The Screen's Question
One film a day. To the question a film asks, a classic that crossed millennia answers — reading today's struggle through ancient wisdom.
When You See Gain, Think of What Is Right
🎬 All Questions
When You See Gain, Think of What Is Right
Which is closer to love — holding the beloved at your side, or letting them go for their sake?
Yours Is the Right to Act, Never to Its Fruits
When love and duty collide, what am I meant to let go of?
A Time to Part, and a Time to Embrace
When unspoken circumstances divide two people, does love end at the wall of misunderstanding?
A Time to Mourn, and a Time to Dance
Knowing you will lose the one you love too soon, is it foolish to have begun loving at all?
In Harmony Yet Not the Same
If two people love deeply yet can never become the same, is that love a failure?
The Butterfly's Dream, or Mine
Even if a love that leapt across time was only a dream, can the heart in it still be called real?
Give Life, Yet Do Not Possess
If people, land, and love can never truly be owned, what was it we ever had?
The Body Is but a Garment, Changed and Changed Again
Though death has parted the body, can we believe the love is still there?
One Must Pass Through the Time to Mourn to Grow
When a child first meets death, how are they to be helped across that grief?
At the End Comes Change; from Change, a Way Through
When one who lost a love opens the heart again, is that a betrayal of the one who went first?
Master the Self and Return to What Is Right
Under the whole society's gaze, which is right — breaking the rules for love, or giving love up?
Enjoy Your Fleeting Days with the One You Love
Between a once-in-a-life love and a life already carried, can choosing to stay also be love?
Heaven and Earth Live with Me; All Things Are One with Me
Though a single night's meeting ends by tomorrow, can that time still be wholly precious?
Vanity of Vanities — What Can Be Held?
If one staked everything on a love and only ashes remained, was that love worth it?
To Survive the Dead End and Carry Life On
Having survived alone after losing a beloved, is going on living keeping a promise, or breaking one?
What Rises from the Heart Becomes a Song
If a love can never be fulfilled, what does that love become?
Everything Made Beautiful in Its Time
Even a love with a fixed ending — can its short time be wholly beautiful?
Pleasure and Pain Both Come and Go — Endure Them
If you could erase the memory of a painful love, would erasing it be better?
I Will Take Your Hand and Grow Old with You
Even when the beloved no longer recognizes me, is staying at their side still love?
When the Time to Mourn Passes, a Time to Dance Comes
From the grief of losing a beloved, how does one walk back into life again?
From What We Love, Grief Is Born
When love turns into the grip of possession, is it still love, or a fire that burns them both?
Struck by the First Arrow, Do Not Take the Second
When self-punishment for a past wound pushes away even a love regained, what is one to do?
A Lifetime of Longing for One Alone
A life spent loving one person who never even recognized her — was it in vain?
The Real Fault Is Not Mending the Fault
After a heart has strayed badly once, can two people's love return to its beginning?
The Heart That Feels for Another Is Love's First Thread
To give oneself for someone who expects nothing back and may never know — what love is that for?
What Rises from the Heart Becomes the Loveliest Song
Knowing love ends in loss, can one still say to love and be loved is the most precious thing?
The Highest Good Is Like Water
Can a bond begun in resentment grow into real love by crossing hardship together?
Unlifted by Gain, Unshaken by Loss
When the beloved forgets me and leans on another, is wishing them that happiness love?
A Time to Embrace, and a Time to Refrain
For two who already carry their own lives, is it right to keep a love that arrives, or to refrain?
The Departed Have Not Truly Gone, Only Moved On
How does one release longing for the departed, so as to walk back into the life that remains?
Thus It Flows Away, Never Resting Day or Night
For one who hid love behind duty a whole life, what can a belated realization undo?
Neither Too Much nor Too Little — Holding the Center
In love, why does leaning on reason or on feeling alone leave the heart in ruins?
Having Erred, Do Not Shrink from Mending It
When a single wrong forever shatters two people's love, what can atonement undo?
Chasing Vanity, She Meets the Real — and Loses It
When a heart begun as lightly as a vain ornament turns into a love worth one's life, what had we missed?
If There Is a Time to Part, There Is a Time to Live On Apart
When an ardent first love is parted by life's circumstances into separate paths, has that love failed?
What Is Already Past, Do Not Blame
When the memory of a love gone before still lingers, may one begin a new love?
To Enter Fully into the Transformation of All Things
Which is worth more — a life that only watches forever, or one that loves and feels, knowing it will one day lose?
Do Not Say the Old Days Were Better
Living bound to a beautiful past and first love, or releasing it to move forward — which is honest to life?
Sometimes the Unshown Heart Is the Deepest Love
The heart of one who hid his love a whole life for the other's happiness — was it in vain?
Longing Awake and Asleep, the Heart Seeps into the Food
A love that custom forbids from being expressed — where does it flow, and in what form does it remain?
Within the Four Seas, All Are Kin
Can a bond with someone of no shared blood fill the place of a lost love or family?
Whoever Watches the Wind Will Never Sow
What is one missing who, out of fear, only postpones love?
A Constant Heart Wins Through in the End
When everyone says the love is over, is holding on to hope alone a foolish thing?
The End of a Matter Is Better than Its Beginning
When an old man who lived with a closed heart faces his past loves and regrets late, can life still change?
Who Knows Enough Is Never Disgraced
One who chases something greater and loses the most precious love already at their side — what did they fail to know?
All Things Made Are Fleeting and Pass
One who could not, in the end, protect the person they longed to shield — how are they to bear that grief?
Holding the Longing, Yet Asking After the Living Again
When longing for the departed is sealed into a letter and sent, whom does it reach, and what does it return?
Nothing Is Better than to Rejoice and Do Good
If I could keep only one memory of a whole life forever, which moment would I choose?
Tend the Last Rites with Care, and Long Honor the Departed
What does tending death and farewell with care give back to those who remain?
If It Is Not Right, Do Not Act on It
Between a rekindled old love and a place one must keep, how is a wavering heart to be governed?
One Constant Heart, a Love Without Ornament
A heart that loved one person simply for a lifetime and let them go — what does it leave behind?
It Rises from Feeling, Yet Stops at What Is Proper
For two who let their feeling for each other pass unspoken to the end, what does that restraint leave?
To Accept One's Given Lot in Peace
One who knows life will soon end — how should they meet a love that arrives late?
When Two Hearts Resonate, Even the Wall of Time Is Crossed
If two people living in different times can share hearts, is love bound by time at all?
If I Want Goodness, Goodness Is at Hand
If you learn only after losing someone that they quietly loved you, was that love in vain?
All Things Change, and the Spring Day Flows On
To one who asks, "How can love change?" — how does one accept a love that has already changed?
Even a Bond That Looks Like Chance Ripens in Its Time
A bond that keeps reconnecting through missteps and wounds — is it chance, or an appointed time?
One Generation Goes, Another Comes — Yet Love Returns
When a mother's unfulfilled love blooms again in her daughter's generation, does love carry across the generations?
To Love Right Here, Expecting Nothing Back
When the beloved can no longer remember me, can I go on loving them anew each day?
Love Is Not There from the Start — It Ripens
If only love at first sight is real, what should we call a heart that seeped in slowly through friction?
Even When the Crowd Hates, Examine for Yourself
When the majority is certain, do I ever weigh that certainty once more with my own eyes?
To See the Right and Not Do It Is Cowardice
Do I hide behind the calculation of 'I'll act only if I can win,' though I know what is right?
The One Whom Force Cannot Bend
Is it truly an outward threat that bends me, or the fear of being left alone?
When High and Low Scramble for Gain, the House Falls
In the name of "our own good," am I selling off, piece by piece, a good that should never be surrendered?
Better to Suffer Wrong Than to Do Wrong
To avoid loss, do I choose to join quietly in wrongdoing rather than to suffer it?
I Heard of Punishing One Fellow, Not of Killing a King
Do I justify the conscience I switched off myself with the reason that 'it was ordered from above'?
Human Nature Becomes Good Only Through Shaping
When swept up in a crowd's anger, do I mistake that heat for justice?
Blind Men Groping an Elephant
Do I take the part I have grasped for the whole, and build my judgment on that certainty?
Unstained, Like a Dewdrop on a Lotus Leaf
Am I quietly letting the current of 'everyone does it' soak the heart I have kept unstained?
Though He Falls Seven Times, He Rises Again
Have I already sentenced myself a failure, erasing in advance any reason to rise again?
To Govern Is to Set Right
In the name of 'order,' do I stand on the side of covering up what ought to be set right?
One Person More Right Than the Neighbors Is Already a Majority
Do I postpone standing with the right merely because our numbers are few?
Seeing Another's Pain as One's Own
Have I turned people's suffering into numbers to be processed, forgetting the face behind each one?
Buy the Truth, and Do Not Sell It
In exchange for safety and convenience, am I quietly selling the truth I know?
Repay Grievance With Virtue
By returning the hatred I received, am I in fact extending the very chain of that hatred?
The Best Revenge Is Not to Be Like Him
In seeking to establish justice through revenge, am I turning into the very thing I hated?
One Must Never Do Wrong
With 'for a better outcome,' do I justify crossing a line that should not be crossed?
True Words Are Not Beautiful; Beautiful Words Are Not True
Do I choose the plausible legend over the uneasy fact, building myself on a comfortable story?
Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment
When I judge someone, do I push him entirely outside the place of the human?
Heaven's Net Is Vast; Loose, Yet Loses Nothing
What the system before me has let slip — do I close my eyes to it too, saying 'there was no choice'?
What Neither Riches Nor Chains Can Move
Do I regard a person's dignity as something granted by another, forgetting it was his own from the first?
Pointing at a Deer and Calling It a Horse
When the powerful say 'the deer is a horse,' do I hold to what my own eyes saw, or fold it into silence?
If It Is Not Right, Do Not Do It; If Not True, Do Not Say It
To keep my comfort, have I kept my eyes shut to what I knew was not right?
Do Not Belittle a Small Good
Saying 'one of me is of no use,' do I erase in advance the small good I could do right now?
You May Seize a General, but Not a Common Man's Will
Before the words 'realistically speaking,' am I setting down even the will I ought to keep?
The Heart That Cannot Bear Another's Suffering Is the Sprout of Benevolence
Do I see the poor only as their circumstance, forgetting that within is a person like me?
To Know What You Know, and Know What You Do Not
Drunk on the force of certainty, do I declare that I know what I in fact do not?
The Comparing Heart Is the True Enemy
Resenting another's gift, am I gnawing away at the share that was given to me?
Some Give Their Lives to Fulfill What Is Right
For life and comfort, am I ready to sell my one and only name to a lie?
The Law Does Not Flatter the Noble
Do I close my eyes to the fault of the powerful, yet hold the straight measure only to the weak?
Set Your Heart on the Deed, Not the Fruit
Without recognition or reward, do I fold away even the right thing I ought to do?
Anyone Seeing a Child About to Fall Into a Well Startles and Runs
Before a stranger's child in danger, after my heart first moves, do I put calculation ahead and erase that heart?
Ritual Is the Thinning of Loyalty and Trust
In keeping a form upheld on the surface, am I losing the true good faith that ought to be within it?
Heaven's Way Has No Favorites, Yet Is Ever With the Good
In trying to defeat evil, am I pawning my own goodness by borrowing evil's methods?
Without the Heart of Compassion, One Is Not Human
To survive, am I switching off the very heart that makes a person human?
To Give Broadly and Relieve the Many
Do I use my gifts only to raise myself, forgetting they could be a hand reaching down to others?
By Nature Near, by Habit Far Apart
Seeing one broken on a different path, do I too easily draw a line: 'I am a different kind of person'?
To Err and Not Mend Is the Real Error
Hiding an already-committed wrong out of shame, do I miss even the last chance to mend it?
Keeping a Steady Heart Without a Steady Living
Using hardship as an excuse, do I let go too easily of even the steady heart I could have kept?
The Noble Worry Over the Way, Not Over Poverty
Counting honesty as loss, am I ashamed of the duty I have doggedly kept?
Life Has a Limit; Knowing Has None
Before a truth that will not come to hand, do I count not knowing it all as mere failure?
The Heart That Knows Shame Is the Sprout of Righteousness
Before a wrong everyone would bury, do I fold away even the heart that feels shame?
Harmonize, but Do Not Merely Conform
Because it is easy, do I call being 'swept along' with injustice 'getting along,' and comply?
Mugwort Among Hemp Grows Straight Untended
Wishing to belong somewhere, am I walking myself into the mire that darkens me?
Reproach Yourself Much, Others Little
Busy digging up others' faults, do I put off looking first at myself?
Love One Another, Benefit One Another
With the lines of nation and rank, do I set up as mere enemy one who is in fact the same as me?
Each Day I Examine Myself on Three Points
The mark left by something I did carelessly — do I let it pass without ever looking back?
One Must First Rectify Names
Because it is agreeable, do I believe as true a story whose name no longer matches the reality?
When the Stable Burned, He Asked If Anyone Was Hurt
Reckoning price and efficiency first, do I push the life of the person before me to the back?
The Noble Hold Firm in Hardship
Using want as an excuse, do I try to cross a line I must not, saying 'there was no choice'?
The Use of the Useless
Measuring people only by usefulness, am I missing the ineffaceable worth of a presence beside me?
If He Himself Is Upright, Things Proceed Without Command
Do I hold a straight measure to others while never checking whether my own hand holding it is bent?
The Highest Good Is Like Water
Taking gentle goodness for weakness, do I believe only the force that contends and grabs is strength?
Give Up Life and Take Righteousness
To keep life and comfort, do I too easily place beneath the scale what should weigh heavier than life?
Going Too Far Is as Bad as Falling Short
Holding too tightly to a principle I believe right, have I forgotten even why it was right?
Repay Injury With Uprightness, Kindness With Kindness
Out of affection, do I quietly withdraw the straight measure before the wrongdoing of one I love?
One Who Does Not Lose the Heart of a Newborn
Growing used to the world's cruelty, do I call the clear heart within me 'naivety' and cast it off?
If, Examining Myself, I Am Upright, I Go Forward Though Thousands Oppose
When the world calls it "such a small thing," do I fold away even what my own conscience found right?
The Aim Is That There Be No Litigation at All
Absorbed only in who wins or loses the verdict, do I miss what the other truly wishes to have restored?
In Teaching, There Are No Distinctions
Saying 'what's one,' do I erase from the count the single person it would be no loss to miss?
Treat Another's Child as Your Own
Do I fix a child's worth in advance by birth alone, blind to the wholeness of that child?
Worry Not About Scarcity, but About Unevenness
Do I see the cause of conflict only as 'shortage,' missing the truly painful point — unfairness?
Justice Is Not the Advantage of the Stronger
Do I mistake judgment by fury and force for justice, calling the will of the stronger the right?
Be Watchful Over Yourself When Alone
Do I act right only when watched, quietly setting that rightness down where no one sees?
Do the Duty That Is Allotted to You
Using love for my own blood as the reason, am I carving out an exception to the right I ought to keep?
All You Have Is This Present Moment
If at the end of life I could keep only one moment, which of all my countless days was truly me?
The Butterfly's Dream, or Mine
When the story a person leaves behind sits between fact and embellishment, which side holds the truth of that life?
Live Today as If It Were the Last
Does a person who learns their time is fixed only then discover what they truly wanted to do?
Though All Is Vain, Eat, Drink, and Do Good
When heaven stays silent and only death is certain, where can a person find the meaning of life?
Look Back on a Life That Flowed Like a River
Looking back on the past at life's edge, can I make peace with the cold self I once was?
Coming Is the Season, Going Is the Way
Is accepting death as the natural course, without refusing it, resignation — or a deep affirmation of life?
Life and Death, as Constant as Night and Day
Can a person who knows their time is set still live each day calm and tender all the same?
Better the House of Mourning Than the House of Feasting
Is the funeral around a person's death a place of grief, or a place where the living relearn how to live?
Even a Whirlwind Does Not Last a Morning
Beholding the frailest, briefest lives as they fade, what should we hold on to, and what should we mourn?
So Glad He Forgets His Cares, Unaware Age Draws Near
Facing the end with a being that labored beside us wordlessly a whole life, how do we accept aging and parting?
To Everything There Is a Season
When a vast time like war takes away one person's brief love, does that lost moment become meaningless?
Like a White Colt Passing a Crack
Where does the obsession to reverse and seize a time already flowed away carry a person?
Soon Forgotten — So Now Is Beautiful
Even in an ordinary life that will soon be forgotten, is there a beauty we have failed to see?
Do Not Ask Why the Old Days Were Better
When the most beautiful season of a life has already passed, how are we to let that time go?
Eat Your Bread with Joy
Is pouring all one has into a single banquet foolish waste, or a whole devotion to life?
One Must Not Fail to Know a Parent's Age
As generations flow and parents are slowly pushed aside, what do we realize too late?
The Sun Goes, the Moon Comes
When a season closes and we must send a cherished one away, how do we accept that ending as a new beginning?
Eternity Set in the Human Heart
Why do the pure memories of childhood hold us so long, and toward what does that longing reach?
Love the One Beside You Before It Is Late
Why do we grasp the worth of a person only after we have lost them, when we missed it while they were beside us?
At Peace with the Season, Resting in the Way
Does the accumulated han of years devoted to one thing break a life, or deepen it?
Cold Goes, Heat Comes
When a fiercely burning vitality and an age fade away, is that vanishing an end, or one joint in a cycle?
Was It the Butterfly, or Zhuang Zhou
When the stage and role a person staked their whole life on is swallowed by an age's upheaval, what was truly their life?
Death and Life, One Going and One Returning
A heart drawn toward where the line between life and death blurs — is it toward annihilation, or a return to the source?
At the Limit It Changes, Changing It Opens Through
When two long-mismatched fates meet again only after years have passed, is it chance, or the principle of timing?
Live Joyfully with the One You Love
Even as memories are erased one by one, does the love two people built together still remain?
Look to the Beginning: There Was No Life at All
When a loved one is forgetting me, how do I let go of a person I cannot hold?
Thus Do Things Flow Away
Why do the friendships and moments of childhood never come again, and does that never-again make them shine brighter?
Flowing On, Never Resting Day or Night
Having lost the pure self we wish to return to, what are we to do before time that cannot be reversed?
The Dust Returns to the Earth
Even if the direction of time ran backward, could a person escape the years that cannot be held?
The Tree Longs for Stillness, but the Wind Will Not Cease
The heart that is always a step late to those who have gone — does it remain only belated regret, or does it change the living?
One Yin, One Yang — This Is Called the Way
In a life carried like a feather on chance, do a fixed fate and a self-made path exist together?
There Is Nothing New Under the Sun
When the same day repeats endlessly, what does a person learn to break free of that meaningless loop?
Changing and Moving, It Does Not Stay
Imagining two lives split by one small chance, how are we to accept fate?
What Grows Strong Soon Grows Old
At the end of a season, aging alone after all the children have left, how do we accept the loneliness?
The Right to Act, but Not to Its Fruit
To love with a whole heart now, knowing it will one day end — is that foolish, or brave?
All My Works Were Chasing After the Wind
If both a genius's gift and an envious heart fade before time, what meaning did their rivalry hold?
Fulfill Your Part in the Place Given You
When we weigh how the world would be without us, how great is the weight of a life that seemed insignificant?
Knowing the Inescapable, Rest in It as Fate
In a life that tumbles down regardless of one's will, how can a person keep their dignity?
He Who Drank Wine in Dream Weeps at Dawn
Only after chasing empty desire and losing what truly mattered, does a person learn what was dream and what was real?
All Return to the Same Dust
When the snow falls alike on the living and the dead, how are we to regard the boundary between life and death?
Live This Present Moment
If a being who lives forever longs for one finite moment, is transience a curse, or a blessing?
Vanity of Vanities, All Is Vanity
If even one who gave a whole life climbing after rank and wealth returns to dust, what was that ascent?
The Five Colors Blind the Eye
Where does a heart seized by fading beauty carry a person?
At the Limit, Change; Only Changing, Endure
As an age sets, is changing in order to survive a betrayal of one's principles, or a way to carry them on?
One Generation Goes, Another Comes
When a small town and its youth fade and even the theater closes, how do we send off a vanishing time?
A Time to Mend
In an old age with little life left, is it too late to set out to mend a long-broken bond?
A Time to Seek and a Time to Lose
Does a journey to recover a lost connection change first the one who set out, not the one who was lost?
Life Is Death's Companion, Death Is Life's Beginning
In tending carefully to the departed, what does a person come to learn about life instead?
Cold and Heat Push Each Other On to Make the Year
Even in a life of hard labor and silent, repeating seasons, does a quiet dignity and beauty dwell?
A Time to Embrace and a Time to Refrain
Is a love that bloomed within a briefly allotted time less true because of its brevity?
Whatever Your Hand Finds to Do, Do with All Your Might
A person who alone knows their time is set — with what do they resolve to fill it?
A Thousand Years Are as a Day
When the single days of people in different eras overlap into one, how are life and death joined?
The Wood Burns Out, but the Fire Is Passed On
When a person at the end of an era meets their last in their own way, does what vanishes truly end?
Vanity of Vanities, Says the Preacher
When a person who worked faithfully all their life and retired asks the meaning of it, what can they find in the question?
Even Heaven and Earth Do Not Endure
When power, lineage, and all the majesty humans build come crashing down, what does that fall teach?
Heaven and Earth Live with Me, All Things Are One with Me
When one who lived as one body with nature is pushed out of that world and fades, what vanishes and what remains?
All Things Flow — Even a Child's Today
Death and flowing time first reflected in a child's eyes — what question do they leave in that heart?
Yin and Yang Alternate to Make a Life
As the time of childhood flows between light and dark, joy and grief, how do they all become one life?
The Days to Live Joyfully with the One You Love
A love let slip by suppressing feeling behind duty and restraint — what does it teach, too late?
All Rivers Flow to the Sea
At life's edge, the wish to see once more the hometown that is one's source — a longing toward what?
Support Alone Is Not Filial Love — Not Without Reverence
Do I count my duty done simply because I provide for my parents, while leaving out the reverence of the heart?
A Parent's Kindness Is Boundless as the Sky
Do I only begin to measure the size of the hands that raised me in silence after those hands are gone?
A Parent's Age Is Both Joy and Fear
Do I act as if my parents will always be there, putting off the truth that our time together is finite?
When You Counsel a Parent, Do It Gently, Without Defiance
When I feel my parents are wrong, do I damage the bond itself in my rush to prove I am right?
The Countenance Is the Hard Part — The Hardest Place of Filial Love
Do I lend my hands to help my parents, yet ration and hide the one thing hardest to give — a gentle face?
Even a Small Child Knows to Love Its Parent
Do I treat love as a skill to be laboriously learned, forgetting it was a heart already within me from the start?
To Serve With the Body — Filial Love Is Daily Labor
Do I treat filial love as a matter of the heart alone, forgetting it is the daily, repeated labor of the body?
To Send the Dead With Reverence Is Also Filial Love
Do I treat death as a mere procedure to be handled, missing the meaning of sending the departing off with dignity?
To Carry a Father's Way, Yet Walk One's Own Road
Am I too quick to discard the teaching of the one who raised me, simply because it seems old?
As a Mother Shields Her Only Child
To protect the one I love, can I hide even my own fear behind a smile?
Too Much Is as Bad as Too Little — Even Love Has a Measure
In the name of love, do I bind the other rather than protect them?
To Order a Household, First Cultivate Yourself
Before striving to be a good parent, am I skipping the work of maturing as a person first?
To Live in Harmony Without Forcing Sameness
When someone I love chooses a different road, do I mistake that difference for betrayal?
A Parent Worries Only for the Child's Suffering
Do I believe love requires qualification, carelessly judging a clumsy love as a love without the right?
Words Are Only a Finger Pointing at the Meaning
Do I dismiss the sincerity hidden behind a loved one's embellished stories, just because they are not literally true?
Not Losing Joy Even in Poverty
Do I equate poverty with unhappiness, overlooking the warmth of family that flowed even amid want?
The Sorrow of Treating Aged Parents as a Burden to Divide
Do I reckon my parents not as objects of love but as a burden to be divided among siblings?
Among All People, None Is Like a Brother
Do I forget, in calm times, that the one who stayed beside me in the harshest moment was, after all, my own kin?
All Within the Four Seas Are Brothers
Do I reckon a sibling only as gain or burden, missing that they share my very blood?
We Never Fully Know Those We Love
Do I put off loving someone because I cannot fully understand them?
With a Heart That Endures Like the Earth
Weighed down by the burden of caring for family, do I feel that care only as a prison confining me?
Hatred Is Not Ended by Hatred, but by Love
Do I hold onto old grievances with a sibling only by way of paying each other back?
The Joy of Kinship Shows When Need Arises
Do I take family harmony as a given backdrop, forgetting it is something kept alive by mutual effort?
Remembrance Rites Continue the Love Toward the Departed
Do I see a family funeral and its rites as mere tiresome procedure, forgetting it is a place that binds the living back together?
To Take Your Hand and Grow Old With You
Can I keep the vow to grow old together even after the other no longer recognizes me?
Like Lute and Zither, the Shared Life Was Itself the Song
Do I only regret the great dream unachieved, missing that the ordinary days shared were themselves the grandest adventure?
Feeling May Rise, but It Halts at Propriety
Do I see restrained love as suppressed love, belittling the depth of a heart that governed itself?
Even an Unexpected Bond Becomes a Deep Love
Do I count only a prepared love as real, brushing off an unexpected bond as mere chance?
The Wise Do Not Drown in Grief
Before a family loss, do I lock the grief alone in separate rooms instead of sharing it?
The Tree Would Be Still, but the Wind Does Not Cease
Do I keep deferring love with "someday I will make it up," only to lose that someday forever?
Resentment Is Undone Only by Love
Do I use an old wound from a parent or child as just cause, closing the door to reconciliation myself?
As Cold and Heat Pass, This Winter Too Will Pass
When poverty and hardship break a family down, can I keep the faith that even that winter will pass?
The One Who Left Returns — but Sometimes Too Late
Do I put off understanding an absent father (or child) while they are still beside me?
A Mirror Reflects Only When Wiped — A Belated Reckoning
Behind a lifetime of achievement, am I looking away from how cold I was to my own family?
Those Who Meet Must Part — Carrying That Sorrow
Can I embrace even parting and wounds as part of the depth that makes a person?
To Treasure One Meeting as a Lifetime
Do I count only those bound by blood as family, belittling the power of a bond joined by chance?
The Bond of Teacher and Student Lasts a Lifetime
Do I let the heart of a teacher who raised me drift off lightly as a bond that merely passed by?
A Single Lamp Dispels the Darkness
Instead of seeing possibility in a seemingly discarded child, do I simply believe the label the world has attached?
A Near Neighbor Is Better Than a Distant Kin
Do I count only grand events as life, letting the ordinary affection shared with those beside me pass as trivial?
Only on the Road Walked Together Do We Come to Know Each Other
Have I failed to make even the time to walk side by side with the closest one, vaguely deferring closeness to "someday"?
One Generation Passes, Another Comes
Do I see the lives of different generations as disconnected, missing that their questions run on like a single river?
Water Takes the Shape of Its Vessel — Wisdom Between Generations
Do I insist on my own way with family of a different generation or culture, forgetting how, like water, to seep into one another?
The Root Called Home Lets a Person Grow
Do I forget how much the warmth and wounds of my childhood home shaped the person I am now?
What Makes Leaving Hard Is the Love That Lives There
When I must leave a familiar place, do I recognize that the fear is in fact the size of the love piled up there?
Only After the Bitter Is Spent Does the Sweet Come
Do I treat present hardship as a shame to pass to my child, or as a love we endure together?
We Endure Grief Because Someone Weeps With Us
Do I believe grief must be borne alone to be strong, refusing to open my heart to those who would weep with me?
A House That Piles Up Good Surely Has Blessing to Spare
Rather than exhausting myself trying to be a perfect parent, do I forget that piling up a little goodness each day is enough?
To Guard a Family, Enduring Patiently Like the Earth
Because guarding a family feels too much to bear alone, am I tempted to sink down before its weight?
The Departed Do Not Truly Go — They Only Seem to Vanish a While
Do I spend time quarreling with a child or parent, always realizing too late that our days together are finite?
Neither Grasping Nor Casting Off — Releasing When the Time Comes
In my wish to keep a loved one near, am I delaying the time to release them into their own life?
Returning to the Place One Fled, to Take Up One's Duty
Having fled a place I feared to bear, do I deceive myself that the escape is freedom?
Like an Empty Boat, It Travels Far When Not Gripped
Has my wish to protect a loved one grown so strong that it robs them of the room to grow on their own?
Simply Being There — The Lowest Seat of Love
Absorbed in what to provide a child, do I make light of the sheer weight of simply being there?
The Clouds Pass, and the Sky Remains
Before a loss too hard to bear, do I forget that the grief is not all of me but a passing cloud?
Binding the Grass to Repay Kindness — The Heart That Seeks Its Roots
Busy resenting the roots I believe abandoned me, do I fail to see the other kindnesses that raised me?
When Brothers Are of One Heart, Their Edge Cuts Metal
Caught in a battle of pride with a sibling, am I collapsing alone at what we could overcome together?
Generations Come and Go — How to Bear the Scattering
Sunk only in sorrow that I cannot hold a scattering family together, do I fail to ask what remains within that flow?
The Same Rain Falls, yet Each Grows Differently
Pushing away the mother generation's love as an outdated manner, do I discard the heart within it as well?
Blessed Are Those Who Mourn, for They Shall Be Comforted
Do I think that making a child "forget" its grief is love, robbing them of the right to fully undergo that sorrow?
Forgive Not Seven Times, but Seventy Times Seven
Believing there is still plenty of time to reconcile with a sibling, do I keep putting off reaching out first?
Where the Just Belong, Under an Unjust Rule
Is hope a dangerous poison that breaks a person, or the last force that keeps them alive?
Free to Dwell in the Act, Not the Result
When love and duty collide, what must I let go of?
A Cunning Mind Eats Away at Purity
In keeping pace with the machine, do I lose myself?
I Was Not Born to Be Forced
Even when the body is caged, must the spirit be caged too?
A Dream of Being a Butterfly, or a Butterfly Dreaming of Me
Between a safe lie and a dangerous truth, which will I choose?
If You Hear a Different Drummer, Walk to That Step
Is carpe diem an excuse for shirking what one ought to do?
The Great Use of Uselessness
If conformity is survival itself, what is resistance for?
The Five Colors Blind the Eye
Between a comfortable lie and a painful truth, which is true freedom?
The Great Person Unmoved by Wealth or Force
Is the struggle to break free of the older generation's mold aimlessness, or growth?
One Person More Right Than the Rest Already Outnumbers Them
What does the cry "I am Spartacus" exist to protect?
Repay Resentment With Virtue
Must I be freed from the thirst for revenge before I can truly be free?
Alone and Still, Before Any Sign
Between the path to success society has already laid out and my own still-unknown path, which do I choose?
The Fish of the Northern Sea Becomes the Great Peng
Is flight beyond the flock's rules selfishness, or freedom?
The Highest Good Is Like Water
How can I love someone living a life different from my family's expectations, without contending with them?
Life and Death Are Fate, Like Day and Night
If life is a string of chance events, where does freedom live within it?
Great Love Always Exacts a Great Cost
Between holding onto love and releasing it for a greater cause, where does true freedom lie?
Not Respect for the Law, but Respect for the Right
Is an escape attempt made knowing it will likely fail recklessness, or the last stronghold of human dignity?
A Tree Planted in the Village of Nothing
Is a dream that steps outside an assigned gender role a betrayal, or a discovery?
To Know Oneself Is Clarity
When power tries to swallow one's whole way of life, what does a family choose?
One Who Forces Fails; One Who Grasps Loses
Must one leave a beloved hometown to gain true freedom and growth?
At Peace With Time, Following Its Course, Sorrow Cannot Enter
Amid an oppressive reality, can imagination create real freedom?
The Noble Stays Steadfast Even in Want
Before the chains of bare survival, can a person still hold onto dignity?
Nothing Under Heaven Is Softer Than Water
When one person is made subordinate to another, what does freedom even mean?
I Did Not Wish to Live What Was Not Life
In a world of oppressive adults, where does a child head toward?
The Obligation to Do What One Believes Right
Do I honor the voice of my own conscience as a higher law than the state or majority opinion?
Roused by Poetry, Grounded by Ritual, Completed by Music
In a strictly disciplined boarding school, was song what finally gave these children freedom?
Better to Forget Each Other in the Rivers and Lakes
For a prisoner to give his utmost effort — is that dignity, or is it submission?
Because It Is Useless Timber, It Lives Out Its Years
To turn one's back on social recognition and chase one's own artistic soul — is that self-indulgence, or freedom?
The Mass of People Lead Lives of Quiet Desperation
In an age that has lost its way, what does a person hold onto as a compass?
I Have Three Treasures
For a wanderer with neither hometown nor a place to settle, what does freedom mean?
Coarse Rice and Water, Yet Unjust Wealth Is a Floating Cloud
Even within the yoke of poverty, what must a person still hold onto?
Do Not Let Artifice Destroy What Heaven Has Given
If bowing to power is survival, what, then, is resistance for?
Great Vessels Take Long to Complete; Great Sounds Are Rarely Heard
Is a rootless life spent chasing a single sound punishment, or an artist's fated freedom?
Humanity Models Itself on Earth, Earth on Heaven
When civilization tries to bind nature, what must we protect?
The Function of Ritual Values Harmony
Between the discipline called tradition and a child's free choice, how far can a parent let go?
Let the Mind Wander in Plainness
Will a father fish keep his son in a safe tank, or release him into the dangerous open sea?
I Went to the Woods to Front Only the Essential Facts of Life
Cut off from civilization in an extreme, forced freedom, what do I come to face again?
The Moment Beauty Is Called Beautiful, Ugliness Already Exists
When the positions of the powerful and the dispossessed are reversed, what do we learn?
To Know Contentment Is to Avoid Disgrace
Is where I belong a dazzling, unfamiliar world, or the ordinary place I call home?
One Who Has the Way Finds Many to Help
Before the oppression of a vast empire, is a small rebellion reckless, or inevitable?
However Mean Your Life, Meet It and Live It
Between the path my parents want and what I love, which must I choose?
Great Love Always Exacts a Great Cost
Why does a man who has everything still long for one small, lost freedom?
The Mind of the Utmost Person Is Like a Mirror
Between calculating one's way through life and meeting it fully with one's whole body, where does true freedom lie?
Anyone Can Become a Sage-King
To follow one's own talent beyond the station one was born into — is that presumption, or freedom?
See Plainness, Embrace Simplicity, Lessen Selfishness and Desire
Is a life grown accustomed to convenience happiness, or a loss of freedom?
The Marsh Pheasant Does Not Wish to Be Fed in a Cage
Before an oppressive power, which is better — submitting to bondage, or choosing the uncertain freedom of the wilderness?
Not Love, Not Money, Not Fame — Give Me Truth
Even having everything one wanted, is a person free if trapped in the past?
The Name That Can Be Named Is Not the Eternal Name
Can a person judged without ever knowing the charge protect themselves with anything at all?
They Bored One Hole a Day, and on the Seventh Day, Chaos Died
Even an emperor who possesses everything — if he lacks the freedom to open even one door himself, is he free?
When Heaven Is About to Give Someone a Great Task
To fight on knowing one may fail — is that recklessness, or a person's last freedom?
I Love a Broad Margin to My Life
A life determined to be bound to no one — what, in the end, is it running from?
It Benefits All Things and Does Not Contend
Within the frame of marriage society has set, how far is an individual's freedom to love actually allowed?
To Conquer Oneself Is Strength
To step outside the place one's era assigned to women and write a life of one's own — is that selfishness, or courage?
My Life Has Limits, Yet What I Chase Has None
Has a life spent faithful to duty, in the end, stolen freedom from myself?
Better to Forget One Another in the Rivers and Lakes
Is love that defies society's gaze freedom, or ruin?
The Name That Can Be Named Is Not the Eternal Name
Can a person, freed from the label of monstrousness the world has branded them with, define themselves instead?
A Gentleman Must Be Broad and Resolute
Between a carefree freedom and a duty one is meant to carry, which must one choose?
The Utmost Person Has No Fixed Self
Does a being who grants others' wishes also have the right to be free itself?
Know the Masculine, Keep to the Feminine, and Become the Ravine of the World
To step outside the role tradition assigned and follow one's own talent — is that unfilial, or true filial devotion?
You Are Not a Fish — How Do You Know the Joy of Fish?
Between the adult world that wants to study a captive being and children's hearts that want to set it free, which is more truly human?
When Cornered, Things Change; Changed, They Break Through
Is hope a slow poison that wears a person down, or the last force that keeps them alive to the end?
Walk in the Direction of Your Dreams
Is "seize the day" an excuse to shirk the duties one ought to bear, or a call to make life one's own for the first time?
So Absorbed You Forget to Eat
To follow the work you truly love, must you leave the place you cherish and never look back?
Ceaseless Self-Strengthening
A gift everyone around says does not suit me — may I keep pushing it to the end?
To Conquer Oneself Is Strength
What holds me down — the world's wall, or the fear and self-sabotage I made myself?
At Ease with the Times, at Home in What Comes
Is a life that flows with what it is given foolish, or does it in fact go farther than a life spent grasping?
When Heaven Sends a Great Charge
What meaning is there in standing to the end before an opponent you cannot beat?
The Peng Bird Rises Ninety Thousand Li
Beyond the low sky my circumstances assign me, may I dare to dream of rising higher?
The Firewood Burns Out, the Flame Passes On
If I never achieved the dream I deferred my whole life, does the time I lived remain a failure?
The Soft and Yielding Belong to Life
Is the grief knotted in the heart a poison that gnaws at me, or a seed that may blossom into art?
The Butterfly's Dream, or Mine
If this life I believed was real is a stage someone built, must I walk out beyond it?
Knowing What Cannot Be Helped, Resting in It as Fate
When hardship follows hardship without end, what does it mean simply to go on living?
Grasp the Meaning, Forget the Words
Were the tales a father embellished all his life lies, or vessels holding something truer than fact?
Like a White Colt Passing a Gap
If a regained life lasts only a moment, is there meaning even in that brief awakening?
Those Yet to Come Are to Be Held in Awe
Can even a person who has withdrawn from the world and sealed himself shut be connected to someone again?
In Teaching, No Distinctions
For children the world has already branded as written off, what can learning change?
One Cannot but Be Broad and Resolute
A discipline that demands something farther than the win in front of you — is it oppression, or dignity?
None Match the One Who Delights
Can one find, by following the music sounding within, someone he has never once met?
Blame Neither Heaven nor Others
Carrying an illness I must bear for life, can I still live as myself?
The Use of the Useless
Having failed to win and fallen short of the world's measure, can we still laugh together?
Repay a Wrong with Uprightness
By paying back the one who ruined me, can I recover the self I lost?
Human Nature Tends to Good as Water Runs Down
Can a single, unrepayable act of mercy truly change a hardened person?
Joy Lies Within It
Even in a time when darkness gathers, can one sing, love, and begin a new life?
Learning Must Never Cease
If speech and bearing are changed, does a person's worth truly change too — or was that worth in them all along?
No Whirlwind Blows All Morning
Left alone having lost everything, what force is there in simply breathing and waiting for the next day?
Most Lead Lives of Quiet Desperation
At the end of walking alone, out beyond the world's frame, do I truly meet freedom?
The Great Vessel Is Late to Completion
Can things once broken and cast aside, gathered together, still make something again?
Only in the Cold Do We Know the Pine
At the bottom, having lost everything, what is the last thing a person must keep?
Nurturing the Uninstructed Toward the Upright
For one sealed in a darkness where neither light nor sound reaches, can the door of learning be opened?
Benevolence Is to Love People
If the love of the person is left out of curing an illness, is that true healing?
In Want, Cultivate Yourself; in Reach, Better the World
Can one person's small goodwill really become a wave that changes the world?
Still, It Feels, and Breaks Through
Is following an inner voice you cannot explain foolishness, or another way of connecting to the deeper order?
When It Won't Come, Turn Back and Seek in Yourself
When every expert says there is no way, what can I do before that wall?
Fish Moisten Each Other with Foam
Why does the friendship of that shared season stay so long in the heart?
Cornered, Yet Never Losing the Way Through
The will toward freedom that no confinement can break — where does it come from?
Attend Carefully to the End
Even in work the world deems lowly, can I find dignity and a calling?
Hold to the Uncarved Simplicity
Might a person the world calls lacking in fact hold the purity the world itself has lost?
Two Hearts as One Cut Through Metal
Can a ragtag band gathered for their own separate reasons be bound by a single dream?
A Mountain One Basketful Short
Even if the summit is never reached, what is the worth of pushing to the very last step?
Unbothered Though Unknown
One who has lost a former glow and been forgotten — by what does he find his place again?
Renewal Day by Day Is Abundant Virtue
To take up again, in middle age, a dream folded away in youth — is that childish?
Life Springs from Hardship, Death from Ease
For those who have nothing, is a grueling challenge one more suffering, or the very place they come to life?
Completed in Music
Can someone drifting without any goal complete himself in something met by chance?
The Noble One Changes Like a Leopard
In a place fading at its very roots, can people change their whole way of life?
Act Without Forcing, Taste the Tasteless
To a quiet life that grasps at nothing, do people gather on their own?
Love Your Fate
Before an unavoidable, terrible reality, is fashioning hope for a child a lie, or love?
The Noble One Holds Firm in Want
When poverty drives a person to the edge, whose fault is the fall — the person's, or the world's?
The More You Give, the More You Have
One who secretly mends others' lives — when does she ever take her own happiness in hand?
Fish Forget Each Other in the Rivers and Lakes
The pull toward the world one wholly belongs to — how far may one follow it?
The Joy of Teaching the Gifted
Among children thought discarded, is there gifted timber for a teacher to recognize?
The Noble One Is Clear on What Is Right
What do I run for — to win, or for something I would keep even by winning?
The Noble One Toils Diligently All Day
Can one who is not free even in a single word finally find the voice his place demands?
One Yin, One Yang — That Is the Way
Can the wounds that clawed at my life turn out, later, to be the keys that save me?
One on Tiptoe Cannot Stand Long
Which is right — to chase success directly, or to pour into what you do well and let success follow?
Conceal the Tool, Await the Moment
Can a gift the world laughs at as obsolete shine again when its moment comes?
Extend the Love of Your Own Child to Others
Without blood ties, can people become one another's true family?
It Flows On Like This, Day and Night
When the end of life stands before me, can I move toward the one wish I kept deferring?
Roam in the Arts
Can one thought to have failed once stand again by handing what he loves to others?
Do Not Worry About Having No Position
To challenge a stage no one thinks suits you — is it recklessness, or dignity?
A Thousand-Li Journey Begins Underfoot
For one far short in talent and circumstance, is stepping toward a great dream a vain stubbornness?
