Mencius said: "Now there is a nameless finger, and if you don't believe it, it's not a disease or a painful thing; if you can believe it, it's not far from the road of Qin and Chu, and it's not as good as a person." It means that if you are not human, you will know evil, and if your heart is not like people, you will not know evil. ”
Mencius said, "If there is a person whose ring finger is bent and cannot be straightened, it does not hurt, and there is no other problem, but it is not good-looking." If there is a doctor who can heal and straighten his finger, just like an ordinary person, then as long as he has the money and time, regardless of how far he goes, he must also go to the doctor, just to make his finger as neat as that of ordinary people.
People will be afraid of people laughing at them because they don't look good on one finger, and they will not be afraid of how far the road will go, so they will run to other countries to seek treatment, but they will not be shy about their hearts, minds, learning, and wisdom that are not as good as others, and they will not seek treatment like they do with deformed fingers, which is called "ignorance."
Human beings should be equal in wisdom and cultivation, but ordinary people do not know that the most important thing is in the heart, not in the external form. Whether the appearance is normal or not, we should compare it with others, and the heart is not as good as others but we don't know how to reflect, which is not the importance of it, and it is not what people should have.
This goes on to say that the heart is important, that is, everyone should ask for reassurance. The way to rest assured is, first, not to let one's mind go freely, and second, to let go of all kinds of unnecessary thoughts and troubles. If you don't know how to cultivate in this way, you don't know that you are a human being, and you should be ashamed to live among human beings.
Mencius said: "The Tongzi of the arch handle, people who want to give birth, all know the one who raises it; as for the body, but do not know how to raise it, how can they not love the body as Tongzizai? ”
Mencius said that whether we plant a tung tree with both hands together or a catalpa tree that can be held in one hand, if we want to raise the tree well and live well, we must do our best to cultivate it, but we do not take good care of our bodies like cultivating plants.
Mencius said in the front that he was nourishing the mind, and here he was talking about nourishing the body. Could it be that if a person loves his body, he should not take care of a grass or a tree? Of course not. If a person planted a small tree, and he got sick, but he didn't pay attention to his illness and cultivated the little tree first, I don't think anyone would do that. But what is the reason why we human beings are ruining our bodies all day long?
Mencius said: "If a person is in the body, he loves both, and if he loves it, he will also raise it, and if he does not love his skin without size, he will not nourish his skin without size." Therefore, if he examines whether he is good or not, how can he take it for himself? There are noble and lowly bodies, and there are small and big ones; there is no small harm to the big, and there is no cheap harm to the noble. Those who raise their small ones are villains, and those who raise them big ones are adults. Today, there is a field teacher, who gives up his sycamore and raises his thorns, which is a cheap field teacher. Raising one of its fingers, and losing its shoulder and back without knowing it, is a wolf disease. Those who eat and drink are cheap, and they are raised for the small to lose the big. If there is nothing wrong with the eating and drinking, then the mouth and stomach are not suitable for the size of the skin!"
Mencius said above that rest assured is to cultivate the mind, which is the principle of cultivating the mind and cultivating nature, and in Buddhism, it is also practice. The first step of cultivation is to heal the mind and get rid of the defilement on the mind, and the second step is to cultivate the body, which Mencius is talking about here. Mencius's method of cultivating the body is the method of cultivating the qi of the Buddhist family, and Mencius also said earlier: "Cultivate my haoran qi." "It's important to talk about self-cultivation here......
However, there are important parts of our body, there are less important parts, there are large parts, there are small parts. For example, the head is a big part and the hair is a small part, and it doesn't matter if one or two hairs fall out, but the head is big and the most important thing is not to fall out. But when the old hair was almost gone, when I washed my face and combed my hair in the morning, and saw that one or two more hairs had fallen out, I naturally sighed: I lost two more hairs!
Therefore, there is no standard for the value and size of the human body, and with the difference of time and degree, one's love for it is also different. From this, we understand that whether it is the cultivation of the human body or the conduct of life and work, we must have a far-sighted vision, far-sightedness, and a high degree of wisdom. "No small harms the big", people are often easy to look at small places and harm the whole. In institutions and organizations, people often victimize the group for the sake of a small place. In a group, some people look at this and that's not right, and the small places are very shrewd and confused about the big things of the whole group. Therefore, there are few great heroes in the world, few people with great wisdom, and few people with far-sightedness. What's so big about losing two strands of hair? Some people want to rub oil on their hair and dye it! Perm it! As a result, their scalp and head are damaged, so they have to go through surgery, and after the surgery, they don't know anything and leave. At that time, he was "at ease", and he was "relieved" if he was not at ease, so he was "not a small harm".
"Nothing is cheap", don't put irrelevant things in the way of major things. Everyone should reflect on how they behave and do things, because at any time and anywhere, irrelevant small problems will hinder important big things. A young couple, or a husband and wife quarrel with each other, often for a little sesame mung bean trivial matter, from the quarrel to fight, from the fight to commit suicide, this is "cheap to the cheap".
Therefore, "those who raise their small ones are villains, and those who raise their big ones are adults", the difference between adults and villains is not that they are small people, but that those who lack cultivation, knowledge, opinions, character, and morality, and who have small vision are villains. Although you are short, it doesn't matter, as long as you have courage, vision, and cultivation, you are an adult.
Mencius also gave an example: For example, if the director of a farm does not cultivate the trees well, but prefers to cultivate some miscellaneous trees and grasses, this is not enough to be the qualification of the farm manager, which is called a "lowly field master". Some people attach great importance to their fingers, like a person who plays the piano, they attach great importance to their fingers, and even pay a lot of insurance, but he doesn't care if there is a sore on his shoulder or arm, and it festers......
Mencius said: People only care about a part of the small part of the body, but forget the big part, forget the more important place, this kind of person, this kind of person, is called "wolf disease person".
He said that "people who eat and drink", greedy people, such as smoking cigarettes and eating puffer fish, tell him that they are irritating, will have lung cancer, and will be poisoned and die, but he will not listen, but still eat as usual. This is how man covets the small and does not care about the big.
This paragraph is to the effect that the truth in it is very correct, and several parables are good, but don't forget the important one above. Mencius gave these metaphors to tell us the importance of health preservation and self-cultivation, which we ordinary people understand in theory, but in fact we can't do it, which is also what I often say: "If you can see through it, you can't bear it, and if you want to get it, you can't do it." "Everybody is guilty of that.
——Mr. Nan Huaijin, "Mencius, Teng Wengong, and Confession"