人生本來一皮囊，不過飲食男女，浮生若夢，碌碌庸庸，終日塵土。然人有一情，則不止於覆肌膚之寒，填枯腸之飢，復有人文之求也。文學的吟唱，藝術的塗鴉，本無益於生物的繁衍，然世間偏偏有些痴人，拜石為樂，洗桐為心，躊躇花前月下，徘徊山上林間，琴棋度日，書畫終生。此如唐人張彥遠謂：『不為無益之事，安能悅有涯之生？』然此無益之事，豈非人人盡知？四百年前的董其昌，深感斯言：『千古同情，惟予獨信，非可向俗人道也。』人之情感，除以寄託文心，又能如何？人生那麼短促，個體如此渺小，焉能窮極宇宙廣袤？因之頓悟芥子納須彌也。很喜歡這篇序。大家一直都在說玩物喪志，但玩物就是令人生有生存和生活的分別。玩物很愉快。
It's the preface of the Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden compiled during the early-Qing Dynasty. I like it a lot. Let me try to roughly translate it.
Human are just a "leather bag". They will go back to the dust and earth sooner or later. But people don't just work hard for food and keeping themselves warm. They work so hard for art and entertainment which are things not useful for organisms to produce offspring. Somehow in this world there are crazy people admire stone for fun, washing Tung trees for their mind, walking under the moon and flowers, hanging out in the mountain and forest, playing chest for days, painting and doing calligraphy for life. Not doing unhelpful thing won't make them happy. Life is short and their bodies are small but they still do a lot to absorb as much things from the universe as possible. Like a mustard seed holding Mount Meru.
We are the mustard seeds.