The First Method to Break away from the Troubles in This World (the Foundational Part)
The troubles in the world can be divided into several types:
1. You feel deprived and fearful because of failing to get certain things and relationships.
2. You want to change your destiny and change others, but you can’t, so you often live in the pain of hate and self-hatred.
3. When you have gotten some things and relationships that satisfy you, you find that such satisfaction doesn’t last long. Then, you go on to pursue new goals, and end up in a cycle of “seek but not find” things that will constantly satisfy you.
4. Sometimes you feel that you give too much to others, but you get too little and you can’t change anything, so you have to endure the situation exhaustedly.
5.Your fear of the future, illness and death.
In short, there are so many troubles in the world. I will not explain them one by one, for I am going to illustrate how to break away from them.
In order to break away from all the troubles in the world, you need to have a basic understanding, that is, you need to understand the answers to several mysteries in the world. These mysteries can be summarized as follows: how did this vast universe come about? What is the meaning of my life? Who am I? Where do I come from and where do I go? The answers to these questions are the basis for breaking away from all the troubles in the world. I won’t talk about how scientists and biologists answer these mysteries. I’ll directly go into the subject to illustrate the answers to these mysteries.
First of all, I will take you into an imaginary space with some words, so that you can begin to imagine with them:
We have all taken baths in a thermal basin, and there are many hot springs in the world. Firstly, you can imagine the feeling that you are soaked in an infinite hot spring. Such feeling must be very warm, comfortable and cozy. And then, you can further imagine, if you become a drop of water in the hot spring, what would you feel? You will feel the following points:
1. You, a drop of water, are integrated with the entire hot spring, and you are also integrated with an infinite number of other water drops. So, you will first feel that you are the hot spring.
2. You will feel completely safe, because this hot spring is infinite. The hot spring is infinite, so you know you will not leave the whole hot spring.
3. You will feel that you have nothing to ask for and nothing to want. Because there is nothing else to do for a drop of water. All you can do is simply enjoying the warmth and comfort of the entire hot spring.
These are some important feelings you have as a drop of water in the hot spring. Next, I will continue to personalize this drop of water. When this little water drop was experiencing the warmth and comfort of the hot spring in a carefree manner, an emergency situation suddenly appeared, which is that this little water drop had an idea in a moment, and this idea is similar to “what if I develop by myself outside the hot spring……”. With the emergence of this idea, this drop of water got into a kind of absent-minded state.
For the absent-minded state, I think everyone has experienced it. For example, when the students are in class, they are distracted while listening. For me, the narrator, I liked playing football in school. Sometimes I would have an idea in class, “how am I like if I am playing football in the field now?” Then, I would get into a fantasy space, imagining how I would play on the field, how I would dribble and shoot. Sometimes when my teacher saw that I was distracted, he would throw a chalk to my face, and then it dawned on me that I was in class and wasn’t playing football on the playground at all. Sometimes, because of hot weather, I would be distracted in class to imagine I was under the shade of trees to enjoy the coolness. I think you have had such mind wandering before, so I won’t explain it further. But the key point of mind wandering is as follows: no matter how absent-minded I was in class, I definitely didn’t leave the classroom.
It is true to this little water drop. When he came up with the thought of “what if I would develop myself outside of hot spring…”, he entered an absent-minded state, which led to a major change in his properties in the first place. Because the property of the water drop was pure experience and pure enjoyment. He had been experiencing the warmth and comfort of the hot spring. But when he was distracted by that little thought, a new thing appeared. This thing was intangible consciousness. The first cognition produced by this consciousness was “I, a water drop, have broken away from the hot spring”. At this point, when the water drop became distracted, his property changed from pure experience to consciousness, and the change also caused the water drop to lost all feelings in the hot spring in a flash. This is just similar to the example I just showed. When I was distracted in class, I was playing on the playground. I immediately lost the feeling of being in the class, which is true to the little drop of water.
However, after the first cognition, this water drop’s consciousness did not directly enter into any fantasy space, because the water drop only knew the existence of hot spring before wandering, and other things did not exist at all for him. So, when the water drop was distracted, he just stayed alone in a world with no room. And then, during that time, this intangible water drop’s consciousness produced the following thought: “how can I come out of this comfortable and safe hot spring? Can I really come out? How do I recall enjoying pure warmth and comfort in hot spring?” There are two sounds that came to the water drop’s consciousness:
1. I haven’t left the hot spring, and now it’s my delusion.
2. I have really got out of the hot spring and I can develop by myself.
After a battle of thought, this water drop’s consciousness finally chose the second sound and decided, “I have really got out of the hot spring and will develop by myself”. So far, the whole experience of the hot spring had become his memory.
Then, this intangible water drop’s consciousness kept recalling the warmth, comfort and safety he had felt in the hot spring, and he compared these feelings with his current lonely feeling. After the comparison, he found warm, comfortable and safe feelings were gone, which made the water drop’s consciousness produce a feeling it never had, that is, a sense of deprivation. As this kind of comparison was constantly made, the sense of deprivation of the water drop’s consciousness got greater and greater. Finally, because of the great sense of deprivation, he had the following fatal idea, which is similar to “look at what I have done, hot spring is so infinite, so warm and comfortable, and it well takes care of me, but I have silently got out of it; I have done something wrong”. At this point, the water drop’s consciousness realized that it was a big mistake for him to leave the hot spring, and the guilt and hatred were experienced by him.
Then, the water drop’s consciousness began to think, “the hot spring must know that I left without saying goodbye, so the hot spring must be very angry now, and he will certainly not let me off. The hot spring is so strong, so I cannot win him and will be caught by him sooner or later and destroyed by him. Then, I’d better run away! Run to a place without hot spring”. At this time, the water drop’s consciousness thought that it was a rebellion against the hot spring that he left the hot spring, so the water drop’s consciousness had the fear of revenge by the hot spring; finally he thought of escape because of this fear. The thought of the water drop’s consciousness is similar to that of the human world: “someone has been taking special care of me, caring me in every possible way, but I left him without a word. So, I let him down, and thoroughly offended him. And this guy will be furious with me for leaving. So I mustn’t get caught by him. If I am caught, he is going to kill me.
What is the truth? The truth is that the water drop does not leave the hot spring at all. It is only after his entering an absent-minded state that a series of false thoughts emerged. These false thoughts are only illusion. Moreover, the most interesting thing is that the little water drop mistakenly thought that he left the hot spring, but the hot spring is very clear that the little water drop does not leave him, so the hot spring still gives the little water drop warmth and comfort as usual. It’s just that this little water drop could not experience it after getting into a state of mind wandering.
Then, the most critical step began. This water drop’s consciousness that was guilt-ridden and fear-laden began to escape, and it deeply knew that there were two things to do in the process of escape. The first thing was that it should drive out its inner feeling of guilt in the process of escape, because fear came from its feeling of guilt; then only when the guilt was driven out could it live at ease. Just like people love to claim they are right and others are wrong when quarrelling, because only by putting sin and error on others can they live in peace of mind. The second thing was that it had to run to a place where there was no hot spring, and where there was no shadow of hot spring, so that it could completely forget the hot spring and got rid of the fear of being hunted by the hot spring.
In this way, when the water drop’s consciousness confirmed the two things to be completed, the earth-shaking escape drama was staged. In the moment of his escape, the intangible water drop’s consciousness simultaneously completed the following key things:
1.This intangible water drop’s consciousness designed and dreamt up a world that was completely contrary to the hot spring, because that it has escaped from the hot spring can be proved only if its characteristics were completely contrary to those of the hot spring. First of all, the characteristics of the hot spring were oneness, constancy, infinity, intangibleness, eternity, all-embracing warmth, lack of nothing, no opposition. The world designed by the water drop’s consciousness in an instant was just the opposite to the hot spring, which was characterized by individuality, change, peculiarity, image, time, separation, scarcity and binary opposition. When the water drop’s consciousness had designed these characteristics, it could instantly imagine the world. This kind of fantasy could be called projection of illusions, which was the same as entering a fantasy scene when one was distracted. So, what does this imagined world look like? The world had hundreds of billions of individual galaxies and an almost infinite number of individual bodies. The space composed of these hundreds of billions of individual and separate galaxies corresponds to the hot spring with oneness, and the nearly infinite number of individual bodies corresponds to the infinite number of water drops with oneness in the hot spring.
2.While projecting all the galaxies and all the bodies, the water drop’s consciousness expelled all the guilt within it into these galaxies and bodies. Moreover, the process of expelling sins and the process of projecting all galaxies and bodies were done simultaneously. This pattern of simultaneity and synchronicity could also be stated as: when the water drop’s consciousness drove out its internal guilt, this massive guilt was immediately and magically transformed into hundreds of billions of galaxies and almost infinite number of bodies.
3.When the water drop’s consciousness projected all galaxies and countless bodies, a more crucial step occured, that is, the water drop’s consciousness got into one body it had projected at the same time. This body was not different from others, but this body was the most critical tool for the water drop’s consciousness to drive the guilt out, because there was no difference between what was inside and what was outside for the intangible water drop’s consciousness; so, however it expelled sins, without an externality, it was impossible to drive what was within out. So it needed a body to completely differentiate what was inside from what was outside, and drive out the inner guilt, that is why it entered a body. Furthermore, the instant when it entered the body, this intangible water drop’s consciousness became a new consciousness, which was a self-consciousness. And the first cognition after the birth of the self-consciousness was “I am a new body, I am pure and innocent, what is inside my body is called the inner, what is outside my body is called the outer, and I live in a real universe”. The water drop’s consciousness finally used a body bound to a self-consciousness to drive all inner guilt out. At the same time, all guilt was magically transformed into a world whose characteristics were diametrically opposed to those of the hot spring, and this world was located outside the body that bound the self-consciousness. At last, the universe was born.
After the universe was born, the water drop’s consciousness that had become self-consciousness completely forgot the hot spring, and completely forgot that the universe was created by it, so that he still thinks he lives in a real universe; this person is you. Whoever you are, the one who has launched the universe is you who are reading this message right now.
The above information for the birth of the universe is a simpler version. In the following, I will tell who you really are, because you are certainly not a drop of water in the hot spring, it’s just a metaphor, but you can replace hot spring with a “place”; the characteristics of this “place” are oneness, intangibility, perfection, invariability, eternity, infinity, purity, integrity, richness, endless succession, all-embracing holy love, non-duality, pure unity. This “place” is your real home. And the real you are not a body; the real you are just an intangible and perfect spirit living in this home. Moreover, you, the perfect spirit, are inseparable from the home, and eternally enjoy the well-being and wealth of the whole home. It’s like a drop of water living in hot spring. And you are not alone in your home, because there is an infinite number of perfect spirits who are identical with you in the home, and they are all with you. It is similar to that a drop of water in hot spring coexists with countless other drops as a whole. That’s all the truth about you.
However, when you, the perfect spirit, are enjoying bliss in eternity, at some moment, comes up with an idea that “what if I could develop myself outside my home…” out of the blue, you, the prefect spirit enters a state of mind wandering. That state of mind wandering is like a small doze, entering a dreamland. Then, in the illusory dream, first you mistakenly think that you have left the blissful homeland and produce a great sense of deprivation, and then due to great guilt and fear, you project an incredibly large universe and live in it. This is all your truth. So, for the real you, you just dream of a universe space, dream of time, and dream of you being a body, dream of other bodies, dream of your birth and death, dream of your life. That’s all.
Then, I use two more examples of the human world to make a very simple illustration that the evidence for the pattern of universe’s birth can be found in the human world.
When you see a baby being born, do you think the baby is guilty? Absolutely not. Because he is a new body, he is innocent. So, every person who comes into this world is bound to the body of a baby, which can show that he is a pure and innocent life. This pattern is a repeated simulation that the self-consciousness binds the body and acquires innocence just as the moment of the universe’s birth.
You can also think about it, whether everyone in the world is constantly thinking in their lives that “I’m innocent. It’s your fault”. Everyone, even prison inmates, will think, “there’s a reason for what I’m doing, because of social issues, or family issues, or I am forced by someone, etc., so I am innocent”. Such thoughts are common because they are the constant repetitions of “driving guilt out” at the moment of the birth of the universe.
So the pattern and connotation of the universe’s birth have never disappeared in the human world, only appear in different forms. Especially in the field of human relations, if you can carefully observe the conflict in human relations, you will find that the troubles in the world are nothing but expelling sins to each other. That’s all. Because no one wants to feel guilty, and everyone wants to live purely and innocently.
I use hot spring and water drop as metaphor to simply illustrate the process of the birth of the universe and who you are. This brief introduction is just a stepping-stone for your learning. If you are willing to continue to learn the methods of breaking away from all the troubles, you can read the next required reading message “methods to be released from the troubles (basic in-depth part)”. In the next part, I will use orthodox language to explain the emergence of the universe and your truth in depth.
In the end, I will simply explain how religious category connects the information of this part. If you are a Christian, you can replace ‘the hot spring’ with ‘the Christian paradise’; if you are a Muslim, you can replace ‘the hot spring’ with ‘the paradise of Islam’; Judaists can replace ‘ the hot spring’ by the intangible ‘true god’. There is no accurate word in Buddhism for that concept. If you are a Buddhist, you can replace the hot spring with ‘parinibbana’. There is a Brahma in Hinduism, which can replace ‘the hot spring’. I won’t demonstrate other religions. Because, these religious words actually indicate the same “place” and the same “enlightenment”.
Chong Weiqiang
May 2017