Love's all around you, just reach out and feel it

The question of love has been contemplated for thousands of years. What is love, how does it show, what is it based on and why do we love? Personally, I always feel closest to love when something captures my full attention. When the world around me moves noisily, but that moment seems frozen, because there is only one thing that counts. Because then, nothing else is important. Because love permits one to embrace the moment.

And nowhere else have I experienced this as many times, and as strongly, as in China. In the China of the older generation. The traditional China of the town parks, a heavenly micro-cosmos far from the everyday chaos. On a late afternoon, around the time the sun wears her warm evening coat.

Two women in their autumn years perform a kind of dance. Their look is locked on the eyes of their partners, radiating a warm affection. Together they step right, then left. They gently hold one another's hands. So gently in fact that the audience, which is invisible to the dancers, cannot make out if they are even touching one another.

Their feet seem to hover above the ground. In their deep concentration they seem to have left this planet. Their dance doesn't need audible music; indeed, the notes jump around them and sink happily into the void.

Young and old, rich and poor, healthy and sick, happy and sad people meet at the park. The trees and bushes are lush green. Their colors are inspired by the good mood of the passers-by. The birds sing amorously. A small temple stands at the end of long stairway snaking up a nearby mountain.

A few women sit on a stone bench, half under a big conker tree giving them welcome shade - even though the sun isn't strong anymore, it still blinds the unlucky one facing it - and knit colorful baby clothes for their grandchildren. A dozen spiky fruits lie on the floor next to some dead leaves. There is no stopping winter now.

A group of youngsters strolls aimlessly and merrily through the evening. They look at each other, whisper, smile, laugh. Sorrows have no room in their world. Whining is not very common in the everyday life of Chinese. If there were Olympic Games for bouncing back and if complaining was measured against content, the Chinese would have an excellent chance at winning the gold medal.

An ancient grandpa, each of his wrinkles lovely, holds a small child in his leathery hand. I wonder how much rice he has harvested during his time? The girl talks constantly, probably in her baby language still rather incomprehensibly, but the man has time, takes time, to listen. Over and over again their looks connect and testify to their contentment, one that anyone who tries can feel.

Three soldiers in green uniforms with golden buttons practice the hoisting of the Chinese flag on the mast in the center of the park. Soon, an important event will be held and this ceremony must go smoothly. Pride is written on the beautiful face of the oldest soldier who is pulling on the cord to make the flag rise higher and higher.

With an inner happiness and warm pleasure I observe my Chinese fellow men in the park. And even though I seem to understand them less the longer I live here, today and in this moment, I enclose them all in my heart. Maybe their art of loving has rubbed off on me, too? I finally understand the true meaning of the expression "peace of mind".