If you don't meditate or live as a monk,
how can you say you're practicing spiritual cultivation?
People often ask me in the comments,
"Are you practicing cultivation?"
To be honest,
before starting this channel,
I never wondered if what I do counts as cultivation.
I've simply been pursuing a few core questions:
How does human consciousness arise?
How does it operate?
How can we improve our cognition?
How can I use first principles to live this life well?
Among these questions,
none point toward the afterlife.
Hello,
everyone,
I'm Wang Lijie.
Today, I want to discuss a serious topic: 'Cultivating the Mind' and 'Spiritual Practice.'
What is the relationship between them?
Do we practice for this life or the next?
Behind these lies an even bigger question:
What is the true starting point of cultivation?
Let me clarify my own situation first.
I haven't converted to any religion,
I haven't taken a master,
I don't meditate,
I don't seek Buddhahood,
nor do I pursue 'nirvana' or perfection.
All my pursuits and obsessions—
yes,
you heard that right,
I used the word 'obsession'—
are still rooted in this life, here and now.
I pursue awakening,
I pursue self-observation,
and I pursue living this one life to the fullest.
So, by traditional standards,
I probably don't qualify as a practitioner.
And I should say frankly,
I've never thought about cultivating for the afterlife.
For many, the afterlife is their primary motivation.
They accumulate merit
and sow good seeds,
hoping for a better starting point in the next life.
I don't dismiss this motive at all,
but it's not what drives me.
I'm driven by a very simple desire:
to understand what this life is all about
and to live it with some sense of clarity.
If an afterlife exists,
I believe a life lived with clarity here
will naturally lead to a good afterlife.
If it doesn't exist,
then there's even less reason to waste this life.
Either way,
mastering the present moment is the optimal solution.
So, for today's discussion,
we are staying firmly within the secular world.
Not from the perspective of a monk,
nor from that of a convert.
What I want to do is use the lens of cognitive science
to re-examine what cultivation actually means.
Let's break down two terms: 'Cultivating the Mind' and 'Practice.'
Cultivating the mind is internal;
it's the relationship you have with yourself.
Your internal monologue, your way of thinking,
and your first reaction to an event.
Most of the time, these aren't expressed;
others can't see them.
If you curse someone a hundred times in your head
while keeping a smile on your face,
then your mini-cultivation isn't there yet,
even if you've put on the outward show of 'practice.'
Practice is external;
it's how you speak and act toward others.
It's what you do daily, how you do it,
and your genuine response to stimuli.
When someone faces unfairness,
if their first reaction is curiosity rather than anger—
wondering, 'Why does this make me uncomfortable?'
"Who is this 'I' that feels uncomfortable?"
When you can ask yourself that,
the results of heart-cultivation naturally flow into your life practice.
That's why I believe heart-cultivation is the prerequisite for practice.
This is what Wang Yangming called the "Unity of Knowledge and Action."
You must know first
before you can act.
But the problem is,
many people know but still can't do it.
One could read five hundred books on psychology,
understand all the theories,
yet still fly into a rage when things happen.
Have you seen this phenomenon in yourself?
Let me interject here.
Broadly speaking,
mental activity is also a form of behavior.
So when we talk about "practice" in a social context,
it actually includes heart-cultivation.
It's just that in today's video,
I want to isolate and break down heart-cultivation as the internal effort.
Back to the topic:
What is the gap between knowing and acting?
It's heart-cultivation.
More accurately,
it's the rewriting of your cognitive model.
"Cognitive model" sounds very academic,
but think of it as the operating system running in your brain.
When you encounter an event,
your brain calls a default program to handle it in milliseconds.
First, it labels:
"Is this person good or bad?"
"Is this fair or unfair?"
Then, it attributes cause:
"Why did they do this?"
"Is it a personal attack?"
Next, it generates emotion:
Anger, resentment, disdain, or fear.
Finally, it outputs behavior:
Arguing, silence, avoidance, or posting on social media.
Note that
this whole chain is almost fully automatic.
You think you're making a choice,
but you're actually executing a default program.
Your behavior isn't a decision made after thinking;
it's the automated output of your cognitive OS.
We used a metaphor when discussing karma before:
Practice is using consciousness itself as an optimizer
to perform directional fine-tuning on your base model.
A normal person's model updates automatically.
Every unconscious reaction
and every knee-jerk emotion
is automatically writing parameters into the system.
You don't know you're writing,
nor do you know what's being written.
This is "Avidya" (Ignorance).
It's not about not knowing how the world works,
but not knowing that you are running on autopilot.
So what is heart-cultivation doing?
It's the act of switching from auto-tuning to manual fine-tuning.
It doesn't just change a specific behavior;
it changes the underlying program that drives all behaviors.
The starting point of this switch is one act: Awareness.
You must first see the default programs running
to have a chance to hit the pause button.
Like the observer effect in quantum mechanics,
the observation by consciousness determines the direction of quantum collapse.
At a macro level,
the awareness of a thought
determines the direction of behavior's collapse.
This process rewrites your local model parameters
and the personalized parameters of your cloud-based model.
In Buddhist terms, it's planting new seeds in your Alaya-vijnana.
However,
speaking of cognitive upgrades,
there’s a very important individual difference.
Some people have advanced operating systems to begin with.
They are naturally empathetic,
emotionally stable,
and don't get easily overwhelmed.
Such people don't need to tear everything down and start over.
What they need is continuous optimization,
patching errors,
and upgrading versions.
But some people have operating systems that are too outdated.
The underlying logic is built on scarcity and insecurity,
constructed around a victim narrative.
Every time they encounter stress,
the system crashes,
displaying a "blue screen of death."
For these people,
optimization isn't enough;
they need a complete reinstallation.
Everyone has a different inherent capacity,
and a different starting point.
So, whether it's optimization or reconstruction,
there is no standard answer;
it is entirely individual.
But in either case,
the core of mental cultivation is the same: observe your default programs,
then decide whether to keep letting them run on autopilot.
Now,
you might ask: if cultivating the mind is the prerequisite for practice,
isn't cultivating the mind alone enough?
Why bother with external practice?
Because if mental cultivation isn't grounded in action,
it is just a sophisticated form of self-consolation.
In your head, you feel you've transcended many attachments;
you feel you've seen through the nature of human relationships;
you feel you're no longer swayed by external judgments.
That's great.
But,
when your partner stabs you in the back,
when your child completely ignores every word you say,
when you are maliciously misinterpreted and attacked online—
can that cognitive model of yours,
the one that "sees through it all," still run?
Or will it instantly overload,
causing the system to freeze?
The secular world is the most honest stress test for your cognitive system.
No matter how steady you sit on a meditation cushion,
if you collapse the moment you get off it,
then you've cultivated the cushion,
not your mind.
That's why I'm increasingly leaning toward this conclusion:
Practice doesn't necessarily mean becoming a monk
or distancing yourself from the mundane world.
On the contrary,
the mundane world itself is the best temple.
Hiding in a monastery
might actually lead you further away from the Truth.
Because the world provides endless stimuli to test your system.
Your boss, your partner, your clients, your parents—
they are pushing test cases to you every day.
Whether your operating system has successfully upgraded
is revealed by your reactions.
To give a very small example:
You're cut off while driving.
What is your first reaction?
Is it to curse and honk your horn,
or do you have a passing thought:
"Oh,
he's in more of a hurry than I am,"
and then let it go?
The difference in that split-second thought
is the difference in your cognitive system's version number.
These tests happen dozens of times a day.
Someone says something uncomfortable in a WeChat group,
the delivery man leaves your package at the door,
your child fails a test again.
Each time, you are solving a problem,
and your answer is the report card of your practice.
Speaking of which,
I want to address a concern that has frequently appeared in the comments.
Will I become indifferent after practicing?
Several viewers mentioned that
after practicing mindfulness,
their state of mind has indeed stabilized,
but they feel more distant from their families.
A sense of not wanting to enter the other person's world arises.
Some even ask:
"Does practice make you lose your humanity?"
I think that's a brilliant question.
Because it touches on exactly where practice is most likely to go astray.
If you become emotionally insulated after practicing,
where the joys and sorrows of others no longer move you,
then you aren't cultivating your mind;
you are building a wall.
You haven't transcended emotion;
you've welded its entrance shut.
This isn't awakening;
it is numbness.
What does a truly refined state look like?
Let me share my own experience with you.
Three terms: inner-harmony, interpersonal-harmony, and world-harmony.
Inner-harmony
is when your relationship with yourself is right.
Your internal narrative is no longer self-contradictory.
You no longer scold yourself for not being good enough
while pretending you don't care.
You know who you are
and who you are not.
You don't need external validation for your identity.
You are comfortable being alone,
without needing phones, shows, or socializing to fill a void.
And when you are with others,
you are consistent inside and out.
You don't wrong yourself just to make others feel comfortable.
Interpersonal-harmony
is when your relationship with others is right.
People feel relaxed around you.
They can be themselves without a care in the world.
No need to worry about saying the wrong thing,
or dressing inappropriately,
or being bound by social etiquette.
Why?
Because you don't judge them.
You don't label people,
nor do you expect them to fit your mental model of how they "should" be.
A person who no longer pretends
allows those around them to drop their masks too.
This isn't some profound secret;
it's just the natural conduction of an energy field.
If you relax,
the air relaxes.
World-harmony
is when your relationship with the world is right.
A natural flow forms between you and your environment.
No resistance, no attachment.
In Buddhist terms, it's called "dwelling nowhere."
You do things,
but don't cling to the outcome.
You help people,
but don't require their gratitude.
You live,
but aren't held hostage by life itself.
You are open to the world.
Not because you don't care,
but because you care so much you don't need to prove it.
See?
These three levels of progression—
inner-harmony, interpersonal-harmony, world-harmony—
have nothing to do with whether you meditate.
Nor does it matter if you have taken religious vows.
It only relates to one thing:
What version your cognitive operating system has been upgraded to.
This is the state I pursue.
Through extensive theoretical study,
I treat Buddhism as philosophy,
and consciousness as cognitive science.
Combined with constant reflection on every aspect of life,
I slowly built my own cognitive operating system.
This system wasn't taken from any single sect.
It took bits from science,
bits from Buddhism,
and bits from philosophy.
Then I debugged it repeatedly in real life.
After running countless stress tests,
it gradually stabilized.
It's not perfect, of course;
it has plenty of bugs.
There are many default programs running in the background that I'm not even aware of.
But I think that's precisely the point.
This system doesn't need to be perfect;
it needs to stay open
and remain adaptable.
The moment you think your system is complete
and doesn't need further modification,
your spiritual practice stops.
Because you've formed a new attachment—
the attachment to being "good enough."
So my understanding now is that
practice isn't about reaching a destination;
it's about staying in a state of practicing.
Once a destination appears,
it becomes a new obstacle.
The Buddha spoke four words:
"Atta-dipa," meaning
"Be an island unto yourself,"
with the Dharma as your lamp.
I feel more and more that
this isn't a call to live in isolation
or to find a secluded place to seek enlightenment alone.
It means: ultimately, no one can do the work for you.
Even the best teacher can only point the way;
you have to walk the path yourself.
You have to fine-tune the system yourself.
A meditation mat can be a place of practice;
so can an office,
or a wet market.
The key isn't where you sit,
but whether your awareness is active.
So,
back to today's title: No meditation, no monkhood;
how can you say you're practicing?
My answer is:
If you consciously examine your cognitive models every day,
if you try to hit the pause button the moment an emotion arises
to see what that default program is actually doing,
and if you practice not labeling in every relationship,
then you are already practicing.
You aren't practicing for a next life;
you're practicing for this moment.
You aren't practicing to become a Buddha;
you're practicing to become a more transparent person.
Transparent enough that you no longer block the light.
But I also want to add honestly
that this path based on cognitive reconstruction
has an inherent limitation.
It's very good at helping you see clearly
what programs you are running.
But it might not necessarily tell you
who is running those programs.
Reason can help you dismantle many false frameworks,
but at the very end,
you'll find one person left who is doing the dismantling.
Who is that?
Is they a framework too?
If they are,
then who is dismantling them?
Maybe this is what the Buddha meant by "non-self."
This question—
I haven't figured it out yet.
Maybe I never will.
Maybe not figuring it out is itself an answer.
What do you think?
What was the starting point of your practice?
A book?
A person?
Or a total breakdown?
Let's talk in the comments.
I want to hear your stories.
I am Wang Lijie.
See you next time.