Philosophical Sayings About Worldly Matter (XIII)

Deliberation is needed before one makes a move, but no conclusion is to be drawn from deliberation alone. It has to be tested in action. Suggested moves are not to be adopted in haste, nor are they to be rejected out of hand; they are not to be dismissed even when tests have proved them worthless, for in this case an inquiry into their legitimacy has to be made. When a rainbow is blocked from view by clouds, it does not mean that there is no rainbow out there.

(This is a translation of H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III Wan Ko Yeshe Norbu’s philosophical sayings about worldly matters originally written in Chinese.)

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Below is not an official translation, just for reference.

The ancients said, "think three times and act and then think again." It is not enough to "think three times and act and then think again." After thinking three times, you have to practice concretely to observe the actual effect. In other words, we must never hear about something and do it immediately without thinking, but we must believe and practice it seriously.

But at the same time, we cannot hear something, deny it immediately because we think it is false, and choose to ignore and not handle it. If, after thinking about it three times, we still feel it's nonsense, and try it unsuccessfully, we still cannot deny our efforts.

After thinking three times and trying it but with poor results, we still need to dig down into the root of the problem. Just as we want to see a rainbow in the sky, if we say that dark clouds obscure us in mid-air, we think there are only dark clouds above and no rainbows, which is a mistake. If we continue to work upward and enter a higher level of space, we then will see the rainbows. It is not until we break through the dark clouds that the rainbow will appear.

Therefore, doing everything in the world is like this. Under any difficulty, we must go to the bottom line so that we will not make careless mistakes in the end. Also, we will learn how to handle everything well and complete all our careers well.