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The goal of the path of cultivation is to live forever, and only by removing the dust on the body and mind little by little, and the immovable and unstable hollow body can we truly appreciate what the avenue of "likeness or existence" really looks like.
Lao Tzu wrote the "Tao Te Ching" with 5,000 words, which was named after the Tao and put forward a very high practice goal for the philosophy of governing the body in later generations. But the Tao in Lao Tzu's mouth is a kind of "lonely" existence, and it is an "extraordinary way" that cannot be spoken.
Under this concept, it is often difficult for people to understand the connection between the supreme Tao and their ordinary lives. But in fact, the Tao is not only truly contained in our daily behavior, but also proposes a way for people to cultivate themselves from the Tao nature.
In the fourth chapter of the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu for the first time put forward the interpretation of the specific state of the Tao of "Tao Chong, use it or not profit". Chong, in also, that is, not paranoid to have and not paranoid to nothing, to take the two of the two of each other in a neutral, hollow state.
"Neijing" cloud: "Lonely yang does not grow, only yin does not grow", yin and yang can be combined to obtain the biochemistry of all things. Fan Yingyuan, the ancestor of the Taoist Miaozhen School, said: "This spring is born and the summer is long, the autumn is hidden in the winter, the news of creation, and the luck of profit and deficiency is of course." ”
Everything that happens in nature is in constant motion, and it is the product of the changes of the four seasons. The four seasons of yin and yang are inseparable from each other and biochemical each other, so Mr. Fangar mentioned in "How to Understand Lao Tzu's "Dao"": "(Lao Tzu's) 'emptiness' is not the emptiness of daily life, but the 'emptiness' that implies erection, so 'Chong' or in a certain sense expresses the characteristics of the vitality of 'Dao'. ”
This sentence can be interpreted to mean that it is precisely because of the "hollow" nature of the Tao that it can exist endlessly. And the Tao is a concrete existence embodied in each of us, if we can realize the truth of "hollowness" from ourselves, we can naturally understand the beauty of being in harmony with the Tao.
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Using the middle as the use is the main purpose of the fourth chapter, "Dao Chong". Whether it is a specific chapter in the scriptures or a practical significance in Taoist theory, this chapter is at a key point in the connection between Tao and instrument. In this way, it shows the importance of the concept of "hollowness" in the entire Taoist system of Lao Tzu.
And because the Tao has the particularity of being formless, all-encompassing, and ubiquitous, it is necessary to take attainment as the foundation of enlightenment.
In the Taoist view of cosmology, it is believed that the world gradually develops from primitive to realistic, and Lao Tzu's crucial element of sticking to the same in the midst of all changes is to warn people to understand the world from the complex to the simple, from the methodology of the unity of all things, to understand their own monasticism.
And if you want to understand the emptiness of the Tao, you can't find it in real objects, and you have to realize it in your heart. As the most spiritual animal in heaven and earth, all the actions of man himself are formed by imitating nature. If we want to follow this process and explore the essence of the world and the origin of all things from the biochemistry of yin and yang, we should not seek movement from the movement, but should observe the silence.
It is one's own heart that is quiet, and when the heart is quiet, all things will naturally stop. Only when the heart is not moving, can we rest all the outer edges and return to the simple state of the heart, so as to achieve the shortcut state of "returning to the baby".
"The Yellow Emperor's Outer Classics Yin and Yang Reversal" mentions: "The essence of the Tao is the essence of the Tao. To the extreme, faint and silent. Ignore and listen, hold your mind and be quiet, and your form will be self-righteous. It will be quiet and clear, without the form of labor, without shaking the spirit, without thinking about camping, but can live forever. ”
Therefore, Lao Tzu used the sentence "the abyss is like the sect of all things" to interpret the hollowness of the Tao, which is to warn people that they should move with stillness, and the sect of all things should seek in silence. Only by being quiet, only by emptying all thoughts, can we truly appreciate the wonder of hollowness. In order to have a quiet body, only by slowing down all actions can we get infinitely close to the state of immortality.
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Then the next thing is to ask the boat, how can we find the true peace of mind in the noisy world of dogs and horses?
The answer is that the original text mentions "frustrating its sharpness, relieving its anger, and its light, and its dust", which requires people to be able to stop the enterprising heart, relieve the resentful thoughts, converge the shining light, and be in harmony with the dust of all things, so the focus of the problem returns to the concepts of "desire" and "desirelessness" mentioned in the first chapter. Only by taking back all the desires that are greedy for the realm of illusory things and achieving contemplation and silence can we reach the realm of a saint who is "unstained everywhere" and the realm of attaining enlightenment.
The reason why the enlightened saint has the supreme virtue of "doing nothing, teaching without words, and doing all things without beginning" is precisely because he can forget things and self, not enter the outside and not go out of the inside, get the natural hollow, and even more the inner hollow of the self, that is, he can accommodate all things in his place, and he can do good and good without fighting. A person with this kind of virtue can truly be described as the state of entering the water referred to by Lao Tzu, that is, the state of conformity.
Lao Tzu also said, "I don't know whose son is the first of the emperor", Wang Anshi explained: "The 'elephant' is the beginning of the form, and the 'emperor' is the ancestor of the living ...... The Tao is before heaven and earth", once again focusing on the transcendence of the Tao in time and space, as well as the biochemical nature of all things, so as to further elaborate the virtue of "being born without being, for the sake of not worrying". This virtue of the Tao is also the ultimate concept that is pointed out to the practice of the world.
The goal of the path of cultivation is to live forever, and only by removing the dust on the body and mind little by little, and the immovable and unstable hollow body to perceive the only constant in the thousands of changes, can we truly appreciate what the avenue of "likeness or existence" is like. The self-cultivation mode of focusing on the mind to achieve the center, giving up the have, giving up the nothing, and giving up to prove the double punishment of the Xuan, is actually to further point out the specific and executable operation path of the Zhenda hollow.
In this sense, Lao Tzu's Tao is not an empty existence, but the philosophical thoughts contained in it that are universal to every cultivator are the precious heritage that can be passed down from generation to generation.