Part of "Tiger Creek Three Laughing Pictures", anon
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > primer: confluence of sons</h1>
In 221 BC, after the Qin state annexed the Six Kingdoms, the Qin Dynasty was established, and the first truly unified Chinese Empire was born.
In terms of political system, the Qin Dynasty replaced the feudal system of the past in which the nobility of various regions was divided and the political power was hereditary in the past, with the centralized system of the central government appointing local bureaucrats, thus creating the political system inherited by successive dynasties in China.
Along with political unity comes the unity of thought. At the suggestion of Prime Minister Li Si, Qin Shi Huang burned books to ensure the dominance of Legalist thought.
As a result, harsh rule led to the rapid demise of the Qin Dynasty. After the rise of the Han Dynasty, many ancient documents and "hundreds of" works have reappeared in the sky. The expectation of the times to rest and recuperate with the people made the Taoist idea of "ruling without doing anything" very popular in the early Han Dynasty.
With the restoration of national strength, the emperors of the Han Dynasty also wanted to unify the thinking of the whole country, but learned the lessons of the Qin Dynasty. In 136 BC, the theorist Dong Zhongshu put forward the idea of "deposing hundreds of families and respecting Confucianism alone", which was adopted by Emperor Wu of Han. Since then, under the protection of the laws of the Han Dynasty, Confucianism has become the orthodox science of the state, and the ideas of other schools have been continuously absorbed.
Unlike the Qin Dynasty, which forcibly banned other schools of thought, the Han Dynasty did not punish the transmission of ideas between private individuals; it was just that anyone who wanted to enter politics and become an official had to study Confucianism and the Six Classics.
The role of incentives is enormous. Official learning was based on Confucianism, so that the Hundred Sons and Hundred Schools of the late Zhou Dynasty no longer existed as a separate school. However, their ideas did not disappear, but gradually merged into Confucianism or Taoism. Like the Confluence of the Yangtze River and the Confluence of the World's Waterways, the two schools of Confucianism and Taoism gradually grew into the two main schools of thought in China.
After four hundred years of rule by the Two Han Dynasties, the land of China once again moved towards division. In the four hundred years that followed, the north and south of China split into many small countries that did not rule for a long time. Among them, some small states of the Northern Dynasty were even founded by non-Han nomadic peoples.
During this historical period, wars were frequent, the people's livelihood was poor, and the people suffered a lot. The sadness of reality made Confucianism temporarily silent, and a new Taoist took its place. At the same time, Buddhist thought transmitted from the western region along the Silk Road began to flow into the land of China, and in the Sui and Tang dynasties that followed, it achieved unprecedented development.
Since then, the three major schools of Chinese culture have gathered. After that, in the midst of the flow, you have me, I have you, and they shine together.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="754" > Confucianism</h1>
Pre-Qin Kong Mengxun
The birth of Confucianism is inseparable from the scribes of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.
In the pre-Qin period, there were three representative figures: Confucius, Mencius and Xunzi.
As the founding father of the mountain, Confucius made a historic contribution to the establishment of Confucianism. On the one hand, he reinterpreted ancient civilization, inherited the essence of ancient scholars, and created a civilization tradition that continues to this day; on the other hand, as an educator, he recruited a large number of private students and taught disciples the "Six Arts", laying the foundation for the in-depth development of Confucianism.
Based on the analects compiled by Confucius, the core idea can be condensed into a "benevolent" word; by extension, it is the "way of loyalty and forgiveness"; practicing without asking for anything is "knowing the destiny". Throughout his life, Confucius experienced ups and downs, but insisted on practicing his own ideas, and was respected by future generations as the Most Holy Teacher.
After Confucius, Confucianism diverged into two major schools.
Mencius, who represented idealism, advocated "human nature is inherently good" and developed the "four ends of virtue" to temper the instincts of beasts and achieve human nature. Mencius extended the scope of application of Confucius's ideas from personal moral cultivation to the outside, believing that the political system of the state, like the ethics of the family, should be based on the good morality of "from oneself to others". Only saints who practice the "way of kings" can become true monarchs. If they are "overbearing" "single husbands", the people have the right to overthrow them.
Xunzi, who represents realism, is in direct opposition to Mencius's ideas. In human nature, Xunzi advocates "human nature is evil", but emphasizes that people have subjective initiative and can use their innate intellect to turn away from evil and toward good. Social organization should guide the formation of morality based on the temperance of "etiquette". Man's morality, then, arises not naturally, but arises from man's needs.
For a richer content of early Confucianism, see the Confucian section of the previous article "The Sons of the Pre-Qin Dynasty, The Origin of Eastern Philosophy", which will not be repeated here.
Two Han Dong Zhongshu
Dong Zhongshu was an important theoretician of the Han Dynasty. In his youth, he immersed himself in reading, and it is said that he did not look out the window for three years to concentrate on completing the huge work "Spring and Autumn Dew". After that, he taught in the veil, and the disciples outside the veil, one by one, passed on orally, so that some students never saw him.
What Dong Zhongshu wants to do is to theoretically argue that the "basis of existence" of the new political and social system is theoretically demonstrated. To this end, he combined the metaphysical cosmology of the Yin-Yang family with the political and social philosophy of the mainly Confucians. Its basic idea is:
Man is a part of heaven, and what man does should naturally be based on what heaven does.
By integrating the ideas of the Yin-Yang Family and the Five Elements Family, Dong Zhongshu proposed his own cosmology. In the chapter "Spring and Autumn Dew: Heaven and Earth Yin and Yang", he proposed that the universe is composed of ten components: heaven, earth, yin, yang, wood, fire, earth, gold, water and man.
Among them, the five elements correspond to the seasons and directions, such as the wood lord Oriental and spring. The four seasons are explained by the operation of yin and yang.
From "the unity of heaven and man", Dong Zhongshu further proposed: People are replicas of heaven in both physical and mental aspects. Therefore, man is above all things in the world. In the "Spring and Autumn Prosperity And Prosperity Liyuan Shen" chapter, Dong Zhongshu said:
"Heaven, earth, man, the origin of all things." Born, nurtured, and man. ”
Here, we see the role of the three talents again. And how does man "become"? Dong Zhongshu believes that it is by "etiquette" and "pleasure", which is to rely on indoctrination and cultivation.
Since heaven and earth are made up of yin and yang, as a replica of heaven and earth, the human heart naturally has two factors, that is, "sex" and "feeling". If man goes along with his nature, he will have benevolence; if he goes along with his feelings, he will have greed.
The division of sex and affection made Dong Zhongshu naturally unable to agree with Mencius's "theory of sexual goodness", but he emphasized the value of culture, and man could stand side by side with heaven and earth, relying on culture. Culture, on the other hand, becomes the development of human nature.
In terms of social ethics, Dong Zhongshu proposed the "Three Principles", that is, the three basic social relations of monarchs, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives. This understanding is still quite profound.
On top of the "Three Principles", Dong Zhongshu proposed the "Five Constants", namely benevolence, righteousness, etiquette, wisdom, and faith, five virtues espoused by Confucianism.
With the basic relationship of the "Three Principles" and the moral constraints of "impermanence" superimposed, the Confucian social ethics can be established.
In terms of political philosophy, Dong Zhongshu believes that the king should take the law of the four seasons, and take celebration, reward, punishment, and punishment as the "four policies", that is, the method of rule. Because the relationship between heaven and man is so close, the mistakes of the government must be manifested as anomalies in nature.
In terms of historical philosophy, Dong Zhongshu believes that the change of dynasties is not in the order of the five virtues, but in accordance with the "three unifications", that is, the order of black, white, and red.
According to Dong Zhongshu, the Xia Dynasty represented the Black Unification, the Shang Dynasty represented the White Unification, and the Zhou Dynasty represented the Red Unification. The Xia, Shang, and Wednesday dynasties completed a week of historical cycles. Subsequent dynastic changes should be cyclical.
The deep significance of the "three unifications" theory is that it is a restriction proposed by Confucianism to constrain absolute monarchy. No matter how good a dynasty is, its rule is still limited. When the Great Limit comes, it must give way to another dynasty. The founder of the new dynasty will inherit another destiny.
This point has a special political significance for Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, who was born in cloth but came to the world.
Among Dong Zhongshu's many views, the most interesting is probably this one:
It was neither the Qin Nor the Han Dynasty that succeeded the Zhou Dynasty, but Confucius.
He believed that Confucius inherited the Mandate of Heaven, founded the black system, and created the various systems of the black system. To this end, he reinterpreted the Spring and Autumn Period and divided the historical period (722 BC - 479 BC) covered by the Spring and Autumn Period into three paragraphs, which he called the "Three Dynasties":
Where Confucius knows only from the literature, the period is called "the world of rumors",
The historical period that Confucius heard about was called the "world of hearing",
The historical period that Confucius saw with his own eyes was called the "world seen".
Dong Zhongshu believes that the language and writing used by Confucius when narrating these three periods of history are different, and the differences in the language used by Confucius, that is, the so-called "Spring and Autumn Brushwork", can be found in the "small words and great meanings" of "Spring and Autumn".
During the Eastern Han Dynasty, He Xiu made further use of the "Three Theories":
Refer to the "world of rumors" as the "world of decay";
Refer to the "world of hearings" as "ascension to the world";
The "world seen" is called the "Taiping world".
In He Xiu's pen, imagine that if Confucius were in charge of state affairs, he would gradually achieve peace in the world, starting from the rectification of the Lu state. This point is very close to the order of steps in self-cultivation, family unity, governance, and peace in the "University". Therefore, "Spring and Autumn" has become a model for "University".
In the Book of Rites and Fortunes, the second stage of the "Three Sayings" is called "Xiaokang", while the third stage is the "Datong World". This is also the source of our comprehensive construction of a moderately prosperous society.
From a historical point of view, Dong Zhongshu's greatest historical role was to lead the national ideological unification activity of "deposing a hundred families and respecting Confucianism alone" during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, laying the foundation for the official status of Confucianism in later generations.
Tang song cosmology
The leading ideology of the times cannot be separated from the background of the times.
The Eastern Han Dynasty ended in 220 AD and the Sui Dynasty was founded in 581 AD, during which there were nearly four hundred years of turmoil. Therefore, when in 622 AD, the system of opening up science and technology based on Confucian classics as the main criterion began to be established, many people were no longer cold.
This is because Confucianism at this time has lost the vitality it had had in the past in the days of Mencius, Xunzi, and Dong Zhongshu, and although the scriptures and documents all exist as usual, and there are more annotations and the like than in the past, they can neither meet the needs of the times nor attract people's interest.
If you are not interested in official learning, then what is the interest of people?
It turned out that after the revival of Taoist thought and the introduction of Buddhism to China, there was greater interest in the problem of metaphysics and the question of the science of life, that is, the question of human nature and destiny.
The new era has brought new problems, and the old ideas are not enough to cope with the new challenges of the times. Since then, Confucian scholars have embarked on a long process of self-renewal.
The first problem is that cosmology needs to be updated urgently.
The Confucian cosmology can be started from the I Ching. Originally, it was a book of divination, but later, Confucianism gave it a cosmological, metaphysical meaning, and from cosmology to ethics, to explain; this is the "Yi Chuan" that is now attached to the I Ching.
By the middle of the Tang Dynasty, Han Yu responded to the new questions raised by the times by reinterpreting the University and the Zhongyong. This is the so-called "Taoist theory." In the Original Tao, Han Yu said:
"The so-called tao of Si Wu is not the so-called path of the old and the Buddha. Yao Yi is ChuanZhi Shun, Shun is Chuan Zhi Yu, Yu Yi is Chuan Zhi Tang, Tang Yi is Chuan Zhi Wen, Wu, Zhou Gong, Wen, Wu, Zhou Gong Of Confucius, Confucius Chuan Meng Ke. The death of Ke shall not be passed on. Xun and Yang Ye, choosing but not refining, speaking vaguely but not detailed. ”
A similar insight can be found in Li Ao's Book of Restoration. The basic purpose of the two is actually very clear, translated into the vernacular, that is, we Confucians also have a theory of "Tao", and it is different from Taoism and Buddhism; it is only a generation of inheritance that people do not know today.
Since then, self-renewing Confucians have accepted Han Yu's "Taoist theory" and boasted of inheriting The Taoist system.
Next, let's take a look at what the updated Cosmology of Confucianism looks like.
The first philosopher to speak cosmology was Zhou Dunyi, nicknamed Mr. Lianxi. He took inspiration from some passages of the Yi Chuan, developed the ideas in them, and expounded them in Taoist catalogues.
Its basic idea is shown in the following figure, from top to bottom, starting from Wuji and Taiji, moving and giving birth to yang, static and giving birth to yin; yang becoming yin and yin, and giving birth to the five elements; qian dao becoming male, Kun Dao becoming female; two qi sympathetic, incarnating all things. Everything is born and changes infinitely.
Zhou Dunyi's "Tai Chi Diagram"
After understanding the principles of the universe, what is the ultimate goal of human beings?
At that time, for Buddhism, the ultimate goal was to lead people to become Buddhas. For Confucianism, this ultimate goal is to sanctify people.
The difference between buddhahood and sanctification is that the practice advocated by the Buddha is outside of society, while the cultivation and sanctification need to be in the sea of people. That is, the difference between birth and entry.
The ultimate goal is determined, and the next step is how to implement it. In this regard, Zhou Dunyi proposed "no desire". The main difference between "no desire" and the Taoist "non-action" and the Zen "no mind" is that the connotation is relatively clear, in order to echo the entry into the world.
The word "desire" here often refers to people's selfish desires. "No desire" relies on the spiritual cultivation of "emptiness". Starting from the state of "quiet emptiness", the human heart is like a mirror, which can always reflect on the things in front of the mirror. At this time, the action based on intuition, straightforward and selfless, is called "moving straight".
This is the sanctification formula proposed by Zhou Dunyi, which is close to the "spontaneous living and acting arbitrarily" advocated by Zen monks.
Another cosmological philosopher, Shao Yong, mr. Kang Jie, also developed cosmology from the I Ching and also used illustrations to illustrate his principles.
Shao Yong combined the twelve months of the year with the twelve gua, indicating that the yin and yang were dissipating and growing, and the cycle began again. The cathode is yang, after which the yang rises month by month to the point of extreme prosperity; at this time, the yin reappears, followed by the yin rises month by month. The yin qi rises to the pole, and the yang qi reappears. The yin and yang of nature fade, and so on.
I think Shao Yong's mathematical intuition should be good. This is reflected in the two figures below.
Shao Yong's "Sixty-Four Gua Sequence Diagram"
In Shao Yong's system, with the help of the above diagram, what is expressed is how to give birth to the higher level of gua xiang in turn through the evolutionary law of one movement and one static, starting from Tai Chi. This can be seen as the process of the generation of everything in the universe, which began with Tai Chi, is described as a recursive algorithm.
Shao Yong's "Twelve Gua Cycle Diagram"
By mapping the twelve trigrams above the circumference, Shao Yong highlights the cyclical nature of the time process. For example, the initial appearance of the repetition indicates the emergence of the world; the evolution to the Tai gua indicates the emergence of individual things in the world; the development of the qiangua, human civilization has reached its peak. After that, it is constantly declining, to the stripping, indicating the disintegration of all individual things; to the kun gua, indicating that the world no longer exists. After this, another world began to appear, like the first sign of the repetition, and the process of birth and destruction of the world was repeated again.
In the Imperial Pole Classics, Shao Yong believes that the time that the process of the world from birth to destruction is 129,600 years. According to this chronology, the golden age of the existing world, the age of Yao, has passed. Interestingly, this provides a metaphysical basis for the Shanggu thinking of Chinese philosophers.
Another implication of the cycle is that everything contains a negation of itself. Obviously, this contains the connotation of Lao Tzu's "movement against the Tao".
The third cosmological philosopher is Zhang Zai, nicknamed Mr. Hengqu. He also developed cosmology from the Yi Zhuan, but he held a different point of view. He placed special emphasis on "qi", and this concept of "qi" occupied an increasingly important position in the later Confucian cosmology and metaphysical thought.
He believes that tai chi is "qi." When the qi is affected by the positive, it floats, rises, and moves; when it is affected by the negative, it sinks, descends, and is still. When the qi is constantly gathering or dispersing, when the qi gathers, concrete individual things are generated from it; when the qi is dispersed, these things fall apart and decay.
Zhang Zai emphasized that the purpose of "qi" is to resist the Taoist and Buddhist ideas of "nothingness" as existence. This comes from his "knowing that too much is the breath, that is, nothingness." It can be seen that the void is not an absolute vacuum, it is just that the universe is in a state of dispersion, and people cannot see it with the naked eye.
Furthermore, since everything in the universe comes from the same "qi," the world and all things are one. Man should serve as his parents, and he should look at the world as if he were his own brother.
By introducing a common source, "qi", Zhang Zai eliminated the boundaries between the self and others, and found a metaphysical basis for the Confucian idea of "benevolence".
Zhang Zai's masterpiece Xi Ming says at the end:
Save, I go along; no, I'm not going to do it.
(As long as I live, I will follow and serve the parents of the universe, and when death comes, I will rest in peace.) ）
Later generations of Neo-Confucians greatly appreciated Zhang Zai's "Xi Ming". Because it distinguishes the Confucian attitude towards life (for the sake of not asking for anything) from Buddhism (from all things outside, in order to cut off cause and effect), and the Taoist attitude towards life (health and longevity, staying in the world for a long time).
Two Song Cheng Zhu Lixue
By the Song Dynasty, Confucianism was thoroughly renewed. Its main sources of thought are threefold:
Confucianism itself;
Buddhist thought, along with Taoist thought through the intermediary of Zen Buddhism;
Taoism, and the cosmological views it contains from yin and yang scholars.
Interestingly, the updated Confucianism was divided into two different schools, with two of Zhou Dunyi's students, Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi, as the founders, and they were called "Ercheng".
The Cheng brothers were taught by Zhou Dunyi in their youth, and later often engaged in academic discussions with Zhang Zai. In addition, they and Shao Yong's residence were not far apart, and they could often meet. It is a historical coincidence that such a close relationship was formed between the five philosophers.
Cheng Yi, the younger brother of mr. Yichuan, founded his own school, which was collected by Zhu Xi and historically known as the "Cheng Zhu School" or "Rigaku". Cheng Hao, the elder brother known as "Mr. Ming Dao", founded another school, completed by Lu Xiangshan and Wang Shouren, known in history as the "Lu Wang School" or "Heart Study".
The main question of the two schools of thought was the fundamental question of philosophy, which is still going on to this day. In the language of Western philosophy, the issues they argue about are:
Are the laws of nature a fabrication in the human mind, or the creation of the cosmic mind?
This is the central question of the historical debate between platonic realism and Kantian conceptualism, and it can be said that it is also the central problem of metaphysics.
Let's first look at the rigaku founded by his younger brother Cheng Yi.
In the pre-Qin dynasty, the famous representative Figure Gongsun Long had clearly distinguished between the universal and the thing itself, pointing out that they were not the same thing. Gongsun Long seems to see plato's discerning "two worlds", the eternal world and the world that passes in time, the recognizable world and the visible world.
However, later Chinese philosophers did not continue to play this idea, and famous artists did not occupy a major position in Chinese philosophy. It was not until more than a thousand years later that Chinese philosophers again noticed the question of the concept of eternity. The two philosophers who raised this question again were Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi.
The philosophy of Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi was not a continuation of the pre-Qin masters, and their concept of "reason" came directly from the Yi Chuan, and was most likely directly inspired by Zhang Zai and Shao Yong.
Zhang Zai's theory, which uses the aggregation and dispersion of "qi" to explain the generation and destruction of all things, has a major flaw, that is, it cannot explain why all things are divided into different categories.
For example, even if we accept that flowers and leaves are born of "qi", we still cannot explain why some become flowers and some become leaves. Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi's concept of "reason" was put forward in response to this point.
They believe that the universe we see is not only born of the "qi" gathering, but also because there are its own "reasons"; everything is from its own kind, because the "qi" is gathered, each according to a different "reason".
Based on this, the flower becomes a flower because its "qi" is gathered according to the "reason" of the flower, so it is born into a flower; the leaf becomes a leaf because its "qi" is gathered according to the "reason" of the leaf, so it is born into a leaf.
Shao Yong's illustration also promotes the formation of the concept of "reason", that is, the law of the evolution of things, which existed before the emergence of various things. It is as if the neo-realists had the idea that before the birth of mathematics, there was already the whole truth of mathematics.
If the philosophies of Zhang Zai and Shao Yong are combined, they are equivalent to the differences between the form and material of things that the Greek philosophers talked about. In Zhu Xi's words,
"The metaphysical, the formless and the shadowless is the truth; the metaphysical, the sentient being, is this instrument."
Metaphysical principles are abstract and eternal. Metaphysical qi is concrete and rheological.
"Born of man and thing, it will be born of this reason, and then there will be sex; it will be born of this breath, and then it will be tangible."
Between heaven and earth, there is reason and qi. The combination of reason and qi produces all things, thus completing the transformation from "metaphysical" to "metaphysical".
It is worth mentioning that according to the View of the Cheng Zhu School, things are divided into categories, and not every category has a "mind", that is, a "feeling", but all kinds of things have their characteristics, that is, their "reason". That is to say, the scope of application of science is not only sentient beings, but also inanimate things.
In this sense, "Tai Chi" is the principle of the total heavens and the earth, that is, the ultimate standard of the entire universe. Therefore, in each individual of each type of thing, the principle of universal omnipotence expressed by Tai Chi is embodied.
All things are born from Tai Chi, and the question that arises is whether Tai Chi has lost its unity? It is as if in Plato's philosophy there is a relationship between the world of ideas and the world of sensations, and the relationship between "one" and "many."
In this regard, Zhu Xi borrowed the Buddhist metaphor of "Moon Seal Wanchuan" to explain.
On the question of whether reason and qi precede or after qi, Zhu Xi believes that
"There is no unreasonable qi in the world, and there is no reason for no qi."
It is a good way to answer the question by eliminating itself.
On the question of which one is the "first driving force" between reason and qi, Zhu Xi believes that reason cannot become the "first driving force". Because the reason itself "lacks the will and design, and thus has no creativity."
Although the reason itself does not move, it has a "reason for movement and stillness" in the "pure, empty and vast world". Once the qi has "received" the principle of movement and stillness, it begins to be either "moving" or "static", and the movement of the qi is called "yang" and the still of the qi is called "yin". In this way, the yin and yang intersect and give birth to the five elements, from which all things are born.
When man speaks of materiality, he refers to the truth within the individual, not to the universal form of the reason. Similarly, a person must be angry and reborn. Human principles are common, but they are different because they receive different qi.
"He who is pure of qi is holy and virtuous, like a jewel in clear water; he who is turbid in qi is foolish, like a bead in turbid water."
Thus, through the difference in temperament, Zhu Xi perfectly solved the problem of the source of evil.
In Zhu Xi's theoretical system, human nature and human heart are two different things. He believes that the mind, like other individual things, is the embodiment of reason plus qi. As we will see in the next section, the Luwang school believes that the mind is sex. This is a major divergence between the two schools of thought, Cheng Zhu and Lu Wang.
In terms of political philosophy, Zhu Xi believes that if everything in the world has its own reason, then the state, as a concrete thing, must also have the principle of the state and the government. This political principle is the way of government that the Holy King taught and promoted earlier.
Zhu Xi believes that not only the previous Saint Kings, but also anyone who has achieved political success is due to the fact that to varying degrees, they have followed the way of government, even if they do not know it or practice it perfectly.
Previously, Mencius divided the way of governing the country into two types: the royal way and the domineering way. Zhu Xi's political theory of Mencius actually provides a metaphysical argument.
Finally, we take the construction of houses as an example to illustrate Zhu Xi's doctrine.
For a house to be built, it must be built according to the principles of architecture.
These principles are eternal, and even if there is no house in the world, the principles of architecture still exist.
If anyone wants to be a great architect, he must fully understand the principles of architecture, design and construct according to the principles of architecture; in this way, the houses he designs and builds can be firm and durable.
Not only big architects, but anyone who wants to build a solid and lasting house must adhere to these principles.
Lay builders, who have no special training, may build houses by instinct or by a little practical experience; they either do not understand the principles of architecture, or they do not know at all. As a result, the houses they built could not be strong and durable because they did not fully conform to or completely did not conform to the principles of architecture.
The so-called heroes of the previous Saint Kings and the descendants, the results of their ruling are different, but the reason is the same.
Song Ming Lu Wang Xinxue
After talking about the younger brother, let's look at the older brother.
In Cheng Hao's philosophical thought, the concept of "All-That-Is" occupies a central position.
In Cheng Hao's view, there is a metaphysical internal connection between all things. When man attains the goal of seeing himself as one with all things, he embodies the main characteristic of "benevolence." And when man's original mind is blinded by selfish desires, he loses his original consciousness of Being Oneness.
Therefore, the first priority of being a human being is to understand the truth of All-That-Is; then, keeping this in mind and doing it with sincerity and intention, it is enough. If people work like this over time, they will truly feel that they are one with all things.
Cheng Hao's philosophical propositions became the beginning of the study of mind. Later, after the elaboration of Lu Xiangshan and Wang Shouren, it gradually became complete.
Lu Jiuyuan, known as "Mr. Xiangshan", is friends with Zhu Xi. However, the two had a huge disagreement in philosophical opinions, for which they were often debated in both spoken and written terms, which was already of great interest at the time.
Lu Jiuyuan one day "read the ancient book to the word 'universe', and the interpreter said: 'The four directions up and down the universe, the ancient and the present are known as the universe.' Kuda province said: "The internal affairs of the universe are the internal affairs of oneself, and the internal affairs of oneself are the internal affairs of the universe." ’”
Later, he concluded: "The universe is my heart, and my heart is the universe." ”
In Zhu Xi's system of thought, the mind is understood as the concrete manifestation of "reason in the qi", according to which the mind and abstract reason cannot be equated. But Lu Jiuyuan's ideological system is the opposite, he believes that "the mind is the reason."
The fundamental difference between the two schools can be described as follows: Zhu Xi believes that reality contains two worlds, one is abstract and the other is concrete; in Lu Jiuyuan's view, reality only contains the world of the mind.
Lu Jiuyuan's speeches and writings only outline the outline, and in order to fully understand the study of mind, we must also read Wang Shouren's remarks and works.
Wang Shouren, known as "Mr. Yang Ming", his thoughts and remarks were compiled by the disciples as the "Records of Transmission and Practice". He was not only a brilliant philosopher, but also a capable and moral politician.
In his early years, he followed Cheng Zhu Lixue and was determined to follow Zhu Xi's thoughts and start with the "Principle of Ge Zhuzi". To this end, he concentrated on the principle of bamboo for seven days and seven nights, and as a result, he did not understand anything. He was forced to abandon the path of "Lattice".
Later, due to the political struggle of the imperial court, he was degraded to Guizhou, and in the backward and primitive living environment in the mountains, one night he got an epiphany and had a new understanding of the main purpose of "University", thus having a new interpretation of "University" and completing the ideological system of mental studies.
There is a classic dialogue in the Book of Transmissions:
"When mr. You traveled to Nanzhen, a friend pointed to the flower tree in the rock and asked: 'There is nothing outside the heart of the world, such a flower tree, in the deep mountains, opens and falls by itself, and what does it have to do with my heart?'
Mr. Yun: 'When Er does not look at this flower, this flower and Erxin return to silence, and when Er looks at this flower, the color of this flower is understood for a while.' Then he knew that this flower was not outside of Er's heart. ’”
Wang Shouren believes that the universe is a complete spiritual entity of its own, and this spiritual entity constitutes the world in our experience; in addition, there is no other abstract "world of reason" that Zhu Xi emphasizes.
We can further feel the difference between the two schools through the debate of loyalty and filial piety.
Zhu Xi believes that we must first understand the principle of filial piety, and then we must have the heart of filial piety; first we must have the principle of loyalty, and then we must have the heart of loyalty to the king. We can't turn that back.
And Wang Shouren just reversed these words. There is a filial piety, that is, there is a principle of filial piety; without the heart of filial piety, that is, there is no reason for filial piety. There is a heart of loyalty to the king, that is, there is a reason for loyalty; without the heart of a loyal king, there is no reason for loyalty.
According to Zhu Xi's thought, reason is an objective external reality, whether the mind exists or not. According to Wang Shouren's thoughts, if there is no heart, there is no reason. The mind is the legislation of the universe, and the reason is established by the heart.
On top of this concept of the universe, Wang Shouren gave the University a metaphysical meaning.
The "three programs" in the "University", that is, "in Mingmingde, in being close to the people, and in stopping at the highest good", are reduced to one, "in Mingmingde", and this is the nature of the mind.
Even if there is selfishness, it cannot completely extinguish the nature, and it is often manifested in people's instinctive reactions to external things. For example, the instinctive reaction of a person suddenly discovering that a toddler is about to fall into a well is enough to illustrate this point.
Man's subconscious reaction to things shows that in his heart, he knows what is right and what is wrong. This expression of the nature of the human heart was called "conscience" by Wang Shouren.
What man does is obey the command of his conscience and do it without hesitation. If one does not immediately follow the command of conscience, and seeks a reason not to do so, it is to add or subtract from the conscience, and the supreme good is lost. In fact, man's search for excuses not to obey the commands of conscience is out of selfish desire.
Since everyone has a conscience, everyone can be sanctified.
In Wang Shouren's words, "to the conscience" means to act in accordance with the command of the conscience. This is the central idea of Wang Shouren's philosophy, and he repeatedly said these three words in his later years.
Further, not only the "three programs", but even the "eight articles" have been unified.
"To know" is to "to conscience", and personal spiritual cultivation without him is to live according to one's conscience and put into practice the knowledge from intuition. However, "Grid Objects" was interpreted by Wang Shouren as "Kuang Zheng Things" ("Grid Person, Zheng Ye", "Thing Person, Thing Also"). Man's conscience can only be extended through the practice of action in rectifying one's own affairs, and there is no other way.
When a person looks for excuses not to carry out the commands of his conscience, there is no "sincerity." When a person cares about sincerity, his heart is right. "Righteousness" means sincerity.
The last four steps of the eight articles are "self-cultivation, family unity, governance of the country, and peace in the world." Wang Shouren believes that self-cultivation is to the conscience. When people strive to "reach conscience," they naturally love the masses; when they love the masses, they naturally strive to govern their families and do their best to seek orderly statecraft and peace in the world.
Therefore, the eight articles also boil down to one, which is "to the conscience".
Further, what is "conscience"? It is nothing but the inner light of our hearts, the inherent identity of the universe, or, as the University calls it, "Matilda."
Therefore, "to the conscience" is also "Ming Mingde". In this way, the whole idea of the University boils down to "to the conscience".
Combing through, we will find that Wang Shouren's ideological system is in the same line as Zhou Dunyi, Cheng Hao, and Lu Jiuyuan in the Song Dynasty, but Wang Shouren's words are more clear and more systematic.
At the same time, because Wang Shouren's ideological system and his spiritual cultivation methods are simple and clear, his ideas have great appeal.
Finally, let's see that although self-renewed Confucianism is divided into two schools of reason and mind, its spiritual pursuit is the same. Not only that, but this consistency can even be traced back to Confucius.
There are many levels of happiness in life. There is both material pleasure and spiritual divine bliss. The contrast between the two is clearly reflected in Confucius's disciple Yan Hui.
Zi Yue: "Xianzha Huiye, a piece of food, a scoop of drink, in the dark alley, people are overwhelmed by their worries, and they will not change their happiness when they return." Hyun-jae back also. ”
Confucius, speaking of himself, also said:
Zi Yue: "Eat and drink, bend and pillow, and enjoy it." Unrighteous and rich and expensive, to me is like a floating cloud. ”
If we look for the happiness of Confucius and Yan Hui, what is the pleasure?
Some readers, seeing this, will think of the four words "the way of peace and poverty". Once, in a conversation between Xian Yu and Cheng Yi, he thought so.
Xian Yu Nong (Yin Shen) asked Cheng Yi, "How can Yan Zi not change her happiness?" ”
Uncle Zheng (Cheng Yibei) said, "What is the matter with the person who is happy with Yan Zi?" ”
"It's just a pleasure." ”
Yi Chuan said, "Make Yan Zi happy, not for Yan Zi." ”
In fact, the happiness of the saint is a natural reflection of his inner condition. If the saint stays in the "way of pleasure," then he is separated from the Tao, the subjective and the objective; the saint takes pleasure in himself because he has become one with the Tao, the subject of the pleasure and the object of the pleasure have been combined, and it is precisely this state of existence that the saint enjoys.
In other words, the updated Confucians did not oppose the famous religions against nature, but regarded the famous religions as the development of nature. In the view of the updated Confucians, this is the true meaning of Confucius and Mencius thought.
So how can this be done?
In this regard, Cheng Yi has a famous saying:
"Cultivation must be respectful, and learning is to know."
In Chinese, "respect" means serious, sincere, and undisturbed. Since then, the new Confucians have attached great importance to the word "respect" as the key to spiritual cultivation.
Traditional spiritual cultivation methods emphasize the word "quiet". The replacement of the word "jing" with the word "jing" indicates that the newer Confucianism has further parted ways from Zen in terms of spiritual cultivation methods.
Although man's ultimate goal is to be unintentional, in order to achieve the unintentional, it is still necessary to use a lot of energy. This is the cultivation kung fu that the word "respect" is meant to express.
Why does cultivation require "respect" and "respect"?
The cultivation method of rigaku is "gewu zhizhi" plus "using respect". The purpose of the "lattice" is to "exhaust the reason", to recognize from the tangible things the "principles" that transcend the objects, that is, the "Tao".
If we do not "use respect", "lattice objects" can easily become a pure intellectual activity, and cannot reach the goal of "epiphany".
In the process of "lattice objects", what man is actually doing is to reproduce his own nature, so that pearls that are immersed in turbid waters will regain their brilliance. In order to achieve "enlightenment", people always think of "enlightenment", and the true meaning of "using respect" lies in this.
According to the theory of mind, one should "first establish one who is great" and then "use respect" to survive.
Therefore, the object of "reverence" is the mind of All-That-Is.
In this sense, "using reverence" is somewhat similar to the "perseverance" in the Six Paramitas of the Buddhists.
In this way, the updated Confucianism became the most beautiful example of the combination of Chinese romanticism (wind flow) and classicism (famous religion).
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="787" > Taoist</h1>
Pre-Qin Yang Zhu Laozhuang
The birth of Taoism is inseparable from the hermit of the Eastern Weekend.
In the pre-Qin period, there were three representative figures: Yang Zhu, LaoZi and Zhuangzi.
As a representative of the early hermits, Yang Zhu is a figure with the same name as Mozi. Yang Zhu has two basic ideas: one is "everyone is for himself", and the other is "rebirth of light things". This is the opposite of Mozi's "simultaneous love" thinking.
After Yang Zhu, Lao Tzu pioneered the second stage of early Taoism. In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu explains the characteristics of the Tao from different angles, the most famous two of which are: "The movement of the opposite Tao, the use of the Weak Tao." From the natural law of "things must be reversed", the role of "constant" is derived, and the ideological proposition of "rule by doing nothing" is derived. When you understand the Tao, you will be "Shunde," that is, the embodiment of the Tao in all things. Without pretentiousness and rashness, the human state will "return to simplicity."
The representative of the third stage of early Taoism was Zhuangzi. He lived his life like a hermit, but his ideas and writings were already well-known at the time. Zhuangzi divided happiness into two kinds, and relatively easy happiness can be brought about by the free development of human nature. Bliss, on the other hand, relies on a higher understanding of the nature of things.
In terms of feelings, people can increase their understanding of everything, so that they can "rationalize emotions" and reduce the pain caused by feelings. The saint perceives the nature of things, does not lose his sense of things, but does not be disturbed by feelings and thus maintains "peace of mind".
When people's cognition breaks through the relative limitations, they will transcend the dilemma of the "frog at the bottom of the well" and move towards looking at things from the perspective of the Tao. At this level, knowledge is "ignorance," and man is in the "infinity" state of experiencing the Tao. The way to achieve this is to "abandon wisdom". To move from "ignorance" to "ignorant knowledge" is to move from the original state of nature's gifts to a higher spiritual attainment.
In the three stages of early Taoism, in order to realize the original intention of "preserving life and avoiding damage", they went through a cycle from "escape", to "Shunde", and then to "transcendence".
For a richer content of early Taoism, see the Taoist section in the previous article "The Sons of the Pre-Qin Dynasty, The Origin of Dongzhe", which will not be repeated here.
Two Han Yang Xiong Wang Chong
Just when Dong Zhongshu, with the support of Emperor Wu of Han, carried out a drastic campaign to "depose hundreds of families and respect Confucianism alone", Confucianism itself was divided.
A part of the Confucians formed the "Ancient Literature School", claiming to have found the ancient books before the Qin Dynasty's "book burning pit Confucianism", in order to oppose the absurdity of Confucius and Confucianism, which was vigorously advocated by the "Modern Literature School" composed of Dong Zhongshu and his followers.
The controversy between these two factions has become a major controversy in The history of Chinese scholarship. The Ancient Literary School is both a protest reaction to the Modern Literary School and can be seen as an ideological revolution.
Representatives of the ancient literary school, including Yang Xiong and Wang Chong, all admired the ideas of Taoism.
For example, Yang Xiong's Taixuan was largely influenced by the ideas of Lao Tzu and the I Ching of "the movement of the anti-Tao."
Wang Chong was the greatest thinker of the ancient literary school, and his main work, On Balance, was imbued with a spirit of scientific skepticism about various idols. The denial of artificial idols sets off the admiration for the nature of the Heavenly Path. In this regard, Wang Chong said in "On Balance":
"Heavenly Dao, naturally, inaction." If you accuse people, it is a matter of doing, not natural. Huang Lao's house, on the Heavenly Dao, has to be true. ”
In this way, the Confucian Wang Chong, with his ideas, prepared the way for the revival of Taoism a hundred years later.
Interestingly, Taoism also arose at the end of the Han Dynasty. It was precisely because the ancient literary school purged the influence of the Yin-Yang family's thought from Confucianism, and the Yin-Yang family was later combined with Taoist thought to form Taoism.
In this process, Confucius's status was reduced from the status of God to the status of a teacher, but Lao Tzu became the founder of Taoism. Buddhism, on the other hand, has played a great role in promoting the rise of Taoism as a religion.
Prior to this, in the 1st century AD, Buddhism had been introduced to China from India through Central Asia. Buddhism, as a foreign religion, has become so popular in China that some Chinese with strong national sentiments have turned to the development of another religion native to China, which is Taoism.
Taoism borrowed many things from Buddhism, including religious systems, rituals, and even most of its classical forms. Including, Taoism imitated Buddhism and developed Taoist temples (temples), Taoists (monks) and dojo rituals (rituals). Although this organized religion has Lao Tzu as its ancestor, it bears no resemblance to the early Taoist philosophy and is therefore called "Taoism".
The reason why Taoist thought was revived in the Han Dynasty was inseparable from the political and social background at that time.
The profound historical lesson of establishing a great cause but dying ii made the Fa family a scapegoat for the failure of the rulers of the Qin Dynasty. Among the Hundred Sons and Hundreds of Families, the ones whose thoughts are furthest away from the Dharma are those of Confucianism and Taoism, so naturally, the trend of thought of the times swings in the direction of Confucianism and Taoism.
In the early years of the Han Dynasty, Taoist thought was called "HuangLaoshu" at that time, and it was once popular, and Emperor Wu's grandfather Emperor Wen deeply loved "Huanglaoshu". The historian Sima Tan, in his "On the Essentials of the Six Schools", also has a higher evaluation of The Taoists than the others.
In Taoist political philosophy, a good government does not need to do much, on the contrary, the less it does, the better. Therefore, if the saints are in power, they must eliminate the evil consequences of the "harsh government" of the previous dynasty. This is exactly what the public demanded in the early Han Dynasty.
When Han Gaozu led his revolutionary army to Xianyang (Chang'an), the capital of the Qin state, he announced to the people the "Three Chapters of the Law of Covenant": the murderer died, the wounded were wounded, and the crimes of theft were atonement. In addition, all harsh laws of the Qin Dynasty were abolished. When Han Gaozu did this, he actually implemented the "Yellow Old Technique", although he was not conscious.
Therefore, it can be said that the political philosophy of The Taoists was catering to the political needs of the early Han Dynasty, and after many years of war, what the Han Emperor wanted to do was to abolish the harsh government of the Qin Dynasty and allow the people to recuperate. By the time the people had recuperated for a period of time, the king wanted to do something, and by this time, Taoist philosophy had completed its task and was no longer adapted to the needs of the times and rulers, so the king returned to Confucian philosophy.
Wei Jin Xin Daoist
In 220 AD, the Han Dynasty collapsed. The ensuing political divisions and upheavals dragged on until the Sui Dynasty unified the country in 589 AD. In the intervening four centuries, China was divided into two parts, the north and the south, and the war was continuous.
During this period, political darkness, social turmoil, and pessimism pervaded, so Taoist thought made a comeback.
The prevailing trend of thought in the 3rd and 4th centuries has always been called "metaphysics". The word "Xuan" originally came from the first chapter of the Tao Te Ching, and the last sentence describes "Tao" as "Xuanzhi and Xuan, the Door of All Wonders", which means that it is profound and mysterious and unpredictable. The name "Metaphysics" indicates that it is a continuation of Taoism, hence the name "New Taoism".
The main feature of metaphysics is the reverence for reason.
The new Taoists regained their interest in famous artists, and on the basis of "beyond imagination", Guo Xiang put forward the concept of "discerning names and analyzing theories". Its core idea is that the connotation of a noun is a concept and is unchanged; the extension of a noun and its connotation are two different things, and it can be transformed.
The New Language of the World records such a story:
A guest asked Le Ling what Gongsun Long meant when he said "can't point to it"?
Le Ling did not answer directly, but picked up a whisk of dust, touched the coffee table with its handle, and asked: "Why not?" ”
The guest replied, "To." ”
At this time, Le Ling lifted up the dust and asked, "If you are the one who arrives, then you have to go?" ”
The guest had an epiphany.
This story is a good demonstration of the truth of "name" and "reality". Universality, as a concept, is unchanging, and if it is "to", it cannot be "not"; concrete things can be transformed, and things that are "to" can be transformed into "going". This is the "discernment of names".
Most of the new Taoists regard Confucius as a saint. Partly because during the Wei and Jin dynasties, the idea of Confucius as the ancestor of the state had been established; another reason was that the New Daoists also tended to accept important parts of the Confucian scriptures, but in accepting them and reinterpreting them in the spirit of Lao Zhuang (Confucianism entering the Tao).
For example, earlier we talked about Yan Hui at the end of Confucianism, the spiritual cultivation section. In the "Zhuangzi Grand Master", a story of Yan Hui", that is, Yan Hui is united with Dahua in meditation, so that he forgets his own existence.
When Commenting on this passage of the Analects, Taishi Shuming combined the story in the "Zhuangzi Grand Master" and sighed: Yan Hui still failed to forget himself completely, so he realized his "sitting forgetting", otherwise, even "sitting forgetting" should be forgotten. Yan Hui's mind was not completely empty, so he said that he was "always" empty.
With the background of Yan Hui, the new Taoists, although They were Taoists, believed that Confucius was more intelligent than Laozi and Zhuangzi. The reason is that they believe that Confucius does not talk about sitting and forgetting, because he has forgotten the matter of "sitting and forgetting". Confucius also did not speak of "no desire", because he had cultivated to this point and no longer had the desire of "no desire". As the saying goes, "Those who know do not speak, and those who speak do not know."
During this period, both Xiang Xiu and Guo Xiang made annotations to Zhuangzi, collectively known as Xiang-Guo's Notes.
Xiang-Guo's Notes made important revisions to Lao Zhuang's early Daoist thought. First, it interprets the Word as "nothing." Although Lao Zhuang also advocates that "Tao" is "nothing", its original meaning is "no name", that is, "Tao" is not the same thing, so there is no way to name it. The Xiang-Guo "Notes" use "Tao" as "nothing" and call the Tao "omnipresent, and there is nothing where it is".
Secondly, Xiang Guo's "Notes" put forward the theory of "independence" for "all things to arise by themselves". Everything that exists in the universe requires the whole universe as a necessary condition for its existence, and its existence is not produced by a particular thing. When conditions are met, things arise on their own, not by other things ("all natural ears"). Because of this, everything can only be itself ("indistinguishable").
Xiang Guo's "Notes" believe that the universe is in the flow of the uninhabited, so society is also constantly changing, and human needs are also constantly changing. Canonical and moral adaptations are temporary and cannot be applied permanently. Society changes with the situation, the situation changes, and the norms and morality should change accordingly. It was only natural that new institutions and morals came into being.
In addition, Xiang-Guo and Guo gave a new interpretation of the heavens, people, and non-action in the pre-Qin Taoist thought. In the change of social conditions, new canons and morals should naturally arise from time to time, and at this time, to conform to heaven and nature, we must conform to the new canonical morality, which is "heaven", that is, inaction. Opposing the new canonical morality and vigorously safeguarding the old canonical morality is "man" and is promising. And for a person, to let the talent of talent play out in his activities, this is in his inaction. On the contrary, it is to be promising.
Usually, Lao Zhuang is against the kind of people who are revered by society as saints. This is because Lao Zhuang despises knowledge, and therefore despises those who are well educated. The Xiang-Guo duo, on the other hand, are not opposed to some people becoming saints; what they are opposing is that some people try to imitate saints.
Xiang-Guo gave an interesting definition of knowledge, that is, the origin of intellectual intelligence is due to man's desires exceeding the ability of man's intellect. If man acts within the limits of his intellect, there is no need to be intellectually intelligent. If knowledge is intelligent in this way, only those who are able to do so need to be intelligent in knowledge.
Regarding imitation, Xiang-Guo believes that if man tries to transcend his nature, he will lose his nature as a result; only by ignoring the temptations of the outside and following his own nature can he maintain the integrity of his heart. Obsessively imitating others is not only impossible to succeed, but also in danger of losing oneself. This is the danger of deliberate imitation.
Therefore, imitation is not only useless and fruitless, but also kills the thief himself. Therefore, the only sensible way of life for man is to "abandon the other and let me", which is to practice "inaction" in life.
If a person can truly "let me" live, he will not be "tired of partiality". From the point of view of transcendence, there is no difference in nature. Knowing that all things are in harmony with "me", everything is comfortable with themselves and obtains ultimate freedom and happiness.
The ideas of the New Taoism are integrated into the famous and Confucian parts, and have a bit of "evolutionary" flavor. While advocating rationality, the new Taoists are more praised by posterity for their open-minded and spontaneous style.
During the Wei and Jin dynasties, the so-called "Qing Talks" were often held between literati and Buddhists. Literally, "clear talk" is a fresh, subtle conversation. Its artistry lies in the use of subtle and concise language to express (often Taoist) creative and fresh ideas.
Because of its subtle ideas and subtle and interesting language, it can only be carried out among friends who are intellectually high and familiar with each other and are equally popular, and are considered to be a high-level intellectual activity of the "Yangchun White Snow". "The New Language of the World" is such a compilation of the conversations between the celebrities at that time, recording the vivid images of the self-congratulatory celebrities in the 3rd and 4th centuries.
In the history of Chinese thought, "wind flow" is mainly associated with Taoist thought. Literally, "wind flow" is the swaying "wind" and "flowing water", which seems to imply that some people are wandering and free in a style of life. In fact, the Taoist "wind flow" is closer to the romanticism of Western history.
The present book "Liezi" is a work of the 3rd century AD, and the "Yang Zhu" chapter in it is very consistent with the ideological trend of the 3rd century, and actually reflects an aspect of the "wind flow".
In the "Yang Zhu" chapter, the distinction between "outside" and "inside" is made:
"The people are not allowed to rest, for four accidents: one is shou, two is the name, three is the position, and four is the goods." There are four of these, fearing ghosts and fearing people, and fearing threats and fearing punishment. This is also called a recluse of people. You can kill or live, and you can control your life. If you don't rebel against your fate, why envy your life? Not noble, what is the envy? Don't be powerful, why envy the position? Not greedy for riches, why envy goods? This is said to be obedient to the people, there is no right in the world, and the command is included. ”
The "rule within" mentioned in the "Yang Zhu" chapter is equivalent to living to what Guo said about "letting me", and the "extraterritorial" mentioned is equivalent to living from "following people" as Guo said.
People should live, either rationally or smoothly, out of a pure heart, not to cater to fashion. In the common language of the 3rd and 4th centuries, it was to let "nature" rather than follow "famous religions".
In the eyes of the new Taoists, the spirit of the Jin Dynasty represented by the Yang Zhu passage is neither all nor the best. If we take this as our only purpose and do not understand what is "beyond the image", that is not the true meaning of "wind flow".
There is a story about Liu Ling in "The Story of the World", who is one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Forest. The story says that Liu Ling likes to be naked at home, and has been criticized by others for this. Liu Ling replied to those who criticized him: "I regard heaven and earth as the building and the house as the robe (with crotch pants), so why should the princes enter my clothes?" Liu Ling was naked at home, and it was true that he took pleasure in it, but he also felt that he was in the universe of heaven and earth. This feeling is the essence of "wind flow".
People who have this sense of transcendence and follow the Taoist self-cultivation and health have a higher need for "happiness" than for specific material pleasures, and they also have a more acute sense. The "Sayings of the World" records the unworldly behavior of some famous scholars at that time. They act with innocence and innocence, but they have no intention of material pleasures. For example
Wang Xizhi's son Wang Huizhi (字子猷, died c. 388) lived in Shanyin (not far from present-day Hangzhou), "snowing at night, sleeping, opening the room, and drinking wine." Looking around, because of the wandering, Yong Zuosi's poem "Zhao Yin". Suddenly remembering Dai An Dao, when Dai zai, even if it was a small boat at night. After passing through the house, the door is not returned.
When the people asked him why, wang yue said, 'I have traveled with pleasure and returned with all my pleasure, so why should I see Dai?' ("The World Says Ren Birthday")
There is true affection between friends, not whether they meet and make love, so Wang Huizhi went to visit Dai Andao, but did not come back.
Another story in the Book of The World says:
"The prince is out of the capital and is still under Nagisa. The old man Huan Zi Ye was good at playing the flute, but did not know each other. When Huan huan passed on the shore, the king was in the boat, and the guest had the cloud of knowledge: 'It is Huan Ziye.' The king made people smell each other, and Yun said, "Smell the king and play the flute, try to play it for me." ’
Huan Shi is already noble, known as the king's name, even if he gets off the car and sits on the bed, in order to make three tones. When I was done, I got in the car. The guest owner did not say a word. ("The World Says Ren Birthday")
The two did not talk, because together they were fascinated by the pure beauty of the music and the communication of the mind in the music. Wang Huizhi asked Huan Yi to play a song for him in order to enjoy the music. Huan Yi knew that Zhiyin was difficult to meet, and Wang Huizhi was good at music, so he folded back and played three songs for Wang, and then boarded the car and left. Both get artistic satisfaction from each other, at this time, what else needs to be said to each other?
Not only do people-to-people exchanges pay more attention to spiritual communication, but so do people and all things.
There is also a story in the "Sayings of the World" that the famous monk Zhi Sui (314-366) liked the crane. Once, a friend gave him a pair of small cranes. The pair of cranes grew up, fearing that they would fly away, so they cut their wings short. When the crane spread its wings and wanted to fly, it could not fly, and looked at its wings in frustration. Zhi Yu also felt the chagrin of Xianhe and said, "Since lingxiao's ambition is there, he is willing to play with people's eyes and ears!" So when the crane's wings grew again, let them fly on their own.
Another story in the Tale of the World is about Nguyễn Nguyễn (philosopher and poet, 210-263) and his nephew Nguyễn Hạnh, both of whom are among the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Forest. "All the Nguyen can drink, and zhongrong to the clan gather together, do not reuse the regular cup to drink, with a large urn to serve wine, sitting around each other to drink." Sometimes a flock of pigs came to drink, and they went straight up and drank together. ”
Zhi Kou's sympathy for the crane and the Nguyen family's disdain for the pigs approaching the urn show that they see themselves as equal to everything in the universe, and there is no distinction between superior and inferior. This feeling of "being with all things" is the important ideological basis of "wind flow", which also allows the artist to freely inject his thoughts and feelings into the object to be expressed, and express it through his own body, or books or paintings, or songs or dances.
The saints in the Taoist mind can transcend the feelings of ordinary people. The thorough understanding of foreign logistics allows them to "rationalize and understand feelings" while being "sentient and not tired". There are many such examples recorded in the "Sayings of the World", and one of the most famous examples is the story of Xie An in the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
When Xie An was serving as chancellor of the Jin State, the Northern Qin State attacked the Jin Dynasty in a big way. Emperor Qin personally led the army and boasted that the generals of the Qin army, covering the earth and throwing whips at the Yangtze River, could cut off the flow of the Yangtze River. At that time, the Jin people were very frightened, and Xie An sent his nephew Xie Xuan to lead an army to meet the battle.
In 383, the two armies fought a decisive battle on the front line of Shuishui, Xie Xuan won a great victory, and the Qin army was defeated. When the news of the victory came, Xie An was playing chess with his friends. After he opened the letter and read it, he put it aside and continued to play chess with the guests. The guest asked what news was ahead, and Xie An quietly replied, "Little children are big thieves." ("The World Says Yaliang")
It should be emphasized that although many new Taoists focus on reason, there are still many who are serious. The New Taoists' emphasis on implicit sensitivity, coupled with the "self-expression" theory of the Heavy Sentiments, makes many people vent at any time and place when they are emotional. An example of this is the story of Wang Rong, one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Forest, quoted in the Shishu.
Wang Rong's child died prematurely, "Shan Jian went to the province, and Wang Grief was invincible." Jane: 'Why is this in the child's arms?' Wang Yue: "The saints forget their feelings, and they are the least affectionate; the place of love is in my generation." 'To be humble is even more mournful'. ("The Story of the World: Death by Wounds")
Wang Rong's remarks illustrate why many people in the New Taoist family are so sentimental. What moves them is not personal gain or loss, but the understanding of a certain aspect of life or the universe and the feelings that come from it.
These celebrities, in the chaotic world, with their own hands-on practice, made the best commentary for the gentleman. It also allows us to have a more intuitive understanding of the "Wei Jin Wind Bone".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="805" > Buddhist house</h1>
Buddhism entered China
Unlike Confucianism, Buddhism originated in India and was introduced to China through the Silk Road from the Han Dynasty onwards, and spread.
The introduction of Buddhism was a major event in Chinese history. Since its introduction, it has become an important factor in Chinese civilization and has had a huge impact on religion, philosophy, art and literature.
Historical records prove that Buddhism was introduced to China around the first half of the 1st century AD. Its subsequent spread in China has been a long, slow process.
During the Eastern Han Dynasty (1st and 2nd centuries AD), Chinese regarded Buddhism as one of the fangshu, which was not fundamentally different from the Yin-Yang family and later The Taoist Fangshu. In the 2nd century AD, there was even a theory that Shakyamuni was a disciple of Lao Tzu.
Between the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, more and more Buddhist scriptures were translated into Chinese, and people knew more about the metaphysical ideas of the Buddhist family. At that time, it was believed that the ideas of the Buddhists were similar to those of the Taoists, especially Zhuangzi, but had nothing to do with Taoism. Works explaining Buddhist scriptures often invoke Taoist thought, which at the time was called "geyi", that is, to find its meaning from analogy.
By the 5th century, when the Chinese translation of Buddhist scriptures was in full swing, the method of "Geyi" was abandoned. The representative figure is the 5th-century Buddhist translator kumarosh from India. The difference between the method of interpretation and "geyi" is that "geyi" only allows the reader to see the appearance of the shape, while the interpretation makes people see the inner connection of thought. It was actually a comprehensive effort to make Indian Buddhist thought and Chinese Taoist thought, thus laying the foundation for Chinese Buddhism.
It is worth pointing out that "Buddhism in China" and "Buddhism in China" are two concepts. A representative example of the former is that during the Zhenguan period of the Tang Dynasty, Master Xuanzang went through hardships to study in India and brought back a large number of scriptures. Introduced to China from India by Master Xuanzang, it was the Fa Xiang Sect, which emphasized that everything was changed by "consciousness", also known as the "Wisdom Sect", which can be called "Buddhism in China".
Their influence in China is limited to a certain circle and limited to a certain period. They did not try to reach out to the Chinese intellectual community, and therefore did not have any effect on the development of Chinese thought. It was precisely for this reason that although the Fa Xiang Sect had the same scenery at that time, it quickly fell silent.
"Chinese Buddhism" is the development of Buddhism after it was introduced to China and after its contact with Chinese philosophical thought, represented by Zen Buddhism, which we will describe in detail in the next part.
After the introduction of Buddhism to China, Buddhist scriptures were also translated into Chinese, including the Hinayana and Mahayana texts. In Chinese Buddhism, the Mahayana texts that focus only on "crossing sentient beings" are not unrelated to the Confucian concept of "cultivating Qi and ruling the peace".
In general, Mahayana Buddhism had two ends of its greatest influence on Chinese thought: the "cosmic mind" it proposed, and the "negative method" it used in metaphysics.
In the Buddha's view, the world that any sentient being sees is a self-created scene in his heart. Whenever he makes a move, or just speaks, or thinks in his heart, it is the action of the mind, and this is "karma." This action necessarily produces its consequences, no matter how long it takes for the consequences to manifest themselves. This consequence is the retribution of "karma." "Karma" is the cause and effect is the "retribution." Everyone is a chain of cause and effect, karma and retribution.
The present life of every sentient being is only one link in this infinite chain. Death is not the end of life, but only a transit point in this cycle of cause and effect. Man's present life is only the result of the "karma" of his previous life. His actions in this life ("karma") determine what he will become in his next life, and his future actions bear the fruits of the next life, so that they are infinite. This chain of cause and effect constitutes the "cycle of birth and death" (samsara in Sanskrit). The main source of the "suffering of all sentient beings" is this.
According to the Buddhists, the root of all this suffering lies in the fact that people do not know the nature of things. Everything in the universe is a vision created by each person's own heart, so it is an "illusion", only a fleeting moment. But man's persistent pursuit ("attachment to enlightenment") out of his own ignorance ("ignorance"), a fundamental ignorance called "Avidya" in Sanskrit, Chinese translated as "ignorance." "Ignorance" leads to "greed" and "attachment and unenlightenment," which binds man tightly to the great wheel of the cycle of birth and death, from which he cannot escape.
The only way for a person to be freed from the cycle of birth and death is "enlightenment" (Bodhi in Sanskrit). The teachings and practices of the various schools of Buddhism are designed to enlighten people to "enlightenment" to the world and themselves. After one becomes enlightened, after many rebirths, the accumulated "karma" is no longer the attachment to the world and attachment to enlightenment, but the absence of greed and attachment; in this way, one can be liberated from the suffering of the cycle of birth and death, and this liberation is called "nirvana" (Nivarna in Sanskrit).
How to further understand the state of "nirvana"? It can be said that this is the fusion of the individual and the cosmic mind into one (the cosmic mind is also known as "Buddha-nature"). The individual is originally one with the nature of the universe, he is the manifestation of the nature of the universe, but man did not know this before, or rather, did not realize it. The Mahayana Buddhism of Sex expounds this theory (the Sex Sect believes that mind and sex are the same thing). When the Sex Sect expounded this theory, it also brought the concept of the "cosmic mind" (that is, the universe ontology) into Chinese philosophical thought.
The "cosmic mind" is a major contribution of Indian Buddhism to Chinese philosophy. Before Buddhism was introduced to China, Chinese philosophy only talked about the "human heart", but not the "cosmic mind". According to the explanation given to it by Lao Tzu, the "Tao" spoken of by the Taoists is "mysterious and mysterious", and it has not yet become the heart of the universe. After buddhism was introduced to China, Chinese philosophy not only had the theory of "mind", but also the theory of "cosmic mind". This also provided an important source of ideas for the later Confucian psychology.
There are other sects of Mahayana Buddhism, such as the Void Sect (also known as the Middle Path Sect). It has a different interpretation of "nirvana." This school of thought solves the problem in the so-called "negative way."
The Middle Taoist Sect (called the Three Treatises in Buddhism) advocates that there are two kinds of truths, dividing the Buddhist principles into "secular truths" (also known as "world truths") for ordinary people to use, and The Dharma in a higher sense, that is, "true truths". The master of the Three Noble Traditions, Jizang, expounded that the Two Noble Truths consist of three levels of truth:
First, ordinary people see everything as "real" and do not know "nothing." At the level of ordinary people, taking all things as "being" is the common truth; taking all things as "nothing" is the true truth.
Second, taking all things as "being" is a biased view; taking all things as "nothing" is also a biased view. On the second level, saying "all things are" and saying "all things are nothing" are common truths. This is the true meaning only when one realizes that "things are not nothing."
Third, but if the true meaning of the Middle Way means that there is no biased view (i.e., non-existence and non-existence), it means distinguishing between "being" and "non-being", and all distinctions are themselves biased views. On the third level, to say that things are neither existent nor non-existent is an opinion that is not biased, but only a conventional one; the true meaning is that things are not "being", not "nothing", not "non-being", not "non-nothing"; the Middle Way is neither "biased" nor "unbiased".
When the Taoists use "nothing" to express the image of transcendence, there are indeed similarities between it and the Buddhists who use "nothing" to express "non-non-non".
There is a deeper similarity between the Buddhist Three Treatises and the Taoists in their methods of thought, where they start to explore the problems and the final results they get. This method is to use the different levels of the conversation, to make judgments at one level, and to negate them at the next higher level.
When everything is denied, including the negation of the previous negation, one finds oneself in the position of Zhuangzi's philosophy: everything is forgotten, including the point of "forgetting everything." This is what Zhuangzi called "sitting and forgetting," which is what the Buddhists call "nirvana."
We cannot ask this school of Buddhism: What exactly do you mean by "nirvana"? Because according to the theory of the Three Treatises, when a person reaches the third level of truth, he has nothing to say. That's what "incredible" means.
Buddhism in China
Buddhism introduced to China constantly collided with local cultural exchanges with China, and eventually gave birth to Chinese Buddhism: Zen Buddhism.
The origin of Zen Buddhism, according to the traditional saying, is that the Dharma taught by Shakya, in addition to seeing the teachings of the Buddhist scriptures, there are also "teachings outside the teachings" of "transmitting the heart with the heart, not establishing words; pointing directly to the human heart, seeing the nature to become a Buddha". The allusion to the smile of the flowers is this.
At that time, Shakya passed on only one disciple, His Holiness Gaya. This disciple passed it on to another disciple. Thus it was preached in India for twenty-eight lifetimes, to Bodhidharma. Bodhidharma came to China at the end of the Southern Dynasty and the Song Dynasty and became the ancestor of Zen Buddhism in China.
After that, Dharma taught Shakya's mental method to Hui Ke, the second ancestor of Chinese Zen Buddhism, and passed it on to the five ancestors through the monks and Daoxin. Hongnin's disciple Shenxiu created the North Sect, and the disciple Huineng created the South Sect. The Southern Sect overpowered the Northern Sect in its spread, and later Zen Buddhism became powerful, and each sect ancestor described Huineng's disciples and promoted Huineng as the Six Ancestors.
This traditional claim deals with the early history of Zen Buddhism in China, because there is no basis for supporting this claim in documents before the 11th century, and contemporary scholars are mostly skeptical of this claim.
In fact, the theoretical basis of Zen Buddhism was born in the era of the two great disciples of Kumarosh, Sangha and Daosheng. With this foundation, the rise of Zen Buddhism can be said to have gone down the river, and it was inevitable that there would be no need to resort to the legendary Bodhidharma to serve as the founder of Chinese Zen Buddhism.
It is a historical fact that Zen Buddhism has split into north and south due to Shenxiu and Huineng. The differences between the two factions can be seen as a continuation of the differences between the Sex Sect and the Void Sect. This can be reflected in the poetry of Shen Xiu and Hui Neng.
According to the Tantra Sutra, Master Hongnin, the five ancestors of Zen Buddhism, knew that his limit was approaching, so he gathered all his disciples to summarize the essence of Zen beliefs with a poem, and those who realized the best would inherit his mantle.
Shenxiu's poem says:
The body is like a bodhi tree, and the heart is like a mirror table.
Always wipe diligently, do not make it dusty.
Huineng wrote the following poem in response to Shenxiu's poem:
Bodhi has no tree, and Spiegel is not a platform.
There was nothing in the original, where the dust was stained!
In the end, Master Hirohito praised Huineng's poetry and passed on the mantle to him.
Shen Xiu's poems emphasize what Daosheng calls the cosmic mind or Buddha-nature; What Huineng emphasizes is what Sangha Zhao calls "nothingness." In Zen Buddhism, there are two common sayings: "The mind is the Buddha" and "the non-mind is not the Buddha". ShenXiu's poems express the previous sentence, and Huineng's poems express the latter sentence.
Zen Buddhism later developed along the huineng line, and it was the development of Zen buddhism that brought the combination of void buddhism and Taoist thought to its peak.
The principle that emptiness is revered as the third level of truth, which Zen Buddhism calls "the first righteousness." In the previous section, we already knew that the nature of the "first righteousness" is "unspeakable."
According to the Sayings of Zen Master Wenyi,
Someone asked Zen Master Wenyi, "How is the first righteousness?" ”
Shi Yun: "I said to Er, it is the second meaning." ”
Because of this, the principle that Zen masters teach their disciples is personal contact. In order for other disciples to benefit as well, the teachings of the Zen master were recorded and became the Quotations (which was also adopted by later Neo-Confucians).
It can be seen from the Quotations that some monks asked the Zen master the fundamental questions about Zen, and the Zen master either answered the questions that were not asked, such as answering "cabbage for three cents and one pound", or even beating the apprentice up. People who do not know the truth will find the Zen master's reaction to the disciple inexplicable and incomprehensible. In fact, it is precisely through this that the Zen master tells his disciples that this question cannot be answered (anyone who makes an affirmative statement to the person who proposes to speak the first meaning is a so-called dead language, and Zen Buddhism believes that those who speak the dead language should be beaten), and only by themselves can "enlighten", once they understand, they will be fully enlightened.
Because it cannot be expressed in words, some Zen masters use silence to represent "nothingness" or the first meaning, so Zen Buddhism is also known as the philosophy of subtlety. From this point of view, any Buddhist sutra is a convenient method and cannot be directly linked to the first meaning. It is no wonder that in "Journey to the West", the Tang monks and disciples took the sutra from the Western Heavens, and the Ancestors of the Buddha gave the Wordless True Scripture. Seeing that they could not comprehend it, they were given the true scriptures.
To understand the true meaning of the first meaning of "nothingness", that is, the consciousness of "nothingness", which is "consciousness". Therefore, the method of cultivation can only be "cultivation without cultivation", and there is a so-called saying that "the old karma is eliminated with fate, and the new karma is not created."
Volume 1 of the Sayings of the Ancient Zun Su records that it is said that Matsu lived in Hengshan, Hunan Province, before becoming a disciple of The Zen Master Huai Rang. "To be alone in a nunnery, but to practice zazen, and to ignore any visitor."
Huai Rang "grinds bricks in front of the temple one day, and Matsu does not care." After a long time, he asked, 'What to do?' ’
Shi Yun: 'Grinding into a mirror.' ’
Ma Zuyun: 'How can grinding bricks become a mirror?' ’
Shi Yun: 'Since grinding bricks is not a mirror, how can zazen become a Buddha?' From this, Matsu realized that he was a teacher. ”
The best meditation practice is to do what you are doing in front of you and not to do anything. This is exactly what the Taoists call "non-action" and "no mind.". Practicing this practice is not for any purpose. In time, when the karmic reward accumulated in a person's previous life has been exhausted, no new karma will be regenerated, and he will be liberated from the cycle of birth and death and attain nirvana.
Acting as a human being, with no intentions, that is to say, there is no use for work, and everything goes naturally. In addition to having enough self-confidence in oneself, the practice requires abandoning all other considerations of gain and loss. What one needs to do is to do ordinary things with a normal mind, and that's it. This is what the Zen master calls "cultivation without cultivation."
According to the Buddhists, a person's practice, no matter how long it takes, is, by its very nature, only the preparation of the soul. To become a Buddha, one must experience an epiphany, as mentioned in the previous chapter, which is an inner experience similar to jumping over a cliff. Only through such inner experience can one become a Buddha.
Zen masters often refer to this "enlightenment" as "seeing the path." And man's enlightenment is one with the Tao. At this time, the vast and boundless "Tao" is no longer "nothing", but a "realm of no difference". The "undifferentiated realm" between man and the external world cannot be expressed by words, but can only be experienced by man's own experience.
When the Zen monk was on the eve of enlightenment, he especially needed master's help. When the monk wants to jump over that cliff in his soul, the little help that Master gives means great help. At this time, the method used by Zen masters is often "a stick to drink". Zen Buddhism records many such examples in the literature.
When the master beats the apprentice, it is precisely through this action that he pushes the apprentice into the psychological state of leaping forward on the cliff, and this is the moment that the apprentice has been waiting for mentally.
To describe "enlightenment," Zen masters use a metaphor to say, "Like the bottom of a bucket." When the bottom of the bucket suddenly fell off, the contents of the bucket fell out in an instant. When people have an epiphany, the burdens in their hearts will seem to be suddenly gone, and all kinds of problems will be solved by themselves. This is not the solution of the problem of thought as it is usually understood, but all the original problems are no longer problems. This is why the "Way" is called the "Way of No Doubt."
After one goes through an "epiphany," one does not get another thing from it. It is just that the previous "mystery" has been replaced by today's "enlightenment". Today's "enlightenment" is the previous "mystery."
Baizhang Zen master Huai Hai once said: "When there is no enlightenment and no solution, the name is greedy, and when it is enlightened, it is called Buddha-wisdom."
Gu Yun: "It is not different from the old time, only different from the old time people." ”
Man is different from the old days, because although he behaves like everyone else, he is not stuck in anything. This is what Zen often says:
"I have eaten all day, I have not bitten a grain of rice; I have been dressed all day, and I have not hung a single strand of silk."
The practice ideas of "cultivation without cultivation" and "non-achievement" are quite in line with the Confucian idea of "seeking nothing for nothing". Zen monks also have another saying that they often say: "Carrying water and cutting firewood is nothing more than a wonderful way." One might ask:
If carrying water and chopping wood is a wonderful way, then is there no magic way in it for "fathers and kings"?
If we look for the logical conclusion of this question in the Zen teachings, the answer can only be yes. However, the Zen masters did not answer this question head-on. The positive answer to this question was left to the Neo-Confucians who would later join the WTO.
Therefore, although Chinese culture is called the three schools of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, the final result in the actual spiritual connotation is the confluence of the three schools.
"A Ball of Harmony Map", (Ming) Zhu Jianshen
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="828" > Postscript: Inheritance and Development</h1>
The sons of the pre-Qin Dynasty can be said to have made a good start for the development of Eastern philosophy.
Since the beginning of the Qin Dynasty, the literati and scholars of successive dynasties have faced the first question: inherit (old tradition) or develop (new ideas).
Inheritance should be simpler, the concept system is there, and it is basically enough to make some small repairs according to the background of the times. Development is much more difficult, and it is necessary to expand new horizons and break the old system in view of the shortcomings of the old tradition.
Interestingly, looking at the inheritance and development of Dongzhe, there is a bit of modular innovation. This also makes the way inheritance and development are presented, not so clear-cut. If the scale of observation is switched, then the development of one scale becomes inheritance on another; and vice versa.
Taking Confucianism as an example, the representatives of early Confucianism, whether confucius, mencius and Xunzi, were untouched and mostly original innovations. Starting from Dong Zhongshu, he successively integrated the cosmology of the Yin and Yang family, the ontology of Taoism and Buddhism. In Cheng Zhu Lixue, the concepts of reason and qi, and in Lu Wang's mind, the idea of nothing outside the mind are deeply imprinted with Taoist and Buddhist thought.
Throughout history, the main internal and external factors that have influenced inheritance and development are:
The background of the times: the chaotic world or the prosperous world, the change of dynasties, the back of the people's hearts;
Cultural exchange: absorbing foreign countries, or defending the homeland; both export and import;
The temperament of the literati: emphasizing ethics, or focusing on the law; advocating nature, or advocating etiquette; self-denial and retribution, or the flow of style...
Standing at this point in time, Chinese civilization is most likely on the way to the third evolution. The decline of the Zhou royal family allowed the knowledge originally exclusive to the nobility to spread to the people; hundreds of sons and hundreds of families competed to seek a way to govern the country and the country for the chaos of the Spring and Autumn Warring States for hundreds of years.
The Silk Road, which began in the Han Dynasty, opened a great passage for the exchange of civilizations between the East and the West, and the Indian Buddhist thought located in the west of the East was introduced to Middle-earth. Local Confucians and Taoists have embarked on a round of self-renewal so as not to be out of touch with the times.
The spirit of Zheke, which originated in the west of the world after the Renaissance, triggered an unprecedented process of modernization with the blessing of geographical discoveries. The global market + science and technology has swept almost every corner of the global village. At the same time, it has also brought many new dilemmas.
Is it possible that in the deepest recesses of Eastern and Western civilizations, inheritance and innovation on a larger scale are brewing?
I think it's entirely possible. Of course, we must also rationally look at the time span required for the deep integration of civilizations, as shown by the historical integration of the past.
However, only in this way can human beings continue in competition and cooperation, rather than die in the game.
This, I think, is the ultimate meaning of cultural existence.