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Zheng He's Voyages of Discovery, UCLA International Institute

Zheng He's Voyages of Discovery, UCLA International Institute

12 Ways To Know That You Love Someone

TWELVE: 12You talk with him/her late at night and when you go to bed you still think of him/her.
ELEVEN: 11You walk really slowly when you are with him/her.
TEN: 10You don't feel Ok when he/she is far away.
NINE: 9You smile when you hear his/her voice.
EIGHT: 8When you look at him/her,you do not see other people around you.You see only him/her.
SIX: 6He/She is everything you want to think.
FIVE: 5You realise that you smile every time you look at him/her.
FOUR: 4You would do anything to see him/her.
THREE: 3While you have been reading this, there was a person in your mind all the time.
TWO: 2You've been so busy thinking of that person that you didn't notice that number SEVEN is missing.
ONE: 1You are going to check above if that's true and now you are silently laughing to yourself. NOW MAKE A WISH! YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT THE MOST.......

So meaningful

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: 'I am blind, please help.' There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked,

'Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?' The man said, 'I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.

' What he had written was: 'Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it.'

Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing? Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind.

Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Moral of the Story: Be thankful for what you have.
Be creative.
Be innovative.
Think differently and positively.
Invite others towards good with wisdom.
Live life with no excuse and love with no regrets.
When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile.
Face your past without regret.
Handle your present with confidence.
Prepare for the future without fear.
Keep the faith and drop the fear.
Great men say, 'Life has to be an incessant process of repair and reconstruction, of discarding evil and developing goodness....

In the journey of life, if you want to travel without fear, you must have the ticket of a good conscience.

' The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling... And even more beautiful is, knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!

Wisdom

Those who speak much
are not necessarily possessed of wisdom.
The wise can be seen to be at peace with life
and free from all enmity and fear.

Dhammapada verse 258

How do we get wise? Perhaps trying to get wise is not the best
approach. Consider how struggling to become peaceful often stirs
things up while simply allowing the activity of heart and mind to
cease naturally calms things down. When we are looking for something
we’ve lost, we don’t always look in the most obvious places. We might
start there but then we need to be creative. Wisdom is not discovered
by following habits of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. The
Teachings tell us that when pain and disappointment come to us we can
learn to meet them with a quality of willingness and awareness that
leads to understanding. The same with happiness and delight; we can be
refreshed and renewed by our experience without becoming lost in it.
Enmity and fear are not necessarily obstacles. They can also be our
teachers pointing to a more spacious and wise way of living.

Bhikkhu Munindo

Why Women Cry

Why Women Cry

Watch her eyes
A little boy asked his mother, "Why are you crying?"

"Because I'm a woman," she told him.

"I don't understand," he said. His Mom just hugged him and said,
"And you never will."

Later the little boy asked his father,

"Why does mother seem to cry for no reason?"

"All women cry for no reason," was all his dad could say.

The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why women cry..

Finally he put in a call to God. When God got on the phone, he
asked, "God, why do women cry so easily?"

God said

"When I made the woman she had to be special.

I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the
world,yet gentle enough to give comfort.

I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection
that many times comes from her children.

I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going when everyone
else gives up, and take care of her family through sickness and
fatigue without complaining.

I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all
circumstances, even when her child has hurt her very badly.

I gave her strength to carry her husband through his faults and
fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart.

I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife,
but sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside
him unfalteringly.

And finally, I gave her a tear to shed. This is hers exclusively to
use whenever it is needed."

"You see my son," said God, "the beauty of a woman is not in the
clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair.

The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the
doorway to her heart - the place where love resides."

Maya Angelou

In April, Maya Angelou was interviewed by Oprah on her 70 birthday.

Oprah asked her what she thought of growing older.
And, there on television, she said it was 'exciting.' Regarding body
changes, she said there were many, occurring every day like her breasts.
They seem to be in a race to see which will reach her waist, first.

The audience laughed so hard they cried. She is such a simple and honest
woman, with so much wisdom in her words!

Maya Angelou said this:

I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today,
life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.

I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she
handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.

I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents,
you'll miss them when they're gone from your life.

I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as 'making a life'.

I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands;
you need to be able to throw some things back.

I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually
make the right decision.

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.

I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone.
People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.

I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget
what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.