Across Civilizations: Sufi Wisdom and Eastern Thought in Search of a Way Forward | “Xuemo in Dialogue with International Scholars” (Episode 2)

Across Civilizations: Sufi Wisdom and Eastern Thought in Search of a Way Forward | “Xuemo in Dialogue with International Scholars” (Episode 2)

As images of smoke over Iran drew worldwide attention, scholars from several countries met online on March 1, 2026, to consider whether ancient traditions might offer guidance to a divided modern world.

The second session of “Xuemo in Dialogue with International Scholars,” organized by the World Literature Union and the Xuemo Foundation, examined Sufi wisdom and literary expression. Xuemo joined sinologists and scholars from several countries to discuss what literature can offer in a time of war, uncertainty, and spiritual disquiet.

Yanjin Chen, author of The Xuemo Code, moderated the event. She said the purpose of the discussion was to cross geographical and cultural boundaries and use literature as a common language through which people might reconsider the problems facing contemporary civilization.

Literature Against Despair

Xuemo began by recalling why he became a writer. Growing up in Liangzhou, Gansu Province, he witnessed the fragility and impermanence of life. At first, he wrote to resist the fear that his life might leave no trace. With time, however, his attention shifted from his own purpose in life to what he calls “the pain of the world.”

“I am so saddened by the suffering of the Iranian people in the current conflict,” Xuemo said. “When medicine cannot answer the problems of aging, illness, and death, and politics cannot end war, literature must help tend to the human spirit.”

He cited his novel Eternal Love as an example of literature serving as “spiritual first aid.” Through the character Yatou, the book faces the despair of terminal illness while insisting on the possibility of love and dignity.

“We cannot stop disease, but we can preserve our dignity in the face of it,” Xuemo said. “We cannot stop war, but we can preserve compassion amid hatred.”

According to the organizers, the English edition of Eternal Love and courses related to the book are reaching readers through Amazon and online broadcasts. Events connected with the book were also being planned for Oxford and Cambridge in March, including participation in activities associated with the Royal Society.

Sufi Wisdom and the Eastern Xin-xing Tradition

Dr. Elham Mirzania, an Iranian-Canadian scholar at Toronto Metropolitan University, read Xuemo’s work through the Sufi tradition. She discussed the Sufi principles of the unity of being, the loosening of the ego, and the knowledge of the world through love. These ideas, she said, bear a close resemblance to xin-xing (心性), the cultivation of the heart-mind and human nature, as it appears in Xuemo’s writing.

“When I read Xuemo’s work, I often sense a spiritual kinship across cultures,” Mirzania said. “Both the Sufi ‘heart’ and the Eastern idea of the ‘true mind’ direct us inward. They ask us to awaken what lies within so that we can see more clearly amid the noise of the world.”

Xuemo agreed. Truths reached through different traditions, he said, often meet at their highest point; their names and concepts may differ, but their deepest insights do not.

He compared ordinary life to mud at the bottom of a pond and transcendent wisdom to the lotus that grows from it.

“What matters is not the mud or the lotus,” he said. “What matters is whether the lamp within you is lit. When it is lit, even mud becomes nourishment. When it goes out, even the lotus will wither.”

Educating the Inner Life in the Age of AI

The discussion then turned to artificial intelligence and the instability of the international order. Participants asked what forms of education people would need in a world where machines increasingly produce and distribute knowledge.

Xuemo described the present crisis as a breakdown of order both outside and within the individual. Political and social structures are under strain, he said, while many people lack the inner discipline needed to resist fear, hostility, and desire. If AI assumes a growing share of intellectual work, education must devote more attention to the training of the mind and character.

“Modern science has a history of only a few centuries, while practices for training the heart and mind have developed over thousands of years,” he said. “We should not allow scientism to dismiss genuine wisdom.”

Xuemo proposed that modern education make room for practices drawn from Sufism and Eastern traditions of self-cultivation. People who are no longer ruled by desire or divided by rigid labels, he argued, may be less willing to harm one another.

“The wars of the future should not be fought with guns but with poetry,” he said. “If everyone became a Rumi, the world would have more love and wisdom, not more atomic bombs.”

A Fire in the Darkness

Xuemo ended with the image of a light carried through the night.

“Each of us is a lamp, a fire,” he said. “We may not be able to drive away the long night or stop the wars born of human desire. But if we kindle a fire in the darkness, those traveling through the night will see its light and know there’s hope.”

Chen said the meeting had allowed scholars working in different languages and traditions to compare their answers to the same human problems. The discussion did not resolve the conflicts that prompted it. It did, however, show how literature and philosophy can keep open a space for thought, sympathy, and conversation when political events threaten to close it.