Chapter 15 haste and leisure

haste and leisure Gu Tinglin once quoted two quotes from Li, "Food all day long and have nothing to do with your heart", which was a common disease for northerners at that time.And "living in groups all day long, saying nothing about righteousness" was a disease that southerners were prone to suffer at that time.In fact, these two diseases are one disease.It is precisely because of being full and having nothing to do all day long that living in groups all day long is meaningless.If life is difficult and it is not easy to have enough food, how can it be unfair to live in groups all day long when you have free time?Most likely, these two diseases have permeated the north and south of China in ancient and modern times, and they did not start in the late Ming Dynasty.At least in China below the Song Dynasty, it was more clearly exposed.It is a disease that rural society is most prone to, especially the small landlord class in rural society.

Zhang Hengqu tried to say: "If you don't talk about worldly learning, men and women will be arrogant and lazy since they are young." The word lazy here is the real disease of the Chinese people.If you are lazy, you will be arrogant. Arrogance is the outer appearance of laziness, and it is also the inner feeling of laziness.The reason why people are lazy is that their lives are idle, not tense, and not urgent.Hengqu is a native of Guanzhong. Life in the Guanzhong area was relatively difficult in the Northern Song Dynasty, but Hengqu has said so.Areas outside Guanzhong are even more conceivable.

Zhu Zi once said: "There is no temptation of emptiness inside, and no greed for utilitarianism outside." How can we not be greedy for utilitarianism? Isn't it necessary to make things easy?But getting things done is easy, and it is easy to be seduced by emptiness.The seductive emptiness that Zhu Zi mentioned refers to Buddhist teachings.Buddhist ideas come from India, and it is precisely because Indians live easier than in China that they like to go to the road of emptiness.At present, the utilitarian view of Westerners is far stronger and more serious than that of Chinese people, because it is more difficult in the West than in China.

Utilitarianism is purely realistic, while emptiness is purely ideal.Utilitarianism is purely material, while emptiness is purely spiritual.Therefore, I think of the Confucianism in ancient China, which flaunts a philosophy of life with a neutral attitude, which was obviously produced by the rural economy in northern China.They don't dwell on emptiness, but they don't care about utilitarianism either. The neutral attitude of Confucianism is solid.At that time, Mohism probably had a more difficult background than Confucianism, so their sense of sincerity was stronger than Confucianism.It is unavoidable that it is a bit like greed for utilitarianism to embark on a difficult road from being honest.At that time, rural areas in northern China needed to be honest, but not necessarily too hard.Therefore, Mohist thought is not as popular as Confucianism because it is too close to utilitarianism.Taoism is more idle, but it has turned to emptiness again.Only Confucianism is not too nervous and not too idle, which is the main pulse of Chinese thought.

Confucian scholars in the Han Dynasty were born in the northern rural areas where half-farming and half-studying. They are not too hard, but they can't be too idle, and they still have to be honest.Dong Zhongshu once said: "Being clear about one's way does not seek one's own gain, and one's friendship does not count on one's merit." They have to bear the burden of real life, but the burden is not too heavy, they are not tense, and there is still a part of idle time that can be used. Let them seek righteousness and enlightenment.Therefore, they can not be empty-handed, and they are not willing to seek profit and merit, but they have indeed become a Confucian attitude.After the Eastern Han Dynasty, the family status gradually grew.The Confucian scholars who worked half-farming and half-studied gradually transformed into famous scholars in the pampered life of the family.At that time, the Taoist priests of Laozhuang and Zhuangzi had the upper hand, and they were infected with the smell of emptiness.

Buddhism was introduced at that time, and it was in the favor of the Chinese people at that time.However, the ethos of Buddhism in the north and the south is different, and Buddhism in the north is more rooted in the lower class of society, so it is also more honest.Southern Buddhism is entrusted to the scholar-bureaucrats of the family, and they value mysteries and clear talks.If we talk about emptiness and solitude, Southern Buddhism is even more emptiness and solitude. Later, Tiantai Zen Buddhism prevailed in the south.The climate in the south is warm, the land is narrow, the water and soil are fertile, and things are easier to do. The small family system has also begun to spread in the south.Personnel pull the plow, also lighter than the north.Down to the Tang Dynasty, a generation of scholar-officials, in terms of their family background, the northern tradition was more dominant.The rural areas in the north are more honest than those in the south, and the extended family system also developed first in the north.The power of family status is still there, and everyone (this refers to scholar-bureaucrats) at least has the burden of family.Therefore, although Buddhism flourished in the Tang Dynasty, it emphasized meritorious service.Down to the Song Dynasty, the focus of all Chinese culture and learning gradually moved south.The family status is destroyed, the small family system is common, once the scholar-bureaucrats get the family title, the clothing, rent, food and taxes are easy to manage, the burden of life is easier, the personnel affairs are more relaxed, and the heart feels that everything is idle and not tense, and Zen thoughts flow into Confucianism , and became a Neo Confucianist in Song and Ming Dynasties.

Neo-Confucians talk about respect and quietness, and they always live in a small family without any worries, so they can appreciate this kind of life.Zhu Zi said: "There is something about respect, just like the word fear. It doesn't mean sitting upright, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, and being completely inattentive. Only restraining the body and mind, being neat and pure, and not indulgently, is respect." .” In fact, Jing also waited as if nothing happened.As long as you are free, don't indulge, don't be lazy, don't be arrogant.Don't be lazy, and it's okay, it has become the so-called respectful style that Song Confucianism knew in his heart.Lu Xiangshan often teaches people to tidy up their spirits, because the spirit tends to be loose and easy to indulge in leisure life, so you are asked to tidy up. These are all emphasized in a relatively relaxed and peaceful life.Confucianism in the Song Dynasty also emphasized Daoism and righteousness, but it really means more on the individual, unlike the Confucianism in the pre-Qin period, which often focused on the big picture of the country and society.The righteousness and Taoism taught by pre-Qin Confucianism often refer to political, social, and personal daily life meanings are relatively light.Therefore Song Confucianism is like a monk in Confucianism.They are not monks who believe in Buddhism, but they can be said to be monks who believe in Confucius.They are not Taoist priests of Muxiao Laozhuang, but Taoist priests of Confucius and Mencius.

Neo-Confucians in the Song and Ming Dynasties did not like Buddhism, nor did they like Laozi and Zhuangzi, but at that time it was the era when southern scholar-bureaucrats were the mainstay.They often talk about their daily needs, but they are really idle and have nothing to do.Therefore, they like to say that Mencius "must have something to do", and on the other hand, they also say that Zhongyong's kites are flying and fishes are alive and well.It can be seen that their things are just calm and calm, looking for flowers and willows, not weeding the grass in front of the window, admiring chickens, watching fish in a pot, and even listening to donkeys.In a word, it can be said to be a kind of indifferent artistic life.To put it bluntly, I still eat all day long and have no intentions, so I put my heart into these things.Yangming taught people that there must be something going on, so don't cook with an empty pot.In fact, it is because I have nothing to do, so I always think that there must be something.If you are really in a hurry, how can you have time to say that there must be something to do?But the Neo Confucianists of the Song and Ming Dynasties were already cooking in an empty pot.After all, they can't help but have a bit of emptiness.Even if we don't say that they are also guilty of arrogance and laziness, Lao Qian's virtue is always ashamed of the ancients.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the northern society produced a Yan Xizhai in a state of embarrassment.But after Kang Yong’s ascension to peace in the Qing Dynasty, the southerners held the hegemony of academic thought. How could the people of Jiangsu and Zhejiang accept Yan Xizhai’s thoughts in an environment like Yangzhou and Suzhou?Moreover, Xi Zhai spent his later years in peace with respect and tranquility.Western civilization, which developed in small commercial cities such as Athens in Greece from the very beginning, is fundamentally different from the idleness of rural areas in northern China in ancient times.In modern Europe, at least since the Renaissance, life has been busy and tense every day. Until now, it has been too busy to breathe for five or six hundred years.Some of the emptiness they had in the church in the middle ages is now completely gone, and their minds are full of utilitarianism.Philosophers like Russell in the United Kingdom grew up in this busy life and hated utilitarian whips, so they couldn't help but appreciate China.However, the weakness of Chinese culture lies in this.From the Opium War to the present day, the country’s rural areas have gradually gone bankrupt, idle life can no longer be maintained, and they have no choice but to be serious about utilitarianism. How can tension be the right track in life?Utilitarianism is not the ultimate ideal of life, whether it is worthy of worship, and the Chinese people have many precious and lovely experiences in their long-term idle life in the past, which often make us recall and linger.This is exactly what the Chinese people, especially those who know how to enjoy life, suffer from today.