I.Origin

Peace is highly sought after and valued in the world today. Peace is the universal hope of all humanity, a basic condition for the pursuit of happiness and a basic human right.

As the scope of peace ranges from personal “inner peace” to universal world peace, achieving true peace represents a long journey that requires the coordination of different conditions combined with the input and efforts of various academic subjects and fields. Humanity’s long-standing desire for peace and pursuit of related ideologies has led to the relatively recent formation of Peace Studies, a multidisciplinary field of research. Related studies such as politics, military affairs, diplomacy, economics, education, socialism, culture, jurisprudence, and psychology all contribute to the analysis and researches of Peace Studies in hopes of figuring out an effective method to create consensus on how to achieve permanent world peace.

Norwegian scholar, Galtung, J. pioneered modern Peace Studies. His peace research covers diagnosis, prevention, and medical care. His theoretical structure recognizes two aspects, a “negative” and a “positive”, to peace. The former refers to relatively superficial treatments including attaining a cessation of ongoing violence. The latter requires a deeper and more fundamental treatment that supports effective prevention of conflicts with the aim of reaching eternal peace. In other words, the fundamental treatment focuses on how to eliminate structural violence caused by ill-functioning political, economic, social, and cultural systems. The induction of such violence is often related to oppression, exploitation, discrimination, and prejudice that are followed by such phenomena as diaspora, poverty, starvation, and alienation.

This idea seems to be in agreement with the hierarchy of needs proposed by the humanistic psychologist Maslaw, A.H. Maslaw posited that the most essential human need is the satisfaction of physical comfort. Only after such is achieved do people invest in satisfying needs such as security, love, belonging, respect, and self-fulfillment. Therefore, Galtung’s theory teaches that preventing conflicts and achieving permanent peace requires the eradication of the “cultural violence” that rises from structural violence and promotion of the positive values inherent in the cultural system.

Among the world’s four ancient civilizations, only Chinese culture has remained viable into modern times. It has increased in greatness through the millennia because Chinese culture is a structural system that involves a surface structure defined by a massive materialistic culture and an underlying structure of a long-preserved value system with highly positive values. The “value system” here refers to the orthodox lineage of Chinese culture based on Confucianism, which emphasizes the five values of ”Benevolence”, “Honesty”, ”Neutrality”, “Action”, and “Public” as foundation principles. Confucianism creates neutrality and harmony. Neutrality is the hub of Tao, while harmony is the base of virtue. Both Tao and virtue are the roots of peace, which is the quintessence of Chinese culture. British philosopher Prof. A.J. Toynbee, a well-known Sinologist, once wrote, “If this world wants peace, it shall encourage Chinese culture.”

The Chinese legacy is deeply moored to practical concepts for universal peace. Its philosophical basis lies in Yi-Ching, the most precious inheritance passed down from China’s great ancient sages. It reveals the harmonic laws of the universe and the mechanisms by which nature and all living beings sustain themselves. Such unison establishes harmony and balance within and between individuals, between individuals and the community, between communities, and between humankind and the surrounding environments (the natural, social and cultural). Yi-Ching thus holds “universal peace” as its ultimate goal, and its precepts have nourished and sustained Chinese cultural evolution through the millennia and remain a beacon of future world peace.

Grand Master Huen-Yuan in Taiwan created “Holy Weixinism” (唯心聖教唯心宗) to promote Chinese culture and the orthodox lineages of Yi-Ching and Feng Shui. His goal is to create world peace and universal harmony. He has taught and promoted Yi-Ching and Feng Shui worldwide through religion and education for the past 28 years, and continues to support developments for peace and harmony worldwide and for improvements in the general condition of humanity. As a practitioner of Mr. Alfred Nobel's high ideals, Grand Master Huen-Yuan both teaches the religion and culture of peace and works in practical ways to give humankind real hope in a future in which universal peace plays the defining role.