Tweet

Heaven and Earth

Written by: Sharif Khan

Article Overview: "Good fortune and misfortune take effect through perseverance. The way of heaven and earth becomes visible through perseverance. The way of sun and moon become bright through perseverance. All movements under heaven become uniform through perseverance.” -I Ching (B.C. 1150)

Heaven and Earth

"Good fortune and misfortune take effect through perseverance. The way of heaven and earth becomes visible through perseverance. The way of sun and moon become bright through perseverance. All movements under heaven become uniform through perseverance.”
-I Ching (B.C. 1150)

I saw a powerful, moving, and soulful movie by Oliver Stone called “Heaven and Earth,” starring Tommy Lee Jones and Hiep Thi Le. It is a true story about Le Ly (Hiep Thi Le) a small-village Vietnamese woman experiencing war and barbarism in her torn country and eventually moving to America to successfully start her own business. Tommy Lee Jones plays the troubled American Soldier that Le LY falls in love with and marries. He delivers a stellar performance dealing with the de-humanizing training of the Marine Corps which turns him into a ‘killing machine.’

Connected to her land by planting and harvesting and her Buddhist spirituality, Le Ly’s peaceful village life is ripped apart by war and her destiny thrown to the four winds. She goes threw torture, rape, and unimaginable suffering finally finding herself ‘in between war and peace, America and Vietnam, in between heaven and earth.’

But her spiritual strength and indomitable will to survive carries her through and she learns that suffering is a gift "to teach us to be strong when we are weak, to be brave when we are afraid, to be wise in the midst of confusion and to let go of that which we can no longer hold."

Watch the movie when you get a chance or examine some of the suffering you or someone close to you has experienced and write a brief letter to yourself about what life lessons you have learned around suffering, its emotional impact, and its wisdom.

Related Articles
  Earth Day and Social Media
  WHO ARE YOU IN MAZE PART 2
  The Commericialization of Earth Day
  How Effective Communication Is Influenced by Perceptions within the Sales Process
  Finding SelfWorth

Article Tags:



Related Forum Posts
Re: Are you having plans for Earth Day? - Hi Anelly Can't say that I have thought of doing any special for Earth Day but I do try to do something each and every day that will help to save the planet, even if it is only something small like using less plastic bags and saving paper for recycling etc. MichelleJ
Are you having plans for Earth Day? - This year we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day. Have you thought to a plan on how could you and your company contribute to saving the planet? Have you any ideas on how your business can "go green"?
reframe what you want to accomplish - it is said that if you help other people to reach their goals, you too will reach yours. Find out what Oprah is trying to accomplish over the next few months and pitch a link to a topic. Recently she is really motivated by the Eckard Tolle, A New Earth and the awakening of the human spirit. i will check out your stuff. good luck
Re: reframe what you want to accomplish - [quote="TheRainmaker":3a9wv4jy]it is said that if you help other people to reach their goals, you too will reach yours. Find out what Oprah is trying to accomplish over the next few months and pitch a link to a topic. Recently she is really motivated by the Eckard Tolle, A New Earth and the awakening of the human spirit. i will check out your stuff. good luck[/quote:3a9wv4jy] Another suggestion might be to specifically write a new book on what interests Oprah. If you can't control what Oprah is looking for, then control what you produce.
Re: Which movie will make the most money this summer? - Hellboy disappeared from the Top-10 faster than I expected.. Journey To The Center of the Earth was fun (I saw it in 3D), but really suffered from the fact that it didn't have a villain to provide tension. The problem with Crystal Skull as a family film was that it had that totally unneccessary sequence with the voracious ants eating people alive... I didn't like it when it happened in the Mummy with the beetles, and I didn't like it here! Dark Knight seems to keep chugging along. One thing that really irritates me about movies is that sometimes the trailers shown are totally inappropriate for the movie it's preceding. I went to a screening of Wall-E - with a theater full of little kids, and they showed two rather graphic trailers for horror movies! That's totally unacceptable!


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

••••••>SEO Tip Of The Day: HTML Validation

Executive Blind Spots

Work at home Opportunities for the Disabled

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.