Why wide learning and extensive researching are difficult for us?

Author: Tao Qing Hsu (Hsu, Tao-qing) 

There are two main reasons. One is coming from own mind. The other is coming from the control and restrain from the outside, such as family, government or the religion.

 

According to my personal observation from the world, there is more than half of the population in the world, whose thought or mind is controlled and restrained by their family, government or religion. Under the circumstance, it is really difficult for them to do the wide learning and extensive researching. And they also have no self-perceiving that their mind is shortage and narrow.

 

In the year of 1988, when I am 17 years old, Taiwan goes into the free and democratic society, and thus opens the publishing industry and the freedom of comment. In other words, before that time, I have experienced that our thought and mind is controlled and restrained by the government.

 

Even though, we have the freedom to choose our belief in religion, however, the relative books, magazines, articles or videos are few. Therefore, in that time, we have misunderstood the Buddhism a lot and have shortage knowledge about Buddhism.

 

Secondly, some of what I have learned about the history from the school is different from the fact. A lot of fact is gradually disclosed in the society of democracy and freedom. Then, I went back to understand the historical background of Taiwan, where are many scars, most people choose to be tolerant and forgiving, however, unfortunately, there are still a few people who choose to be hatred.

 

After the year of 1988, we also have a lot of chance to know the world, due to the freedom of information flow. I have found that there are a lot of countries also have the similar scars as Taiwan. That is the scourge of war.

 

The Buddhism flourish in Taiwan is since 1988, because most people finally have chance to know it from the free medium. But, unfortunately, there is still many countries reject it in the world and try to conceal the people. In a word, that is why learning widely and researching extensively about Buddhism are difficult, let alone the other knowledge, such as the history.