This world is in fact very simple, but the mind of people is complex.

  The mind of people is in fact simple too, but the distribution of benefits is complex.

There is a pile of apples on the table, people are not concerned how many apples are there but only concerned about how many apples are in their hand. There is a whole lot of jobs to be done at work, people are concerned about how much extra work they have done and not how much work to be done. Human beings are gifted with huge wisdom, but because they are too calculative about gains and losses, and end up being a small wise guy.

The relationship between people is actually very simple, but the outcome of people deceiving each other and intriguing against each other comes from the complexity of benefits distribution. The sophisticated world is actually simple too, but it’s the complex feelings of people that brought along the debt of gratitude and revenge, and the meetings and departures.

The simplicity of life is a few strokes of lines in the vast painting of life, light and sparing; and is the faint moon in the scenario of life, that is accompanied with the cool serenity. 

The complexity of life is the ink marks doused over the rice paper, dramatizing shrewdness and the ways of the world; and is the squeaky urheen in the depth of life, with no way of getting rid of hubbub and maze.

There is magnificent beauty under the sky, which is to be obtained from the simplicity; there is fatigue in life, hidden in complexity. Life that is often filled with great spices must be that of a simple one; life that is often filled with great joys must be due to the heart being so pure and clean that it’s untouchable by complexity.

Once a man is simple he is happy, but happy men are few; being complex would be painful, but painful people are crowded. This is a reflection of the problem: More people would find it hard to live a life out of simplicity, but to live it out of complexity would be very simple. 

The current world is full of gains adjustment and profit distribution everyday. Man is manipulated and controlled by the various complex emotions everyday. The development of science till to date has allowed us to do almost anything, such as accurately landing on the moon, and launching rockets to travel great distances to observe the Mars, and yet we cannot tell what our mood would be like the next moment.

In the last analysis, what science controls is objective and rational; but man is an animal with subjectivity and sensibility. Subjectivity and sensibility is like the face of a child, or the mood of a lover, or the weather in February and August, is most difficult to fathom and control.

Man is simple as a child, but becomes complex when grown; He is simple when poor, but complex when rich; He is simple when beaten, but complex when in power; Gentleman is simple, while flunky is complex; It’s simple to see yourself, but complicated to see others. I can’t help being reminded of the poem by Cheng Gu (Translator notes: Cheng Gu was a well known Beijing-born poet and author who later migrated to New Zealand, and unfortunately died at the young age of 37 by hanging himself after axing his wife to death.): “I watch you for awhile, I watch clouds for awhile, I watch you from far, and watch clouds near by.” There is a shade of misty relationship in between simplicity and complexity, as you were far away from simplicity at one moment, close to complexity the next, and at this particular moment you don’t know you are far from simplicity or close to complexity.

Seeing the bottom by a look seems simple. A-century old well is limpid, deep and serene, and its bottom can be seen with a look, but this old well itself is not simple, just like man. Sometimes you can see through a man with a look, not because he is simple and not profound enough, but is too pure. It is a touching profoundness if someone can have a pure soul. This kind of simplicity is respectable. Some people seem complex and profound, with all that sophistication, but that kind of profoundness is the depth of shrewdness, and not the depth of soul. This kind of complexity is the crisscrossing of inclement humanity, and not graceful accumulation of wisdom.

In the last analysis, there are only life and death in a simple life. But because of ups and downs of life and the warmth and cruelty of the human world, the process of simplicity has become complex with all those ups and downs.

  Simplicity is the beautiful gesture that life has left with this world, and complexity is the bleak dreamland that can never be salvaged by life.