"University" has a saying: "Sincerity is in the middle, form is outside, so the gentleman must be cautious about his independence."
"The Mean" also has a statement: "Mo sees hidden, mo shows no subtlety." Therefore, the gentleman is cautious and independent."
Both Confucian texts invariably mention a gentleman's conduct—prudence and independence.
Prudence and independence are the most advanced practices in Chinese for thousands of years.
1
Prudence and independence are the personality of a gentleman
What is "prudent independence"? Lu Jiuyuan, a scholar of the Song Dynasty, said: "To be cautious and independent is not to deceive oneself"; Yuan Cai, a Song dynasty scholar, also said that to be cautious and independent means to "be ashamed of one's heart in the world."
The Analects of Wei Zheng recounts a dialogue in which Zigong asks his teacher Confucius how to be a gentleman.
Confucius told him, "Go first and follow it." (First do it and then say, this is a gentleman)
Although it is a simple sentence, Confucius used it to break the key to becoming a gentleman - the unity of knowledge and action.
A person who can be called a gentleman can strictly demand himself at all times, so that his words and deeds are consistent, his heart is consistent, his heart is consistent, and he is the same before and after him.
After Bai Juyi stepped down as the Assassin of Hangzhou, he only took two small pieces of Tianzhu Mountain Stone picked up on the mountain to commemorate it.
One day, while fiddling with stones, he found that he had done something to tarnish his reputation, and although the mountain stones were not valuable, they were like embezzling thousands of dollars and becoming "innocent".
He regretted writing a self-condemnation poem, "Three years for the history of thorns, drinking water and eating leaves." But to Tianzhu Mountain, he obtained two stones. This is worth a thousand dollars, but it does not hurt innocence. ”
Two small stones, which are very common on the local hillside, are ordinary small things from any point of view, but Bai Juyi can raise this small matter to the height of insulting innocence, and deeply reflect on himself for this.
More than a thousand years have passed, and the spirit of Baiju Yishen is still admired by future generations.
Prudence and independence are frank to others, and to oneself is peace of mind. A person who is consistent in appearance, works brightly and frankly, has nothing to say to people, rarely has guilt, suspicion, scruples and other kinds of darkness, and his heart is naturally green and blossoming step by step.
Prudence and independence are the personality of a gentleman. And it is the basic personality, the first personality.
2
Prudence and independence are the first way to self-improvement
On the fourth day of the first month of February in the eleventh year of Tongzhi (1872), Zeng Guofan visited his father's tablet and asked his son Ji Ze to help him go for a walk in the garden.
The father and son pulled the family home and unconsciously approached a bamboo forest. Suddenly, a strong wind blew through, and Zeng Guofan even cried out "foot numbness" and fell on his son.
When he entered the house, Zeng Guofan could no longer speak. He pointed his finger at the table: it was a will he had already written. Zeng Jize unfolded the paper with both hands, and the first one read:
"A cautious and independent person is at ease." The way of self-cultivation is not difficult to cultivate the heart; the difficulty of cultivating the heart is also to be cautious and independent. If you can be cautious and independent, you will not feel guilty, and you can be a ghost of the heavens. If no one is ashamed of anything, then the heavenly king is calm, and this heart is always fast and wide, which is the first way of self-improvement in life, the first way to find happiness, and the first thing to keep the body."
The ancients said: "Mighty and mighty, brave to crown the three armies; only have no ability, surrender to their own hearts." ”
A person can conquer many external things, but it is still much more difficult to overcome inner desires, fears, emotional impulses, etc., as Wang Yangming said, "It is easy to break the mountain and thief in the heart." ”
The more unsupervised, the more strictly you can demand yourself and be cautious, the closer you can get to the ideological realm of self-improvement.
When parents and people know that when the child completes the homework, there is no one around to supervise, and the completion efficiency is simply a heaven and an underground.
The same is true for adults. When there is a lack of supervision and less external pressure, it is inevitable that a lot of time will be spent on entertainment projects such as chatting and playing games on the Internet.
A cautious and independent person will not change his positive and enterprising attitude due to changes in foreign objects and outsiders, because it is the heart that supervises himself at all times.
3
Prudence and independence is a noble cultivation
Prudence requires inner concentration. Concentration, however, needs to be cultivated.
The "Yutang CongYu" records that there was an official in the Ming Dynasty named Cao Ding, who served as a qinzhou official, equivalent to the current public security cadre.
Once, he caught a beautiful female thief, and because of the long distance from the county, he stayed in a deserted temple that night.
In the moonlight, the female thief tried every means to seduce him with hue.
In order to remind himself to resist the temptation, Cao Ding wrote four words "Cao Ding must not" and pasted them on the wall to remind himself not to get out of control at any time.
After a while, he thought, in this desolate wilderness, who knows. So he tore the paper off and tried to break through the door.
Then, he felt that it was inappropriate, this was an act of abolishing public law because of selfish desires, and could not be done, so he went back and put the paper on it.
So pasted and tore, tore the paste, dozens of times, and finally did not indulge themselves.
It can be seen from this that it is difficult to be cautious and independent, and the intensity of the ideological struggle is no less fierce than that of meeting with thieves and soldiers.
When one is cautious and independent, one is mainly confronted with oneself, one is to meet one's own heart shirtlessly.
Those who can be cautious and independent are those who have overcome themselves.
Lao Tzu said: "The winner is strong, and the self-victor is strong." ”
Only when you can overcome yourself can you be called strong; if you are strong in your heart, you are truly strong.
Only in this way can such a person attain true stability and prosperity, face the rolling desires of the world, the ups and downs of fate, the successes and failures of life, and be able to keep themselves, promise behavior, do not collapse, and do not indulge.
The greatest nobility is the concentration of the heart. A noble man is a man who can do his own Lord.