Someone saw me abstaining from food and said to me, "Isn't it sad, like a monkfish, when a person can't even eat what he deserves to eat, when he can't even eat enough barley or multigrain, not even rice?" I say.
You don't know your fractions, so I don't know if I should tell you, but the general public is listening, so I'm going to tell you about the derivative.
First of all, even a thousand soldiers and generals eat rice, and even people of lower status eat rice, so don't you think this is a big deal? If you eat three meals of rice every day and don't get tired of it, but think that eating barley rice is monkfish, you really don't know your own fractions.
After rice, barley is the next best thing. Have you ever thought about how big the difference in status is, from a royal to a commoner?
If a king of the heavens eats rice, it would be a luxury for us lowly folk to make tofu and eat the leftovers. Nevertheless, we should be very grateful to be able to eat rice or barley. It would be a good thing to realize this first, and to eat barley even if you are overwhelmed by your status. In any case, food should be eaten with fear, moderation, and abstinence.
I'm a big bird, like a great crested ibis (imaginary big bird). How can I survive on the food that swallows and sparrows eat?
Even large birds like the great blue heron and small birds like sparrows have their own specialty foods. You are just one of the small birds. Larger birds don't eat a lot of food, nor do they eat indiscriminately. The phoenix doesn't eat anything but water. Small birds eat everything from grains and berries to human and animal waste. A person like you who eats food indiscriminately, without distinguishing between hot and cold, is not wise. Those who speak of great birds with their mouths and eat with their hearts are all like sparrows. How can a sparrow know the deep meaning of a phoenix?
I have great intentions, so I want to eat food, alcohol, and meat all the time and keep my body and mind healthy so that I can spread my will to the world, but when I eat frugally, I feel weak and it's hard to do my will.
Yuan qi refers to the most original power that comes from the heavens. It enriches you with the energy of the great outdoors, but it is not necessarily strong. This means that even if you nourish your life with food, you cannot make your energy strong. In slang, a person who has a good qi is a person who has a strong qi and is not in accordance with morality or reason, who enjoys drinking and eating meat, binges, and tries to look strong on the outside. Such a person will not last long in the world. However, if a person who is able to control himself or herself is able to rise to prominence, he or she can maintain it for a long time.
You always want to advance, but your behavior is not correct, so you never advance in your life; if you want to advance, you must be self-controlled and prudent. A person with ten men's worth of prudence will have ten men's worth of advancement, and a person with more than ten men's worth of prudence will have more than ten men's worth of advancement. And a person with the prudence of ten thousand people will have the advancement of ten thousand people.
Therefore, food is fundamental to sustaining the body and mind, but moderation is the best way to do so. Moderation is difficult, but progress comes to those who practice it, and progress comes to those who prioritize moderation.
Shintoists are not wealthy, even in large temples, but monks are, and they often lend their gold and silver treasures to others. Why do they do this?
Shintoists are yang, solemn and pure in heart. They don't mix with the world and cleanse their bodies and minds, which is why many of them are austere.
Illegitimacy is also yin, quiet and serene. They do not abstain from filthy things and impure things, so they are naturally wealthy because they attract patrons from all directions. The basic precepts of a monk nowadays are to abstain from eating meat outwardly, to abstain from lustful lovemaking, and to always be temperate, even though inwardly he betrays the Dharma. This is called the natural virtue of poverty, for even if one is poor, there is a corresponding blessing, as the virtue naturally reaches the heavens and earth and returns to oneself.
On the other hand, a devotee loses his virtue because he is allowed to have a wife and children, and he always does as he pleases, eating liquor and meat freely and enjoying music. Therefore, it is natural for a great gentleman to be poor. If a man of low rank, though a monk, does as he pleases without restraint, he will suffer from illness and have a short life. No one under heaven, regardless of the rank of his profession, is able to live as he pleases and fulfill his wishes.
I want to be blessed with good fortune, wealth, and a long life. Can I achieve this by abstaining from food?
In order to achieve good fortune, wealth, and longevity, abstinence from food is of utmost importance. If you are strict with your mind, you will naturally be strict with your food. Just as the rise and fall of a country depends on its king, so if the king is prudent and careful with his wages, the country will develop, but if the king is not prudent, the country will fail. Therefore, if you are careful and moderate with your food, blessings, fortune, and longevity will naturally follow.
Money is the treasure of the world, and even if you spend a lot of it, it will remain in the world and never disappear, no matter who spends it. However, if you eat even a small amount of food, it will go out as excrement, never to return to the world again. This is a great loss of virtue. Those who eat food imprudently harm themselves, and lose their fortune, wealth, and longevity.
Therefore, there is no other way to lose one's good fortune, wealth, and longevity than through food, and all kinds of hardships are caused by not abstaining from food and overeating in pride. Instead of gluttony and binge-eating, you should use your mind to maintain and prolong your good fortune, wealth, and longevity. If you cultivate virtue every day, you will surely succeed and progress in the end. When the foods that you have refrained from eating are abundant in nature and the heavens and earth, you will be able to rise up and spread your will to the heavens and earth. The auspicious and unfortunate aspects of the Kwan Sang method are irrelevant here. It is only related to eating and abstaining from food.
Do you know of the species of monk who has a wife, eats meat, and is always arrogant, yet he feels secure that he has lived a happy life.
Disgruntled and ignorant sentient beings are sinful and wandering, never at ease. If the person who leads them is too pure and honorable, everyone is afraid and does not come near them. Knowing this, a master (the title given to a person who founded a sect and opened its branches and claimed it as his own) is compassionate and outwardly behaves like a vulgar person, so that sentient beings gather around him without fear and are able to clear their confused minds and be at peace. His virtues were so vast and great that they had no end, and he was able to benefit the Dharma and accumulate wealth for himself.
For the sake of sentient beings, being close to women and eating meat can be a great compassion. However, there are often monks who enter the Buddhist path with a corrupt mind, who do not understand the great intentions of their teacher, and who think that this is the way the practice is supposed to be. Such monks are the problem.
I've been lucky since I was young and have accumulated a lot of wealth, but lately I'm not so lucky and I'm losing a lot of money every year and I'm worried about it.
You are fortunate to be young and full of good fortune, so it is fortunate to lose your fortune yourself, and it is fortunate to lose it early. If you are greedy, the heavens will take care of it naturally.
If you lose your fortune because the heavens punish you, you're more likely to be impoverished, but if you lose it yourself, you're less likely to suffer and more likely to make up for it quickly.
It is important to return to the beginning, because you did not start out with wealth, but were originally poor, but were blessed by heaven to become rich. You are suffering because you have forgotten your roots. Those who forget their roots will not end well, but those who do not forget their roots will not become conceited, nor will they suffer a big nose because of their pride.
Also, if a person who is fortunate knows about poverty, he is at peace. This is called a person who knows the fundamentals. A rich man's knowledge of poverty is like a general who is able to manage his own affairs and his army well, so that his house will not fall.
Poverty is both the source and the foundation of wealth, as wealth is the accumulation of poverty from all sides. The poor are countless, but the rich are few.
Therefore, one should know poverty as the root of riches, and poverty as the root of all things.
Even if you are a monarch, you are not a monarch from the beginning, but your subjects gather to call you a monarch, so your status as a monarch is cemented by the gathering of precious and poor subjects. If you rule over your subjects after knowing poverty, you will naturally become a rich country.
If you think of your subjects as your own children and you treat them as your own children when they treat you, there will be no problem between them, so that is also the foundation of wealth.
Furthermore, in governing your subjects, you should always treat them as you would a younger sister, and when they are sick, you should treat them as you would your own children, and eat three meals a day with them without distinction between the upper and lower classes.
And even if you cannot drink, drink with your subjects three times a month instead of twice, and ask for the prosperity of the country.
And if you see something useful thrown away, don't criticize the person who threw it away. Do not let small things distract you from the whole. And if you are strict about food and give food to your subjects outside of the three meals a day, you should not eat it yourself, and if you keep this rule for three years, you can rebuild your country and make it as rich as it was before.
