Chapter 93 Wisdom expresses the ultimate truth

I was talking about Wang Yangming, and then suddenly brought up Plato in ancient Greece. This is because only from the perspective of Plato's cognition can we understand what Wang Shouren discovered.As for the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras we mentioned, his philosophical thought also has the same statement as Wang Shouren. As we mentioned earlier, Wang Yangming's most classic aesthetic fragment: He traveled to Nanzhen with his friend, and the friend pointed to the flower tree in the rock and asked: "There is nothing in the world outside the mind. Such a flower tree blooms and falls in the deep mountains. What does it have to do with my heart?

The master said: When you have not seen this flower, this flower and your heart will return to silence together.When you look at this flower, the color of this flower becomes clear for a moment.You will know that this flower is not outside your heart. In the philosophical fragments left by the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras, there is also the same statement as Mr. Yangming: When the mind starts to push, everything in motion starts to separate.The extent to which the mind is pushed, the extent to which all things are separated.And this vortex motion and separation at the same time cause a more intense separation of things.

This eternal mind, indeed, now exists where all other things exist, and in the surrounding matter, in what was once connected with it, and in what has been separated from it. and so on. In short, everyone is going to the same goal by different routes.After all, everyone is talking about the same thing.In a word: all wisdom will meet at the end, all wisdom describes the same thing. This thing, Confucius called benevolence.Confucius said: The benevolent loves others.And the opening chapter of "University" says: The way of university lies in Ming Mingde, in being close to the people, and in ending in the ultimate good - pay attention to this ultimate good.

This thing, Mencius calls righteousness.Righteousness is appropriate, that is, what you should do and what you should not do.Whether it should be or not, the criterion for measuring it is benevolence and goodness. Buddhists call this thing compassion, while Zen Buddhism calls it a good teacher.The orientation of knowledge is goodness, and goodness itself is knowledge.Socrates would smile when he heard this sentence. This thing, Taoists call it Tao, written by Lao Tzu, the three words "Tao Te Ching", "Tao" refers to this thing, "De" refers to the nature and characteristics of this thing, and "Jing" means the expression—— And the expression of the nature of this thing eventually becomes the morality of judging human morality, which is the most typical attainment of conscience, and the most typical virtue is knowledge.

And what Wang Shouren did was to re-express the words of Confucius, Mencius, Lao Tzu, Socrates, Anaxagoras, and Plato in his own language: There is no kindness or disgusting body, there is goodness and maliciousness. Knowing good and knowing evil is liangzhi, doing good and eliminating evil is investigating things. Turn over, fall over.You pull eastward, I pull westward.All wise men speak of the same ultimate truth. You can call this truth benevolence, righteousness, Tao, compassion, good knowledge, conscience, and For virtue, call it whatever you will. But what the hell is this thing? You'll have to ask Plato about that, and he'll use his cave theory to tell us what this thing is.

That's it, benevolence is good, righteousness is good, compassion is good, good knowledge is good, and conscience is good—although these are common terms in Eastern philosophy, but if this thing is real, then so are Western philosophers. To discover it, to perceive it, to express it.And Plato's cave theory is perhaps the clearest expression of Tao in human history.