2024.12.23 - Do you have "好好吃饭"?
Ping Xia
Title: 2024.12.23 – Do You “Eat Properly”?
Selected Classics:
When the body is calm and the emotions idle, the mind moves and the spirit tires. Guard the true intention, let ambition be fulfilled, and let desire shift with objects. Persist in refined conduct, and noble rank will naturally follow.
Do You “Eat Properly”? https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/eYhE5jCqGs1n1yM0tmVZhg
The Huangdi Neijing says, “Food and drink should be moderate; daily routines should be regular.” Those simple eight characters capture the essence of health preservation. “Food is the heaven of the people”; no matter how busy work gets, we should still consider what we eat and how we eat. The everyday aroma of cooking soothes ordinary hearts. How a single vegetable or grain can make people feel safe, warm, and satisfied requires joint effort from government, businesses, and society to safeguard “food‑safety on the tongue.” Take good care of yourself, starting with treating your stomach kindly. May the days ahead find us all “eating properly,” living a life that steams with vitality and enjoys simple, pure happiness.
Living Well Is a Major Matter in Studying Chinese Medicine https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/wRNLEsUjN9W047cBlyzbXQ
“Studying Chinese medicine is a small thing; how to live relatively healthy or normal is a big thing.” This line left a deep impression at the graduation ceremony of the fourth session of Classical Materia Medica Study in November. It was Teacher Li Xin’s message to the students, and they answered it with concrete actions: from basil grown in a pot to purslane cultivated in a garden, from plant‑based dyes to homemade tooth powder, from daily herbal tasting to bringing food‑medicine concepts to the dinner table, from walking the dog to mountain trekking… Bit by bit, they integrated theory and practice—Chinese medicine and materia medica have already become part of their lives.
Seasonal Talk | Winter Solstice: The Sedimentation and Rebirth of Life https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/F9a4eTfVAUgw1uRfjxADKA
“The winter solstice is the longest night, yet it also marks the beginning of longer days.” Like a personal winter solstice, getting through the darkness brings new vigor. If we view life’s low points merely as a phase, we won’t plunge with the despair that the surface suggests. Seeing through appearances lets us discover vitality in the snow—like a ray of sun in a crevasse, a spark in the darkness, a bubbling spring, an unfurled antler, pure yang. We can even ride the current, deliberately “U‑shaped diving,” to store kinetic energy for the turning point of our lives.
The Lower Limit of Life Determines the Upper Limit https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/1FE-tp9-5phFDbNwW-opxw
That sense of disillusionment is the lower bound of life. Suffering, however, is the path of descent. It is this descent that opens the channels of eye and heart; it is this lower bound that sets the ceiling for a life that might otherwise wander aimlessly, unaware of the world’s stability. The texture of life comes from here—its elasticity. Elasticity cannot stem from indulgent desire, but only from a deep understanding and bearing of life’s minimal suffering. Someone who has never known hardship—whether material or spiritual—cannot truly cherish or be grateful for what they obtain, nor can they deeply appreciate beauty. Without elasticity, we become rigid, shallow, and die figuratively. Today, as people’s vitality wanes, indulgence in pleasures grows while satisfaction thins. Upward movement stays superficial; only by going down can we find authenticity.
The Generation, Continuation, and Modern Transformation of Civilization https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/8xpbU1WtrgQ_wQXUDEWS_g
Where does human civilization come from, how does it arise, and under what conditions? Why do some civilizations thrive while others decline or disappear? What must a civilization do to survive and retain its vitality? These questions often linger in many minds. Marx argued that to understand civilization, we must link it to both material and spiritual production, viewing civilization as the totality that reflects the results of material and spiritual output—a category indicating the level of social enlightenment and progress. The history of humanity is, in fact, a history of multiple civilizations co‑existing and advancing together.
Originally written by Ping Xia (平侠) and published in Chinese on 拾一集 (Weekly Reflections). Translated and adapted for DriftSeas with permission.