Buddhism has a cloud: "All laws are impermanent, all laws have no self, nirvana is silent." For the world, "impermanence" refers to the fact that everything in the world is fluid, not eternal, and "selflessness" refers to the fact that things are born due to conditions and eventually disappear with them. In the mainland classic masterpiece "Dream of the Red Chamber", the Buddhist concept of impermanence and color and emptiness are also fully reflected.
The Buddhist concept of impermanence in "Dream of the Red Chamber".
Which character's life in "A Dream of Red Mansions" can be completely controlled by herself? Xianglian, the handmaid of the Xue family, was originally Yinglian, the young lady of the Zhen family, but she became a lowly handmaiden due to a fire, and was even humiliated by Xue Pan's wife Xia Jingui, and she couldn't change all this, so she could only bear it silently by herself.
Zhen Shiyin saw through the red dust and became a monk with a lame Taoist; for example, the four major families who were prominent for a time fell into the middle of the road and became dilapidated; and even Baoyu chose to become a monk. This is what Buddhism calls the final "silence of nirvana," where everything is empty. Such a result seems to be ruthless, and even makes people's hearts cold to all the good things in the world, but it is not.
Cao Xueqin's "Dream of Red Mansions" is to use this Buddhist thought of "impermanence" and "selflessness" to warn people: life is like a dream, and the beauty at that time is only a temporary existence, if you fall into it, you will delay the good time of your life, but as long as you see through these dreamy beauties, you can avoid the sinking of the sea of suffering and get the ultimate "nirvana silence".
Cao Xueqin, with his unique brushstrokes and magnificent momentum, depicts the disturbances of that society at that time, and his pen is full of the mutual transformation of wealth and poverty, prosperity and decline, honor and disgrace, life and death, etc.
"Dream of Red Mansions" is full of the realization that life is like a dream, and this sense of life fantasy is also the cognition of "impermanence of all actions" and "no self of all laws" in Buddhism, and the biggest obsession is Jia Baoyu, the biggest disillusionment is also Jia Baoyu, and the biggest awakened person is Jia Baoyu.
Daiyu's funeral flowers can be described as a classic in "Dream of Red Mansions", and its classic lies in the song "Funeral Flowers" that makes people cry, lingering and compassionately exhausting Daiyu's sorrow and misery that has accumulated a lifetime. Lin Daiyu walked lonely on the flower path to sweep flowers, pick up flowers, and bury flowers, seemingly burying flowers, but in fact mourning herself.
"Dream of the Red Chamber" is permeated with a strong complex of impermanence, which is derived from the Buddhist concept of impermanence. "Joy and glory are just right, and hatred and impermanence have arrived. Leave everything behind, and the soul will be consumed ......."
The song "Hate Impermanence" in the book echoes the "Okay Song" in the first chapter of the book, expressing the author's view of impermanence. In "Okay Song", "good" is "good", and at the right time, it is also the beginning of the tragedy. This is the author's warning to the world after seeing through the vicissitudes of the world, warning us not to be obsessed with the glory of the world, and to forget to pursue the state of nirvana and silence.
"Dream of the Red Chamber" and the Buddhist concept of color and emptiness
Cao Xueqin uses vivid artistic techniques and expressiveness to expound on the various kinds of sufferings that people will inevitably encounter in their lives, and at the same time tells readers that it is precisely because of these sufferings that they have tempered their minds and inspired their consciousness to transcend suffering and seek liberation.
The typical representative of "old suffering" is Jia's mother, Jia's mother has been prosperous and wealthy all her life, and is the most respected person in the Jia family, and the aging of Jia's mother is repeatedly mentioned in the novel, and in the thirty-ninth episode, Jia's mother sighed: "I'm old, I'm useless, my eyes are dazzled, my ears are deaf, and my memory is gone...... "Jia's mother is more of a sigh that although she is old and controls Jiafu, her children and grandchildren are full, and she is respected by everyone, but she can't do anything."
The unfilial son Jia Yu wanted to accept her right-hand man mandarin duck as a concubine, Jia's mother trembled when she knew it, and her son's unfilial piety was also her regret. Jia's mother was also in charge of the finances of the government, and she had already seen Wang Xifeng's power organs, seeing that the family that had guarded her whole life had changed from prosperity to decline but could not do anything, and even had to take out her own savings to subsidize it later.
The typical representative of "sickness and suffering" is naturally Lin Daiyu, and there is such a passage in the third chapter of "Dream of Red Mansions": "Everyone sees that although Daiyu is young, his behavior and speech are good, and although his physical appearance is weak, he has a romantic attitude, and they know that he has a deficiency disease." Although her delicate body has created her unique morbid but talented beauty, Daiyu's bleak ending can be foreseen from the beginning.
The representatives of "death suffering" are diverse, and there are many small characters whose deaths are impressive. The most sighing is the twelve golden hairpins in the Grand View Garden, which are beautiful and talented, but unfortunately they are red-faced and thin-lived, and most of them are fragrant and jade.
Lin Daiyu's love and affection are all begged but cannot be sought; although Xue Baochai does not have great suffering, but her husband becomes a monk after marriage, it cannot be said that he is not bitter; Yuan Chun has been away from his family since he was a child, and he died violently in the palace; Tanchun is shrewd and capable, but he has to marry far away; Yingchun marries the "Zhongshan wolf" and is tortured to death; Xichun sees through the red dust, becomes a nun, and guards the ancient Buddha of the green lantern alone.
There is a cloud in the Heart Sutra: "The relics are not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from color, color is emptiness, emptiness is color, and the same is true when you think and act on it." This sentence is a concentrated exposition of the Buddhist concept of color and emptiness. Color not only refers to women's color, but also refers to the materialistic and colorful world.
Emptiness is the root of color. In the first chapter of "Dream of Red Mansions", it is written: "Because of the emptiness of seeing color, the people of the empty Tao changed their name to the love monk, and changed the name of the "Stone Record" to "The Love Monk." It can be seen that "Dream of Red Mansions" has formed a love relationship with the Buddhist concept of color and emptiness from the very beginning.
The embodiment of the concept of color and emptiness in the figure. The stubborn stone that has no talent to make up for the sky is brought into the red dust by the vast master and the misty real person, and it is colored from the sky. This process is talking about Jia Baoyu's experience, he was reincarnated in the rich Jia Mansion, and he was accompanied by many talented and beautiful women, and he was emotionally intertwined with these people.
Throughout the novel, the process of Baoyu's realization can be divided into three stages. First of all, he wandered between the sisters in the garden, and was troubled by the "abusive love" that arose. He tried to please all the sisters he liked in the garden at the same time, and tried not to quarrel with them, but his reconciliation in them not only failed, but he was also slandered.
Baoyu's happy and sad life made him sigh "It's really boring to look back now", which is the beginning of Baoyu's realization. Second, he said, if he had died while his sisters were still alive, and let their tears flow into a river and his body drift away to a secluded and quiet place, he would have died a well-deserved death.
However, when Baoyu was snubbed in Lixiangyuan, he realized that life is fateful, and when he dies in the future, he doesn't know who will really cry for himself. From here he began to transform into a dedicated person. In the end, after Daiyu asked Baoyu a lot of questions, Baoyu had the realization of "let the weak water be three thousand, I will only take one scoop to drink" after some thought.
At this time, Baoyu broke through the obstacle of the concept of color and emptiness and reached "emptiness". So there was the end of Baoyu in the end, he went with the vast master and the misty real person, and there was no trace of him since.
The embodiment of the concept of color and emptiness in poetry. In the "Okay Song" sung by the lame Taoist, the relationship between "good" and "good" is like the relationship between "color" and "emptiness", and "good" is "color" and "left" is "empty".
After seeing through the vicissitudes of the world, the author warns the world not to forget the pursuit of "emptiness" because of the obsession with the prosperity of the world. In the book, "when the fake is true, the truth is also false, and there is no place for inaction", "the false goes to the true to the true and the truth is better than the false, and the original is not the non-existent", "true" and "being" are the colors, and "false" and "nothing" are empty, all of which embody the Buddhist concept of color and emptiness.
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