toast master

Nature, beautiful, gratitude

We all live on a planet called earth in galaxy of the universe. Let me know if anyone doesn’t.

Long time ago, this planet was filled with dust and water, then they became continents and oceans, and bacteria appeared and evolved into fish, dinosaurs, mammals and human-being.

 

There was an English poem called All things bright and beautiful, the words by Cecil Frances Alexander, the first two sections read:

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours,
He made their tiny wings.

It’s a beautiful and popular poem for praising the nature and the God who created them. Coincidently, a famous Chinese dancer Yang Liping ever said, “someone lives for family generations, someone for enjoying, someone for experiencing and someone just want to have a look at the world just as I do. I come to the world, I want to see how the tree grows, how the river runs, how the cloud flows and how the dew condenses.”

It’s an attitude to the life, it’s appreciation and gratitude to the nature. We live everyday with bright and fresh heart, we look, we enjoy and we experience the world, we don’t when what may come tomorrow and we don’t need to look back too much, we know we live in this moment and we live it well.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day I live in a peaceful town, in my own little house with a garden, filled with flowers, trees and lawn. I sit at the shady place of a tree, drinking coffee or wine, smoking cigar, playing with one or more dogs, and a cat, only one cat, one is enough. That would be my most wanted old-age picture, when I check my memories, there would be the years at school, the years in Fidelity, the people I ever met, loved or hated, in the end, a little tiny old creature close his eyes and take his last breath on the earth, while a bright and smart spirit arise and fly into the significant universe with a heart of gratitude.

 End of story.

 

When I graduated UCLA, I moved to northern California, and I lived in a little town called Elk on the Mendocino coast, and I didn't have a phone or TV, but I had U.S. mail, and life was good back then, if you could remember it. I'd go to the general store for a cup of coffee and a brownie, and I'd ship my filmto San Francisco, and lo and behold, two days later, it would end up on my front door, which was way better than having to fight the traffic of Hollywood. (Music) I didn't have much money, but I had time and a sense of wonder. (Music)

0:51So I started shooting time-lapse photography. It would take me a month to shoot a four-minute roll of film, because that's all I could afford.

1:01I've been shooting time-lapse flowers continuously, non-stop, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for over 30 years, and to see them move is a dance I'll never get tired of. Their beauty immerses us with color, taste, touch. It also provides a third of the food we eat. (Music) Beauty and seduction is nature's tools for survival, because we protect what we fall in love with. It opens our hearts, and makes us realizewe are a part of nature and we're not separate from it. When we see ourselves in nature, it also connects us to every one of us, because it's clear that it's all connected in one.

1:48When people see my images, a lot of times they'll say, "Oh my God." Have you ever wondered what that meant? The "oh" means it caught your attention, makes you present, makes you mindful. The "my" means it connects with something deep inside your soul. It creates a gateway for your inner voice to rise up and be heard. And "God"? God is that personal journey we all want to be on, to be inspired, to feel like we're connected to a universe that celebrates life.

2:23Did you know that 80 percent of the information we receive comes through our eyes? And if you compare light energy to musical scales, it would only be one octave that the naked eye could see, which is right in the middle? And aren't we grateful for our brains that can, you know, take this electrical impulse that comes from light energy to create images in order for us to explore our world? And aren't we grateful that we have hearts that can feel these vibrations in order for us to allow ourselves to feel the pleasure and the beauty of nature? (Music)

3:04Nature's beauty is a gift that cultivates appreciation and gratitude. (Music) So I have a gift I want to share with you today, a project I'm working on called Happiness Revealed, and it'll give us a glimpse into that perspective from the point of view of a child and an elderly man of that world.

3:31Child: When I watch TV, it's just some shows that you just — that are pretend, and when you explore, you get more imagination than you already had, and when you get more imagination, it makes you want to go deeper in so you can get more and see beautifuller things, like the path, if it's a path, it could lead you to a beach, or something, and it could be beautiful. (Music)

4:35Elderly Man: You think this is just another day in your life? It's not just another day. It's the one day that is given to you today. It's given to you. It's a gift. It's the only gift that you have right now, and the only appropriate response is gratefulness. If you do nothing else but to cultivate that response to the great gift that this unique day is, if you learn to respond as if it were the first day in your life and the very last day,then you will have spent this day very well.

5:45Begin by opening your eyes and be surprised that you have eyes you can open, that incredible array of colors that is constantly offered to us for pure enjoyment. Look at the sky. We so rarely look at the sky.We so rarely note how different it is from moment to moment, with clouds coming and going. We just think of the weather, and even with the weather, we don't think of all the many nuances of weather. We just think of good weather and bad weather. This day, right now, has unique weather, maybe a kind that will never exactly in that form come again. That formation of clouds in the sky will never be the same as it is right now. Open your eyes. Look at that.

6:54Look at the faces of people whom you meet. Each one has an incredible story behind their face, a story that you could never fully fathom, not only their own story, but the story of their ancestors. We all go back so far, and in this present moment, on this day, all the people you meet, all that life from generations and from so many places all over the world flows together and meets you here like a life-giving water, if you only open your heart and drink. (Music)

7:53Open your heart to the incredible gifts that civilization gives to us. You flip a switch and there is electric light. You turn a faucet and there is warm water and cold water, and drinkable water. It's a gift that millions and millions in the world will never experience.

8:20So these are just a few of an enormous number of gifts to which we can open your heart. And so I wish you that you will open your heart to all these blessings, and let them flow through you, that everyone whom you will meet on this day will be blessed by you, just by your eyes, by your smile, by your touch,just by your presence. Let the gratefulness overflow into blessing all around you, and then it will really be a good day. (Music)

9:26(Applause)

9:27Louie Schwartzberg: Thank you. Thank you very much. (Applause)