The Grace of the Useless

She told me she had been wondering what kind of mindset she should have for a talk like this — what kind of state she should be in.

Should she speak as though she were chatting with a friend, she said, or as if she were giving a report — a formal presentation of what she had to say in these dozens of minutes?

Then she said that after thinking about it, she realized this year was an especially important one for her.

She said, “This year, I turned thirty — such a frightening age.”

She said she had been thinking about the old saying, ‘At thirty, one stands.’

And she said she had always wanted to find an opportunity to reflect on that, to open a document on her computer and write down what she had learned in the past thirty years — what direction she believed her life and her art should take from here.

She told me she wanted to make that into a kind of small personal summary, a private reflection.

And then she laughed and said, “Maybe that’s just a Capricorn thing.

Without a summary, I always feel like I don’t know how to take the next step forward.”

She said that maybe some of the people in the audience didn’t know her, so she wanted to speak with the openness of meeting a friend for the first time — to share what she did and what she wanted to do.

“My name is Lin Xi,” she said, “two woods for Lin, and Xi like the morning light.”

She said that when she introduced herself, she usually described herself in three ways:

She was a craftsperson, because she painted;

she was also a teacher of craftspeople;

and she was a mother — she loved her son deeply, and she said he had taught her many things.

She said these three words captured her state of being very precisely.

Then she showed a painting — her self-portrait from two years earlier.

In it, she said, she held a parrot on her hand.

On that hand was a thumb ring; she wore a traditional Chinese jacket, and cloth shoes.

She said she felt the painting expressed an inner state she longed for — a certain kind of life she aspired to.

She told me she had always loved playing; every interesting thing drew her in completely, made her want to devote herself to it.

She remembered that a friend once asked her, “I’ve listened to some of your Xuantong classroom courses, or read about them — I think your existence is kind of amazing. You seem so blind.”

The friend had said, “When you say things like, ‘Have intention but no purpose’ — it sounds okay coming from you, but if anyone else said it, it would sound so strange, so out of sync with the modern world.”

She said she thought that was actually true.

She admitted she herself felt she was indeed rather blind.

When she opened that document on her computer, she realized that she had never walked through life with long-term plans.

She said she took each step simply because she liked something, and then she did it —

“Just like now,” she said, “there’s a beam of light shining in front of me. I can’t see the surroundings clearly, but that light attracts me, so I walk toward it.”

She said her painting followed that same logic.

Teachers had always told her, “You should paint like this,” or “You should paint like that.”

From childhood through university, there had always been many opinions.

But in the end, she said, what decided her direction was always that one beam of light in her heart.

Then she showed some scholar’s studio objects — small pieces she loved most: a Buddha’s hand fruit, a tiny insect, a brush rest shaped like a mountain, books, an incense burner.

She said she always painted from real objects, because she enjoyed making tea in her studio, sitting in front of something beautiful, and studying it stroke by stroke.

She said it felt much like what singers or musicians did — a dialogue with oneself, finding the right tone, the right key, to express what one finds beautiful.

She showed me a small plump bird she had painted — and said she liked the green one on the right the most, because it was the fattest; it looked as if it had eaten best.

Then she said, “The title of today’s talk is The Beauty of Uselessness.”

And she remembered that the first time she had heard the word “useless” was when she read Dream of the Red Chamber as a child.

She recalled that Jia Baoyu quoted a line from Zhuangzi:

“Those who are capable labor, and those who are wise worry; those who are incapable seek nothing — they eat simple food and wander freely, drifting like a boat unmoored.”

She noted that another version replaced “capable” with “clever,” but the meaning was the same.

She said that line meant that someone who sees themselves as having little use, little purpose in the world, might actually live the happiest life — like the little bird in her painting.

She said the bird looked so content because it was at ease with its own state.

Then she said that recently she’d had a revelation she wanted to share.

She had been in Paris, on the Left Bank, where she spent three days observing a homeless man.

She said, “He was adorable.”

When the weather was bad, he would hide under a corner to keep dry, drinking something and watching the rain.

When the weather was good, he would take off his clothes.

She said he seemed very aware of temperature — dressing heavily when cold and lightly when hot.

Sometimes he’d knock on a car window and say, ‘Hey brother, got a cigarette?’ and the people inside would naturally hand him one.

She said she watched him for three days as he paced up and down the same street.

And among all the people she saw in Paris, she said, he looked the happiest.

That was when she thought of Jia Baoyu’s line again — “eat simply and drift like an unmoored boat.”

She said his life must have reached the bottom — “It’s just like that, and he feels fine about it,” she said — “and because of that, he’s gained a kind of freedom, a joyful freedom as natural as the weather itself.”

She added quickly, “I’m not saying everyone should become homeless — of course not.

A Capricorn would never do that.”

But she said that man gave her a huge insight: that a person’s happiness truly doesn’t depend on external things.

He could be happy, because he was free — because he didn’t need much.

And that, she said, was what made him happy.

“So when I talk about the beauty of uselessness,” she said, “I don’t mean that we are useless.

I mean that when you act, you shouldn’t think about usefulness as a motivation.”

She said she would try to explain that more clearly later.

Then she showed another painting — two birds again, one of her favorites.

It was titled Endlessly Looking at Each Other, because, she said, “These two little birds have so much affection in their silent gaze. I love that.”

She said she loved spring — flowers, peach blossoms, willow green — and that her paintings tended to have lively, bright, springlike colors.

Traditional ink paintings, she said, could sometimes feel a little solemn or autumnal — full of learning but heavy in mood — whereas hers were more like spring.

She showed sketches of flowers she painted from life.

Every week, she said, she went to the flower market to buy blossoms she liked, brought them home, and painted them at her table.

Then she’d have tea or read a little.

She said, “To others, these may look like just paintings, but to me, each one is a happy morning.”

About two years ago, she said, she met some friends who ran a website and a Taobao shop called “Three Rooms, Two Halls.”

After getting to know them, she thought, “This is a good idea.”

So she began letting them represent her paintings, and also collaborated with them on projects.

She showed one of those collaborations — a project called Gifts for Babies.

It accepted commissions from friends who wanted portraits of their children.

She said she loved painting children so much that the project brought her immense joy.

She showed some of those paintings — cute, tender, full of life.

One, she said, was part of a “Flower and Gardener” series: the two girls at the top were sisters — the older one holding a potted plant happily, while the younger one, looking miserable, watered it.

She said she loved those subtle, slightly pitiful, yet adorably silly expressions children made.

Her favorite piece was the one with the elephant.

The reference photo had shown a child clinging to a playground slide, but she thought that was boring.

Later, while taking her son to the zoo, she had him sit on an elephant’s trunk — and she thought, “That’s a good idea.”

So she painted the child sitting on the elephant’s trunk instead.

She said, “You know, children are scared in moments like that. They always look back to see if their parents are there — that’s the expression I love most.”

Then she said, “These are the kinds of things I love — fun things, though not necessarily useful.”

She said she adored antique European lace — a very traditional craft.

On the left, she showed a Rembrandt portrait of a hand and a small painting; on the right, she showed her collection of lace from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

She said she often picked up a piece and wondered which shirt collar or cuff she could sew it onto — but sometimes she couldn’t bear to cut it, thinking it would be wasteful or too luxurious.

So she thought maybe she’d frame it instead.

In addition to painting, she said she also did design work related to craft — collaborating with certain brands and products.

One of those collaborations was a deck of playing cards made with Shang Xia, a fine Chinese handicraft brand.

She said she painted every single detail on every card face, and the deck came in a small red sandalwood box.

When the cards were released, she went to Shanghai for the launch event at Shang Xia’s store.

They invited a magician to perform a little gambling game — but instead of chips, they used small Pu’er tea bricks.

She said, “That was the first time in my life I ever gambled — with my own cards.”

She laughed and said that using those cards made gambling feel elegant —

because every image was something like Taihu stones, qilin beasts, peaches of immortality, or lovely birds.

She said, “You realize that the same act, when done in a refined way, feels completely different.”

She said she felt lucky that day — and her beginner’s luck was strong.

She won quite a bit, and when she returned to Beijing, her carry-on bag was full of Pu’er tea bricks.

Then she told me about a project she had been working on for almost two years — designing interior elements for Bentley cars.

She said that in a few months people would probably be able to see it.

She had spent some time at Bentley’s factory in England and said she admired an older woman who worked there immensely.

Bentley cars, she said, were all handmade.

That woman, beautifully dressed and wearing fine jewelry, sat in a beautiful room with a cup of coffee beside her, stitching leather onto steering wheels — one stitch at a time.

She said she had stood there watching her for almost twenty minutes, not daring to breathe too loudly.

The woman never looked up, never changed her rhythm of breath, and kept sewing the wheel.

She said, “That must be what enlightenment looks like.”

She said she didn’t think artisans and artists were very different.

“When a craftsperson pours their heart into their work,” she said, “they become an artist.

And when an artist works with the heart of a craftsperson — with care, with presence — there’s no difference between the two.”

She then showed a photo of herself with the owners of Three Rooms, Two Halls, her collaborators.

On the screen were images of water pots whose designs were inspired by Chen Hongshou, a Ming-dynasty painter she deeply admired.

She said he had been a remarkable aesthetic thinker, infusing refined literati taste into his paintings.

She said she imagined how wonderful it would be if those elegant objects in his paintings could exist in our daily lives — as real brush pots, water holders, or ink rests.

“So we try to do that,” she said, “to make beautiful things like fans, or painted porcelain cups — things that people can actually use.”

She said that even that deck of playing cards was a kind of tribute to Chen Hongshou, since he had painted a set of Water Margin playing cards used for drinking games.

“So my deck,” she said, “was my own way of saluting him.”She said that everything she had talked about up to that point — all those paintings and projects — belonged to the first part of her life, the part where she was a craftsperson.

Then she said, “Now I want to tell you about the second part — the part where I became a teacher of craftspeople.”

She told me that around 2010, she began to have a new thought.

She said, “I felt my life was becoming a little dull.”

She wasn’t someone who liked to go out and chat or socialize with friends much; she said it always felt like a waste of time.

She spent nearly every day alone in her studio reading books.

The only time she regularly went out was when she studied traditional Chinese medicine — when her teacher had consultations, she would go along to observe, to help copy prescriptions.

“That was basically it,” she said.

“That was my only regular contact with people — a kind of rhythm for my breathing, a balance with the world.”

Then she said she realized she should find something new — something that wouldn’t make her feel socially burdened, but would still allow her to meet people regularly and share with them.

She said she had thought of many ideas, but none felt right; everything seemed to turn into a kind of socializing in the end.

Then one day, she said, a thought suddenly appeared in her mind:

“How can I find people who, when the Mid-Autumn Festival comes, will eat mooncakes and admire chrysanthemums with me; who, when the Spring Festival comes, will write couplets or listen to Kunqu opera with me?”

She said she loved doing those things and wondered how she could meet people who loved them too.

Then she said, “Suddenly I had an idea: I’ll start a classroom.”

Because, she explained, she had already been teaching some friends to write calligraphy and paint, and she had accumulated a lot of experience teaching complete beginners — people who had never held a brush before.

She said she wanted to use that experience, but without having too many people — just a few who could paint, read, drink tea, and eat pastries together.

She said, “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

She remembered that afternoon very clearly.

She said, “I was sitting at my desk when the idea came to me, and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.”

Then she immediately posted a message on Weibo to see how people would react.

And she said, “In no time, I received over a hundred emails from people wanting to study.”

She showed me a picture from the beginning of that year — the enrollment exhibition and tea gathering for the second session of the Xuantong Classroom.

In the photo was a large collaborative work: the students had all copied Yan Zhenqing’s Stele of Diligent Service.

She said they had mounted it; it was as large as the whole background behind her that day.

“It actually looked quite impressive,” she said with a little smile.

She said she felt proud of her students.

Then she said she was often asked how her classroom was different from other places where people learned calligraphy or painting.

“I think,” she said, “the biggest difference lies in our way of thinking.”

On the wall outside the classroom, there was a paragraph posted — she told me that anyone interested could also read it on their Weibo page.

She paraphrased it for me:

“Every student who comes to Xuantong should understand that they’re not just here to acquire a technique or a skill.

They’re here to learn with a non-utilitarian, yet rigorous and dedicated attitude — to communicate with the ancients, to converse with history.

They must be able to connect with the spirit of those before us, but also possess hands capable of creating meaning for the present.

Because learning tradition is not about becoming an ancient person — we cannot be that — it is about creating today.”

She said that at the start of every class, they began with meditation.

“Not because meditation is special,” she said, “but because, in the Eastern Han dynasty, Cai Wenji’s father, Cai Yong, wrote a short but very important text in the history of calligraphy called On the Brush.

He said that before writing, one should ‘sit in silence and think quietly, following the ease of the mind; words unspoken, breath undisturbed, the spirit collected — as if facing the utmost sovereign — then all will be good.’”

She explained what it meant:

“Before you write, you must return to your inner self.

You must not speak.

You must let your breath calm.

You must draw all your brilliance, all your outward energy, back inside.

And then — ‘as if facing the utmost sovereign.’”

She said that was her favorite line.

“It describes the perfect mood: when you face the person you most love or most respect, your heart feels steady, but also just slightly nervous — not so nervous that you can’t act, but enough to keep you reverent.

That sense of awe,” she said, “is the best state for calligraphy.”

She said they placed great importance on art history too — spending much time studying how ancient artists dealt with their problems, and borrowing their insights to handle modern ones.

The classroom, she said, also offered courses on wellness, flower arranging, tea ceremony, guqin music, and even some things she personally liked — such as writing.

She said, “Writing is so difficult. Apart from learning it in language class, we never think of how important it really is.

But when you have conflicts with someone you love, you realize — you can quarrel ten thousand times, but nothing resolves it like writing a sincere letter, an email that reveals your true feelings.

That’s the power of writing.”

So, she said, her classroom offered many impractical courses — “very impractical ones,” she said with a laugh — but she found them all meaningful and fun.

She showed some of her students’ works after a few months or a year of study.

Some were already very good.

She pointed out one painting of bamboo that she loved, and others depicting golf bags and cameras — “small things from everyday life,” she said.

“When you stop just looking at something with your eyes and instead try to draw it,” she said, “your gaze changes.”

She said one student once wrote to her:

“Teacher, since I started painting, my whole world has changed.

I discovered how different autumn leaves are from spring leaves — how every leaf is different — and I’ve truly felt beauty in the process.”

She smiled at that, and said quietly, “That’s my life.”

Then she said the last role she wanted to talk about was being a mother.

She said, “What my son has taught me most is to freely and completely accept and express oneself.”

She said, “Sometimes I wonder — how can he be so shamelessly free? He can roll on the ground just because he wants a cookie.”

She laughed and said, “Why can’t I do that? I can be starving in the middle of a class, and even though everyone’s still in session, I can’t just sit on the floor and cry, ‘Let me eat!’ Why can’t I?”

Then she said she realized she had lost a kind of freedom.

“Maybe it sounds funny,” she said, “but I’ve really thought about it seriously.”

She said she realized it was because of fear — the fear of not being accepted by others.

“I think every artist, every craftsperson, everyone who has to face both themselves and the world, knows this pain,” she said.

“The pain of wanting to adjust yourself, to improve yourself, just to earn approval or affection.”

Then she looked thoughtful and said, “I think we all know that, right?

We’re all constantly learning about ourselves through others’ reactions.”

She said that now, at thirty, facing her friends and everyone who knew her, she had come to realize:

“I don’t need to keep improving myself just to be accepted.

That’s what my son taught me.”

She said, “He does all sorts of infuriating things — and I still love him just as much.

So I believe that’s the essence of love: you need to be yourself, not a ‘better’ version of yourself.

You need to recognize yourself first.”

Then she said, “Now, let’s come back to the topic of The Beauty of Uselessness.

What does ‘useless’ actually mean?”

She said, “Let’s start with ‘useful.’

‘Use’ is simple: you perform an action upon an object, and that produces a result.

That’s usefulness.”

“So in a world of usefulness,” she said, “there’s always an implied purpose — an implied gain and loss.

With purpose comes gain and loss, success and failure, and then attachment.”

“But in a world of uselessness,” she said, “it’s not that you don’t produce results — it’s that your focus stays inward, on your own source.

You don’t have to become someone else to enjoy happiness.

It’s an inward excavation.”

She said that was why they practiced meditation before class.

“We spend too little time with ourselves,” she said.

“Our world is filled with concern about what others are doing — not what we truly need, not who really matters to us, not whether we’re spending time on what makes us happy.”

She said she observed that many of her friends spent most of their time on things that made them unhappy.

“So,” she said, “having some time to sit still and ask your heart — that’s when you realize how neglected your inner world is.”

Then she said, “Why do I think calligraphy is the best way for modern people to return to their inner selves?

Because meditation, yoga, and other practices are tied to religion or tradition — they’re complex.

But calligraphy is something every Chinese person learned as a child, something we all can touch.”

“When you find yourself able to control that soft brush so steadily — when you make it write beautiful strokes — you’ve already learned to steady your mind,” she said.

“Your heart must be completely focused for that to happen.”

“So,” she said, “the essence of uselessness isn’t that it’s useless, but that it draws from an inner source that doesn’t depend on the outside.”Then she said, “The second thing I want to talk about is that in ancient philosophy, the idea of ‘use’ is often paired with another concept — ti, or essence.”

She said, “In Chinese thought, people often asked whether there exists some abstract Dao or Li beyond the physical world.”

Then she paused and said softly, “I don’t know the answer. Maybe I’ll need a long time to think about it.”

“But,” she said, “its manifestation, its transformation into action — that’s what’s called use.”

Then she gave an example.

“It’s like this,” she said. “The moon in the sky and the moons reflected in thousands of lakes — which one is the real moon?”

She said, “Actually, every moon is real. But if you’re willing to lift your head and look at the one in the sky, you’ll understand all the reflections in the water.”

“That moon in the sky,” she said, “is like our heart — like the original essence within us that connects to the whole world.”

She said, “When the ancients said ‘All things are contained within me’, they were talking about that essence.”

“When we sit quietly,” she said, “when we gather our senses — eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind — and draw them back inward, we can perceive that essence.”

“So,” she said, “the idea of uselessness also means returning from the reflections in the water to the moon in the sky — letting the heart become like a mirror, able to reflect the vastness of all things.”

Then she said, “The third thing I want to talk about is: what is beauty?”

“We’ve talked about use and uselessness,” she said, “so what is beauty itself?”

She said that in ancient etymology, the character for beauty, mei, was explained as gan — sweetness.

“Sweetness,” she said, “means a sweet taste.”

“So,” she said, “beauty is a kind of sweetness.”

She smiled and said, “I think everyone has tasted something sweet. You must remember the first time you tasted candy as a child — that happiness that came straight from your heart.

That taste,” she said, “was what the ancients called beauty.”

Then she mentioned a book she loved — The Last Ten Lessons of a Yoga Master.

In it, the author wrote about how to approach the reality of the world.

“He said,” she told me, “you must taste it — experience it as you would taste food.

If you can feel genuine sweetness — a sweetness that’s completely real — then that is reality.

And because it is real, it is beautiful.”

She said, “So maybe, standing or sitting here, you can think about your own life — the things you’re working on right now, the things you’re striving for.

When you taste them in your heart, are they truly sweet?”

Then she said quietly, “I don’t know the answer for anyone else.

But sometimes, when I catch myself lost in something unpleasant or heavy, I stop and taste it.”

“If it tastes sweet,” she said, “I keep doing it.

If it doesn’t, I stop.”

She said, “Because I don’t think you can reach a happy place through a painful process.

You can only reach happiness through a happy process — or reach what transcends happiness through what transcends happiness.”

Then she said she often heard her friends laugh and tease her:

“They say, ‘You talk so easily — you’re lucky, you do these useless things that everyone somehow admires.’”

She smiled and said, “But I think everything is created by the mind.

Our lives, everything we have — they’re all our choices.”

“When you choose to do something that makes you happy,” she said, “something that feels right for this one life you have — that’s enough.”

She said, “Life is short. Those of you here who are older than me — you know that already.

Time passes in an instant.”

Then she said, “A friend once told me, ‘Life is too short to mess up.’

That made me afraid of messing up.

So every time I make a decision, I tread as if on thin ice — as if standing at the edge of an abyss. I taste the decision.”

“I don’t weigh pros and cons,” she said. “I taste it.”

“I ask myself — can I feel its sweetness in my heart, in every drop of my blood?”

She said, “That’s what I do with Xuantong Classroom, with my paintings, with everything I’ve chosen — I just want to share that idea: that everyone has their own spiritual tongue.

You can taste.

And when you taste sweetness, follow where it leads you.”

Then she said, “Beauty has no theory, no history, really.

It’s like my son in the yard — when he sees a pretty lady, he smiles so sweetly.

That doesn’t need to be taught.”

“Beauty,” she said, “is like seeing a plate of fruit — you reach for the one that looks ripest and sweetest, take a bite, and say, ‘It’s delicious.’

It’s that simple.”

“But,” she said, “we often don’t trust ourselves.

We prefer to trust other people’s opinions, or someone else’s guarantees.”

She said, “Uselessness means finding the abundant source within yourself — to sincerely taste life, to taste existence, to taste the truth of people — and then to learn through art.”

She said, “Art teaches us the rhythm of life’s four seasons — growth and rest — and it teaches us to respect that rhythm.”

“When you look at a written character,” she said, “every one has its main stroke; and when you line them up, you must arrange them properly for them to appear beautiful.”

“That,” she said, “is the same as the natural order of seasons, flowers, mountains, and rivers.

All contain the principles of beauty.”

“You learn and feel those principles,” she said, “and then release them — apply them to your life and your creations.”

Then she said, “That’s what The Beauty of Uselessness really means to me.”

She paused, then smiled again and said, “Since we’re talking about the beauty of uselessness, I want to give everyone some suggestions — how to feel it, this sweet and gentle thing.”

“The first,” she said, “is to keep a book of poems by your bed — ancient poetry.

For example, I love Song-dynasty lyrics, so I keep a book of ci, or maybe some old poems.

Or, if you prefer Western poets, read them too.

Reading those drifting, borderless words can pull you away from the daily grind of rice, oil, and salt.”

“The second,” she said, “is to try sitting quietly for ten minutes before bed — even five is fine.

Close your eyes, breathe slowly, and look at what’s inside your inner world.”

She said, “Our inner world mirrors the outer one.

It has its sun, its rivers, its trees, its wind.”

“The third,” she said, “is to take those thoughts that seem aimless or vague — the things you truly value — and write them down.”

She said, “What you choose depends on your values — what you think is important.”

She told me a foreign friend once said, “Here in China, people don’t seem to value anything.”

“But I think,” she said, “each of you must have your own values.

They determine your choices.”

“For example,” she said, “if one morning I see a flower and think it’s important, I’ll wake up early to paint it, even if I’m sleepy.

Or, if I think giving my family a hug, turning back to say something sweet, is important, then I won’t feel rushed to get to my next destination.

Because that moment matters.”

“So,” she said, “take those things that feel important but aren’t urgent — and write them down.

Put them in an envelope.

Then, over time, spend your time doing those things — little by little.”

“And after a year,” she said, “open the envelope and check them off.

See which ones you did.”

She said, “They may be small things, but they’ll help you understand the beauty of uselessness.”

Then her tone softened.

“Beijing cools quickly,” she said.

“I went south for a while, and when I came back, I suddenly found I needed thick blankets at night.”

She said she remembered a line from a poem: ‘In youth, we knew not the taste of sorrow.’

“I may not have reached the age to say, ‘How fine the autumn chill,’” she said, “but I can already feel that crisp, solemn air in the season.”

“I hope all of you,” she said, “can always feel that same urgency — gentle but insistent — the kind that doesn’t rush you, yet doesn’t let you stay still.”

“And I hope you can taste your own life — its bitterness and its sweetness.”

Then she said, “I wish for all of you more sweetness ahead.

But even bitterness — that, too, is a gift.”

She said softly, “Everything we experience is a gift.

It will never come again.”

“So whether good or bad,” she said, “I hope that you — and I — can use all our strength to cherish every moment.”

Then she smiled one last time and said, “And I hope that in your future life, you will taste more of the beauty of uselessness — and taste the true sweetness of being alive.”