The Technology of Correcting Fate: How to Reshape Your Blessings at the Root
In the previous article, we saw how Yuan Liao Fan transformed from a passive fatalist into someone who actively shaped his life. Many readers, however, fall into a major misunderstanding: Isn't changing fate just about doing good deeds? If I donate money or volunteer, will my luck improve?
If that is your assumption, you are underestimating the depth of Liao Fan's Four Lessons.
After his initial excitement, Yuan Liao Fan hit a plateau. He realized that even after vowing to complete three thousand good deeds, his private desires, anger, and laziness returned like weeds. He understood that external good deeds only prune the branches, while inner reform is what pulls out the roots.
Today, we explore the method that can reshape the trajectory of your life: the technology of correcting fate.
1. Correcting Faults: Why Clearing the Negative Matters More Than Adding the Positive
Master Yun Gu's core teaching was simple: if you do not fix the leak at the bottom of the bucket, no amount of water will fill it. In the second chapter, The Method of Correcting Faults, Liao Fan presents a remarkably modern framework: true reform requires three minds and three methods.
The Three Mental Qualities
A sense of shame: not self loathing, but the recognition that you can do better. It is the feeling that says, "Why am I indulging in such low level habits and emotions when I am capable of more?"
A sense of fear: an awareness of cause and effect. Modern people often think, "No one saw it, so it does not matter." Liao Fan reminds us that the universe has its own order, and every act of opportunism depletes your invisible credit.
A sense of courage: changing habits is painful. Liao Fan says you must cut through bad habits like severing a snake. No hesitation.
The Three Levels of Reform
This is the most powerful section of the book. It describes three levels of behavioral change:
Lower level: reform in action. I want to quit smoking, so I throw away my cigarettes. This is forced execution. It is the weakest method because the desire remains and rebounds.
Middle level: reform through understanding. I want to explode in anger, so I reflect: "Anger harms my health, damages relationships, and does not solve problems." Once the logic is clear, the anger dissolves. This is similar to cognitive behavioral therapy.
Higher level: reform at the heart. At the highest level, you maintain constant awareness and clarity, filled with compassion. Dark thoughts cannot arise, just as darkness disappears when sunlight enters a room. You no longer need to chase it away.
Modern example: If you want to improve your finances, the lower level is cutting expenses. The middle level is learning investment logic. The higher level is correcting your scarcity mindset and greed.
2. Accumulating Goodness: Is What You Call Good Truly Good?
As Liao Fan started his three thousand good deeds, he faced a second challenge: what actually counts as goodness?
In The Method of Accumulating Goodness, he clarifies distinctions that are easy to confuse but crucial in daily life and work.
True Goodness vs. False Goodness
Liao Fan argues that the standard is not the action itself, but the motive.
If your intention is to benefit others and society, it is true goodness.
If your intention is to gain praise or appear virtuous, it is false.
Workplace example: A leader who criticizes to help a team member grow is practicing true goodness. A leader who criticizes to show power is practicing false evil.
Upright Goodness vs. Misguided Goodness
Sometimes what looks kind is actually harmful.
If you are too lenient with someone who keeps making mistakes and enable their decline, that is misguided. If you act firmly to uphold justice, that is upright.
This reminds us: kindness must be paired with wisdom and a sharp edge. Otherwise it is mere self comfort.
Hidden Virtue vs. Public Goodness
Public goodness: everyone knows your good deeds, and you gain reputation. Reputation is a blessing, but when it exceeds your true capacity, it brings risk.
Hidden virtue: your good deeds are unseen. That energy accumulates quietly and becomes a lifeline in critical moments.
This is why many truly successful people stay low key: they understand the value of deep virtue.
3. The Power of Humility: Why the Most Successful Stay Low Key
The final chapter, The Effect of Humility, observes that those on the verge of success often share one quality: humility.
Why does humility change fate? An arrogant person is like an upside down cup. No matter how much rain falls, nothing stays. A humble person is like a low valley that gathers the water around it.
Liao Fan reminds us: the way of heaven diminishes excess and benefits humility. The moment you think you know everything is the moment your luck begins to turn downward. When you keep an empty cup mindset, respect others, and hunger for learning, the doors of fortune stay open.
4. A Modern Upgrade Plan for Your Destiny
You do not need to live in a temple to apply this system. You can bring it into modern life:
Build your negative list. Spend one evening writing five character flaws you most want to change: complaining, procrastination, insecurity, harshness, wastefulness. Try the middle level method and analyze how each trait drains your energy.
Find your thirteen beehives. From the previous story, locate your true strengths. You do not have to donate money. Using your expertise to solve others' pain can be the highest form of goodness.
Let awareness lead action. Before sleep, reflect: were my decisions today driven by benefit to others or by selfishness? That awareness alone shifts your destiny frequency.
Accept delayed rewards. Liao Fan spent decades changing his fate. Blessings often have a time lag. Do not conclude that destiny is fake after three good deeds. Causality is the universe's mathematics. It never miscalculates, but it takes time.
Closing: You Are Your Own Magical Brush
The greatest gift of Liao Fan's Four Lessons is agency. It tells us we are not chess pieces in a divine game, nor random outputs of algorithms.
Every thought, every choice, and every moment of restraint subtly re draws your life map.
At the end of his book, Liao Fan wrote to his son: "May all under heaven strengthen themselves and not be bound by fate."
Fate may have given you a difficult hand, but Liao Fan teaches you how to play each card. When you stop obsessing over the hand and focus on playing well, you may find the winner is you.
