Life Insights ⁽³⁰⁵⁾

“Counting sand grains in the sea, only to weary oneself in vain; / How often, before the wind and moon, does one knit one’s brow? / If you can rest now, then rest now— / There is no end to the seeking of an end.”…

Midlife is a journey from pain to meaning. — James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life Before the Qingming Festival in 2012, I returned to my hometown to care for my mother in her final days. By then she had entered the…

Cultivate stillness within movement; hold an empty heart as if it held nothing. — Ren Jiyu Gradually recovering from a series of physical and psychological traumas, I spent a while in a state of self-doubt: every time a thought arose, I would immediately ask myself,…

In the blink of an eye, I am not far from fifty. Among my primary, middle, high school, and university classmates, some have already passed away, and several have served prison sentences. I have accumulated a rich store of things I have heard, seen, and…

On the last day of the lunar year 2023, I sat in the courtyard of my old home, the warm winter sun on my body, deeply comfortable. For a Chinese person, only after today has the year 2023 truly ended. At this moment my heart…

One emotion I have never experienced throughout my life should be jealousy; I may not even have experienced envy. I never begrudge others' lifestyles, social status, or economic conditions, so there is no comparison and thus no inferiority or superiority complex. Anyway, everyone is equal;…

Laozi said in the Dao De Jing that he had three treasures: "kindness, frugality, and daring not to be ahead of the world"—his three great tools for dealing with life. I also have five treasures: understanding, silence, a smile, letting nature take its course, and…

Wang Anshi of the Song Dynasty wrote an essay entitled "Shang Zhongyong" (Lamenting Zhongyong). Its gist is that a boy named Fang Zhongyong was extraordinarily clever in childhood, but grew up to become an ordinary man, "merged into the common crowd." We Chinese seem to…

There are always times or periods when we lose our inner peace. As someone whose inner heart is at peace most of the time, I previously had no deep feel for the state of those who are restless within. Now I have a deep feel,…

The First Awareness: All conditioned things are impermanent; the world is frail and perishable. The four elements are suffering and empty; the five aggregates are without self. Arising and ceasing, transforming and changing, they are false and have no master. The mind is the source…