The Buddha himself experienced the futility of asceticism and saw with his own eyes the fate of ascetics, who either increased their suffering in vain or, in boredom, embarked on the path of self-destruction. Therefore, the Buddha resolutely renounced the fruits of his six years of asceticism. Eventually, he reaped the wisdom of the Middle Way and had an epiphany under the Bodhi tree. Since then, the Dharma has been passed down to the world.

In addition to penance, there is also an extreme way to get rid of the suffering of life in the universe, which is debauchery and indulgence. People who practice this method do not reflect on the reality of existence, but satisfy their endless ** by enjoying their limited material resources to the fullest, but only blindly covet the happiness of the present moment. Their proposition is that the body is happy only when material things are obtained; Without substance, the body suffers. As everyone knows, the Buddha severely and ruthlessly rebuked and rejected this hedonistic indulgence. According to the Buddha, their pleasures, rather than being able to enjoy them forever, are the root cause of sinful suffering.

If debauchery and indulgence could really be liberated, the Buddha would not have abandoned the world's best happiness capital, such as the dignity of the throne, the belattering wife and son, the elephant horse in the national city, and the Seven Treasures Pearl, and chose to go to the snow-capped mountains for asceticism. The Buddha felt that indulgence was only momentary pleasure that would eventually lead to infinite suffering. Happiness and sorrow are realities, so how can we achieve the goal of liberation through the means of indulgence? According to the Buddha, asceticism and hedonism are extreme methods of practice that can never lead to liberation. Only by relying on the balanced development of spirit and material can we be relieved of the suffering of life in the universe.

The Buddha once admonished his disciple with the viewpoint of spiritual pleasure without giving up material things, and this disciple was also an ascetic, but he could not relieve his sadness, and the Buddha said to him: Since you used to be a musician who played the harp, you should know that if the strings are pulled too tightly, the sound will be high and the strings will break; However, if the strings are pulled too loosely, the sound will be low and silent. You should also know that when the strings are not tight, the sound of playing the piano is the best, the rhyme is the most beautiful, and the tune is the most beautiful. Cultivation is the same as playing the harp, and only by working hard in the realm of not being hurried or loosened, slow or haste, can we realize the truth and attain liberation.

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After listening to the above Buddha's teachings, do we have a deep understanding? As ordinary people, we are basically either happy or unhappy every day, and it is difficult to have a feeling of not being bitter or unhappy, so Su Shi sighed: People have joys and sorrows, and the moon is cloudy and sunny. The ups and downs of emotions are a natural phenomenon. There is a lot of pain around us! For example: illness is the pain of **, no money is the pain of the economy, and between people, because of each other's unhappiness and dissatisfaction, there will be emotional pain. If we can be in the midst of these sufferings and not feel pain, or if we are in the midst of many pleasures and not feel happiness, then we are almost close to the state of the Middle Way.

Someone may pout, "I want to feel happiness in happiness and not experience pain in pain." Hehe, it's unlikely. The ordinary heart is exchanged for inner beauty, a steady stream of happiness, which is much more meaningful than the so-called happiness. How to be able to be in pain without feeling pain, first of all, you have to have a foundation of thought, and then the important thing is to have experience, then it is not something that can be clearly explained and done in one sentence. In addition to a lot of pain around us, there is also a lot of happiness! For example, we are healthy, our parents are tough, and although we are a little busy, we still have time to go to the park to bask in the sun, enjoy the feeling of love and the happiness brought by family, and so on. If we can do it when we are happy, we can also do it with a normal heart, then it would be good, don't "sing and get drunk and enjoy ourselves, dance and set the sun for glory" for a while, and then "white hair is 3,000 zhang, and the fate is like a long one", isn't this kind of emotional fluctuation too big?

So, even so, we really can't be normal, but we have to tell ourselves that this is normal, that many people have the confusion we are facing, that this is a natural phenomenon, and that we are not the only ones who have experienced this, don't be awkward about yourself. The purpose of cultivation is not to stop suffering or be happy in the future, but to take things lightly and pay more attention to inner cultivation, so that our hearts will become more beautiful and we will be more calm in the face of life. Just like when we watch a movie, if our reason is fragile and we can't control our emotions well, we will be easily moved by the plot, and with the change of the plot of the film, we will have joys, sorrows, and sorrows, and we will not be able to get out of the bitterness and happiness for a long time. In the face of life, why don't we be an excellent audience and face up to the ups and downs that life should have, then will you still have a temper?

(2) Impermanence is the middle way. In real life, the easiest thing to see is impermanence, because everything is in flux. Therefore, some people express their feelings: The only constant in this world is change. How impossible it is to pursue the unchanging truth in the midst of change! Because life is extinguished, the changeability of the sky is the truth. Impermanence leads to change, and change can lead to destruction. There is nothing pessimistic about the destruction of the phenomenon itself, but it is because we ask for something that makes us feel pessimistic. We can't help but look up to the sky and sigh, how good it would be if time was frozen at that moment, why can't we get back what we lost!

This is impossible, and there is a reason why things are impermanent rather than permanent. This is a principle of life, whether it is in the biological world or in the mineral world, everything is a continuation of change, and everything has its own law of development, just like our body has a metabolism. What a terrible thing it would be if the whole world were unchanging, and that many things that were created would never disappear, and that human beings would only be born and immortal. Therefore, impermanence is the main reason for the continued survival of life, in other words, the universe depends on impermanence to be born, exist, mutate and destroy, and continue to an infinite future.

It is precisely because of impermanence that the history of a country and a nation has the value of being recorded to be passed on to future generations. For those who don't know the Dharma, when they hear the word "impermanence," their hearts immediately turn gray. In fact, the impermanence that seems pessimistic on the surface is actually a fluid philosophy, and the distance of life is real. If we can grasp impermanence, we will be able to grasp the truth. On the one hand, they want to live in the four seasons of everyspring, immortality, no suffering, and no disease, but on the other hand, they are forced by the fact that it is impossible, so they always feel pain and are dissatisfied with reality. You know, fickleness is normal, and this normality is the truth. Removing the ** that is too "me" has reached the ideal middle way realm.