Chapter 27 twenty-seven morality

There are a few words in "Mencius": "Fish is what I want, and bear's paw is also what I want. You can't have both. He who gives up fish and takes bear's paw. Life is what I want. Righteousness, It's what I want, and I can't have both, and those who sacrifice their lives for righteousness." All classical Chinese prose anthologies are included, and they are also included in Chinese textbooks, so everyone is familiar with them.The first half of these few sentences are metaphors, and the emphasis is on the second half, which is an attitude towards life: it is better to live than to die, and life and death are important matters; The so-called generosity.This kind of life attitude, or proposition, everyone knows that it is not easy to practice.How about Mencius, I don't know, because he was not squeezed into such a crack, and died of old age.In addition to Mencius, starting with Uncle Boyi, who was honored as the head of the biographies of "Historical Records", countless men followed the path pointed out by Mencius; there are more women, because there are too many men in the world who forget their colors when they see their colors. Righteousness will make a lady fall into injustice if she does not die.Regardless of whether it is a man or a woman, the righteousness of giving up one's life for it has to refer to something, and this matter, viewed from the perspective of another era, may be evaluated differently.For example, a certain man died for a certain king who should be subjugated, and a certain lady died for a short-lived ghost whom she had never met before. That may not be the case now.Not necessarily, because loyalty and chastity, in some people's minds, seem to have not been eradicated.When talking about morality here, the focus is on general principles, such as loyalty and chastity, because it involves things, you can pretend not to see it.Afterwards, the focus of discussion should be: sacrifice one’s life for righteousness, there must be a strong force to promote it, and this force obviously does not come from the law, because going to the execution ground is tied to the so-called passive; taking the right is active, where does this power come from?Everyone knows that it comes from morality.Why is morality so powerful?

Probably because it is difficult to trace the source, the sages of the past took it for granted and did not ask why.The highest virtue of Confucianism is benevolence. It is said: "A gentleman will never end up violating benevolence. If he makes a mistake, he will do so, and if he is in trouble, he will do so." Mencius said. "Everyone has a hidden heart." Song Confucianism likes to dig into the horns, and he just said that goodness comes from the law of heaven, without asking why there is a law of heaven, and there is such a great power that can make people not necessarily beneficial. Willing to do good.Kant went a step further, admiring at the same time, saying: "There are two things, the more we think about them, the more we are in awe. They are the starry sky in the sky and the moral law in our hearts." Awe is because we feel that it is too powerful to force People give up their lives.Awe, not further questioning the origin, obviously because the origin is hard to find.In fact, from what we see now, it is difficult because the ancients used to focus on one point, concentrating on the superficial and ignoring the superficial.What is the situation?However, if people want to live, they have to try their best to let others live too. Over time, it becomes a habit, and (because it is difficult) they believe that it is better.Questioning is a study habit. As far as this article is concerned, it is more important to understand its nature after confirming its power, so that it can be used properly.

Regarding the nature of morality, no matter how it is implemented, in order to save effort, you can quote the words of Confucius: "Zigong asked: 'Is there a person who can live by a word?' Zi said: 'Is it forgiven? , don’t do to others what you don’t want yourself to do to yourself.” This is a negative aspect.There is also a positive aspect, which is; Think about it in your own shoes, that is, treat others as yourself, I don’t want to be punished, so I don’t punish others; I want others to treat me well, and I treat others with kindness. To put it more clearly, the essence of so-called virtue is nothing more than thinking To live, and to leave some way for others; or to fight for the upper reaches, to benefit the relevant people as much as possible, sometimes even at the expense of oneself. To be able to do this,' is in my heart. I always think this way, which exists in the The power of the heart, in the words of Kant, is the moral law. It is called a law, and it has the advantage of not being offended, but it will lead to the question of who decides; it is better to pay more attention to reality. It is morality to have the power to strengthen others for good.

Anyone can see how valuable this morality, as the spiritual wealth of the group, is for the sake of society, at least stability.It can even be exaggerated to say that if morality can be applied to everyone and everything, then there is no need for laws.Everyone is Boyi Shuqi, all kinds of locks are no longer useful, and laws and courts to punish theft will naturally become redundant.We have not or will never be able to keep our doors open at night and not pick up things on the road. Obviously, in the colorful world, everyone cannot be Boyi Shuqi, and, at least at a certain time and place, most people will become warriors who despise morality. Even the law has become a dead letter. Here, no matter when or where, the superiority of morality is still positively mentioned.This can be explained by quoting a common saying. For example, there is a family living in a small courtyard with walls, not high, and wood gates, which are very dilapidated. Some people will say that such walls and doors are designed to guard against gentlemen and not villains.A gentleman will never jump over a wall or break a door, because he is controlled by power, and this power is morality.Speaking of this, compared with the law, its superiority is manifested in two aspects; one is to follow at any time and place (or always follow), which is what the ancients said "is not worthy of a house leak; the other is that there will be no law". The danger of over leisure, because it is defined as a strong heart for righteousness, if it is strictly controlled, it will not know but not do it. The law will not work, kill the chicken to show the monkeys, some monkeys are timid, or have a little desire for good, It can produce a certain degree of effect; there are also some monkeys, sometimes even in large numbers, who are neither timid nor seeking good things, so they can only work with the police or armed police, follow them day and night, and then, fortunately, the sky network is restored, and the sparse If there are no leaks, they will be turned over to the court. Obviously, the legal network cannot be so dense that there must be no leaks, so it is inevitable that there will be too many cases that cannot be solved. This means that for the stability of the society, the effectiveness of the law is limited.

Limited, can it be said that it should be supplemented by moral force?My idea is that it should be the other way around, saying that morality is the main thing, because it cannot have 100% power on anyone, so it is supplemented by law.In this way, we will think of a situation where one goes up and the other goes down, that is: if the power of morality increases, the scope of legal jurisdiction can be reduced, and society will be more stable.It can be deduced from this that when we talk about society and talk about the way of peace, we should do our best to cultivate morality.And when it comes to training, there are some things that you have to pay attention to.This is one, you must have a clear mind and eyes, and know what the so-called morality, the so-called virtuous, and the essence are.As a metaphor, advocating treating others as enemies, and advocating that fathers should not hide from their sons, and sons should not hide from their fathers, is to go against the way of "establishing others when one wants to establish oneself", and cultivating such things is in name only.Second, the difficulty of training, and even whether it can be successful, all depend on the cultural upbringing of the group, or the vast majority of people.Educated, easy to see and value everything other than one's own interests, which naturally includes people and their interests outside one's own.On the contrary, ignorance of ignorance is just like what we can see with our eyes open. We are running around, only looking at self-interest, and only grasping self-interest. It is always too difficult for such a person to become Boyi Shuqi.The third is that teaching by example is not as good as teaching by example.The body refers or refers to the body of the high-ranking person and the elderly. The so-called good deeds and deeds are effective. The wind on the grass will be stiff, speechless or less, the method is influence, and it is always different than rhetoric and deeds. It is easier to produce practical results .Fourth, we must exert great efforts in the atmosphere, so that almost everyone in the group believes that virtue is honor, and lack of virtue is disgrace.This concept of honor and disgrace is the most powerful, because righteousness is psychological, and honor and disgrace is secular. As mentioned above, many men and women in the old days died for loyalty. The driving force is obviously and directly this honor and disgrace. or in a scholar's book.Fifth, you can't ask for quick success.Human beings are basically animals that have desires and therefore have to seek satisfaction. "So they are different from beasts" is Mencius' view, which probably means that they can be culturalized.Culture, manifested in things, is a variety of beneficial facilities, even air-conditioning in cars; manifested in the heart, at least I think so, it is the moral cultivation of self-restraint and "being able to learn from others".Both physical facilities and mental cultivation should be done slowly.Seeking quick success may be justifiable, but the effect is often sad.Like things, if you ask for a few days to produce hundreds of thousands of catties per mu, the result can only be hunger and ridiculous.The same is true for the heart, if you use whipping to get a move, the villain will turn into a gentleman, and the result will be that the original gentleman will also become a villain, because virtue comes from white hair, and whipping will destroy itself, and morality will not even exist. The roots are rotten.

This can't be quick, and it makes us have to think of another situation, which is very easy to destroy quickly.It can be explained with a metaphor, it is the smoking cessation of addicts, one or two days, one month or two months, or even one year or two years, it is not easy to endure it after wanting to smoke; I stretched out my hand to catch it.The same is true of morality (an important component of culture). Let’s take small things as an example. Poverty, when you encounter lost money on the road, it is a result of thousands of years (in terms of a group) of self-cultivation with sincerity and sincerity. Enjoy it, just by a thought.So talk about the way of peace.Don't make fun of morality based on fantasy. For example, for a certain current benefit, open doors, guide and drive people away from love to hate, from sincerity to fraud, from compassion to cruelty, and there may be gains in the short term. As time goes on, the group has become like this, regretting it, it is too difficult to save.Therefore, sometimes I even think that a kind of morality that is not completely reasonable is better than nothing, because its essence is always self-denial, and this is the bond that makes society calm, without this.If everyone is willing to do everything for self-interest, then the reality and future will be very sad.Finally, I would like to say that the essence and manifestation of morality are inseparable from altruism, which, whether in theory or in practice, has a problem of scope.Mencius said, "Everyone has a heart that cannot bear others." This person refers to people other than himself, and he doesn't want to exclude people other than human beings, because he also said: "I can't bear to see his death when I see his life, and I can't bear to eat his flesh when I hear his voice." It means that the gentleman stays away from the kitchen." This means that the scope of benevolence is expanded; but what Confucianism talks about is ordinary people and common ways, so even though benevolence is praised as a virtue, it is still eating meat, but the dining table is farther away from the kitchen, so as not to be deaf. Don't worry about it.Buddhism is more about the unity of mind and action, and killing is a great precept, so eating meat is not allowed, and even wearing fur is not allowed.Since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, many Buddhist disciples in China have never been dizzy, this is their virtue.They are also human beings, which raises a question. The essence of virtue is altruism. We value morality. Is it right to eat braised pork and roast duck?The question is complex.It can be seen from the perspective of belief that probably they can only go their own way.We also have to look at it from a practical point of view. It is impossible to ask everyone to become a devout disciple of Buddhist believers.Impossible, no matter if you don't pursue it deeply.However, "everyone has a heart that can't bear others" is also true after all, so how can we do it?In this kind of place, the feasible way may be just the same doctrine: for example, for cattle, sheep, chickens and ducks, if some methods can be researched to make them euthanized, it should be regarded as a big step towards civilization; The disturbing mosquitoes and flies have no choice but to be ruthless and use a fly swatter to make them reborn in the Pure Land (it is said that they also have Buddha-nature).