
more like a Confucian master.
This is still human nature; it's all
superficial. It's like
installing a "meditation" plugin on your Windows system,
cleaning up junk files and memory. The system is
indeed a little smoother, and there are fewer
blue screens,
but the operating system itself
hasn't changed.
You're still interpreting the world using the same logic;
the noise is less, the
picture is clearer,
but clearly seeing a flawed picture
doesn't mean seeing the truth.
True enlightenment
requires you to transcend the entire human operating system—a complete transcendence,
not optimization, not an
upgrade, but a
complete switch,
entering a state of oneness with Heaven and humanity,
merging with the Heavenly Dao operating system. When you
reach that state,
you will naturally be very different from ordinary people. It's
not that you deliberately want to be different;
your operating system has changed, and the
output naturally changes.
Then what will happen?
You will become incompatible with this world.
You will be labeled by others in various ways: an
oddball, a weirdo, unapproachable,
even mentally ill.
What are these labels? They are the labels of
other people using the Windows system.
Interpreting the behavior of an Apple user, the error reports generated
after decoding failures
aren't describing you;
they're describing their own confusion.
If you've truly attained enlightenment,
why would you care about these projections?
When someone asks to borrow money,
you see the incomplete conditions and
calmly refuse—they say you're cold-blooded.
When someone pleads with you,
you know it's a path they must walk themselves and
don't reach out—they say you're heartless.
When someone points at you and insults you,
you laugh it off—they say you're callous.
But what is your inner state? It's
not suppression, not
endurance,
not "I've cultivated myself, so I must be calm."
It's genuinely without a ripple. It's not ripples
forcibly suppressed on the surface of water; it's the
absence of wind beneath the surface.
You don't need to "act" indifferent;
you truly don't care—like someone dreaming about you and insulting you, and
you don't lose sleep because of their dream. The
distance between this state and "cultivation has made me calm" is
farther than the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
One is
running emotion management software on a Windows system;
the other is completely replacing the operating system. Outwardly, they
may look similar—both are quiet. Both appear
composed,
but their core
values ​​are vastly different.
One is struggling to maintain calm, while the other has
never been unsettled to begin with. Cultivation is
merely one method of enlightenment,
never the whole picture. Okay, that
concludes the five points. How is
your worldview?
If it's shattered, as
I mentioned before,
please close this video.
Windows systems can still function normally; do
n't force yourself to install an Apple
system and crash your own.
If it's not shattered—then let's continue.
Why do these conclusions make you so uncomfortable?
It's not your fault;
it's just your operating system functioning normally.
Yogacara—the most sophisticated consciousness analysis system in Buddhism—
can help us generate a complete "pathology report."
Your discomfort
comes from three levels. The
first level
is the Confucian seed in the Alaya consciousness. The
Alaya consciousness
is the storage warehouse of all your experiences and habits.
You can think of it as a computer's hard drive.
From the moment you were born, your
parents said, "You must be a good child," your
teachers said, "You must be helpful," and
society said, "Suffering is a blessing," "Good people are rewarded."
Every such input plants
a seed in your Alaya consciousness.
Over decades,
these seeds grow into towering trees,
illuminating other possibilities. The
second layer
is the nature of conceptual constructs – you've mistaken labels for reality.
"Kindness," "Justice," "Compassion,"
"Good Fortune" – these are all labels,
concepts invented by humans to
help us navigate society. Are they
useful?
Very useful.
But this is humanity,
not the way of Heaven.
When I say, "The way of Heaven doesn't operate within your moral framework,"
I'm not denying humanity;
I'm telling you: your humanistic framework
is just a tool,
not the truth of the universe.
You can use it,
but don't treat it as an instruction manual for the way of Heaven. The
third and
deepest layer is the identity defense of the Manas consciousness. The
Manas consciousness is the seventh consciousness in Yogacara Buddhism.
Its core function
is to constantly grasp "This is me, this is mine."
Your Manas consciousness has
spent decades
building an incredibly stable self-identity:
"I am a kind person,"
"I am a moral person,"
"I am someone willing to help others."
When I say, "Don't actively intervene in other people's karma,"
"Compassion is a label,"
your Manas consciousness
feels a fatal existential threat
because if these statements are true, the
identity of "the kind me"
completely collapses. The
Manas consciousness doesn't allow this identity to collapse,
so it creates strong resistance,
making you instinctively feel, "These statements must be wrong."
Speaking of which,
I'd like to conclude with a classic Buddhist analogy.
Someone asked a Zen master: "How can I achieve enlightenment?" The Zen
master picked up a cup of tea and
poured
water into it. The cup was full, but he kept pouring, overflowing and spilling water all over the
table.
The person quickly said, "It's full! Stop pouring!" The
Zen master said: "Your mind is like this cup,
filled with your prejudices, your judgments,
your 'shoulds' and 'shouldn'ts.'
Without first emptying these things,
you simply can't fill it with new things."
This analogy
isn't just Zen wisdom;
it also has hardcore neuroscience support. As
we've repeatedly discussed in previous videos, your brain
isn't a passively receiving information camera;
it's a predictive machine.
It first
generates a set of "a priori beliefs" based on past experience, and
then uses these a priori beliefs
to filter, distort, and even cover up new information you receive.
You think you're "objectively listening" to me, but what
your brain is actually doing is comparing every word I say
with its existing a priori beliefs—if they match, it accepts them. If it
doesn't fit,
resist, distort,
or even filter it out directly.
The old water in your cup
is your preconceived beliefs.
They not only take up space, but
they also actively reject new water.
Today, I'm
not asking you to empty the cup completely;
that's something to do after reaching the ultimate emptiness, too
difficult.
I'm just suggesting you
pour out a portion and put in what you've
heard today. Don't
rush to judge right or wrong—judgment itself
is your operating system running.
Let it be quiet for a while,
let this content
settle in your cup.
Then try to
pour out some.
Those that have sunk to the bottom and can't be
poured out—that's what you've truly learned. What
everyone takes away from this content will
definitely be different
because everyone's Alaya consciousness has
different seeds, and what's
activated is also different.
That's okay. The Way of
Heaven never standardizes teaching.
Finally,
if you've heard this far and your
worldview hasn't shattered, and
you still want to continue listening—welcome! The
journey ahead
won't be easier, it will only
be more explosive.
So, this series
mainly
provides a completely new perspective for those already on the path of spiritual practice.
Since you've already decided to change,
then go all the way.
Installing macOS on a Windows virtual machine is
ultimately just a transitional solution.
If you've never considered changing your operating system
and don't see any meaning in spiritual practice,
then there's no need for you to continue reading this series.
Otherwise, you'll only cause yourself mental strain and cognitive dissonance.
I'm Wang Lijie.
See you next time.