I wrote this little snippet for a personal essay of mine, but ultimately realized that I couldn’t use it. I was pretty happy with it, though, so I thought I’d share it.

He’s also written a book entitled The Last Lecture, which I plan to get my hands on soon. I’m told it’s very inspiring.

In truth, while a lot of people find his ideas on how to live life to be fresh and radical, I’ve been exposed to the exact same ideas all my life, as a cultivational Daoist. The difference is that he presents the concepts miles more practically than I’ve ever seen. Kudos to him, and may he RIP.

By the way, this “last lecture” idea isn’t the first. Those of you who have read or seen Tuesdays With Morrie know what I’m talking about.

Short 3’37″ CBS report:

Extraordinary People 46′ special:

An American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow-fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.” The American then asked the Mexican why he didn’t stay out longer to catch more fish. The Mexican replied that he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?” 

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife Maria, and stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, señor.” 

The American scoffed. “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and, with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA, and eventually NYC, where you would run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But señor, how long would this all take?” The American replied, “15-20 years.” 

“But what then, señor?” 

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich – you would make millions.”

“Millions, señor? Then what?” 

The American said, “Then you would retire – move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play guitar with your amigos.”

About five summers ago, I was at a red light waiting impatiently to make a left turn from LaSalle Street onto Erwin Road (Duke University campus, NC). When the light turned green and the straight traffic from the opposite side cleared, I was ready to go. But at the very last minute, just as I eased off the brakes, a thought crossed my mind.

“Nah, I shouldn’t go just yet. I’m going to sit here just a bit longer.” This made no sense. The light was green, the coast was clear, and I was a teenage driver. Why would such a thought ever even cross my mind?

So after a few seconds had passed, I shrugged it off and put my foot on the gas. I immediately slammed on the brakes as I saw a woman run through the red light at 35-45 mph (see figure). If I hadn’t been delayed those couple of seconds by that peculiar thought, she would have crashed right into my driver’s door, and things would have gone to hell for both of us. If I was lucky, I would have broken a couple of bones. But I don’t think I would have walked away.

The chances for any of this to have happened by mere chance were incredibly slim. For one, I never have weird, out-of-the-blue thoughts like this. The schematic is also vastly oversimplified – Erwin has about 3 lanes in the right direction (as shown) where it crosses LaSalle. At the time, all the other lanes had stopped cars. The only lane that was empty happened to be the lane in the middle, which also happened to be the lane in which the woman on her phone was driving. So there was no way for me to see it coming – I had no visual, since all the other vehicles in the other lanes were blocking my view.

Do I have psychic abilities? (That got your attention.) Well, it probably depends on what you define as a “psychic ability.” Society and the media have made psychics out to be quacks. But are they, really? Maybe we all have some kind of innate psychic abilities, kind of like a sixth sense, that most of us just haven’t been able to put our fingers on.

I have a friend in California who has a similar story. She was reading a book at a table one day, with her back against a window. All of a sudden, for no reason at all, she had a feeling that said, “I should get up and walk over there [away from the window].” After taking just a few steps, she heard the loud, violent shattering of glass behind her. A couple of mischievous teenagers had thrown a boulder through her window and run away. If she had stayed where she was, she would have been hurt badly. (She later had a good talk with the teenagers about the incident.)

Were these “precognitive” incidents “psychic”? You could argue they weren’t, because we didn’t exactly know what was going to happen. But we had these weird thoughts that came out of nowhere that told us what we had to do to avoid an incident. What did these thoughts sound like? Were they in English? Chinese? Male? Female? We couldn’t tell you. They were none of them. They were pure thoughts, not in any language, not in any voice.

Let’s say for a second that these were events in which we really did manifest “psychic abilities.” Are we full-time, full-blown “psychics”? No. And I think that’s a frequently made mistake. Just because it happened once doesn’t mean it will ever happen again. I’ve never had another one of these bizarre episodes since then, and I don’t know if I ever will.

But I don’t think the idea of a “psychic” is a myth or a joke. From my very own experience, I know that psychic abilities are at least possible. I also know a guy who, during his lifetime, knew too much to not be called a psychic. He is known as The Great “White Water” Predecessor (白水老前人, pictured), and he lived to the ripe old age of 95.

My aunt once visited him. Not having seen her once before or knowing who she was, he immediately told her, “You have 141 shirts and 87 pairs of pants — too much!” When she got home, she started counting, thinking, “Do I really have that many?” So she counted, and the numbers came up short. Then she saw that she had another pile of clothes that she was getting ready to donate, and so she counted those too. She couldn’t believe it when she was done — the numbers had matched exactly. As she told my mother, “I can’t believe he even included the clothes I was about to donate!”

There are also hundreds, if not thousands, of other occurrences of this guy “knowing” the weather months/years ahead of time, “seeing” events on the other side of the world before they even happened, stuff like that. Pretty amazing guy – I can share more about him in another post.

So yes, from my experiences, and from what I know, I can say with unquestionable certainty that humans at least possess some kind of ability for “psychic” cognition. I think it’s within us, and we just have to find it.

But as for who is and who isn’t a psychic, well… that’s a whole other story. (Miss Cleo? Hmm…)

10 things to do while having a heart attack:

1. Relax. (Panic depletes your oxygen supply.)
2. Remember life or its lack cannot be taken personally or too seriously.
3. Think how surprised all the people who accused you of not having one are going to be.
4. Call up your happiest memory, whether a desert sunset of shimmering turquoise skies shot with flickers of scorched gold, or how much you gypped the IRS out of.
5. Tell the rescue squad how angelic they look even without wings.
6. Be glad you have on clean underwear.
7. Congratulate yourself on convincing the Life Flight helicopter pilot not to cut your Nikita Koloff tee-shirt off.
8. Wish you had paid closer attention when the American Heart Association began preaching the cholesterol gospel.
9. Arrange for a sibling to feed your Siamese cats and to call your supervisor at work conveying profound regrets for unavoidable nonattendence.
10. Pray.

— Virginia Love Long, DUMC patient
Poetry in the Halls project, Cultural Services Program, DUMC

Life is simply a natural creation that has a beginning and an end. So like nature, it is impartial — generous, yet unforgiving. How, then, can we take it personally? “Life or its lack cannot be taken personally or too seriously.” I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Pi can always be described as the ratio 3.14. A circle’s circumference will always, just helplessly, be a little greater than three times its diameter. An equilateral triangle will always have equal sides and three angles of 60º. The three angles of all triangles will always add up to 180º. A wave’s frequency will always be inversely proportional to its wavelength. Gravity will always be proportional to the masses of the two objects. A physicist would be able to give you a whole slew of constants and physical relationships that most people haven’t even heard of. These are all bits and pieces of what I like to call the “definition” of nature.

Of course, these numbers are only mere representations of nature. I hope my main idea isn’t obscured by this. The important thing is that there exist (∃) features in the universe that are constant and everlasting.

So that’s the idea of this “unchanging Universe” — sort of a single defined constant, from which all other constants and entities come from, that drives everything. (Not to be confused with Lucas’ Star Wars “force.”) To complement yourself with the universe, you likewise need to make yourself unchanging — or rather, revert back to your unchanging, natural self. In a word, based on my most recent theories, this would be summarized in the word “harmony.” No harmony, no oneness. I don’t think that one needs much explaining, but I’ll use a quick example. Water is polar; oil is not. Water and oil are immiscible — they are not harmonious, thus they cannot become one.

At least at the present, I think that a huge facet of reverting back to this natural, unchanging self is the lack of emotion. What?! Yeah. That’s a pretty big one that can take more than a lifetime to master. My reasoning for it kind of has a circular logic. If you understand the ultimate Universal Truth, you naturally won’t have emotions — because every happening in your life you would know to be small and insignificant; you’d have a deep understanding of cause and effect, and nothing would ever be of any surprise to you. You’d know everything. Past, present, future. Everything that has been, is, and will be, you would know. Because you understand the Truth, which is the “constant” or “equation” to ultimately everything.

That being said, reacting emotionlessly to everything in life will help you realize the ultimate Universal Truth. It forces you to look at the big picture, at how insignificant your life, the planet in general, or even this galaxy, is. (Not to be depressing.) If your roommate gets drunk and pees on your textbook the week of finals (personal experience), reacting without emotions will allow for the best outcome possible for all parties.

The 清靜經 says, 「大道無情」— the great Dao has no emotion (more). If we are to return to our essence, where we come from, then we must return to this Universal state. This “state of heart” is known in Buddhism as nirvana, and perhaps in many other religions as “going back to Heaven.” Except I think the concept of “going back to Heaven” has completely lost its original true meaning. I believe that when you reach true harmony with the Universe, you create a Heaven on Earth for yourself. You don’t need to wait until after death to go to a “Heaven.” In fact, the so-called “Heaven” is a void, anyway (more on that later), so if you can’t make yourself happy in a “Heaven on Earth,” then you can’t expect to be happy in the “Heaven” after death either. This is the same reason some people might think that their lives seem to be like a “Hell on Earth.” They have too many emotional and physical attachments that weigh them down — that’s what it always boils down to. And if you believe in a life after this one, that’s probably what it would be like too — a hell. Because your essence hasn’t changed.

That leads me to stress, again, that nothing physical is everlasting. Everything physical has a beginning and an end. Nothing tangible lasts forever. If you come to understand this, then it’s a huge leap forward in getting yourself to resonate with the Universe. When you realize this, things start to fall into place in the big picture. No confusion, no frustration, things are just the way they’re supposed to be.

One of my all-time favorite quotes is an ancient Chinese proverb:

未曾生我，誰是我。
生我之後，我是誰？

(loose translation:)
Before I was born, who was I?
After I was born, I am who?

It wasn’t until a few months ago that I truly came to understand this. Before your entry into this physical, mortal world, there was no “I.” It doesn’t exist, because there’s only one Law, one Essence, one Nature, of the Universal Truth. Everyone is a part of it — there is no “I.” But after you’re born in this physical world, a lot of people start doing some soul searching, trying to find who the “I” is. Everyone feels the need to find their way around life. What’s life’s true meaning, they ask? Why am “I” here? People get lost in the physical world because they start to look at things from the perspective of “I,” and not from the view of the Universal harmony. The physical and emotional attachments that our bodies are susceptible to are to blame.

It is my belief that life has no true meaning (again, not to be depressing) — it’s just Nature taking its course. But if you make your life have a meaning, it can have a meaning. Your life’s meaning is what you make it. But you are in fact here in this physical world merely because of Nature taking its course. There’s no simpler explanation.

A favorite story of mine is 莊子 (Zhuangzi)’s dream of a butterfly. He dreamt that he was a butterfly — but when he awoke, he couldn’t figure out whether it was him dreaming of a butterfly, or if the butterfly had just gone to sleep right when he woke up and is now dreaming of him. This calls to mind a Western adage: “Life is but a dream.” Most of us will live to be at most 100. Some of us, myself included, won’t want to live that long. Little do we know that we’ve been around for an infinite time period, and that these 100 years mean nothing in the big picture. We are physics. We are chemistry. We are macroeconomics. We are universal constants. We are all a part of everything. We just need to awaken to it, just like 莊子 awakened to his butterfly.

[qjj]

Now at the age of 40, she has learned how to do almost everything without hands (including using chopsticks with almost as much finesse as an oriental), and she is quite possibly many times happier than any 10 random people on the street combined. Narrations in the 30-minute video are in Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles, and Lena herself speaks fluent English.

I think there’s just a great deal we can learn from Lena. A good inspiration for the rest of us!

Birth. Life. Death. A meaningless cycle, really. But you can give life a meaning if you want to. From my standpoint, a life is only meaningful if you take the time to learn the essence of the universe and become “one” with it. It is the only way that your essence won’t be isolated from everything else when it becomes unchained from your physical body. It is only then that you can vanish from all existence and become the universe itself.

That put a really poetic twist on an actually very simple idea. Who are we as individuals? Nothing. We are simple manifestations of our surroundings. I don’t care what about us you think is “individual,” it ultimately came from somewhere around us. Our appearances, thoughts, ideas, bodies – they all came from our surroundings and lineage, be it our ancestors, food, or the simple reaction to outside stimuli. Therefore, in truth, there really is no “I” distinguishable from everything else. Individuality is an illusion – how can we break from that?