Life Insights ⁽³⁰⁵⁾

Buddhism says impermanence is swift; life and death pass in a single breath. Death still seems far away to many people, but to others it is almost at hand. People habitually think of death as a long process, but in fact for most people the…

Many people mistake me for a Buddhist. In fact this is a colossal misunderstanding. I simply happened, out of boredom, to read a little about Buddhism and write a few Buddhist-flavored articles; I am far from a Buddhist believer. So I hope my Buddhist brothers…

Loving monotony makes it easier for me to be happy Who ever really likes loneliness? One simply dislikes disappointment more. —Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood I no longer remember which anthropology monograph I read that told me the people of the Pacific island of Samoa like…

Since I taught myself medicine and began treating patients, I have met tens of thousands, yet few could truly be called kindred spirits. Brother Zhao, a man from Shaoxing, Zhejiang, is the only soulmate I have met in all these years—someone whose temperament and life…

Among the couplets of the ancient Chinese, my favorite is Zuo Zongtang's: "Form the highest aspirations, form middling connections, enjoy the lowest blessings; stand on the highest ground, sit on the level ground, act from the broad place." In 2018 I turned forty. Confucius said,…

How am I to exist? It is a question every heart must face often. Life is never static. Every change puts us at a new crossroads and forces us to ask: How am I to exist? There is no fixed, standard answer. At every stage,…

One day this summer, a teacher from the Xueersi training center called me to ask why my son had attended only one class and never gone back. I told the teacher that I did not want my child to spend the whole summer attending various…

In the twelfth year of the Kaihuang reign of the Sui dynasty, Sima Daoxin, later honored as the Fourth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism, was just fourteen years old and still a young novice monk. One day this young novice went to pay reverence to the…

Because of my profession, I have, so to speak, grown accustomed to life and death. Every year I witness the process by which a great many cancer patients move from life to death. I had a patient who, while alive, was a truly remarkable person,…

The Buddha asked a monk: "Between what two things does human life lie?" The monk replied: "Between a few days." The Buddha said: "You have not yet understood the Way." He asked another monk: "Between what two things does human life lie?" The reply: "Between…