Referencing my post entitled The Four Lessons, which is about a man named Liao-Fan who lived in China during the Ming Dynasty. He wrote the book for his son, teaching him about the rewards of living one’s life with the purpose of doing good deeds out of kindness and with humility. The message he wanted to convey was that one could change one’s own destiny for the better living this way.
I know paying it forward and random acts of kindness have become a social media thing of recent years, but have you ever really thought about how it would feel if you could really change someone’s life for the better? We all know how it feels to inadvertently hurt someone, but do we all know how it feels to make someone’s day or week or year?
I’m a real fan of stealth kindness where I will leave something nice for someone to find, whether it be something painted, or something I came across in my travels and I’m just passing it along. When my kids were young, I made Angels from craft store goodies. Nothing very elegant, but they certainly were Angels. Then I put them in the most interesting places for someone to find, giggling to myself imagining how that person would come upon their new Angel with wonder. I know there are people who do much bigger things, and I give them credit. I guess it’s the fairy in me that goes for the little surprises. Every once in a while, I will hear or read someone say that they were the recipient/finder and it came at such an important time, when they really needed to know that someone cared about them. That is how we assist God and the Angels without even realizing it.
In the third lesson in Liao-Fan’s book, he states that it is not the amount of the donation that matters, but whether it is done with complete sincerity in their motivations that brings good fortune from heaven and the Universe. A donation of a large sum may only be half-full of goodness whereas that of a small amount may be completely full of goodness.
I think one of the most important side-benefits is the boost in vibration that one feels when doing something truly selfless for another. Doing it purely for the sake of it and expecting nothing in return. Liao-Fan says that when we do a good deed, it is good and genuine if our intention is to benefit others, and bad or fake if our intention is to benefit ourselves. He explains further that good deeds that spring from our conscience are genuine, whereas good deeds being done only for the sake of doing them are fake. If they are done without the expectation of anything in return, they are genuine, but if they are done with any selfish intention at all or expecting praise, they are fake.
I remember one Christmas when I left Angels for people to find. One friend was feeling very alone and she told me about the Angel she had found dangling from her front doorknob. It lifted her spirits and gave her the feeling of Christmas magic again like when she was a child. That is a definite smile-maker. Another time was a lady who had PTSD and she was being bullied by the community HOA. She found a carefully painted shell and rocks with hearts on them and wrote on the community bulletinboard how they helped get her through a very dark time and she treasures them still.
You just never know how something so very small can be a kindness that makes a world of difference to someone else. We should all try to emulate Liao-Fan’s teachings by doing good deeds that accumulate merit. If it were so, the amount of Light on the planet and within ourselves would increase and intensify, and that is a very good thing, particularly now.
Here are two sites where you can read and download Liao-Fan’s book for free: