Dear LWS students,
Starting from this month, a monthly sharing “G.E. Meditations” will be delivered to you in which I would like to share my thoughts and feelings. I hope you enjoy the coming issues and please do not hesitate to share with us your own thoughts on them. Thank you.
A Process of Perfecting Oneself
Everyone says we are now in the worst situation we have ever been. Neither our own experience nor curricula vitae are sufficient for handling the current turbulence. Social distancing, names of quarantine buildings, places of high risks, anxiety and fear have become a part of daily routine. How should we then live if this way of life goes on? Can we rely on what we know to live in the new circumstances? If struggling against the plague could be seen as a process of perfecting oneself, then its purpose would be to find meaning and seek the truths. From where can meaning be found? Listen to your physically distant friends with your heart to increase social connection, transform your loneliness into solitude by reading a magnum opus, strengthen your will by reviving your lost interests, crossing the boundaries of finitude through music and finally, recognise that fear and anxiety belong to the essence of life. This is not an embellishment of suffering and difficulties, what I am looking for are just the signs of hope found along the road ahead.
抗疫是一場修練
每個人都說我們現在身處一個前所未有的惡劣處境,過往的經驗及閱歴未必能夠應付目前多變的狀況。社交距離、檢疫大廈名稱、高危地方、驚恐焦慮的心情都成為我們日常生活了。如果這樣生活的境況延續下去,我們應該怎樣預備自己?往日所識所學的,可以在今天發揮功用嗎?如果抗疫是一場修練,修練的目的是了解人世間的真理及本相,修練的方法就是在夾縫中尋找意義。意義何來? 用心聆聽朋友的說話來逆轉社交距離,看一本厚厚的書來震懾孤寂,重拾興趣來磨練意志,以音樂跨越人世間的藩籬、體驗驚恐和焦慮是人生的五味紛陳等,我不是要美化苦難與困難,只是與它同行,希望在夾縫中長出嫩葉吧。