友:The Two Hands in One Direction

My partner went through a major surgery recently. The two chief cardiovascular surgeons came from two different hospitals. When they walked out of the surgery room for this ten-hour operation to tell me it was successful, I saw heartily smile and confidence on their faces. They are celebrating their successful cooperation as good friends and also as business rivals at the same time.

My whole family is sincerely grateful for Prof. Yin’s reaching out to Chief Dr. Zheng for this surgery operation in order to save my partner’s life. Although the various situations before the surgery operation were very complicated, the two doctors who treat saving a patient’s life as the fundamental starting point, in the face of difficulties and resistances, with their superb medical skills, saved a life struggling in the line of death.

Prof. Yin and Chief Dr. Zheng have done several combined surgeries before, like many other good doctors and surgeries, crossing hospitals, cities, and regions, to save patients’ lives. It reminds me of a short video by Richard Sears, an American living in China, who is called Mr. Hanzi(汉字先生). In his short video, he was telling what the Chinese character友(friends; friendship) vividly means.

Profoundly and pictographically, 友 yǒu (friends; friendship) draws a picture of two hands reaching out in the same direction. Over the long history, Chinese ancients regarded同志曰友- people with the same innate purpose and determination(志) as friends. Their wills resonate with each other and their hands extend in the same direction.

What if the two hands are not in the same direction? That is well reflected by another simple Chinese character 争 zhēng (contend, dispute, fight, strive, compete). Vividly, when two hands pull one thing in two opposite directions, they are fighting and competing. And our ancients carved this meaning into the character争. Compared to斗(fight), 争 involves two components.

We always say: competition promotes development. Fortunately, good friends, being the competitors at the same time, give each life endless motivations.

Looking around, when Su Yiming and Max Parrot claimed their Gold and Silver; when Apple and Huawei compete on the mobile market; when solar and wind increasingly devote more as human renewable energy, when the east and the west integrate and promote each other mutually, they play as friends also as the rivals who understand each other’s efforts, persistence, courage, failure, and success the best.

We all have two hands, they are in the opposite positions, but they mutually complement and support each other.

静: Stillness is the Biggest Movement

Time brings a great change to the world. With technology’s daily fast development, substance brings forth the fresh at every single moment. A richly decorated crystal and jade palace today will all flutter away like a passing cloud one day. Only the eternal history and culture, passed down by hundreds of generations through the precipitation of words and characters. Over those countless springs and autumns, classics emerged with wisdom were invisibly carved into fabulous Chinese characters, long and new.

At this new noisy age, let’s walk on a new road to talk about “静-Stillness and quietness” today.

Over the long history of Character development, there was not a big change of “静”, remaining with a left part of “青-cyan” and a right half of “争-strive, compete, fight”. There was an interesting saying that the two-characters word “清净-the cleanness and clearness of water” will be “静” when the water part is removed from each of them. Calm like water, it could be a mirror reflecting all things on the planet. What a heartsease and harmony with the rest of the world it describes! But, why this “静-Stillness and quietness” is of half of “争-strive, compete, fight”?

“青-cyan” implying a meaning of the east and spring, is the color of new growing plants. An old version of “争” vividly draws an image of two hands dragging one thing toward two opposite directions, implying strive, compete and fight against each other. Profoundly, ancestors borrowed the nascent vitality of vegetation into a metaphor of how to steadily eliminate distractions, following the original intentional heart, getting the desired ending through this “静”. Putting simple characters of “青” and “争” together reflects profound philosophy: Dynamic and static are two states of things. Stillness gets birth out of the dynamic state and they transform mutually into each other.

Without dynamic reference, there can be no static existence.

As here we are talking about the dynamic and static states, it relates to one point connecting to Einstein’s theory of “Relativity”: the speed of light is the limit speed of the three-dimensional world. The Scale Reduction and Clock Slowness effects show that as long as anything reaches the speed of light, it slows down the time to a speed of 0. It can be assumed that things moving at the speed of light are relatively static for all surrounding objects that also move at the speed of light.

Stillness and quietness in the static state are relative.

  • When a bus runs on the street, we feel it is too fast to catch. But if we are on the bus, we cannot feel it’s moving at a steady speed if we do not look outside.
  • When a flower blooms quietly, the time of a universe of flowers is used up.
  • When seeds germinate, it is in quietness without anyone’s notice.
  • In our body, all cells and organs are changing and replacing at every moment, quietly and inevitably.

We live on the earth, although our Mother Earth rotates at a speed of four hundred and sixty-six meters per second at the equator, we cannot feel it, neither talk about the orbital speed of the earth around the sun of approximately 107,000 kilometers per hour.

All important processes of life happen slowly in a quiet static status. Humans come into this world, bringing their own spirit to combine with the fertilized egg, and then returning back to the universe, it is all in the same quietness. All the processes of human growth happen slowly and silently. No one can go from one year old to twenty years old quickly and soundly…

But, life develops in quietness and statics.

  • In the quiet blooming, flowers flow out the gorgeous colors and the intoxicating fragrance.
  • In the quiet germinating, seeds burst out the unstoppable breaking-ground rising force.
  • With all the quiet metabolisms, the human body grows taller and stronger, while the human thoughts and spirits are growing wider, deeper, higher, and thicker.

The earth absorbs and emits light and heat in her rotation and revolution between the sun and moon, among the universe, so as to sustain her own living system and provide the energy and material base on which everything depends. The earth, like a loving mother, nourishes the development of human beings, and what dominates this motherly love is her active beating heart with big love, under her quiet and calm appearance.

The “争-fight, strive, contend” in “静-Stillness and quietness” is actually telling that there is a big movement and change undergoing in the quietness and calmness. It is reminding us to experience the power in the quietness and calmness, and the power of life from the things that constantly move and change us.

When we are sincere and calm with peace and love in heart, we will always discover the beauty of life.

When we can always discover the beauty of life, we can peacefully handle businesses, corporations, organizations, societies, and even global economic and political matters.

沧海桑田,科技日新月异,物质推陈出新。今日琼楼玉宇,他日不过过眼云烟。唯有永恒的历史和文化,通过文字的沉淀而流传万代。不知经历了多少个春秋岁月,经典和着智慧被毫无痕迹地雕刻在一个个精彩绝伦的汉字里,弥久还新。

在今天这个喧嚣的时代,我们来独辟蹊径地聊一聊“静”。

在漫长的文字演变过程中,“静”没有多大的变化,一直保留了一半的“青”,一半的“争”的字形结构和基本意义。也有说“清净”如水的两个字,去了水,不就是一个“静”。静如流水,好一番心静则明,水止能照万物的心平气和、与世无争。那么为什么“静”的一半得是“争”呢?

青,寓意东方和春天,是初生的自然之物草木的颜色。争的说文解字版形象地表示出上下两只手分别向两个方向拉扯一物,寓意运动,变化和斗争,代表世事多变,人心波动。古人借用草木初生的一片生机盎然里的生命力,排除干扰,秉持初心,方得始终的向上发展;用浅显的故事反映了深刻的哲理:动静代表事物的两种状态。静,源出于动,相对于动;没有动态的参照,就没有静态的存在。

说到动和静,不得不提爱因斯坦的相对论:光速是三维世界里的极限速度。The Scale Reduction and Clock Slowness effects效应指出当事物的速度达到光速时,他们的速度都降为零。由此可推论当所有的事物的速度都为光速时,他们相互之间都是静止的。

这个静止是相对的。

  • 当一朵花静静地绽放时,消耗的是这朵花的世界的所有时间。
  • 当种子安静的发芽时,没有人能够注意到。
  • 在我们的身体里,所有的细胞和器官在每一刻都在悄无声息地变化和新旧更替着,完全不以人的意志为转移。

我们生活在地球上,虽然我们的地球母亲在以赤道466米/秒的速度自转,但我们丝毫感觉不到这个速度,更别提地球绕太阳的轨道公转的速度约为107,000公里/小时。我们这个喧嚣的世界从外太空看回来,不过如一颗挂在深蓝天际的美丽的静谧的蓝色星球。

这个世界的生命中所有重要的过程都是在安静的状态下缓慢发生的。人类来到这个世界,带着自己的灵魂与受精卵结合,一切的过程都是在悄无声息中进行。没有人能快速地从一岁一下子到了二十岁…

但是,生命在所有这些静谧中生机盎然地发展。

  • 花朵在静静的绽放中流淌色彩的斑斓和馥郁幽香。
  • 种子在静静的发芽中爆发破土而出迎难而上的生命嫩芽。
  • 人体在新陈代谢中长高长大,也积累着认知、思维和精神的高度,广度,深度和浓度。

地球母亲也在日月之间的自转和公转中吸收和发散着光和热,维持她自身的生命系统,提供万物赖以生存的生命能源和物质基础。地球如慈母般滋养着人类的发展,支配这份母爱的是她身体深处那颗活跃的跳动的大爱的心。

静中有争,其实是在说静中有动,告诉人要学会从动心的现象与心绪中体验静心,在静心中体会和获得生命的动力。

“做人宜诚,处事宜静”。当我们心平气和,诚挚做人,静心感受身边事物以及我们所拥有的一切,就会不断地发现生活的美。当我们能不断地用心发现生活的美,我们就可以和平圆满地处理业务,团队,组织,社区乃至国际政治经济的一切事情。

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/helenqiuhong_%E9%9D%99-stillness-is-the-biggest-movement-time-activity-6844163650295623681-hPPi

脏-藏: Recharge Your Treasure Boxes

Life is like a rechargeable battery, requiring career recharging, professional recharging, health recharging… from time to time, to maintain a high energy level.

Did this concept exist before the battery’s existence? Yes. And, we can learn it through a single character “脏”.

Ancestors used this “脏” to present human internal organs: Heart心脏, liver肝脏, spleen/stomach脾胃脏, lung肺脏, and kidney肾脏.

In ancient books, “脏” came from “藏”, which means the essence of the body, the hidden treasure and the deposit of life. They are like our body’s treasure boxes:

1. Heart: is the KING of internal organs, the foundation of life, and is in charge of the spiritual mind activities. Heart relates to emotions of joy and hatred. Hatred hurts the heart. Love heals hearts.

2. Liver: is the “traffic police of the human body”, stores blood, regulates the flow of Qi and mental emotions, has the greatest influence on human emotions. Pressure hurts the liver, but a soft temper indicates a healthy liver, a healthy body, and a happy life.

3. Spleen/stomach: is the key to the biochemistry of Qi and Blood, represents the foundation of a human’s acquired life. “Anxiety hurts the heart and lungs, depression hurts the stomach and intestines.”

4. Lung: as the great prime minister under the heart king and above all the cells, lungs balance, govern, and control the vitality of the body, is the first line of defense of our body. Sadness depresses lung Qi and laugh is the cheapest and effective way to praise the lungs.

5. Kidney: is the innate root and driving force of life; the innate foundation of the human body, warms, moisturizes, nourishes, and stimulates the internal organs. Panic/fear damage kidneys; calmness gives strength in dealing with shocking situations.

Even more profoundly, and ironically, “脏” also has a meaning of “dirty”! “脏话”, the human dirty words, are the words from the internal organs, with “dirty” negative energies, a complex mix of hatred/anger/sadness/depression/panic, controlled by a blinded heart.

Interestingly, we discharge our energy during the daytime and we recharge when we sleep at night. If only part of the electricity is charged at night and 100% released during the daytime, where does the remaining energy come from? It’s borrowed from the five internal organs, our innate deposit of life energy. As a result, bad sleep is an indicator of a bad temper, and bad health conditions.

In addition, increasing deposits of positive spirits into our treasure boxes promotes human life.

Chinese characters carry great wisdom of life. Read my book to know more Chinese wisdom: https://lnkd.in/gwkkKFj

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6840557282053505024/

Teeth vs. Tongue — The Hard vs. the Soft

Legend has it that when Lao Tzu (or, Lao Zi) was fifteen, he worshipped a man named Chang Cong as his teacher.

Later, the teacher became seriously ill. Lao Tzu went to visit him, but couldn’t forget to ask for more teaching. And here came a conversation between them like this:

Lao Tzu said respectfully: “Teacher, you are so ill, what else can you tell your disciple?”

Chang said, “Even if you don’t ask, I have something to tell you.”

Then Chang opened his mouth and asked Lao Tzu to look into it and asked, “Is my tongue still there?”

Lao Tzu replied: “Yes.”

Chang asked again, “Are my teeth still there?”

Lao Tzu replied: “They are all gone!”

Chang asked again: “Do you understand what I want to tell you?”

Lao Tzu said: “The tongue exists because it is soft! Isn’t it because teeth are hard that they have all fallen out?”

Chang said with satisfaction, “Hey! The world’s rules are all in it. You’ve got it, and I have nothing to teach you anymore!

“Tao Te Ching/Lao Tzu” – Chapter 43: 天下之至柔,驰骋天下之至坚.

Water is the softest and weakest while benefiting and embracing the whole world, but how can it be defeated? The sharpest knife can take lives, cut steel, but never able to cut water apart.

Stones are strong, but consistent drops of water wear holes in the stone. The tide rises and falls, the stones become the pebbles.

Steel against steel, the result has to be lose-lose. While the fast-moving wheels need to break down, we use very soft brake pads.

In daily life and #business, the #principle is the same: #Perseverance leads to #success, as it enables the practice in achieving a huge return on a very small investment; a big payoff from a small effort.

Human hearts could be our softest gifts from the universe. And those who win the hearts of the people win the world.

#chineseculture #ancientwisdom #unity #authenticity #love #hearts #kindness #businesssuccess #strategy

The Heart is The Only Place in the Body That Barely Grows Cancer

In 2008, Dr. David Vesely, the chief scientist of the Health Science Research Center of the University of South Florida, found that the heart can secrete the last-life hormone, it can not only kill more than 95% of cancer cells within 24 hours, and it also has an excellent therapeutic effect on other terminal diseases.

And, the human heart is the only place in the body that barely grows cancer cells.

Why?

If we look at Chinese characters, for all the human internal organs, besides 心-heart, all the others,肝- Liver, 脾- spleen, 肺-lung, 肾- kidney,胃- stomach, and 肠-intestine have a root character 月 which means the materialized flesh of the body.

Why?

Taoism and TCM say: “心主神明” – The heart governs the deity.

The deity refers to the mental consciousness and thinking activities, and in Taoism and TCM’s viewpoints, it is the key master of the human body and soul. When a person is settled physically and mentally, and the mood is stable, the body will quickly regain strength. So:

“The best doctor is you, naturally the healthiest. The heart is the strongest medicine, and the human body has its own repair and self-heal mechanism.”

Thinking in reverse, the biggest and best way to control a person is to scare him, to fill him with fear. Diseases and misfortune will follow him then.

Take good care of our hearts.

#love#heart#health#mentalheath#cancer#ancientwisdom#authenticity#chineseculture#TCM#Taoism

云: The Cloud or the Data Storage?

In June, SilkRoad Cooperation inspired me to work on the soulful Silk Road story through the character 丝-silk https://lnkd.in/gUJFph3s. Our collaboration in bridging cultural sharing in helping business continues.

Today, we talk about 云-cloud, which connects a natural phenomenon with our digital daily life.

As an old saying goes: “云行雨施,天下平也”. It tells that clouds flow and rainwater falls, all things cycle around and take their own shape, and the world is peaceful.

Such a wonderful and shocking wish was cleverly endowed with a traditional Chinese character雲-cloud: the upper half a 雨-rain, the lower half a simplified 云-cloud.

In the ancient times when agricultural production was the core product of the society, the ancients discovered that the effect of clouds and rain on crops was similar to that of human women gestating children. And they used “cloud and rain” to metaphor the intimate relationship between men and women. This responsive vision has developed into the core of Chinese culture: Heaven and the human being are in a mutually harmonious relationship.

“云,山水气也”. As a form of water, 云-cloud has another meaning – the breathing Qi of mountains and rivers. With about 70% surface covered by water, through the tidal effect, an important way of Mother Earth’s energy cycle in flourishing the whole world, is through her water cycle, that is, the sun’s irradiation, the transpiration of seawater, the transportation of clouds, the falling back of rain and snow, and the convergence of land, returning from the river to the sea.

As the carrier of divine nature energy, 云盘- CloudStorage is a vivid metaphor we use in our modern digital world, which is the computer data storage where the digital data is stored in logical pools. The physical storage spans multiple servers in a physical environment that are owned and managed by a hosting company.

What is the energy this divine carrier carries? Data! As Columbia Journalism Review stated “The increased value of digital data comes almost entirely from its improved shareability”, it so well describes the energy flowing through the e-world is just like what the cloud carries, shared by everyone at every moment and everywhere.

Furthermore,

“The world produces 2.5 quintillion bytes of data daily, but that figure should grow at an accelerating rate as more people and devices are connected to the internet. As data collection continues to surge and new techniques to monetize data arise, it will become an increasingly valuable asset”. https://lnkd.in/gjsaNytb

Compared to its unconditional benefiting spirit in nature, in the human world, “cloud-云” becomes a symbol of a few businesses ’ serving platforms.

“The Universe creates business as a platform for accumulating blessings; careers as a platform for uplifting people; wealth as a tool for benefiting others.”

With our gratitude, all the best wishes to this great cutting-edge technology in nurturing the world for a better future.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/helenqiuhong_the-cloud-or-the-data-storage-in-june-activity-6829063142375493634-ZdSP

稳: Stand Steady like a Mountain

In different languages over the globe, there are various ways to describe the reactions of human beings in the face of difficulties and extreme trials. In Chinese, we often use 稳如泰山 to describe the cool-headed calmness and steadfastness of a person in the face of troubles and challenges, just like the majestic Mount Tai (Tai Shan), standing high into the sky.

The key character in this idiom is 稳-calm, steady, still, firm, proper. When we close our eyes to draw an image of this character in our head, a big mountain standing out of the ground and oceans would best describe its stillness and calmness. But, if we pay a closer look at this character, we will find, half of this 稳 is a simple character 急, which means fast, urgent, rapid, and also with an extended meaning of worry.

If we say history is a mirror in reflecting the reality, then this character 稳 is a good reflection of the scientific and philosophical nature of Chinese character culture and history.

Last week, the flood in Henan Zhengzhou provided us the best demonstrations of what 稳 could mean in our reality.

There are tons of photos and videos online spreading the horrible flood and how people react to this disaster: The equivalent of a year’s worth of rain fell in just 3 days in Zhengzhou, with 1/3 of them within one hour.

It would be a common-sense that we worry about the damage such kind of natural disasters brings and we worry about people in the center of it. But what brought down my heartbeat rate were stories that described this 稳. Among countless stories and silent heroes, here are two small ones:

The first is shown in the left-up corner photo: a student stood in the flood, like a peg hammered into the ground, holding a bicycle, next to an underground drain to let the water flow away, but not to let passing vehicles fall into the underground drain.

Another one is captured in the right-down corner photo: Young people who got off work were trapped in the subway by the flood, and everyone stood in the carriage in an orderly and calm manner.

Did their hearts beat faster, more rapid, with a sense of urgency? Or, with the worries of their safeties? It was not a rehearsal of a play or a game, but it was their lives that were in danger.

But, although our hearts beat faster and more rapid for them with our worries, we feel so calm when we realize that our new generation and young people can stand steady like a mountain in crisis and disasters.

As, they are the strongest force for our better future.

#emotionalintelligence#ancientwisdom#love#kindness#stillness#steady#chineseculture#unity#climatecrisis#heart

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/helenqiuhong_emotionalintelligence-ancientwisdom-love-activity-6826523229033787392-vYp4

值: Searching for “Value”

I read a small article talking about value and it motivated me to do some research on the Chinese character “值”, which means value, worth and wealth in English.

To find some photos I can use for this post, I entered “value” into some free image download websites. Guess what I get? 80% to 90% images returned are of coins, cash, bitcoins, crowns, climbing high, wallets, money tree…

When people upload images for others to free download, they are suggested to choose some keywords to categorize the image, and then image finders can search through the search engine on keywords to find the images.

What a reality! The massive cultural value orientation is based on money!

But, what is very contrasting is that our ancestors profoundly put human-人 and straight, upright, just-直 together to make the character 值-value, worth. In their eyes, human value had nothing to do with human money, position, and power, instead, being able to stand straight, with upright #humanity and #justice makes up a human’s true value. It is valued more on a human’s basic character and innate drive and capability.

In this huge gap between reality and this “phenomenon”, I could not help to ask: to be a straight, upright, and just person, what on earth did it cost at our ancestors’ time? What on earth does it cost at our time? Why they, who lived over the old time, had this kind of social measurement standard as “value”?

But why do we take for granted money, position, and power as “value” now?

When our children are surfing the internet to learn “value”, what lessons they are given? They learn from what we do.

#ancientwisdom#chineseculture#emotionalintelligence#authenticity#love#peace#unity

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/helenqiuhong_humanity-justice-ancientwisdom-activity-6823984627397468160-4TwA

How a Computer Uses 0 and 1 to Describe Everything

When my little girl uses an iPad App to learn simple coding like {if…} {then do…} {repeat…} {elseif…} {else…}, it is fascinatingly simple and easy. And the program lets the kids debug and refine the codes to make their small codes a closed-loop process at the end.

This reminds me of my old days in learning one basic computer language BASIC. Before learning BASIC, we learned how computers translate all signals into 0 and 1 and then finally show everything on screen using code 0 and 1.

In the end, all signals on computers are shown through each of the digital cells on its screen. With each cell appearing in a different color, all cells on a screen form up a screen image which refreshes at a very high speed that human eyes could not catch up and tell the changes.

On an RGB color mode screen, each cell is a combination of the three basic colors of Red, Green, and Blue, and each color is designed in 256 levels (256=16*16) and using two hexadecimal numbers 0, 1, 2, …9, A, B… F to present.

For example, if a cell has a color of FF9A04, it means:
Red: 255 (F*16+F=15*16+15)
Green: 154 (9*16+A=9*16+10)
Blue: 4 (0*16 + 4)

And for each color, from 0 to 255, they are stored in binary digits from 00000000 to 11111111.

So, for a cell of the color of FF9A04, the computer would be sending a string of digital binary like this:

1111 1111 — 255 — Red
1001 1010 — 154 — Green
0000 0100 — 4 — Blue

Combined with processing codes which are digital binary 0 and 1 too, at a very high speed translating, sending, and reloading, our computer screen freshes, and then we can surf in this digital world freely.

The same thing happens on TV, also audio products, and all computer program-related products.

This is an amazing world that can be completely described using 0 and 1.

#authenticity#ancientwisdom#ancientscience#love#unity

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/helenqiuhong_authenticity-ancientwisdom-ancientscience-activity-6823284845716766720-lhiH

The Empty Basket

There were a grandpa and his grandson who woke up early to study every morning.

One day, the grandson asked: “Grandpa, I read like you every day, but I don’t understand it, and I forget everything when I close the book. Is it useful to read this way?”

Grandpa didn’t say a word. He turned around and took a bamboo basket that usually holds black coal and handed it to his grandson: “Go and bring me a basket of water.”

The boy tried many times, but every time the water leaked before he ran home.

Seeing the exhausted grandson, grandpa smiled and pointed to the bamboo basket. Only then did the grandson realize that the bamboo basket was different from before, that it has become clean from the inside out.

Reading more, even if you don’t understand or remember, will change you subtly, in your appearance or in your heart.

As the old saying goes, there is no useless work in the world, nor is it empty to draw water from a bamboo basket.

#ancientwisdom#authenticity#chineseculture#stillness#timeholdseverything#love#peace#unity

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/helenqiuhong_ancientwisdom-authenticity-chineseculture-activity-6822564955074781185-8z9c