Text: Flipping through the books in his spare time
"The children of the world, floating in this sea of suffering, have so many souls—and the strong desire is not just for bread."
—— Sanmao, "Dear Sanmao"
1.
There are many distressing clues in life all around us, as if as long as we follow the line to look down, we will inevitably get pain.
People who don't know pain must not understand what a soul is.
Sanmao is happy that there are many souls who are not satisfied with three meals a day, and I suspect that what she said "not just for bread" is because many people continue to follow the clues of life's troubles.
2.
A simple life is nothing more than satisfying "eating men and women", and it is a kind of simplicity to get by and live, and with a little imagination, turn "getting by and living" into an idyllic life, called "simple".
Simplicity means a certain degree of abandonment, abandonment of exploration, escape from pain, and freedom from strife.
There are certainly people in this world who can be satisfied with such a simple life, and the number of them is probably no less than the number of people who pursue a life of fine clothes and food.
But we can't, and we know we can't. This is a source of distress. People who think less can be satisfied with a simple life, because a simple life does not conform to the trend of society.
3.
Society seeks development in competition, and never tires of asking people to invest energy and time in the race against the clock. The requirements of a "simple life" are similar to those of a "low-desire life", but they are a way of life negated by economic and social development.
When a person is not only distressed by the material needs of life, but also has a leisure to consider what the "soul" needs, the soul can reveal its vague outline through "pain".
This is what inevitably happens in basic material satisfaction, and it is not just the antithesis of "simple life", but even quite the opposite, an illustration of the inability of material life to fully satisfy one's inner needs.
4.
Material life, providing for the body; spiritual life, feeding the soul.
When we reflect on our lives in order to attain a certain transcendence, we have the feeling that the soul wants to be freed from the constraints of the body.
As Lao Tzu wrote in the Tao Te Ching: My great troubles are in my body; and I have no body, so why do I have troubles?
This is the sense of detachment of the soul.
5.
When we listen to others talk about having to meet the needs of survival before we can take care of our souls, our souls are bound to make negative noises, but we may not be able to hear them.