Lin Zexu's Ten Reminders

We have just mentioned what principles should be followed, that is, taking morality as the principle. What attitude should we take in dealing with things? Just now, we also mentioned that "we don't want success, but we want nothing". Try your best to do things well at all times, and you can't take credit or be self-righteous. It is also mentioned that "only ask about cultivation, don't ask about harvest". As long as we work hard in the right direction and have good reasons to plant, it will come naturally, and we don't have to worry about suffering. Some people also mentioned that "we can't do whatever we want, but we can't be ashamed of our heart", so no matter what our fate is, we will try our best to do it, but with the accumulation of experience, we should judge our fate with wisdom, not climb higher, but follow it, and fate is the best point. If you make a trine, you make a trine.

Well, I just mentioned the process of Mr. Lin Zexu standing in the street all his life. He realized that there are ten things you should do fundamentally in life. If you start from the end of the branch, you may be busy. Therefore, he mentioned that "ten things are useless" in his teachings, and he should fundamentally implement ten things. The first point has been mentioned in the course just now.

"Parents are unfilial and it is useless to serve God". The sages taught us that the most important thing is to be filial. Confucius also said that "filial piety is the foundation of virtue, and what is taught is also born." Therefore, practicing filial piety is a good disciple of true sages, and it is also possible to "achieve a hundred blessings and gather thousands of auspicious things" because of doing good deeds and accumulating virtue. This is the first one. Therefore, if even parents are unfilial, even if it is useless to incense three times a day, the gods will not bless them.

Second, "it's useless to make friends if brothers don't get along." Brothers and sisters quarrel at home, they don't know how to help others, and they don't know how to care for others. Therefore, once they go out to make friends, it is difficult for them to get along with others. Therefore, the key point of children's lifelong behavioral ability lies in family education. When we can practice filial piety, it is also the basis of a person's "benevolence" and a foundation of benevolence.

The third teaching of "ten uselessness" is "bad intentions, feng shui is useless." We say that if there are many natural and man-made disasters in the times, people like fortune telling. Let's see what will happen this year and see if the fortune is good in recent years. Will it get better after fortune telling? A lot of people are not so good. Once they calculated that the fortune teller said that you would have bad luck this year, and he thought that I might have bad luck tomorrow every day. Since then, he has been on tenterhooks every day. Therefore, a truly virtuous person will never make you nervous when giving you advice. He will definitely tell you how to change your destiny and how to eliminate disasters. He will surely tell you the truth. This is the real concern for you. Therefore, a person's fate is really in his own hands. There is a saying in The Book of Songs, "Always match your whole life and seek more blessings", so you have a kind heart and a harmonious family atmosphere, so your feng shui must be good. You know how to care about your colleagues everywhere in the group, and the working atmosphere of your colleagues is also very harmonious, so the atmosphere and feng shui of your company are also very good. So where does Mr. Lin Zexu point out the root of Feng Shui? Your intentions. If you have bad intentions, even if your home is a dragon cave, it will become a rat cave after three years. Can you believe it?

Because the whole external substance is changing with people's heart, when a person is very caring and loving for nature, the flowers he grows will bloom particularly well. And when he can stand on the street everywhere and care about the village, the atmosphere in his village will get better and change day by day, so Feng Shui is alive, not dead. Therefore, the root of Feng Shui lies in everyone's heart. Don't attract each other. Don't think that those two lions were erected. Feng shui, I will be fine. This is called giving up the basics and chasing the end. I still have a heart. I'm still accumulating virtue.

Ok, let's do it again. "It's no use studying if you don't behave properly." A child is rude to others, has no rules and the room is in a mess. Even if he recites more classics, is it useless? It's useless. It doesn't correspond. So although I watched "I am a younger brother", I didn't salute my elders or take the initiative to let them sit first. This made him disrespectful. If he doesn't respect, the book he reads is useless. And not only useless, but also harmful. What are the disadvantages? Disciples' Rules came out a little and said, "Don't practice, study literature." He didn't practice, but he learned the classics, and "what will you become if you are flashy?" One of our students didn't start with Disciples' Rules. He memorized The Analects of Confucius by heart. Once, his mother scolded him for what he had done. He said to his mother, "Why are you talking about me? Do you have the gentleness, kindness, courtesy, thrift and tolerance of Confucius? You see, he can use sentences against adults. He doesn't use sentences to reflect on himself. So we teach children to understand that the classics of sages are not to be recited, but to be recited one by one. When he really does it, when he really forms a respectful heart, then his heart will correspond to the classics, and he will benefit from reading one sentence, so that he will benefit from reading.

Again, "it's useless to be arrogant and knowledgeable." If a person is arrogant, the more he learns, the more he looks down on others. Therefore, the divorce rate with high academic qualifications is the highest now. Because they don't know how to sympathize with the feelings and needs of others, they just think that I have read so many books and I am better than you, so I really can't be proud. Arrogance is bound to run counter to learning. Because he studied the knowledge of asking questions, not China's way of being a saint, which can only be deepened and broadened by people who really practice, so as long as he doesn't stand on the way, he will be arrogant. Therefore, we should not be happy that children can recite a lot of things. We must carefully check whether they have been implemented and whether they have become more humble with reading. This is real learning. So these two sentences are two reminders that Mr. Lin Zexu is very important to study.

Then let's move on, "It's no use being smart if you are perverse." If we don't abide by morality, if we don't abide by rules and regulations, if we just use our intelligence indiscriminately, we will definitely screw things up. As the saying goes, "Fiona Fang can't be made without rules". Nowadays, people like to do what they want, thinking that their ideas and concepts can surpass those of ancient people, and they often suffer. Because the procedure of doing things between heaven and earth will not change because of time and space, we must first accept the teachings of sages with an open mind and let go of our own ideas and opinions, so that you can quickly master the procedure of doing things, so it is also very important. Put down your knowledge first, and don't be smart.

Again, "it's no use asking for trouble if you are unlucky." When fortune fails, if you persist in doing it, you will be tired to yourself and others. We say that we should judge the situation and follow the trend, so when the fortune has not yet arrived, you should enrich yourself and wait for the opportunity, so this is very important. If you think it is important every day, you must do it quickly and worry every day. As a result, the opportunity really came, and you said that I was not competent enough. It's too bad, hurry up and enrich yourself before luck comes. We say, "Being rich is good for the world, and being poor is good for the world." This is not to say that you don't have the heart to do a good job in this world, but that your luck has not yet arrived, so you should do a good job at this time, and when the opportunity comes, you will do a good job in this world immediately. This is to grasp the season and reason to do things.

Again, "it's no use taking other people's money." If we get wealth by illegal means, even if you take money to help others and save others, is it no use? It's no use, because you made a wrong demonstration, you gained wealth by illegal means, and you set the worst example for society. Therefore, real people should be rational about wealth and know that wealth is the result of their own spending, so as to achieve "a gentleman loves money and takes it wisely." Good, so in terms of wealth, we should also pay attention to the reasons for planting wealth and giving it away. So what we are talking about here is doing things, observing the timing and season, and talking about financial management.

The last one is to warn us to protect our health, because health is the foundation of a person's life career, so it is useless to take medicine at all costs. Is it useless to take more medicine? It is useless, therefore, one's life should be limited. You shouldn't often stay up late. Sometimes you should eat a lot of food, and sometimes you shouldn't. This will seriously damage your health, and it will be too late to buy expensive medicine.

Finally, "evil desires are useless" and "evil" refers to yin virtue. If a person is lustful and then behaves badly, it is useless to indulge his desires. Even if his ancestors have accumulated a lot of virtues, disaster will come sooner or later. Therefore, while seeing this side, we should also observe that future generations should be virtuous, so as not to catch these bad habits. So you should not only accumulate virtues, but also set a best example for future generations. This is Mr. Lin Zexu's ten-point reminder of our life, which is called "Ten Useless".

There are many ways to do things. In fact, I believe that everyone's life experience can tell several ways to do things, so we can write it down with everyone's life experience without standard answers. If you have good experience, welcome to learn from me. You can tell me your good experience, and I can tell your experience to more people.