【Reading/Listening Guide】
01 Levels of Self (08:29)
02 What does it mean to be a "worlder"? (24:29)
03 You can pay attention to nearby areas, but also ask in depth (39:37)
04 Everyone thinks for themselves, which is also positive for society (51:09)
05 Having, Doing, The logic of Being (1:10:36)
06 Most of the day is like changing diapers (1:44:15)
He Liu : Yinuo was previously the chief representative of the Gates Foundation in China and a partner of McKinsey. I got my undergraduate degree from Tsinghua , and later went to the United States to study for a doctorate. Now I am working in Yitu School, Slave Society , and Promise Community. I admire Yinuo very much. He has always been very energetic and engaged in public expression, live broadcast, and community. Where does your energy come from?
Li Yi Nuo : I think makes sense. You just used the words "public expression" very well, and they are also one of the topics discussed today. Expression will go through several stages. When everyone first learns to express, it is actually personal expression. Then in the second stage, when we start to learn to write expository and argumentative essays, we will realize that there is an audience perspective when writing articles or discussing issues. Then in the third stage, we begin to realize that there are not only the perspectives of listeners and viewers, but sometimes what is said may not be of concern to the listener/viewer/reader, but it also has the meaning of being expressed. From individuals to readers/audiences, and then to so-called public issues, but at this time you will find that what can really be done well in so-called public expression is actually a kind of self-real expression. Back to the starting point, it is roughly like this circle. I think from this perspective, the so-called energy actually comes from truly expressed wishes.
He Liu : The perspective of is very interesting. It seems that public expression is talking to others and talking to public space, but to a certain extent, we are expressing our inner voices, and even to a certain extent, we are talking to ourselves. So how do we know what to say? Is there anything worth letting others know? Sometimes I feel timid when making public expressions. I am worried about what might be of interest to others, or what I feel I must share with others because I am too narcissistic. If this is the case, it is actually still a private expression.
Li Yinuo : This is actually a philosophical issue. We talked about deep issues at the beginning. People actually establish perceptions in the process of expression and feedback. It is not like a mathematical problem or a physics problem. When the constant equals A and the variable equals something, it equals something. It is not deduced like this. I think this may be a common way of thinking in the field of pure science: Can you tell me what I become when the variable becomes something?
By Telegraph
But in fact, in the real process, the answer to the question just now is found in expression and feedback. The process of searching is actually the process of removing more and more self (ego) .In the end, your self is a deeper self. When you first express it, there must be a certain amount of self in it: Who am I? What did I do? I am from 2014 I started writing articles about the slave society in 2000. When I read many of the articles from that time, they must have this flavor. When I first started writing, I was a partner at McKinsey, I had three children, and had some workplace experience. In fact, I had a lot of "becoming a good teacher" perspective, but later I found that I was able to accomplish many things because I had many conditions that others may not have. For example, for example, I am healthy, some people may be unhealthy, some may want to have children but cannot, my elders can help, but many people do not have such conditions - in this process, you will slowly realize that through a personal perspective, you have experienced the refraction of the ego, and in the process of constantly removing the ego, you will discover something deeper behind it, something other than yourself. At this time, the lower level me may still be me. The concept of may be the most confusing to everyone: What on earth am I? Is my experience me? Is it who I am? Is what I write about me? So maybe the underlying logic of this problem is: I am hierarchical. At the beginning, I may be more at a more superficial level, that is, a more tangible me, with my own experience, appearance, and past resume, and then slowly from the tangible me to the deeper so-called "true self", which is the invisible me. So maybe the core concept here is the definition of self, which has multiple meanings.
He flow : I think this is a very meaningful conclusion. When making public expressions, firstly, you cannot escape your own voice, and secondly, you have to remove your ego to a certain extent. On the one hand, Yinuo, you became a partner, got a Ph.D., and did this and that, so you have the motivation and content you want to express; on the other hand, you have to remove yourself in the process, and to a certain extent, put yourself aside from the past environment and start over. You were a science student before, but now you are actually doing something more traditional in the liberal arts. Isn’t this contradictory?
Li Yinuo : is still about my concept. But I think there is a passage that is particularly good, that is: generally we have four levels of the so-called self. The first "I" is called things happen to me, that is, "this thing happened to me." For example, something happened. I went to McKinsey and later left, and I did something else. In the process I will find out what happened to me. The second level is things happen for me. I start to wake up a little. Many things happen for some reason. The typical one is "a blessing in disguise" - at first I felt that things happen to me, things happen to me. The third level is things happen, things just happen, and it has nothing to do with you. Dozens or hundreds of horses may be lost in a day, but you feel that your horse is lost at the moment, so this thing is just things happen, and it has nothing to do with whether it is to you or for you. The fourth level is called have things happen through me. I have experienced the process of losing my horse, and I have a certain level of knowledge about it, which may lead to a certain conclusion. I can write this conclusion down. Someone must have recorded the story of a blessing in disguise back then. Maybe no one knows or cares about this person’s name now, but hundreds of thousands of years later, people will still read this story and find it enlightening to their own lives. From this perspective, the person who wrote the story at the time was already out of touch. The first level is that the horse is lost, which is too bad; the second level is that the horse is lost, and it reminds me; the third level is that the horse is lost; the fourth level is that I can write down the story to inspire others. So I think the final public expression is actually through me, I am a channel or tool.
The picture shows the interpretation of the allusion of "a blessing in disguise"
However, I am something different in these four levels. When I first came to me, I may have been a small person. I thought that after spending so much effort and money raising these horses, the horses were lost. The lower the four levels are, the more and more detached the process is. When you reach the fourth level, you are: OK, something happened. Maybe because it happened to me, I have some feelings, some insights, and some reflections, so I will write it down. At this time, I am actually at a lower level. Apart from who I am, what I have, how much I spend, etc., my several levels go deeper. We are actually discussing "I" issues at different levels. From this perspective, there is no contradiction.
He Liu : What I just said may be relatively abstract. From your own point of view, you blame yourself for losing the horse, looking for the horse, and failing to find the horse. You also find that the horse is actually the problem of the world. In the end, it may be the horse lost through "I". What is going on with your horse?
Li Yinuo : In fact, everyone has the same experience. I think what I just said is not abstract. "A blessing in disguise" is a very specific example, and everyone may find their own shadow in it. Maybe when you are young, you always feel that you have gone to a good school and found a good job, and the reason is 100% because you are very good, because you study well, have good grades, work hard, are smarter than others, perform better than others in interviews, do more homework, etc. Most young people will come to this conclusion at first. This conclusion is the first level: this happened because of the school I went to, the teacher I met, how many points my score was higher than others, etc. When you reach the second level, you will find that there are actually many people with similar abilities or scores to your own. Of course, there may not be many like Einstein , but even if most people go to so-called prestigious schools, even if they go to Tsinghua Harvard Oxford, there are thousands of freshmen every year. It’s not that you are the only one who is great. There are many other broader reasons that you may not be aware of. For example, if you happen to be in the right place at this time or in your time period, you will have this opportunity.
He Liu : Einstein’s specialness is not entirely due to his hard work. He is a genius when he is born.
Li Yinuo : Yes, from this perspective, geniuses are still in the minority. When it comes to so-called things happening, you may find a bigger reason later. For example, if you think that my English is good because I left the country early, what happened after I left the country? But if you read a few books, you will find that a hundred years ago, the intellectuals’ English was so good that they didn’t know where they went. There must be deep-seated reasons for the times. The “era” includes these things that happened in the past. I think we must be the beneficiaries of the reform and opening up of and . At that time, it became relatively easy to go abroad. You did not need to have family or overseas connections. Most families could go abroad if they wanted to. Later I realized that we were able to go abroad at that time because the United States had a large amount of scientific research funding to support international students in postgraduate and doctoral studies. Without this, it would be impossible to go abroad. In fact, there are many reasons that you don’t know. Things will happen. If you just happen to follow the river and float there, it will be good. You will gradually become humble, and you will find that many things happen not because you are smart - of course they are not mutually exclusive, and they may not be stupid, and you have to work hard, but in fact they are not the decisive reasons. Finally, you will find the so-called happened through me. Thinking back to when I went abroad in 2000, I experienced many important historical events during that specific time period. Years like 2008 were undoubtedly a turning point for China. At that time, it seemed that China suddenly entered the world stage. At the time of the Beijing Olympics, the United States was in economic crisis. At that time, it felt very sober and very different. The whole trend was that China's development was visible to everyone.If you look back at the macro narratives that have occurred over the years, you will find that personal narratives are definitely connected to the grand narrative. In turn, recalling these constructs who I am. It probably means that there is definitely no answer or anything. Everyone is striving to get closer to the truth, because no one can really know what the whole picture is and what the truth is, but at least in the process, we are getting closer. This is a state of hard work.
He flow : Many people may have gone abroad, but in fact their hearts have not changed. What has changed is a place or a job. Why does this happen? In fact, many people may not adjust or change after one year, but will they definitely change after five or ten years?
Li Yinuo : From the perspective of the United States, Thomas Sowell, a historian who has made great achievements in studying the history of race in the United States, wrote "A Brief History of Race in the United States" in the 1980s. There is a chapter dedicated to the Chinese and the development of the entire Chinatown .
Chinatown is actually the culture of Guangdong, China, because the first immigrants came from there. At the end of the last chapter, he looked back from the 1980s to the state of the entire Chinese presence in the United States over the past 1350 years, and found that the Chinese had made great progress. At that time, basically everyone lived in Chinatown, and their occupations were very single, such as building roads, gold mining, or opening laundries. At that time, almost all laundries in the United States were owned by Chinese, and everyone went there to wash clothes. There were also Chinese restaurants, which were further back, and basically just these things. Thomas Sowell said something at the end, saying that by 1980, the Chinese had become more integrated into American society. He used two words - residentially and occupationally. Chinese people have moved out of Chinatown, not only living in Chinatown, but also starting to buy houses outside; and their occupations are not just the ones mentioned above. It has a more positive meaning, but you think this is too miserable. It's just that they no longer live together, they start renting a house outside, and their careers are more diversified. This is already a very low requirement. This is the state of the Chinese people in the United States after 150 years. The author's book talks about all races, including the Jews and the Irish people who came to the United States at about the same time. In 1850, there was a famine in Ireland. Later, they were deeply involved in the political and business circles of the United States. This was something I found very interesting at the time. The Chinese have never regarded the United States as their home. All their money will be sent back to the country. After death, it will fall back to its roots and be shipped back. The very basic reason is that people don’t come here to develop a new life, stay here, live together or work in these professions, it’s just a way to make money or for the convenience of life. I think there is still such a trend. We may not be like those workers back then, but many people still think that the best situation is to occupy both sides. It is also possible here. Indeed, in terms of the convenience of life and the closeness of culture, domestic development in these years is definitely better than that of the United States. Basically, this is the case. Everyone does not say that they want to be here. This is the overall cultural background, and inertia exists. The second one is the triple dilemma we just talked about. Even if you want to stay, start working, and integrate, there are actually unexpected difficulties. At first, you might think it was language difficulties, but in fact, most people coming to the United States now don't have that big of a language difficulty. It might look like you graduated from Harvard or a prestigious school, got a PhD in engineering, and went to an or company in Silicon Valley, but in fact there is a huge cultural difference. The plight of most Chinese people in the United States is actually this. They feel that you don’t belong here. When others talk about history, you say we don’t learn history this way; when others run to volunteer every day, why do you volunteer? Shouldn’t the higher-ups have the final say? Others go to church every day, but you say I don’t believe these things either.You have a job here, you are earning a salary, you can afford a house, and you can participate in society, but it is difficult for the lower class to integrate culturally. This culture transcends language. Everyone can watch Hollywood movies, but liking to watch Hollywood movies is not cultural integration. Understanding the underlying reasons can actually make our own lives more autonomous. This is a very "selfish" benefit. Of course, the bigger benefit is that we will also have a clearer understanding of social, international, and political issues.
He Liu : In my mind, maybe Chinese people becoming Americans does not seem to be as worthwhile as the so-called Chinese people becoming global people. If we become worldly people, we will abandon or rethink the limitations, constraints and empowerments that this national identity brings to us. We are from China, we were born here, and we may not be able to abandon these things no matter what, or we may not want to abandon these things that we have acquired since childhood. And Chinese people may become global people. This is something we should think about.
By Wallpaper Flare
Li Yinuo : The population of the United States and Canada is composed of the earliest and current immigrants, especially the United States, which is more obvious and does have special characteristics. The nation-state has some superficial problems, but in the American environment, it is not about who we want to become, but that we want to become Chinese Americans. We must have the commonality of an open society and a democratic society, and we must also have cultural characteristics. This is true for all races in America. Knowing what world history is about is actually a necessary knowledge reserve for people in the world. We cannot say that our history is a one-sided narrative. To be a person in the world is to change from an invader to an aggressor. This logic is actually very dangerous. The second one is the meaning you just mentioned, which I recognize at the bottom level. In addition, if you put aside many problems in contemporary China and look at the thinkers that have been truly handed down in China, such as Laozi, Tao Te Ching, and Confucius, they are actually very modern and cosmopolitan. We always feel that our culture is Confucian culture , but it is not. From the Qin Dynasty to the present, it is actually " Confucianism on the outside and legalism on the inside ". Internally it is a set of Legalist culture, Confucian is just a surface. So in fact, when there is nothing really used in the contemporary culture we are experiencing now, we often talk about Confucian things. I think the dilemma of the Chinese people is not that we do not understand Western culture, or that we are Eastern culture and conflict with Western culture; the dilemma of contemporary Chinese people is that we neither understand Western culture nor Eastern culture. How many people really understand what Confucius and Laozi are saying? What is "Tao"? What does it mean? If you truly understand "Tao", it is actually exactly the same as God in the abstract sense that everyone talks about. If you don’t think of it as a person, it actually refers to the underlying laws of the world and society. So I think from the perspective of people around the world, they are not opposites, but actually unified. We may see more cultural differences, but if we look at things at the bottom of culture, everything, including all religions, including the Tao Te Ching, actually talks about many things that are very consistent. Therefore, to truly understand the connotation of your own culture is actually to be a global person, even if you don’t speak English, even if you don’t live abroad. I think that many people who live in China and have never been abroad may have a more global understanding of the world. It is not simply about whether you have the experience of studying abroad. If each of us is willing to open our eyes, read books, and understand these questions in our own lives: What exactly happened? What happened to history? How are different social situations formed? There are many very good intellectuals in China who have been doing work in this area. In fact, from this perspective, there are not so many superficial differences.
He Liu : I think what you just said is very interesting. When it comes to being a global person, it seems that we have to go from China to the United States, to other places, all kinds of places, very far away places. It seems that the further away the world is, the more eye-opening it will be. But in fact, the place where we originally grew up is very cosmopolitan. Whether it is our own culture or the place where we live, listening to those stories, the things between grandparents and grandparents may actually be very cosmopolitan.
Li Yinuo : Yes, for example, when I was working in a field, I looked at what kind of international issues were involved. It doesn’t mean that organizing a summer school this year or going to Oxford means internationalization. If you care about garbage classification at home, it is the most international issue; Qianhe Community, who is live broadcasting with us, is dealing with the issue of migrant children in urban villages in Guangzhou, which is very international. This is an issue that everyone is paying attention to, about the issues of disadvantaged groups, women, especially the living conditions of people on the margins of the social system; and last time we had a live broadcast with teacher Wang Keqin , he is concerned about the issue of pneumoconiosis and is a very good Chinese investigative reporter. He has been doing this work for ten years, called "大爱清dust", focusing on the 6 million pneumoconiosis patients in China. If you look at his entire work, his way of thinking is no different from that of world-class public welfare organizations. He may not speak English, and what he does has not been reported abroad, but in fact the bottom level is very similar. On the other hand, isn’t it the same for many Chinese people who have gone abroad? There is a word called "leaving one's hometown". There are many people who leave their hometown and come here to see the same things they used to see every day at home, or who are unwilling to open up and develop their minds. It does not mean that you are internationalized abroad, but you are a country boy at home. This is a very superficial classification.
By Phoenix.com
This is also the so-called benefit of the Internet. Now if you really want to know what's going on, you can know it; you might not have known it before, like it was impossible a hundred years ago. It takes a month to take a boat from the United States to China, and you have to write letters. Many times you can only imagine what happened through a few words of description. Nowadays, many Chinese people in the United States play games and watch variety shows all day long and do not care about these issues. This is more of a personal choice: if you choose to see these things and want to expand your understanding of the world, you can actually do it on your mobile phone.
Ho flow : If the things around you are global, like Xiang Biao, teacher always said, you should return to the neighborhood, find the specific situation, return to the specific things, and don’t always think about the international situation, such as the war in the United States and Russia, and the financial crisis in the United States. Take a good look at your neighbors, fellow villagers, and the community. How close is it considered to be public, or how close is it not considered public? I think that on the one hand, the books we read, the things we read, and the issues we think about have some so-called global nature. I have never been abroad in my life, and Kant has never left his town in his life, but what they wrote can be spread all over the world. Physical movement may not be necessary, but it will help. How far away is considered public? For example, when it comes to doing charity, many charity people recently support Xiang Biao’s point of view to return to the neighborhood and do charity among neighbors. I often think that no one does charity just to help their neighbors, to clean up the streets where they live, or to help people far away who want to help. In fact, these people are not around, especially the rich people who are most likely surrounded by rich people. Even if they are not rich, they are not too poor, and they are not the poorest in the world. How should we treat the distance? The world is around us, and there is no difference between what is far away and what is around us. Where is the public ?
Li Yinuo : This is a big misunderstanding, and I don’t agree with many of Xiang Biao’s views.From an academic point of view, this is correct, that is, what you see is a specific problem, . But after seeing the specific problem, your thinking cannot be limited to this problem. It is in depth, rather than limiting your physical radius . For example, you are currently quarantined in Shanghai. There are five rooms around you. You can pay attention to these five people, but you have to think about why these five people are locked up here. Who has the right to lock us up here? How are policies formulated? Where do its resources come from? Who pays these people's wages? Why do people pay these people? If I don't want to be locked up here, is there any chance I can get paid? When you think about these questions, your care for those around you will make sense. It doesn’t mean that these five people all have lunch boxes to eat today, which is called charity. You can focus on nearby areas, but you must ask these questions in depth. This is not a contradiction. It is certainly not enough to solve the immediate problems, but these problems must be based on our understanding of these things: Who gives social power? Why does anyone have these powers? What is the source of power? Where are the checks and balances on power? If something goes wrong with power, where are the correction mechanisms? Where do the resources come from? Where does the money come from and who is making the decisions? These questions are actually the basics needed to understand any society.. Maybe it’s okay for Teacher Xiang Biao, because he engages in sociology and deals with these issues every day. So when you have a big framework and then pay attention to the surrounding issues, that's it. If you don’t have this framework and you just provide lunch to the five people around you, then this is not called charity, it is just survival. This is not a contradiction. You have to see the underlying problems through the phenomena around you. The problems at the bottom are definitely not just problems faced by the five people around them.
He Liu : This is a very good framework. Anyone can send lunch boxes. There is no physical or behavioral difference between uncles and aunts sending box lunches and you sending box lunches. But if you want to truly understand the charity itself of sending lunch boxes, you actually need to have a deeper understanding of the world. Different people send lunch boxes in really different ways. I am curious about the understanding of the world. Generally, we talk about the advanced experience and technology of Europe and the United States. Have you seen anything from developing countries? Are there any examples or things that you find very exciting or disappointing, or that have an impact on you?
Li Yinuo : In fact, has a lot of community-level work that is very impressive. At that time, I went to India. Everyone knew that many places in India were very poor and poor. They built a water purification project on their own. In fact, truly poor countries face different problems than developing and developed countries. For example, toilets are a big problem. We may flush the toilet as soon as we flush the toilet in developed places, because the entire city has a very complete drainage system, but there is no such thing in developing countries. At that time, they built such a system themselves, including the entire purification and water recirculation. It was actually a small project done from the bottom up. But the project later became operational and received funding. The Gates Foundation was also one of the supporters, promoting them. Some projects like this will make you feel very admired. For example, there were breastfeeding projects in Africa at that time, including vaccine and projects. Many maternal and child health-related projects actually started at the grassroots level and in the community. I think if we really understand history objectively, real social changes may always happen from the bottom up. Even if these examples do not have large-scale effects yet, they actually play a role in loosening up and promoting progress.
By CNET
He flow : I think it is interesting where the changes in come from , bottom up or top down? Dividing the world into two poles, one is below and the other is above. Up and down may be a concept of power. The greater the power, the higher it is, but the distribution of power is definitely uneven.In this way, everyone can do something. Everyone is an ordinary person. No one thinks that they are above. Everyone thinks that there are others who are better than themselves. If we think that only bottom-up is the way to promote change, will it relieve the responsibilities of many people who should be doing things to a certain extent? We are all ordinary people, we are all the same, so what each of us does or should do is the same, and everyone's responsibilities should also be the same.
Li Yinuo : is like this. I think this so-called bottom-up and top-down does not mean that some people are better than me or that others are doing better. It means that if we look at a social structure, society is of course divided into top and bottom, and social power has its owners. For example, there are of course differences in the system between legislative power, administrative power, policy-making power, resource rights including taxation. So this is not simply to say that someone makes more money than me or is better than me. This is not the concept. In this society, of course, there are upper and lower levels, the role of rights holders and decision-makers of resource allocation. This is one of them. The second is that the real start-up is from the bottom up. It is rarely done by the top just patting the head. Most of these are catastrophic consequences. As you can see, Soviet Russia was like this during Stalin's period. Those things during Lenin's period actually ended up causing a large number of deaths, including the famine in Ukraine. Sometimes it's interesting. We hope to design an artificial system instead of letting it grow organically, but an artificial top-down system is often disastrous. If you look at Cambodia Pol Pot, all the disastrous consequences came from what seemed to be a very top-down start. So I think the real start-up to promote the progress of civilization is often from the bottom up. Of course, this does not mean that the above is useless, but after the bottom-up launch, if a positive cycle is truly formed, there will definitely be some similar cases and experiences. Through the media, more people will know, and through advocacy, more people will know that it is effective. Including a lot of the work you do, you can use data to support it. How do you view the input-output ratio of the work? What are its efficiency and inefficiency? We think of it as an industry, but it’s actually the same. Just like when investing in a startup, there is a founding team and an ecosystem around it, including accountants, media people, operations people, logistics people, etc. It's very similar to how change happens on a social level, with the surrounding ecosystem. In the end, through advocacy, media propaganda, and education, a combination of top-down and bottom-up is achieved. I don’t think I’m denying the top-down approach, or that we all do it. That is, first of all, we must realize that the social structure, power structure, and resource structure exist, but we must also understand that the real start of promoting a better society comes from the private sector. From starting to becoming a movement, there are many steps and levels in between, so this work must be a process that combines top and bottom.
Ho flow : But today there are still many people who are self-interested in the public. Every day, many young people come to you for career advice/career consultation, asking: "What should I do?" The subtext behind it is not about what contribution you can make to the world or how to realize the meaning of life. It is more about the American career system. If you want to make money and advance your career, what are the good tools and what does the machine look like? How can I hack into this system? So what would you say to such young people, especially the elite? I think they should do more to the world, but it seems that many people don't have this intention.
Li Yinuo : I think if most people can think for their own interests, it will be a positive thing for society. It is in stages, and this is one of the steps. So Locket's natural human rights, right to freedom , right to life and property rights, are they all selfish? You cannot touch my life; you cannot restrict my freedom; my property is mine.But these three things mentioned by Locke are the foundation of modern civilized society, because if you really respect these three things, you will find that the operation of enterprises is guaranteed, there is a legal environment, and personal property will be protected. When personal and business property is protected, the economy as a whole can function. After the economy is operating, there will be a surplus, and people will have a better living environment. Only then will people be able to think about the public welfare issues just mentioned. I think these are two stages, and we should not blindly advocate thinking about public welfare issues. Many social problems today are due to the fact that we do not allow people to have property rights, life rights, and freedom rights. Of course, there is a very important premise - after protecting yourself, you must also consider the needs of others. It cannot be said that I want my property rights, but the way to obtain my property rights is by occupying your property, which is wrong. Therefore, when we see that everyone’s rights to life, liberty, and property are protected at the social level, then the society is healthy. Many people have a big misunderstanding. They think that since they have natural rights and property rights, others should serve me because I need to have property rights and freedom rights. This is wrong. When everyone in a society protects these things, both at the individual level and at the social system level, there will be a positive cycle and there will be enough resources, mind, and space to think about these issues. Second, going back to what I just said, why when I teach about the workplace in the United States, I talk about history, how the United States was formed, etc. It is because if you want to achieve true success in the United States, it does not just mean getting a promotion or a salary increase next year, but you must first discuss what real success is. Many people may say that real wealth is: I can be financially free and what I can do. Generally, what they think of is possession or possession level things. But in fact, if you really own these things, such as a yacht and a mansion, imagine that now that you have these, will you die without regrets in this life? Has the meaning of your life been realized? Maybe when you don’t have it, you will feel that if you have it, it will come true. But are the real so-called rich people in the world the happiest people in the world? No. Although we watch all kinds of scandals about rich people like melon-eaters, if you imagine you were him, what would your daily life and inner state be like? First of all, everyone’s understanding of success must undergo an evolution, from external possession to internal abundance. Inner wealth actually has nothing to do with how much property you have - you may need to have a certain amount of property, but you may have one hundred and eleven million, which is no different from having one hundred and two billion. It does not mean that because you have two billion, you will be twenty or two hundred or even two thousand times happier. The second is the core, the inner state. When you have this inner state, you can go further in your career. A person's happiness comes from his relationship with the people around him. If this relationship is based on transactions, on whether I have you or not, on whether I am superior to you, then it is definitely not a relationship that will bring you prosperity. So, even if you say the most selfishly, "I'm just doing it for my own good," what can I do to make myself good? Behavior is truly good when it has altruistic elements. When we put these things together, they are not opposite to success. As I often say to my comrades, sometimes we always think about problems in terms of the laws of physics. For example, if I have 100 beans and you take away 20, I will only have 80 left; but if I have 100 abilities to love and I give 20 to you, I will not lose 20 of the abilities to love. In the broad sense of love, maybe because you give a part of your love to someone, you will actually find that you have more ability to give. It actually does not comply with the physical laws we just talked about. So, when you realize that your true happiness and success come from these things, your altruistic behavior will be very natural. Therefore, I think these two are not contradictory. They just require that our understanding of personal success is more real and closer to the essence, rather than the understanding that we have more things and others have less. This is a leap that I think many of our young people or Chinese people need to go through now. Ultimately, this leap is for your own good.A large number of psychologists have proven that when people help others, they often gain the most. Even from a very selfish perspective, it is a good thing. Of course, this selfishness does not mean for the sake of something. In fact, the proof of the psychology of a large number of psychologists here is that when you help others, you often gain the most, so even from a very selfish perspective, it is a good thing. Of course, this selfishness does not mean for the sake of something. If you have actually done this work, you will feel it. If you try to help others, you will understand what I am talking about.
He Liu : I also want to do charity myself. There is a saying: "He Liu, you are making a selfless contribution." It seems that you have gone to a good school and have the opportunity to find a good job. If you want to make money, you may be able to make it. If you want to go abroad, you may be able to have a decent life. But you don't have it, so you are selfless and give up a lot of personal things in order to achieve others. I actually don't like this kind of selfless dedication framework. Because I feel that I have gained a lot of friends and new insights in this process, gained a sense of personal accomplishment, gained a deeper understanding of the world, and gained my own meaning. In the process of giving, I did not feel that altruism and self-interest are two different things. It seems that donating money is altruism, and spending money on yourself is self-interest. This is not the case. Spending money on others is self-interest. But it seems like this doesn’t make sense to someone who doesn’t think that way, and I don’t know how to make sense of it. If a person tells you that he wants to make money, own a big yacht, or have a mansion, you tell him, "In fact, your dedication will make you happier." People say you are sick.
Li Yinuo : There is no need to explain . In fact, people only change when they want to change and when they encounter obstacles that they cannot overcome without changing. I think this is a very important thought: Look at the changes of everyone, including yourself. Although we have never talked about it, why you did this must be the path you originally chose or the path you originally thought you chose. When you walk and find that it doesn't work, it is not only due to external reasons, but also internal reasons - I don't like it, and it doesn't bring me enough sense of accomplishment. Therefore, when those people still want to buy a yacht, then buy it. One is not enough to buy two, there is always something to start with. What to do then? If people die when there are 1,000 yachts, do you think you will be happier than when there are 500 yachts? When they think about it themselves, change will happen. So I think when he doesn't think about this problem, you are crazy. But I also have a belief, that is: as long as everyone is a human being, not an animal, he will have a pursuit of higher and deeper meaning. It's just that when you wake up and when you realize it, everyone's destiny is different. For example, people who can do the kind of work you do, or who are willing to give to others, are actually people who are relatively rich in their hearts, that is, they do not have so much sense of lack and are willing to give. There must be reasons for you to do this job in your twenties because of your family and parents. You also feel safe inside and don’t have so much sense of lack. So it is easy for you to give. If a person grew up in an environment where poverty and suppression followed the law of the jungle, then for him, there is a huge fear at the bottom of his heart. He will feel that even 500 yachts may not be enough - if someone comes to collect them one day. If he had grown up in this environment, that's what he would think. In fact, everyone has his own way. I agree that when everyone is doing something, they must feel happy inside before they continue to do it. If every time you do these things, you feel a tormenting feeling in your heart, and you will encounter difficulties, and you will stop doing them. So in the end, it is actually a dialogue between oneself and oneself. When and at what depth this dialogue occurs is what everyone needs to do. If they are still asking for and possessing, it is because they have not yet faced their inner insecurities and fears, or are not aware of them.He will think that he will be safer if he owns more boats and more money, but this is actually a point of no return. If you don’t face your inner fears, even having 10,000 ships will feel like it’s not enough. But this can only be changed when you realize it. If you tell him before that, he will think: it has nothing to do with you, you don’t have a boat.
He Liu : I don’t know if curiosity about the world or altruism is this: if you are born in poverty, you will not be willing to help others and will only think about yourself; if you are born in wealth, you will definitely think that you will help others.
Li Yinuo : does not mean material poverty, but actually psychological poverty. No matter how rich a country is, it may be poor inside; no matter how poor a country is, it may be rich inside. I think what people at the bottom pursue is a sense of security. This sense of security is not about how much money or houses they have, but the recognition that your parents think you are great and recognize you every time they see you. That day I was doing a live broadcast with teacher Huang Shiming, and he said: Gazing is a function. When the child comes, you look at him, and when he talks to you, you pay attention to him, and you are willing to respond to him. This is a function for the child, and we may not be aware of it at ordinary times. There may be a house with a golden doorknob, and the child looks for his mother, but the mother ignores him at all. He is a mentally and psychologically poor person. Psychologically speaking, no matter what the material environment is, it must be because of your personal and family nature. When you feel safe in your heart, you can embrace altruism. It’s not that you don’t do it. You may not embrace it, and you will feel that there is nothing wrong with doing it anyway. But when you really do it, you must be consistent in your heart, and you will realize that helping others is actually helping yourself.
He Liu : How can have a sense of security? One way is to pay more attention to a more standardized and higher-level education method when educating the next generation. But it is actually quite difficult to distribute this knowledge evenly and let everyone know it. Whether you need to be taught by words and deeds, or you need to read books, take classes, or you need to be literate, you need to know various channels. If you really want to use systematic next-generation education to make everyone feel safe, I think this is a particularly good vision. But first, I feel it is quite difficult, and it is difficult to distribute it evenly. The second is what to do if a person has already been born? I know that one of Yinuo’s slogans in education is to cultivate children with rich hearts. So how do you cultivate adults who are rich in their hearts? Do we give up on being an adult? It sucks, we can only care about the next generation.
Li Yinuo : In fact, cultivating children with rich hearts is only possible when there are adults with rich hearts. An adult who is not rich in his heart cannot cultivate a child who is rich in his heart. It is as simple as that. It is not separate. Therefore, our parent education and Promise communities are all geared toward adults. When adults are aware of some problems, their impact on children will occur subtly. Therefore, first of all, our path is not to give up on adults, but to have more adults realize this and face their own inner problems. At this time, even if you do not attend various training classes for your children, you will find that the underlying state brought to your children is very different. Second, the goal is not to distribute equally among everyone. This is actually very dangerous. Your idea is a communist idea - everyone is the same, and everyone must have what kind of parents they have. Parents are all like this. Including many ideas now that parents need to take a certificate to get a job. I said, why do you ask others to take a certificate? Who are you, right? I think people have to avoid these things very much: it must be like this all over the world. This is the same as the design of the People's Commune back then. The goal seemed to be beautiful, but the final result was disastrous. I don't agree with this view. What is the path? The path is actually very simple. The only effective way to change the world is to change yourself, that's it. Don't ask ten neighbors to come to my house to listen to my lectures on how to treat children. It's useless.However, when you see your own problems and living conditions, you will find that when you face the fears and security issues that you should face in your own life, it will easily affect the people around you. It's not because you want to influence them, but because others see your state, think it's good, want to be like this, and hope to be such a person. People will only change when they want to change, and cannot be changed by others. It’s not that we don’t expect changes, but we need to think clearly about the path to change. It’s not up to me to preach or design a set of courses for others to take exams. These things may temporarily change behavior, but they won’t last long and they won’t take root. Rooted change actually comes from the inner drive to change. So when it comes to the path, it's very simple. More parents realize that their current life situation is unhappy. Whether it's about their children, work, etc., they have many unresolved fears. Why do we have so many problems with education? After all, our education is driven by fear. We have a lot of fears. When we think about the uncertainty of the future and the inability to find a job, how can we find a job? How to quickly turn uncertainty into certainty? For example, if you tell me, I can get into 985 or 211 by doing whatever I do, and I can get what kind of job by taking any test. These seem very reasonable. So why the involution? Everyone thinks that if they grasp this straw, their life or future will be certain, but in fact it is very illusory. Nowadays, everyone thinks that the civil service examination is very good. Last year, the civil service admission rate was 1.38%. What does this mean? 98.62% of people failed the exam. So think about it, if you take the exam, are you more likely to pass the exam or not? Isn’t this very simple? I was talking to Classic Live that day, and he said how much risk everyone is taking for the sake of security. I think this is quite accurate. For the sake of a sense of security, I did something that was 98.62% impossible to succeed, and I tried my best for it. Why do we do this? Because we have an illusion that if we take the exam, we can become the 1% and have a bright future. In fact, this is all the consequences of grabbing something outside because we are unable to face our own fears. In the end, 99% of people waste their time and get nothing, and the chance of becoming the 99% is much greater than the chance of becoming the other 1%. This is probability, it's that simple. So actually from this perspective, when each of us faces our own problems, the impact on our children and the people around us is most effective. I don’t believe in social design, and I think social design is a very dangerous thing; I also don’t believe that everyone must change other people’s ideas. What ultimately needs to be changed is to actually live well within yourself. All real changes occur when people clarify their inner problems. Their state of existence and the way they do things will affect many people. This influence does not come through preaching or indoctrination, but because many people around you find that they also want some changes because of your change in state. You may not say a word to them, but this is how real change happens.
Ho flow : I am also thinking about the recent changes in some of my friends. People around us will have some kind of crisis of meaning. Some friends may like to eat good food. They used to eat one or two hundred for a meal, but now they eat five or six hundred, and one or two thousand every other time. Some people may originally want to do sports. They originally played tennis, and then started playing golf. Maybe they originally played once a month, but now I see them playing golf every day in the circle of friends. Recently, a friend resigned from a financial company and traveled around the world. Is this partly a search for meaning? I think so. Everyone is doing something that seems new and has never been done before. I also feel that everyone is actually still in their own comfort zone. They are just doing things they want to do that they have never done before, or looking for a new activity on the original path of meaning. But this new activity will definitely not help find meaning. Maybe within a day or two, the hormones can be satisfied.So how do you find meaning? Spending more or less does not necessarily make you meaningful, and going far or getting close does not necessarily make you meaningful. So what does it mean to make it meaningful to you?
Li Yinuo : This is a very typical misunderstanding. I was doing a workshop recently, and I talked about this concept in workshops, articles, and live broadcasts, which means that we humans actually have three levels. The outermost level is having, which is possession, something I have. Parents will also make plans for their children. Many times we think that life is about possessions. With jobs, paths, and property, this is the most superficial level. The next level is doing, which is what do you do or what you do actually determines what you will have. In fact, you are at the level of do. The lowest level is actually being, which is what kind of person you are, and what behaviors you will actually have. After you have these behaviors, there will be things you have or things you don’t have. These three levels have a very important concept, and it must be from the inside out. It is impossible to do through have, and it is impossible to be through do. It is impossible to become different by doing more things, nor by having more. For example, we often say that it will be like this when I have it, and it will be like it when I have money. The fact is that you may never have money, or it will not be like this even if you have money. In other words, when I do something, I feel happier inside. That’s not the case. Only when you are happy will you do or do certain things. This is actually the biggest misunderstanding among people. 90% of people get this wrong. The logic is the other way around. Many parents think that as long as they get their haves right and their children have a house, a girlfriend, and a job, then their life will be happy. This cannot be the other way around. It is impossible to be happy just because you have this thing. It is also impossible to be like me who used to play golf in Asia and now go to Europe to play golf. If I want to do different, my be will be different. The path to change does not depend on others’ persuasion. Only when you give up changing other people's ideas can others change. People can only change if they want to. We can only influence others when we give up influencing others and changing their minds. You may think how could this be? This is on the level of being. Of course, this does not mean that the world will not change, but you have to study history to understand who really brings about changes in the world. For example, Shakyamuni, Siddhartha was a prince who later became a Buddha, and now so many people are reading his Buddhist scriptures. Was it because Siddhartha wanted to influence a young man named He Liu in 2022? You said it was because Siddhartha wanted to influence a young man named He Liu from this year to 2022. He didn't care and had no intention to change. Or change Li Yinuo? Did Li Yinuo watch it? When he wrote the Buddhist scriptures 2,500 years ago, he said that after 2,500 years, Li Yinuo must read what I wrote? He has no interest. But at this time it brings greater and greatest changes, because it is close to real wisdom and talks about the issues at hand. Why do these principles seem important? Because it is completely consistent with what you do. Including these individuals who really brought about huge changes in the world, such as Gandhi, Mandela, Theresa and others, they solved their own problems themselves. Then there are things like Gandhi and Mandela, right? What did you say he did? What did Gandhi do? He solved his own problems on his own and did a lot of inner work. When Teresa came out of the convent and actually worked as a teacher in a school in India, she said she wanted to come out. What are you doing out here? The first thing was to build a school under a tree in front of the school to teach homeless children. She just taught people to write every day. Later, she found that the children would do more and more, so she did it. Later, she saw those lepers. Do you think she couldn't see that India has so many problems? There were so many lepers who had no money and were so miserable. She just chose to do her best. As a person, she did more and more to take care of them. Even before they died, she gave them dignity and loved them.Eventually Mother Teresa became known to the whole world and had a great impact. Like Gandhi, he led the entire Indian independence. Isn't this a huge influence? What is his path to work? So, we have to really understand how change happens, and we have a lot of misunderstandings about it. In fact, you tend to push people away at times like this. If I were your friend, I would stay away from you - you tell me all the time that your circle of friends is showing off all the time, you are so great for your charity, and you tell me all the time that I have to donate 3,000 yuan to you last time, which is annoying to death.
He Flow : I think is quite real.
Li Yinuo : pair. So you have to step out and look at this issue objectively. You have to use your intelligence and wisdom to think about what is useful and whether you have experience. Just read the biographies of Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Mandela, and Siddhartha, and you will know that these people are all people who have truly brought about great changes. In fact, they all followed the same path: they do not want to change you, but change themselves, face their own problems, and do the best they can in everything in front of them. That's it. In the end, people won the Nobel Prize. Do you think these people had a much greater impact than you and me? Things seem to be very noble, which is good, but it's not for yourself. Others can only say He Liu, you are amazing, but I am not you. This is human nature. It doesn’t mean that your friends are not good enough, or that you don’t shout loud enough, but that this path is not feasible. When you really face it, if you don’t have money and if it all fails, then should you still do it? If you still want to do it, how to do it? When you find that path, what you do may be the right thing. This is a process. Everyone has to go through his own journey, and others cannot replace it.
He flow : I believe, I can understand what you are talking about, this is what I experience every day. But let’s look at the examples you just mentioned. In fact, these people did not fail to change others. Buddha did not stop speaking, Gandhi did not stop speaking, and Mandela did not stop writing. According to your argument, they are trying to change others by speaking out, but in fact they really change others not because they speak out, but because they have a different be.
Li Yinuo : is like this. This thing is not contradictory. I am not saying that it is different, but I just lie down at home and watch TV. When you are different, what you say is different. You may still talk in the circle of friends and be very active. These people are very worldly, and no one is outside the world.
He Liu : What you said is right to a certain extent. I didn’t say what they must be like, but I expressed myself clearly enough (of course it may not be clear enough) . I just talked about why we want to do charity and how to do charity. The rest is really a matter of those who are willing to take the bait: If you are willing to do it, you will do it; if you are not willing to do it, I don’t know who you are anyway. I care about you, but not because of who you are. I care about you because I think everyone can change the world.
Li Yinuo : is very good. Yeah, so you're already doing that? When you have no requirements for others in your heart, it is easiest for others to change. If this friend wants to change you all the time, you will be annoyed to death, and you won’t want to meet him next time. But if you chat with this friend all the time, and he doesn’t want to change you, your friend is living a good life, or he has done something, and you think this friend is cool, and you want to try what he wants to do. So it’s actually things be done through you (do things when you let things go through you). You wipe off the rust on the outside and face the things on the inside that you have not faced. When you become more transparent, the things you do can touch more people. Just like watching a good movie, all art is the same, no one is trying to please anyone else. A truly good artist is someone with a particularly transparent soul. When he is very transparent, everyone likes his works. I feel like this is the same in all fields.In fact, when people study, they look for these positive experiences. Why are people moved to do these things? Because you want nothing from him, not only his resources, but also his changes. Everyone has their own journey.
He flow : What should we do from the perspective of the world? Many of the current world's problems are also very urgent. Climate change may only be a problem in 30 to 50 years. Some people think that general artificial intelligence may be available in ten years, and the world may not be able to wait for issues like nuclear weapons and poverty. But if we had to wait for the so-called seeds of wisdom to grow in everyone's hearts and be different, we might have wanted human beings to be like this thousands of years ago. Thousands of years ago we were faced with countless similar problems today: power, equality, economy, environment, etc., but environmental problems may not have been so serious at that time. What if we can’t afford to wait for these elites to become enlightened and realize that they can be different?
Li Yinuo : If cannot afford to wait, it will be a disaster. It's that simple, because there's no other way. It's not about shouting louder that others will do. There's no way to just accept that this is our fate, I know that sounds pessimistic. Only when being changes, doing and having change, it's that simple, otherwise its change is temporary. So if you really want to do any work, you can only do it when the level of consciousness in the world increases. When will it increase? I have no idea. I immediately thought of my own path of action, something I was very familiar with, having done this at McKinsey. Develop a strategic goal, action plan, timetable, project management, and office work, and make 1,000 pages of PPT. If the project is done based on the current year's fee, it will definitely be feasible. But is it really feasible in the end? No. These things are actually quite funny. Now you may not have experienced it, don’t believe it, or don’t understand what I’m talking about. When you can understand it in the future, you will know what I mean when you look back. Our brains are like this. When being different, doing is unsustainable. Maybe the office has been established and launched with great fanfare. It seems that there have been many achievements and many summary meetings have been held. But if we really break away and look back on the past five or ten years, what has really been done and is there any progress? Many times there may be side effects. Therefore, we must have a new understanding of the path of change, and return to the fact that we must have our own better wisdom. When we face our own problems, you will find that you have higher-dimensional wisdom. This wisdom will allow you to do things in different ways, and the final results will be different. In the end, this is the path.
He flow : does not sound like it is impossible to change or change others, it just means that the way to change others must start with changing yourself, and then change others. It’s not doing, it’s being.
Li Yinuo : doing is the result of being change, and change must come through do, because how do others know what your being is? I just do different because first of all I am different. Mandela is a typical example. He wrote a lot and was in prison for 27 years. What did he write? Who publishes his stuff for him? Didn't he do his job? Is he wasting his time? No. In this process, his own work was directly related to the changes that took place in South Africa after he became president. If we follow the path we just talked about, what strategic direction, activities, ideas, and plans will include 27 years in prison without being able to do anything? Definitely not, and it eventually changed. So sometimes our linear thinking, this taken-for-granted logical thinking is actually very ridiculous, and that’s not how things work. If there is nothing on the surface, what can you do with 27 years in prison? But Mandela must be doing something on his being level, otherwise he wouldn't have survived. A person stays in prison and often works hard in the mines. What he is doing has nothing to do with promoting society.But it finally changed. Where did the change come from? Doesn’t he have all the difficulties we think of? He does things, but his do is different from the do we take for granted.
He Liu : is particularly interesting coming from the mouth of a former McKinsey partner. If you divide your life into two periods, in the last period you were studying for a Ph.D. at Tsinghua University and working at McKinsey and the Gates Foundation. They were all super logically oriented, scientifically oriented, and even a little chicken-blooded. That is, if you do A, B will definitely happen, which will then lead to C, and then D. These results are all in a series, and they are different branches in a system. But maybe today you will feel that the system in the past had many problems. It thought of people as simple, and thought of bringing about change as simple. You think that what brings about change is a series of behaviors. But now I find out, where does the behavior come from? It doesn’t mean that consultants or the Gates Foundation’s strategy department say we should carry out this behavior, and it will happen; even if it does happen, there may be a bunch of variables that you ignore that were not originally included in your plan. So it sounds like now you go one step further, what was before the behavior? Maybe you don’t know, but I think it may be something about being, which is to invest more in the world.
Li Yinuo : is actually not contradictory. The entire human life experience is a process from outside to inside and then from inside to outside. It’s not that our previous experiences are useless or wrong, but that we discovered some problems through do at that time. People need to reflect on these issues objectively, because everyone is in a certain context. If you asked me to say that the work I do is not meaningful to clients when I was a partner at McKinsey, I would definitely not say so. I have interests entangled in it, so even if I think it's meaningless, I won't talk about it. But this does not mean that we cannot examine this matter honestly, including the Gates Foundation. I was the chief representative at the time, and when I thought about these implications, not only me, but everyone will be restricted in a certain job or role. There are role restrictions and social restrictions. But this does not prevent us from examining this matter intellectually. This is actually work that everyone needs to do, otherwise we are actually deceiving ourselves and others. It's like the propaganda department makes black things white - just believe it. But if you really believe it yourself, that's ridiculous. If you describe something white as black for the sake of publicity, and everyone says it is white, but you yourself forget that it is indeed black, then sooner or later you will suffer a loss. So, it’s not that we had logic before and don’t have logic now. We also have logic now. This logic is at a more invisible level and is a lower-level logic. This logic is the real operating logic. I think it is a continuous process, a downward process. Let me give you the easiest example, such as children. Parents say that our children have time management problems. It is very simple. Make a timetable for the children and do specific things at a specific time. This doesn't work. In educational terms, there is no internal drive. If the child doesn’t want to do it, why doesn’t he want to do it? Why no interest? So what are you interested in? Why are you resistant to doing this? Until these problems are solved, the child will not do or be different. That’s why a lot of education is sometimes anti-education. For example, many people think that they can teach by teachers from Tsinghua University and Peking University. I think this is the biggest paradox. Their logic is simple: because the teacher graduated from Tsinghua University and Peking University, the child who attends this school can also graduate from Tsinghua University and Peking University. In fact, it is ignorance. Many times we use this ignorance to guide our life and work. This is called delusional people, living in illusion. This theory is not difficult. If you look at the simple examples around you, most of them are underlying logic. It’s not that we seemed to follow the steps in the past but not now, it’s just that we need to reflect on the things we did before. After my project was completed, everyone internally thought it was good, but there was a voice in my heart that thought, is this really valuable to customers? I will not write these contents on paper or in the project report, but I have to think about them myself.When you think about these questions, you will find that many times what you do is ridiculous. It may not make any business sense to think about it, but it will bring people closer to the truth, and the truth will lead to greater insights, actually more meaningful things, which can be brought to other work. This reflection, this courage to really ask questions that make you feel like the outcome might not be pretty is so important.
He Liu : This seems to be quite different from your previous life. When you studied Molecular Biology, you went to McKinsey and then to the Gates Foundation. Of course, these times have brought about today's reflections for you. But if you look back, you will feel that the time in the past was actually quite a waste, and that you were quite stupid in the past. In fact, you may not have understood many things, and you may have been on the wrong path. What meaning and benefit do your past experiences have to you?
Li Yinuo : The benefits of are great. Growth is like this, every step counts. It is not that we deny the past now, but a process from the outside to the inside, and from the inside to the outside. Contact with the outside world makes you reflect. After reflection, you will look at your past experiences from another perspective. It’s just that when you were experiencing it at the time, you may have felt it was relatively narrow, or you may have felt how you were promoted or how you could get promoted. Later you looked and reflected: Was the underlying logic of doing things at that time like this? Is this the result I want? You will reflect differently on the same experience. In addition, people are like this, every day is new, I think this is very important, the so-called "living in the moment" is this concept. I said in the workshop that one of the most important paths for human growth is to forget, let go, and overwrite previous memories. This memory is limiting to us most of the time, so let it go. It’s not that it has no value, but it was valuable at the time. But every day you open your eyes is new, and you can make completely different choices. No one or anything will limit you. Every day that passes is passed, and every day is brand new. When we are willing to let go of these so-called memories and the past, your life is actually living. Otherwise, if you live in the memory of the past, this memory is actually meaningless because it has passed.
He Liu : If you go back to study for a Ph.D. today, what do you think will be different? I guess some of our listeners may be studying for PhDs today. I even think that our listeners should still be curious about the world, willing to make some changes to the world, and even be willing to change themselves. But maybe they also think, what should they do? After listening to Li Yinuo’s talk today, maybe what I should do is a wrong framework, so what should I become? What would be different if you were studying for a PhD back then?
Li Yinuo : is to do everything at the moment more focused. All anyone can really do is this, everyone, including the President of the United States, including CEOs. I usually get up in the morning, brush my teeth, wash my face, go to the bathroom and change clothes. I might go to a press conference or attend various meetings in the middle, and then have lunch. In fact, all that can be done is what is in front of you, and the rest are thoughts in your mind. Most of the thoughts are actually useless, just delusions and a bunch of mess.
Former British Prime Minister Boris rides a bicycle to work, By Sohu News
So if I can do something different, it is be more focused - truly effective work is to do the best I can in everything in front of me, whether it is writing an email, doing an experiment, writing an article, or doing an interview, it is the only thing. This is not to say that we should start learning Western philosophy now. Of course, this is also needed. This is the background. Everyone should broaden their horizons. But the real change comes from everything in the present, the state of being is different. The day I was doing an interview, I had a very interesting question: how to raise children better? For example, my child is only three months old now and he doesn’t understand everything he says, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need to do things with him. A large number of kindergarten teachers say that it is very important to talk to and interact with children, but children cannot understand what we are saying. But for example, there are two ways to change a diaper. One is to feel annoyed and have to change the diaper, which is smelly and dirty, so you can finish it quickly and take it away; the other is to change the diaper with love, "My baby, today I will wipe your butt well and make it good for you." Do these two behaviors have any impact on children? In our ordinary thinking, there is no impact. We think about children's education every day, but in fact the biggest impact on children comes from the state in which they change diapers. So in fact, don’t think too much. Most of the things you do every day are chores, including changing diapers. Pay attention, do things with love, that's the only way to do it differently.
He Liu : When you said this call, it suddenly occurred to me that my grandfather’s teaching to me was always “study hard and make progress every day.” In fact, this sentence is quite profound. I understand it is to focus on doing the things in front of you well. How can I be a richer person inside? How can you make the world a better place? Just do the things in front of you and answer the questions well. Of course, it does not necessarily mean just answering the questions. You will have this problem when you are doing work or studying normally - At that time, if you wanted to do things well, what should you do? If this matter is not clear, then talking about doing the things at hand well is a bit putting the cart before the horse.
Li Yinuo : This question about is a good one. When we are willing to focus on doing something, the next thing to do will actually emerge. Don’t you think that doing these things (such as answering questions) is right, like a little monk ringing a bell, doesn’t it make sense? I hit it 1000 times or 1002 times and no one cared about it, but it actually has something to do with my cultivation. When people really focus on doing something, the state will be different, and the next important thing will emerge. Even if a child is studying in high school, he will not only study for 18 hours a day, but also do many things, such as eating, walking, and talking to his family. In each case, he will do the things in front of him well. The next important thing will appear. He may realize that he did not talk to his mother, or he got a lot of happiness in the process of talking to his mother; he may also find that there is no objection to these questions, and then he will make different choices. It’s not about focusing on doing the things that you really don’t want to do at the moment, but using this attitude towards your waking hours. During these times, you have other things to do – eating well, chatting with friends. When we are in this state, we will have different wisdom. Maybe we can do better on the questions, or maybe we can give up on the questions. We cannot look at it in isolation, thinking that what we do every day has no meaning, and that life is greater than the painful things in the middle. You can say that the paper clip itself is meaningless, but the people who made the paper clip may have discovered new mines and new work processes in the process, which makes sense. It is not that we acknowledge the things in front of us, but that we treat our waking hours with a dedicated attitude, so we will get the answer on how to face things we don’t want to face.
He flow : I don’t know if this understanding is correct. It sounds like you think that people should first keep an open mind in life. There can't be just one thing in life. Eat, drink and play when you should. You should also pay attention to the world and stay curious. Life should be diverse. In a diverse life, do everything seriously. You need to eat seriously, sleep seriously, chat with friends seriously, understand the world seriously, and do your job seriously. When you enter such a serious, curious, and focused state, you may be inspired at a certain link. You don’t know where the inspiration will appear, but if you stay serious, new things will find you.
Li Yinuo : pair. New ideas will emerge and new ways out will appear. In the example you mentioned just now, we actually have a lot of predictions. For example, answering questions is a painful and meaningless thing. You allow it to penetrate into your life, and you let it spill out. After the spillover, it stains your whole life: you think about answering questions when you eat, you think about answering questions when you sleep, and you think about answering questions when you eat or talk to my mother. This is a problem in itself. You should eat when you eat, which is called doing everything well in everything you see. But our problem is that although we have studied questions for 10 hours out of 18 hours, we have also turned the other 8 hours into studying questions. When you don't do this thing, even if you study for 10 hours, you should do whatever you want for the remaining 8 hours. When you go out for a walk, walk well, go to the toilet well, and drink water well. When you do these things, the first step is to clean up the pollution. Just do this within these ten hours and do nothing else. But this is very difficult. Why does it seem that it is so easy and difficult to live in the present? Most people are polluted and don’t even know it, right? For example, when I woke up this morning, someone scolded me. I was unhappy all day, right? But maybe when this person curses a word or two, he may have his reasons. So the Buddha said that the greatest practice is to let go. So that means this thing is difficult. Most of the time we allow one thing to pollute our entire spiritual life. When it pollutes the entire spiritual life, you didn't say, I'm trying hard to do the current question-answering thing. This is wrong what I told you. You remember it wrong when you should do it, but you don't do it when you don't do it. But we must realize that we often have this kind of pollution. Once this kind of pollution occurs, in fact, you have no longer done what I asked you to do.
He flow : How to adjust ? For example, I am very serious about answering questions, and I am also serious about my work and devote myself wholeheartedly. It seems difficult. Sometimes I also reflect that when someone tells me something, my mind may not be on him, but there are 100 other things thinking about it. Even if I am responding to others, it is actually a kind of autopilot state. That is, my mind, mouth and hands basically know how to respond to others automatically. People will not think that I don't care at all, but in fact there are other things in my heart.
Li Yinuo : is correct, so how to do it? Is this practice? Will you become a Buddha if you do it now? If you can't become a Buddha, it's normal to not be able to do it. Don't think you can do it. What's the path to do that? Whenever you feel this way, remind yourself. What people call spiritual enlightenment is just two words: awareness. Everything in the entire Diamond Sutra is just three words: kind and protective thoughts. Take every thought seriously. There may be times when you don't realize that you are on autopilot. There may be ten times when you are on autopilot and you realize that one of them is that you are not responding at all. This is awareness. Next time you will find that you are still on autopilot without responding, but you have already remembered - "I am on autopilot again." This is progress. Next time I may think of it twice out of ten, or it may be the next stage: Now that I remember it, I will be different. Go little by little, and when they are all connected, it will light up. So now the task I assign to everyone in the workshop is to write an awareness diary every day and write down the little things that you are aware of. After being aware of it and writing it down, it actually changes on the level of being, and the next time it becomes a habit. Why are many habits so difficult to change? Science is the basis of everything. You will find that there are pathways in our nerves. For example, every time you respond to me, we may have a conditioned response pattern for each person, but we may not be aware of it. Why this reaction pattern? Because you often walk like this, there are pathways between the nerves, and every time you walk like this, the pathways become smooth.The inner changes and changes in being that we desire now require a different channel - in the future, when others speak like this, I don’t have to react like this. It is difficult to build new pathways because the original pathways have been traveled thousands of times. So, why is it said that spiritual practice requires hard work? Because you are fighting against the previously formed conditioned reflex pathways, and building new pathways relies on awareness.
He flow : is also a skill.
Li Yinuo : yes. So why would anyone want to practice? That's it, it's not easy for him. In fact, we are closely related to the biological world and the history of the universe. This relationship is at the level of being rather than the level of doing. There is definitely a limit to what you can do, so just do the thing in front of you, no matter what it is. If the thing in front of you is not done well, it seems that you have a lot of time to do other things; if you have done the thing in front of you, you will have no time to do anything else. It is a method of elimination. Human life is limited, so we have to choose, and the choice ultimately comes back to what we want in our hearts. When we want everything and everything is relevant, we have no choice. The final result is that every day is like Brownian motion, looking very busy and accomplishing nothing in the end. But we must know what things we do to let others know that we exist or do it for the sake of doing it. When we are busy doing things, we leave little room for awareness. And when we are aware of these spaces, we will find that there are many things that do not need to be done. This does not mean that I am isolated from others, I am still connected to others on a being level. There is a metaphor for teaching meditation to children, which is very interesting: Look at a layer of water on top of a quagmire, stir it with a stick, and it is all very turbid. You feel busy and have many things to do; but when you sit down and let the sand in the mire sink, the water becomes clear. When you are clear, you can see very clearly. When all these turbid things are present, people have no choice. There are 100 million grains of sand. Do I have to catch all of them? No, what we need to do is let the sand settle. Modern society recognizes and promotes the personality and behavior of participating in competition, but this is actually a pollution of our hearts. If we really honestly ask ourselves: is there an intrinsic purpose? We may not admit this because we want to show off or have vanity in our hearts, but the most difficult thing for people is to be honest with themselves. If you have vanity, you must think that your own value lies in this, and your sense of existence lies in others thinking that you are good. Why do I need others to know I'm good? Because I feel that my value comes from the recognition of others. If my value had nothing to do with other people's recognition, I probably wouldn't do this. If you ask about seemingly normal things that cause you trouble, it will always make you discover something about yourself. Once you are aware of it, you can do something, face it, let it go, and then be different. It’s about doing work on the level of being.
By Pixabay
He Flow : We talked a lot today, about how to be ourselves, where does meaning come from, and where does change come from. They are all quite abstract and serious issues related to the depth of changing the world. Now let’s talk a little more relaxedly. I know that Yinuo has been playing the piano recently. In fact, he never learned piano when he was a child, but he is very good at it now. Why do you want to play the piano?
Li Yinuo : I actually wanted to learn . I had learned a little bit in China, but I always felt that I couldn’t get started. A year ago, I cut my hand and broke a tendon. I had surgery to sew it up, and then I just needed to recover. After six to nine months of rehabilitation, the teacher said it would be a good thing if I could use my fingers for something, and I said playing the piano. Anyway, my child was also in class, so I was added. It was such a chance. It was also a story of "a blessing in disguise, a blessing in disguise".
He Flow : is not easy either.
Li Yinuo : is okay. You can see that my finger is curved, not very straight. This is normal.
He Liu : Just now I heard your child say that this is the one he practices the most and plays the worst. This makes me very touched. You promote the concept of education and say that parents cannot be chickens, tiger mothers and tiger fathers, and they cannot have too high demands on their children, but their children have very high demands on you.
Li Yinuo : means that my education is very successful, right? They have requirements and judgments, and are very satisfied with my education.
He Liu : Mom practices the piano the most every day and plays the piano the worst. If you are not rich or smart enough, you are a failure.
Li Yinuo : is right, just kidding. That day our eldest son said to me, "Mom, you are the best mother." I asked why? He said his friends generally don't dare laugh at their parents. I just wanted to say: Are you sure you can laugh at me? Are you sure you can say this to my next sentence? I asked, "What about me?" He said, "If I want to laugh at you, just laugh back!" So I feel very successful, bickering with the kids all day long. He said, "My friends all think you're really nice," because it's very chill. The word chill is very interesting, it means that it is more relaxed, indifferent, or it can be said to be a joke.
He Liu : Have you ever thought about what your doll will look like in the future?
Li Yinuo : I don’t think about either. This is just delusion. People can only do what is in front of them. Many expectations actually kidnap people. If you don't anticipate, you won't kidnap. Just do the interactions you can have every day and that's it.
He Liu : is late, and we have been chatting for more than two hours. Thank you Yinuo for your time. I hope the listeners will gain something and be inspired. If not, just enjoy it. I still learned a lot today. I believe I will probably do the same thing when I get up tomorrow, wash my face, brush my teeth and have breakfast, but I will start asking some new questions. I don’t know if I can find the answers, but I have to start asking to find the answers. So thank you Yinuo, and thank you listeners, and see you in the next issue.
Li Yinuo : OK, thank you all. Thank you Heliu.
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