The Story of Dong-Lin Liu

When I was in my childhood, I had a dream that everyone on earth could live a wealthy life. Once I thought that it could be possible I devoted myself to it in my spare time. I was a volunteer to teach poor youth when I was an undergraduate. I hoped that teaching them academic knowledge and helping them to be enrolled in a better university could help them live a better life. I was also a member of Qizhen Leadership school in Zhejiang University in China where we discussed politics, economy and leadership. However, one cannot help all people with material things and in some ways, academic knowledge will be forgotten soon and have little on their hard life. I was upset about this.

Two years ago in 2016 when I graduated as a master in Tsinghua University, I had a gap year before being a PhD. I spent my time learning Chinese culture and Philosophy, Taoism and met a lot of people. I gradually found that though one who cannot be rich in material, they can definitely be wealthy in thoughts and feelings which is more important as this will lead to their peaceful mind and teach them how to live a better life by themselves. The saying “It’s better to teach a man fishing than to give him fish” is appropriate.
My Teacher and I shared our understanding of Taoism with several hundreds of people we met during the year. They may be having a hard time with business or family, or confused in their study or life. However, after several months of chatting with us, they felt better. They even began to share their feelings with others after another several months, which positively affected others also. This strengthened my original dream.

Now besides a PhD in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, I am a promoter of Chinese culture and philosophy, Taoism. I have an account in Weibo (a Chinese social media like Facebook or Twitter) and have over 15 K followers. I will share my feelings and understanding of Taoism daily on it and hope more and more people can be positively influenced by it.