Tear Down the Wall in Your Heart
Day: November 7, 2026
Tear Down the Wall in Your Heart
After retiring, Mr. Li became obsessed with health and wellness.
Every day, he shared all kinds of articles in the family group chat, each with a more alarming headline than the last: “Doctors Never Eat These Three Foods,” “Shocking! This Common Household Dish Is Actually a Class 1 Carcinogen”…
Whenever someone disagreed with him, he would immediately become upset. “What do you know? I’ve eaten more salt than you’ve eaten rice!” he would snap, insisting that his age and experience made him more knowledgeable than everyone else.
Last month, his daughter caught a cold and developed a fever. After taking one look at her, Mr. Li declared firmly, “You mustn’t take medicine. It’ll only make your body colder. Just drink some ginger soup and sweat it out!”
His daughter wanted to see a doctor, but he stubbornly stopped her. “I’ve studied health and wellness for so many years. Do you really think I would do anything to harm you?”
As a result, his daughter endured the illness for three days. Her fever eventually reached 40°C (104°F), and by the time she was taken to the hospital, she had developed pneumonia.
The doctor frowned and said, “If you had brought her in just one day later, her life could have been in danger.”
Outside the hospital room, Mr. Li crouched in the corridor, holding his head in his hands, unable to utter a word.
He simply couldn’t understand: How could he have been wrong when he thought he knew so much?
In fact, many of us have had similar experiences. We often believe that we are right and everyone else is wrong.
Namo H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III stated in Philosophical Sayings About Worldly Matters:
“There is nothing more foolish than for one to believe that all one sees is reason and the universe is created from it. Whenever one measures everything from one’s own standards, that person is demonstrating ignorance.”
The meaning can be expressed as follows:
“The greatest flaw that leads people into foolishness is the belief that their own views are the truth. From this arises the tendency to judge all phenomena according to their own standards. This stems from a mind that has not attained clarity and wisdom, and therefore remains in ignorance. Those who regard their own understanding as the measure of all things are, in reality, lacking in true knowledge.”
This means that one of the greatest causes of human ignorance is the belief that everything one knows or understands represents the absolute truth.
Such people use their own opinions, experiences, and state of mind as the standards by which they judge everything in the world, whether spiritual or material. Whatever agrees with their views is considered correct, while anything that contradicts them is dismissed as wrong.
The fundamental reason for this is that their minds have not yet developed wisdom, and they lack the discernment necessary to recognize the truth.
They see things from a limited perspective, taking the little they know and using it to make sweeping judgments about matters far beyond their understanding. In doing so, they trap themselves in a state of ignorance.
Once we understand this principle, we can recognize that those who insist on using their own opinions as the absolute standard for judging all things and all living beings are, in fact, people who lack genuine wisdom and understanding.
If we think carefully, aren’t there countless examples of this in everyday life?
Some people believe that education is useless and therefore look down on everyone who pursues academic studies.
Others believe that traditional Chinese medicine is unscientific and consequently dismiss thousands of years of tradition without further consideration.
Still others insist that only their own religious beliefs represent the true Dharma, while dismissing all other beliefs as misguided or heretical.
Ultimately, these people have built a wall within their hearts. They surround themselves with their own ideas, convince themselves that those ideas represent the only truth, and refuse to listen to anyone else’s voice.
Namo H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III teaches us that this attitude arises primarily because the mind has not yet developed wisdom or acquired the discernment necessary to recognize the truth.
As a result, people view matters from a narrow perspective, using the small amount they know to judge the entirety of things they do not fully understand. This keeps them trapped in ignorance.
Once we understand this teaching, we realize that anyone who regards their own opinions as the ultimate standard for judging everything in the world, including all living beings, is actually lacking in true knowledge and wisdom.
In reality, genuine wisdom is not complicated. It begins with the willingness to tear down the wall within our hearts and acknowledge:
Perhaps I don’t know.
Perhaps I’ve misunderstood.
Perhaps my understanding is incomplete.
Only when we put down the ruler we have been using to measure everything according to our own standards, and become willing to listen, observe, and learn with humility, can we escape the confines of ignorance and discover a much broader world.
Later, Mr. Li sighed and said, “My greatest flaw in life has been trusting my own judgment too much.”
I asked him, “What about now?”
He pointed toward the hospital room.
“Now I understand. When there’s a wall in your heart, sometimes you simply have to tear it down.”
Indeed, only when the wall comes down can the light shine through.
Are you willing to join us in tearing down the wall within our hearts?
By A Humble Student
Link: https://myhappylifestyle.net/2026/11/07/dorjechangbuddhaiii-tear-down-the-wall-in-your-heart/
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