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Seven Year Anniversary of Weekly Wisdom!
- Alex Chen
- Oct 19
- 5 min read
Today marks the seven year anniversary of the Weekly Wisdom Newsletter!
In honour of this milestone, I will summarize my top seven articles from the past year:
Of all virtues, filial piety comes first. Mr. Wang is well-known and respected for his utmost filial piety, and I was extremely honoured to have had the opportunity to ask him questions.
The most memorable thing from my meeting with him was that he changed my thinking about one of my problems: being annoyed at parents' unfair criticism. In the past, I would just tell myself that I need to cultivate humility and empathy. But my empathy was very limited. Mr. Wang helped me elevate that empathy. The first thing he told me is, "You need to live a better and happier life." That was really surprising to me and even seemed a bit off topic. But he then continued to explain.
He told me that no parent tries to unfairly criticize us. Chances are, they are worried about us, and in their worry, they lose logic, their worries spiral, and they start criticizing a bit excessively. It's because they love us that they would worry about us.
Yes, they have problems and could manage their negative emotions better, but so what? Do you expect them to be perfect? Do most people you see have perfect control over emotions and don't worry about their children? Do you really think you could do better? So stop demanding so much and cherish them while you still can. Live a great life, be happy, and your parents will naturally stop criticizing and instead be even happier than you for your success.
When it comes to cultivation, Confucianism emphasizes etiquette as the starting point. Our etiquette weaves through the fabric of daily life, from simple greetings to high-stake conversations. Oftentimes, etiquette seems like a small thing, but these small things happen so frequently that they quickly accumulate to become a big thing.
We live in an interconnected society, and relationships are key to our happiness, work, and livelihood. If we have poor etiquette, people will dislike us and distance away from us. Worse, they might even resent us or harm us. If we have good etiquette, we would have good relationships with others and be welcomed by all. If we have excellent etiquette, we might even touch others' hearts and earn their devotion.
Ultimately, the spirit of etiquette is respect and consideration for others, but simply knowing this at an intellectual level might not help us apply the spirit into the details of daily life. The rules of etiquette is like an accumulated body of experience on how people applied respect and consideration into daily life. When we learn and practice these etiquette, we increase our level of etiquette and absorb its spirit into our essence.
In that article, I listed some common rules of etiquette as a starting point, and I plan to do many more articles on etiquette in the future. I also created a new category on the blog titled "etiquette" and added past articles to the category.
This article was in my drafts for many years. The concepts of attachment and letting go are absolutely core in Buddhism and Stoicism, and they are key to a happy life and spiritual cultivation.
The concepts might seem pretty straightforward, but they do have important nuances and misunderstandings. The major misunderstanding is that detachment equals apathy. In actuality, detachment means letting loose of our mental grip towards something; we can still hold it and use it if needed, but we are also fine to let it go if we don't need it. It gives us a sense of ease and peace.
Although we might intellectually know that we should let go of things, anyone who's really tried to practice this knows that it's not easy. In that article, I explained five principles to letting go along with my own experience:
See the truth
Control the controllables and let go of the rest
Embrace reality (versus merely accepting it)
Practice selflessness (to treat the root problem)
Understand karma and accord with the conditions
Water is revered in Daoism, and we ought to emulate the flowing nature of water. The concept of flow has high relevance to the Buddhist concept of "according with conditions", but the Daoist wording would be "going with their flow" and "re-directing their flow tactfully".
Oftentimes, when we have conflict, we might try to fight head-on, like rock against rock. That just results in both sides getting hurt. When water encounters rock, it yields to the rock and flows around it. When others are very stubborn like rock, we can temporarily go with their flow with a future plan of re-directing their flow tactfully towards the direction that we want.
That article gives some detailed examples with explanations. When we can emulate water and flow freely in life, life would be a pleasure to go through!
In the past, I did the 21-Day No Complaint Challenge and found it very beneficial. This time, I wanted to go a step further by not only not complaining, but also helping others wholeheartedly. I also wanted to get some deeper insights, so I practiced for a whole year before writing about my learnings.
In my practice, I found five major ways to practice selflessness that suited me:
Putting others before me and above me
Empathy
Advising others
Etiquette
Thinking of the bigger picture
It wasn't easy at first, but I got better over time. I also gained deep joy from my practice, such as when I put my classmates' success above mine, and then I felt even happier for their success than them. Or when I waited a long time for a suitable moment to advise a person, and when it finally came unexpectedly, and that person accepted my advice happily, I felt very happy for her.
Health is the foundation of our lives. If we have poor health, we can't do anything. But many of us might not know that emotions play a big role in our physical health. Dr. Clara Cohen, host of the Acupro Academy podcast, often says,
"70% of chronic issues according to TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) are related to emotional stress. It could be years of the same emotions, like worry, overthinking, trauma, fear, anxiety; all those things change us at the cellular level and make us sick."
That article covered the impact of various emotions (namely anger, joy, sadness, worry, pensiveness, fear, and shock) on the body. It also provided advice for nurturing the mind and regulating negative emotions, all of which align with the teachings from ancient philosophies. In other words, self-cultivation isn't just good for the soul and mind, but also for our physical health!
Perhaps the funniest and wittiest story on the blog to date.
Conclusion
This year was quite a milestone year! I published some keystone articles on Confucianism (etiquette), Buddhism and Stoicism (attachment and letting go), as well as Daoism (how to flow freely). I also got advice from a filial piety paragon, added the 11th article to my TCM series, and wrote my wittiest story. Thank you to all readers for your support, and let's continue to nurture our wisdom and cultivation in the upcoming year!
Weekly Wisdom #364
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