先修身齊家，再平天下

　　First Cultivate Yourself, Then Bring Peace to the World

　　＊培德女中9年級　吳星烨　文

　　By Shirley Wu, 9th grader of Developing Virtue Girls School

　　Everyone wants world peace, but this is not a goal that can be easily achieved. For example, friends squabble over the smallest matters. In our daily lives, there are millions of things that bother us and billions of problems to solve. Between countries there are similar difficulties too, so people gather together to solve tough situations. Some countries even fight each other due to different viewpoints and misunderstandings. This warfare and uproar causes the world to be in a constant state of unrest. How is it possible for this world to be peaceful

　　世界和平人人都想，卻不易得到。就拿最簡單的事來說吧，兩個好朋友可以爲芝麻綠豆小事而爭吵；日常生活中有數不清解決不了的瑣事；國與國之間也面臨同樣的問題，甚至不惜作戰，帶給世界許多惶恐不安。

　　I think human nature is a mixture of good and bad, thus we are born into this world. If human nature was 100% pure and full of goodness, then we would be way off in Heaven already. Most people have more of an evil nature than a good nature. Causing a person to decline is way easier than improving a person.

　　我認爲人性是善惡夾雜的，所以才生到這個汙濁的世界上。如果人性純善，就不會生在這個世上了。多數人的「惡習」比「善習」似乎多，因此墮落；跟向善比，向惡不知容易多少倍！

　　Notice that kids are pure, there is no sense of ”evilness” in them. However, as kids grow older, they gain more and more secular knowledge. Their environment contaminates their minds; their evil seeds start to develop. These angelic creatures thus lose their honesty and purity. Sometimes we even discover that our good deeds did not come from real good intentions.

　　譬如小孩子，原本天真無邪，在他們身上找不到一絲「惡」，但隨著時間成長，「知識」漸開，受到染汙，心中的「惡習」種子被周圍環境引發出來，就不再天真坦誠了，有時發現連自己的一些「善」都不真實。

　　As I grow older, I notice the dark side of myself, and my pretense in hiding it. There seems to be a dark small room in me that stores all the self-contradictions and bad habits. Everyone has that ugly little storeroom in himself. If we have the courage to open that room and let the light shine through, then we can know ourselves, change ourselves, purify ourselves; then we can give ourselves some room to breathe.

　　拿我自己來說吧，越長大越發現自己黑暗的一面，不喜歡別人看見自己懶惰、愛生氣、自私、妒嫉、孤僻的一面，也沒有勇氣面對自己的黑暗面，只知掩飾躲藏；心裏像有間黑暗的小房間，堆滿了矛盾和不好的習性，不去清理。如果我有勇氣打開那扇門，讓善的正的力量進去，用聖賢教導我們的智慧去清理幹淨，這樣改變自己，淨化自己，不也是一種解脫嗎？

　　If we want world peace, then we”ve got to start from the most fundamental level, or else this task is next to impossible. Evil is more effortlessly developed than good. We should apply more effort in improving ourselves first, pacifying our mind, and then benefiting the world. If we cannot make the world peaceful, at the very least we can make the environment around us peaceful. This might be a more practical way of bringing peace to the world.

　　不從根本上解決問題，而要求世界和平，幾乎不可能，因爲「惡」比「善」容易被引發出來，但是和平仍然可以是我們努力的目標。這世界上還是有善法有好人，我們能培養自己的品德，讓自己內心的世界先和平，再去地利益世界。我們一時或許沒有能力「平天下」，就先從「修身齊家」開始，至少不要與「惡」的力量同流合汙。所以我認爲以聖賢的教導，先修正自己的行爲，是比較實際的做法。