When we came out of the abbot's room, it suddenly started raining. The pitter patter, the pitter patter, the lower it gets, the bigger it gets. Slowly, the sky and the earth became as dense as a line.
Looking at the sky, Chen Yuyi said: "Looking at the intensity of the rain, it is not convenient to go down the mountain. Zen Master Fa Deng has agreed to go down the mountain to perform rituals, so we will stay in the temple all night. When the rain stops, we will go down the mountain tomorrow."
Wang Xiaolie nodded: "That's fine."
Zhike didn't dare to neglect after hearing this. Not far from Zen Master Faleng's Zen Monastery, a small courtyard was arranged for Wang Xiaolie to stay.
There is a small pavilion beside the bamboo forest outside the yard. The monks in the courtyard and Wang Xiaolie's entourage were there to clean up. Wang Xiaolie and Chen Yuyi stood in the small pavilion, watching the rain, each thinking their own thoughts.
Chen Yuyi was quite shocked today. I had been with Wang Xiaolie for two years and didn't think there was anything strange about him. He has a gentle personality and rarely speaks harshly to the people below him, and he always cares about the lives of his subordinates. Everything is arranged in an orderly manner, with great foresight, and most of them are effective.
The most obvious thing is to train troops. Which of today's generals doesn't want to train troops? But very few can train soldiers well. Not to mention the thieves all over the world, there were also many generals in command of the imperial court. But there are very few that can truly unite people's hearts and form a stable army. In addition to the four ZTE generals mentioned, Zhang Jun, Han Shizhong, Liu Guangshi, and Yue Fei, there were only a few others including Wu Jie, Wang Yan, Yang Zheng, and Yang Yizhong.
In two years, he trained tens of thousands of troops and was able to fight in battle. This is unmatched by any current general. Chen Yuyi didn't think anything was wrong before. He was involved in it and knew everything, so there was nothing outstanding about it. Thinking about it now, I feel it's not that simple. Wang Xiaolie just divided things into pieces and assigned someone to take charge. What each person does is not complicated, but together they are not the same thing.
Extraordinary people should do extraordinary things. Chen Yuyi chewed on these words, feeling an indescribable feeling in his heart. Zen Master Faleng is famous all over the world and is an eminent monk. What comes out of his mouth cannot be taken lightly.
Chen Yuyi raised his head and looked at Wang Xiaolie beside him. But I saw him standing under the pavilion, looking at the heavy rain between the sky and the earth, with an indifferent expression. He just frowned, not knowing what he was thinking.
What can you think about? Wang Xiaolie was also thinking about the scene when he met Zen Master Faleng just now.
Wang Xiaolie didn't believe that this Zen master had any supreme magical power, that he knew his origins and could even predict his future. But he does not belong to this world. It is hard to say what makes Zen Master Fa Deng feel so special. In these words, there may be Zen Master Fa Deng’s enlightenment, or there may be some falsehoods that he himself added. You can’t disbelieve it, and you can’t believe it completely.
Watching the rain falling, Wang Xiaolie felt a breath in his chest. I want to vomit but can't, which makes me feel uncomfortable.
What is this world like and what is human society like? This question has been asked by human sages and philosophers for thousands of years. Different civilizations have different answers, and different answers have different results. However, is there a unified answer to this question? I'm afraid it may not be possible.
From a Chinese perspective, there are two answers that have the greatest impact in the world. One is the European and American answer, and the other is the Chinese answer. The answer of Europeans and Americans is the existence of the Creator and the existence of a rational world. The world and human society are divided into two parts, one is the secular world, and the other is the world of gods. If you are an atheist, then one is the material world and the other is the conscious world, or the rational world.
Yang Zhenning, a famous Chinese physicist, said in an interview that he believes in a creator. Of course, this Creator is not a personal God, but is closer to the first driving force of physics. This idea, this answer, is very Western.
China’s answer is heaven, the way of heaven. What is Tao? Road to Road, very Avenue. Famous, very famous. Heaven, or Tao, or the way of heaven, if you say it, it is not the way of heaven. How to understand? It can only be enlightened. If you understand, you understand; if you don’t understand, you don’t understand.
There is a similar saying in Buddhism. The Tathagata says that the world is not the world, but the world. If the world speaks out, it will no longer be the world.
Why? Because both the speaker and the listener are part of the way of heaven and the Buddhist world. No matter how wise the speaker is or how intelligent the listener is, it is only about a part of the way of heaven or the world, not the whole. If you want to summarize the way of heaven from this kind of scratchy knowledge, you can only rely on human understanding.
If you want to talk about the way of heaven, you must give a name to all the ways of heaven. Only by connecting names one by one, classifying them into categories, and extending metaphors can others know what they are talking about. And when it comes to choosing a name, it is chosen by people, which is no longer the way of heaven.
For example, I point to a hard object on the ground and call it a stone. The name stone is different from the actual stone. This stone is hard and white. So is the stone hard or white? Actually neither. Later I discovered that some black and soft things should also be called stones. The extension of this problem is the famous Li Jianbai problem.
Human knowledge is to give various names, add various relationships, various causes and effects, various logics, various inductions, and various deductions to form a system. This knowledge system is similar to reality, but it is different. Shi Yigong, a famous Chinese scientist, once said in a speech that human scientific knowledge is actually wrong. Because it is only our knowledge of the world, not the way the world is. The development of human science means that new knowledge is constantly coming out to replace old knowledge.
The names of everything in the world are given by humans, rather than being picked up by humans when they are already there. The knowledge formed by these names is human's understanding of the world and society. If there was a God, like the omniscient and omnipotent Creator in Europe and America, or a rational world, we would know that all the knowledge formed from this is inconsistent with the facts and is wrong.
Is wrong knowledge useful? Do you need to study? Of course it is useful, and of course it needs to be learned. Because this knowledge is correct in human understanding. Human knowledge and the way of heaven are not the same thing. Some people get confused and get stuck in it.
European and American knowledge systems pay special attention to concepts and definitions, and require accurate definitions. Hegel once said that Chinese is a bad language. Because the concept cannot be defined precisely, and there are differences between classical Chinese and spoken language. Of course, in the eyes of future generations, Hegel was wrong. In fact, it is not only wrong, it is more like a backward civilization system pointing fingers at an advanced civilization system.
Human beings give names to everything in the world, or define and set concepts. It seems to be a description of the world, but it is actually an approximation. This approximation becomes more and more accurate with the development of human beings. But fundamentally, resemblance cannot be true.
This is what Wang Xiaolie said to Zen Master Fa Deng, the world is like this, the world should be like this, the world is like this. How humans understand, describe, and transform such a world is a matter for humans, not the reality of the world.
How do we understand such a world? How to know the way of heaven? This is an important method in Taoist thought, Tao follows nature. By understanding the nature of the world and the nature of human society, we can understand the world and society. Through this understanding, we can transform human beings themselves.
We must understand that European and American civilization is not this system. They set up a system by establishing their own concepts and logic. Then transform the world and humans to adapt to this system.
When mankind entered industrial society, Chinese civilization fell behind. Why are we lagging behind? There are various opinions and various analyses. Are these statements and analyzes reliable? Most of them are reliable. But right? Almost all of them are wrong.
It is a fact that China has lagged behind in modern times, for many reasons. It is necessary and valuable to analyze the reasons and thereby transform our society. But saying that these reasons have caused China to fall behind, and that if some places or places change, we can avoid falling behind, such remarks are mostly worthless. Being behind is a fact. What you should do most is to learn and change. Imagination that if you were yourself, you would never be like this. Most of them are delusions.
In addition to learning from the Industrial Revolution, China also learned from Western culture and ideas on a large scale. From Newton and Einstein to Socrates and Plato, there are also Freud, Spinoza, Hegel, Kant, Sartre, Descartes, Euclid and many other figures in between. Some people even mention a famous saying from these people when they say a few words to show that they are well-informed, just like what ancient literati said about the poems of Confucius. More people say that if someone appeared in China and had some ideas, they would never fall behind.
Reality tells us that there is much worth learning from the thoughts of these foreign saints and sages. Learning the strengths of others and improving one's own weaknesses is an excellent quality. But more people don’t know where to start or what to learn. Instead, they just stamp their feet and beat their chests. Why don’t China have such people? Why?
There are so many reasons why. Because China is China and foreign countries are foreign countries. China has its own saints and sages, and foreign countries have their own.
Since the Qing Dynasty, China's backwardness has caused many Chinese people to lose themselves. Some people want to learn European and American science and technology, and some people want to learn their governance theories. I have learned a lot about science and technology, and the theories I have learned about governing the country are increasingly being questioned.
Not surprising actually. China lags behind the West in science and technology, and also lags behind in many areas of ideological theory. But until science and technology catch up with the West, every other aspect will be dragged down. Even if I am advanced in ideology and theory, I still can’t believe it.
To understand the world, or even to understand the way of heaven, human beings are like primary school students. When we first entered elementary school, we learned that the earth is round, that the earth revolves around the sun, and that the moon revolves around the earth. We felt that we knew everything about astronomy. Knowing that frogs are transformed from tadpoles, knowing that cicadas do not drink dew, knowing why kites fly into the sky, and knowing that water boils at 100 degrees, I feel that everything in the world is under control. The adults just smiled when they saw your cheerful look. Children think it is praise, but adults are actually just encouragement.
When China lags behind the West for hundreds of years, some people think that everything in China is wrong and that China must learn everything from the West. If there were adults in this world, I would probably smile.
China has been defeated by foreigners many times. For example, the Song Dynasty is now against the Jin Dynasty, later it was against the Mongols, and later the Ming Dynasty was against the Manchu and Qing Dynasties. At this time, many people believed that everything was wrong with the Song Dynasty and that they should learn from the Jin Dynasty and learn everything. What's so strange?
He once criticized Lin Piao and Confucius. When Confucius was criticized, many pamphlets were published describing Confucius's crimes. What kind of spokesman is the big slave owner? He hates the working people and the progressive forces, one after another, as if Confucius was a heinous person. This is not good. What's the use of a brilliant civilization that turns over its past history and criticizes the ancients as useless because their descendants fell behind?
People often say that if China were not a Confucian civilization, for example, if it were Mohism, Legalism, or Taoism, then what would China's history be like? We will not fall behind or be bullied. Only we will bully others. Many people agree and are imagining such a world. But they don’t know that the greater possibility is that even this splendid civilization is gone. Because of this idea, some people even wrote a book saying that when Qin merged with the six kingdoms, the people of Chu fled to Qin one after another. I don’t know where the Chu rebels came from during the troubled times of the late Qin Dynasty, when they revolted one after another. This is the author's imaginary world, not the real world. Only the real world can inspire future generations.
People often say what would happen to me if I went back a thousand years. Some people want to learn from Britain, which is a constitutional monarchy and a constitutional cure for all diseases. Some people say that we should learn from France, the bourgeois republic, the most advanced. There are also people who want to learn from the United States, Germany, Russia, and Japan. No one thinks about it. In reality, China has been bullied for hundreds of years, and various countries have imitated it, but none of them have learned it. Why? Because China is China, not a foreign country. It is not a prop that can be used casually to interpret based on one's own imagination.
Among the great Confucian scholars in China after the Song Dynasty, no one can compare with Wang Yangming. However, historically, Yangming's philosophy of mind had little influence in China. Instead, it blossomed in Japan. In modern times, because Japan industrialized earlier and became more advanced, many people felt sad about this. This is a great thinker in China. Why did he not get the status he deserved in China, but was imitated by the Japanese? Is China’s backwardness in modern times related to this? The sudden rise of Wang Yangming's psychology in modern times was largely related to Japan. Many people believed that this was a missed opportunity for China.
China is China and Japan is Japan. These are two different civilizations. What the Japanese like, China may not like. What the Chinese like about Japan may not be what they like. What's so strange about this? Marx is also a celebrity in his home country, but he does not have such an unparalleled status in China. Wang Yangming is also a great scholar in China, but he does not have the same status as in Japan. I feel sad about this issue and feel that China has missed out on Yangming’s theory of mind, so it did not enter modern society in time. This is a manifestation of intellectuals’ insufficient understanding of civilization.
Chinese civilization is unique in the world and cannot simply be compared with the journeys of other civilizations. For civilization and traditional culture, we must abandon the dross and carry forward the essence. Only then can this civilization continue to flourish. Thinking every day that you have learned the truth of this country today and the truth of that country tomorrow, it is immature to bury all your own traditions.
Each civilization has its own unique features that distinguish it from other civilizations. The successful experiences of other civilized and advanced places can become the objects of your own learning. But in the process of learning, we must not forget that we are a different civilization, and we must not lose sight of ourselves. The belief that there is an advanced system and that one has to fit oneself into that system is a conclusion drawn from the thinking on the other side of European and American rationality. If your own civilization is not yours, don’t force yourself into it. Otherwise, it is likely to become a twisted and strange society.
Starting from Japan two hundred years ago, to South Korea, to China, there are no particularly difficult obstacles for East Asia to enter industrial society. This is a blessing for China, and we should thank our ancestors for the civilization they left us. Don't insist on putting forward your own set of opinions just because you were once backward and a scholar, from ancient times to the present, from inside to outside, and make arbitrary comments. We should first understand our own civilization, become familiar with our own civilization, and mature our own civilization.
Leaving aside the colonial continent of Africa and the cut blood vessels of Latin America, among the larger civilizations in the world are the Indian civilization and certain civilizations between Asia and Europe. They are still looking for a way out of industrialization in their own civilization system, but this way is very difficult to find. We have fallen behind before, and we should understand that being behind for a while means nothing. When they find a way out and reform their own civilization, they can still develop.
How difficult it is for these civilizations to find a way out of industrialization! Even if there are various theories, many role models, and even help from countries large and small, we still can't find a way out. It is really too much to think that you can make great strides forward in civilization all of a sudden with whatever theories, policies, and measures you have. Unless it is blocked or suppressed, civilization will always find its own way out.
In reality, not many people realize this. Even if someone realizes it, it is difficult to find like-minded people. For example, in China, some people say why China is falling behind? Because of Confucianism! Immediately, countless people came out to echo and discuss heatedly. Why? Because this used to be China's national ideology, there are all kinds of materials, and everyone can say something about it. Confucianism needs to be reformed, and someone wants to revive the study of mind! Immediately, a large number of Confucian enthusiasts came out and discussed together. Why? Because Japan proved it. Many times, what we discuss is not truth or facts, but just a topic. Does this topic make sense? Who cares!
Unlike Europeans and Americans, the Chinese believe that they are the people of God and want to develop believers in God and eliminate other civilizations. They are not as philanthropic as some of them, thinking that all people are the same. Different civilizations are different civilizations, and there is no need to empathize with people from different civilizations. China is China, not other people’s country. It is right to make friends and do more trade. How to live is everyone's business.
There is a pair of eyes in the sky looking at the world. Wang Xiaolie suddenly remembered this sentence. Looking up, it was just foggy and raining non-stop. Through the rain curtain, I couldn't even see what the sky looked like.
Of course there are no eyes in the sky. What Zen Master Faleng said is just a feeling, right and wrong. Wang Xiaolie also faintly felt this feeling when he had the last conversation with Zen Master Fa Deng. These are not the eyes of God, but the eyes of civilization.
From elementary school knowledge, wandering in the ocean of knowledge, people in later generations will think differently from those in previous generations. Everyone learned knowledge and felt that they understood a lot. We can talk about astronomy and geography, both at home and abroad.
But if you think about it carefully, what did you learn? Some professional knowledge is always correct, but beyond professional knowledge, it is difficult to say clearly.
Most of human knowledge systems come from the other side of rationality in Europe and America, and place great emphasis on concepts and definitions. Concepts and definitions are invented by humans and have a certain scope of application. In the process of learning and using it, people will basically not find any problems. Only when you reach the boundaries of these definitions will you find that the world is different.
What is the biggest difference between European and American civilization and Chinese civilization? European and American civilization relies on the precise definition of concepts, and the logical reasoning, deductive induction, etc. derived from it. Chinese civilization, on the other hand, does not rely on concepts, logical reasoning, or induction and deduction. No civilization is more advanced, only which civilization is more suitable and when.
Concepts, logic, induction, deduction, etc. are what Chinese civilization needs to learn and are useful to oneself. What should European and American civilization learn from Chinese civilization? Of course the Chinese cannot answer this question clearly; this is a question for Europeans and Americans.
The role of heaven in Chinese civilization is difficult for other civilizations to understand. It is also difficult to tell clearly the scope covered by the sky.
Thinking of this, Wang Xiaolie lowered his head and looked at the rainy world. This world is very wonderful, and people themselves are also very wonderful. Just when we thought we were going to understand everything about the world, we suddenly discovered that the world is boundless. When we think we know the truth of the world, we find that no one understands you. When people understood it, they found that the old principles needed to be changed.
The greatness of mankind is not due to the emergence of many saints, sages and talented people, but rather the presence of various ideas. It doesn't matter whether your thoughts are high or low, as long as they suit your life. If you jump out from the crowd, you will find that the thoughts held by most people are relatively simple and straightforward and can be seen through at a glance. Whether they are too stupid or too high-minded, there are actually very few people.
The millet is separated, the seedlings of the rice are growing. The pace is slow and timid, and the center is shaking. Those who know me tell me that I am worried; those who don’t know me tell me what I want. Long sky, who is this? This has been the norm for thousands of years of human history. Don't be proud if you are liked, don't be upset if you are not liked.
Wang Xiaolie sighed. Lift your eyes and walk through the bamboo forest. But he saw a figure turning from the bamboo forest, raising his head and looking at himself.
