The Eight Guidelines, Eight Mysteries, Eight Heavenly Secrets, and Eight Bewilderments of Life — Internal Reference¶
Overview: This entry brings together four sets of "eights" — Xuefeng's most systematic frameworks for understanding the laws of life. The Eight Guidelines provide eight principles every life journey must follow. The Eight Mysteries are eight hidden operational secrets one can actively apply. The Eight Heavenly Secrets reveal eight counter-intuitive laws of cosmic operation reflected in human life. The Eight Bewilderments diagnose the eight states of confusion that most people fall into. All four frameworks point toward the same conclusion: those who know and follow these laws travel a bright road; those who do not suffer needlessly.
I. The Eight Guidelines of Life¶
"Life is LIFE's journey through the human world… No matter whether we travel under clear skies on an open plain, or struggle through muddy mountain gullies in changing weather, we must continue the journey. To make life rich and colorful and arrive safely at the ideal destination, we must always remember and follow the Eight Guidelines of Life."
1. Trust in the Greatest Creator: "The Greatest Creator is the source of our wisdom, strength, and courage — the tranquilizer that keeps us clear, calm, and at peace, the signpost and lighthouse that enables us to overcome all difficulties and continue forward. Without the Greatest Creator, our life journey is blind and disorderly, and we cannot reach our ideal destination."
2. Diligence and Creation: "Diligence is the main passage out of hardship. Creation is the main source of joy. Laziness and indulgence are the narcotics that destroy life. Whether we are distressed by adversity or elated by good fortune, we must always clearly maintain diligence and active creation. Only then will the road of life grow ever wider and more level."
3. Respect for Elders and Care for the Young: "When a person rectifies body and mind, true essence and true spirit take up residence within — and great talent and virtue emerge. Honoring parents, respecting teachers, caring for the young, and getting along harmoniously with neighbors are the basic qualities of being human, and the foundation for building a fine life. Living is living among people. If our existence brings joy to others, our roots go deep; the root established, the Way arises, and we can stand tall beneath heaven."
4. Maintaining Balance: "Do not go to extremes in anything; do not become obsessed with anything. In this way, one can maintain a tranquil mind and avoid spiritual confusion. Move with the situation, move with conditions, move with one's nature, act with the moment. Advance when you can, hold steady when you must. No wayward conduct; do not play the hero at the tip of the wave; do not push things to the breaking point."
5. Independence and Self-Reliance: "No matter how great the temptation, rely on yourself in all things. Do not join religious organizations, political parties, gang systems, or cultivation practice groups. Do not bind yourself to another's chariot. You may build wide friendships with good teachers and helpful friends, but always remain collegial without becoming partisan. Keep hold of your own destiny; do not suppress your own character to please others. Always remain clear-headed."
6. No Seeking of the Extraordinary: "What the Greatest Creator has given us is already sufficient. Keep an ordinary heart; do well the ordinary tasks of daily life. Do not seek special powers; do not seek conversation with deities; do not seek spiritual channeling; do not seek extraordinary abilities; do not seek to open meridians or refine pills; do not seek to become a celebrity or a tycoon. Stay away from mystical and superstitious people and affairs. When it is time to sleep, sleep; when it is time to eat, eat."
7. Forgiving Oneself: "There are no perfect things in this world, and no perfect people. We often make mistakes, unintentionally doing things that harm others. We often regret ourselves, often feel incompetent, often become despondent, often beat ourselves up. I want to say: forgive yourself more often. Pray to the Greatest Creator for forgiveness; shift direction promptly; liberate yourself at any moment."
8. Holding Dreams: "Adopt a positive attitude and think more about beautiful things — think of beautiful things until they make you laugh at yourself. Why not? Thinking of beautiful things harms no one and belongs to the negative-universe realm. 'The sky is vast for birds to fly; the sea is wide for fish to leap.' Often ride up on colored clouds, travel to the celestial realms with beloved ones, roam the mountains and rivers with the celestial beings, create your own beautiful heart-image world, and reward yourself fully."
"These are the Eight Guidelines of Life. Follow them, and the journey of life will be filled with fair weather and beautiful scenery without limit." (Xuefeng Corpus · Soul Chapter · The Eight Guidelines of Life, 2007-4-29)
II. The Eight Mysteries of Life¶
1. In Moments of Extreme Danger, Call on the Greatest Creator: "The one closest to us is not another person — it is the Greatest Creator. The universe is holographic; antimatter operates at extreme speed. When you face life-threatening danger, simply call to the Greatest Creator for help, and a miracle can happen."
2. Saying 'No' Can Prevent Disaster: "On the journey of life, the mind often presents scenarios of calamity or makes negative, pessimistic judgments about the future. If unchecked, things will move in the direction imagined or judged. The moment such an imagination or judgment arises, quickly say 'No!' — and you can turn the tide and resolve the crisis."
3. Feeling Is More Reliable Than Wisdom: "When analyzing any situation or imminent event through wisdom — analyzing, summarizing, judging — it is easy to reach wrong conclusions. Feeling is more accurate, because feeling is the body's complete and natural response to surrounding things and imminent events. The best approach is to rely on feeling: if it feels good, it is good; if it does not feel good, it is not good."
4. Capture the First Information Stimulus: "When we first encounter a person or thing, that person or thing unconsciously sends out information about its own state through posture, movement, expression, and breath. This information is highly accurate. Capture it and hold it firmly in memory. If the first information stimulus feels bad, then that person or thing will always be unfavorable to you — no matter how sweet their words or how solemn their vows. If the first stimulus feels comfortable and reassuring, then you can rest easy: that person or thing will always be beneficial to you, no matter if they look at you coldly or even attack you rudely."
5. Repentance Can Dissolve Karmic Consequence: "Karma is an iron law. As you sow, so shall you reap. Plant good causes, reap good fruit; plant bad causes, reap bad fruit. If you have harmed another person, animal, or plant, an equivalent harm will descend on you at some unknown time in some unknown way — there is no escaping or evading it. But is there a way to stop that bad consequence from arriving? Yes! It is repentance. Repentance to the Lord — to the Buddha, to the Greatest Creator! Seeds germinate, grow, bloom, and bear fruit. If you do not want them to bloom and bear fruit, pull them up and root them out. This is precisely what repentance does."
6. In Vagueness and Trance, True Feeling and True Way Are Found: "Illusion and false appearance fill the universe; we live a lifetime within them without knowing true feeling, true love, or the true Way. To gain the true, one must be in a state of vagueness and trance — in dimness, in a daze, in semi-consciousness, in the absence of all logical thinking, in the loss of self. Only then can one catch the true message. The Chanyuan Corpus and Xuefeng Corpus were not written in a state of extreme mental clarity, but arose spontaneously in a state of vagueness and trance."
7. The Ethereal-Spiritual-Beautiful Is Inexhaustibly Wondrous: "Life's peak experiences and the realm of supreme bliss are found in the ethereal-spiritual-beautiful state. It is the realm of elysian bliss, inexhaustibly wondrous — a state of non-consciousness. To enjoy it, one must enter the ethereal-spiritual-beautiful state. In this state, one unites with the Way, Heaven and humanity resonate, and it is supremely beautiful. How to enter this state? This is the mystery within all mysteries."
8. Regularly Reading the Wordless Scripture Allows Direct Dialogue with the Greatest Creator: "What is Chan? The Wordless Scripture is Chan. What is participating in Chan? The process of reading the Wordless Scripture is participating in Chan. What is the Wordless Scripture? All things, all phenomena, are the Wordless Scripture. The Wordless Scripture is 'written' by the Greatest Creator. Those who can read and understand it can engage in direct dialogue with the Greatest Creator." (Chanyuan Corpus · Treasury of Life's Wisdom · The Eight Mysteries of Life, 2011-11-12)
III. The Eight Heavenly Secrets of Life¶
1. The more you give, the more you receive: "This is the iron law produced by the cosmic law that the sum of positive and negative energy equals zero. Conversely, the more you receive, the less fortune remains."
2. The uglier the soul, the more suffering: "This is a reflection of the cosmic karmic mechanism: if a person experiences much worry and much suffering in life, it proves that person's soul is ugly."
3. The more beautiful the structure, the more beautiful the appearance: "This reflects the principle of body, form, and function in the Way: the more perfect LIFE's structure, the more beautiful its outward manifestation; the more flaws in LIFE's structure, the uglier the appearance."
4. The more words spoken, the greater the damage: "Except for divine beings, celestials, buddhas, and sages, the more a person speaks — including writing — the greater the harm caused to others and oneself. Speaking much and writing much is not a sign of rich knowledge or high wisdom; it is a mark of shallowness."
5. The more beautiful the soul, the more beautiful the future: "This reflects the law of attraction. Those with beautiful souls always stand on the side of the positive, constructive, optimistic, and luminous in their thoughts and words and deeds, and so they attract beautiful things. Those with ugly souls always stand on the side of the negative, destructive, pessimistic, and dark, and so trouble, misfortune, suffering, and disaster always accompany them."
6. The more you possess, the more worry you have: "This reflects the cosmic mechanism of symmetry and balance. A tiger cannot grow wings on its back. The more you possess, the less it can bring you happiness. The Taiji principle tells us that contradiction is a unity of opposites: any thing inevitably has its opposite accompanying it like a shadow."
7. The stronger the ego-clinging, the farther from the Way: "The person who always thinks they are right is the one farthest from the Way. The more a person clings to their own views and opinions, the less they understand the truth. The more a person engages in argument and debate, the more muddled and unclear their thinking."
8. The more you seek shortcuts, the longer the road: "This is determined by the justice of the Way. No LIFE can obtain anything for nothing. Everything must proceed strictly according to the operating mechanism of the Way. Anything that violates the Way's mechanism will inevitably be constrained or even punished. The more one seeks shortcuts, the farther one strays from the goal — and very serious mistakes can easily result." (Chanyuan Corpus · Treasury of Life's Wisdom · Eight Heavenly Secrets Concerning Life, 2011-11-11)
IV. The Eight Bewilderments of Life¶
"Countless calamities in life arise because the mind was bewildered at the time. What was actually a simple matter — if one had only been a little careful, taken a moment to assess the situation before acting — the calamity would not have happened."
1. Affairs Bewilderment: "Many things that need not be done at all are done under some inexplicable compulsion. For instance: life is going smoothly, the daily routine is pleasant and comfortable — yet one must make a name and make a grand career. This brings not only busyness but a whole chain of complicated affairs that allow no leisure or peace, and worry and suffering follow one after another."
2. Direction Bewilderment: "That is, losing one's way — when one should go left, one goes right; when one should go south, one goes north. After much turmoil — half a day, half a year, or half a lifetime — one has no choice but to turn back."
3. Emotional Bewilderment: "'What is this thing called love, that it makes life and death seem a small price to pay?' Caught in the net of love, dying for love, rushing through fire and water for love — in truth, it is not worth it. There is beautiful grass everywhere under the sky. To be trapped by love is to have no ease and no grace. All who are love-obsessed were bewildered at the time — why not simply move with conditions?"
4. Life Bewilderment: "Why did we come into life? What are we here for? Is it not just one cycle of reincarnation — a trip to an unfamiliar place, like a journey to a distant land? What is there worth clinging to so desperately? The meaning of life lies in joy, happiness, freedom, and bliss. Everything else must closely orbit that meaning. Yet we are always pursuing this and pursuing that, busy and exhausted all our lives trying to possess something — only to leave it all behind with empty hands. Knowing the ending, we remain infatuated anyway. This is one of life's great bewilderments."
5. Kinship Bewilderment: "The web of kinship relations built on blood ties — and later the vast network of relations woven around marriage — keeps people toiling their whole lives as if for the sake of kinship alone. How exhausted people are. Humans are practically slaves to kinship. Those who place kinship at the center of their lives are burdened and trapped by it, miss a vast domain of life, and miss the opportunity to become a celestial being."
6. Marriage Bewilderment: "'In the Kingdom of Heaven, people neither marry nor are given in marriage.' Once married, one has moved away from Heaven. Marriage brings endless worry and suffering. Yet people willingly jump into the pit of marriage and family, cannot be stopped or held back. Once married, 'the sea of bitterness has no shore.' Thousands of years of human history have shown plainly and clearly that entering marriage and family leads inevitably to tragedy — yet people are bewildered by marriage and cannot awaken. Marriage bewilderment is coma."
7. Ambition Bewilderment: "In truth, the most beautiful and happiest people are those who can remain ordinary and plain. Yet people refuse to accept the ordinary, and insist on making a name, attaining high position, becoming wealthy, wielding power, becoming a hero. All the striving and toiling for ambition ends in nothing but a dream. Those bewildered by ambition miss the chance to observe a blade of grass and miss the good fortune of appreciating a clear moonlit night. It looks splendid; it is actually tragic."
8. Intelligence Bewilderment: "Many people feel they are wiser and more experienced than their companions — but from the celestials' perspective, even the wisest human being is still just a human being, pitiably ignorant. Every person feels their own choices and decisions are correct. This is intelligence bewilderment — how sad, how pitiful, how lamentable."
"Beyond these eight — affairs, direction, emotion, life, kinship, marriage, ambition, and intelligence — there are lesser bewilderments: lust bewilderment, wealth bewilderment, official-rank bewilderment, career bewilderment, and others. The vast majority of people are muddled in these, like sleepwalkers, like someone who has been drugged — unaware that they are already deep in the maze of bewilderment."
"In truth, people only need to be a little careful, give themselves a little time to assess before they act — and they will find their way out of bewilderment and avoid countless misfortunes, suffering, disasters, and regrets." (Xuefeng Corpus · Soul Chapter · The Eight Bewilderments of Life, 2011-06-07)
Related Entries¶
Outlook on Life and Values · Value, Meaning and Purpose of Life · Repentance · Ego-Clinging · Self-Coherence · Letting Go · Karma, Retribution & Reincarnation