The cultures of China and Japan are different, and this article attempts to expand the above propositions with the concept of life and death.
"Death and life are great, isn't it painful?" All kinds of cultures, religions, and philosophies will probably show their true colors on the issue of life and death, and they deserve careful consideration. I would like to describe the differences in the concept of life and death in China and Japan in terms of "rebirth and death" and "cherishing life and death".
Corresponding to the pursuit of eternity in Western culture, Chinese and Japanese cultures are extremely emotional about the change of the world and the "impermanence of life". The sense of impermanence of life prominently permeates Chinese and Japanese literature and art, and many poems since the Nineteen Ancient Poems of China and various Japanese collections of Japanese songs show this characteristic.
In China, thanks to the genes of "practical rationality", Confucianism gives "sheng" a positive, affirmative warm tone. That is to say, Confucianism believes that "life" and "life" itself are good and meaningful, and thus embraces an emotional attitude of enthusiastic praise for the phenomenon of life, and regards it as the value of life and the essence of the universe. Whether it is the original Confucian "Four Hours of Action, Hundred Things Born of Yan" (Analects), "The Great Virtue of Heaven and Earth", "The Meaning of Birth is Easy" ("Zhou Yi"), or Song Ming's theory of Science such as Zhou Dunyi does not remove the pre-court grass to see "Providence", Cheng Hao's "Four Times of Jiaxing and People Together" chants, etc., all of them have adopted a positive, affirmative, celebratory, and precious attitude towards the universe, nature, all things, and human beings, including one's own life and life phenomena. Chinese Confucianism implements it at the specific level of individual life, emphasizing hard work and self-improvement, "day by day, day by day", "day by day, day by day" and "day by day, every day knows its death, and the month does not forget its ability". Even if they cannot make progress, they still attach importance to survival and life, including physical life, from the ancient precept of "Mingzhe to protect themselves" to the daily life of Confucius in the Analects of the Xiang Party, as well as Confucius's talk about "the state has no way, the dangerous deeds of the sun", Mencius said that "those who know their destiny, do not stand under the rock wall", and so on, all of which concretely show the Confucian concept of "rebirth" of life. Taoists regard nature as neutral with "heaven and earth are not benevolent", but also emphasize "preserving one's whole life" and "between the material and the unworthy" (Zhuangzi). "Rebirth" is almost a conscious theme of Chinese cultural thought. It has a long history, and to this day, it can be found in large and small traditions, medicine, martial arts, and alchemy. Including Lu Xun, a modern man who was deeply influenced by Western nihilism, he also used "despair is vain, just the same as hope" as the inscription of "Wild Grass", indicating that even in the hopeless predicament, it is still necessary to survive and struggle, which is almost the same as Old Master Kong's "knowing that it is impossible to do it" two thousand years ago. This "rebirth" attitude is rational and is adopted through deep reflection and understanding. It is no longer a natural love affair at all, so Confucianism also advocates "killing oneself to become benevolent" and "sacrificing one's life for righteousness", that is, if necessary, one can give up one's life to complete the value of life.
It is precisely with this "rebirth" as the core that Confucianism has constructed a whole human system marked by "Tianxingjian", "Human Nature is Good", "Destiny of Heaven is Called Nature, Willfulness is Tao, Cultivation is Called Teaching", and "Virtue, Meritorious Service, and Speech" are three immortals, "No filial piety has three, no posterity is greater", and so on. This system takes the existence of the universe, the continuation of the descendants, and the progress of mankind as the ontological reality.
"Music culture" is not blind optimism, it contains a great sense of fear and a sense of distress. As ma wangdui's book "Five Elements" says: "If there is no center, there is no central wisdom, and if there is no center, there is no central pleasure, and if there is no center, there is no uneasiness, and if there is no happiness, there is no virtue." The "joy" and "pleasure" of "music culture" come from worry, fear, and worry. Fan Zhongyan said: "There are worries about going in and worrying about retreating." Only by thinking from worry and learning can there be "wisdom", "joy", "peace", and "happiness". "Music" in Confucianism is a kind of "virtue": moral character and the realm of life. Because life in the world, whether in terms of groups or individuals, is extremely difficult, the essence of "music culture" lies in: life is difficult, and there is no external force (God) to rely on ("the son does not speak strangely and chaotic gods", "worship ghosts and gods and stay away"),etc.), and have to rely on themselves to establish a positive spirit, strong will, and resilience to struggle hard and continue to survive. "Modern scholars often criticize the Chinese tradition as profound as Western pessimism, not knowing that the Western tradition has an all-knowing and all-powerful God as the background, and although people are small, they have dependence; China has no such background and dependence, so it has to strive forward, self-affirmation, it seems to be extremely exaggerated to the point that people can 'counsel the heavens and the earth and praise the cultivation', but in fact, they have no dependence on the miserable hardships, and there are too many people to rely on. Chinese thought should start from this point of view, so as to know the profoundness of the strong face, laughter, and sorrow of the music culture. ”
Since practical reason has adopted a rational attitude towards god and the world after death, on the one hand, it attaches importance to life, survival, life and the value of life, and on the other hand, it also adopts a rational analysis attitude towards death itself. The commonality of death is originally only at the end of animal nature, and if it is feared for this, the person is nothing but a conscious or advanced consciousness of an animal. Therefore, Confucianism emphasizes that there are many kinds of "death", that is, human death should not be equated with the natural end of animal nature; on the contrary, the perceptual end of human nature should be given a social rational meaning, and the quality value of imminent death should be judged and evaluated by "life": "Man is inherently dead, or heavier than Taishan, or lighter than Hong Mao" (Sima Qian), or as Huan Wen said: "Neither can it flow for hundreds of lifetimes, nor can it be enough to return to the stink of ten thousand years." "Human death, like human survival and life, is injected with social rational content, requiring individuals to place life and death under the spectrum of social history in pursuit of immortality, so as to obtain psychological peace and tranquility." Whether it is the calm righteousness of "now and after, Shu is almost worthless" (Wen Tianxiang) or the "now and after, I know that I am free of husbands" (Zengzi) regard death as if they were returning, it is the expression of this kind of death tranquility or peaceful death psychology. It is an emotional attitude that permeates the spirit of reason. Everyone has a death, which is inevitable and there is no way to do it. Chinese Confucianism believes that the only way to liberate oneself from the animalistic fear of death is to place it in a calm rational grasp of the social meaning and value of "life", and to mold this grasp into the individual's emotions, state of mind, and personality, so that death will not and need not be excessively sad and fearful. Confucius said, "The unknown is born, but the unknown knows death." Zhang Zai said: "Cun Wu is smooth, and Wu Ning is also dead." The Taoist Zhuangzi also said: "Knowing that it is helpless and being at peace" is all in this way and attitude.
Precisely because of the importance attached to this limited "birth", as pointed out in the previous section, the objects and scopes of thought and emotion are often haunted, lingering, and attached to many very specific and limited "birth" things. During this period, life, social reality, human relations, and historical nostalgia became frequent themes. Even the aria of the feeling of nature is a sentimental wound, sad and compassionate, always related to the world. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the backbone of the traditional Chinese social structure is the scholar-scholar intellectuals, who take "to the king and the people" as the meaning of their lives, that is, people's ideals and lives, so that most of their "thoughts" and "feelings" are social ethics, worldly interpersonal relations, realistic feelings, and situational feelings. Its thematic content and expression have great intelligibility and "rationality", and lack of all kinds of anti-rational, unconscious, barbaric impulse, animalistic requirements and other life and death instincts. Like Chinese Confucianism, Chinese literature and art fundamentally lack the spirit of Dionysus due to Confucian poetry such as "poetry and speech", "pleasure without obscenity", and "gentleness and thickness", as well as the norms of aesthetic standards such as "unsatisfactory speech" and "intention to be outside words". What it sings and chants repeatedly is about the concrete, limited things and relationships of the world: either indignation, or sentimentality, or praise, or concern. Even if the heart is empty, it still lingers in the world; even if life is sent, it is still deeply loved. The sentimentality of life and death in the world, including works with beautiful scenery and ethereal scenery and strong Zen flavor, is still the comfort agent of life at this time: "Bright moon pine light, clear spring stone upstream", "walk to the end of the water, sit and watch the clouds rise"... Such a beautiful landscape and scenery, such a dashing attitude towards life, are still just the expression of the realm of life at this time. It is still the manifestation of the practical and rational outlook on life of "rebirth and death".
Not in Japan. Perhaps due to the extremely harsh living environment of the mountainous island countries, the arrival of death is often sudden, aggressive and unpredictable, incomprehensible, and irresistible (such as many earthquakes and typhoons), which makes the concept of impermanence of life more tragic and sentimental than China. In particular, the backbone of Japan's social structure is not the crepe scholar who cares about the affairs of the state and the people, but the brave samurai who "relies on the cold of the sky with one sword" and does his duty to be loyal to the master (Confucianism is often in an auxiliary position), coupled with the foundation of Shinto, so whether it is Confucianism but Buddhism and Zen Buddhism, it dominates people's concepts and emotions about life and death. On the one hand, life is regarded as illusory, everything is empty, and the coming of death is despised; at the same time, because of this, it strives to grasp and cherish the moment of survival, and "cherishing life and worshiping death" has become a very prominent and strong characteristic tone. It is not fully rational, but more emotional to grasp life and death, treat life and death, understand life and death. This "reverence for death" is a positive and active surrender to God, so it is presented as reverence for death (honoring death), worship (reverence for death), and pathological beautification and love (such as the works and acts of Yukio Mishima). They present the strength of the "death instinct" in various forms, and they are far apart from China's rational attitude of "rebirth and death".
Presumably, in the "Yamato Soul" of the original Shinto, there is a mysterious spirit that is not afraid of death, and the Shinto book also contains the concepts of the interdependence, transformation, and unity of god's life and death, as well as the concept of "other realms" and this realm, ancestors and living people directly connected. Since God is omnipresent, enveloping everything and extremely fearful, what is the significance of the short life, the easy death, and the incompetence of the individual? The import and spread of Zen Buddhism and the Pure Land has greatly increased the feelings of impermanence of life and death, karmic retribution, disgust with the world, and the Pure Land of past lives, and deepened the understanding of the world, life, and self-illusion as emptiness. In particular, Zen does not speculate, does not discuss, only acts directly, has no mind in life and death, and dies bravely and casually, "If you can empty a thought, everything is not troublesome, everything is fearless", it is easier to combine with the courageous spirit of Bushido. They are combined in this "realm" of "the heart is empty of all things, and the mind is empty" to achieve the "realm" of "breaking the moment of life and death". Yamamoto Tokiyo (1659-1719) said, "The so-called Bushido is the realization of death... Every day and night, when one thinks of death, one becomes a permanent body of death, and one is free in martial arts. Thus zen's "mind method" became the core of bushido's "sword method":
The sword comes out and the heart does not chase, forget all the ways to strike, just take out the sword. Kill without taking it to heart. The mind is empty, the sword is empty, and the hollow does not dwell.
When there is no self, when the mind is not moving, and the hands and feet are moving, there are ten degrees of displeasure. The slightest obstacle of the mind is also wrong; if there is no heart, it is also in the middle. Although the cloud has no heart, not everything has no heart, but the ordinary mind also.
A good "kill without taking it to heart"! Of course, if you are killed, don't take it seriously. And this "no heart" is also "ordinary mind". Because Bushido originally required the samurai to "think deeply about death at all times" and prepare to die, death is this "ordinary mind". This "ordinary mind" obtained from the cultivation of emptiness and silence can be transformed into an unconscious state by the accumulation of long-term grasp of "respect", and has become the highest state pursued by Japanese Zen and Confucianism. It is of course related to the irrationality of the original Shinto belief. How they are specifically configured and combined, and what is the relationship between them, is still a question worth exploring in depth.
Not only do Zen monks and Bushido see human emptiness and death as ordinary, but also the whole society, including the upper classes, seems to be the same. For example, in famous classical texts such as "The Tale of Genji", which strives to depict erotic activities, and "The Tale of The Hira family", which strives to exaggerate the merits of force, one can feel that almost everywhere japanese life is shrouded in a layer of sadness and poignancy in which life is like an illusion and the impermanence of the world, so continuous and intense. Compared with China's "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", which is only an opening poem lamenting life, the distance really cannot be calculated. And from ancient times to the present, even some of the most famous and famous Japanese figures have made great achievements, and this feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling, and concept of coming and going in a hurry and the illusion of life are still strongly lying in their true hearts. Ancient poems such as Toyotomi Hideyoshi say: "I descend from the world in the morning glow, coming and going in a hurry, and Osaka is majestic and imposing, like an illusion in a dream." For example, Zhu Zixue's death and song of Rubei Yuan Yixuan: "The past years are like last night, and more than eighty years are like a dream." Fukuzawa Yukichi, who is known as the father of Japanese enlightenment, also has the feeling that "everything in the world is a child's play" and "joy and sorrow are like a dream scene, and there is no trace of it". This is less common in China. It is precisely because life is illusory that when a person dies, he becomes a Buddha, and morality disappears with it, so there is no need to discuss whether man is good or evil. This is quite different from China's emphasis on the human world and its emphasis on "three immortals" and "thousands of meritorious sins." Chinese it is difficult to really achieve "one hundred", the Japanese probably can. In Japan, the death is the completion of life and no longer investigates; in China, it is often said that "death has more than one guilt" or "death has more than hatred", and "death" is always placed in the historical series of "life" to investigate and interpret.
Unlike China, which attaches great importance to historical experience and cause and effect, and even uses it as an ontology, in Japanese cultural psychology, the past and the future that history looks back on seem to have little real significance. The real meaning is to grasp the present, to grasp the moment of the present. Thus, life should open up as beautifully and indulgently as cherry blossoms, and then quickly wither and die: "What is the Yamato Soul of treasure island if asked?" That's the mountain cherry blossoms that flutter in the rising sun. Here, the meaning of "birth" does not last long, but in this glorious and beautiful moment. This is also different from the Chinese Confucian emphasis on "years of cold and then knowing that pines and cypresses wither after withering", so it has always been important to appreciate pines, cypresses, plums, and chrysanthemums.
As a result, Japan's cultural psychology is also very different in the direction and expression of emotions than in China. Its emotions and scope are not like China's preference for dispersion and implementation in the world, real affairs, historical sentimentality, political events, personal talent, the ups and downs of the world, and other very specific and limited pluralistic things, but on the one hand, it focuses on the mysterious praise and worship of infinite, absolute, and authoritative, and on the other hand, it points more to the nostalgia and amusement of primitive lust and animalistic impulses. As pointed out earlier, Japan has established a set of strict external etiquette norms and orders of behavior through Confucianism, and individuals have been tied to this external order norms for a long time, following the rules and respecting, but their hearts have not been tamed or domesticated, so their inner self seems to exist and appear only in this biological existence, joy and sigh. They know more about "nature" as a manifestation of life itself, and grasp and treat nature very emotionally, unlike China, which pays more attention to the coherent laws of "nature" and analyzes and understands nature more rationally. Japanese Confucianism affirms human desire more than Chinese Confucianism, believing that "Heavenly Reason is Human Desire." Honju Shinobu, the great anti-Confucianist, replaced moral good and evil with "the humor of things", affirming the various anti-moral erotic narratives in the Tale of Genji, believing that this was the place of true feelings in the heart, fully expressing this Japanese spirit, thus having a great impact, far exceeding that of Confucian scholars. In short, because there is no rational requirement for China to pursue the inner perfection of Song Ming's theory, there is no constraint on Chinese Confucian poetry that emphasizes "pleasure without obscenity", and there is no heavy burden of political responsibility of the social class of Chinese scholars, in Japan's daily life and literary and artistic works, the men and women who are promiscuous lust love more than the parent-child love of the common concept, personal lyricism is more than political concern, and unlike China's general and social, political, and world affairs, it is more purely private, inner self, and natural lust. Hotel wandering, drunkenness, naturalism, "flesh literature", "private novels", "private diaries", etc., have become the superficial characteristics of Japanese culture. There is no need to ask for moral values, rational meanings, to realistically depict life and feelings as beauty, even if it is painful, miserable, ugly, boring, even subjective moments or objective fragments. In fact, isn't this the cherishing, indulging and love of life? Thus, here, feelings and feelings are more open, free and wandering, but also more amorous and extremely sensitive. All kinds of sadistic, masochistic, morbid, sentimental and even barbaric impulses become the form of beauty with their tenacious pursuit of meticulousness, purity, refinement and perfection. On the one hand, there is transcendent faith, on the other hand, primitive lust; on the other hand, it is deeply sentimental to life, on the other hand, it indulges in the enjoyment of the world; mystery and sensibility, piety and debauchery, are mixed here. Even modern Japanese intellectuals, when watching natural scenes such as the sunrise, are on the one hand fully open and enjoyed by the senses, and on the other hand, they still have mysterious awe and worship (which is rare among Chinese intellectuals). In short, unlike Chinese Confucianism, which uses the moral principle of rationalization of "Heavenly Reason" to manage both inside and outside, from family, society, and politics to thought, emotion, and psychology, Japanese Confucianism has not focused on the rationalization of this inner world, because it does not have to focus or cannot do anything, because the local Shinto has long emphasized the "purity" of the heart. But this kind of "purity" is not the specific rationalization of various natural passions, as in Chinese Confucianism, which requires the so-called "Taoist mind" to dominate the "human heart"; on the contrary, it is directly pursuing a certain feeling of being with God by removing all thoughts and desires, which is both sensual and mysterious:
In particular, when visiting Ise Palace, there are no rosary beads, no coins, and no prayers in the heart, and this is known to be pure. Get wet bath water, no dirt on the body, this is known as external cleaning. If we can be pure inside and out, God's heart and my heart are inseparable. Now that you've done so, why pray to the gods again! When I heard that this was the true way to worship the shrine, the tears of longing were hard to suppress.
If the human heart is pure, it is believed that it will feel God's presence with it, directly experiencing God in its own heart.
Therefore, what exactly this "pure mind" is (in fact, it also includes the "conscience" of Japanese Yangmingology and the "tenri" of Zhuzixue) is difficult or impossible, nor does it need to be analyzed by reason, what is important is its form and the immediacy of grasping, which is mystical and irrational Shinto. Only Shinto is the root and principle of "purity and impurity", and other morality, such as the morality of Confucianism, is inferior in comparison; only by relying on Shinto can Confucian morality exist. Therefore, "purity", "faithfulness", and "practice" are fundamental, and everything else is a leaf or a flower. The Japanese Yang MingXue's emphasis on transcending life and death and treating death as a return is precisely because it is in line with this Shinto belief, and the emphasis is still on practicing it with a sincere and pure heart, so it has a great impact. Kazusai Sato said, "After death is before death, before death is after death." And where my nature is always outside of life and death", and the so-called "picking out the principle of not being afraid" in the fear of death, that is. Yamaga Suyuki of the ancient school of "Bushido Confucianism" combined military science with Shinto, and thus "undoubtedly caused the transformation of sushi from Chinese sacred learning to Japanese sacred learning" in the future, that is, from Confucianism to local Shinto, which set a precedent for the later Kokugaku school. All of this shows that it is quite different from the rationalized view of life and death in Chinese Confucianism, and that the Japanese Confucian view of life and death is connected with its own sensibility and mysterious Yamato soul spirit.
The humble book "Chinese Aesthetics" believes that:
Just as Yan Yu, although he consciously preached poetry in Zen, still regarded Li and Du as authentic; Su Shi, although he participated in Zen, was still both open-minded (Tao) and more worried about the country (Confucianism), so he returned to Confucianism from Zen... Probably the difference between Chinese Zen and Japanese Zen. Zen in Japanese ideology and literature is even more authentic. Its capture of momentary feelings, its pursuit of emptiness, its sentimental, pathetic, sad, lonely situation, its light life and joy, its beauty of death, its exquisite garden, its heavy and unequal... In short, its so-called "mourning of things" highlights the essential characteristics of Zen. The traditional Chinese Zen, on the other hand, is primarily an intuitive wisdom that ultimately melts and depends on affirming life (Tao) or life (Confucianism) ...
People are afraid of death, and there is no way to hide. Cheng Yi said that the Buddhist family was afraid of death, so they always talked about this issue, so Rigaku threw off life and death and returned to Lunchang. Zen Has Clouds:
When I did not participate in Meditation, I saw that the mountain was a mountain, and when I saw water, I saw that there was an entry point in knowledge, and I saw that the mountain was not a mountain, and I saw that the water was not water; and now I have to rest in my own place, and I see that the mountain is only a mountain, and the water is only water.
This is the famous Zen "Enlightenment" three-stage theory. However, the actual situation and significance of the so-called "mountain or mountain, water or water" is that it advocates returning to the original secular world, just to maintain a Zen state of mind, then although everything is not the same on the surface, it is not the same. From the theoretical logic, the "next turn" here leads to the Song Ming Theory of "Practicing Lun", "Ming Dao", and "Tongtian" in the secular humanities and gangchangming religions. Zen was already a Sinicized Buddhism, but after Zen, not only did it produce the science and mind that returned to the secular and Confucian, but zen itself also increasingly returned to Confucianism and Taoism. The upper and lower classes of society practice the "unity of the three religions" in different ways. At the lower level, as noted at the beginning of this article, The teachings of Confucianism have penetrated deeply into Buddhism. At the upper level, talking about Buddhism and Zen has become an important aspect of the life interest of scholars and intellectuals, and has become an important part of their cultivation of sentiment and poetry, calligraphy and painting. This is in stark contrast to the primitive wildness of Japanese Zen and Bushido, the pursuit of purity, the hard -- "truncation of both ends," the "shattering of life and death," the cutting of the abdomen, the self-martyrdom, the vengeance, the sacrifice of life, and so on. Perhaps, in the eyes of Chinese Zen, this attachment of Japanese Zen to breaking the barrier of life and death may still stay in the "second stage" - "mountains are not mountains, water is not water", and they are not thorough enough and thorough. But is this necessarily accurate? Is this "third stage" called "enlightenment" still the silent pursuit of Zen? What is the "original meaning" of Zen? Which stage ("second" or "third") is more representative, and is there still much room for negotiation? I think that if we look at the Japanese Zen of Bushido mentioned above, this so-called "third realm" is too "clever" and too slippery, and it is actually too Zhuangzi. I think that Japan did not import deep into Zhuangzi, so there was the straight-line development and deliberate pursuit of Zen, and only then did it have the "purity" and persistence of the above-mentioned "second state". It is no longer the rebirth celebration of Confucianism and Taoism, but a true "truncation of both ends" (life and death) and contempt for death. This is still the reason why there is a foundation support for the indigenous Shinto tradition. Zen cannot once again return to the secular world of "rebirth and death" in Japan, as china did. The "rebirth and death" is originally connected to the "great existence" of Chinese Confucianism, while the "cherishing life and worshiping death" is connected with the Japanese Shinto and Zen "emptiness and silence".
This difference between the "second realm" and the "third realm" is also manifested in many ways. For example, the world-famous Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto uses fine sand and a few stones to form a small "garden", such as the Japanese tea ceremony's meticulous practice of "harmony, respect, purity, and silence", all of which are deliberately pursuing the silence and transcendence of the Zen realm. It is in this way that we can distance ourselves from the secular environment and the worldly state of mind and show the difference. In the case of the well-known tea ceremony:
Even if the same host and guest have met many times in ordinary times, it should be considered that this meeting is the only rendezvous in this life, and it will never return. The master should be attentive to everything, and should do his best to be as deeply sincere as possible, so as not to be negligent. Guests must also feel the sincerity of the host and connect with the truth. Neither the host nor the guest should be casually engaged. ...... After the tea party is over, the host and guest should also have deep feelings in their hearts and experience the heart of yin and pity. Guests who come out of the small courtyard in front of the tea room should be careful not to shout loudly and quietly look back, and the host should also watch the guests leave until they are gone, and then the host quietly returns to the position of the tea party, sitting alone in front of the stove, realizing in his heart that one of today's meetings will be difficult to come again, and he will be deeply immersed in the lonely realm.
As the translator of the Chinese commented, this "is exactly the opposite of China's wayward and informal tea-drinking habits." From the perspective of Chinese cultural psychology, all this in Japan (including the Zen garden of Long'an Temple mentioned above) is too "contrived", too artificial, "narrow and distorted", "unnatural", in short, still "staying" and "clinging" to the second realm. In fact, this kind of extremely serious emphasis on skills, thousands of hammers, meticulousness, is precisely the great cherishing and love of "life": even if it is born like a dream, it must be persistent, serious, stoic, and hardworking, and strive to pursue it with all its might, and it cannot be slackened. This is precisely to seek enlightenment in this short "life", to seek a moment of eternity, a moment of brilliance, to transcend life and death, to complete the requirements and realms of Zen, and not to adopt Zhuang Zhou's attitude of life and death, Qi Peng's death, greatness, and game of humanity. China seeks to transcend life and death in the secular world, and Japan seeks to transcend life and death in the distance from the secular world. China is seeking enlightenment at that moment, and Japan is enlightening by creating a realm.
China was reborn. Meizong is associated with people and "life", and pays great attention to food, clothing, shelter and transportation in a very practical way. The palace residence likes carved beams and painted buildings, golden splendor, thousands of doors. The food is not tired of fine, and the five flavors are varied. Including Buddhist temples and Taoist temples, they are also full of human interest and earthly flavor, often bustling and bustling. Compared with the Japanese shrines, the imperial palace grass steps Maoz, black and white monochrome, simple and quiet; the daily diet is simple, cold, plain, everything strives to be clean to conform to Shinto, etc., the difference is quite obvious: a happy birthday celebration, a long-lived light life; a rebirth and death, beauty in the human world; a cherishing life and death, beauty in the mysterious; a Confucian way complementary, the pursuit of harmony in life; a Shinto-based, at the expense of the body and mind, inside and outside, public and private violent divisions and tragic conflicts; an emotion is almost completely rationalized, losing most of the original impulse, an emotion can be separated from reason, Affection and cruelty, civilization and barbarism, divinity and animalism can go hand in hand; different cultures create differences and differences in the structure of reason. Of course, all these comparisons are only relatively meaningful and "one-sided"; but it is still important to pay attention to these differences and understand their role in the modernization process.