Busy but Not Weary

Every morning at four o'clock I get up and begin reading and working through practice questions. Around six, as the city's schoolchildren and working people gradually rise and wash, I have already been studying at my desk for two hours. Between six and eight, apart from breakfast and necessary household chores, I spend most of my time still studying. At eight, as schoolchildren and office workers gradually settle into study and work, I have already studied for three or four hours and begun my day's work.

I now work four hours in the morning. During those four hours I answer various consultations and try to finish an article in the gaps between consultations; if I cannot finish it, I continue in the afternoon. At twelve I start cooking lunch, which is usually very simple and takes just over ten minutes. After lunch I take a half-hour nap, then continue studying in the afternoon. In the evening I do about half an hour of indoor exercise, after which I study again until nine o'clock, when I wash and go to bed.

Twice a week I get outdoor exercise, going to my rented vegetable plot to water and do some farm work. Apart from that, I am basically in the state of "why not once step downstairs?" Day after day, life is unchanged. In study breaks I occasionally tap a singing bowl or do a set of radio exercises to avoid prolonged sitting that might lead to hemorrhoids or rectal cancer.

Before my college entrance exam I hoped life would become leisurely after it ended; at twenty I hoped to be leisurely after thirty; at thirty I hoped to be leisurely at forty-five. Now I am nearly forty-five and know that I may never be leisurely in this life, so I have dropped the idea of stepping out of this state. Character determines destiny. Whether a person can be leisurely has nothing to do with the outside world and everything to do with his own character. Someone like me, if truly made idle, could not stand it himself.

A couple of days ago I went to the vegetable plot and saw the vegetables grown by an uncle next door growing extremely well, and I was immensely envious. He told me, water often and fertilize often, and you can grow them just as well. He spends time tending his plot almost every day; I could never have that much time, so I can only envy from afar.

On my fortieth birthday, my child and his mother specially bought me a good fishing rod set, costing several hundred. My greatest childhood pleasure was fishing; they knew this hobby of mine, so they thought to buy me a fishing outfit so I could satisfy the craving. Unfortunately, until now this fishing gear has never been used once. I don't think I will ever have time to fish again. Some years ago I also bought myself a guqin worth thirty thousand yuan; by now it has been a long time since I had leisure to practice, and I only idly pluck it for a few minutes now and then to relax.

The day is so short, yet there is so much to learn. Every day I feel I have not learned much before the day is over. Work often runs over; sometimes after a busy morning there is still much work in the afternoon, and even in the evening I have to answer consultations, making time even tighter. What I fear most now is contact with people who do not value my time, because my time truly cannot be wasted.

Fortunately, although busy, I am not mentally tense, so I never feel weary. Although my study load is heavy, I let things take their course and am not in a rush to achieve my goals quickly. No one is pushing me forward, so I can arrange my work, life and study in an orderly way. Because I no longer have a social life, there are no assorted emotions and desires; most of the time my inner heart is calm and I do not endlessly self-consume. In this state, by and large, study is a thing that brings body and mind pleasure. Solving problems is far easier than treating patients, and when I solve one I also get a sense of achievement and pleasure.

Although I love the ordinary and firmly believe I am just an ordinary person who will never achieve greatness, I also believe that an overly worldly life is actually not worth living. Sometimes I educate my son not to sink into worldly life; just a few days ago I reprimanded him because of the pressure and poor state he was in before his exams. I ask him not to take the college entrance exam too seriously. If he wants to be a mathematician, he should study mathematics single-mindedly, not casually change his life goals, not waste time, and not be attached to gain and loss.

I teach him never to get entangled in worldly disputes, and to treat the college entrance exam as one such worldly dispute. If he keeps only what he loves in heart and eye, and long perseveres in his ideal, he will have no anxiety about gain and loss, still less collapse because of temporary success or failure. If he fails, at worst he picks himself up and keeps going; those with perseverance succeed. Of course, he should also have the open-mindedness that it would be all right even if he ultimately does not succeed.

I believe the best state in life is to be immersed in one's beloved work; if there is leisure, then dabble in some hobby that pleases oneself. Whether the beloved work can earn a lot of money or make us powerful and influential is unimportant. Love a cause and do it for a lifetime; do it without utilitarian motives, for once utilitarian motives arise, happiness leaves us.

In any case, at the biological level not only are all people equal, but all living things are equal. We cannot choose our birth and cannot escape death; everyone must follow nature's ultimate law. I have seen the final moments of many high officials and dignitaries, and they were also wretched. Power and wealth have no necessary relationship with happiness; bodily health and inner peace and joy are the sources of happiness.

Before I was born, the world had nothing to do with me; after I die, the world will again have nothing to do with me; and during most of my time alive in this world, the world also has not had much to do with me. If one can think this way, one can leave the mortal world without becoming a monk, and comprehend life and death without sitting in meditation. For a basically healthy person, most worries arise from boredom. If a person has one thing in life sufficient to amuse himself, there will not be too many worries in his heart, and most of the time we will be immersed in our own joy.

Besides, one must train oneself to take pleasure even in the hardest life, because we do not know how bad life may one day become. Those who can survive at the limit have the strongest ability to adapt. The natural environment is always unpredictable, and no living thing can completely avoid misfortune; the stronger our adaptability, the higher our chance of surviving in this world.

To this day I retain the living habits of the 1970s: wearing cloth shoes and cheap clothes, eating coarse tea and plain rice. Many people, seeing the food I eat, have no appetite at all; if asked to dine with me, they could hardly swallow. This is a typical sign of poor adaptability. If the world underwent a great upheaval and most people suddenly fell into hardship, or if we ourselves suffered a life disaster and suddenly had to live in extreme poverty, people like me could accept and adapt to it faster.

A lifespan of a hundred years inevitably has ups and downs. To remain calm as still water through both favorable and adverse circumstances, one must long adapt to the simplest life, and moreover find body and mind pleasure in that simplest life. The state of unshakable stillness like a mountain is not hard to reach; if one is not moved by the outside world in every moment, then throughout this life one can remain calm as still water.