Zhuangzi, surname Zhuang, name Zhou, character Zi Xiu (also known as Zi Mu), Song Guo Mengren, ancestors are Song monarch Song Dai Gong. He was a famous thinker, philosopher and writer in the middle of the Eastern Zhou and Warring States periods. Zhuang Xue, an important philosophical school in China, was founded, and was a representative figure of the Taoist school in the Warring States period after Laozi, and was one of the main representative figures of the Taoist school.
Zhuang Zhou, because he advocated freedom, was not hired by the King of Chuwei, and only served as a lacquer garden official in the Song Dynasty in his lifetime. Historically known as the "Proud Official of lacquer garden", he was known as a model for local officials. Zhuangzi first proposed the idea of "Inner Saint and Outer King" to have a profound influence on Confucianism, and Zhuangzi understood Yi Li and profoundly pointed out that "Yi" is the Tao yin and yang"; Zhuangzi's "Three Laws" thought is consistent with the three talents of the I Ching. His representative works are "Zhuangzi", among which the famous works include "The Getaway" and "The Theory of QiWu". It is the same as Lao Tzu and is known as "Lao Zhuang".
Zhuangzi's imagination is extremely rich, the language is used freely, flexible and changeable, and he can tell some subtle and unspeakable philosophies fascinatingly. His work has been called "the philosophy of literature, the literature of philosophy". According to legend, he also tried to live in seclusion in the Nanhua Mountains, so Tang Xuanzong Tianbaochu, zhaofeng Zhuang Zhou as a Real Person of Nanhua, calling his book "Zhuangzi" the "True Classic of Nanhua".
In life, we will find that what determines success or failure is not necessarily a person's technical level, but a person's mentality. When we suffer from gain and loss, when we have some concerns, all your experience and skills cannot be best performed.
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Zhuangzi told such a story in "Tian Zi Fang".
Lieyu Kou, the one who travels against the wind, performs archery for Bo Di. When he shot the arrow, he was satisfied, full of arrogance, pulled the bow string, and then put a full glass of water on his elbow and bent the bow to shoot arrows. As soon as the first arrow was fired, the second arrow was fired immediately after it, while the third arrow was already waiting on the string, the glass of water on his arm did not move at all, and the person of Lie yukou was standing there like a wooden man, standing still.
Archery skills like Lie Yukou's are not high, but has such a person really reached the great realm? Bo Di was not impressed, and said: This kind of archery of yours can only be regarded as the archery of intentional archery, not the archery of unintentional archery. (It is a shot of shooting, not a shot of no shot.) No one said: I now invite you, let's go together to "climb the mountain, walk on the dangerous stone, and approach the abyss of the hundreds", and I will see how you shoot?
Bo Di no one first walked up the high hill, with the weathered dangerous rocks on his feet, and was in the abyss, and then turned around and retreated backwards to the abyss, until part of his foot was already hanging outside the cliff. Standing in this place, no one asked Lieyu to come up and shoot arrows. At this moment, Lie Yukou could only lie on the ground, "sweat to the heel", and the sweat flowed to the heels.
At this time, no one said, "He who is the best man, peeps up into the blue sky, dives down to the Yellow Spring, and wields the eight poles, and his spirit remains unchanged." The truly wise people in the world can see through the sky upwards, and the Yellow Springs can be seen clearly downwards, and the world is clear in their hearts, and they can look unchanged and calm at any time. He said to Lieyuko: You are now dizzy, and if you shoot an arrow, the probability that you will be able to shoot will be too small and too small.
This story shows that in this world, we should never trust technique too much. That is, no one can survive without the environment. When we are all faced with a harsh environment, it depends on the state of mind that is brewing in our hearts. When a person's state of mind can offset the external fear, the person becomes a real brave, and the person's skills have room to play. If your state of mind has been frustrated by the environment, you will achieve nothing in anything you do.
A person's mentality determines the state of his life. So, what kind of state is the best state for a person's heart to reach? How do you get to this state?
The word "benevolence" is seen as a sign of Confucianism, but the word "morality" is the essence of Taoist thought. Zhuangzi's "Tao" is the Tao of Heaven, the "Tao" that imitates nature, not the man-made cruelty.
In Zhuangzi's philosophy, "heaven" is two concepts opposed to "man", "heaven" represents nature, and "man" refers to everything that is "man-made", everything that deviates from nature. The word "artificial" together is a "pseudo" word.
Zhuangzi advocated obedience to the Tao of Heaven, and discarded "man-made" and the "false" impurities in human nature. Obeying the "Heavenly Dao" and thus communicating with the heavens and the earth is the "virtue" advocated by Zhuangzi.
In Zhuangzi's view, true life is natural, so there is no need to teach anything or prescribe anything, but to get rid of something, to forget something, to forget the mind, to forget the mind, the mind of complacency, and the mind of separation. If this is the case, can we still use political propaganda, ritual education, and benevolent persuasion? These propaganda, indoctrinations, and persuasions are all "pseudos" in human nature, so we must abandon them.
In Zhuangzi's view, there is no stagnation, that is, there is no violation of nature. Do not freeze in any thought, interest, or anything, so as to achieve the state of the saint not being stuck in things. I have an end to life, and knowledge has no end, with a limited life to the extreme pursuit of infinite knowledge and interests, and ignore all the beauty around me This is stagnant and stagnant. Zhuangzi believed that only by not stagnating, can we multiply things to swim in the mind, and not be enslaved and burdened by any thoughts and interests, is the whole life. It has had a profound impact on the philosophy, art and religious classics of later Generations in China.
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Zhuangzi told another story of cockfighting.
Kiyoko trains cockfighting for the King. The king obviously likes cockfighting, and hopes that Kiyoko can raise a fighting that is a bully and can fight as soon as possible. Ten days had passed, and the king went to ask this Ji Qingzi: Can my chicken fight?
Ji Qingzi replied: Not yet, because this chicken is "vain and arrogant", the big rooster is domineering, the feathers are open, the eyes are shining, very proud, and there is a breath in the chest. We most people think that cockfighting is not just right at this time? But people who really know how to train chickens say that this time is simply not ok.
After another ten days, the king asked again. Kiyoko replied, "Not yet." Although its qi began to converge, as soon as the other chickens made a noise, it immediately reacted and fought, which was not enough. After another ten days, the king went to ask for the third time. Ji Qingzi said: Not yet. Although his external reaction had faded a lot now, there was still anger in his eyes, and he couldn't wait any longer.
After another ten days, the king came and asked. Kiyoko finally said: This time the chicken is almost OK. Some of the other chickens chirped, and it was no longer answered. What does it look like now? This leads to an idiom commonly used in our lives, called "dumb wooden chicken". Ji Qingzi said that this chicken has now been trained like a wooden chicken, "its virtue is complete", that is, the spirit is cohesive, its virtue has been internalized, introverted. So, as soon as the chicken goes there, any chicken that sees it will immediately flee into the wilderness. At this time, the chickens can go to the cockfighting.
In Zhuangzi, there are many fables that are thought-provoking because they provide a system of judgment that is very different from our ordinary people. We believe that if a chicken goes to fight, it is like a soldier with a three-way drum, it needs to be high-spirited, it needs to be full of ambition, and it needs to have a victorious heart to show it. And the realm that Zhuangzi gives us is that when it eliminates all the external sharp edges layer by layer, it takes all the sharpness in the heart. This is not to say that it has no real fighting spirit, but it is introverted. At this time, it can be called Quande. The real struggle, the victory, is not in bravery, not in skill, but in virtue.
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Zhuangzi tells the story of a carpenter in "Dasheng".
This is a carpenter of the Lu kingdom named Ziqing. He "cut wood for inlays." This is a pillar on both sides of the shelf where the bell and drum are hung, and the beast will be carved on it. There is also an explanation for this setting, saying that it is a musical instrument with the appearance of a tiger carved on it.
This carpenter made the inlay "the seer is amazed by the ghost", and the people who saw it were astonished, thinking that the ghost was a miracle, how could it be done so well? The beast above it came to life. Ziqing's reputation spread out, and it spread to the monarch, so Lu Hou summoned this carpenter Ziqing to ask him about the mystery.
Ziqing is very modest, saying that I am a carpenter, where do I have any tricks? There is no skill at all! He said to Lu Hou: When I was ready to make this setting, I did not dare to lose the slightest strength of myself, but to fast with my heart. The purpose of fasting is to "meditate" and to really quiet one's heart.
In the process of fasting, by the third day of fasting, I can forget the "Reward Of The Lord", that is, I can get the merits, the rewards, the celebrations, and so on after I succeed, and these things can be thrown away. That is, fasting for three days, I can forget the profit. By the fifth day of fasting, I can forget the "non-reputation", that is, I no longer care whether others are ruining my reputation or right and wrong, and everyone says that I have done a good job or not, I have not cared, that is to say, I have forgotten my reputation.
Continue fasting. By the seventh day, I can forget the "limb form" of my person, that is, by the seventh day, I have reached the state of self-forgetfulness. At this time, I can forget that I am doing things for the imperial court. As we all know, if you have a troubled heart for the imperial court, you can't do it well if you have distractions. At this time, I went into the mountains. After entering the mountain, calm down, look for the wood I want, observe the texture of the trees, and see the shape is appropriate, as if a molded setting is in front of you. Then I cut this most suitable wood back, and as soon as I processed it, it would be what it is now. Ziqing finally said that what I did was nothing more than "Heaven in Heaven", and this is my mystery.
The carpenter's story makes us realize that with a good attitude of openness, we can achieve the best state, and we can do the best thing by "taking the sky in order to be in heaven".
This is the Way to deal with the law with the things that are the most lawful in itself, never to compete with the law, not to violate the law, not to make futile efforts, but to use one's own clear mind and wisdom to see which things can be "in heaven." The carpenter fasts for seven days, in fact, through three stages: the first stage, forgetting the interests, no longer thinking about using my things, to win a worldly great profit; the second stage, forgetting the reputation, no longer thinking about how important everyone's reputation is to us; the third realm, forgetting oneself, people can only do the best if they reach the state of self-forgetfulness.
In today's era of information explosion, if we want to really impress people's hearts and do a good job, we must reach the carpenter to tell us a simple and mysterious truth, and we must go through three stages: forgetting profit, forgetting fame, and forgetting self. If you can do these three things, you will know the rules of the world's path and achieve "heaven in heaven." Is this hard? Not hard! This just requires us to pick up a lot of simple things in our hearts, which is called "seeing the plain and holding the simple".