? ? ? Life, the period of living, is simple but with profound meanings. It is lengthy in some sense, but not tedious at all, for both sweets and bitters filled in it. Never interrupted by any substance, life keeps going on through every smallest unit of time. It is just like a river, aflow of water running into the sea, passing smoothly and arduously, flowing steadily and continuously, and going forward inch by inch.
? ? The path, from where a river is born to the boundlesssea, consists of various terrains. Like a white ribbon, a river crosses plainssmoothly, in ripping undulation. Bending and twisting, a river passes through themountains, in arduous steps. It will flow into a moist area, nourished byrains; it will get into an arid region, exposed to the sun. That is what life seems like. Being not composed of plains alone, life is pregnant with many things: happiness and sorrow, failure and success, hope and despair. All sunshine without shade, all pleasure without pain, is not life at all, so with the contrary. Sometimes up, sometime down, the essence of life is all in there.
? ? Flexible as its body is, a river will never give up keeping flowing, no matter what kind of obstacles it faced with, and no matter how bulky these obstacles are. When mountains standing there, it by passes them; when ramparts lying in there, it sheers away from them; when cliffs seatingthere, it just jumps down, forming a cataract spray, hitting the bottom, and then keeping running forward. It is the same with life. Even being besieged by misfortunes or difficulties, life will never be frozen. It remains passing by when your relatives were gone; it stays going on when your walking ability was deprived; it is still living when your career failed one hundredtimes. It just keeps walking, in a stable pace.
? ? Steadily and calmly, a river finally succeeds in getting to the sea, inch by inch. No skip and no break, it takes every step with every attention. In desert, in canyon, in hilly waves, its trace can befound everywhere in a shape of a full line. In life, similarly, one step creates the next. Every single day is an indispensable element of life, and each day is of equal importance, no matter how good or bad it is. The “hole in time”does not exist in daily life; even if it does, it is only created for the briefest of instant. It is a full line, just like the river.
? ? Continuously, smoothly and arduously, life is passingin the way of river flowing. It is just like the voice of a river—sometimes sonorous, sometimes deep, sometimes soft, sometimes harsh. It is like,likewise, the shape of a river—sometimes straight, sometimes serpentine,sometimes smooth, and sometimes rough. Life, the period of living, is definitely like a lengthy river.
