Open Your Mind To Learn
"Life is learning", a sage said, and some said something different, but it is true that life is learning as we have to learn through all our life. What aspects do we learn? The answer is that we learn three aspects; mental, physical and consciousness. Confucius said, "Any thing can be our teacher, and the true knowledge is to know that knowing is knowing, non knowing is non knowing." This is the true knowledge as many great teachers have said, "To know the way things really are."
Nowadays technology is growing and progressing. We cannot stay in our narrow mind, everyday we face many things, coming and going; new or strange. If we don’t open our mind and eyes to see them, conflict will surely occur to us; for instance liking or disliking, loving or hating etc. The higher technology is, the higher the mind should be. Otherwise, social or individual problems will follow. If everyone opens his mind and eyes, and understands things as they really are, the problem will be reduced. The Buddha said, "Don’t be self-centred, but be mind-centred, because mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts, suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox. On the contrary, if, with a pure mind a person speaks or acts, happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow."
To learn, we have to open our mind and eyes to observe things coming and going without forming opinion, seeing what is just the way it really is. If we learn something distorted by opinions or preconceptions, we cannot gain the real knowledge, but instead we will get caught in something which is a stumbling block to right understanding. The knowledge we gain will be mixed up with opinions; negative or positive, pleasing or unpleasant. In the Buddhist view, to open the eyes to see is not a certain way of gaining real knowledge, but to open the mind is. So to gain real knowledge we have to open our mind and eyes to learn the way that things really are.
