Laozi's "Tao Te Ching": For the sake of learning, one grows day by day, but for the sake of Taoism, one day loses it. What’s the explanation?

Based on my wasted experience of half my life, these two sentences from Lao Tzu are truly the ultimate words of wisdom.

This sentence has two levels of meaning:

The first level: Learning is day by day, and increasing knowledge requires learning every day. The Tao is lost every day. If you want to gain the ultimate wisdom of life, you need to watch your mind every day to get rid of your attachments. In short: for learning, we must improve day by day, and for Taoism, we must lose weight day by day.

Second level: As your knowledge increases, your conduct often decreases. In short: as learning increases, Taoism decreases.

To learn more and more, it means that your knowledge is constantly enriched, but the result is often "losing it day by day for the Tao".

Many people are trying to defend "increasing learning" in various ways, which is completely blasphemous to Lao Tzu's clear and clear words.

Many people interpret learning day by day as accumulating knowledge. Interpret the loss of the sun as a way to refine the rules. Therefore, the two are not inconsistent. Such an explanation is misleading to both itself and others, and deceptive to both itself and others.

If the sun loses money for the Tao, what is the loss? The loss is attachment, the loss is knowledge. Of course, if we want to be very precise, using Buddhist terminology, it is called hindrance. The Surangama Sutra says: Knowing and seeing establishes knowledge, which is the root of ignorance.

Of course, to be precise, knowledge does not mean knowing obstacles, that is to say, knowing itself is not an obstacle.

However, from the perspective of an ordinary person, it can almost be said that knowledge is an obstacle. Because when an ordinary person comes into contact with a thing, gets to know a person, or learns a piece of knowledge, at the moment when a certain understanding is formed, this understanding is also preserved with some kind of power. In other words, anything you learn will form a potential cognitive force at the moment.

Such a situation is called the first impression effect in the world, and it is called the discrimination of Dharma in Buddhism. There is also the deeper innate Dharma attachment, which will not be discussed here.

What are the disadvantages of this first impression effect? It can be said that the disadvantages are as big as the sky!

Where do our habitual thoughts come from? It comes from this first impression effect. Inertial thinking, also known as thinking trap, is the fundamental obstacle to human innovation.

Many famous and authoritative scientists at home and abroad in ancient and modern times will inevitably end up siding with tradition to suppress the so-called novel theories, such as Copernicus’ heliocentric theory and Boltzmann’s third theory of thermodynamics. The second law, Lobachevsky's non-Euclidean geometry,..., these people have all been criticized by their predecessors. Therefore, habitual thinking kills people, even great authorities are not immune to this, let alone ordinary people.

This era is an era of increasing learning. With more and more knowledge, there are also more and more disadvantages.

First, there are fewer and fewer generalists. There are many people who have become masters and come out as slaves. This communication is not the communication of learning more and understanding more, but the communication of opening up and integrating.

Secondly, the more you learn, the heavier your attachment will be and the higher your ego will be. I have learned a lot, and most of it is on a two-legged bookcase. I have not digested it at all, so how can I absorb it? Just like the 2020 college entrance examination essay for a certain province that was turned into a joke, it was full of words that others couldn't understand to show its inscrutability.

Third, pursuing a limitless life with a limitless life shows that this is a hopeless road.

Let’s talk about the daily loss of Tao.

For the sake of Tao, this is a road to return to simplicity.

What is Tao? The metaphysical is called Tao.

Where is the Tao? The Tao is at every point in time and space.

To be the Tao means to seek the Tao. Daily loss means practicing every day to reduce your attachments.

How to achieve daily losses? Let’s take two pictures as an example.

Look at Figure 1 first. This picture illustrates that as one learns, he becomes more and more obsessed with the Tao.

Everyone, there is an object in the center above. Can you see what is in the center of the picture above?

This picture reveals a big secret about human understanding. After your understanding, concepts, and opinions are formed, you will find that it is very difficult to dissolve them.

Just like the things in this picture, when you can’t find the things in the picture, you have been searching hard, where are the things in the picture? Why didn't I notice it?

Once you find it, discover it, form knowledge. At this point, every time you look at this picture, you will find something so clear and clear. It is suddenly in the picture. Why couldn't you see it then?

The strangest thing is that you want to go back to the state before you discovered it, the state before you recognized it, but you can't go back.

Take this example to illustrate why while learning is improving, being Taoist often decreases. (This is the second meaning mentioned at the beginning) Everyone should be able to understand. On the other hand, we can understand the difficulty of "losing the sun for the sake of the Tao".

In this picture, it is Tao Sun loss, which means returning to the state before knowledge. You find that you have lost this freedom. You are bound and bound by this knowledge. You can't switch at will and watch whenever you want. If you want to regain this kind of freedom, you need to work hard, which is called practice in Buddhism and Taoism.

What needs to be emphasized is that losing one's self for the Tao does not mean ignorance, but maintaining a high degree of spirituality and having the freedom to switch at will. Buddhism calls it the elimination of attachment.

As a result of the Tao, daily losses occur, and losses occur again and again, leading to inaction. These attachments are layered layer by layer, like possessions, connected to the flesh and blood, and are very difficult to remove.

For example, in the picture above, there are many layers of cognition, each layer is more subtle than the other, and each layer is closer to the reality of life.

First layer: the cigar in the center of the picture. Clear this knowledge and return to the second level.

Second level: the bricks in the picture. Clear this knowledge and return to the third level.

The third layer: the color of the picture. Clear this knowledge and return to the fourth level.

......

Level N: Clear what you know and return to the mind that can know.

......

Level ∞: Return to Tao, return to inaction.

Picture 2. I use this picture to illustrate that many of people’s perceptions are simply wrong.

For example, in Figure 2, are the colors of cells A and B the same or different? Answer: It’s the same!

This is incredible. Human cognition can easily be influenced by the environment, just like the picture above. The picture above is influenced by the shadow of the cylinder, which leads to the illusion that there is a difference between cell A and cell B. It also explains that it is very difficult to clear the illusion.

Therefore, in the process of loss and damage, to be able to reduce the impact on the environment, or even not be affected by the environment, this requires hard work and appropriate methods and means.

For the Tao, if you lose a piece of knowledge, you will release a piece of bondage, restore a piece of spirituality, and gain a piece of freedom. Finally return to the reality of life.

What is the reality of life? The Sixth Patriarch, Master Huineng, said when he was enlightened: "Whenever the self-nature is inherently pure; when the self-nature is inherently non-existent; when the self-nature is inherently self-sufficient; when the self-nature is inherently unshakable; when the self-nature is inherently unshakable; Self-nature can give rise to all things."

How do you know? It turns out that life is originally pure, immortal, perfect, unshakable, and capable of giving rise to all dharma in the world and beyond!