Lin Yutang: Only with a rich soul can there be a leisurely life

Chinese love is laid-back, and there are many intertwined reasons. Chinese disposition is influenced by literature and philosophical recognition. This leisurely disposition arose from the love of life, stirred by the undercurrents of romantic literature throughout the ages, and finally recognized by a philosophy of life—roughly speaking, a Taoist philosophy—as a reasonable approach. Chinese were able to accept this Taoist outlook on life, which showed that they had the seeds of Taoist philosophy in their blood.

We must first clarify that this romantic admiration of leisure, which we have already said is the product of idleness, is definitely not the enjoyment of the propertied classes as we generally imagine it. That notion is wrong. We must understand that this kind of leisurely life is admired by the poor and depressed scribes, some of whom are born to love a leisurely life, and some of whom have to do so, and when I read Chinese literary masterpieces, or when I think of the poor teachers who took poems praising the leisurely life to teach poor disciples, I can't help but think that they must have found great satisfaction and spiritual comfort in these works. The so-called "fame is tired, seclusion is more suitable", this kind of words is very listenable to those who have failed the test; and there is also a saying such as "late food can be used as meat", which can be ridiculed in people who cannot afford to raise a family. The accusations made by the young writers of the Chinese proletariat of su dongpo and Tao Yuanming as intellectuals of the criminal idle class can be said to be the greatest mistake in the history of literary criticism. Su Dongpo's poems only write some "breeze on the river" and "bright moon in the mountains". Could it be that the bright moon and the rooster chirping of mulberry trees in the mountains on the river can only be possessed by the bourgeoisie? These ancient celebrities did not talk about the situation in the countryside in plain language, they were living a poor peasant life and achieving peace and harmony in rural life.

In this way, this kind of romantic admiration of leisure, I think, is basically civilian. We need only imagine the English novelist Stone on his touching journey, or the great English poets Wordsworth and Coleridge who walked through Europe on foot, with the idea of great beauty in their hearts and nothing in their bags. We imagine this, and we know more about these romanticisms. One does not have to be rich to travel, and even today, travel is not necessarily the luxury of a rich family.

Generally speaking, Chinese romantics have a sharp sense of sensitivity and a wandering nature, although they show a poor appearance in material life, but they are very emotionally rich. They love life so much that they would rather quit their posts than serve in the form of a servitude, and in China, leisure life is not the exclusive right of the rich, the powerful, and the successful (the successful people in the United States are even more in a hurry!). Rather, it is the product of that noble and conceited mood, which is very much like the Western concept of the dignity of the wanderer, who is so proud and conceited that he refuses to consult others, that he is so self-reliant that he is unwilling to work, that he is wise enough not to take the world around him too seriously. This kind of mood arises from and is naturally connected with a transcendent consciousness; it can also be said to be produced by the temptation to see through the ambition, stupidity, and fame and fortune of life. The noble and conceited scholar who regards his personality as more important than the achievement of his career and his soul as more important than fame and fortune, everyone regards him as the noblest ideal in Chinese literature. He was clearly a man who lived a life in a very simple way and despised the world's desire for fame.

This type of great writers--Tao Yuanming, Su Dongpo, Bai Juyi, Yuan Zhonglang, and Yuan Zicai—all spent a short period of official life, with excellent political achievements, but tired of the kind of prostrating work, asked for resignation so that they could go home and live a free life.

Another poet, Bai Yu Toad, titled his study "Lazy Temple" and praised the ability of leisurely life:

The Dan Sutra is read lazily, and the Tao is not in the book;

Tibetan Buddhism, the skin of the Tao.

The most important thing is noble and pure,

What is innocence? Foolish all the time.

There are poems of lazy chanting, sentences of outer intestines withered;

There is a piano play, and the strings rhyme alone;

There is wine to drink lazily, drunk outside the rivers and lakes;

There are chess laziness, unexpected dry go-to;

Lazy view of the creek mountain, with drawings inside;

Lazy to the wind and moon, with a pot inside;

Lazy to accompany the world, there is a field in it;

Ask about the cold and heat, there is a god capital inside.

Pine and stone rot, I often do.

Isn't it called a lazy nunnery?

Judging from the above inscription, this kind of leisurely life must also have a quiet heart and a wide-ranging concept of lotte, as well as a mind that can enjoy nature to enjoy. Poets and scholars often wrote some strange nicknames, such as Jianghu Ke (Du Fu), Dongpo Resident (Su Dongpo), Yanhu Sanren, Xiangxia Pavilion Old Man, and so on.

Enjoy a leisurely life without money. Rich people don't necessarily really appreciate the joy of leisurely life, and those who despise money really understand the fun. He must have a rich heart, a hobby of simple life, and a lack of concern for the way to make money, so that such a person can be entitled to enjoy a leisurely life. If a person really wants to enjoy life, life is enough for him to enjoy. Ordinary people cannot appreciate the joy of this earthly life, because they do not love life deeply, making life ordinary, rigid, and boring. Some people say that Lao Tzu is jealous of life, which is absolutely wrong, and I think lao tzu should despise secular life precisely because he loves life too much and does not want to make life "live for life's sake.".

Where there is love, there is jealousy. A man who loves life must cherish the happy times he should enjoy, but at the same time he must maintain the dignity and arrogance that is characteristic of a tramp. Even his fishing time was as sacrosanct as his office hours, and became a kind of canon, as solemn as the British regarded games as a canon. He must have been as disgusted as a scientist who talked to others at the golf club about the stock market like a scientist being harassed in a lab. He must have always calculated that a few more springs would be gone, and felt sad and frustrated in his heart in order not to make a few trips, like a city servant who was upset that he had sold fewer goods today.

Our lives will one day be extinct, and this introspection makes those who love life deeply add a sad poetic mood to their feelings. However, this sense of sadness has made Chinese scholars more eager to appreciate the joys of life. This seems strange. Because there is only one of our earthly lives, we must enjoy it when it is not yet gone. If we have a vague hope of eternal life, then we will not be able to enjoy the joys of this earthly life to the fullest. Sir Keith once said something that coincided with Chinese's sentiments: "If people believe, like mine, that the earthly world is the only paradise, then they will do their utmost to make this world a paradise." Su Dongpo's poem has the sentence "Things are like spring dreams without a trace", because of this, he loves life so deeply and resolutely. In Chinese literature, this feeling of "life is no longer" can often be seen. Chinese poets and scholars are often disturbed by this sad feeling of "life is no longer" and "life is fleeting" when they are entertaining and feasting, and under the moon before the flower, there is often a mourning of "the flower is not always good, the moon is not always round". Li Bai has two famous sentences in the "Spring Night Feast Peach and Plum Garden Preface": "Floating like a dream, for the joy of geometry?" When Wang Xizhi was having a banquet with some of his friends, he once wrote the immortal article "Lanting Collection", which expressed the feeling of "life is no longer" the most intimate.