Sorrow and Joy Are in a Single Thought—Reflections on My 44th Birthday
When I was small, once my grandfather caught a swallow and brought it for the grandchildren to play with. My grandmother scolded him roundly, saying he ought not; if a child accidentally killed the swallow, that would be taking a life. She also scolded her own grandchildren for going wrong. Sheepishly, my grandfather let the swallow go.
My grandfather died when I was in first grade, of stroke. On the day of his funeral, I did not really know what sorrow was; seeing my elder female cousin crying, I cried too. I folded a paper crane and burned it for him. I do not know why I folded that paper crane; in primary school we had handcraft class where we made paper models, and that crane was one of my paper models.
This must have been the first education I received in respecting life. My grandmother's scolding of my grandfather left a deep impression; from then on I knew that taking life is wrong, and that anything that causes pain to another living being is wrong. My grandmother was a Buddhist; I chanted sutras with her from childhood, and many of her values deeply influenced me.
My great-grandfather was a scholar, respected locally. He left behind an inkstone, now in my father's hands. My father often speaks of him, saying he was always busy on behalf of public causes. Great-grandfather had two wives; the first died young of illness, and the second bore him no children, but she raised us grandchildren as if we were her own. My father has a deep impression of this step-grandmother and always speaks of her goodness. At the Qingming Festival, the graves of Great-grandfather and both great-grandmothers must all be tended.
My father himself is also much respected. For as long as I can remember, villagers have been coming and going through our home. In those days few people sued; when disputes arose, they went to an esteemed village person to mediate. My father was the man who mediated village disputes. As a child I often saw uncles from the village in our house, arguing loudly, each declaring himself right. My father listened quietly, then helped them analyze the whole course of events, pinpointing at which step what problem had caused the dispute, and then settled it. In fact, when Great-grandfather was alive he played much the same role in the village.
I never met my great-grandfather and my impression of my grandfather is faint. My initial personality was shaped by my grandmother and my parents; but my father's personality was itself inherited from my great-grandfather and grandfather, so though I never met him, I roughly know what sort of man Great-grandfather was. Sometimes when I write I think of his inkstone. I let my fancy wander: sitting at his desk in those days, how would Great-grandfather have thought through a problem? How would he have thought about life? And how would he have put brush to paper?
My father's brothers and cousins mostly had a streak of knight-errantry; my father and fourth uncle had even studied martial arts. As a child my father wanted to raise my brother and me to be accomplished in both letters and arms; he taught us martial arts—Yue-style loose hands and pugilistic sparring. My brother was very interested; besides what Father taught, he learned hard qigong from my fourth uncle, and once knocked himself unconscious. I had no interest in martial arts at all; when Father had us stand in stance to build leg and hip strength, the moment he left I would sneak off to play, while my brother trained in dead earnest.
Though I never trained martial arts properly, because of my father I acquired a martial spirit. I am very brave; at school I always championed the wronged, and seeing classmates bullied I would step in to help them, utterly without fear. My teacher said I had the bushido spirit of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period—the spirit of Jing Ke assassinating the King of Qin: "The wind is shrill over the Yi River cold; once the hero leaves, he will not return." It is the spirit of gladly giving one's life for a just cause.
My father is the pillar of the whole extended family, bearing the greatest responsibility for its prosperity; he gave much in youth and in old age could not help but feel aggrieved that family members did not treat him well enough. But in his seventies he seems to have become much more detached about the gratitude and grievance of the world, growing more tolerant than before.
I have inherited some of my father's traits, always shouldering the heaviest burden of the whole family. From nineteen I thought of supporting the family and lightening my parents' burden. I was still a freshman then; the family was desperately poor, and at school I often ate only one or two meals a day—two steamed buns, or two or three liang of rice, plus the free vegetable soup from the canteen. For a while I had no money even for that bare minimum, and went to a nearby hill to pick unripe peaches, which gave me vomiting and diarrhea. I sent part of the money my father gave me back home, because I felt how hard my parents' lot was; I thought I could always find a way to survive, and did not want to spend their money.
So from nineteen to twenty-one I often went hungry and even slept on the street, in a wretched state. But I was strong and did not break down to suicide; step by step I climbed out of the deep pit of poverty on my own. At that time I did turn to relatives for help, including one family member whose life my father had saved; in the end it caused him and my father to fall out as enemies, and he reviled my father.
I still remember: when my father heard the abuse, he said to me very calmly, Son, tell your cousin that your mother and I wish him peace his whole life. No quarrel, no resentment—my father spoke only this one calm, deeply meaningful sentence. Not until I was in my forties did I understand how deeply hurt my father had been. He had risked his life to save this man, himself gravely wounded and hospitalized for a long time, and in the end they fell out over two thousand yuan; so my father was deeply pained and helpless, and could only hope the years would teach this younger man some truth. Now their relationship has been repaired (after all, blood ties cannot be cut), but the pain in my father's heart is hard to soothe completely.
Another event I will never forget: the night my mother died, as I kept vigil by her coffin, an elder of mine made small talk and, looking to pick a quarrel and criticize my parents, finally, in his anger, burst out: "You think your mother was such a good person?" At that moment my heart was wounded no less than by my mother's death, for I had seen with my own eyes how she had endured hardship to help him through his troubles.
Such wounds have come many times to me and my father in our lives, so in his later years my father began to reflect on some of the values of our whole family. I feel that since my great-grandfather's day our family has been one with a strong devotion to country and home, with a kind of loyal devotion to family, clan, nation and society—this can be counted as one of the cores of traditional Chinese culture.
We would not count any personal gain or loss, even sacrificing our own lives, to strive for the interests of family, clan, nation and society. For a long time I have believed in Zhang Zai's lines: "Establish heart for heaven and earth, establish life for the people, continue the lost learning of the sages, and open peace for ten thousand generations"; in my heart I have long held the aspiration to "establish virtue, establish words, and establish merit."
In my life I have had many "Jing Ke assassinating the King of Qin" moments. Once on a bus from Tianjin to Beijing, I saw an elderly couple beaten by the ticket collector, their heads bleeding. The conductor was arrogant and domineering, and no one on the bus dared speak. I happened to carry an arm exerciser; I used it as a weapon, forced the driver to take the bus to the police station, and made the assailant answer for it.
In my student days I often rose in indignation at seeing classmates bullied, protecting them regardless of consequence. At moments of danger I always stepped forward. When social injustice arose, I was not afraid of bringing trouble on myself, and wrote sharp critical essays.
Cowardice was never my choice, yet not once did I do these things for myself. Because my own skill at handling relationships has always been decent enough never to reach an impasse with anyone. A blindly loyal bushido spirit, plus inborn bravery and strength, fated me to these reckless acts.
Besides daring, I am extraordinarily hardworking and enduring; after years of going hungry, my pain-tolerating nerves were well trained. Ordinary suffering is nothing to me. So in my more than forty years I have, most of the time, gladly shouldered heavy burdens for my family, my clan and society.
God made people unequal: some are born fragile, some born strong. The life-ground of the fragile is bitter, that of the strong is joyful. I often feel myself a lucky person; though my life has been rough, I have hardly ever felt it particularly hard. I have inherited many strong, advantageous genes: I am highly stress-resistant, naturally good at reading comprehension and logical thinking, have a good memory (at school teachers often praised my ability to remember at a glance), and my writing and speaking are passable.
My father still keeps the various award certificates I won in academic Olympiads. At the end of my first year of high school I was doing well in both arts and sciences; few students balance so well that they do not know which stream to choose. In the end my brother chose science for me—he had been the top arts student in our region in his own college entrance exam, but he hated the arts, feeling that the liberal arts are useless, so he made me choose science.
These years I have seen many patients who, because they are born with various disadvantageous genes, develop at a certain age all sorts of hard-to-cure physical and mental illnesses; on top of that they are financially strapped. Compared with them, I truly feel myself born lucky: though my family was poor, my genes had no major problems, so my physical and mental health were secure.
To accomplish anything, physical and mental health are truly vital. If we are born sickly, it is hard to achieve what others can. If we have genetic defects, no matter how happy the beginning of our life, halfway along we meet all manner of predicaments, sometimes even driven to desperation.
The general laws of biomedicine tell us that when an organism loses health it is mostly the result of the joint action of innate genes and acquired environment; whether the illness is physical or psychological, there is no exception.
No one in this world escapes hurt. Some were abused as children, some sexually assaulted, some estranged, some repaid kindness with enmity; the living world is like this—harm and being harmed happen at every moment. If we suffer too much harm, compounded by innate genes, we may develop various mental illnesses—at the least a personality disorder that makes us unable to adapt to society as adults.
Some tell me life is joyful, some that life is painful, some that life is half bitter and half sweet; some tell me this world is a paradise, others a sea of bitterness. In more than forty years, my own experience is that the human world has always been a world full of challenges; the challenges we meet in the course of survival are countless, and everyone plays a different role in society. The strong bear more responsibility, because there are always the weak they love who need their care.
Each person perceives the ground tone of life differently. The sad feel life is a sea of bitterness, most of it bitter; the happy feel the world is paradise, most of it joyful.
I belong to those who feel life is mostly joyful, though my own life has held more than its share of suffering—violence in childhood, displacement and wandering in adolescence, and only after I truly stood on my own did I take control of my life. There are many painful memories; if I were to air my grievances I could write a thick book that would leave readers in tears. After all, few of my contemporaries have gone hungry or slept on the street.
But my underlying tone is optimistic. I had a mild depression this year, yet the moment I noticed it I took measures and resolved it—though even that statement is imperfect, for though I am no longer depressed I am more easily moved than before. Even now, sometimes I cannot help weeping.
Yesterday I could not help crying at a banquet; in the course of conversation, flashes of the painful experiences of my own life and the tragic deathbed scenes of patients I have seen over the years made it hard to control my tears. But after weeping and taking a walk on the tree-lined road outside, my emotions settled; I was no longer sad or depressed.
Life is a cocktail; the glass holds not only joy but also sorrow and pain, and the proportion of happiness to pain in each person's cocktail is not the same. Sorrow and joy are actually in a single thought; it is hard to distinguish how much of a given thought is sorrow and how much joy.
Real life is bittersweet; only in some people's lives does bitterness take too large a share and joy too small, while in others the reverse. Some have good material conditions but are born with genetic defects and health problems, and their pain exceeds their joy; others are born poor, but their genes and environment leave them healthier, and their joy exceeds their pain.
Do innate genes and acquired environment then determine all of us? The answer is no. The Creator has made some amends for his unfairness: he gave the world wisdom. Through wisdom we can change our tolerance for and perception of pain and pleasure. Whether something is sorrow or joy ultimately hinges on the mind. Wisdom can enrich our hearts: it can raise our tolerance for pain, so that when we suffer we hurt less; it can also raise our sense of well-being, so that a breath of clear air, a white cloud, a flower can all bring us a full measure of happiness.
Of all wisdom, the wisdom to overcome desire is the most important. We always expect too much from life; not getting it is painful, and losing it is painful. If our expectations diminish, neither gain nor loss pains us. Besides, the wisdom to understand the self and the outer world matters; our pain also comes from conflict between ourselves and the world. If we understand ourselves and the world, all conflict disappears. Our hearts grow calm, and we find happiness in appreciating every beautiful moment of the present life.
We must also learn to protect ourselves from harm, and to reflect on our underlying logic of thought—the outlooks on life and values we once regarded as unchangeable must, at a certain age, be examined. For they may carry fatal flaws that affect our personal happiness. At such a time we need to cast out the old and take in the new.
I still believe that most of what my grandmother and parents taught me was good, but some was not. The bushido spirit of the Spring and Autumn period is not a good thing: why should a person take such risks to emulate Jing Ke's assassination? And how great would the success of an assassination really be? Behind the pathos of "the wind is shrill over the Yi River cold; once the hero leaves he returns no more" lies the loss of one's own life and endless grief for one's family. We ought to honor heroes, but we should not encourage every individual to be such a hero.
Being kind to the world is not wrong, but it must rest on being kind to oneself, or at least on a good balance between the two. If we endlessly consume ourselves striving for family, clan and society, one day we will face our own collapse. A culture that encourages the individual to destroy himself for the whole is not a culture that respects human nature; respecting life should include both respecting others' lives and respecting one's own.
The Ming thinker Li Zhi was perhaps the first to stand up and challenge the Chinese cult of devotion to country and family; he proposed that "suiting oneself" should be a person's goal—today's terms: one should first ensure one lives more happily, and only when one has surplus strength should one modestly serve family, clan and society. But Li Zhi went to an extreme, which ultimately led to his break with moralists like Geng Dingli, and
My great-grandfather was a typical inheritor of Confucian thought; his devotion to country and home must have been strong, otherwise his descendants would not be so strongly marked by personality and so responsible to family and society, even to the point of blindly loyal devotion. I am not saying one should not do things like forcing a person who hurts others into a police station; I am saying many things must not be done to excess, and need a boundary.
For without a boundary, in real life we will be burned by our own enthusiasm. The people around us and the multitudes of society will heap all kinds of pressure on us, until at last we collapse. Many capable workhorses die young, because they overdraw themselves severely.
Spiritual transcendence cannot repair physical overwork. However much we cultivate within, we are flesh and blood; overwork will "surely fell the commanding general." No matter how brave a person is, he cannot bear endless burdens under a devotion to country and home. The great Ming scholar Gui Youguang, when he took office away from home, was accompanied by more than two hundred family members; he was miserable, for it was an enormous burden.
So to blend the cocktail of life well, to make the proportion of bitterness and joy right so that we feel life is joyful most of the time, we must change both our inner spiritual cultivation and our actual life and work.
A big question my father has been pondering in recent years is: Did I teach my son wrong? Why, every time I see him, is he so worn out? In the end, what does he get from it—gratitude, or kindness repaid with enmity? He suspects our underlying logic has gone a little awry. His suspicion is right; I now share it. Much of what we have inherited from traditional culture is not necessarily harmless.
When I was two I set our home on fire, and as a result the family built a new house; to me this seems to foreshadow that my life's mission is to break the old and bring in the new. When I was ten, accompanying my brother over the mountains to junior high, as we two brothers sat resting halfway up the hill, he said to me: Are the rules by which this world runs, and the things grown-ups say, necessarily all right? On what grounds must we obey unconditionally? This sentence influenced my whole life; it kept me from blindly believing any authority.
Only by personally experiencing and exploring a thing do we know its right answer. And for each person the right answer is different, because our innate endowments differ. If we can carry a hundred jin, that is because we have the strength; we cannot therefore blame someone who can carry only twenty or thirty, or even less—those born frail cannot be compared with those born strong.
As my forty-fourth birthday approached, I made a thorough reckoning of my life, even down to my deepest underlying logic—my outlook on life and values. This reckoning brought me a new birth. Only by constantly casting out the old and taking in the new in thought can one truly adjust one's life to its best state.
Between Li Zhi's "suiting oneself" and devotion to country and home, I will choose a middle way suited to me, and not live the rest of my life so worn out. I still have life's ambitions unfinished; I cannot over-sacrifice myself and run my own ideals aground.
The flavor of a cocktail lies in the bartender's mixing; the bitterness and joy of life likewise lie in our own hand. Absolute bitterness and absolute joy do not exist; sorrow and joy are in a single thought and cannot be split apart. What we can do is try to make our life have less sorrow and more joy; that is what it means to be kind to ourselves.