Once upon a time, Bodhidharma was in Dhyana in Shiaoling temple, he was sitting in meditation. Huike went to there to ask him to teach him Dhyana. It was a heavy snow. Dharma was just sitting in meditation. Huike kneeled on the field. After ten hours, Dharma went out. At that moment, Huike took out a knife and cut his left arm out.

“ I don’t take any presents to you, please accept this, it’s my gift, I want to study Dhyana”.

“ What are doing? What can I do for you? How can I help you with that”?

“ My heart is up, please put it down”.

“ Give me your heart”.

“ My heart couldn’t be found yet”.

Suddenly Huike understood, he attained Buddhahood. (Where is my ‘heart’ from? Do I have my ‘heart’? The truth is nothing, Do I need to keep them? Put down everything is to gain everything. Like the Diamond Sutra said the sutra is needed to be abolished, moreover the others. )

“I place it well”.

Then Dharma gave Huike the Buddha’s bowl and mantle. He was The Second in Dhyana.

Why I want to tell you the story? The character of ‘heart’ in Chinese culture has tons of meanings. At this story, Huike said my heart was up, please put it down. It means ‘I am ambitious, I am eager to do something, I am worried about something but I couldn’t find a way to solve them, please give me a solution’. Then he couldn’t find his heart, it means ‘why do I need to be worried about that? are there reasonable’? In our lives, that kind of things would always happen around us. We are worried about our jobs, we are worried that we couldn’t have an opportunity to get a promotion, we are worried about our financial situation, we are worried that our house is not enough big, we are worried about our kids’ education, or we are worried about our parents’ health. Some might be reasonable, but most of our worrying are unreasonable. Thinking about Can we have the ability to make all things perfectly? Can we achieve any things that we want to achieve? Can I campaign against all the people then I become the best? Can we be long lives then we won’t go to die? The answer is ‘No’. We can’t, no one does have the ability. How can be full of our hunger? Therefore I want to ask another question if we hold the flaw whether or not that will affect the quality of our lives. The answer is still ‘No’. What is the perfect life? A perfect life is the life has some flaw but they don’t affect our mood and passion. The perfect life is ‘I don’t envy people’s accomplishment, I don’t complain my condition, if I am rich I will want to help the people, if I am poor I will want to keep my kindness’.

So back to my topic, where to find our goals? Can we find our goals from the external environment? Can we rely on other people to find our goals? Can we hold some unrealistic goals then they will really become true? To ask myself where is ‘my heart’ from, where does ‘my heart’ go to? If you have Huike’s intelligence you will attain Buddhahood. Where to find our goals? This question is to ask ourselves, it needs us to communicate with my inner mind. To find our goals is to find our real lives, to find our happiness. As I said in my ‘A story about planting peaches’, the farmer found his happiness because he found his goals.

Reducing our desire, eliminating our hunger, to keep our simple life, to do like the up statements recommend us. If we have done that, we will find we are living in happiness, we are living in harmony. We achieved the perfect lives.