Trust (Internal Reference)¶
Source texts reproduced verbatim for deep study.
I. Definition and Essence¶
Believing without a shadow of doubt — that is trust.
(Guide's Other Writings · 2023 · Believing Without Doubt Is Trust)
Trust: xin means to believe; ren means to entrust. Trust means believing in someone and entrusting one's future — even one's very life — to that person. Trust involves risk, but whatever the outcome, one harbours no regret, no resentment, no complaint.
Trust is the cornerstone that sustains harmony in human relationships and the healthy functioning of society.
(Xuefeng Corpus · Admonition Chapter · The Collapse of Trust in Hezhou)
Trust is honey; distrust is a knife.
(800 New-Era Concepts, 4th Edition · No. 137)
Faith is truth; love is life.
(800 New-Era Concepts, 4th Edition · No. 142)
II. The Energy of Trust¶
Trust is a virtue. Trust creates heaven. Trust is a vast invisible energy. Trust is the character of the innocent and good. Trust is the nature of a child. Jesus Christ told us: unless you become like children, you shall by no means enter the Kingdom of Heaven, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.
If we wish to enter the garden of the Greatest Creator, let us first cultivate within ourselves the virtue of trust.
[The Guide recounts the true story of the 1989 Los Angeles earthquake, in which a father dug through rubble for 38 hours because he had promised his son, "No matter what happens, I will always be with you." His son kept 14 classmates calm by saying, "Don't be afraid — as long as my father is alive, he will come for us." All 14 children were rescued.]
The message this story conveys is: trust is a vast invisible energy. As long as there is trust within the heart, one can survive any ordeal.
(Xuefeng Corpus · Heart-Soul Chapter · Trust Is Honey, Distrust Is a Knife)
Faith can accomplish everything. Small faith yields small results; great faith yields great results. Without faith, one loses all direction; without faith, nothing is ever achieved.
(800 New-Era Concepts, 4th Edition · No. 560)
III. Great Trust: The Highest Form of Trust¶
What is Great Trust? It means believing and trusting one hundred percent, without any doubt whatsoever — trusting what you understand, and trusting what you do not yet understand. Without Great Trust, we are water without a source and a tree without roots.
(800 New-Era Concepts, 4th Edition · No. 578)
The foremost task in building Second Home's culture is to establish Great Trust: Great Trust in the Greatest Creator-Buddha; Great Trust in Jesus Christ, the Buddha Shakyamuni, the Immortal Laozi, the Prophet Muhammad, and the great Mao Zedong; and Great Trust in Guide Xuefeng. Without these three pillars of Great Trust, a healthy culture cannot be built. There will be aimlessness, disorder, internal friction, wasted time and energy — and no possibility of creating for humanity the Lifechanyuan Era of universal harmony, where all teachings converge, all laws return to their source, and everyone lives in joy, freedom, and happiness.
Establishing Great Trust enables one to weather every hardship on the road of life. It lights the divine lamp within the heart to illuminate the path ahead. It dispels pessimism and builds a positive, optimistic mind-set. It lets one chase the sun and escape the dark. It lets one persevere through every setback until the sacred summit is reached.
(Xuefeng Corpus · Essays Chapter · Establishing Great Trust — Second Home Cultural Construction, Part One)
IV. Selfishness: The Greatest Obstacle to Trust¶
Why can people not build genuine trust with one another?
The core factor is the barrier of self-interest. Once personal gain enters the picture, people will betray their word for the sake of that gain. This shows that selfishness is the greatest obstacle to building trust between people.
A selfish person cannot be trusted, because a selfish person is unreliable.
For selfish people, contracts, agreements, regulations, and laws are needed to constrain their behaviour. From this angle alone, Western civilisation is not built on people's selflessness — it is built on the spirit of contract and strict legal frameworks. This means Western civilisation is not yet humanity's highest form of civilisation. Humanity's highest civilisation is built on full mutual trust. Once there is full trust between people, contracts, regulations, and laws become redundant, and life becomes lighter, freer, more at ease.
(Guide's Other Writings · 2023 · Believing Without Doubt Is Trust)
V. Trustworthy People Are Life's Greatest Wealth¶
Complete trust means: you are willing to let this person arrange your life; you are willing to bear any responsibility or obligation for them; you hand your wealth to them without the slightest hesitation; you tell them your innermost secrets without fearing they will ever use those secrets to harm you.
If you have 100 people you can completely trust, yours is the most beautiful life possible — regardless of money, power, status, or fame.
If you have not a single person you can completely trust, yours is the most wretched life possible — regardless of how wealthy or powerful you are.
I have discovered a secret: when the number of people we can completely trust keeps growing, we are moving toward Heaven. Conversely, when the number keeps shrinking, we are moving toward Hell.
(Chanyuan Corpus · Life Manual Chapter · A Beautiful Life Is Built of People You Trust)
VI. 64 Trusted People and the Path to Heaven¶
What does it mean for someone to be trustworthy? It means you would hand them, say, a million dollars in cash, without any doubt, without requiring a receipt or a promise. Whatever your trusted person says, you believe. Whatever they do, you willingly cooperate. Whatever they ask of you, you are glad to provide.
I want to tell you: if you are not walking the road to Heaven, you will find — aside from your parents — that you rarely meet a single person in your whole life who is both trustworthy and intimately close.
I have said: to reach Heaven, you need at least 64 people you can trust and feel close to. How many do you have right now?
Ore must be sifted and smelted before it yields high-quality elements. A person who has not had their heart purified, who has not been nurtured by the heavenly programme, cannot become someone worthy of trust and closeness. If your heart has not been purified, if you have not received that nurturing, you do not possess the quality or the frequency to be trusted and loved — and you will never encounter or find anyone trustworthy either.
If you already have 64 people you can trust and feel close to, there is no doubt: you are walking the road to Heaven. Your life has already transformed into the life of a celestial being. Heaven is your certain destination.
(Chanyuan Corpus · Becoming Celestial Chapter · Where to Find 64 Trustworthy and Intimate People)
VII. Trust Is the Hallmark Quality of Celestial Life¶
Trust is the hallmark quality and the exclusive property of celestial life. Those who are not celestial life cannot build trust. Those who cannot achieve selflessness and egolessness will never have trust. Those who are mentally sharp calculators — should they claim to have trust, even ghosts would disbelieve them. Those who are ignorant yet arrogant, convinced they hold the truth, cannot generate trust. Those who lack great wisdom, great courage, and great faith have not even grazed trust's outer edge.
(Xuefeng Corpus · Admonition Chapter · The Collapse of Trust in Hezhou)
Historically and in the present, the human community with the most trust between its members is the family formed by Lifechanyuan's Chanyuan Celestials. The most core and precious resource in this family is the trust that Celestials place in the Guide and the Guide places in them. For fifteen-plus years, Celestials have joyfully and excitedly made their monthly contributions to the Home entirely on the basis of trust in the Guide. Without this doubt-free trust, no one could do this. This proves that the Celestials are selfless, just as it proves that the Guide is a person of his word who can be trusted.
The community of Chanyuan Celestials is humanity's most precious resource and wealth at this moment. This resource is the leaven for building humanity's highest form of civilisation; this wealth is the purest trust between people.
(Guide's Other Writings · 2023 · Believing Without Doubt Is Trust)
VIII. The Price of Distrust and the Warning of "Insufficient Faith"¶
Distrust between people cuts deep into mutual feeling and friendship. It wounds the heart. It cracks what was perfect. It turns heaven into hell.
Groundless distrust is a blade that kills. Please do not lightly raise that killing knife.
(Xuefeng Corpus · Heart-Soul Chapter · Trust Is Honey, Distrust Is a Knife)
Without trust, the cost of interaction between people, between people and communities, and between communities will climb without limit — not only wasting vast resources and energy, but generating untold suffering and even disaster.
(Xuefeng Corpus · Admonition Chapter · The Collapse of Trust in Hezhou)
The Tao Te Ching, Chapter 17, says: "When faith is insufficient, there will be unfaith." The Guide interprets this for the Chanyuan community:
Very few Celestials fully trust the Guide. The vast majority still hold their own views ... Why can't people hold to Chanyuan values? Because faith is insufficient. Why can't they become full-time Celestials? Because faith is insufficient ... Why, despite repeated requests, do some Celestials rarely go online to communicate? Because faith is insufficient.
There is a secret of life here: the most perfect, regret-free, resentment-free life exists within absolute trust ... But once faith is insufficient, life becomes incomplete, and in the end there is regret.
Unwillingness to hand over one's life stems from insufficient faith. With insufficient faith, there will inevitably be unfaith — and with unfaith, there can be no seamless cooperation, no resonance, no entering the realm of supreme bliss. Instead: doubt, worry, guardedness, wariness, remorse, regret, argument, conflict, fracture — life spent in wavering, in anxious hesitation, in weighing and calculating, in dread.
(Guide's Other Writings · 2020 · Insufficient Faith Begets Unfaith)
Trust established — everything becomes simple and gentle. Trust diminished — everything moves toward complexity and hardship.
(Guide's Other Writings · 2022 · Weakened Faith, Weakened Quality, Weakened Trust, Confusion Abounds)
IX. Building Trust: Begin with Keeping Your Word¶
Failing to keep one's word is a form of crime. To have a beautiful future, begin by keeping your word — and begin with yourself. Chanyuan Celestials in particular, as models and exemplars of human civilisation, must keep their word regardless of the way of the world, regardless of whether others do so. Those who do not keep their word are not Chanyuan Celestials.
(Guide's Other Writings · 2014 · Core Principles of Second Home Life, No. 62)
If you trust me, everything becomes very simple, easy, and joyful. If you don't trust me, everything becomes complicated, exhausting, and painful. If you trust me, wholly accept my arrangements and guidance and walk strictly according to the Guide's route map.
(Guide's Other Writings · 2013 · Different Outcomes When You Trust Me or Don't)
Related entries¶
Self-consistency · Embrace the One · No-self, No-form · Mahayana Aspiration · Resonance · Chanyuan Values · Return to Zero · Sincerity