The Education of World Citizens:
A Harmonious Life and the Principle of Yin and Yang
Mankind’s Humanity’s growing desire to discover the world and the satisfaction that comes along with a deeper understanding of the world are is becoming more pronounced. This means is a progressive evolution for mankindhumanity. The search for the deeper origin of the soul helps people face a future with uncertainty. The creation of a world citizenship education systemeducation is the synopsis of this global trend. Everyone is now a global citizen. However, the concept of the rights and obligations of world citizenship is has not yet prevaileding. The state of the world will continue to move without reference to people’s hearts. To turn the new generation into world citizens with healthy minds and bodiesbody and mind requires massive efforts and endeavors.
The waste of life and exploitation of resources should be put to an end. Being a generation of the edge of worldin transitionin which the world is on the brink of destruction, we should understand where life comes from and where it endsleads to. In the journey of our lives, Wwe should all learn the techniques of peaceful breathing to free our minds. Never be distractedtiedbind our hearts up by with confusions. The heart needs to be calm and reasonable. The qi needs to be stable and inspired. A breathBreathing is only a split second of time. If the heart is calm and qi is inspired oOne will possess the philosophyvalue system of healthy life if the heart is calm and Qi is inspired. The path to a harmonious life and world citizenship will be guided by the wisdom of yin and yang.
Mankind Humanity has undergone countless evolutions and cognitive corrections in throughout history. The concept of Oone world is already a widely accepted concept. People are just now endeavoring to find a more harmonious way to live in this one world. All living creatures have a balancing point. And, lLove is the way of life and the source of hope. The wisdom of yin and yang is the strongesta powerful weapon tool to reconcile the a world in transition. The God has given us a life and the journey of living it belongs to each of us.
What is the true meaning of life? Those who are born with this understanding rank the highest. Those who acquire understanding from learning rank the second. Those who engage in learning because of lack of understanding rank the third. We should all be able to aquireacquireto be the one with understanding from learning. We may run into someone born with understanding to lead the world towardinto the path of striving for a higher level of goodness and kindness. One undergoes the four phases of learning: unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence and unconscious competence.
One undergoes four phases of learning: unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence and unconscious competence. One may feel comfortable and safe when not conscious of his incompetence. However, when new challenges surface or situations change, he will start feeling insecure and a sense of crisis arises out of the insecurity of being incompetent. It generally takes around seven repetitions to get familiar with a new task. The familiarity moves one into the stage of “conscious competence”. The repetitive learning process is further strengthened and then to transforms the acquired techniques into unconscious competence.
Almost all learning undergoes the the aforementioned four stages. But there is another higher level of the realization of potentiality, which starts from changing within the heart. Everyone has his potentialities,. Bbut more often than not, the light of inner wisdom is blocked by dustimpurities. Throughout life, people are distracted bybusy in the things that we don’t know or things can be seen, such as slightest thought of greed, desire, evil or self-conceit, which are factors that pollute our hearts, these will hinder the release of inner energies and even make us lost.
In Over the past one hundred years, countless efforts in nativisminnate ability theory, cognition theory, learning theory, personality, or and social relation, studies have been made to studyabout the development of a child with an the ultimate goal of understanding the unknown, untapped and un-exploited part of human beings. The efforts have paid off by offering explanations to many of the “whys” in human life. When understanding the true meaning of life, A great sage a great sage once said: Who was I before I was born? Who am I when after I am born? He further said that Another sage said that one’s present life is the collective result of the past lives and one’s next life will be a consequence of this life. These words express the meanings of life and the responsibilities one is obligated to in lifeshould be shouldering. Only with this understanding and awakening will one start purifying and correcting the polluted qi. This will further change and inspire the direction of qi towards a better field. The process of correcting by doing, enlightening by correcting and continuing to improve based on the enlightened wisdom enlightening breeding more doing is important. The This positive cycle helps one move toward a better, more fulfilling life gradually.
To explore the meaning of life and its origin, the first thing to understand is the harmony of life. No matter what who we are or where we are from, we should all strive to really truly understand ourselves and to examine and structure our future life with the aforementioned sage’s saying in the previous paragraph in mind. Who was I before I was born? Who am I when after I am born? All things exist for a good reason. The reason does not arise out of thin air, but can be attributed to a circular cyclingcycle. We should not only look at the bad side or the bright side, but treat the cause and effect in a middle centered and balanced way. Where am I from and where am I going? Correct thinking builds a mind of pure serenity, which helps us see the light of wisdom. We then know what to do next. The long and deep process is a repetition of the four stages of learning. World citizens can increase their resistance to negative thinking through this practice. This Negative thinking is one of the major mental problems in the 21st century and worthy of our serious attention.
The key to the realization of potentiality ionf a higher level lies in the purificationurging of heart. After the purging purification of heart, we will possess the capability of “having bywith thinking”. For example, we can have a good mood by thinking we are actually in one. Everyone has a heart. And we can install a button for happiness in our hearts. Whenever we are in a bad mood, we push the button and activate the good mood. It is easy and can be done without help from someone else. The energy of heart is strengthened and stored. When the habit becomes deeply ingrained, it will help clear purify our thoughts.
We must emphasize that the heart is unrestricted and free. When one is willing to practice itfreeing one’s heart, it does not necessarily take a long time. A lLeaps ining advancement isare not uncommon. Stephen Covey said, “10% of life is made up of what happens to you,. 90% of life is decided by how you react.” This explains a concept of looking at on the bright spots side of things and not being controlled by the external situations. What is mostThe more important is that we must have the capabilities in orderstrength not toto resist being influenced by the “10% events”. What we are doing is to achieve the full harmony of life. Those with wisdom can do preparationsprepare to avert the “10% happenings events” in life. And theyThese people do exist in this world. They are what we call the practitioners with Tai Ji Yin Yang wisdom. They are practitioners with a deep understanding of the harmony of life.
How would should world citizens strive for to improve themselves? We suggest to start with the concept of that one’s present life is the result of the his past lives and his next life will be a consequence of this life. Think deeply aboutof what role we play and what we have encountered in this life. Everything befalls us for good reasons. We will be able to tell predict what our futures life will be like by studying the consequences of everything we did in this life. The principle holds for everyone including ordinary people, businessmen, scientists, philosophers, religious leaders and heads of state.
This is the a required learning process in promoting the harmony of life. Here is an exercise to improve ourselves, lLet’s do this together. No matter where we are, we should examine our hearts three times a day. This is done by creating aLet’s put a body map in our hearts and spreading the good thoughts and good intentions across every parts of our body, starting from the hearts and extending to the limbs. Keep records of where the good thoughts and intentions go in our body and try to make progress on a daily basis by extending further day by day. A week later, you will realize that your heart has been immersed in the energy of positive thinking and you will be more inclined to positive thinking. This is the influencing of heart. As long as we do it right, we are able to correct any mistakes. The power of heart is profound. The This practice should be applied by individuals, families, organizations, companies and communities. A profound effect should be expected after thirty-six days.
We have to be responsible for our lives through discovering the inner world of soul and discarding the outerexternal disturbances. Every world citizen is entitled to the same value of life. A healthy mind and body and mind in harmony is our respect for life. All living creatures have a foundation upon which they prosper. The world community is presentsing itself through multi-faceted varieties in different cornersin many different ways. History shows that our forefathers of different races left the same message – the original humanity is pure and clean. A life attitude of pureness and cleanness is to approach the origin of universe and the understanding of a real one world. Getting back to the land of pureness and cleanness is to returnback to where life begins and ends.
People are always in strife with the external pressures of liferesistance with something outward. Life is made more difficult when we face tough decisions in personal life or national policies. But this is life. A beautiful waterfall is the result of water falling down the cliff and crashing into the bottom. Beautiful totems of the world are like this. Ancient people fromin thousands of years ago had no understanding of today’s modern world. But they were aware of the principle of yin and yang and the law of nature. So they were able to foresee from observing the sky and the Back Pushing Diagrams, a famous Chinese Prophecy written in Tang Dynasty. The sense comes from understanding the slightest changes in the field of qi. Evidences shows that any formation of a trend can be predictable. Understanding the balanced way of yin and yang helps us knowing the past, seizing seize the present and preparing prepare for the future. The highest level of the wisdom is to prevent bad things from happening and turn bad things around. If this is indeed true, then we should all start by cultivating ourselves. World citizens’ new understanding of a harmonious life and the principle of yin and yang will contribute greatly to a stable, safe, peaceful, and affluent world.
What is yin and yang? Yin and yang are complementary to each other. It is mutually inclusive and mutually exclusive, right and wrong, true and false, real and fake. The two polarized ends are the yin and the yang. The reason of the universe lies in the two ends. Taking the middle way in between the two ends avoids being extreme. Sometimes, something it could be not good and not bad, right and wrong, complementary and contradictory, depending upon the situations. This is the middle centered way of yin and yang philosophy. What we have to strive for is the balancing point, or the tai-ji point. We understand the importance of harmony in life and we need to use the middle centered way of yin and yang principle to deal with daily affairs or govern the nation. Yin and yang works like a mirror,; through which we are able to see the reflections. Therefore, a man with yin yang principle is able to locate the real source of problems and find solutions. This is the working of wisdom.
Human Bbehaviors are shaped by the environments. The process of molding behaviors is the process of learning. Knowing and Uunderstanding and reasoning the outward world are the main impetus of learning. People’s behaviors are also highly correlated with what happened inevents of the past. The results today are reflections of the past. How much can we adjust ourselves to the environment? Our life patterns determine our future fate. Good nurturing will extend the life of the earth. We hereby advocate a deeper and proactive understanding of life in harmony and the way of yin and yang in order to have a profound balancing effect on the lives of generations to come.
Living in the world, we still fill withare surrounded by unfairness and injustice and unfairness. Why some regions are devastated by wars and plagued bywith misery, while other regions are enjoying the fruits of high technology and advanced development? That’s It’s true that we can’t determine where we came to this planetwere born. But we can face the future proactively and live a peaceful, healthy life of healthy and peace with deeper meanings, not to be tied up hindered by life’sin the difficulties. This is the discussion of life harmony in world citizenship education. There is no real fairness or justice in the world. It is only how our good consciousnesses compare to the Nature. Only the NNature is truly impartial. The day will come to sentence our lives. And when it comes, it is the time of redemption. Have we been in at harmony with our life? Have we treated our life well? At the end of life, when we have to leave the body which we once loved and to which we were attached, where are we going? These are the questions to ask. This life is an inter-connected chain of lives. It’s eEither we face it and untie it, or the natural cycleing continues formes to us. The ones who are still alive will then have to face the happenings events coming back and forth. These happenings events are similar in nature, but different in scale. Why couldn’t we get out of thise cycles that hasd happened in over the past hundred years? The events arey in fact are increasing in numbers. The corrective actionsnumbers of what world citizens must do are continuously increasing in magnitudeed.
I would like to advocate a new course of action to strengthen the vitality of world citizens. We should start with the mood of simplicity, ease-going and happiness and spread the message through the influencing of hearts. When we continuingly think and improve ourselves, our joy will grow on a daily basis. We will stop complaining and love what we are supposed to do. This needs not to change your responsibilities. We are only elevating the level and quality of the heart. We will understand the logic behind it when we are free from anxiety. A good field of qi is created and put in motion. The positive qi will keep circulating and emitting. Imagine this qi field as a bouquet of flowers, Wwhen we are able to share with others our flowers, we are the real happy ones. The fragrance sent to others will enrich our inner wisdoms and virtues and, moreover, benefit others. The pure purity of the origin of goodness will make results by themselves. The process is repeated and a powerful chain reaction of or butterfly effect will be set in motion thanks to the spreading and influencing of hearts. This tells of the greatness of world citizens.
All living individuals are world citizens. Young world citizens are our hope and worryconcern. We hope they will inherit the best experiences and wisdoms from our generation to carry out our goals and objectives. However, we are concernedworried about that the environmental degradation outlined in the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” to may fall upon them. They will thus encounter environmental challenges and take responsibilities more difficultly than our generation does. Therefore, we put a lot of emphasis on the developmental problems of teenagers. Wealth is no guarantee for protection. It’s wisdom that solves the problemsquestions. We have to do what we’ve got have to do, while teenagers should also get prepared for entering the adult world. A good education is our collective responsibility. Family education, school education and societal education all affect the development of teenager’s mentality.
Every twenty years creates a new generation begins. This generation of teenagers has known a fast paced world, Wwhether the fast developingment of teenagers areis willingly take the responsibilities of world citizen’s concernings is another question. Another two major forces that shape the value system and personality of the teenagers are the culture of social life and the change of economic environment. A new type of media on the web, the Blog is a new way of inter-personal communication centered on individuals. The iInformation censorship and knowledge management, coupled with personalized communication greatly enhance possibilities of (possibly add “incomplete”) pre-mature development.
Teenagers in different cultural backgrounds will be shaped into different adults. Nowadays, the change of culture becomes fast. It is highly likely that when a teenager grows into adulthood, his cultural experiences in the teens years have been subject to dramatic changes. Therefore, teenagers usually face the problem of adjusting to different cultures. On one hand, they have to accommodate the dominant thinking ofin their parent’s generations, while, on the other hand, they have to live their own lifestyles so as to fulfill the needs inof peer life, psychological developments and inter-personal relationships. Therefore it is natural that teenagers develop a unique lifestyle and culture that only belongs to them. The sub-sector culture of teenagers is the collective life styles, behavior standards and value systems. The greatest concernworry is the alienation from and resistance against the main culture ofin society.
We can reconcile the difference by doing the following. Firstly, eldersseniors should communicate with juniors with wisdom. In the meantime, we should promote good examples in their peer groups to set guidance. Secondly, traditional cultures play a vital role in the nurturing of personality. Every country has its fine cultural heritages. The concentrate consolidation of wisdom from ancient sages will facilitate the search for life’s meanings. Thirdly, the positive thinking in eldersenior citizens will set an example for teenagers to follow, which will encourage businesses to foster their corporate culture by doing so in order to attract In business, Tthis helps an individual company to run a good business and invite good workers to join the company. The earlier we start, the earlier we remove the old outdated concepts ofin the past.
In the one world philosophy, it is important to understand the concept ofthis is an environment of learning by doing and by taking immediate action; we can stave off world degradation and have more time in the world. We will have to do whatever we can to help promote the world citizenship mentality and in the at same time leading world citizens forward. No matter how busy I might be, or how far it would bethe distance, I have been tirelessly committed to this goal over inthe past forty years. It is my wish that all the world citizens can be inspired with never ending patience in the world. I believe more world citizens will pass down the true heart to world citizens ofin the next generation when they receive and understand the this message. It will benefit humanitypeople if more world citizens carry forward the message and practice it in their daily lives.
We are living in an ever-changing and fast-paced world. Only a heart of purity and sincerity will lead us to good opportunities. We shoulder the responsibilityies asof human beings and plan the futures for humanity. We correct and purify ourselves to exert positive influences to on the world, and deeply understand the importance of solidarity to the world, country, society, families and everyone living oin it.
The world after 2007 is changing beyond our recognition. Even though we should sail being on the sea, settle being on the land and try to be happy wherever we live, we should also be worried concerned about where the world is heading. When looking upward at the movement of the universe, we look for the source of happiness of every individual. As the UniverseHeaven’s movement is ever vigorous, so must a gentlemann enlightened person ceaselessly strive forwardalong. The source of happiness comes from diligence, perseverance and self-assistance. The deeper meaning of consolidating the people’s will and power is to deliver recommendations for the advancement of world citizenship education in order to broaden our minds and lighten up our ways. When thinking of this, our lives are more open and meaningfule.
AIDS, cancer and melancholia depression are the three main diseases that plague the world in the 21st century. While AIDS and cancer are discernible, depressionmelancholia is implicit and difficult to spot. DepressionMelancholia’s impact will linger among future generations in the coming century if people do not have positive thinking and exercise the wisdom of yin and yang.
At the lastIn closing, I would like to deliver a message – relaxing ourselves will unleash the great power of wisdom. Relaxation techniques will help us concentrate our minds, loosen tensions and realize our potentials. When we breathe deeply, change our thoughts and loose relax our muscles, we don’t worry or become overwhelmedmindless any more. And, our lifves will have another opportunity to blossomed.
When Heaven is about to place a great responsibility on a great man, it always first frustrates his spirit and will, exhausts his muscles and bones. World citizens are being tested by Heaven. We have to find the key of wisdom in the adversity to be adaptive to the changing environment. This is to understand our destinies and fulfill our missions. In the new century, world citizenship education has moved into the territory of harmonious life and the wisdom of yin and yang. A new page of human progress has been unfolded. When Heaven is about to place a great responsibility on a great man, it always first frustrates his spirit and will, exhausts his muscles and bones. World citizens are being tested by Heaven. We have to find the key of wisdom within the adversity, which is to be adaptive to the changing environment. This is necessary to understand our destinies and fulfill our missions. My words to the 21st century “will, the deterioration of the environment and human beings in the 21st century is so fast that they have to be managed as soon as possible. However, when I empty myself, the worry is released. Either my being concerninged or unconcerninged is natural. All these things happen to generations. It is just like oneness is the beginning and the end of all.” In this new century, world citizenship education has moved into the territory of harmonious life and the wisdom of yin and yang. A new page of human progress has been unfolded.