Insights and Updates

Confucius said: At thirty one stands established; at forty one is free of perplexity. For a person to reach the state of being free of perplexity, he must have roughly seen the world clearly and roughly seen himself clearly. Achieving both is no easy matter.

When are a person's best years? In my view, the best years are when one can direct one's own actions and care for oneself autonomously. As an idealist, I am willing to dedicate my best years to my ideal rather than submit to reality. The…

Around the year 2000, a classmate of my brother's, then a student at Northern Jiaotong University, recommended Wang Xiaobo's works to me. At that time the Wang Xiaobo craze was rising among college students, gradually forming a fan community known as 'the running dogs at…

The willow branches of Beijing have put on a tender green; spring has come. In the south one is not easily moved to joy by this long-awaited green, but in the north, after a long winter, seeing green shoots again is a different feeling altogether.

A person who can only appreciate himself and cannot appreciate others has a deeply lonely soul. There should be a stage of life as splendid as summer flowers, and another as serene and lovely as autumn leaves. When our life is at sunrise, we radiate…

Sister Ruoyu, who lived with me for many years and had breast cancer, has passed away. For fourteen years of fighting cancer she had always been optimistic and full of goodwill toward the world. Shortly before the Spring Festival, when we chatted, she told me…

In Water Margin, one of China's four great classical novels, Pan Jinlian, the sister-in-law of Wu Song, poisons Wu Song's elder brother Wu Dalang with arsenic, triggering Wu Song's revenge. Arsenic (pishuang) is a highly toxic Chinese medicinal, belonging to the category of violent poisons;…

The Shandong vaccine scandal, which caused panic across society, reflects the current state of widespread loss of public trust in China's medical establishment. Whether public or private, hospitals enjoy little credibility in patients' eyes. This deserves collective reflection by the Chinese government and the medical…

Medicine is a special calling. The doctor must not only fight disease, but also deal with patients and their families; on top of that, he must keep his own inner balance amid complex work and life, so that he can serve patients while also safeguarding…

Just over a week ago I was on a business trip in Kaihua, Zhejiang, where I met an old friend of Master Buyi, once quite influential online. I spoke with him about Master Buyi, who had recently left the monastery and married. From him I…