In our lifetime, we always feel being hurt; sadness and pain are torturing us. We are depressed and angry; we grumble at or hate others. Sometimes we feel so disappointed at life and we are in deep despair. Many times, we feel hurt and cannot smile, and we feel very blue, we want to quarrel, fight, and we are resistant; we even think of ending our lives.

Interpersonal relationships are difficult. We always feel deeply hurt just because of one inappropriate word, action, face expression, behaviour, request or arrangement. And therefore we worry and are depressed; we do not have appetite for food and cannot sleep at night. 

All hurt, whether is mental or spiritual, the root cause lies not in the outside; it lies in ourselves. The core reason is because we put too much focus on ourselves; we have very high self-esteem and vanity; we want to preserve our dignity and face, and we are too much attached to the values and world view which we think are “right”.

There is a saying in Tao Te Ching, "We have fears because we have a self, when we do not regard that self as self, what have we to fear?" Because we have "self", and put it in the foremost position, this "self" is easy to get hurt, if we do not have "self", where does the hurt come from? People always say "One who does not want anything can get well with anybody; one who does not drink would not care how expensive the wine is". If our "self" has no requests and desires, we will feel happy anywhere, in any situations and will have good relationship with people. As long as our "self" has desires and want to hold or preserve something, we will get hurt.

Therefore, Lao Tzu taught us to be “no action”, and “no fight”, “Because he does not contend, no one in the world can contend against him”. And Buddha Sakyamuni taught us to “free from ego and form”. We need to be in a state that “our mind does not reside on anything” and “carefree”. If we do not have “self”, we see peace everywhere; if we have “self”, there are many obstacles on the way.

Without “self”, we get Self; with “self”, we lose Self. If we value ourselves too much, and put too much weight on our dignity, vanity and our own feeling, and we love ourselves too much, we will be very easily to get frustrated and encounter setbacks.

We are already blessed to be a Chanyuan Celestial, we are blessed to live in the Second Home, and we are blessed to walk on the way to Thousand-year world, Ten-thousand-year world and Elysium world, what else are we not willing to let go? Are those not enough? What else should we fight for?

Give up our selves, let it go; let also go our “opinions” and “viewpoints”, we will see a beautiful scene before us. As long as we let the “self” go, our heart will never get hurt.

Please be reminded that if you always get hurt, that means you still have a long way to go, and you still do not understand the meaning of life and LIFE. That also means that you are not enlightened yet, and you have not stepped on the road to heaven; if you always get hurt, you will never accomplish the best result of self-cultivation, and you will never be eligible to enter heaven.

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