Chapter 80 Section 2 Personal meditation on life: "I and the Temple of Earth"

[4] It is a very rare and beautiful prose worthy of repeated reading in contemporary times. The writer Shi Tiesheng narrates his experiences and thoughts in very simple and moving language.The core of the whole story is about life itself: how should people view the suffering in life.This question arises first of all because of the cruel incident in his own experience, that is, "the legs were suddenly crippled at the most arrogant age". He is completely different from others, and he can only bear this fate by himself.In this sense, Shi Tiesheng's meditation on life is first of all his personal state of mind.

In the whole prose, this contemplation roughly goes through two stages.In the initial stage, Shi Tiesheng observed and reflected on personal experiences, and gradually saw the inevitable events in individual life.This is what he came up with while sitting silently in the Temple of Earth: After his leg was disabled, he came to the Temple of Earth Park by accident one day, and realized that he had a mysterious connection with this desolate garden in his heart. It is easier for a person to see the time and see his own shadow." Since then, he has come here almost every day, shaking a wheelchair and walking around every corner of the garden. He has spent all seasons of weather here, Concentrate on contemplating the difficult problems of life.Being in "such a peaceful place", people may gradually achieve the calmness of the unity of things and me, so "I have been thinking about this for several years, and finally things are clear: when a person is born, this is no longer a person. It is a question that can be debated, but only a fact entrusted to him by God". They are all inevitability that cannot be chosen, and people obviously have no room to change the facts set by external forces beyond individual life.

Next, Shi Tiesheng went beyond his own field of vision a little, and wrote about other people who came to this garden, to see what kind of fate and way of life they have.First he wrote about his mother.His own misfortune was doubled by his mother, she begged her son to live a good life with both pain and fear, "but she also believed that a person can't just live, the son must have a way to his own happiness; and As for this road, no one can guarantee that her son will finally find it." The mother completely ended her own destiny in this suffering, and Shi Tiesheng thought sadly and resentfully, "Could it be that she came to this world only to replace her son? Worry". It seems that the creation of fate also determines the way of assigning and taking on roles. Some people seem to be born to endure suffering, silently enduring the weight of fate in suffering.He met another beautiful but mentally handicapped girl in the garden, and once again felt that "as far as fate is concerned, there is no fairness". This is a world with differences due to suffering. The role of "it seems to have to accept suffering--the whole repertoire of mankind needs it, existence itself needs it".That being the case, things have become very hopeless.How else could you have lived your life, when unfortunate fate had assigned you the role of suffering?Or, can you still have your own path to salvation?Obviously, the crux of the problem lies in that unthinkable way: how should people view their own suffering.

At this point in thinking, Shi Tiesheng's personal problem has actually become a common problem for all sentient beings. "Where is the road to redemption for all unfortunate fates?" 5], the foundation of the so-called "ordinary mind" refers to "he externalizes the inner pain, abstracts the concrete encounter, throws everything that cannot be tolerated to fate, and then tries to adjust the relationship between himself and fate, Strive to achieve a balance". This kind of role that fundamentally recognizes the fate and misfortune of suffering does not underestimate the cruelty and pain of life itself, but pulls the cruelty and pain of life away from the self, To blend into a larger and grander place.This location is related to the "extraordinary heart". It refers to "based on the most real state of life and the deepest inner pain, placing one's life between the universe and the universe without realizing it is small, but because of the grandeur of the background." The harmony and profundity show the greatness of life." This is the last self-image that Shi Tiesheng drew in this prose. He sat quietly in a corner of the garden and heard the sound of suona singing in the night sky, "Clearly You can clearly hear it ringing in the past, ringing in the present, ringing in the future, whirling and drifting forever.” At this moment of fusion of past, present and future, of life and death, Shi Tiesheng sees the individual life that tolerates any loneliness The larger reality of life within.From the bottom to the end of the article is a paragraph of perfectly natural text.Shi Tiesheng wrote three different states of self: when he first came to the world, he was a child who "cryed and clamored to come"; In the passage of time, he became an old man who "went unquestionably to his resting place and walked hard without complaint".The self in time is in such a fleeting impermanence, but this impermanence is like the eternal cycle of the sun, "It is the setting sun and the rising sun every moment. When it goes out and goes down the mountain to collect When it is desolate and radiant, it is the time when it burns on the other side and climbs up to the top of the mountain to spread its fierce morning glory." Shi Tiesheng thought that he "will also go down the mountain calmly, holding on to my crutches. One day, in a certain In a mountain valley, there is bound to be a jumping child running up, holding his toy". This is the most touching picture of eternity, so he asked himself: Of course, that's not me.

But isn't that me? From the harsh personal fate to the eternal flow of life, Shi Tiesheng finally surpassed the limited necessity of individual life, and brought his contemplation into the fusion of the whole life. It is no longer narrow-minded despair, but presented as a responsibility for the overall existence of human beings.He is repeatedly saying that the endless desire (the desire to write is also the desire to live) provides the most self-evident reason for the continuation of individual life, and this reason makes his endurance of cruelty and pain a kind of grandeur. The realm, because the individual is no longer just an individual, and the limitations of the individual are no longer a problem, and the suffering of the individual has been embraced by the whole existence.At the same time, the troubles about how to live and how to achieve self-salvation have finally been washed away by the eternal desire of all life. When thrown into the never-ending dance of life, the self for individual suffering and all unfortunate fate Beyond has become a kind of necessity.

Such a realm full of the beauty of the true nature of life not only fulfills Shi Tiesheng's inner hope and persistent inquiry, but also fulfills his sustenance for writing.This is where writing and being a person are truly one. The whole article is so beautiful and kind, but also contains a real passion.So what makes it difficult is to be really fully engaged in the dance of life itself, and this can only be done through real suffering.From this, we can also have a deeper understanding of the pain of personal state of mind reflected in Shi Tiesheng's writing and his true transcendence of self-persistence.