Beijing, November 13, 2019 Title: Wang Shouren's Wisdom in Life: True Calmness Comes from Inner Calmness
Reporter Shangguan Yun cartographed Lei Yuzhu
"Life is not satisfactory, nine times out of ten." In life, you can often hear people complaining about such trivial things: lovers are not harmonious, the workplace is not smooth... Sigh again: Why am I so unlucky? However, there are only complaints, no actions to solve the problem.
If this is the state of life, you may wish to look at this person in the Ming Dynasty: when he fell into the trough of life when he was in full bloom, everything had to start all over again, but even if he was relegated to a remote place, he never gave up the ideal of "learning from the sages" and educated the local people. Finally, he was knighted by military merit.
What he encountered was worse than many people, but with the strength and calmness of his heart, he was optimistic about the ordeal and constantly counterattacked in the predicament. This man's name is Wang Shouren.
One
But most of the cattle people have a tortuous life story, and Wang Shouren is no exception.
He came from a very good background, and he also had the ability to never forget, and the famous classics were familiar to him, and he knew everything about martial arts and archery.
The whole family hopes that Wang Shouren can get into high school as soon as possible. During the class, the teacher also said that reading and climbing the first place in life is the first thing in life. But he clearly had a higher spiritual pursuit: to study the sages.
"Establish a heart for heaven and earth, establish a destiny for the people, continue to learn for the saints, and open up peace for all the worlds", this is what The Great Confucian Zhang Zai said, and it has also become the lifelong ambition of the young Wang Shouren.
But how do you become a sage? Song Ru had the saying that "things have fine and thick surfaces, and every grass and tree has the most reasonable", and next, Wang Shouren intends to practice it himself.
In order to "poor bamboo reason", he began to "check" bamboo, a "grid" is seven days and seven nights, did not find any reason, but he fell ill.
In the eyes of others, this is like a young people's "performance art", or just a joke. But for Wang Shouren, it means a consistent pursuit of ideals. Although it did not get what it wanted, it had a renewed thinking about the knowledge in the books.
Two
However, before he could understand the "grid", a workplace disaster struck.
When Wang Shouren was in his 20s, he passed the entrance examination and successfully obtained an official position. However, later, because of his righteous words, he angered the eunuch Liu Jin, and after being reprimanded by the staff for forty years, he was demoted to Guizhou Longchang as a small eunuch. His father was also implicated and transferred to the Nanjing official Shangshu.
This is not the end, Liu Jin hates Wang Shouren so much that he sends out a killer, planning to kill him on the road. Wang Shouren pondered, put a desperate poem and clothes on the riverside, faked it as the scene of diving and committing suicide, and fooled the killer away.
Guizhou in the Ming Dynasty was still very desolate. But after Wang Shouren arrived here, he was at peace, found a cave to live in, and then simply built a house, and enjoyed himself every day.
After the great ups and downs of life, he regarded life and death more lightly, but he still did not forget his original ideals, while fetching water and growing vegetables, while educating the local people.
For the wise, tribulations can often lead to unexpected gains. Wang Shouren made a coffin and stayed in it to meditate. Finally, one day, he figured it out, "The way of the saints, I am self-sufficient, and I ask for reason from the people who are wrong." ”
This is the famous "Dragon Field Enlightenment". He put forward the idea of "unity of knowledge and action" and was also tirelessly lecturing, and many students came to visit him.
What is the Unity of Knowledge and Action? Someone once made a simple generalization, that is, people's subjective understanding and practical behavior should be highly unified. In other words, if you understand the truth but do not practice it, you do not really understand it.
Three
Wang Shouren advocated that all ideas and understandings should be applied and tempered in practical affairs. This is also the embodiment of the "unity of knowledge and action".
He was not a nerd, and he was very talented in the military and had a lot of ambitions. When he was young, he traveled to Juyongguan, Shanhaiguan and other places for a month, and was very concerned about national affairs.
Wang Qiong, the Shangshu of the Bingbu, has always appreciated Wang Shouren. At his recommendation, Wang Shouren was promoted to the position of Right Governor Of Yushi and inspected Nan and Gan.
It is said that on the way to office, he encountered someone robbing the ship, and seeing that everyone was about to finish, Wang Shouren asked the merchant ships next to him to hang up his official flag, and with a loud noise, the bandits were scared half to death, thinking that the officers and soldiers were coming, and all of them ran away.
In this way, he used psychological warfare to the fullest, and quickly swept away the long-suffering plague of thieves. Later, because he liked to be surprised and scheming in war, he won a "cunning special soldier" evaluation.
In the fourteenth year of Zhengde, Zhu Chenhao, the king of Ning, launched a rebellion in Nanchang. The news reached the capital, and Wang Qiong, after a brief panic, quickly calmed down: because Wang Shouren was there.
However, at that time, Wang Shouren had no soldiers in his hands. However, he was not in a hurry, and while sending out a letter to recruit the rebels, he raised his own people, horses, grain and grass, and waited for other Qin Wang's divisions to come to meet; at the same time, he used a counter-plan to drag King Ning's army to Nanchang to buy time.
Zhu Chenhao waited for more than ten days, and finally found that he was deceived, so he led the main force to attack, taking Jiujiang and Nankang all the way, and then directly approaching Anqing.
At this time, the soldiers and horses on Wang Shouren's side were basically in line. Everyone was ready to go to the siege of Anqing first, but he defied the crowd and decided to attack Nanchang first.
The reason is very simple: our soldiers have just assembled, and the momentum is booming, and they will be able to break through the empty garrison of Nanchang. Zhu Chenhao was short-sighted and would definitely lead his army to the rescue. We wait for work, and victory is in sight.
Sure enough, as Wang Shouren expected. In the end, after several battles, the main forces of the two sides launched a decisive battle, Zhu Chenhao was defeated, and the rebellion of King Ning was put down. Not dogmatic, not rigid, accurate analysis of the situation, flexible platooning and deployment, this is the unity of knowledge and action.
Four
In fact, in later generations, wang Shouren, in addition to being famous for his teachings and achievements, was often regarded as a model of rich wisdom in life.
He did face humiliation and even danger many times, but he was just as calm and calm. When he was in Guizhou, the living environment was too poor, and his followers fell ill one after another, but he was able to make fun of the pain and finally be safe, which also contributed to the open-mindedness.
The so-called "narrow heart is the root of the curse, and the heart is the door of blessing."
After quelling the rebellion of King Ning, some people came to grab the credit and constantly provoked incidents to provoke Wang Shouren, but to no avail. He actually came up with a dirty idea, thinking that he was just a thin man of letters, so he proposed to shoot arrows in public at the shooting range, hoping to make him ugly.
Wang Shouren refused, but had to hold the bow and take the arrow, and the three arrows hit the bullseye. The provocateur was embarrassed, but he looked as usual.
How big a person's popularity is often lies in the height of their own ability and vision, and even more in the breadth and breadth of their hearts. The heart is open and clear, so that every time there is a big event, it is not shocking. This still applies when dealing with issues today.
Due to his poor health and years of travel, Wang Shouren died before he was 60 years old, and on his deathbed he said a sentence, "This heart is bright, and it is also what to say." ”
This is probably the best commentary on his life. (End)
Source: China News Network