The greatest asset in life is hope, and the greatest bankruptcy is despair. If you have courage, you will not sink in the face of rough waves; if you are a coward, you will drown even if the waves are calm. The most important thing in life is attitude: without sowing, there is no harvest; without hard work, there is no success; without suffering, there is no glory; without setbacks, there is no glory.

Guiguzi’s attitude towards life is worthy of our admiration. He is far away from the world, but he has the wisdom of the world; he is high in planning, but he is hidden in the mountains and forests. In the tumultuous and chaotic times of the Warring States Period, enjoying exclusive peace and tranquility was beyond the reach of great wisdom. Life is like this: if your mentality changes, your habits will change; if your habits change, your personality will change; if your personality changes, your destiny will change.

If you want to know the true meaning of life, there are three essential quotations from the ancients. Reading them thoroughly will make you suddenly enlightened.

1. It is better to repay kindness than to repay kindness; to seek fame is worse than to escape fame. Appropriate; pretentiousness is worse than straightforward truth.

Definition: Giving kindness to others without repaying others' kindness; fighting for fame and fortune is worse than giving up fame, fortune and leisure; claiming to be noble but not being honest and truthful.

Extension: Sometimes the purpose of giving favors to others is not simple. It may be for your own peace of mind, it may be to win over others, or it may be to gain fame. Although it is to help others, the purpose is self-interest and does not make people feel sincere.

People with integrity will not do anything to gain fame. Generally, when you gain fame, you will lose your peaceful life. Standing in the spotlight, no one will be pretentious and pretend to be themselves. So the real life is: be a person with duty, work diligently, and being ordinary is true!

2. If you recognize the confusion from the extremely confusing place, you will wake up everywhere; if you let go of the difficulties, the world will be widened.

Definition: Being able to see through the most confusing situations, you can be sober in any situation; you can put down the most confusing things, and you can be calm and open-minded in any situation.

Only by keeping a clear mind can we see through all the obstacles in the world; only by letting go of all obstacles can we understand the true meaning of life. The reason why I feel uneasy is because my desires are still worrying me. I look down on fame and fortune, and my mind is naturally open. The heart is like a bodhi tree, and as a mirror stand, there is no worries in the heart, where is the dust!

3. Burning desire is a pit of fire, and indulging in greed is a sea of ??suffering.

Explanation: Too strong a desire for fame and wealth is equivalent to jumping into a pit of fire; too strong a greed is equivalent to sinking into a sea of ??misery.

Extension: Appearances arise from the heart, and phases disappear with the heart. With lustful thoughts in the heart, the human heart becomes greedy, and life falls into the pain of unsatisfied desires. A thought of pure flames turns into a pool, a thought of vigilance makes one sail to the other shore. Only when the heart is pure can we extinguish the fire of desire, calm down and reach the other side of liberation!