drug addicts

 　　I've been doing some charity work lately, and my most direct feeling is: addiction is hard to break, but the mind is easy to reform.

　　I don't know if you're addicted, or if anyone around you is, but please believe me, it's not far from us. If someone suffers emotionally over something, harming their physical and mental health, and wants to quit but can't, they'll experience withdrawal symptoms once they stop: lethargy, loss of direction in life, and a tendency to return to that circle even after leaving. In this cycle of relapse, they hate their own inadequacy, constantly berate themselves, self-harm, and develop physical and mental illnesses—they're 100% addicted.

　　Gambling, drugs, and prostitution are truly not far from us. Sex addiction, gambling addiction, internet addiction, drug addiction, alcohol addiction… hundreds of millions of people suffer physically and mentally because of them.

　　Common situations include: 1. Extreme loneliness, self-loathing, and difficulty gaining understanding from those around them. 2. Financial and physical exhaustion due to addiction, difficulties at work or unemployment, and being criticized by family. 3. Weakened self-control, willpower, and intelligence due to high-pressure environments and unhealthy lifestyles, and despair due to negative energy spread by those in their social circle. 4. Overcoming addiction requires indoctrination with positive cultural values, a painful process. The desire for light coupled with fear leads to rejection of help, a feeling of impending death, and a numb nihilism, a sense that one's life is worthless and should be given up.

　　Learning proper addiction treatment methods and cultivating one's mind are the most direct approaches, but these methods contradict the addict's long-term habits. Accustomed to the highs and lows of gambling, earning a few thousand a month seems too slow. A mind tainted by pornography and a body ruined by masturbation makes one wonder, "Can chastity really bring me pleasure? I'd rather exchange my body for money." A darkened heart cannot be changed by a few words of wisdom.

　　I understand all of this; hell always leads to depravity. But there is only one true path in this world: cultivating one's mind, making oneself strong. When your heart is greater than all the money you can win, greater than goods and beauty, when you think yachts, clubs, and young models are nothing, will you still cling to the memory of "I once won"? When your capacity for compassion surpasses your lustful desires, or what you call instinct, and the supposed bliss you might experience by possessing someone of the opposite sex, will you still indulge in your delusions and revel in illicit sexual activity? No. Overcoming desire is not success, but rather

　　the strength that comes from being free of desire. If only you were truly enlightened enough to cultivate a state of pure, desireless energy. Everyone has a life, and life itself is a place for cultivation. Without desire, we wouldn't have come into this world; overcoming desire is our lesson.