Chapter 48 Chapter Fifty-Second

The beginning of the world is also the mother of the world - Yuan Yuan.Knowing the mother of the world - the original, also know all things, that is, the children of the mother of the world.Knowing all kinds of things, that is, the mother's children, they still have to go back to the mother of the world-the original side, and stick to the mother's way.Therefore, there will be no danger or mistake until death. Plug the entrance and exit of feeling, close the door of feeling, life and avenue will never be exhausted.Open your senses, act to satisfy your senses, and you are forever incorrigible.

To be able to see small things is to be bright, to be able to maintain a low-key and weak posture is to be strong.To be able to understand such a truth, to use the light of a Taoist to illuminate all things, without causing damage or disaster to oneself, is to maintain and master the sustainable and eternal Dao. This can be regarded as a kind of "original doctrine" and "original infantism" in ancient China.It affirms the origin = authenticity = original ecology = essence = avenue.Therefore, it does not believe in and highly doubts and denies the concepts of culture, history, development, and progress. It advocates looking backward and requires returning to the original state, that is, the true state. Individually, it is returning to the infant state.

Covering all ideals and beliefs, including the Dao in Lao Tzu's mind, after being mentioned in front of the world, in the best situation, when it is popular and recognized, it faces two possibilities for development.One is that the idea is accepted and disseminated, with increasing influence and power; the other is that the recipient is also the practitioner, and the practitioner must be the changer and the corrector at the same time.People cannot fail to listen to the voice of practice, nor can they not be restricted and influenced by the culture, experience and level of themselves, the audience.It is one aspect that original ideals and beliefs can guide the process of acceptance and practice.At the same time, the process of acceptance and practice must naturally correct, adjust, and change your understanding to a certain extent, and change your original ideals and beliefs. This is another extremely important aspect of things, and it is completely unavoidable. of.Ideas and life will always have an interactive process of conflict, integration, interaction, and mutual change.On the surface, it is obvious that ideas change life. For example, the new culture of democracy and science promoted by the May 4th Movement changed the ancient feudal power.Taking a deeper look, it is Chinese culture, life, history, and the revolution of the people that change the ideas of the new culture, and the history of a religion being accepted is also the same.

Therefore, from ancient times to the present, there have been struggles between fundamentalism, revisionism, and innovation or vulgarization. There have been so-called struggles to maintain the purity of ideas, to maintain the cleanliness of spirit, or to demand change and innovation.For example, the book "Lao Tzu" will be interpreted differently depending on the readers: it can be interpreted as the great way, or it can be interpreted as a feminine strategy; of folk religion. Of course, there is another more fatal possibility: when an idea is put forward at an untimely time, it is immediately criticized, ridiculed and opposed, and it is distorted, misinterpreted, demonized or vilified.For a time, the trend of attacking this idea became a thing. One dog barked, ten dogs barked, and this idea had no power to fight back, and it was wiped out like this.Or, a kind of idea has been so red and purple for a period of time, and by accident, it suddenly took the word "back" and became the object of ridicule and insult.

The previous situations are not conducive to your understanding and mastering the original principles; the previous situations also instigate you to engage in fundamentalism. The original purpose is the original mother body, the original beginning.Therefore, Lao Tzu advocated "knowing the son, then keeping the mother", starting from the present all things derived from the son - the son, and returning to the original mother. Lao Tzu did not come up with any shocking and unique ideas, and his original purpose is not amazing.His original purpose seems to be ugly.His idea is to let people return to the state of infancy, the original state of people and life, and think that state is the best and most in line with the Dao.The fundamentalism is the original infantism, the original life doctrine, the original naturalism.The key to mastering the Tao is to understand the mother of all things. The mother is the Tao, the baby, the nature, the one, the Taiyi, the Taiyi.The mother is the essence, and the mother is the generalization of all virtues and all wisdom. With this mother, there is everything. Don't lose your way in the pursuit of "son".Therefore, Lao Tzu makes people keep the mother, instead of worrying about the "children", these derivatives, and these false appearances of all things.

In fact, Christianity also has specific infant worship. The infant is the newly born Jesus—the Son. The pure and brilliant images of the Virgin Mary and the Son often appear in oil paintings and sculptures in churches. Buddhism also often talks about the auspicious omen when Sakyamuni was born. What they worship is a specific infant personality—godhead, while Lao Tzu advocates returning to the general, essential infant state. Back to the beginning, back to the starting point, back to the source, this is one of the ways to know the truth.Indeed, many things are mediocrity, making a lot of trouble out of nothing, and confusing themselves.

Western culture, including their scientism, does not underestimate the study of the original state, such as biology to cells, physiology to embryos, economics to commodities and currencies, anthropology to primitive communes, and painting to sketches , Geometry to the axiom such as the shortest straight line between two points. Western scientific culture recognizes the necessity of such a search, and at the same time, they generally do not add the color of belief to these studies. They believe that such an origin and origin are not the whole of things, let alone the whole of epistemology. How can we achieve fundamentalism, go back to the beginning, the starting point, and the source?The method proposed by Lao Tzu is to close one's eyes and block one's mind, to put an end to harmful information, which is close to implementing a soft (not as strict as Buddhism) closed-door practice.It's also fun.In China, such a way of cultivating Taoism is not only Taoism.Various sects have similar methods of sitting facing the wall and practicing hard work in closed doors. It is called Xinzhai, which means fasting the mind and senses; it is called contemplating mistakes behind closed doors;It's a pretty amazing way of knowing the world, of ourselves.Of course, for Lao Tzu, it is more important to know one's own Dao nature than to know the world.

In Zhou Enlai's poems, there is a line "Facing the wall for ten years and trying to break the wall".Facing the wall for ten years is the kung fu of cultivation, which represents careful study, painstaking efforts, seeking the truth and reaching the ultimate. Master Hongyi (Li Shutong) has also practiced the hard work of "Seqidui, close the door". Sakyamuni practiced facing the wall, but it seems that the effect was not great, but Bodhidharma's facing the wall is very popular.Patriarch Bodhidharma said, "Stop all conditions on the outside, have no reason in the heart, and the heart is like a wall, and you can enter the Tao."According to legend, he faced the wall for ten years, and birds even built a nest on his shoulder. His image was printed on the stone wall opposite him, so lifelike that even the folds of his clothes could be seen.So far, there are more than one Buddhist temple area in the country, and there are caves with Bodhidharma facing the wall for believers to visit.

China has a tradition of practicing internal skills hard.The Chinese-style people-centered approach sometimes reaches the point of regarding the world as secondary and subordinate, thinking that only one’s own xinxing, conscience, good energy, breathing, guidance, and "one breath" (common proverb: practice one breath inside, and one breath outside) Practicing muscles, bones and skin) After training, all problems in the world will be no problem.If you practice martial arts, you will be invincible in the world if you can achieve the Kungfu of Saidui behind closed doors. Mencius's "suffering his mind and will, exhausting his muscles and bones, starving his body and skin, emptying his body, and disturbing his actions, so he was motivated and tolerant, and he was able to benefit what he couldn't do. People persevere, and then they can change; trapped in the heart, Weigh in consideration, then act; sign in appearance, utter in sound, and then describe", which also talked about the reverse nature of external influence and the necessity of unswervingly guarding the heart.

Several monks debated whether it was the wind or the flag, but Zen replied: "It's not the flag or the wind, it's just the heart." This also means that as long as the heart doesn't move, nothing will happen. From the hard qigong of the Boxers, to the special exercises in Jin Yong's novels, especially the mysterious cultivation of several kinds of internal skills, to the so-called supernatural power craze and qigong craze in recent years, there is a shadow of this "turning inward". Of course, Laozi's internal energy is different from qigong and martial arts. What he does is not a mysterious ascetic practice, but a return to the original state.

state, baby state.What he pays more attention to is one is to avoid greed, so one should close one's eyes and ears, and not be tempted; Chinese sages believed that the vast world is ever-changing, sensual and colorful, and many things are just temporary illusions and temporary illusions of the demon world, which are futile and worthless.At the same time, the heart of a sage is as deep as an ancient well, as clear as a bright moon, as cold as frost, communicates with the avenue, shines with the sun and the moon, sees every detail, discerns every detail, and lives willingly under others, regards the stream as the valley, knows the white and keeps the black, and knows the hero Keep the female, stop with static, and put the heart of all things first.There is a saying: "The way to be a general is to cure the heart first. Taishan collapses in front of it, but its color does not change, and the elk rises to the left without blinking, and then you can control the interests and be able to treat the enemy." (See Su Xun) These statements are not without exaggeration, but they are also of great reference value. We say that we can be calm, we talk about concentration, we say that we don’t get surprised by favor or disgrace, we say that we have calmness when we face major events, we say that we have our own opinions, we say that we are as stable as Mount Tai, and we say that it is easy to shake mountains. , Shaking the Yue family’s army is difficult, saying that riches and honor cannot be promiscuous, poverty cannot be moved, and might cannot be subdued. These sayings are very noble, very beautiful, very important, and very weighty. "The proposition is close. We must not only have the ability to see and listen to all directions, but also have the coolness and tranquility of the heart like an ancient well.A fool without ability, a wandering soul without ideas. When committing to the pursuit and understanding of the Dao, one must have the skill of guarding and persistence, have a strong enough resistance to adversity, and have the ability to defend one's normal-customary-constant state, and have the ability to guard The ability to live in a sustainable state of intelligibility.There must be a state and Dao nature of being prepared and undisturbed; you must guard the inalienable pure land in your heart; you must guard your own consistency, stability, long-term, and purity; you must have steel tendons, water The clarity of the moon, the clarity of the moon, and the calmness of the mountain.Even if this kind of kung fu is difficult to achieve completely, even if it cannot be achieved, it is still good to yearn for it, pursue it in dreams, recite it in poetry, and shout it out. Mind skills are very attractive, and mind skills are fascinating.When you think about it, mental skills are much more sublime than physical skills - working hard, martial arts - practicing martial arts hard, leg skills, light skills, blanket skills, and technical skills. However, it is too naive and too naive to only work on this aspect, talk about this aspect of the truth, and even exaggerate to think that with mental strength and internal strength, you have a mother and everything, and think that you will have everything when you return to the baby state. It's a bit like a child who doesn't grow up, and even a bit like a madman.