Chapter 28 Watching meteors at night

Jin read "Mengxi Bi Tan" written by Shen Kuo in the Song Dynasty. There is a very interesting passage about his seeing meteors at night: In the first year of Zhiping, when Changzhou was on the day of Yu, there was a loud thunder in the sky. It was a big star almost like a moon, which was seen in the southeast When it was young, there was another tremor, and it moved to the southwest; another tremor fell, and it was seen from far and near in Xu's Garden, a citizen of Yixing County.When the fire died down, there was only one hole in the ground which was as big as a cup and extremely deep. Looking down, the stars shone brightly in it. Get a round stone, it's still hot, it's as big as a fist, one end is slightly sharp, its color is like iron, and it's as heavy as it.

Shen Kuo's profound knowledge has long been admired by later generations, but I am particularly interested in this description. It is not like some scholars said that his judgment on meteors was correct nine hundred years before the great Western writers, but that I also had it when I was young. A similar experience to watching a meteor fall. In the village where I lived when I was a child, there was no TV, radio, air conditioner, or electric fan. On summer nights, no one stayed in the house. The whole family went to the courtyard in the middle of the courtyard to enjoy the cool air; the adults sat on wicker chairs chatting, or Talking about farming, or gossip about the neighbors, the children sat around on the floor to listen, or chased fireflies everywhere.

When I was young, there was an old long-term worker who helped with farming. We all called him "Uncle Yubao". His mind was full of opera stories in folk operas.He has no children, so he loves us very much. Every summer night, we gather around to listen to his stories, and we don't want to leave until nightfall.There is an indescribable strength in him. When we hear something exciting, we are even reluctant to leave to catch the big crickets that jump to us. One day Wang Baobo told us about how Sun Wukong flew around in the sky through the clouds and fog. We couldn't help but look up at the sky thousands of miles away. The stars kept falling on our heads, and we all screamed, Uncle Yubao said: "Meteor! Meteor!" Then we heard a loud bang, and the meteor fell on the riverbed next to the banana garden not far from our courtyard. .

A group of children seemed to have made an appointment, completely ignoring Sun Wukong, and stood up and ran towards the river bed. When we ran, there was no sign of shooting stars at all. We searched the river bed all night without finding anything, so we dragged Go home tired.I got up very early the next day, and continued to search for the river bed. Later, I found a huge dark brown stone. Because we played games on the river bed every day, it was almost certain that the new stone was the shooting star from last night, but the star in the sky fell to How can the ground be turned into stone?It's a puzzle we're not sure about.

That was the first time I saw a shooting star. Before that, although I heard adults talk about shooting stars, I knew that every star in the sky corresponds to a person on the ground. As long as I see a shooting star falling in the sky, I know that a person has died on the ground.But I often ask myself, people often die on the ground, why are meteors so rare? Some people also say that when you see a shooting star falling, close your eyes and concentrate on making a wish, and your wish will come true. Too busy, who cares about making a wish? Later, I saw meteors in the courtyard a few times, but they were all far away from the sky, fleeting, not as deep as the first time. I just felt dazed for no reason. If the stars in the sky corresponded to a person, Who was left at that moment?No matter who you are, you are either a walker or a passer-by in the world, and the falling of meteors can't help but make people feel deeply.

If a shooting star is the fall of a person, then the vast sky corresponds to the vast earth, and a group of people is the gathering and scattering of stars. When we think about it this way, our parting and hatred become much more indifferent—the shining star falling What is the everlasting light when it is just a dull stone on the earth? I always feel that no matter how many astronomers there are, no matter how many people have landed on the moon, our understanding of the sky is still superficial and ignorant. The important thing is not how many things in the sky we know, but what spiritual enlightenment it gives us.

Since I was very young, I love to sit alone and look at the sky, and meditate through the sky. Until now, I always look at the sky when I go out. This may be the nature of Yudi, a farmer who looks at the sky and eats. However, This nature also makes me think of the seedlings longing for rain during the severe drought; I miss the unharvested farmland during days of heavy rain, and fear the germinating ears of rice; Fisherman fishing. Meditation on the sky can make us pay more attention to the land of life. Standing on the ground and looking up at the sky like this, we feel that the sky and the stars and the moon are not far from us.

What worries me the most is that among the urban children I know, most of them have lost the sensitivity to the sky, and some of them haven't even looked at the sky properly, let alone shooting stars.Now if I see a shooting star, the wish I want to make is: "Children, look up at that shooting star that is about to be lost!" —January 26, 1983