What Matters Is Listening to the Voice Within
Today, together with my son, I accompanied my wife to Tsinghua University to register her student ID card. It was the weekend, and Tsinghua was thronged with visitors. Professor Shi Yigong, a scholar I admire, quietly continues his academic research and teaching life on this campus, no longer quiet. Near the energy department where my wife works, there still stands a small plaque erected by President Mei Yiqi in 1930. That old, weathered little plaque reminded me of the period described in Feng Youlan's Preface to the Three Pines Hall, when, amid war and beacon fire, the older generation of Tsinghua scholars, under harsh conditions, tirelessly pursued learning and left a precious thread of cultural lineage for China. A hundred years have passed; so many heroic figures have been washed away by the great waves. Only this thread of lineage still nourishes generation after generation of students, so that this nation's civilization can be constantly renewed.
Over the past month or more, because of moving the website and sorting out old works, I was tired for a while, to the point that almost everywhere on my body ached: lower back, cervical spine, spine, shoulders were all uncomfortable, even the armpits hurt. I slept through several aches, and after going out for exercise, one by one they recovered. When fatigued, I sometimes feel confused about what I am now doing: is there really meaning in spending my life this way? Once my stamina recovered and my mind grew clear and light again, looking back, thinking that I had relieved many people of all kinds of physical and spiritual suffering, I understood that my efforts are indeed meaningful.
Most of my energy goes into the study of spiritual philosophy and Chinese medicine. In this era, these subjects are under great criticism; people regard them as old-fashioned and backward. Many try to throw them into the garbage heap of history through criticism, and the flood of the times tries to drown them. Studying and practicing them carries considerable risk; there are always people who eye me with suspicion, as if I were a fraud. Should I shrink back because of this doubt?
My life experience tells me I need not. Henceforth, what I need to do is to continue my own research and practice more quietly and more focusedly. I have lived through many important moments in my life, and in some I witnessed life problems that so-called advanced civilization cannot solve. I have read widely, yet still cannot find answers, in the various prominent fields of today, to some life questions—how to face death, how to deal with terminal illness, how to resolve the pain deep in the heart. These are not easy to answer. Tens of millions of years ago, our human ancestors were also puzzled by these questions and pondered them; today, the wisdom we have on these questions has not surpassed theirs. One day we will find that, compared with eating, drinking, playing, and living well, our inner peace matters more. Once a person enters such a stage of life, he cannot reverse back to the stage of drunken revelry. That being so, just keep walking forward.
The purpose for which I was born is not to adapt to this society, not to adapt to any other person, but to experience my own life journey, and this journey is real. Apart from concessions to the demands of survival instinct, my inner being does not submit to anything illusory. Whether a thing makes me happy, only I know; at the very least I should be honest with myself. Any famous maxim, any rule and regulation, any attitude of others toward me, is not enough to move or influence me.
What matters is not whether this society recognizes whether what we insist on is valuable, but whether we ourselves, deep in our hearts, understand whether what we insist on is valuable. If, in this small space, we truly and clearly know that it is indeed valuable, then we should insist to the end. What I should listen to is the voice of my own heart, not the voices from outside.