Are talent and root tools the same thing?
There must be people like this around you - learn anything fast
Do anything
He can learn something that others have practiced hard for three years in three months
People will say
This man has a gift
And you've heard the other one, I'm sure.
In Buddhism, it is said that a person "has good root organs"
It is said that the sixth ancestor Hui Neng is the "upper root device"
I became enlightened as soon as I heard the < Diamond Sutra >
These two words sound as if they are saying the same thing.
Some people are born better than others
But is that really the case?
Hello
Hello.
I am Wang Lijie
And what I want to do today is I want to take talent and root organ apart.
One from Western psychology and genetics
A Buddhist tradition dating back 2,500 years
They seem to be saying the same thing
But dismantled to the bone
You'll notice they measure completely different dimensions
And what's even more interesting is
Their respective blind spots
Happens to be the opponent's territory
Talent first
Talent in a Western context
The most hardcore representative is the IQ test
In 1905, French psychologist Binet developed the first IQ test.
It was originally designed to help identify children who require special education support
But it quickly became generalized.
People started using a number to define how smart a person is.
Your IQ is 120.
His is 140.
So he's smarter than you.
Simple, crude, intuitive.
But what do IQ tests actually measure?
It mainly measures logical reasoning and pattern recognition
Working memory and information processing speed
Pay attention to this range
It measures the efficiency of specific functions in your brain
It's not about creativity.
Unexpected EQ
Your resilience in the face of adversity
Your ability to perceive the emotions of others
And even more so, do you have the courage to make the right choice at the crucial moment?
1983
Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner has proposed
Multiple Intelligences Theory
He believes that human intelligence is not single
It's pluralistic.
He initially proposed seven
And then eight -- linguistic intelligence.
Logic, mathematical intelligence, spatial intelligence
Music intelligence, body movement intelligence, interpersonal intelligence
Introspective intelligence, natural observation intelligence
A child who fails math may have a strong musical talent
A socially awkward person may have an extraordinary spatial imagination.
Measure everyone with one IQ number
It's like measuring all shapes with a ruler - you can only measure the length
Can't measure depth, radian and temperature
How much of that talent is innate?
Now this twin study gives us a very interesting statistic.
Among adults
The heritability of IQ is about 60 to 80 percent.
That is to say
Your IQ is 60 to 80 percent genetically determined.
This number surprised a lot of people
It seems that talent is really meant to be
But wait a minute.
Sixty to eighty percent has a premise.
It was measured in people with roughly the same environment
When researchers look at people who grew up in very different environments
A precipitous decline in heritability
In poor families
The heritability of IQ is close to zero.
What does that mean?
Explain that when the environment is bad enough
No matter how good the genes are, they can't play out
The environment is the floor of talent
Not the ceiling
There is also an even more amazing phenomenon called the Flynn effect
Throughout the twentieth century
The average global IQ is rising by three points every decade.
Your IQ is nearly ten points higher than your grandfather's
It's not because the human genome has mutated in a hundred years.
Genetic mutations are not so fast - but because of nutrition
The education and information environments have changed
That is to say
We think of it as a gift.
A lot of it is actually shaped by the environment
And then the rise of epigenetics around 2006.
Scientists have discovered that
Environmental factors - stress, nutrition, early experiences
Without changing the genetic sequence
Altering the expression of genes
And this change has the potential to be passed on to the next generation
Your genes haven't changed
But the way your genes are read has changed.
Let's put it all together.
What conclusion will you come to?
Talent is not a fixed number
It's a dynamic product of the interaction between genes and the environment.
You were born with a deck of playing cards
But what kind of situation can this deck play?
It depends on which card table you're at.
What opponents do you meet, and how do you play your cards?
Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck put this insight
It was distilled into two concepts
Fixed mindset and growth mindset
People with a fixed mindset believe that talent is innate
Immutable - you are either smart or not
People with a growth mindset believe that abilities can be developed through hard work
Dweck's experimental findings
The kids who get "you're so smart"
It's easier to give up when you encounter difficulties
Because failure means, "I'm not really that smart."
The ones who said, "You work hard."
You're more resilient in the face of adversity.
Because failure just means, "I need to do it differently."
The impact of these two mindsets on one's life
It's bigger than IQ itself.
Her research also revealed a deeper problem
When we label someone "gifted"
We're not just describing him.
We're putting a mental framework on him.
This framework says, "Your value comes from your abilities.
And your abilities are fixed
"From now on
Every failure is more than just a failure
It's a threat to who you are.
The children who are labeled as geniuses
As you grow up, you become more afraid of making mistakes and taking risks
Prefer to stay in your comfort zone
Their gift becomes an identity that needs to be protected
It's not something that can be used.
This is one of the deepest traps in Western talent.
It turns a dynamic process into a static label
And this label, in turn, constrains your dynamic process.
OK
Now turn the bow
Let's see what Buddhism has to say
The word "root organ" in Buddhism
Many people understand it as "spiritual talent" - some people have good roots
Enlightened as soon as you hear it
Some people have poor root organs
You can't fix it for a lifetime
If you understand the root organ this way
Then it's basically the same as Western "talent"
It's all about saying that some people are born good and some people are born bad
But this is actually the biggest misreading of the root apparatus
The word root in Sanskrit is indriya.
It means "ability" and "function."
It's not a natural gift.
Why does Buddhism use the word "root"?
Because plant roots have two characteristics: first
It has the ability to grow
second
Its growth direction can change
Roots are not stones - stones are fixed
Roots are alive
It extends towards having water and nutrients.
The core "five roots" in Buddhism are: letter roots
Diligent root, mindfulness root, fixed root, wisdom root
Faith is confidence and a sense of direction
Diligence is continuous effort
Mindfulness is awareness in the present moment
Stability is the stability of the mind
Wisdom is the ability to see through essence
These five roots are sequential - letter produces diligence
Diligence generates thoughts
Mindfulness produces determination
Inevitably generate wisdom
Did you notice?
In these five roots
There isn't one called Smart Root.
It's called the IQ root or the learning speed root.
Buddhism doesn't care how fast you process information.
How good are your pattern recognition skills?
What it cares about is: do you have direction?
Are you willing to keep going?
Can you stay awake while you're walking?
Your heart is unsteady
Can you see the truth of things?
This was the fundamental difference between talent and root tools
Talent measures where you started
How many cards were you born with?
The root apparatus measures your orientation and capacity.
Can you play the cards in your hand well?
And make your own way
The difference is bigger than it seems.
The Western concept of talent is essentially a logic of "having"
How much intelligence, how much talent, how much potential do you have?
The root-tool view of Buddhism is essentially a kind of "running" logic
How does your heart work?
Is it going in the right direction?
Is it stable enough?
Can it last?
One is to see how much money you have in your bank account
One is to see if your daily cash flow is healthy
There are a lot of deposits but the cash flow is stagnant
Still go bankrupt
People with small deposits but stable cash flow
Get rich slowly
A person with an IQ of 160
Without roots -- no sense of direction, no idea where you're going.
He's probably been spinning his super brain all his life
You must have seen this kind of person around you: extremely smart
But I still can't find what I need to do
Or smart enough to rationalize every escape
reverse
A person who performs mediocre on a standardized test
If he has strong roots - he knows where he's going
Diligent roots - moving in that direction every day
Nian Root - Don't wander when you leave
He may have achieved far more than all "gifted players"
In Buddhism, there's a classic distinction between a root and a dull root.
Legan is savvy.
It makes sense
A dull root is stupid.
I don't get it.
A lot of people think that a ligan is smart and a dull root is stupid
But Buddhism goes much deeper than that.
Sixth Patriarch Hui Neng is illiterate
According to the standards of IQ tests
He has zero knowledge.
But he was enlightened when he heard the phrase "A heart should be born without dwelling."
He is ligan
Why is that?
It's not because he's smart.
It's because there's not much in his heart that needs to be torn down.
His cover is thin
Remember the parable we talked about in the Tathagata Tibet issue?
The dust on the mirror can be thick or thin
Huineng's mirror is almost clean
So it will light up as soon as you wipe it.
At the other extreme is Shenxiu - he is very learned and strict in commandments
He is the most valued disciple of the Fifth Patriarch Hongren
In the Sangha at that time
He's the "best in the standard sense" guy
He should score high by any standard.
But he wrote this verse: "Always wipe away.
Don't make dust "- still wiping hard
His "talent" is far higher than Hui Neng
But his root organ.
On this particular issue - not as good as Huineng
Why is that?
Because his knowledge and identity just became his thickest cover
He knew too many right answers.
So that there is no way to skip the answer and see the truth directly
Knowledge is his armor
It's also his cage.
Is this similar to what Dweck found?
The ones that are labeled "smart."
Their cleverness became its own obsession.
An identity that needs to be protected
And those who don't have that label
It's easier to let go
Easier to cross
So if you ask me, are talent and root organ the same thing?
And the answer is, they're not just different.
They measure completely different dimensions
For example, talent is the horsepower of your car
How big is the engine and how fast does it accelerate?
The root is your steering wheel and throttle - where are you going
Are you willing to keep stepping on the accelerator pedal?
A powerful car can go very fast
But if you hit the steering wheel or don't press the accelerator at all
It's just a nice car parked in a garage
And a car with not much horsepower but a firm and steady direction
It could eventually go anywhere.
And the blind spots of these two ideas are clear.
What is the blind spot of the Western talent concept?
It focuses too much on "How much do you have?"
I don't care where you're going.
It can accurately measure your engine horsepower
But where are you going and are you willing to hit the road?
It feels nothing.
You give an IQ test to someone who can't find a direction in life
Tell him "your IQ is 150" - and then what?
How can this number help him?
What is the blind spot of the root organ concept?
It can easily be misinterpreted as another form of talent theory
"He has good roots, so he can understand
I have poor root organs, so I can't play
"This just puts a dynamic
Cultivable ability becomes a static label again
But that's not what Buddhism originally meant.
Five Roots - Faith, Progress, Consciousness, Concentration, Wisdom
Each one is trainable.
Root organ is not life
Is kung fu
So what was the most interesting insight?
Maybe what really determines how far a person can go
Neither how talented he is
It's not that his root organ has Dolly
It was his ability to see what you thought was the end.
Maybe it's just a mirror
Labels that make you think, "I can't."
They're not smart enough, they're not powerful enough -- they're not walls.
They are the shadows you cast.
Shadows only exist when you have your back to the light source
Turn around.
It just disappears.
The author of the 10,000-hour theory
Psychologist Erickson studied decades of expert performance
It's not, "Just 10,000 hours."
That was the version that was later misread - what he really said was
The direction and quality of deliberate practice are far more important than the duration
Exercise without direction
10,000 hours of practice is also standing still
Directed practice
Maybe 3,000 hours can reach a place that others can't reach in a lifetime
Buddhism said the same thing 2,500 years ago.
It's just that it calls "deliberate practice" "effort"
They call it right view.
It's called mindfulness.
One talks with lab data
One Speaks with Vipassana Wisdom
But their fingers point to the same moon
So the next time someone asks you, "What do you think?
"Is effort important or effort important?"
You can tell him that the question itself is wrong
Talent and hard work are not two endpoints on the same dimension
Talent describes your hardware configuration
What you try to describe is how you operate
And the root organ -- if you will introduce this third perspective.
It describes your operating system.
No matter how good the hardware is
The operating system is wrong.
You can't get the result you want.
General hardware
But the operating system is clear and stable
Instead, you can put every bit of resource to good use
And the best news is that the hardware is not easy to replace
But the operating system can be upgraded
Every time you take the initiative to choose a direction instead of being pushed by inertia
Every time you don't give up in the face of difficulties, you continue in a different way
Every time you find that second of clarity in the middle of an emotional storm
You're already upgrading your operating system
Buddhism calls this practice.
Psychologists call this growth.
But whatever you want to call it
It points to the same thing: you are not a fixed product
You are a running process
My own experience is the same
I have been an angel investor for over a decade
I have seen countless entrepreneurs
Those who eventually come out
Rarely the smartest one to start with
It's rarely the one with the best starting resources.
They often have one thing in common: they know exactly what they want
And when you get knocked down, you can still stand up
In Buddhist terms
They have strong roots of faith and hard work.
In psychological terms
They have a growth mindset and high levels of resilience
It doesn't matter what you call it
The important thing is that it points to the same quality - clear direction
Continuous action, not defined by setbacks
So the next time someone tells you, "I'm not talented,"
Maybe you can ask him another question: Do you have a root organ?
Do you know where you're going?
Would you like to take a break when you can't walk and keep walking?
If your answer is "yes"
That talent is not talent
It's really not that important.
Do you feel that in your life
What limits you more is "talent" or "root tool"
If you have any ideas
I'm curious.
I am Wang Lijie
See you next time.