New Year Resolution ( Wabi Sabi)

Dear friend,

How are you doing?

The New Year is just coming.  Do you have any plans or wishes that tickle your curiosity of the New Year?  As you know, being a teacher I always play a role to evoke the innate motivation of my students, which is like a companionship- I listened and infused into energy to generate what they intend to do.  During the accumulation, I've come to believe that the greatest gift to give people is to take the time to talk with them about “things”, about those simple matters in living.  Through the caring interaction, people may truly find out what they sincerely long for- a unique journey based on each individual.

Last week, I had asked all my students to share a speech of the 2019 New Year resolution. One of my students sharing his failing experiences occurred in 2018 as a prelude of his New Year resolution. He made his speech sound like a hilarious surviving trilogy of a modern elitism.  After his sharing, I think both of us noticed that those flunks didn't make him feel defeated or embarrassed; on the contrary, he had grown an invisible soft meadow in his heart, which allowed him to jump out of those embellished laurel wreaths, those meritocratic deeds that he used to concern as the only good in his life.  For the new year, I can see he has well prepared to embrace a tender and gentler self-recognization.

His genuine confession reminded a word that I had learned from a Japanese philosophy, named Wabi Sabi. The core concept of Wabi-Sabi is to embrace the imperfection of life instead of disdaining them. That means when we allow those sympathetic and empathic elements extending in our life, we might get the chance to find greater satisfaction in the humbler moments. Meanwhile, we open the chance to find charms and beauty whenever and wherever we enjoy.  I couldn't agree with it more. Since we can't learn to be wise or to be happy, we can only practice to be wiser and to be happier through the moments we encounter. The living is pretty much like what we input and output, and then how we reset and recharge. Those processes help us to spur further engagement.

Talking about engagement, let's find another idling afternoon to walk along a long bank of heliotrope like we used to do and talk through the idea of Wabi- Sabi.

Yours

Lily                             

親愛的朋友

近來好嗎? 新的一年剛剛到來，有任何新計畫讓你心神嚮往嗎? 就你所知的，我的教學過程，一直是在扮演一個陪伴者的過程－透過傾聽，挖掘出學生的內在動機，然後悄悄注入能量，誘發他們真正的去實踐。這段時間的累積，我逐漸發展出一種信念，給予人們最好的禮物，是陪他們說各式各樣的"事" - 那些生活中「簡單的重要」，但往往被忽略的事情。這樣的關注過程，其實才是真正成就一件事物的關鍵，從中我也共同學習。

上週，我請所有工作室的學生們，各自發表個人2019年的新年新願望(準備這篇英文演說，大家費力不少~呵呵)；其中一個學生整理了他在2018年的所有失敗經歷，當作他2019年的心願前奏曲，他發表了一個「優秀生功績主義下的生存三部曲(搞笑版)」。聽完他的分享，我知道我們都從這些經歷中釋然了，而且學到了更多。他沒有被失敗過程打敗或是困窘；相反的，丟掉那些頭戴月桂冠的迷思，他的內心裡長出了一塊從未茂盛過的綠油草地，－溫柔的對待自己，你才會長得更好。

他的經歷讓我想到了一個曾經學到的日式禪宗哲學(侘寂)，這個理論，近幾年在西方社會也頗受推崇，在高壓的環境下，大家都想要有一方安靜的心靈空間，讓生活更美好。「侘寂」的中心思想就是引導人們擁抱和接受生活中的不完美。「完美」這個字起源於拉丁語 「perfectus」，意思是「完成」，在許多文化中被放在了不真實的高位，尤其是在西方主流，人們喜歡完美無瑕，推崇完美的理想不僅創造了無法實現的標凖，而且還創造了錯誤的標凖(對待自己和他人)。 然而，就像所有東方的哲思的柔軟，「侘寂」所引導的是想法是擴張那些同情與同理心的元素在生活中，進而在每個謙卑的時刻，給自己創造更大的生活滿意度。這樣的理論，無疑是21世紀忙碌人們的一帖良藥。我們無法學到智慧或是學到快樂，但是我們可以透過練習來變得更有智慧或是更快樂。生活就像是輸出、輸入、然後重設，再充電的過程。這些過程讓我們對生活保持更大的熱情參與。

新的一年讓我們再找一個無所事事的午後，一起去河濱看看那些向陽小花，然後聊聊「侘寂」這個有趣哲思吧!

莉莉