How did Zeng Guofan get rid of his lustful habits?

As the saying goes, food and sex are human nature. People who eat whole grains must have seven emotions and six desires. Beauty, food, clothing, housing and transportation are also the most primitive needs in the human subconscious. This kind of demand is an inevitable habit passed down in the animal world. Even the ancient saints only advised the world to grasp it.

Zeng Guofan was the first of the four ministers of Zhongxing in the late Qing Dynasty. When he was young, he was also a lustful person, full of infinite yearning and expectation for beauty, and even fell into it and was unable to extricate himself. Fortunately, Zeng Guofan was able to realize the seriousness of the problem in time and change his mind to change his bad habits. Next, let’s learn about Saint Zeng’s experience of lust and abstinence. Extremely excited when he sees beauty, he can't help but be rude and farce

Zeng Guofan had the habit of writing a diary. Later generations who study Zeng Guofan usually look for clues from his family letters and diaries. According to the research of Zeng Guofan's diary, there is a very unpopular record in it, which is exactly Zeng Guofan's content about beauty. The story is roughly like this.

Zeng Guofan was an official in Beijing. Once, his colleagues joked with each other that he had just taken a concubine, who was as beautiful as a flower and was indescribably beautiful. When Zeng Guofan heard this from the side, his ears almost stood up. He insisted on asking his colleagues to hold a banquet at home so that he could see her beauty.

The banquet date has arrived, Zeng Guofan couldn't bear to get off work early, took a small gift and ran to someone's house. When the wine was half drunk, my colleagues called out my concubine to say hello. After Zeng Guofan saw his concubine, his eyes stopped moving. Unexpectedly, he couldn't help but get up from his seat, walked to the concubine's side and helped her to kiss the beauty.

According to Zeng Guofan’s own records of the scene at that time, if the owner hadn’t stopped him in time, some kind of joke might have happened. The master was very angry when he saw this. He got up and scolded Zeng Guofan and drove him away. Use the diary to warn yourself, and use the saints as the rules

Zeng Guofan felt that he had indulged too much, causing his body to gradually lose weight. If this continues, a person in his thirties will definitely empty his body. So, he began to set a rule for himself to abstain from sex, which was to learn to be a saint. Since you want to be a saint, you can no longer stare at the women outside like you did before.

However, quitting sex is a very difficult process. Zeng Guofan had no choice but to keep writing in his diary every day to constantly remind himself. And the contents of the diary are written in very detail. For example, when I saw a beautiful woman in a certain place, I accidentally looked at it a few more times, or I saw someone's concubine in a certain house, and I had an unreasonable thought in my heart.

In the 22nd year of Daoguang reign, Zeng Guofan accidentally broke the precepts. He scolded himself in his diary that he was not a thing, he was worse than a beast, and he should not do such things to others. Zeng Guofan recorded all this in great detail. It was this attitude of not shying away from taboos and facing up to others that enabled Zeng Guofan to completely give up his lustful thoughts in ten years, and gradually cultivate himself to become a model of a saint.

All in all, Zeng Guofan was a man who was slightly successful in quitting sex in history. It is precisely because of his courage and perseverance that he can defeat lustful evil thoughts with a rational attitude. A lustful person is not terrible, but indulging in lust is not a good thing after all. Zeng Guofan deserves to be learned by every man.