Chapter 18 The fourth floor "Red Mansion" Lingxiu (2)

great thinker If you want to study Xueqin's thoughts, you might as well borrow a sentence that Jia Yucun used in the novel when he commented on Jia Baoyu: "If you don't read more books to understand things, add the power of knowledge and investigation, and the power of understanding Taoism and mysteries, you can't know it!" Because Xueqin uses novels as the genre, her tone of voice is sometimes half solemn and half humorous, but her original intention is solemn, serious, and even sad and compassionate—just like Leng Zixing said, "Seeing that he said it so important" Indeed, this includes a very huge and important philosophical topic.Now it is a rough exploration for discussion.

"Every word seems to be blood" and "tears are ink, and blood is researched into words" is not for people's entertainment, nor is it for "repentance in love" or "relief of pain", but the author's understanding of the universe, A huge and profound thinking and contemplation of social life.From Nuwa mending the sky, psychic relics, and entering the world in phantom, the novel has been written to "sorrows and joys in separation and joy, and the state of the world". value.In fact, he pondered the creation and evolution of heaven, earth, and human beings in the form at that time, explored the preciousness of life, spirit, and talent, and wrote about the ideal relationship between people, as well as the encounter and fate of talents.He was a thought giant who called on the Chinese intellectuals to rethink and explore this important topic in the early 18th century. He was the enlightener and the pioneer of consciousness innovation for the Chinese people who were about to enter modern times.

Today, if you want to understand Cao Xueqin as a thinker, the eight words "extending knowledge and investigating things, enlightening Dao and Shenxuan" are a "window" to reveal the news, because it just explains his "method" of understanding the steps and levels of the universe and life. "Investigating things to gain knowledge" was originally one of the many steps and levels in Confucianism "uprightness, sincerity, grid, reasoning, repairing, ordering, governing, and peace". The necessary stages are close to the so-called exploration of scientific knowledge today. , to understand the objective world.However, Chinese cultural thought also believes that this is necessary, but it is not the highest level of understanding, nor is it the ultimate goal.It is necessary to rise from this cognition of objective things to a higher level of comprehension - to seek the huge and profound truths such as its original nature, its own changing laws, and interrelationships.This is the original meaning of "enlighten Taoism and study mysteries", and we should not stick to the dead meanings of "enlightenment" referring to Buddhism, and "Xuan" referring to Taoist theory. ——For my understanding, the best proof is that the specific examples used to explain the eight characters are "two Fus of good and evil", and the theory of living people has no direct relationship with Buddhism and Taoism.The "Tao" and "Xuan" just refer to the subtle principles of "metaphysical" (invisible, inaudible, intangible) on top of the concreteness of "vessels" and "things".

It is by following such steps and levels that Xueqin has reached his own understanding and understanding of "human beings", as well as his concerns and worries. The so-called "human" issues generally include: ①How do people come into being?Why are people valuable? ② What are the categories of people?Which is the most valuable? ③What is the experience and fate of this kind of people? ④ How should people treat each other? ⑤Is the goal of life for yourself?Still human? ... Xueqin has thought deeply about these important issues in her long-term life experience, and expressed what she saw and felt in the novel.

The beginning of the first chapter of the current biography (this is a commentary, later mixed into the main text) quotes the author Ziyun, "Because I experienced a dream, so I concealed the real story, and wrote this book with the help of psychic theory", Compared with the later phrases such as "the main purpose of this book is to talk about love", "going through all the joys and sorrows, the world is in a state of chaos", all of them are thinking and inspiration about the problem of "human being". Great thinking about "people" Cao Xueqin's philosophical thoughts are all based on barnyard history novels, so they are not the same as scholars' papers. The so-called "Although it is almost absurd, it is very interesting" ("Jiaxu version" means "detailed"). It shows that the wording of his novels may sound like nonsense, but they are of great significance, and it depends on the reader's ability to play with them.The so-called "absurd" first refers to the ancient history of Nu Wa refining stones to mend the sky.This meaning is very important, it determines the spiritual lifeline of the whole book.

What kind of person is Nuwa?She is the great divine power and loving mother who rebuilds the world and creates the "human" group (the Chinese nation), and is also the "high god" of marriage. "Huainanzi" and "Liezi" and other books widely containing ancient events record that she repaired the collapsed sky with five-color stones, stopped the rain and flood, and "broken the foot" to repair the broken Kyushu land and set up four poles; and "Customs of Customs" also records the story of her "kneading" a crowd of people with loess. This is the "Genesis" of China and has the richest meaning.Xueqin only took Wa Huang as the source of the whole book, which shows its purport, and "absurd" is just a superficial article that "appears to fit".

Xu Shen, a master of the Han Dynasty, commented in "Shuowen Jiezi": "Wa, the ancient holy woman, is also the one who transforms all things." "Hua" does not mean change, but "transformation". Wa is the god who created all things, not just the ancestor of human beings.Then, refining the five-color stones, the "refinement" actually contains the meaning of "transformation". It is no wonder that Xueqin said that the stones she refined but did not use are also "spiritually enlightened". In this way, the great significance of Nuwa is clarified: her greatness lies in building the world, transforming all things, and creating the world; but more importantly, she can endow "things" with spirituality!She gave human beings spirituality, and human beings became the spirits of all things; and the stones refined by her can also get rid of stubbornness and penetrate spirituality-this imagination (that is, Xueqin's philosophy) is very meaningful.This roughly shows that, in Xueqin's mind, things evolve from "inorganic" to "organic", and from elementary spirituality to advanced spirituality. In Chinese, the "formula" is: stone → jade → human.

The meaning of this "formula" is two different things from "goblin to human" and "Seventy-two transformations of Monkey King", which need to be carefully distinguished: after Shi has spirituality (perception, thinking, emotion, intelligence...) Only then has the desire to be a "human", and it is through the "transition" of "jade" (the ancient people regarded it as an auspicious thing, the essence of things, with divinity and spirituality) that it becomes a "human". A low to high trilogy.This obviously has a simple idea of ​​species evolution, which is naturally not as refined as that of the British biologist Darwin, but it must be remembered that Darwinian established the "theory of evolution of provenance" in 1858, which was equivalent to that of the Qing Dynasty. Seven years of Xianfeng, a century later than Xueqin!It is impossible not to marvel at the height of Xueqin's thoughts.

Of course, this comparison is just a metaphor. I don’t intend to compare Xueqin with Darwin. This Eastern "evolution theory" may not be exactly the same as the Western one.For example, Shitou can talk (Shiyan) which can be found in "Zuo Zhuan". After listening to the eminent monk Zhu Daosheng, Shitou can understand and nod his head to believe in it, which is found in "Biography of Gao Xian of Lianshe" by the Tang Dynasty.There are many famous strange stones in the world, but it is still difficult to explain, which shows that it is not a piece of "dead thing" that is completely "stubborn" and ignorant, and this is still to be studied.Just as Xueqin also said that the annatto plant "cultivated into a female body" later, plants can also "evolve" into humans.Of course, these are different from Darwin's theory, and Western scientists will laugh at them.But the spirituality of all things, after all, is headed by "human beings", and the highest "class" of all things leads to the same goal, and there is indeed an oriental "evolution" thought in it.