Hi Aleah

I’m so glad that you managed to work through these difficulties and get to a place where you are confident in your self-worth! Congratulations.🩵

You offer a lot of insight and good advice! I’m sure that you’ll shine a light and give hope to many others. 🩵

Hi Tommy

Very true! It is important for me to work on that. 🩵

Not at all. You made me smile. I appreciate when people are frank with their thoughts. It takes the guess work out of it. 😄

Possibly they felt because he had bothered to teach it at all, it had merit? Perhaps for a monk the hardest attachment to overcome might be Buddhas own words? 🩵

Dear Anita

Wow actively silenced around others. I’m so sorry. There are no words to describe the enforced cruelty you endured. 🤍

I’m so glad that you managed to overcome this enforced silence your mother imposed. It truly shows your strength and commitment to healing from your trauma. Learning to trust people after all of this is entirely down to your good nature and hard work. I say hard work, because it must not have been an easy journey. 🤍

Please feel free to express anything! And of course you are welcome to write in my threads too. 🤍

Thank you for your kindness! It means a lot. I really do try my best. 🤍

Hi Roberta

I left a message, it’s awaiting moderation because there was a link in it.

I forgot to add because I just came back from a walk. I’m sorry to hear that your father was/is in hospital. Do you think he will be coming out again? Or is it long term at this point? 🩵

Sorry for bringing it up if you don’t want to talk about it. 🩵

Hi Peter

Thank you for this lovely thread. 🩵

I hope it’s okay if I share a story from a Daoist text. It is one of my favourites and came to mind reading your thread. It took me a while to find it. 🩵

There was a man of the Fan clan named Zihua who supported so many private mercenaries that the whole country submitted to him. He was a favorite of the ruler of Jin, and his status was higher than the top ministers of state even though he held no office. Anyone he regarded specially would be given a title by the state of Jin; anyone he particularly disdained would be banished by the state of Jin. Those who flocked to his mansion were as numerous as attendees at court.

Zihua had his mercenaries attack each other in battles of wits and strive to overcome each other in contests of strength. Even if they were wounded right before his eyes, he didn’t care. They sported like this all day and night, to the point where it had almost become a custom of the country.

Hesheng and Zibo were top henchmen of the Fan clan. Going on a trip, they passed through a remote area where they lodged at the house of a farmer, Shang Qiukai. During the night, Hesheng and Zibo were talking about the prestige and influence of Zihua, who could cause the thriving to perish and the lost to survive, impoverish the rich and enrich the poor.

Now Shang Qiukai, who had all along suffered hunger and cold, overhead this. Inspired, he borrowed some provisions, loaded them in a
basket, and went to the estate of Zihua.

Zihua’s hangers-on were all hereditary aristocrats; they dressed in silk, rode in fancy chariots, swaggered around gazing into the distance. When they saw how old and decrepit Shang Qiukai was, his face burnt black and his clothes unkempt, they all looked down on him. They treated him with contempt, playing tricks on him, knocking and shoving him around, doing as they pleased.

Through all this, Shang Qiukai never showed any sign of anger. Eventually the hangers-on ran out of tricks and got tired of making fun of him. Finally they took him up in a high tower, where someone claimed that anyone who jumped off would get a reward of a hundred pieces of gold. They all scrambled as if to respond, so Shang Qiukai thought it was true and jumped before anyone else could. Like a bird in flight, he floated to the ground, with no injury to skin and bones.

The Fan clan’s gang thought this was accidental, and didn’t make much of it. In the same vein, they pointed out a wild river bend and said, “There’s a valuable pearl down there; if you can swim, you can get it.” Going along once again, Shang Qiukai plunged into the rapids. When he emerged, he actually had found a pearl down there. Now the gang began to wonder. For the first time Zihua admitted him to the ranks of those who ate
meat and wore silk.

Before long, a fire broke out in the Fan family storehouse. Zihua declared, “Anyone who can go into the fire and get the silks out will be rewarded according to how much he retrieves.” Shang Qiukai went in calmly, going back and forth in and out of the fire without getting sooty or being burned. The Fan clan gang thought he must be a master of the Tao, so they made a collective apology: “We played tricks on you, not knowing you were a master of the Tao; we abused you, not knowing you were a spiritual person. You must think us fools! You must think us deaf and blind! May we ask, what is your Way?”

Shang Qiukai said, “I have no Way. I don’t even know my own mind. Even so, there is something to this. I’ll try to tell you what it is.
“Earlier two of your men lodged at my house, and I heard them praising the influence of the Fan clan, which could cause the thriving to perish or the lost to survive, impoverish the rich or enrich the poor. I took this to be true without a second thought, so I came regardless of the distance. Then when I got here, I thought everything your gang said was true, and my only fear was not to be able to take it seriously enough to carry it out successfully—I didn’t know what my physical body was doing, or where profit or harm were—I was completely single-minded. Things did not prove otherwise, as you can see; but now that I know your gang was fooling me, I’m suspicious within and on guard without; it’s a lucky thing, in retrospect, I wasn’t burned or drowned. I’m feverish with shock, shivering with fear! How could I get close to water or fire again?”

After this, whenever members of the Fan clan’s gang encountered beggars or horse doctors on the road, they didn’t dare abuse them; they’d always get down out of their chariots and salute them.

Zaiwo heard about this and told Confucius. Confucius said, “Didn’t you know? When people are completely sincere, that can affect things. It can move heaven and earth, influence ghosts and spirits, grant freedom in all ways, with no opposition, not just walking on dangerous precipices or plunging into water and fire. Shang Qiukai believed in falsehoods, and even then things did not betray him—how about if other and self are both truthful! Take note of this!”

Hi Peter

Thank you! That was very comforting and beautifully written as always. 🩵

I feel better about it all now. There are no answers, sometimes you just have to experience life. Worry, love, joy, pain and all! One day at a time. 🩵

Thanks again everyone! 🩵