Sư phụ told me to sit and write to calm the mind

Mood scattered, dazed, full of emotions. Sitting still gets nothing done, thoughts have no way out. I remembered what my sư phụ told me: sit down and write to calm your mind.

Eastern Buddhism teaches that nhân chi sơ tính bản thiện — at birth, human nature is fundamentally kind. I don't read the classics, don't study much doctrine, only got a year of going to the temple every evening to chant sutras I didn't understand. So I don't understand that line. Once I started understanding it, the more clearly I understood the harder it was to believe. How the hell can everyone be fundamentally kind, mister??? I was forced into being kind, I have to try hard to be a little kind, I have to actively choose kindness. What fundamentally, what default kindness???

No! Buddha probably said it to steer humans in that direction. Because animal instinct, survival comes first. I come first, I live and then the people around me live — like the aviation safety rule: secure yourself first, then save the person next to you. That must be it! Nhân chi sơ tính bản ác — human nature at birth is fundamentally evil! But saying so, everyone would feel free to be evil, so you'd have to call on them to turn to good by telling them: you were born gentle (until you grow up…).

It must be that way.

I understood it that way when the Joker played by Heath Ledger delivered the message: people will be good until their safety is threatened. When everything is good and plentiful, everyone will be good. When there's nothing left to eat, people will kill each other to eat each other.

Raise a fierce dog — don't let it go hungry; raise a gentle dog — also feed it fully (the photo is the gentle dog). Dealing with people who aren't good, don't push them into desperation. With friends, put them through hardship to know the bad ones and the good ones and act accordingly going forward. If you want to build a future with someone, find a way to see how they behave at their most destitute. But you have to know where the human limit is. People born into comfort won't understand hardship; people in lifelong hardship won't give up underhanded methods to rise. Challenge the brave but don't challenge the cowardly and base. You must pick those who are poor but not low, rich but not loud, unfazed by hardship, treating tribulation as a test, not surrendering in defeat, taking failure as a staircase, with talent and virtue, gentle with people but fierce on the battlefield. Nurture the worthy without wasting it on the petty. If you mistakenly invest in a petty man and neglect a worthy one — when you find out, cut off the head immediately and apologize to the one still standing.

After writing, I see everything more clearly. Thank you, sư phụ.