Towards the Apex of Our Life
Once again, Principal Lin Xin De arrived in Hong Kong carrying with him his heavy suitcase. The case, which is filled with mercy and wisdom, is Principal Lin's treasure chest. A number of events were held in the period from 25 to 27 December 2007. The lecture "Apex of Our Life" was held on 25 December; the Illustration Instruction class was conducted on 26 December and the "Illustration Book Club" took place on 27 December.
Initially we were worried that in this successive days of public holiday, there wouldn't be enough participants to conduct the sessions, but the encouragement from Principal Lin saying that "we would carry on even though there are only seven participants" brought us tremendous strength and confidence.
At the close of registration period, there were fifty-one participants who joined the event. The sessions were conducted with discussions of intellectual questions as well as issues touching on the sentimental side of spiritual inspiration and development. Insightful sharing of book club was also achieved.
"Scissor-stone-cloth, scissor-stone-cloth, one scissor one stone, I'm a small white rabbit. Scissor-stone-cloth, scissor-stone-cloth, one scissor two scissors, hug small white rabbit. Scissor-stone-cloth, scissor-stone-cloth, one scissor one cloth, catch the small white rabbit...."
A simple folk rhyme with finger gesture, sound simple but in fact is not easy when trying to coordinate the different finger movement to match with the lyrics.
Principal Lin said. "Success is right around the corner." Often, success is just a few steps away after where you wanted to give up. Therefore success belongs to those who persist to the end. Learning is an investment that never diminishes and life-long learning gives you the strength to persist.
Shifu used to say, "Learning is to contribute"; therefore, learning is the mother of success. Principal Lin also encourages us to treasure each day of our life as if it is the last day and to experience each activity as if it is the first, whole-heartedly. While helping others in realization of their dreams, one's dream becomes reality too.
A successful person is one those who appreciate the virtues of others. We need to treat our friend as our greatest benefactor, our opponent as our special benefactor, our parent as our everlasting benefactor, our boss as our most direct benefactor and our subordinate as the potential benefactor.
We should treat them whole-heartedly, as if everyone is our benefactor. Then everywhere we go, we will encounter our benefactor. Principal also said, "Tears that fall become pearl, but when they are swallowed they become poison."
In the sentimental act of expressing gratefulness to the others, every participant voices out bravely their thankfulness to their parent. We could also hear the touching sound of sobbing. During the sharing session, we heard some participants expressed their views that even though their parents are no longer in this world, their remembrance towards them never subsided.
Therefore through this activity those suppressed feelings were released. In the mean time, other participants said that their strong feeling of affiliation with their parents (which weren't able to express before) could now be expressed after their participation in this event. They gave their thankfulness to their parent upon arrival at home.
Through the activity called "keeping an intimate distance of 10 cm", the participants were able to observe the nature of human being. Besides the above there were many other splendid activities. The discussion was lively and there were laughter, games, touching moments, reading of colorfully illustrated books, puppet show, etc. If you missed this time, hope you can join us next time.
(The article and photos are contributed by DDM Hong Kong)
