Chapter 38 Thirty-eight opportunities

I lived in the countryside when I was a child, and the marriage between men and women was still based on the orders of my parents and the words of the matchmaker, and most of them were underage, even three or five years old.I often hear such humorous words, there is a daughter in a certain family, and acquaintances gossip, sometimes ask the parents, "Do you have a husband's family?" Answer, "Yes." Ask again, "Where is the village?" This means that you have not been betrothed yet, and whoever you marry in the future depends on your chance.People with compassion will feel that there is a lot of bitterness in it, because one's own future cannot be decided by one's own, it must be controlled by fate, unfortunately, fate is not good.As far as the woman is concerned, it is tantamount to falling into a sea of ​​suffering.Life, or shrinking to a certain person, from birth to old age and death, is this the same thing?Some people may think, now it’s all right, the orders of parents and the words of matchmakers have turned into love and affection, and whether they succeed in the end depends on whether they nod or not, and they always control their own destiny, right?It depends on how to understand the so-called fate.For example, a man and a woman got acquainted because they were in the same grade in the university and they were in the same study club, so the lovers became dependents. From the perspective of self-determination, it is all initiative; from the perspective of multiple causes leading to one result, it is not necessarily the case. For example, if you apply for this university, if the ones who set the questions and read the test papers are not these people but other people, you may not be admitted.In this way, Qingqing and I also took advantage of the power of opportunity, and the difference between them and the orders of their parents and the words of the matchmaker was only fifty steps or a hundred steps at most.To put it more tragically, after we are born, no matter how we can toss like Monkey King, we will not be able to come out of the palm of the Tathagata Buddha, the Mandate of Heaven.

Destiny is a general term, manifested in a concrete way, and is a myriad of opportunities of all kinds, large and small.The combination of a man and an Otome by chance is big, and it is small for a certain person to meet another person on the street by chance; a certain person goes to Qingyun by chance, and another person enters prison by chance. become countless.Opportunity and philosophy are entangled, because for some (or most) situations, we have to believe in the law of cause and effect.Believe, you can get melons if you plant melons, you can get beans if you plant beans, as small as pressing the button of an electric light, you can turn a dark hole into a bright one with confidence.But with such a conviction, everything that occurs becomes the inevitable result of the antecedent, so where is the opportunity?The so-called opportunity in common sense is a coincidence. If everything is inevitable, is there such a thing as a coincidence?One explanation is that the objective inevitable connection is vast and subtle, and what we can perceive is only a small area, which is like coming without a trace and going without a trace. Let's call it an opportunity.In this way, we don't care about the objective reality, but only our subjective impressions, and admit that there are so-called opportunities, and it seems that there is no problem.In fact, there is still a big tail, whether it is possible to not give a little status to the freedom of will, even if it is based on subjective impressions, we all feel that we have the ability to choose whether to nod or not to nod to something.Based on this feeling or belief, we have established a moral system and a legal system, saying that the virtuous should be immortal, and the murderer should die.Lide, killing people, can they jump out of the chain of cause and effect?Calling immortality, killing, at least when doing so, we have no choice but to believe in common sense and be content with common sense.It is also based on common sense. We accepted ourselves in the last article, and we accepted opportunities in this article.

Looking at opportunities based on self-centeredness, what has already been unchangeable, what has not happened is unknowable, and these, even if you believe in the so-called freedom of will, you have to admit that they are the greatest force that determines the life of our ship.The biggest, and the cutest, so it can be said to be terrible.It may be this kind of mood that Confucius said "fear the destiny".This mood comes from many facts, it is difficult to explain in detail, and I will only talk about a little bit of meat.It starts with having a "self" (it doesn't matter how to become a being).From the perspective of this "self", becoming a man or becoming a woman depends on chance.This opportunity, especially in the old days, has a greater impact.For example, if you become a female body, unless you happen to be Wu Zetian or Lafayette Nala, the chances of not suffering are very small.The family you are born in also matters a lot. Emperor Qianlong was born in the family of Emperor Yongzheng, and he could be the emperor of Taiping for sixty years, enjoying all the glory and wealth in the world. , perhaps with the addition of not being able to die.Expanded by men and women and a family, there are also geographical opportunities, such as being born in North America and South Africa, life will be very different; It will also be very different.All of these, when I feel that I have myself, it is already a done deal, whether I welcome it or not, I can only accept the fait accompli, and want to resist, and I can’t even find the leader of the wronged person and the owner of the debtor. Is there any other way than to accept it?Even if you don't like it, you have to accept it. This is the reason why opportunities are the most important and most terrifying in the journey of life.

Significant and terrible, more (not necessarily more serious) after the awareness of having a self.Taking a walk as a metaphor, there are many divergent roads, and we cannot walk on two at the same time, so we choose one and move forward.Two possibilities become one, an opportunity.It may not matter much if the opportunity goes down. For example, after going around in circles for half an hour, when you go home, you still sit around the dinner table with your family and eat steamed buns and soft porridge.But it may also be of great importance. For example, I happened to meet an acquaintance whom I hadn’t seen for a few years. After making a fortune, the chickens and dogs flew up, and on the dinner table, the porridge became a sea of ​​treasures. If you look back at this time and see the chance meeting with this acquaintance on a certain day and time, you can't but marvel at the power of opportunity. huh?The degree of ingenuity decreases, and the universality increases, that is to say, everyone will feel, or have this experience, such as school admission and employment, always stepping on one step will almost determine the road of life.And this step of stepping here instead of stepping there often comes from the slightest thought.For example, I still remember that when I was admitted to a university, I could choose a department at will. I originally wanted to learn English. I met an old classmate Chen Shiyao. I was indecisive, and I listened.Now that I think about it, if his reasoning should make up for its shortcomings, maybe my life will not be based on old papers but foreign papers, right?This shows how great the power of opportunity is.In the general situation, we still have to resort to the old-fashioned theory of cause and effect, which is that a very small cause in the previous period often leads to a very large and very large effect in the subsequent period or indefinitely; and the cause of the previous period, Always beyond our ability to perceive, we have to call it chance.

So, do we become determinists, willing to suffer the tricks of fate (that is, chance)?Obviously it shouldn't be.Instead, we should supplement nature with manpower. In fact, we are all supplementing nature with manpower.Let’s just say it’s a subjective feeling. We are confident that we have the ability to distinguish right from wrong and interests from harm. With this ability, we are constantly adjusting our lives whether consciously or not.From this point of view, we are all compelled to accept the belief in free will if we are to live well.Maybe they didn't think of this problem, but just practiced it.There is a small range of implementation, such as a kind of book, between buying hardcover and paperback, I decided to buy the paperback because I wanted to save money and buy another book.There is a wide range of implementation, such as a child entering a university and deciding whether to study literature or academic theory, it will have a far-reaching impact.From one point of view, the practice of choice is to fight against opportunities and try not to be played by opportunities; from another point of view, it can also be said to take advantage of opportunities, that is, to use one's own wisdom to make a good small cause bear a big fruit .

The above is an optimistic view.But we must also know that one's own power, even human power, is limited after all. While doing our best, we have to obey the destiny, that is, bear the weight of opportunities.This pressure will come from small ways, such as infectious diseases and car accidents.It is also possible, and even often comes from the main road, such as natural disasters, floods, fires, storms, earthquakes, etc., such as man-made disasters, wars, cultural revolutions, and the like.The saying goes, sitting at home behind closed doors, misfortune comes from the sky, and unfortunate and bad opportunities really come, complaining about others is useless, so we can only be passive, endure, be active, and do our best, that's all.