Lao Tzu believes, "Heaven is the Tao, and the Tao is long." "In Chinese culture and Chinese philosophy, wine is precisely a natural thing that stimulates people's inspiration and passion, stimulates people's will and strength, and awakens people's spirit and potential; drinking is a cultural behavior in which human beings return to nature, get close to nature, and pursue the philosophical realm of natural sympathy and spiritual understanding."
Wine also has the yin-yang concept and dialectical principle of "water and fire". Wine, shaped like "water", its nature is soft, "Lao Tzu looks at the well, the good is like water", Lao Tzu borrows the softness of water to talk about the authenticity of human nature and the way of dealing with the world. "Wine" is soft but full of fierce fire, soft and rigid.
Lao Tzu's drinking is extremely large, and he has raised his drinking to the height of culture. How to drink alcohol is regarded as the same kind as serving the monarch, filial piety to parents, marriage and funeral; for wine utensils, it is not simply regarded as something used for wine, but also pays attention to drinking with complementary wine utensils to foil, creating a cultural mood.
Legend has it that when Confucius traveled around the world and preached self-denial and retribution, he met Lao Tzu, who was busy preparing a banquet, and Confucius drank while speaking, and Lao Tzu hurriedly instilled in him the philosophical ideas and governing strategies of "purity and self-righteousness, self-transformation without doing anything" and "doing nothing and not doing anything". However, confucius woke up three days after he was drunk, and Lao Tzu warned him: "Drinking alcohol should be done according to one's ability, so that it is not sinking, not obscene, not drunk, not drunk, so that you can get the real pleasure of drinking." This profound sentence can be described as the style of the drinker, the spirit, qi and spirit of the good drinker.
In the total collection of poems compiled by Confucius, there are winemaking, feasting, etiquette, wine utensils, tasting and other knowledge of wine, and even drunkenness, which are very exciting. The wind, elegance, and praise of the "Book of Poetry" exude the elegant aroma of wine and the connotation of wine culture, and in just about three hundred articles, thirty of them have wine.
The Spring and Autumn of the Ten Kingdoms says: "King Wen drank for a thousand bells, and Confucius drank a hundred times." Confucius, the sage of the Master of All Ages, was also a man of great drinking. Confucius emphasized the rule of liturgy, and "the meeting of a hundred gifts, without wine, can not be achieved", without wine, etiquette loses its form of existence; there is music without wine, can not form a joyful atmosphere. Confucius believed that etiquette was mysterious, hierarchical, ethical, and restrained, and that drinking alcohol was also included in four aspects of cultural interpretation. The ritual music in the sacrifice, including the decoration of wine and wine utensils, all details require standardization, which is a characteristic of Confucius's ritual discussion of wine.
Confucius advocated that "drinkers are things that are learned, and things that are not food." "Drinking alcohol is related to ruling the country with virtue and the people living and working in peace and contentment, and when appropriate, it is necessary to drink a lot of pain and feel the joy of the world." Confucius's theory of drinking is to practice it personally, "the wine is immeasurable, not chaotic", a person's alcohol consumption is large and small, but do not reach the level of drunkenness. Confucius also paid attention to drinking, drinking only clean, refreshing and mellow wines brewed at home and brought by himself.