Predestination

　　How many heavens do we find? Are they also divided into the oriental and the occidental world? Is God a Chinese or westerner? Which is the greatest religion among Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity, Catholicity and Islamism? All religions advocate doing good deeds and not killing, but why do they keep contending against each other, even fighting and killing among themselves? Is the paradise the same one in all religions? There's only one sun in the sky, and there should be only one emperor in a country, but do all religions believe in the same God, or do they have different gods of their own? If all of us expected God's help, wouldn't God be too busy and too tired?

　　Does God respect science? If not, why does he allow computers and telecommunications to run rampant? If it is God who created human beings, then doesn't He feel out of control of what the human being are doing now (the nuclear weapons and bio-chemical weapons, etc.)?

　　We human beings have an origin, and is it the same with God? Does God get married? Is God hereditary, or is it the same ever-lasting one?

　　We have all those questions but who can answer them?.

　　Predestination needs us to strive for; friendship needs us to maintain; good will needs us to treasure and future needs us to create. There is no Savior, nor Goddess of Mercy who once saved people in the past but cannot do anything to help the people at the present. The world is developing too fast.

　　People have to work together and associate with each other. Talking about predestination, it's just a kind of explanation about what has happened, and I'm afraid nobody can predict it before hand. From ancient times till the 1980' s, once getting married, the couple had to stick to each other for their whole life. Can we say it is because of their life-long predestination? It is just because of the marriage system. In the western countries, life-long marriage is rare. Can we say it is because their predestination makes it so? It is actually the result of human nature. The color of love could be attached to predestination, but not the color of superstition.

　　Predestination is a lovely word which we should treasure and respect. In the present world, we should always follow the win-win or multi-win policy, instead of being single-handed. In order to achieve success, we must gain mass support instead of indulging in self-admiration. We might as well call the communication, the cooperation, the common concerns and the common aspirations of human beings “predestination”.

　　Translated by Zhang Baodan

　　緣

　　北京外國語大學(xué)北戴河外語培訓(xùn)基地校長 宋遠利

　　人世間有許多東西即沒有答案，也解釋不清。例如幾十億的人類，為什么就你們倆結(jié)為夫妻？為什么天天在一起沒感情，素不相識的會一見鐘情？為什么一家人會天天吵架，又吵而不散？為什么看去很般配的又不能結(jié)為連理？為什么一個為另一個付出的太多？為什么多情總被無情棄？……

　　百思不得其解，于是人們創(chuàng)造了“緣”這個包羅萬象、包容萬物的詞匯。為了左右逢緣，人們又派生了“情緣”、“孽緣”、“善緣 ” 、“惡緣”等幾大支脈。諸如：“有緣千里來相會，無緣對面不相識”，“千里姻緣一線牽”，甚至還創(chuàng)造了“月下佬”、“有緣無份”、“有份無緣”、“相逢即是緣”，“冤家路窄”，“不是冤家不聚頭”等。再解釋不通，那就求助于“前生后世”了。連林黛玉流淚都是為了還前世欠賈寶玉的澆灌之情。