(Minghui.org) Modern concepts are influenced by the material things in our society today that lead people to have fixed understandings about the world. These understandings gradually create a standard way of life for many people. Since these concepts originate from the moral standards of the modern day, much of the essence contained within traditional culture has long been unknowingly forgotten.
Traditional culture was bestowed upon us by the heavens as a way for people to understand heaven, earth, and humanity. It contains standards for people's ways of thinking, ideology, and behavior.
The lives of the ancients followed the laws of heaven. People worked when the sun rose and rested when the sun set. Men had integrity and were masculine, while women were ladylike and gentle. Buildings like pavilions and pagodas were designed to harmonize with the natural environment. People valued skill in poetry, calligraphy, painting, and playing board games. The clothes they wore and the wares they used were in line with the rules of the universe and had special meanings behind them.
People in all professions focused on purifying their minds and regulating their breathing, which recycled their energy. It not only helped them maintain good health, but also laid a foundation for people to cultivate themselves, elevate their morality, and return to the nature of their truest selves in the end.
Modern science and technology have changed people's lives, making them more convenient and comfortable. But they have also distorted people's thinking and thrown traditional morality out the window. This is reflected in today's clothes, behavior, and social environment.
Take music as an example. Classical music derives much of its content from praising gods and the divine and focuses on elevating the spirit. Because of this, classical music still pulls peoples’ heartstrings, even after hundreds of years.
Contemporary music, however, focuses on venting an individual's emotions and stimulates people's senses in order to attract people. This is what modern life is like – pursuing material things, indulging one's desires, and becoming more impulsive and empty.
People who live by modern concepts don't respect heaven or gods and have no moral baseline. They use rude language, are often impolite, and their interpersonal relationships are messy. The popularity of electronic games and various apps on the Internet spread and promote this modern ideology. Vulgar language, jokes, photos, and funny videos are all over the Internet. People are marinating in all sorts of garbage all the time.
On the surface, it looks like people’s lives today are richer, more colorful, and more exciting, but, in reality, those electronic games and entertainment programs numb people's true selves and use up all their time and energy. This numbing effect has been integrated into every aspect of society, such as culture, the arts, politics, law, and education.
Traditional economics encouraged entities to do business fairly without harming others’ interests. But the current economic system is focused on how to make more profits and ignores human morality completely. It runs contrary to traditional society, whose principles guided people to be good.
Modern technological development ignores human morality. It just leads people to pursue their endless desires. Cloning technology, head replacement surgery, and genetic modification destroy the laws of nature and violate the basic tenets of being human. It is very dangerous for human beings to develop this technology further.
People today have been disconnected from the ways to improve morality and to self-cultivate that heaven has endowed us with. It divorces humanity from the traditional culture that gods have systematically arranged. People who have lost their cultural roots cannot understand ancient people's mentality and interpretation of history.
People who are slaves to modern ideology lack cultural connotations and moral restraints. They stray further and further away from the law of the universe.
In fact, this so-called “modernization” and modern fashion are closer to a demonic path and only leads further and further away from human nature and gods. A return to traditional culture will be a return to the path that heaven gave to human beings.
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Category: News Commentary
