Life Experience Is a False Concept: Live in the Ordinary

Many people are troubled by their own “lack of experience and worldly knowledge,” and worship “experience and worldly knowledge.”

I. Seek Within

It certainly is not a matter of seeking outside yourself. The mind itself is Buddha. The answer is here in the present, not somewhere far away.

The only experience that matters in life is the experience of the mind, the experience of spiritual practice: the height, depth, and breadth of your understanding of your own mind. This begins with yourself, not with external things. “Reading ten thousand books and traveling ten thousand miles” cannot compare with understanding yourself deeply.

Spiritual practice has nothing to do with external circumstances. People in different walks of life have different experiences, but spiritual practice is the same. Circumstances change with the mind: first comes the mind’s level of attainment, then come external opportunities. Otherwise, there is only the repetition of worldly causes and effects, the attachments of the ego, troubles of your own making, going around in circles, and endless torment.

II. Experience Is About Sincerity and Depth, Not Variety

Life is about sincerity and depth, not variety. That is why Daoism cultivates authenticity. Take love, friendship, and education: what matters is not having a hundred romantic relationships or making ten thousand friends, but having one or two sincere, deep relationships and making three to five true friends. This applies all the more to education and careers.

III. The Experience and Spiritual Practice of Ordinary People and the Proletariat

Everyone who has lived to fifteen has experience. Even the most ordinary cleaners, miners, and farmers have experience. So many farmers and workers write poetry—where does that poetry come from? It is just that students and the petty bourgeoisie often look down on these “experiences” and never bother to look at them. They think only an elite résumé counts as experience.

Proletarian life is full of suffering and the truth of the world, but also of simple truth, goodness, beauty, and innate wholeness.

Since the time of Master Mazu, Chan Buddhism has taught that “ordinary life, free of needless concerns, is Chan” and that “eating, sleeping, and hoeing the earth are Chan practice.” Wang Yangming said, “Without departing from the ordinary activities of daily life, reach directly into the primordial state before any distinctions were drawn.” Wang Gen, Wang Yangming’s disciple and founder of the Taizhou school, said, “The daily life of ordinary people is the Way.”

At the age of 68, Engels wrote at the end of *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*: Germany’s bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie had turned their backs on philosophy; only among the working class had philosophy not declined. The more unreserved and impartial philosophy was, the more closely it accorded with the interests and aspirations of the workers.

The final sentence reads: “The German working-class movement is the inheritor of German classical philosophy.”

What traffic officer does not deal every day with all kinds of people and the ways of the world? Why are Tan Qiao’s stories so moving? With so many pop singers around, why was it Dao Lang who caused such a sensation? “Loneliness surrounds the television” is something every ordinary child has experienced, but Da Zhangwei turned it into the song “Still.” Li Juan, the author of *My Altay*, is a typical example. She never went to university and simply stayed in a small place, yet she produced work that resonated across the country.

Be ordinary and great, living in the present and facing the tasks before you.

By the time life torments and tests you, it is too late to begin cultivating your mind—just look at those who suddenly strike it rich. Liu Bang had already practiced self-cultivation for a long time before he went into the mountains. As people often say, a person’s virtue may not be equal to their position or their wealth.

IV. The Worship of Important People

Much of the worship of “experience and worldly knowledge” is the worship of important people, power, and money. Official rank and money become the measure of everything.

Those supposedly worldly people, those high-ranking officials and senior executives, may actually have very “limited” experience—officials who have gone straight from the family home to the school gates to the doors of government, or who are easily ensnared by people seeking to corrupt them. They may be very immature—just look at more of the scandals that come to light—and have cultivated themselves very poorly. Their supposed experience and worldly knowledge are often outdated, too.

People assume that those in high positions have cultivated themselves and never let anything slip. This is the worship of seasoned bureaucrats, an insecurity embedded in the culture. Junior bureaucrats worship big business owners for their rich lives and the storms they have weathered. Small business owners worship senior bureaucrats for their ability to turn events at will and lord it over everyone. A large part of Chinese culture consists of officials and business owners envying and looking down on one another.

Before they ran into trouble, countless big business owners such as Xu Jiayin and Jack Ma were worshipped as though they were superhuman.

In emerging industries such as the internet industry, whenever a new batch of large companies appears, people invariably marvel at how “utterly unremarkable” their founders seem.

V. The Mythology of Entrepreneurship

I, too, once had a particularly vague and mythologized view of entrepreneurship. I thought you needed so much “experience and worldly knowledge” to do it.

In fact, when you become yourself, you are already undertaking an enterprise. Being yourself is the hardest thing to do; it is a great undertaking. As *Caigentan* (*Vegetable Roots Discourse*) says: “Studying Buddhism is the work of a person of great resolve.”

Every small-time actor and rapper is undertaking an enterprise.

VII. The Age-25 Effect

Between 20 and 25, you have to look for jobs and attend interviews, so your way of thinking inevitably becomes geared toward meeting external expectations. You seek too much outside yourself and drift too far from yourself. You do too much to accommodate external discipline, and too little to struggle, rebel, and be yourself. You spend too much time on abstractions and neglect your actual circumstances.

Discussing marriage and going on arranged dates can deepen the confusion, too.

Still, it is all right. Between 25 and 35, life’s harsh blows will “force” people out of the abstract preoccupations of age 25, though many end up becoming obsessive and unhinged. Many of those who muddle their way into marriage and parenthood have a pretty miserable time.

VIII. Confidence in Yourself and Your Path

Many people worry about experience because they lack confidence in their own minds, their spiritual practice, and their own path. They are afraid that some upheaval will reveal that they are different from who they imagined themselves to be. They do not understand their own inner lives and are afraid of them.

This is a problem with spiritual practice itself. Those who practice know that the mind itself is Buddha, that there is innate wholeness, and that “my mind is luminous.” They have confidence in themselves and their minds. They have confidence in the path they practice, whether Marxism-Leninism, Zhuangzi, Chan Buddhism, or psychology.

Many people’s views on the world, life, and values are immature, inconsistent, incomplete, and unstable.

People who have no confidence in themselves will, of course, have no confidence in others. This shows up in everyday matters such as romantic relationships, management, and elitism.

IX. Using Yourself as a Method to Solve Your Own Problems Means Solving Humanity’s Problems

I previously wrote “Most Personal Problems Are Humanity’s Problems: Avoid Excessive Self-Blame and Self-Attack, and Embrace Your Dark Side.”

Rappers from vocational secondary schools place great emphasis on “telling your own story.” Three regional rappers who became quite popular in China in 2024—Wang Qiming from Chongqing, Daojiao from Guizhou, and Echo from northern Shaanxi—all came from the bottom rungs of society as street kids. Simply by telling the stories of themselves and the social class around them well, they became popular nationwide and moved people deeply.

I previously wrote “While Intellectuals, Master’s and Doctoral Graduates, and Leftists Debate and Mock People Online, Rappers from Vocational Secondary Schools Are Creating Literature and Music for the People.”

X. Management and Job Hunting

Middle managers at major companies organize everything around managing upward, burnishing their own credentials, padding their résumés, and boosting their metrics. This is a malady of the industry.

Many executives or business owners responsible for recruitment lack real ability and “experience,” and cannot properly assess résumés. This is a common problem in management.

For young people, what makes a résumé shine is “the extraordinary within the ordinary,” rather than the names of major companies and famous firms.

p.s.

You can understand many truths simply by looking at the smiles, eyes, and faces of those unpretentious, kind, decent working people—the aunties, uncles, and young men. The biggest problem with the petty bourgeoisie is still their detachment from the people.