Zhuangzi could have been a refined egoist, but he rejected the kindness of the king of Chu, and finally became a lonely Hong who chose all the cold branches and refused to perch, and suffered from the cold of the lonely sandbar all his life.
"Zhuangzi" is difficult to read, as cold as the author's character, full of self-created fables, ancient tautology, and rambling dialects. Because of the complexity, we call it "philosophy". Therefore, from the perspectives of ontology, epistemology, and epistemology, the works of "Zhuangzi" are full of sweat. However, the essence of the Zhuangzi scholarship is the philosophy of life, and the stylized interpretation of the Zhuangzi is after all metaphysical.
Recently, a friend who teaches the "Zhuangzi Guide" class sent me a piece of student homework to share, and I think this student seems to have realized Zhuangzi's painstaking efforts. The student said that the "carving" of chaos reminded him of his parents. He said: "When I was first admitted to university, my father made a plan for me: the fourth and sixth grades in the freshman year, the second year in Mandarin and computer level 2, the third year in the teacher qualification certificate, and the senior year graduate school entrance examination and examination editor. After graduation, I am almost twenty-five years old, which is the best age to get married and have children, and we must not delay. Faced with the "life plan", the classmate questioned. He said, "I'm very curious, what is delayed? What is the best age to do in your twenties? What are we anxious about?" This classmate found that the meaning of the moment and the sudden are the typical examples of living in a hurry, and they are not the metaphors of today's anxious parents.
The emperor of the South China Sea is a man, the emperor of the North Sea is a sudden, and the emperor of the center is chaos. When and suddenly meet in the chaotic land, the chaos treats it very well. He and Su conspired to repay the chaotic virtue, saying: "Everyone has seven tricks, and they eat and breath with hearing and hearing." This is unique, try to chisel it. "One day chisels, seven days and chaos.
(Zhuangzi and Emperor Ying's Seventh)
So what are they doing in a hurry? they're busy carving out the seven tricks for Chaos, making Chaos look like everyone else, "as it should be." Compared with our life today, that classmate found that what today's parents are anxious to do is to put their children on the assembly line and shape them into standardized "products". Chaos is the child who is not standardized. In the end, the children were "dead" in the process of standardization.
Students may not understand the principle of "things are not even, and things are also feelings", but students' understanding close to life is the most true interpretation of "Emperor Ying". Along with the anxieties of the parents, we can see more or less clearly that the parents demand that their children "do what is right with themselves and what is wrong with themselves" ("Fable"), that if children do something maverick and spend their youth on studying seemingly unrealistic dreams, they will be ridiculed as "playing a thousand birds with the pearl of the marquis" ("Let the King"), and if parents completely ignore "destroying the sky with man" ("Autumn Water"), they will cause regrets in life. From this point of view, the social mentality of 2,500 years ago is not much different from today.
The best way to read Zhuangzi is to connect with life. Professor Chen Yinchi's selection of "Zhuangzi 100 Sentences" avoids those words and phrases that are intimidating, and does not discuss any ontology, understanding and knowledge, but only talks about "life", which is the lovely and amiable thing about this book.
Zhuangzi has a friend who is the prime minister, but he is still very anxious, he is Hui Shi. He was even worried that Zhuangzi, who had rejected the invitation of the king of Chu, would come to replace him. Zhuangzi then mocked Hui Shi, saying that he was the owl that carried a rotting rat to drive away the yuān chú. Zhuangzi is very sarcastic, but how many of us in life are not Hui Shi? We are worried that our children will miss out on life if they do not hurry up to take the examination, do not hurry up the entrance examination, and do not hurry up to get married and have children, so we drive away their dreams and let them be realistic. In fact, it is precisely these visible and stable interests that can make our children miss out on life.
Huizi is beaming, and Zhuangzi is going to see it. Or Huizi said: "Zhuangzi comes, and he wants to replace his son." So Keiko was afraid and searched in the country for three days and three nights. Zhuangzi saw it and said: "There is a bird in the south, its name is the Bird, and the son knows it? So the squirrel got the rotting rat, and the pelican passed it, and looked up at it and said, 'Frightened!'
(Zhuangzi Qiushui XVII)
For Hui Shi, who has lost the possibility and fun of flying high, Professor Chen Yinchi commented: "In a person's life, sometimes we can't just guard the immediate interests, but also know to give up, look up at the birds flying in the sky, see them return to the Hong, watch it disappear into the distant sky, and imagine what kind of scenery there is." Professor Chen talks about the Zhuangzi, he does not "interpret" for you, but tries to connect our lives and create a context for us to think.
Zhuang Zhou Mengdie
In fact, Zhuangzi's "Zhuangzi" is originally like this, of course, he does not want us to become philosophers, let alone let us live like him, but to deconstruct the "habitual" days for us. What does it mean to be "accustomed to it"? The behavior of suddenly chiseling out the seven tricks for chaos is "taking it for granted," and Hui Shi's anxiety about his own vested interests is "taking it for granted." "Getting used to it" makes us know only one way of life and makes us all "the same". It is important to understand this truth, because when we understand this, even if we are powerless to change the established life, we can guard against losing ourselves in "habituality" and being lost to others. Therefore, let's try our best to maintain the state of "picking up all the cold branches and refusing to perch" in our thoughts, and maintain the independence of our personality like Zhuangzi.
(This article was originally published in the 16th edition of the "China Reading News" on April 10, with the original title "Picking Up the Cold Branches and Refusing to Live-Reading Chen Yinchi's "Zhuangzi Hundred Sentences")
"Zhuangzi Hundred Sentences" by Chen Yinchi
Professor Chen Yinchi of Fudan University selected nearly 100 classic sentences from the Zhuangzi, introduced the problem awareness and concerns of modern people, and summarized 88 concerns such as useful and useless, free and waiting, similarity and difference, dream and awakening, tools and machine heart, etc., with annotations, translations, and explanations to help readers absorb the living water of thought on the basis of fully understanding the original texts. It not only returns to the troubled times of the Warring States period where Zhuangzi lived to understand the "Zhuangzi", but also uses the "Zhuangzi" thought to observe the current society and life, shining with the brilliance of thought everywhere.
(Co-ordinator: Yibei; Editor: Siqi)