Flower or not

Abdel wrote this proverb in his blog this week, “Who wants the peace, prepare the war”. This saying means there is no peace without war. It sounds ridiculous. However, after you look backward, it seems everything in this world you could not get without a payment, struggling is what you need to pay. So, for a time being, I have to admit this truth, war for peace. But, is it really could get a real heart peace after so many struggling?

For many years, I have a dream about my peace life which I can not completely resist its attempt today. I always dream about my backyard with an old phoenix tree covered by dark green leaves, swaying near my window. Inside the window, there is a neat desk without any tiny dust or disorder paper, shinning its sheer brown in the light through the window. An opened book which I was reading a couple minutes before is left on the desk. The warm coffee flavor is floating in the air, which I am making in the white, bright and big kitchen. I have plenty of time so I can gaze at the phoenix tree hour and hour. I can read my favorite book at any time and stop at any time. I do not care about the dinner menu; I won’t be bother by the cooking odor on my hair. And, I do not need to rush to pick up my kid. Everything is under my control, including my heart.

But, how about the phoenix tree is not planted in my backyard? How about the thick leaves cover the ground I have to clean up just because I should pay for his beauty during the summer and autumn? How about a piece of leaflet tucked in a pile of newspaper left on my desk? The dinner and picking up are hard to omit otherwise it certainly cost me not only the money. Peace is so fragile; it would disappear before you really get hold of it.

It is flowers or not.

It is fog or not.

It comes at midnight, leaves at DAWN.

It comes like a fancy dream, pretty and short;

It leaves like morning dew without spot.

This poem was written by a famous Chinese poet in Tang Dynasty, Bai Ju Yi. With this poem, he left a puzzle in this world over thousand years. Up to now, no one in this earth could figure out what the poet was telling. But, today I can guess that it is about peace, which is so rare to get hold of even if someone have been struggling so much, longing for so much.

Peace is not a fortune which you could not assume just right in the street corner. If you always believe that the peace is right somewhere waiting for you, you never can get it. For many years, I have been traveling around the earth, from plain to tableland, from ocean to mountain, from orient to occident. I am tracing a dreaming peace, like the persistent crazy man Kua Fu tracing the sun. Finally, I found that I never get rid of something no matter how far I went. The more I long for, the more pain I get, and the farther the peace is. No matter how many roads I had walked down, I just could not escape from my heart. Everything surround me looks like helpless with my dream. How can a busy heart find its peace?

Peace is just at the top of one’s nose, in every moment, if you have peaceful heart. Like someone wears a pair of green or brown sunglasses, when you look through the screens, everything is in the color of green or brown. The same, what a peaceful heart can feel? Peace, that’s all. You can not escape from your heart, so, just stay with it, with the peace, if it was.

There is an old story in China. An old lady had two

sons, elder one sold umbrellas, and younger one sold salt. When it was rainy, the old lady worried about the younger one’s salt would be affected with damp and had no business. When it was sunny, she would worried about the elder one could not sold the umbrellas. She suffered this worriment for a long time until she accepted a wisdom suggestion. In sunny days, she thought that the younger son would have a good sale; in rainy days, she thought there must be a plenty of people need to buy her elder son’s umbrella. The old lady was happy at last. She obtained her peace by change her mind.

This story demonstrats what the Buddha had told us that surrounding depends on mind, surrounding would be changed as mind’s changing; everything in the world is nothing but mind.

Also, there is similar lesson told by Jesus, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful." A Christian must know to find peace of heart, only what they should do is by knowing how to follow God's will. Where is God guiding to? To my understanding, it is no more than one’s heart, the trinity heart.

Peace on Earth Begins with Inner Peace. This is my faith.

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There are so many flowers in spring as well as the moon in autumn.

There is cool breeze in summer as well as the snows in winter.

If there is not tangle lingering in one’s heart,

All of them would be a good season in the world.

Spring Song

Finding Inner Peace in a World Full of Turmoil

Reaction to AUTHORITY HEURISTICS

Professor G raises a big question in his article Authority Heuristics, which he discuss the heuristics distance may cause distortion when we seek to know a kind of foreign law, because our prior knowledge would effect the result what we want to explore. In Prof. G’s words, “This knowledge-shaping (or “cognitive”) role is of fundamental important, because it conditions all knowledge of foreign law.”

This is a big problem, for I understand the cognizing method of human being is no more than comparing and contrasting, except new born babies. All of the knowledge acquiring, all understanding must be based on prior knowledge. People compare or contrast their prior knowledge and experiences with the new one, and then shape and form the new experiences and the new knowledge. It is something like that every body has a piece of color paper, when they apply new color on it, it will show different result, due to their foundation color is different. The basic color is the prior knowledge; the resulting color is the knowledge what the people get. It is obvious that the result is neither the prior one nor the new knowledge, everyone has a unique idea, for everyone has a different mind structure with different knowledge back ground. So, Prof. G’s observation is really sharp, unveiling a truth.

But, how could we solve this impossible settling problem? How to narrow the distortion cause by the heuristics distance in Authority Documents? This is what the article interested me. Prof. G is like a God flying in the sky, but most important for him is to land steadily and safely on the ground, providing a solution for the fact he has unveiled. As a jurisconsult, Prof. G should be realistic.

I reach Prof.G’s solution of the problem after following his statements and discussions and describing about the problem in the main part of the essay, in a smaller part at the end of the article, Prof. G suggests a solution is to pay more attention to the user of a kind of foreign law in its legal systems. This answer could not really satisfy me. I could see Pro.G lands down on the ground with its tip toe from the God’s sky. And, I am worrying about! The user of the foreign law, how to identify or evaluate the user, this is another cognitive process, and it is unavoidable to be effected by prior experience and knowledge and results another heuristics distance. What can we do with it?

After reading this article, I finally find it is lucky that there are still a lot of items in this world, such as music, painting, art works, and anybody could communicate and reach to a same destination through the same work piece without language. I believed that there are some thing in human being’s world could forward their information directly without language. But law would never be this story!