THE KEY TO CREATING ONE’S DESTINY
(THE FOUR LESSONS OF LIAO-FAN)
By: Liao-Fan Yuan
Translator’s note: Yuan was born during the Ming Dynasty, in about 1550, in Jiang-Su Province, Wu-Jiang County. He lived 74 years, was a prominent administrator, and published writings. These lessons were originally written for his son, and have been popular in China for hundreds of years.
The Four Lessons are:
The Principle of Destiny
The Method Of Repentance
The Ways of Accumulating Merit
The Benefits Of Humility
China, a vast and populous nation, has for the most part of her long history enjoyed peace and harmony among her people. This is mainly attributed to the spiritual and moral forces that are woven into everyday life. It is too vast a land to be governed by man-made laws, for the emperor had been too far away to rule the people in any direct and effective way. The understanding that ‘you reap what you sow’ or, in Chinese version, ‘ you harvest squash when you plant the seeds of squash and you harvest beans when you plant the seeds of beans’, is deeply ingrained in the Chinese consciousness. This work by Yuan Liao-Fan, written originally for his son, is a classic among the Chinese popular spiritual writings. Even nearly five hundred years after it was written, it is still one of the most popular booklets being distributed at all Buddhist temples and local spiritual centers in Taiwan, the Republic of China. Unfortunately, it is no longer easily available in the People’s Republic of China where the expression of her spiritual heritage has been blocked for the last four decades. The value of Liao-Fan’s Four Lessons is manifold. It provides an insight into the culture of Imperial China and the collective subconscious of the Chinese. Although certain details of the writings were relevant only in the context of Ming Dynasty China, nevertheless the lessons can serve as a practical guide to the art of living in the modern world.
The original work was written in Classical Chinese, which is poetic and terse. The specific edition of Liao-Fan’s Four Lessons that I have used for this translation is a Taiwan reprint(1974). In translating into English, I have followed the original, as well as consulting two modern Chinese translations of the work. The first translation is by Huang Zhi-hai who also provides a detailed explanation of the Ming Imperial Examination and political system. The second is a far simpler translation by Liu Ri-yi who started a publishing company to print spiritual books for wide distribution. It is a practice in China that spiritual books are printed through donations and distributed free of charge. In a land where eighty percent of the populations are peasants, such a practice would insure free circulation of spiritual teachings. My grandfather was a prominent educator and government official in Hunan, China, and he kept many copies of books such as this one in his home to give to visitors.
This translation has been made possible with the encouragement and support of Dr David Mumford. It has been a wish of mine for many years to translate Liao-Fan’s Four Lessons for readers of English, for I have personally benefited from the teachings. This wish is being fulfilled on the eve of my departure to India to embark upon an intense spiritual journey to study with His Holiness The Dalai Lama XIV and the other Tibetan spiritual teachers. As a scientist trained in the best of western tradition (M.I.T. Ph.D. in Chemical Physics), and as a researcher in a major U.S. cancer center for the last ten years, I have become convinced that science alone, as it is practiced today, will not solved humanity’s most pressing problems. The problems can be said to be a result of our lack of compassion and sensitivity towards our mother earth, towards the living inhabitants of the earth, and towards one another. Our spiritual development has lagged far behind our scientific and technological achievements, for the awakening of the heart is a natural consequence of spiritual realization. Compassion is the cornerstone of Buddha’s teachings, and Jesus taught us all to love our neighbor.
It is my hope that Liao-Fan’s Four Lessons will be widely read, in the Chinese as well as in English translation, and that the spiritual values will be practiced in a modern context.
Chiu-Nan Lai
Houston, Texas
August, 1987