Chapter 12 The second floor of "Red Mansion" (4)

Before explaining this article, we must first quote a few famous quotes.I was fortunate enough to see the "Maha Prajna Paramita Heart Sutra" (December of the first year of Qianlong) written in regular script by Pingjun Wang Fupeng, the eldest cousin born to Aunt Xueqin. Familiar with Buddhist scriptures.There is a sentence in this translation by Master Xuanzang: When Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva walks deep in the paramita for a long time, he sees that all the five aggregates are empty, and he overcomes all hardships.Relic: form is emptiness, emptiness is form; form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form. --Want to know that line, same is the case.

This is the most essential and brief teaching philosophy of Buddhism (five aggregates: form, feeling, thinking, action, and consciousness. The scriptures only show the full text when the form is mentioned; the same is true for the other four, simplifying and avoiding repetition). Just here, secular people often talk about "color and emptiness", such as the little nun in "Si Fan", whose Dharma name is "color and emptiness"; many "red scholars" say that they promote the "concept of color and emptiness", and so on. How exactly?It's better to listen to Xueqin's words.

It is very eye-catching: the sixteen-character mantra has "emptiness" at both ends and "love" in the middle.From emptiness to emptiness, but the back emptiness is different from the front emptiness, it is not a "recovery" - otherwise, if you go around for a while, wouldn't the key points in the middle be all nonsense? The key, in Xueqin's view, is all in the word "love". What he meant was that the universe and the world initially had nothing; and then “form” appeared in this “nothing”. Just because of these "colors" for a lifetime, then this "feeling" appeared.All things and phenomena can be a stubborn weapon. Without knowledge and knowledge, without life and life, there is no "love" at all.

"Emotion" is the spiritual product of the highest state of development of "things".Just as it is written in the book: The stone refined by Wa has passed the "spirituality"-there is a "psychological activity" of "emotion", which can be felt, felt, thought and understood, and flowed and communicated. Because once there is "feeling", when he looks back at all things at this time, everything that is originally ruthless has the nature and color of emotion.This is looking at the world with the eyes of sentient beings.This is "teaser into color".

"Emotion is born from color", and "feeling is transferred into color", at this time, "emotion" has a "noumenal nature", and it "divides" itself from objects and becomes an independent category. After passing on love into color, this is the realization: it turns out that "emptiness is form, and form is emptiness"-this is "that is" form and "enlightenment" emptiness. In other words, when viewing the world with ruthless eyes, everything is "empty"; while viewing the world with sentient eyes, everything is "form"-the so-called "empty" is actually "form".All things are "sentimental", and "sentimental" means "not empty".

"Kong Kong Taoist" realized this meaning, so he changed his name to "Love Monk". At this point, "emptiness" is no longer a "problem", and what is grasped and cherished is completely concentrated on the word "love". "Is this in line with the original purpose of Buddhism?" It's called entanglement.Xueqin has never taken preaching Buddhism as her purpose, and advocates to people with "love" in life and life with "love" in the form of novels—not "everything returns to emptiness". ——It is "all things return to love".

You are completely free to disagree with Xueqin’s philosophy, that is everyone’s right to freedom. I am not talking about that, but asking for Xueqin’s great spirit and independent thinking. "Love" in "Red Mansion" Cao Xueqin himself "confessed" that the outline of the book was "Talk about Love".In the "mythical" prelude to the opening of the book, he said that the group of characters in the book are a group of "love ghosts" who have gone down to earth to endure calamity.And at the end of his original book, there was originally a "love list" - "list" is a "total list" arranged in order according to rank, just like there is a "righteous god list" and a "loyalty list" , There is the same as "You Bang".It can be seen that his book is a masterpiece with "love" as its core.

But "feeling" actually has its original meaning and branched meaning (extended meaning), broad sense and narrow sense.What Xueqin wrote is to describe the connotation of generalized emotion with the appearance of narrowly defined emotion.In a narrow sense, it refers to the affection between a man and a woman—that is, what is called "love" today.In a broad sense, it refers to the relationship between people and others—the so-called "interpersonal relationship" today.But more than that, from a high-level interpretation of philosophy, Xueqin's so-called "emotion" is almost a kind of emotion and attitude towards all things in the universe-that is, things within the scope of the so-called "world outlook" and "life outlook".

At the beginning of the 20th century, Mr. Lu Xun did not use the term "love novel" in the title, but added the term "human relationship novel".Mr.'s vision is extremely lofty and profound, so his headings are extremely meaningful.In order to speak, Bing should first remember and recognize this essential point.But this article puts aside the high-level "love" for the time being, and focuses on "feelings between men and women". Xueqin was born in the early Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. The so-called first half of the 18th century is his main life period. At that time, we Chinese were far from the current common view on the issue of "love", and it was not influenced by the West. influences.In his mind, the love between men and women is actually a small part of human feelings. How do you think he wrote about Shi Xiangyun?One of her characteristics is that she "never cares about her children's personal feelings".An affair between a child and a daughter is exactly the so-called romance between a man and a woman today-but he made a "comment" with the word "private".Obviously, there should be a "public relationship" in opposition to the "private relationship", right?This "public affection" is the "interpersonal relationship" affection that I mentioned above in a broad sense, the lofty and broad love that values ​​others' behavior (not for selfishness).But when he wrote about Qin Keqing, he said "love the sky, love the sea, and imagine the body of love", which means: people born in this sentient universe are naturally deeper than emotions—at least there is one kind of people here who are "love". Avatar".

Therefore, what Xueqin wrote in this book, what he himself has already stipulated, is by no means the "traditional praise characters" such as emperors, generals, sages, loyal ministers and righteous men, etc., but a group of newly reincarnated "love infatuated people". kind". But Xueqin is actually very difficult to write about the lofty and broad love in vain. He still needs to use the truth and essence of the love between men and women to express his own opinions, feelings, sorrow, pity, sympathy, joy... all kinds of things Light and darkness, tides, pulses and beats in the general spiritual world.He does not "stories for the sake of stories" and fabricates any clichés for "moving plots".

For example, taking the "love affair" between Xiaohong (real name Hongyu) and Jia Yun as an example, it can explain many problems—these problems may not be fully understood by today's readers. Jia Yun and Xiaohong are both outstanding talents in Xueqin's writing, and they are also a pair of extremely important characters in the book.Jia Yun is a lovely, respectable and most promising child in his family. His family background is not good. He lost his father in his early years and was unable to get married. He served his mother alone and cared for her. , Don't let my mother know, for fear that she will get angry.He is shrewd and capable, articulate, intelligent, and handsome in appearance (so Baoyu said that he "resembles my son" and really considers him "the adopted son").Where's Xiaohong?And he is really a match made in heaven: also an outstanding person who can't show his talents when he is not satisfied.Delicate, clean and pretty, with a clear and sharp tongue, she is very capable of doing things. Even an "expert" like Sister Feng, who has a high standard of judging and employing people, just catches up with her and assigns a few household chores to her, and immediately appreciates her. I want to ask Baoyu for it and take it back to my subordinates.Everything can be imagined!But when she was in Yihong Courtyard, Baoyu's maidservants were all very talented and beautiful, and they were all "powerful". How could she be allowed to get close to Baoyu and serve as a close errand for the young master?Just because he was lucky enough to pour a cup of tea for Baoyu, he was interrogated and ridiculed, so he was discouraged and became sick every day, feeling uncomfortable.