There is a special bead-ring he designed showing five different color figures:  white, black, yellow, red and brown.  Each color represents the different colors of people in the world.  The design of these five people, hand in hand, symbolizes world peace.  He had shown a similar bead-ring to me a long time ago and I always remembered it because it impressed me so.  During lunch, he showed me another bead-ring that he recently made.  While I was admiring it, putting it on my finger, he said, “I do not want to give it to you because there is some flaw”.  I smiled, put the ring back on my finger and said “it is mine now”.

People are always looking for perfection, appreciate perfection and have difficulty accepting imperfection.  If a beautiful blue and white, Ming dynasty vase has a small chip or has a fine hairline crack, the commercial value will drop dramatically. This is true for many objects.   Why is it, that a vase with a small chip, no longer looks beautiful to us anymore? Why can’t we enjoy something with flaws, even though we are aware the world is full of imperfections?

Navaho and Hopi Indian tribes, purposely leave some flaws and mistakes in their work when weaving carpets or straw baskets.   It is their belief that only God can make perfect things.  This is an attitude of humbleness, the wisdom of learning to accept and enjoy imperfection.

We tend to focus too much on small flaws, and lose sight of the whole picture.  This habit can be seen in our daily lives through our actions toward others, material things and events in our life.  For example, we may think, “this is a beautiful piece of pottery, too bad it has a chip at the bottom” or “he is a nice boy, unfortunately he does not have much patience” or “the party was just perfect, except the soup wasn’t hot enough”.  We always pay more attention to small mistakes, and lose sight of the whole picture.  Such thoughts add to the stress and unhappiness of our lives.

It is inevitable that in life, we will always encounter some flaws, mistakes and imperfections.  If we can learn to accept small flaws, learn to appreciate the beauty of imperfection, we will be a person with more tolerance and compassion and at the same time be more loving.  In turn, it will make us more relaxed and happy. So give yourself and others a break from time to time, as only God can make things perfect!

This answer sounds as if we are avoiding the question.  Yet it does have significant meaning to our life.  We find it hard to accept things that are negative, imperfect, defeats us and so on. Life is full of imperfections and the inevitability of those imperfections is hard to accept.  Accepting the reality of the moment does not mean sticking to that moment.  To accept the reality of the present situation does not mean being limited by it; it means knowing the place from where one must start, and once that is known, the next thing to do is to begin the new journey.  And then you know, in due time, things will change.

The United States has been fighting the war in Afghanistan for 8 years and although with 68,000 troops stationed there, we are slowing losing control.  Gen Stanley McChrystal requested a troop surge of a minimum of 40,000; stating, otherwise, the U.S. will be defeated.  Even with that surge, he also knows the U.S. will not win the war in years to come.  As President Obama continues to ponder the strategy, he is clearly aware of what is at stake.  Regardless of hunting Al-Qaida, protecting Afghans are the reason we cannot withdraw.  The fundamental reason to stop us to consider a withdrawal is: we cannot accept defeat, yet we could admit we made a mistake even as early as 2001 when the US invaded Afghanistan.

The rampant Hamid Karzai government’s corruption, the wide spread fraud in the August 20th president election, should be seen as the kindness of   “Heaven” to inform the U.S. to learn the lesson of acceptance.  Afghan has a long history, much longer than the United States.  Beneath the poverty and misery, its people are imbedded with wisdom, pride, strength and tenacity from their deep culture.  They do not need our protection.  It takes wisdom and courage of our new and young president to learn the lesson of the Divine Acceptance; the teaching from the ancient Chinese saint Lao-Tzu, and the lesson from our all accepting Mother Earth.

Accept the train to enter the station, otherwise it cannot move on to the next station.

The ancient Chinese use Ten Heavenly Stems (Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin,Ren, Gui) and twelve Earthly Branches (Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, Hai) combining  the two together to form a cycle of sixty.  Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches were used as the x and y axial to chart the celestial bodies’ movement.  60 years is a significant repetitive circle of sun-moon-earth positions and relationships.  It is not just any abstract number. Since 104 BC, a Han emperor began to use the 60-year cycle to record history.  Infact, it has only been since the last century that the Chinese have adopted the western calendar.   Today, this 60-year calendar is still widely used In Chinese astrology and medicine.

The healthcare system is a serious issue; it is a great concern for the average American. Politicians have been talking about healthcare reform for more than decade, but it has always been met with the insurmountable mountain of resistance.  Our senators and representatives always express that it is a very complicated issue that requires a complicated solution which is inevitably met with resistance. Natural principles are the fundamental of feng shui principle, as well as the fundamental principle of all human endeavors.  In nature, we see characteristics such as; simple, easy, economical, and selflessness. Nature does not make an effort, thus it is simple and easy. Nature has no waste thus it is economical.  Whenever there is a shortage of water, sunlight or nutrients, all plants grow smaller together, they do not fight to get a larger share, thus nature is selfless. When any policy or system in any human endeavor becomes so complicated and entangled, this indicates it has violated the natural principle.  That means there is selfishness and waste. The fundamental issue relating to healthcare reform in America is greed and selfishness.

President Obama is facing 3300 lobbyists hired by 1600 companies and organizations, all fighting for their own interest and not for the interest of the general public.  Our representatives in Congress are supposed to guard our interests.  They may, but it is only second to their own interests, which unfortunately is the financial support for re-election. After more than two centuries, we are not getting more mature, instead we have became more corrupt and degraded.  In my travels while abroad, I find that on one hand I have become more appreciative of the freedom in America which often has been taken for granted.  Yet on the other hand, I also see more clearly how American companies and politicians have become more self-centered, selfish and greedy.  I pray that President Obama’s healthcare reform plan will prevail.

Our next gathering will be on Saturday, August 1st from 7-9pm!

Several people have tried to interpret it from a yin-yang prospective.  However, this is actually an energy issue.  We project our energy through our eyes.  When we look at an object, our energy stops right there.  So keeping this in mind, let’s see how it relates to a glass floor.  When we walk on wood floor, as it is within our peripheral vision, we are subconsciously aware of the solid floor and at the same time our body, energy and mind all stop there.  On the other hand, when we walk on a glass floor, our energy and mind move beyond the glass floor, and naturally our body has the desire to move there too.  However, the body is not able to move there and stops at the floor.  At which point, the body, energy and mind are all not in unison, creating an unsettled feeling.

This brings up another question.  So, what happens when we look at something and does it affect our energy?  Firstly, many are often unaware that we are naturally projecting energy when we see something.  This is why we feel uncomfortable when someone is staring at us.  It feels like we are being pushed by a force.  Secondly, when we anchor our mind on something in our line of vision, we create a mental and physical stability.  There is an easy test to see how this works.   Try to stand on one foot.  Most people will be able to keep their balance for a while.  Now, this time try to stand on one foot with your eyes closed.   You will find that it is very difficult to maintain the same physical balance.  Why is this so? It’s not that your foot has less strength.  It’s because when your eyes are closed there is only one point ,your standing foot, to hold your balance. On the other hand, with your eyes open, you are able to project energy and anchor your vision, creating an additional point of reference to keep your body stable.  Two points of energy are easier to hold a balance than one point.

Now with this information be aware on how we use and waste our energy.

From the city’s point of view, which is the energy spot, the left-hand side is the yang side or the blue dragon guardian, while the right-hand side, also known as the white tiger guardian, is the yin side.  The yang side is more dynamic while the yin side is more static.  Since the river is more dynamic than land, ideally you want to have the river on the left-hand side of your village.  Therefore, it is natural that the village is on the right-hand side of the river.  Ancient people were intuitively following the natural principles, the feng shui principle, thus they chose to settle on the more auspicious right-hand side of the river.  This holds true for both the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere.  If you check the  big cities around the world which sit along a large river, you will find the majority of cities are on the right-hand side of the river.

***You still have time to come up the question regarding Glass Floor (June 5th blog) before the answer come out in next blog.

In the novel, The Medicine Box, I described a professor experimenting using qi to enhance mushroom growth.  The results created a crop that had  a mixture of very giant sized and very tiny sized mushrooms, with only a small number of middle sized mushrooms.  If we chart the crop results, it creates the normal bell curve flipped upside down, looking more like the letter ‘U’, an inverse bell curve, which is the total opposite from what is exhibited in nature.  Why does this happen?   It’s a mystery.

In 2008, the Chinese Shenzhou space craft carried 87 kinds of vegetable seeds into space.  Recently, many vegetables grown from those seeds have come to maturity and their fruit has been harvested.  All exhibit a very interesting result.

In the crop of eggplants grown from the seeds brought back from space, there were some the size as big as a honey dew melon!  What also caught my attention was the fact that on the other hand, some eggplant were as small as an egg, with very few medium sized.  This phenomenon is exactly the same as the mushrooms that were treated by qi projection.  Similarly, both exhibit the upside-down bell curve, opposite to what is seen of vegetables grown in nature.   Is there a common factor or influence from qi-treatment and space-treatment to these plants?  If so, what is it?  This could be a very interesting subject for researchers to study.