Walking the Plain Path, Never Losing One's Inner Composure

Walking the plain path, one follows only one's own will. The secluded person remains upright and auspicious, never losing composure within.

— Xici/Xiang Commentary I, on the Hexagram Lu (Treading)

After our child left for college, an extra room opened up in our home. I tidied it up and turned it into my own private study. Housing prices in Beijing are high, and we could never afford a bigger place; for all these years the three of us have been cramped in an apartment of less than 60 square meters, and having a room of one's own at home was nothing short of a luxury. Now, for the time being at least, I have this little private space—though during the holidays it is, of course, still my son's room.

I am used to rising early, getting up to read at three or four in the morning, and around six or seven I ride my bicycle out to the vegetable garden to put in some work. In the past, after waking I always read in the dining room, using the dining table as a desk. Now I can sit at my son's desk in his room. With this space, I suddenly feel that my quality of life has improved a great deal. Beijing in the small hours is utterly still; in such a quiet and tranquil place, doing the things I love feels wonderful.

But the sense of loss my son's departure brought me is not such a nice feeling. I left home at eighteen, and ever since have only returned to my parents' house during vacations. After I married and built my own life, there were even holidays when I could not go back to visit. I know that from now on my son is steadily walking away from me; he is off to make his own way in the world. For eighteen years, raising a child was the central task of our lives. Now that central task is gone, and suddenly life feels empty.

Fortunately, on this year's Labor Day my son bought a cat, and this cat can soften, a little, the sense of loss caused by his leaving home. In my spare moments I can play with the cat. When the cat trots after me begging for cat food or canned food, it is a little like how, when my son was still at home, he would crave this or that to eat.

One of the greatest functions of a family is raising children; once that task is done, new tasks must take its place. I have shifted my own goals onto academic research—though to call it academic research is really just going back over the classics I read years ago. The classics are worth rereading many times: the first reading is learning, the second is questioning, the third is correcting mistakes—correcting the errors in one's own understanding as well as those in the works of earlier writers. Human civilization advances through correcting mistakes; without correction there is no progress.

On the last two days of summer vacation, my son and I took a trip to Beidaihe. By the sea, father and son talked at length. I told him: you have your own dreams, and you must work hard to make them come true. Neither of us is the most gifted of people; our talent is only middling, slightly above average. There are many cleverer people than we are, so if we want to realize our ideals, we must rely on effort and perseverance.

I hope he will live a simple life, able to bear solitude, with a peaceful and serene inner heart, advancing step by step toward his ideals, in no hurry to compete with others over who is better. Temporary successes and failures, gains and losses, need not weigh on him. Following his own heart, he should do what he loves. In the end, whether he achieves anything or not does not matter—what matters is striving in the direction of achievement.

This is what I hope for my child, and what I urge upon myself. Letting go of utilitarian calculation and simply, plainly chasing one's dream is both light and joyful—chasing a dream is a personal affair, and has nothing to do with anyone else; there is no need at all to care what others think. I love this attitude of the ancients, walking the plain path; if life can be a little plainer and more candid, the heart feels far lighter.

A quiet person with a dream is not easily thrown into turmoil. Even if now and then his inner world is turned upside down by birth, aging, illness, and death, by meetings with the hateful, by parting from the beloved, by things sought but not obtained, and by the blazing fervor of the five skandhas, he soon settles again. That is why I especially hope my child will have his own interests and ideals. A person spends a great deal of his life in his own company, and in those moments, interests and ideals can keep us from loneliness, boredom, and emptiness.

My days pass unhurriedly, but there is always something to do, always a goal to strive for. I want to be a good doctor, to integrate Chinese and Western medicine, to master comprehensively the various medical techniques that can relieve people's physical and spiritual suffering. I also want to be an excellent writer, to produce some articles worth showing. With these ambitions, my life is far busier than most people's—and far happier, for self-realization is a joyful thing.

A person's happiness cannot be built on other people; even the sweetest love is not necessarily reliable. When I was young, I too once dreamed of the poet's fantasy—a beautiful lady by my side adding scent to the evening lamp while I read. But after some seasoning in real life, I found that such things rarely happen; far more often the lady adds confusion, the whole house is a tangle, and one is too harried to read a book. The lady has her own things to attend to; she will not get up at dawn with you, let alone sit up reading at night—she would rather you stopped reading and went shopping with her. So dreams are more reliable.

One must adapt to solitude and be able to be the "secluded person." The secluded person is one who is alone. When no one is there to admire us, we should be like the orchid in an empty valley, releasing our own fragrance, encouraging ourselves, and keeping ourselves company on the way. Most of our lives are spent unadmired; no one lives forever in flowers and applause, and no one is constantly fed sweet words. We must endure loneliness and, inspired by our ideals, do our own work well. Only those who can bear solitude can "keep their inner composure"—peace comes from within; it cannot be sought from outside.