Feminine Beauty in Softness (Internal Reference)¶
This version compiles Guide Xuefeng's original texts without alteration, for deep study.
I. Definition: Softness as Ultimate Strength¶
Source: 800 New Era Concepts, 4th Edition, Concept 599
Women find beauty in softness. Softness overcomes hardness. Feminine softness is not weakness, not lack of conviction, not indiscriminate acceptance, not willingness to be bullied — on the contrary, feminine softness is the ultimate strength, strength contained within softness, like the gentle flow of water that can cleanse all impurity, pierce stone, and conquer everything.
II. Discernment: The Ugliness of Excess¶
Source: 800 New Era Concepts, 4th Edition, Concept 178
Men find beauty in strength; women find beauty in softness. A man who is excessively soft becomes ugly; a woman who is excessively hard becomes ugly.
III. Softness as the Primary Virtue of the Worthy Woman¶
Source: Xuefeng's Works · Chanyuan Chapter · All Worthy Women Reside in Chanyuan
The worthy woman has eight hallmarks: softness, diligence, elegance, kindness, learning and propriety, multifaceted charm, freedom from jealousy, and cultivation of refinement, self-improvement, and poise.
Look at a blooming flower — what the petals and stamens display is softness. All women of the Garden of Eden are soft. Through ten years of hardship they built thirteen picturesque homes, operated eight websites in Chinese and English, translated thousands of articles, spread articles a million times, compiled nearly three hundred essays, created nearly a hundred videos, ran three subscription platforms, planted nearly ten thousand trees, and completed countless daily tasks — this shows how diligent the women of the Garden are.
Ten years of a Chanyuan path that was winding and difficult, yet always luminous. A group of women who walked with equanimity, undisturbed by praise or blame, transcending the mundane, their grace undiminished — neither boastful nor despondent, neither arrogant nor resentful. In the mountains of Yunnan and Guizhou, on the wind-swept Gobi of Xinjiang, in the summer heat of Nanjing, in the foreign lands of Thailand and Canada, they created miracle after miracle. Knocked down countless times, they rose again with a serene smile. Ten years of giving without wages or bonuses, yet without complaint.
The depth in their eyes was filled with resolve toward their goal and longing for a beautiful life. Elegant in bearing, graceful in manner, they were so kind — pure, genuine, and sincere at heart — never harming life, never harming society, never harming others. Where they were, there was warmth and harmony, stillness and peace. Broken places they touched became ordered and clean. Gobi desert under their care became birdsong and fragrance. Children became well-behaved before them; men lost their belligerence and temper in their presence. Their kindness created the most harmonious scene in all the world.
Do not take them for naive or easily fooled — each one was learned and principled, transcendent and clear-eyed, fully aware of right and wrong in the world. They knew the changes of eras and the turning of ages. They dismissed insults from the vulgar and criticism from the common with a smile, simply choosing not to take offense. Money, power, fame, and lust held no sway over them. Perceptive and courteous, when they spoke it was like poetry, like music, like pearls on a jade tray.
IV. Softness as a Reason for Celestial Women's Eminence¶
Source: Xuefeng's Works · Warning Chapter · Heaven and Earth Reversed: Celestial Women Are Supreme
Eighth: Women are soft and gentle, loving peace and warmth, naturally kind and loving by temperament, their hearts wide and yielding and magnanimous — therefore they are to be honored.
V. Softness as Yielding Grace¶
Source: Other Writings of the Guide · 2007 · A Word to Qifeng
Women should find beauty in yielding grace. Competing to win is not the quality a Chanyuan Celestial should have.
VI. The Power of Softness — A Poem¶
Source: Xuefeng's Works · Poetry Chapter · The Atomic Bomb That Conquers Strong Men — Softness
The Atomic Bomb That Conquers Strong Men — Softness
Xuefeng
I am a man who rules with an iron hand and a decisive word, Wild-spirited, burning with ambition, fearing no mountain height or water's depth, Hacking through thorns, braving wild winds and bitter cold, sworn to scale the peaks of life and being, Bringing boundless light to shatter endless darkness. But heaven did not grant my wish — now I find my strength undone, Softness has conquered me, I have become a stream of gentle water flowing on, Weeping willows swaying, a breeze caressing the earth, Flowers clustering everywhere, wrapping warmth around me, Living in the Garden of Eden, that tender homeland, Twenty-four hours like lying in a cloud of cotton, drifting in mist. Every cell rejoices, dancing the most beautiful melody between heaven and earth, All because soft and lovely figures float before my eyes. O God! Let me prostrate at your feet and kiss your footprints, I am drunk with joy, living better than a celestial — all your grace, For thousands of years only I have tasted heaven's sweetest gift. All around me everything is beautiful, dazzling my eyes, opening my heart, lifting my spirit, The Garden, the Garden — paradise and the Kingdom of God are all beauty's expression, Every plant and creature, every soul is worth gazing upon again and again, One day in the Garden surpasses a hundred years of human life. They say becoming a celestial is harder than climbing to heaven, I say it is as easy as turning the palm of the hand, light and simple, I am a living celestial of this age and faced no hardship at all, Only because God has made his home within my heart. A woman's softness is an atomic bomb, That can flatten every peak of masculine strength, A woman's softness is a raging flame, That can set the desert ablaze with verdant meadow, A woman's softness is an impenetrable wall of bronze and iron, That can suffocate the wild man within, A woman's softness is a rainbow cloud of seven hues, Whose radiance illumines ten thousand miles of blue sky and a thousand miles of mountain and river. So be it if I die — my life has no regrets, no regrets, So be it if I am done — I would gladly sink into softness and sleep a thousand, ten thousand years.
2013/8/28
Compiled by: Lingzhou Grass
All eight versions of 【Feminine Beauty in Softness】: http://wiki.lifecosmos.org/en/feminine-beauty-in-softness/