This work recounts various brief stories about things I have personally experienced in society, or heard about, from the past up to the present. I hope to reflect at my leisure on the lessons they hold, and to seek insights from my readers, address the doubts and regrets in my heart, and look inward for answers.
The flavors of life are a blend of bitterness, spice, sourness, and sweetness. There is sweetness in bitterness, and bitterness in sweetness; the salty and mild, the sweet and bitter, all coexist. If you have never tasted bitterness, how can you appreciate the wonder of sweetness?
A Zen master of the Song dynasty once left behind a verse that has been recited through the ages, “Every Day Is a Good Day”: In spring, a hundred flowers; in autumn, the moon. In summer, cool breezes; in winter, snow. If no idle worries weigh on your heart, every season is a fine time in this world. Is this not a state of serenity, accepting life's ups and downs? Yet accepting life's ups and downs does not mean simply going with the flow and making no effort to advance. Such is life: accepting its ups and downs is indeed an art of living.
But in this world, there are many who seek profit and few who seek to save others.
Some say that memories are a disease, and sorrow a lifelong disability that never heals. Memories may hold much sorrow, but even if that sorrow never heals, it is nothing to be ashamed of, just as memories are not an incurable disease. If we can find strength in sorrow, perhaps our many losses will help us understand all the more how precious the things we still hold on to are.
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