This article is from WeChat official account:Chaos University (ID: hundun-university) , author: Zhu record, the original title: “What Zhang Yiming strongly recommended” the power of Now “and” unbiased “in the end? “, the title picture comes from: unsplash
Yesterday, Bytedance celebrated its 9th anniversary. In his speech, founder Zhang Yiming, in addition to reviewing the business progress of the past year, also talked about many of his thoughts on “the power of the moment.”
What is the power of the moment?
Zhang Yiming gave an example of his own.
“In my life, I am not particularly regular, nor particularly disciplined. I often watch mobile phones, listen to music, read headlines, and use Douyin watermelon, which is not much the same as outside legends. Yes. At that time I planned to do a job at night, but then I was attracted by the interesting content on the watermelon. I watched it for a long time. I was a little upset before going to bed, eh, I didn’t do what I had to do, and then I worked retaliately for a while, but it caused me to sleep late. (I really think sleep is very important), the next day’s important meeting is very bad. In fact, at this time, what you should do is to go quickly Rest. Although I often don’t have a plan, at least I find it’s too late. Don’t be upset, and go to bed right away.”
Zhang Yiming said that all negative psychology is a denial of the present, anxiety, anxiety, tension, pressure, worry-all fears are due to too much focus on the future; guilt, regret, resentment, grievance, sadness, bitterness- -All unforgiveness is due to over-focusing on the past.
People spend too much time worrying about the future and entangled in the past, but seldom pay attention to the present. In fact, they pay attention to the feelings of the present, and the judgment of the present is the most important thing to do.
Professor Li Shanyou, the founder of Chaos University, once mentioned in the course of “The World of Ideas” that being in the present is not only a way of enlightening inspiration, exploring missions, but also a state of transcending time and space, or a way of constantly asking about the meaning of life. attitude.
So, what is the state of being present? How powerful is the current power? If the power of the moment is the way out of anxiety, how should the power of the moment be connected?
We started with the crisis of meaning that many people are facing.
1. Connect to the source
When the mobile phone only has 1% battery power and the red number appears, we will become very panicked and will rush to find a power source for charging.
Life is the same. Many people seem to work and live in a hurry. Every day they go to work and they rush to the company to check in. Don’t be late to deduct their wages. After eight hours of get off work, they are busy returning home, thinking about when they can make enough money. Enjoy retirement.
But behind this superficial busyness is a lack of meaning. Why work? Why are you busy? Where are we from and where are we going? Where is the peace of mind?
How many people can answer these seemingly simple questions about meaning?
If you can’t find meaning, even if you can accomplish one goal after another, and achieve one success after another, the whole state of a person will be like a battery that is about to power off, become insensitive, and live like a walking dead.
On the contrary, if the meaning of work is solved and the meaning of life is solved, in fact most of the problems will be solved.
So, we must find a way to find the source of meaning and connect with it. It’s like plugging in a mobile phone and a power cord, and a steady flow of electricity flows in, and we immediately feel at ease.
How do we find a certainty in life and connect to the source of meaning?
There are tens of millions of paths to the source, and one path is very common, and that is “present in the present”.
Tell a little story. A Zen master was enlightened, and his apprentice asked him: Master, what was your state before enlightenment and what was your state after enlightenment?
The master said that I cut firewood and water before enlightenment, and after enlightenment, I cut firewood and water. The little monk thought to myself what enlightenment is this?
The master said, before enlightenment, when I was chopping wood, I thought about carrying water, when I carried water, I thought about chopping wood, after enlightenment, when I was cutting wood, I thought about cutting wood, and when I was carrying water, I thought about carrying water. .
This is the state of “presence”, that is, being present at this time, here, and this matter, reaching a state of “No Mind”, that is, “no mind”.
Please think about it, what is the past? The past is you right nowMemories of the moment, in other words, you can only directly feel the memories of the past at this moment, not the past at all. What is the future? The future is your imagination at this moment, so the future also happens at this moment, in the present.
However, in our hearts, the past and the future are usually very important, just not the present. The present is usually regarded as a stepping stone for the future, a tool and process for achieving future goals.
How many people are caught in the cycle of constant pursuit of the future? When I was in high school, I thought I would be happy if I was admitted to a good university. But after I went to college, I found that the big city is so prosperous, but I don’t have money. I think I will be happy if I work for a profit. I met a terrible boss after working and I thought I was a boss. If you can control your own destiny, you will be happy, so you start your own business. After starting a business, I found out that it was harder than part-time work. When the company goes public, you will be happy. There are more and more listed companies in China, but there are a few listed companies. Is the boss happy? Everyone was kidnapped by the company and started to think: When will I sell the company, I will be happy…
Today we are basically running on the level of time, pursuing more and faster. Almost few people tell you that the real power is not in the future, but in the present.
2. 90-degree revolution
How to bring yourself back to the present? We need a 90-degree revolution.
The world is built on time. The horizontal line of time is backwards, but there is another angle of life that is vertical downwards. Pursuing in this direction is like passing through a narrow gate.
Gautama entered this door, and he found that there was a seam between time. He called this seam “the present.” If you can be present, this seam will become wider and wider, and finally become one with the source.
Time is backward, the present is downward, above time is the phenomenal world of time and space, and below time is the world of origin without time and space.
Coincidentally, the English present of “now” also means “gift”. What is the use of this gift? It is the only entry point that can help us break through the constraints of time.
Can be used as a metaphor, how to travel through two universes? Through the wormhole.
How to travel through the world of phenomena and reach the source? Through the present.
But it’s a pity that everyone lives either in the past or in the future. Many people don’t even know the existence of this narrow gate now.
Turning the direction of life from 90 degrees backwards to downwards, transcending the constraints of time, Professor Li Shanyou called a 90-degree revolution.
The 90-degree revolution requires you to focus on this time, here, and this matter, forget the past, and forget the future. Connect to the source at this time, and you can burst out amazing energy.
Zhang Yiming mentioned a documentary called Free Solo(“Freehand Rock Climbing”). Without any protection, the protagonist climbed the 3,000-foot-high Emirates Rock with his bare hands.
Nothing reflects the present state better than bare-handed rock climbing. When climbing with bare hands, you can’t think about what you did yesterday. You can’t think about becoming famous and rich after climbing. You can’t even think about the previous action. All your energy must be on the current action, which is the most important thing in your life. Moment, because as long as this action is done wrong, life is gone. And you can’t be nervous, anxious, or over-thinking when climbing freehand, otherwise you will be over-consuming. Every step of the rock climber steps on the side of death, we sometimes dare not watch, but his own state is very chic, like dancing.
Therefore, in the present state, work flows naturally. The fear is that when you are working, you want to make a fortune through this job, and then retire to enjoy your life.
The heart is not quiet, but noisy.
Three, this book is self-sufficient
In the face of the hustle and bustle, Zhang Yiming mentioned “normal heart”:
“I think people who maintain a normal mind are more relaxed, have no distortion of their hearts, observe things delicately, seek truth from facts, and are more patient. They tend to do things better. Most of the time, people are free of paranoia or distracting thoughts. in the case of, Can have a good judgment, there is a saying that “self-sufficient”, only by maintaining a normal heart can do extraordinary things. “
What is self-sufficient?
It is said that wisdom is a normal state that everyone has.
Then why can’t we feel it?
Because it is obscured by our thoughts, emotions, and subconscious minds. If we can remove these, we will see that wisdom is not to increase, but to decrease. It is exactly what Lao Tzu said, “Increasingly learning, damaging the way, and damaging it again, so that inaction, inaction and nothing inaction.” This state of affairs.
Professor Li Shanyou once used an analogy. Thoughts are like clouds, and wisdom is the sky behind the clouds. When we can’t see the sun, it’s not that the sun disappears, but the cloud covers the sun. When the clouds disperse, the sky and the sun can be seen naturally. The sky and the sun have always existed. We can’t see the sun shining down. It is an accidental state.
If we can be in the present, we can transcend thinking and produce “inspiration.” We usually understand inspiration as the sudden emergence of a bright idea in our mind, and then suddenly we have a good idea.
Wrong, inspiration is actually a normal state, but it is obscured. If you can remove those obstructions and let it flow out, that is the most beautiful state of consciousness, which Professor Li Shanyou calls “inspiration flowing.”
The movie “The Pianist on the Sea” can best show this state. The protagonist “1900” almost made every piece of improvisation. He was originally a member of the band, and the conductor would tell him every time before the performance. , Play it normally today. But every time he played to the end, 1900 began to float, and other band members couldn’t keep up, so they had to stop and watch him perform like an audience.
How did he create it? It is mentioned in the film that when he sat in front of the piano, he never hesitated, as if the keys were waiting for him to press down. In fact, these notes had already formed in his mind.
In the book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, the protagonist teaches rhetoric in a university, assigns a topic and writes a 500-word essay.
There was a girl in the class with mediocre talent. She wanted to write an article about the United States. She couldn’t do it, so she asked the teacher for advice. The teacher said that the title is too big. You should not write the United States in 500 words. You can write about our city in 500 words.
The student still didn’t write it out. The teacher saidWrite out the streets. The girl student was still frowning and couldn’t write. The teacher was anxious and asked her to write about the opera house opposite the school, but the female classmate still couldn’t write it.
The teacher was so angry that he personally led her to the opposite side of the opera house, and asked her to start writing from the first brick on the bottom left of the front wall of the opera house.
As a result, the next day, the student brought not a 500-word essay, but a 5000-word essay.
Therefore, inspiration is not unique to genius, but everyone is self-contained. The flow of inspiration is not an accidental state, but a normal state by default. By removing the shadow of thinking, inspiration can flow out like a spring.
Actually, each of us has a state of inspiration in our daily lives, but you have not noticed it. You can think about it carefully, what was the last beautiful experience like?
The more you can be aware of the moments of your inspiration, the more you can deepen this ability.
Four. Combine your business into one.
How to practice “Presence” at work?
An excellent sentence by Kazuo Inamori: “If you look at work from a transcendental perspective, work is practice.” All roads lead to Rome. You have to find a way that belongs to you, and that’s it. .
In your life, if you take out the time to sleep, two-thirds of your time is spent on work. Instead of dicing work and your life, it’s better to break the binary opposition and combine yourself with work. Two for one.
Ono Jiro is a person who integrates himself with work. He is a sushi maker and has become the “God of Sushi”. If Jiro Ono has done too little from a career perspective, he would have opened such a small store without a chain or a listing. Do you think he can make a lot of money? impossible.
But he did it to the extreme, and even the Prime Minister of Japan and the President of the United States went to eat in his restaurant. His shop is very special. It only sells sushi. You don’t want to drink or eat other snacks. The incision is too small to be added.
Ono Jiro said in a documentary that I was making sushi in my dreams, and I was far from the peak. This is the state of being connected to the source, enjoying the happiness in it. You might think that he is so old, he still goes to work every day, making sushi by himself, so tired and hard, why not retire and enjoy a good life. But Jiro Ono feels that I am just enjoying it. This is my best enjoyment. It is much more enjoyable than when I go out to play, travel, and rest.
The look in his eyes while making sushi is actually no different from that of the practitioners in the temple. As long as you are present and squeeze each piece of sushi with your heart, it is practice.
Many people will fall into a misunderstanding. They may think that what I am doing now is not what I like or what I am good at. It seems to be meaningless. I am going to find something that I like, I am good at and meaningful. , And then inject your heart. What people are most anxious about is where to look for it?
We usually think that the meaning is to do faster than others, more than others, to show that you are very successful. For example, using money as a KPI, the higher the income, the more successful it seems.
Actually, the essence of success is only comparison, and it is comparison with others. This will never give you meaning, because once you have a little bit of success, you will find that there is no meaning at all, and you need to set a new goal. Then compare with others.
As long as it is on the horizontal line, the meaning is illusory.
The real meaning is verticality, not what you do, but the state of what you do. After breaking through the threshold, what flows through you from the source is called meaning, and it surpasses what you do, surpasses thoughts, and even surpasses your life.
In other words, “Being is far more important than doing(The state of doing something is more important than the thing itself)“. We don’t get meaning from “doing”, it’s the state of how we “doing”, that is, “being” can produce meaning.
So, don’t take yourself too seriously, take what you do seriously.
There is a saying in the book “New World”: Anyone who is one with what he does is creating oneIt is “beauty”, and another characteristic is “good”, as Plato said, it is beauty that makes things beautiful. This beauty is “one”, it is beauty that gives things beauty, and beauty is “good quality.”
5. Work is mission
Many people don’t enjoy their work and always hope that others will give them KPIs, which is actually too stupid.
Plato asked a question back then, and the author of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Repairing” continued to use his question, which was printed on the cover of the book:
What is good and what is bad, do you need to ask others? Don’t you know it yourself?
In fact, we know it ourselves, and then find its rhythm and resonate with it at the same frequency. This is art.
Good quality will rippling like water waves, and other people will be affected. This is what I have repeatedly emphasized. You want to change the world. Don’t change others, just change yourself.
In this way, it gives life to the things you do, which is what Kevin Kelly calls “out of control”, which is what Lao Tzu calls “inaction”, allowing you to get out of control and take control of what you do.
At this time, you are “present in the present”, and then there is only one thing to do-wait.
What are you waiting for?
Waiting for the moment when your work finally connects you to the source.
If that moment does not come, there is no problem at all, your life is good enough.
If that moment comes, it is the state of mission emergence.
After the mission emerges, you have to do something bigger.
There is a great sentence in “The New World”: While enjoying your work, add a big goal. One day, they suddenly know what their mission is. It usually has something to do with what they are doing or what they like to do, but on a much larger scale.
The moment the mission comes, you know that this is my mission, because you have a great sense of certainty, certainty, and power.
If you take away the things that cover you, it’s you. Moreover, everyone has a mission, and the source has a ray of light in everyone’s heart. What is your mission? Creating a beautiful work is the carrier of your mission.
So, discovering and fulfilling your mission is the meaning and purpose of your life. Other things are too small, and your anxiety, irritability, and pain are not worth mentioning.
There is a pair of old man and old lady who have been together for 60 or 70 years. People say they are very happy, so they ask the old lady, is your husband treats you very well? The old lady said, “What a good thing, he has a shortcoming, just like there are so many stars in the sky.” Others were surprised, and then asked, how did you come here in your life? The old lady replied that my old man has only one advantage, but it is as big as the sun. When the sun comes out, the stars are gone.
If your eyes are always looking at the stars, it is endless. If this is extinguished, there will be another, and there is only one way-the sun rises. When the sun comes, the stars are gone. The sun is power and wisdom, that is, the mission. With the mission, you can shine on yourself and become a beam of light.
If you light up yourself, others will see that you can light up yourself, and they will also light up yourself.
So what is really beautiful is this sentence: One’s greatest happiness is to discover the mission of this life in the midway of life, a creative man.
In fact, your mission may already be in effect. You can recall that there will be some fixed patterns in your life, such as what you like or are good at. The driving force behind it is mission.
As Jobs said, there are many points, but when you look back, they are connected. Those points are not accidental. The appearance of each point and the completion of the line are the mission at work. Although you may not know what a mission is, you can find it from the signs. Find that rhythm, that kind of rhythm, and then move forward, and you will eventually become one with your mission.
When you have a mission, a great sense of certainty will come out. In the end, life is this sentence: A gentleman is famous and believes in him, and he does what he should.
As Professor Li Shanyou said:
“The nature of human beings is the creator, and your mission is to create a beautiful work.”
Maybe you forget your talent and mission as you walk, or you are obscured by some outside eyes, and even when you hear the stories of those great creators, you feel that you have nothing to do with yourself. This is where the tragedy lies.
If we reverse this order and tell ourselves, those great creators are not special people, but also normal people. As long as they are normal people, they should have a mission and create, just like us.kind.
For each of us, who have come out of ordinary, miserable, and desperate, this voice will give us a structural strength. It reminds you that you are essentially a creator, and your work is the best gift you give to this world and this era.
This article is from WeChat official account:Chaos University (ID: hundun-university) , author: Zhu record