How to be a good Spiritual Person/Master? (如何成為修行士上士篇)

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A lot of people had been asking me about this question, how to become a good Spiritual Person (can be Spiritual Leader/Master or Priest). At few times, I was really amused by such question.

Maybe for those who are not closely associated or involved in Taoist Events or Spiritual Cases, may not be able to know the truth, but for those who are closely associated with all these events will know that, it's not easy to be a good Spiritual Person in today’s modern society.

Why did I say so?

As a Priest (Spiritual Person) myself, sometime I will also wonder why. Why our Taoism is not able to be promoted correctly or uprightly? Why our Taoism is always on the last of the list when people talk about Religions? After realizing and finding out, I realized that, not because of no talented people in our Taoist Society, but because most of them chose to avoid the topic of Promoting and also try to avoid being too over-shine as compared to others – worrying of being pin-point by some other Spiritual Groups or Taoist Organisations – which is an post-effect of Modernization.

If we will to look back at our basic Teaching of Dao (Accept and wait for respone – response can be in Yin form, which is negative and Yang form, which is positive), if oneself, by promoting the right & upright Culture of Taoism and yet, got insulted or pin-point by the others because of jealousy and hatred, don’t that oneself felt that, actually he/she had done his/her best in Promoting the Culture which caused someone/some groups that took time to go thru or to listen to the things that the oneself promoted – objective achieved (the Yin form can be a motivation or an initial change for the Yang form, meaning negative may not be 100% negative, but it can be a push factor to become a positive achievements)?

To add, certain level of insulting/pin-pointing or crude remarks are good, this will somehow act as a form of motivation (so-called Push factor) to allow the promotion to go on. But once the level of insulting/pin-pointing or crude remarks increased, then oneself must do a serious self-reflection to realize what had gone wrong, where is the main root of fault, etc. In the first place, never ever argue back with those who insulted/pin-pointing or made crude remarks on you, cos, wrong lays on both sides. Once a person can perform self-reflection and not arguing back when thing goes nasty, he/she will have reach a certain level of good Spiritual Person.

Besides doing self-reflection, no arguing back or self realizing, as a good Spiritual Person, oneself also needed to do a lot of self study, researches and finding out the truth and fact of things happened, etc. Only by putting in effort in doing all these, one self can realize how bad the situations are or where the problem lays, etc.

Just recently, a group of folks argued on issues of Jiu Huang Da Di (the Nine Emperors). Claimed that our Taoist Deities, the Nine Emperors were pirates or bandits, etc. But if a person will to do a deeper research or study on our Taoism Deity System or read up our Taoist Scriptures, it's not difficult to know that, our Nine Emperors are actually the Nine Stars that appeared in the Northern Hemisphere which assist the Heavenly Realm to look after the movements of living beings, etc.

For me, usually I DON'T really argue back in a way that YOU MUST BELIEVED IN ME, but I will try to point out where you can find the information from and where you can get the accurate details, etc. Once serious arguing occurred, it will defeat the purpose of Taoist Cultivation or Culture Promoting.

To conclude, to be a good or better Cultivation Spiritual Person, do not just believe in hear-say, first impression sight-seeing or by reading one article, etc, observe more, listen more, read more, feel more, ask more and then do self reflection, self realizing and eliminating of untrue facts, to get a clearer view on what one self wished to learn, know and find out.

Like what my Master like to advise me when he’s still around in this Mortal World:

No Master is a wonder Master (師者無獨強師).
No Master is an incredible Master (師者無萬能師).
As a disciple, besides learning, one self shall try to find out more and not follow blindly (聞觀觸不致盲追求).
Follow blindly is not a disciple but a copy-cat or Parrot (不如谷中徘徊蕩音).
Only by finding out more, then a disciple is considers as a Real disciple
(方成眾徒中之徒, 修行方士之首士).

From then, I know that, in-order to learn more, one self will have to put in more effort to find out than just to sit there, waiting for the skills or knowledge to be taught.

This is the Real Dao – making use of the Push factor to direct in the Pull factor, collating the 2 factors into 1 factor which go thru the whole physical self to reach a standard of no "Push and Pull factor" to become "Push-Pull factor".

Accept what ever one self can’t accept, in order to be accepted by the Whole.

(納之於不能受之事,眾能納汝之)

This is another phrase that being passed down by my Ancestors.

After hearing this sentence, a lot of the people start to scratch their head and a lot of question marks appeared in front of them. It may sounds a bit profound, but actually, it’s just part of a mortal’s life. Only for those who can really understand and practice it, then one self can attain another level of cultivation.

Since the first day when mortals are being created in this Universe, no one mortal can accept things, events, issues or cases that he/she doesn’t want to accept. This is one of the causes of mortals’ emotional sense – known as hatred or selfishness.

In order for one self to achieve in his/her cultivation to become a successful Spiritual Person, one self will need to overcome such emotional sense in order to accept what ever one self cant accept.

When one self opened up him/herself to accept what ever that he/she can’t accept in the past, and now he/she can willingly to accept, one self has achieve in the so-called Wisdom-opening cultivation.

It is always easy to say but never easy to do.

Over different eras, decades, etc, not much cultivated people can achieve that fully, and of cos, this refers to the modern day cultivated people too. In today’s cultivation World, I can say only a very small number of such cultivated people achieve in this Acceptance-practice.

So how to accept what ever one self can’t accept?

First, by practicing self-realizing. By doing self realizing, one self needed to study on the issues closely. Look into the details of why one self can’t accept, find the root of the not-accepting-pushing-force, once the root is being realized, try to disconnect it with one self’s cultivation will or seeking another high one self to assist in the disconnecting.

For example, due to insulting, one self cannot accept the other self. If one self can study deeper into the case, he/she will know why such insults happened, whether it’s because one self ever insulted the other party before or the things that one self said had hurt the other party, etc.

If either of the cases happened, try to make apologize to the other party for forgiving and if the other party will to accept one self’s apologize, then one self will be accepted and the things that one self involved will be accepted by all people around one self and the other party’s surrounding people, etc.

While doing self realizing for such cases, one self must always stay calm and always stay alert with an open-mind, cos only by having that, one self can have a clearer mind to study on the issues, etc.

Second, be Humble. This may sounds a bit out of topic, but this is one of the few important factors that affect one self to be accepted by the other selves.

To be Humble as in the sense of willingly to take in any comments, complains or even reprimands.

By willingly and openly accepting such actions, one self will realize the mistakes that one self had made. From there, if one self will to make changes accordingly, he/she will be able to accept what ever the other selves can’t accept on and to achieve in the cultivation of accepting what ever can’t be accepted.

Third, be Tough. Tough as in withholding the determination in believing that one self accept what ever can’t be accepted and one self will be accepted by the Whole.

This Tough, some times can be really tough, cos not much selves can really have that good determination in withholding his/her believe till the last moment.  

Usually during such “withholdings”, one self will encounter with a lot of external pushing-factors (can be positive or negative) that cause one self of losing the determination and end up, choose to give up.

 

Once such thoughts are being created in one self’s mind, then he/she will not be able to concentrate. In order to concentrate, one self must strongly believed that, by really holding on to what one self’s believe, he/she will be able to enjoy the “result of being accepted” in a short period.

Accepting the un-acceptable issues can make one self more mature in order to proceed to another level of cultivation.

By accepting the un-acceptable issues, can also make one self succeed in whatever he/she never succeed before.

In conclusion, always try one’s best to accept whatever that he/she thinks that cannot be accepted. If one self never try to accept the things that he/she thinks that it’s difficult to accept, one self will never know that what is accepting.