Translated by ChatGPT in English from Chinese speech of the BPI Mentor Bennie
Edited by Chaoqun(Jean) Cai
As a human being, can you accurately understand and perceive everything around you, including people, events, and objects? Understanding all of this seems daunting—how could one comprehend even a single person, let alone billions, each with unique characteristics? Given this vast diversity, how can one precisely grasp it all?
It can be done by applying a fundamental principle or a formula that encompasses everything. At its core, the complexities of people, events, and objects reduce to a singular issue: understanding the nature of the “person.”
Despite differences in preferences, viewpoints, and even changes in perspective as one ages, all individuals operate under a common principle. This principle is the concept of conditioning (熏习): the continuous process of being influenced and practicing something repeatedly until it becomes a fixed understanding or habit.
From childhood, through schooling, and into society, what one has been conditioned with is what one knows. Without such conditioning, there is no understanding. Each person’s specific viewpoints, habits, and actions are directly shaped by what they have been conditioned to accept.
For instance, Chinese people speak Chinese, not African languages. Though both are languages, why doesn’t one understand the other? Because they haven’t been conditioned in it. Similarly, preferences like salty, spicy, sour, bitter, or sweet foods are all the results of conditioning. If someone has never been exposed to these tastes, their first experience with them would be neutral—neither good nor bad—because they haven’t yet formed a conditioned concept of pleasure or pain. Without the conditioning of someone telling them whether it’s enjoyable or unpleasant, the taste is simply what it is—this is the Principle of Primordial Reality (第一性原理).
All notions of good and bad, right and wrong, are human constructs. If you impose your conditioned concepts onto something, you are bound to make erroneous judgments.
Take Elon Musk, for example. His success can be attributed to his adherence to the Principle of Primordial Reality: everything is what it is in its essence, without the imposition of one’s conditioned concepts. It’s simple—the Principle of Primordial Reality. Many consider him remarkable, but anyone who can follow this principle can also achieve greatness. However, while he has succeeded, can we?