Chapter 10 Chapter Ten Like a Baby

Can your soul, your spirit, stay with Dao forever without separation or letting go?Can you concentrate yourself, make yourself gentle and kind, can you be like a baby?You often wash your mind and heart, can you be clean and flawless?You love your home country (monarch) and you want to govern the people well. Can you do it without being pretentious, harsh, cumbersome, subjective, arbitrary, or forcing orders, but govern by doing nothing and letting nature take its course?With all your organs opening and closing, your thoughts and feelings going up and down, can you be calm and composed?Since you are so sensible and well-informed, can you use less or no resourcefulness, and naturally act as a government and a person?

(The sentence "to be born but not to exist is called Xuande" is repeated with the conclusion of Chapter 51. According to Chen Guying, it should be transferred to Ma Xulun's theory and moved to Chapter 51 for further discussion.) The tenth chapter is all developed by asking questions.There is a kind of uncertainty, appeal, and imperative here.It's a philosophy, it's a high standard, it's a request.This is as the black American leader Martin Luther King said: "I have a dream." Can it be done?Can it be done?Why don't you try so hard?Why not be more in line with the avenue, more generous and graceful?

Holding the only avenue, never abandoning this avenue, sticking to this avenue, enduring the temptation of all kinds of interests under the nose and the harassment of Xiao Xiaoxiao, and withstood the trials of history and life, this is the first requirements and advice.That is to say, no matter what you change, I have certain rules, which are calmness, concentration, self-cultivation, and discernment. This is a great effort in self-cultivation and life. To be soft and to keep the female is female, and the meanings are close.This is also consistent with the understanding of gentlemen in the Western world.Gentleman gentleman, the free translation is an elegant (male) person, and the hard translation is a gentle person.When I came into contact with some European gentlemen in the 1980s, the deepest and strongest impression they gave me was that they were soft-spoken, sometimes as if they were humble, different from the heroic spirit of Chinese men, and different from many American gentlemen. Farm children in the Midwest are also different.You look up the "Oxford English-Chinese Dictionary", and its explanation of the word gentle is kind, friendly, gentle and gentle.This is consistent with Lao Tzu's requirements. However, the meaning of gentle in English lies in civilized and polite manners. Lao Tzu's starting point is much deeper and broader. It lies in the Dao, in philosophy, in being a person, in administration, and in doing everything.

Such as the meaning of the baby has yet to be further considered.People are so old, a lot of age, and they are still soft and tender like a baby, a baby is pure, a baby has no heart, a baby is weak and weak, a baby is non-aggressive and expansive, a baby does not argue, does not care, does not brag, does not hype Do not operate fake big empty and fake and shoddy.It turns out that Lao Tzu believes that in the process of human growth and learning In the process of learning and accumulating experience, many original excellent and natural things that conform to the Dao have been lost.This is rather like the expression I wrote more than half a century ago, a person "must be rich in experience and simple in heart".It's kind of utopian, the utopia of babies and avenues.

Purging Xuanlan (Jian), this reminds people immediately of Confucius' "Three Examinations of Myself", Taoism and Buddhism's meditation, meditation, Qigong, the so-called "thinking about mistakes behind closed doors", and thinking of "the heart is like a horse walking on a plain, easy to let go, hard to let go". I also think of Christian confession, baptism, and even Freudian psychotherapy.The depths of the mind are like a big mirror——Xuanjian, all kinds of images, harmful information and dust from all directions will make it not so clear, not so sensitive, not so fair.Your mirror can become dirty, uneven, a fun mirror, and more likely to become increasingly blurry and inaccurate.

There is a little heart work here.If it is not exaggerated to turn it into practice, kung fu, and obsession, this kind of self-cleaning of the mind is a homework that is beneficial to the body and mind.I hope everyone at least once a week, practice mind skills, wash away the mysteries, cleanse greed, worries, distracting thoughts, evil thoughts, anxiety, tension, this can be done through meditation, through Tai Chi (boxing or sword), through calligraphy and painting It can be done through music, or it can be done by rereading "Lao Tzu". There is a problem here. The computer database has the functions of storage and memory, and must also have the functions of deletion, backup, compression, and complete deletion until reformatting.If the function of the computer is to only enter and exit, sooner or later the data will be destroyed due to excessive storage.What's more, there will be computer viruses. If the anti-virus software is not updated frequently and the scanning and removal of various viruses is not carried out, the computer will be defeated by the virus and become useless.Why is the human heart not like this!Properly clearing, washing, scanning and deleting the human mind is indispensable.

For example, does a person hold grudges clearly, does not have sand in his eyes, and always pays back good things, or does he not count minor faults, has "finished" and "already" (read Liao), and should be rough with old accounts rather than detailed?Grievance must be reported, and the description of Han Xin in "Historical Records" comes out.Han Xin's fate cannot but explain that revenge is an inappropriate choice. To love the country and govern the people should do nothing, this is for the rulers.During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the princes and kings competed for hegemony, worked hard to govern, enriched the country and strengthened the army, reformed methods for effectiveness, and united vertically and horizontally.But at the same time, there are indeed many things that are eager for success, eager for quick success, overjoyed for success, disturbing the people and harming the people, and making mistakes.Lao Tzu summed up these administrative experiences and put forward the concept of governance by doing nothing, which should be said to be very breakthrough.It is refreshing, and Laozi's ideas undoubtedly have the meaning of opposing tyranny, mobilizing the people, and commanding blindly.

For today's people, maybe we should ask: promotion and fortune, pursuit of fame and fortune, desire to win, awards, rankings, sex and wealth, can we do nothing?Can you control yourself?Can you know and stop (Confucianism also talks about knowing and stopping and then having a certainty)?Can you be a human being who has broken away from, or at least reduced a lot of low-level interests?Less vulgarity means more elegance, less barbarism means more civilization, less self-interested activities means more learning and achievement.That's the way it is. Tianmen, according to Professor Chen Guying, can be interpreted as the senses.The various sensory nervous systems of human beings are stimulated by the outside world every day and every day, and they are constantly moving and responding. But at the same time, we should have a backbone, a endurance, and the ability and mechanism of self-regulation and balance.Especially in an era of fierce competition, accelerated pace, and increasing range of changes, it is worth working hard to keep yourself in a relatively quiet state.

Tianmen may also be interpreted as the environment, that is, the various organs, eyes and ears, doors, and windows of the outside world, and the outside world's observations, evaluations, and reactions to you.When we say that the walls have ears, when we say that the heaven knows and the earth knows, they all have such meanings, and they can also be said to make sense. There is a saying that many things are not perfect now, and they still need to be striven for and struggled for. If we advocate emptiness, peace and moderation now, it is a delusion to hold back the pace of history and is not conducive to the realization of the mission of the times.I think this is a misunderstanding. The issue of mental state, especially self-cultivation, and a person's historical tasks, actions and struggles are not concepts on the same platform.Rather, a person who is more calm in terms of realm and self-cultivation, calmer and calmer can face and correctly deal with complex problems, sharp challenges, heavy tasks, and even severe struggles in reality.Only by responding to heat with calmness, response to fierceness with peace, response to urgency with calmness, and response to sensationalism with stability, can it be possible to do something useful and accomplished.If we ourselves become more impetuous due to the impetuousness of the times, if you become angry because others are anxious, if you become panicked because of an emergency, and if you become sad because of a serious problem, what is the matter? Hope?It can only be emotional, impulsive, helpless, yelling, messing around, messing around... making all kinds of affairs worse.

As for the issue of not using resourcefulness and using resourcefulness less, the wise men of our nation have long understood the truth that great wisdom is like foolishness, and the truth that "a country with Dao is wise, and a country without Dao is stupid".Wisdom is like property. You have a million dollars. Normally, only a small part of it needs to flow in and out.It doesn't mean that if you have millions of dollars in wealth, you must spend all of it as soon as you enter the supermarket.You have a certain amount of power, but it doesn't mean that you will use up all of your power in one day.You have many weapons, and you don't have to use all eighteen weapons at once.Rather, the less means you use, the better.If one sentence can solve it, there is no need to say two sentences.What can be solved with one gesture does not need to be serious.Why spend ten dollars on something you can get for two cents?One egg is enough for protein needs, so there is no need to eat two catties of eggs.This is common sense.

However, I have seen too much of people's abuse of ingenuity, which is as undesirable as the abuse of military force, resources, manpower, and time. They are all acts of digging their own graves and asking for hardship.Excessive abuse can only reduce integrity, reduce credibility, cause unnecessary vigilance, get twice the result with half the effort, exhaust yourself, and piss yourself off. I have seen such a person, a Bi Mawen status, a nouveau riche background, is enough to make him intoxicated, crazy, nervous, talking, talking, arguing, power, three souls out of the body , Qipo smokes, and is full of anger when things happen. Everyone should owe a hundred dongs of silver. The more they try to get their share, the more they hate themselves for not having a higher status, money, and power.This is really a rare negative teaching material! Lao Tzu's proposition: hold one (stability), make softness (modesty), purify (purity), love the people, rule the country, do nothing (good governance), be female (peaceful), understand, ignorance, this is a good medicine for specific diseases .It should be said that this medicament is more focused on clearing the vent, and removing the deficiency fire and accumulated food.It has some effect, but it is not a cure-all.For symptoms of deficiency and cold and dying diseases, there are also supplements.For depression, take a little stimulant.