标签：everyday life
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Transcendent Amid the Mundane World
Transcendent Amid the Mundane World
A calm and unhurried heart dissolves into the mundane world: seeking a spiritual realm of transcendence without transcending material desire. A restless world loses itself in material desire; the way to seek ease is to dissolve oneself into the secular world as well—to seek tranquility amid the hubbub, and to taste solitude in the midst of the sea of people April 30, 2005
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On Looking Down from on High
On Looking Down from on High
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot: sometimes even I can’t stand myself. But there’s nothing to be done about it. Three or five years ago, many of my ideas were, one should say, about the same as those of ordinary people in society. And I myself have been growing; looking back now, some of the things I used to think really were childish. But the worse luck is that I’ll keep on growing. So my growth has practically become a symbol of the widening gap between my thinking and that of ordinary people, meaning that the depth of my thought will never again be able to return to the level…
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Speak Less
Speak Less
For example, young people are never really in a position to argue with seasoned elders about the principles of being human; the only thing you can do is listen. And I have always been the listener, yet no one is willing to take the time to listen to me describe the path of my own heart… Those willing to listen to me laugh are kindred spirits; those who can hear me cry are soul friends. What I lack is not people who understand my thoughts, but people who can patiently listen as I speak them aloud. When I try to express myself, people say my words are all mumbling and…
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Summer Vacation Notes from 2002
Summer Vacation Notes from 2002
Summer Vacation Essays Origin Taking advantage of the rare opportunity of summer vacation, besides making the most of my time to study and amuse myself, I also had ample and continuous free time to read and think, and once school starts I’ll be even busier. So I decided to record my thoughts during this period: first, for my own later recollection; second, so that I can keep them on hand and use them as an essay for homework in the future; and third, so that they may serve as a kind of “thought report” and let the Party organization get to know me better. I’ll write whatever comes to mind,…
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The Grand Unification of Philosophy (an essay from my high school years): Excerpts and Notes
The Grand Unification of Philosophy (an essay from my high school years): Excerpts and Notes
Six pieces merged together on Yiku, of purely historical interest.
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Midterm Exam for Introduction to Civilization and Environment
Midterm Exam for Introduction to Civilization and Environment
1. Enumerate the major achievements attained by early Holocene Chinese ancestors in the realms of social economy and spiritual culture, and, on the basis of the several stagewise leaps in the development of human productive forces, attempt to demonstrate why human society thereafter entered an era of accelerated development. The early Neolithic cultures of China in the Holocene were spread across the country, including dry-farming cultures in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, the Liao River and Hai River basins, irrigated rice agriculture in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, as well as hunter-gatherer zones distributed throughout the country. China is the place of…
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Application for Confirmation of Party Membership
Application for Confirmation of Party Membership
Dear Party Organization: I was accepted as a probationary member of the Communist Party of China on April 30 last year. The probationary period is one year, and it expired on April 30, 2005. I now solemnly apply to the Party organization to be converted into a full member. In the past year, I came from Shanghai to Beijing, transformed from a high school student into a university student, experienced many things, and also gained much growth and maturity. Yet my faith in, and enthusiasm for, the Party have never changed. From high school to university, one’s experience grows richer, one’s knowledge increases, one’s emotions mature, one’s learning improves… all…
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Impressions of Marxist Philosophy (Midterm Paper for Marxist Philosophy)
Impressions of Marxist Philosophy (Midterm Paper for Marxist Philosophy)
Like many people, my first encounter with Marxist philosophy was in the political theory textbook in high school. Of course, my impression at the time was not a good one. That kind of “Marxism” dismissed so-called idealist metaphysics and incomplete materialism and the like—every kind of non-Marxist philosophy—as worth nothing at all, and that was precisely what first made me suspicious: I imagined that those idealist philosophers could hardly all have been fools; as thinkers who had made it into history, they must, in any case, have been much smarter than I was, so why would they go to the trouble of producing theories that were worthless and collapsed at…
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