The Heart of Truth: Protecting and Walking Together

As you open this book, perhaps you are being swept along by the clamor of the world. Information surges across your screen like a tide, and your schedule is packed with one task after another. When you occasionally stop in your tracks, you may suddenly find yourself wondering, "Is the smile on my face right now truly from the heart? Are the goals I am pursuing really what I want?"

If you have ever had moments like these, then this book, "Discerning the True Heart: Protecting and Walking Together", may become a mirror that helps you speak with yourself. It is the ninth book in the People-Reading series, written especially for "true people." These "true people" are neither immortals soaring through the clouds in myths nor flawless sages in the secular world. They are ordinary people who "understand the way of nature": like clear springs in the mountains, they know how to go with the flow; like wild grass along a field ridge, they know to take root and grow; like stars in the night sky, they hold on to their own light.

While writing this book, I often thought of Old Li, a herb gatherer on Zhongnan Mountain. He has gathered medicinal herbs for forty years, and never digs them up with a hoe. Instead, he gently pulls them out by hand, then scatters a handful of soil over the patch. When I asked him, "Why go to all that trouble?" he pointed to the distant mountains. "The herbs grow from the mountain, and the mountain has its own rules. If we dig them all up this year, there'll be none next year. Leave the roots deep in the ground, and they'll grow again next year. People need to understand the mountain's nature, just as they need to understand their own hearts. You can't force things." As he spoke, he held a freshly gathered bupleurum plant in his hand, its roots and stems damp with soil. There was no eagerness in his eyes to "gather herbs for money," only the calm of "living in harmony with the mountain."