Knowing the Ways of the World

"Know yourself and others, and the ways of the world, so as to have a peaceful body and mind. Recognize, cherish, and nurture your blessings, and seize every chance to be of service.'"- Master Sheng Yen, 108 Adages


What does it mean to "know the ways of the world"? How does "knowing oneself" relate to knowing the ways of the world? I have noticed that the more a person experiences life and its ups/downs, the more understanding they can be toward others. There are much fewer hard and true "rules", and people become more understanding of the complexities of others including their many sides and facets. It's only through an immersive experience of the complexity of interactions that one might get a glimpse into their own complexity and infinity. If I am always living a life shuttling back and forth between work and the shopping mall, there isn't much room to get a sense of what people suffer. In this way, it's always nice to be open to building new perspectives.
   It makes sense that a peaceful body and mind comes from knowing self, others and ways of the world. But this is not to say that such a path does not have its trials and challenges. Actually, people on that path have more struggles to go through, but when they are determined to treat everything as a learning, then the journey becomes less burdensome. At that point, blessings can be seen in all those life experiences, in addition to the desire to give back in response to those blessings.
























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