On Being A True Gentleman
by Master Lee Feng San Shifu
Translated by Sophia Lui
Edited by Ric Meyers
According to legend, Zhong Liquan was instructing Lu Dongbin on the art of transmuting stone into gold. Lu Dongbin asked: “Is the gold going to last forever unchanged?” Zhong replied, “You can rest assured that it will last five hundred years.”
Upon hearing this, Lu Dongbin immediately said: “In that case, I am not going to learn this art! What happens if, after five hundred years, the piece of gold turns back into stone while in someone else’s possession?”
From this incident, we can see that Lu Dongbin conducts himself like a true gentleman. This is because he spares a thought not only for his contemporaries but also for generations to come.
In today’s society, there are very few such people, as the majority seems to only care about themselves. Why is this society in chaos? It is because villains stop at nothing to get what they want. For them, there is nothing better under the sun than to eat, drink, and be merry. Then there are others who believe themselves to be good, and yet do nothing to counteract evil. They pacify their own conscience by deluding themselves that they can do no harm if they do not take sides and form no opinions.
There was once a student who was left devastated, and in tears, after I gave him a piece of my mind. I said to him: “You are a downright rotten scoundrel!” He was puzzled by my rebuke and said: “Wait! I don’t steal, swindle, cheat or rob. Why do you say that?” I replied: “You are the most hopeless case I know of because you complain about things and yet do nothing about them. Furthermore, you do not wish to seek counsel from someone who knows better. Even if you do, you never put a good piece of advice into action. Because you look on and do nothing, you let evil triumph.”
If someone sees himself as the good guy, yet never rises to the occasion and stands to his principles, how can he complain about the evil deeds of others? What is the point of these endless protests? Instead, he should learn from what the ancients said in the Book of Rites: “A gentleman stops at nothing to do good.”
Therefore, if you are a gentleman and believe yourself to be of fine character, then you should do the same: stop at nothing to do good. Some people use all their means to do bad, but we can also use all our means to do good. Only then, can we change society.
“One does evil enough when one does nothing good.” — Lee Feng San Shifu