Life Insights ⁽³⁰⁵⁾

The trap is for catching the fish; once the fish is caught, the trap is forgotten... Words are for catching meaning; once meaning is grasped, words are forgotten. —Zhuangzi, External Things Poetry has a special talent, unrelated to books; poetry has a special appeal, unrelated…

Today is Youth Day, also the centenary of the May Fourth Movement. One hundred years ago, our nation was in calamity. A band of hot-blooded youth shed their blood and laid down their lives to save the country and its people, sacrificing themselves to relieve…

Today is the seventh anniversary of my mother's death. After she died, I kept vigil by her grave in my hometown for a while. I had originally meant to do the three-year grave-mourning, but with elderly parents above and children below to support, I had…

These are some short sketches I picked out from the WeChat Moments I have now cleared. They are basically things I wrote on the spur of the moment; deleting them would indeed be a pity. Cherishing one's old broom, when it truly comes to throwing…

Li Yu (courtesy name Liweng), who lived between the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, wrote a book called Xianqing Ouji (Casual Expressions of Idle Feeling), a famous ancient Chinese work on wellness and leisure. It contains a dedicated "Planting Section," which discourses at length…

In the small hours of May 3, 2012, my mother departed this world. On April 5, 2019, Qingming Festival, I returned to my hometown to sweep my mother's grave. Seven years have passed. I, who cheekily call myself a disciple of Zhuangzi, have finally let…

At forty, I wrote down these sixteen characters as the life realm I aspire to: open and upright in bearing, broad in heart, frugal in life, and gentle in disposition. I was not born an honest, simple soul; when I was young, perhaps, because of…

Until the age of forty, my life had always sought rapid growth and rapid development. Now I feel that rapid growth and rapid development go against the laws of nature; in all things it is better for a person to go a bit slower. Human…

After today, my Spring Festival is over, and the new year's work must begin again. In 2019, I pray for only one word: harmony (hé). I was born in 1979, and in 2019 I turn exactly forty. Confucius said that at forty one is free…

Many people interested in TCM hope I can point out the way for them, talk about my insights in studying TCM, and guide them to enter the field. I have politely declined, for two main reasons. First, I myself am a half-full bottle, still in…