Follow your heart?

These 'fluffy' words are quite popular among Chinese youngsters young people in China (youngsters is not wrong, but it is something old people say) today. I would not say it is really fluffy because these words have been confusing me for quite a long time, until a moment ago (how long? within the last hour? Then moment is OK) when I was reading about Buddhism...

The confusing question (what confused me is better) was that people say "follow your heart", but where is the heart? and in Chinese the heart means 真心 which is represents a truthful, real, sincere heart but which is not fake. Further, But how do you know that the heart which you are following is not fake, unfounded(do you mean deceptive/untrue?) or fluffy:P?

The idea that helped me figured out the answer is that "if it is you are not paid, would you still like to do the things which you are doing now?", seeing that it is a material world where people are motivated by money and fame.

So I would say that things you will insist on doing no matter if you were paid or not, are the choices sourced from 真心.

Buddha says people in this world do not have true hearts(I don't really know how to say this, "佛说世间的人用的心不是真心，而是妄心.真心永远不变，而妄心是变幻无常的。真心就好比是月亮，而妄心是水里的月亮影子")，真心 never change, but 妄心 is always changing.
You could say: Buddha says that a true heart is like the moon, and people's hearts are like the moon's reflection on the water. The moon never changes, but the reflection flickers and changes with the movement of the water. Just like a reflection on the water, people's hearts are not genuinely true, but constantly changing.

I thought I'ved figured out the answer but right now I still don't understand what is 真心 actually is,because I haven't become a Buddha yet. But it is good to know how to judge what choice sources which choices come from 真心 and what does which do not.





p.s.Some people might ask that "how do how come you say you haven't become a Buddha, isn't him he the God in your religion?" Buddha is actually not the only person or God, it is the name for the people who have infinite mindfulness(无上正等正觉), and also, Buddhism is not a religion but a sort of education, ancient people in temples had to study 16 hours a day; but in the recent 300 years the temple people no longer obey the rules but just do the ceremonial things, that's the reason why it went down to became just religion and people who don't know about Buddhism think it is 迷信。（is "blind faith" ok here?) blind faith is a little harsh, it usually refers to someone believing in something despite facts proving that it is untrue. Superstition is probably better here :-)






I also discussed this question in Chinese, just put it up here:)

追随真心 可能是件不靠谱的事情

很久以前我也把这四个字奉为至理。而一年前左右却又觉得它颇经不起推敲。

问题在这里：1. 人类所知范围内的心可以称之为真心吗？ 2.  有时人们所谓的追随“真心”，只不过是为追随欲望穿上了一层梦幻的外衣。3. 既然在不知真心的情况下就去坚定的追求它，那会有什么结果？（嗯，也或许真心就是明白人想要的结果，但这不是今天要说的。）

写这这篇短文的缘起是今日修学读到了一段话:"你看世間人在社會上每天很辛苦、很努力去工作，為什麼？什麼力量在推動你？讓你每天勤苦的工作，早出晚歸，你想是什麼力量？我想大家都能答的出來，名利，利比名還重要。假如今天一點好處都沒有，一分錢都拿不到，你肯不肯去做工？你就懈怠了，你就不肯了。所以社會動力的根源就是利，其次就是名，這兩個是社會的動力。" 只读这段话大家得出的感悟或许不同，所以就不求甚解吧。

还有一段话很重要 ：“菩薩用的心是真心，就不是假的，真心是永遠不會變，佛用真心，菩薩也用真心。佛用的是圓滿的真心，菩薩是部分的真心，但是他是真的，不能說他是假的。佛在經上用月亮來做比喻，十五的滿月比喻佛的心，菩薩的心像初三、初四的月牙。你看月牙的一點月光，那個光是真的還是假的？真的，一點都不假，決定是真的。所以說初三、初四一直到十四，都是菩薩心，他是真心，沒有圓滿，所以叫正等正覺。阿羅漢用的心，是水裡頭的月亮，不是真的，是假的。水裡頭的月亮，鏡子裡的月亮，叫鏡花水月，是假的，不是真的。所以從用心上看，菩薩的心跟佛的心相似，很接近，是真的，不是假的。所以縱然是初住菩薩，剛剛破一品無明，證一分法身，他用的心就是真心，絕對沒有虛妄，所以這叫正等正覺。”

所以啊，上面三个困惑本人已久的问题，终于有点拨云见雾的感觉了。初步认定，当一件事情，你明知近期没有名利的回报，也不期望将来有名利回报，也还要持之以恒的去做，一直到你人间生命的尽头。这样你做的这个选择应该就是“追随真心的”。  

至于什么是真心，我不是佛，我还不知道，期待有一天可以悟道。佛和菩萨用的是真心，而世间人烦恼习气重，用的是妄心。所以还是不要随便“follow your heart”吧：）

P.S.肯能会有人问为什么我会讲“我不是佛，我还不知道”，难道普通人可以和自己把佛相提并论吗？ 一切众生皆有如来智慧德相，但以妄想分别执著而不能证得。换句话说，一切众生本来是佛。修行得道成为无上正等正觉的人，都可以称之为为佛。再最后啰嗦一下，佛教不是宗教，而是教育。古人在寺庙里要每天学习16小时，寺院确确实实是教化众生的场所。而后人渐渐怠惰，只剩下拜佛的形式，所以难怪今日人们会把佛教同迷信联系在一起。这两个是人们对佛教的误解。

How do you like the weather in...?

I currently live in a medium (sized) city (or town;) called Jönköping in Sweden. The weather here is...well, I don't like (to like) or dislike anything, so can I say it is interesting? (so I would say it is... interesting? is probably better for your desired effect. If you ask "can I say" it sounds like a language question, but I think you mean it in a different way)

How interesting is it? Um...before I came here I had been(was is better. Past perfect continuous is usually used to show that something started and ended in the past, so had been here gives the feeling that you lived there, then moved somewhere else, and then moved to Sweden) living in Xi'an, a city in the center of China, for 20 years. In comparison, I think the weather in J-town is interesting, because you don't know when it turns from sunny to rainy or when it turns to sunny from rainy.

You know, I always brought an umbrella with me during the time after I just came here(during my first time here - to come is an ended action, so unless you are talking about something on your journey, it would be strange to use come here) in autumn 2010, but sooner or later I found (but I soon found. Here you don't want to use the expression "sooner or later" because that is about something uncertain, "it will happen sooner or later" but here you mean that you soon found out something) that people rarely use umbrellas even if it is rainy. One reason of(for) that is, maybe, it often rains in the middle of the day but people didn't(don't - stick to one tense) have the(an - here we are not talking about a specific umbrella) umbrella in the morning when leaving home. (And=delete) as time (has) passed by I've perceived that they(people) seem to be enjoyable(comfortable enjoyable is when you enjoy something - the theater performance was enjoyable. You mean to say that people are enjoying themselves, not that you are enjoying looking at them) in the rain without the(an) umbrella, but no one say(s) "I like rainy days".

(While=delete) the weather in Xi'an doesn't change a lot during a period of 1-2 weeks, and it is easy to forecast. When it is going to rain, there must be(are) some recognized(recognizable) factors indicating (the=delete) rainy weather, but still it (is) sometimes unpredictable, especially (now,) under the circumstance(conditions might be better) of global warming.

谈恋爱

这个话题不容易说，一个原因是因为恋爱本来（本身itself。“本来”是指一个事物原本blahblah但是后来变化了；e.g.我本来不想去aka，但是所有的人都叫我去。。）不好说，另一个原因是我原来想到的话题是delete与英文单词有关系，所以用中文不好解释。我来试试吧 ：D

我先（想）到的这个恋爱话题是因为我有一个朋友，她认识一个男人。他们已经半年只有跟对方在一起（他们已经彼此相处了半年：），经常一起看电影，一起睡，也会在学校前面吻吻（也会在学校里接吻）。基本上对我来说看起来（or 从我的角度看来）他们是男女朋友。我朋友却说他们不是男女朋友.. 为什么？我觉得只要你们喜欢上对方，没有对别人感（恋爱）兴趣，就算说（就说明）你们在一起。她说因为没有跟他谈过是否（要成为）男女朋友（，）所以不是（所以他们不算男女朋友。这样句子更完整一些）。为什么先要谈这个？你们心里都应该知道！

我还有一个朋友，她喜欢上一个男人，但是这个男人说他现在不要女朋友。他说很喜欢我的朋友，不过先要试一试别的女人怎么样。他给我朋友说过了半年（，）他们可以做男女朋友（他告诉我朋友说他们有机会做男女朋友，已经说过半年了。如果你说“可以做男女朋友”，那通常人们会认为这个男的同意那个女的做他的女朋友了。所以在这里用“有机会”来表示可能性，更好），但是现在他已经在我朋友前面（面前）跟另外一个女人在一起，肯定让我朋友伤心得很（or 我朋友肯定伤心得很）。怎么可以这样“准备”做男女朋友,但是现在这样？你喜欢一个人就应该跟这个人在一起，为什么还要多的女朋友？

我觉得谈恋爱应该很简单，互相喜欢就在一起，但是好像没有那么简单。。。