We spend our entire life painfully measuring and assessing,
Wearing out our knees by standing up and then sitting down…
(Một đời lận đận đo rồi đếm
Mỏi gối người đi đứng lại ngồi)

The way of giving preconized by the Buddha in order to access to Wisdom is the kind of “gate, gate, para gate, parasam gate” way, crossing to the other shore way, or the paramita, the perfect way of giving.
The Chinese pictograms are real fun. The pictogram “wood” (木), object of the sight, combined with the “eyes” (目), one of our 5 sense organs, will yield the word “form-appearance” (相). Until then, nothing goes wrong. But if the pictogram “mind” (心) is added to this character, it becomes 想 “perception, conception”, and from there troubles begin to arise! That is why it is said that the mind creates everything! So to subdue, to quiet the mind is of the utmost importance.

The new practitioners would look out for high mountains or deep forests to avoid seeing or being involved with worldly matters, in order to separate their minds from forms. They shun the world, cut themselves from world (but do not quit the world) in order to skip troubles or confusion. The awaken ones just light heartedly stroll around in the world like the character Đào Cốc Lục Tiên in a Kim Dung’ martial novels who was a bit soft in the head, and so used to be bossed about but changing every moment, sometimes behaving as an erudite, other times as a crazy, noisy quarrelsome individual. But when the brothers Lệnh mastered the genuine Dịch Cân Kinh, they were no longer scared of Đào Cốc Lục Tiên and became his bosom friends!
It is easy to fathom the depth of a river or a sea, but never judge a book by its cover. It looks like that, but it’s not that. To rely on “forms”, one is doomed to disappointment. The Buddha gave a specific example to explain this.

The Buddha was said to have 32 marks, then whoever has 32 marks can be called a Buddha? How many times Đường Tam Tạng misjudged people in this way! Even Trư Bát Giới and Sa Tăng were so often busy bowing down and worship the Devil!