The Turning Point

Zhong Yan

Human beings have to go through many turning points from birth to death, education, career, marriage, giving birth, moving, and so on. People usually feel that each thought will determine the direction of lives and future roads. In real life, the gain and loss, honour and disgrace, right and wrong, success and failure of each turning point have become the gauge of the importance and values of a life. Therefore, the notions such as “life is like a battlefield” and striving for personal success have been worshipped like a deity. Some people even strive and fight for this all their lives.

Human beings yearn for beautiful lives and strive for every goal all the time. However, if we recall the path of the life we have been through, we rarely find that we can determine our own destinies. Humans are so insignificantly small when facing their complex lives, complicated societies and ever-changing circumstances; so trivial that an economic wave will smash more than ten years’ achievements; so small that a political movement will bring along ten years’ success and contentment; so small that today you have classes in school and die of food-poisoning tomorrow.

Maybe you are lucky, not having gone through these changes and hardships. But who can be so confident to claim control of their life on earth: can they dominate their own lives? In the immense human world, humans have gradually enlightened to an issue: for each life, does there exist an even more important test—the test of all living beings?

Looking back over the course of history from a higher perspective, when humans have suffered from major disasters such as wars, pestilence, natural calamities or man-made disasters such as the “cultural revolution”, usually there will follow a level-headed thinking period. “What is the meaning of life?” Maybe it is due to the tide of thinking in society; maybe it is due to awakening after going through catastrophes. When the myth of “dominating destinies” is thoroughly stricken by real life, humans start to search for the wisdom of survival: diligence, fortitude, self-government, tolerance and open mindedness. The good sides of human nature are unearthed.

Enlightened beings create humans and endow them with ways and means to survive in the human world, to search and think about the meaning of life, to explore the roads for them to upgrade themselves spiritually and to enlighten to the truths of higher levels. Nevertheless, the lost people have forgotten their original intention, taking means of survival as their purpose and following the dictates of their material desires, fame and interest.

When the page of history turns, and the truth is displayed in the human world, humans will be astonished that the test of life is tied to the concept of truth.

Translated from http://www.yuanmingeurope.net/articles/200301/16235.html