Chapter 139: Cultivation Method
After much tossing and turning, the money in my hands was quickly gone. These past six months were wasted playing around, and the boy felt quite frustrated.
The two found new jobs again. This time, it was much better than the previous one, and very easy.
The boy wanted to ask Gouzi to come over too. Gouzi didn’t want to switch, saying he’d have to learn everything again in a new place, and wanted to just make do for now. The boy persuaded him twice, but couldn’t convince him. He’s so silly. The pay is about the same, the work is half as easy, it’s very idle, but he insists on doing that job that’s non-stop from morning to night.
Gouzi even worked diligently, entering the workshop to preheat the machines before five in the morning, then going back to rest until it was time to start work.
After working for a long time, he was recognized as an outstanding employee and received a few hundred yuan. The boy found it speechless. Working from dawn till dusk for so long, and only getting a reward of three to five hundred? What’s the point of putting so much effort into it?
It’s like the boy himself; he didn’t work like that either. Participating in activities and singing also earned him a few hundred yuan.
Actually, at the very beginning, the boy worked hard too. After working for half a year, he realized he was doing the most work, but getting the same salary as those doing the least. If he took a day or two off, he still earned more than them.
Moreover, the slowest people were helped by others. He was too intelligent and learned everything quickly, so he could only rely on himself.
Those people were also brainwashing the employees. Even though the salaries were the same, they constantly promoted how outstanding those who worked the most were, but they never got promoted or a raise, and remained ordinary employees.
He didn’t engage in social graces. He worked so hard, but only got a good feeling about himself.
What the heck! It’s like feeding a group of cows the same fodder, tricking them by telling them whoever works more is outstanding, and even making the cows feel smug, thinking they are truly amazing.
After starting work at the new factory, the boy and Wang Fei also had their squabbles, and there were indeed many generational gaps. What is a generational gap? It’s when you don’t understand what I’m saying, what you’re saying isn’t the same as what I’m saying, and we can’t connect in conversation. It can also be said that we’re not on the same channel.
For example, the boy is on the news channel, Wang Fei is on the sports channel. The boy is on the movie channel, and Wang Fei has gone to the children’s channel.
Who can understand this feeling? Hell, who can understand this?
The boy knows this is called a generational gap because when he was young, he understood it while chatting with his father. He talked with his father for a long time, and his father almost got angry before he realized that they were talking about the same thing, but it meant two different things. It wasn’t the same thing at all. And then they forced a conversation. It would be strange if they could understand each other!
Debt and the various pressures of life were making the boy feel so stifled that he was going crazy. Although his physical disability had improved a lot, it hadn’t fully reached the state he envisioned in his heart.
It can be said that he has experienced most of the suffering that many people go through. His parents are getting old, and not only has he not achieved anything, but he is also in debt, his relationships are painful, and he is physically disabled. Cough, cough, who else?
He usually didn’t talk about his past injuries or disabilities when he was at work, so no one noticed. It was also not apparent when he moved things.
He would only mention it when he had a very good relationship with his colleagues. But he did it intentionally, so that others wouldn’t assign him any high-altitude or too heavy work. It wasn’t that he was afraid of other things, but he was afraid of getting injured himself. If nothing happened, then fine. But if something happened, then the compensation for a second injury would likely be astronomical.
The boy was distressed and couldn’t sleep every day. He could only watch videos and play games to distract himself. But as soon as he put down his phone, his thoughts would surge like a tide. All the experiences of the past would reappear in his mind countless times. Unwillingness, grievance, sadness, anger, suffocation, hatred—emotions intertwined, making his mind a mess. His spirit was severely tormented.
This troubled him, making him physically and mentally exhausted. This exhaustion was not physical, but a mental fatigue that made his body feel tired as well.
He couldn’t control his thoughts. Even when he was at work during the day, he would think about one thing for a while, then another. When he thought about winning the lottery, oh, his heart would be overjoyed. Then he would think about his reality and all the things he had experienced, as well as his current situation, and fall back into the abyss. Suffering, difficulty, pain, annoyance.
Why is it that he has to experience all this? Why is it that everyone else is fine, and he has to go through these things? He hasn’t wronged anyone, so why is his life so miserable?
He realized that even though he wasn’t trying to think about anything, his thoughts would wander on their own. He didn’t understand, because he used to believe that the thoughts, ideas, and mind in his brain were him. How could they not listen and just run wild passively?
Isn’t this him? If it is him, why is it out of control? If thoughts and ideas belong to him, shouldn’t he be able to think whatever he wants and not think whatever he doesn’t want? Why does he automatically think about things when there’s nothing going on?
When bored, the boy would stumble upon videos about cultivation and listen for fun. He particularly enjoyed listening to two masters, one named Meng Can and the other Zhang Zhishun. Some of the principles were very similar to what he had thought before, so he listened to them whenever he had free time.
He doubted himself while pondering this question. One day, he heard a story that he had listened to countless times. Master Meng Can said, “Don’t look at those small animals and think they are different from you. They have a heart too. If you kill them, they will also hate you and be afraid.”
After hearing this, the boy was stunned. He recalled the cats and dogs he had raised, especially the pigs, and suddenly understood that what the master was saying was not just a story.
This is a cultivation method! What does it mean that small animals are different from you but have a heart? Doesn’t that mean that although their appearance is different, their inner selves are the same? Look, small animals also feel joy, anger, and fear. Aren’t these emotions all sourced from their hearts that can think!
Where do human emotions come from? People feel happy when they think of happy things, and sad when they think of sad things. Animals are the same. What’s the difference? Apart from different living habits and different things they think about, there’s no difference!
What about people and people? People look similar, but they think differently. Some people think a lot, some think less. Some people have low cognition, some have high cognition. Some people have habits like these, they like spicy food and drinking alcohol. Others prefer sweets and drinking tea, and so on.
When people have different cognitions and languages, they can’t communicate. So, if people and animals have different cognitions and languages, they can’t communicate. Isn’t that the same?
Animals trained by humans can understand human language, and can be taught to sit, run, jump, and eat. Apart from their different appearances and cognitions, their intelligence is no different from humans.
Some animals kept as pets will desperately save their owners in case of an accident. Some puppies will jump into the water to save someone they see falling in. Of course, there are also some bad ones that attack people indiscriminately.
On the other hand, some people are very kind and selfless, while others bully honest people.
Holy crap! Hell! What Master is teaching is not a story! Isn’t this a method to break through illusions! After knowing this, I look at animals! They are no different from people! And then I look at people and animals, and they are no different!
Since the story is not a story, what about the scriptures? The boy checked the Heart Sutra he had read before: Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, practicing deeply Prajna Paramita, perceives that the five aggregates are empty, and is free from all suffering. Sariputra, form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form, form is emptiness, emptiness is form; likewise, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness are also like this…
Holy cow! This is also a cultivation method! The Heart Sutra is actually the process of cultivating the mind.
He casually flipped through a few more books. Although he didn’t recognize some of the characters, he understood them. They were all written about the same thing: cultivation methods.
But how to cultivate? Even though he understood these things, he still didn’t know how to cultivate them. Understanding and being able to do it are two different things.
Every day, his mind revolved around this matter.
Someone said, “Buddha says: ‘Whatever you see, that is what you are. If you regard sentient beings as Buddhas, you yourself are a Buddha.'”
The boy truly did as he was told. He forcibly changed his cognition and acted entirely according to this sentence. He regarded all things as trials from Buddha. It was incredibly difficult at first. Who could do it instantly? Damn it. But he gritted his teeth and forced his thoughts to do it.
When others smiled at him, he saw a Bodhisattva in that person. When people argued with him at work, he took it as a test from a Bodhisattva to see if he would get angry or emotional.
He succeeded. After half a month, he saw it. He saw that everyone was living under a specific pattern, like robots, like puppets. Everyone was living according to this pattern, and even their thoughts were within this pattern.
The boy seemed to have fallen into a strange world. In this world, everyone was as if asleep. They were exactly like NPCs in a game. Even his girlfriend Wang Fei and his brother Gouzi were like this. All his family, friends, and strangers were the same. Everyone was trapped! Trapped by a pattern that only he could see!
