A Life Worth Living
A man born in the 1980s struggles against the current
Lin Yuanzhou, a poor student, thought getting into college, marrying, and raising children were all the answers life had to offer. Then both his sons were diagnosed: one with severe asthma, the other with autism. Fate brought every hammer down at once. Medical bills drained the family’s savings, exhaustion shattered his marriage, and debt piled up like a snowball. Late at night in his rented room, he opened the Songs of Chu and read Qu Yuan’s words: “Though I die nine times, I shall not regret it.” In the rain after his divorce, Su Shi’s words came to mind: “Let me spend my life in a straw cape, weathering wind and rain.” In the darkest moments of founding a school, he held fast to Wang Yangming’s principle: “The unity of knowledge and action.”
This is no fantasy. It is the story of a father driven to the brink by life, who found a guiding light in the spirit of China’s sages throughout the ages.
He took his son with asthma to Mount Wudang to learn Tai Chi breathing techniques, and took his son with autism to intervention centers all over the country. In the end, he forged a path to recovery combining traditional culture, natural therapies, and treatment of both mind and body. His sons went from sickbeds to prestigious schools and the stage. He then built on what he had learned while saving his children to establish one school after another for “troubled youths,” using the wisdom of the sages to light the way for more than twenty thousand children others had given up on.
Twenty years, ten sages, ten lamps. As long as the lamps remain lit, the road goes on.
