Chapter 53 five three gatherings

We live in a moving world.Why is it moving instead of standing still?Maybe stillness is utter nothingness?we do not know.The action itself, or the result, is change.Change brings many problems to life, one of which is "gathering and dispersing".From the perspective of inevitability, gathering and parting is common, but (especially parting) will cause emotional fluctuations, so how to deal with it has become a big problem.Take the self as the standard, gather and disperse with "people" and "things"; There is a problem with the scope of gatherings and dispersal. For example, if you participate in a conference, the number of people can range from a thousand to over ten thousand. They are all in one place, which is a gathering; usually it is three or four hours, and the meeting is announced to be adjourned.It’s also like going from one place to another, using public transportation, boarding a car or a boat, many people are crowded together, which is also a gathering;There are infinitely many such situations where meeting by chance, gathering may not be happy, and separation may not be worrying, because it will not cause emotional fluctuations, so of course it is better not to mention it.That is to say, the scope should be narrowed, limited to non-casual encounters, those who get together will be happy, and those who are scattered will be worried.This kind of relationship, as well as the situation of gathering and dispersing, are infinitely numerous, how to describe it?

I would like to talk about it in general first, why we are happy when we gather, and we are worried when we are scattered.At the beginning of the second part of this book, the society, it was mentioned that people live in groups and cannot live without the help of others.It is conceivable that the emotions of gathering happiness and dispelling worries come from the needs of life.This need, or counts as an example, can be divided into three grades, or three qualities.One, which can be called the most basic, can be born if it is present, and cannot be born without it.It can also be divided into two types: one is the origin of oneself, including parents, grandparents, maternal grandparents, etc., without which one cannot have one's own life; There can be no offspring.Another need is help in many areas of life.Help also has a different scope, or a broad sense and a narrow sense.In a broad sense, it refers to various mutual benefits. For example, if you eat an egg earlier, the chicken that lays the egg is raised by a professional chicken farmer, and the eggs are transported and sold by a hawker.Obviously, the so-called help should not be so wide-ranging.Help in a narrow sense refers to the help of people who have multiple close relationships with you. This close relationship can be as close as kinship, or blood relationship, and friends to classmates, colleagues, neighbors and other relationships.Obviously, life would be very difficult without the help of these people.There is also a need, or rather a spiritual one, to eliminate the feeling of loneliness and loneliness.Human beings are social animals. Like some monks, they live in thatched huts and do not meet or talk with others. It is very difficult to truly achieve liberation.Therefore, people usually always, or "live in groups all day long, and talk less than righteousness"; without talking, walking in the forest in the morning and evening, it seems that there is someone nearby, and it seems to be able to get some comfort.This help is illusory, but its usefulness may not be small, because people are always people, facing the wall, it is inevitable to feel forgotten by others, and it is also miserable.In short, in life, because we need others everywhere, as time goes on, it becomes human nature. We always like to be with people, and it is difficult to leave.

Let's talk about the situation of gathering and scattering.Let's talk about gathering first.Naturally, I can only talk about it in general terms, the degree of joy is determined by the following three aspects.One is the distance of the relationship, for example, the general friends who are far away, the mood of wanting to get together is three to five points, and the mood of wanting to get together with the close ones, such as parents and wives, is very high.Naturally, the distance of this relationship also includes the details of life. For example, the relationship between husband and wife is close enough to sleep and eat together, but the relationship between friends is different.The second is a long time.Generally speaking.The longer we get together, the harder it is to let go.The length of the gathering time varies from time to time. For example, the relationship between husband and wife may last forever, but the relationship between friends is mostly not more or less.This is normal; but in some cases, it is also possible that the husband and wife cannot grow old together, and instead keep in touch with each other throughout their lives. This is a change.Feelings are often accumulated gradually, so even monks "don't stay in the mulberry tree for three days, fear of long-term, and love each other", and ordinary people are naturally even more so. Once they get together for many years, once they break up, they will get used to talking and it will be difficult to adapt.The third is the depth of emotion.Obviously, if you have a deep relationship, you will "not see each other for a day, like three autumns", even if it is like this for a day, let alone a forever farewell.The depth of relationship is closely related to the distance and time of the relationship.We talk about close relationship, not inevitable relationship, because there may be exceptions, such as the so-called quarrel between husband and wife, or even meeting in court, and the relationship from chance encounter may also be due to like-mindedness or mutual affection, and they may meet each other late, or even fall in love at first sight.The above is a general theory. As for a certain person, the situation will naturally vary in thousands of ways. Some people in this world will always be happy when they gather, and worry when they leave.

Say goodbye.Where there is a gathering, there must be a breakup. As the saying goes, there is no banquet that never ends. This is the truth.There are lovers who become relatives, relatives and friends wish them to live forever, and the parties also hope so. Fortunately, God takes care of them. It's still scattered, let alone other people who don't have such a deep relationship.There are also various situations of dispersion.The vast majority are in accordance with the routine, and only two cases are given as examples.One is the mother-daughter relationship, where the mother is 30 years older than the daughter. If they all die according to the average age, then the mother will have to go to see God 30 years earlier, and the result will be divorce.Another example is that two people, A and B, are in the same class in the university. They have been together for four years, and after graduation, it is unlikely that they will still be assigned to work in the same place, so they part ways and get separated.Scattered, a few come from man-made.The most typical example is divorce, where lovers become lovers, and getting together is unbearable, so they have to break up.There are many other situations, such as Tao Yuanming’s unwillingness to bend his bow for five buckets of rice to return home, and Huineng, the sixth patriarch of Zen Buddhism, who went north to Huangmei to seek Taoism.There are also a small number of casualties that come from accidents.This can carry a lot of weight, like dying in a plane crash, dying in a car accident, whatever.

It can be lighter, as Du Fu wrote in "Officials in the Stone Trench", sitting at home behind closed doors, and officials come to arrest people. They have no choice but to let the old women go to serve in Heyang, and they will be brought away.It can also be lighter, such as working step by step in one place, leaving early and returning late, and suddenly there is an order to transfer, You can only obey, and you will be scattered.The situation of separation can also be classified from another angle, which is farewell and farewell.Forever, some are definite, such as two parties, one of them has passed away;There will be discrepancies between the presumption and the reality, so sometimes, when you think it is a farewell, you have to meet again unexpectedly; and you think it is just a temporary farewell, but unfortunately it becomes a forever farewell.Whether it is reality or speculation, the emotional fluctuations caused by the temporary farewell and the eternal farewell will be very different. To use the words commonly used in classical Chinese to describe it, in most cases, the temporary farewell is just melancholy, while the eternal farewell becomes heartbroken.

A lot has been said about the situation of gathering and parting, but in fact it doesn't matter much; what matters is how we should treat it.To say something close to fantasy, of course, it is best to get together with those who are compatible, or further, with those who have deep feelings, and stay together for a long time.Obviously, no one has such power except God.Then take a step back, or take a few steps back, and only talk about what you can, as the Tang poet said, "Suddenly saw the color of willows on the street. I regret to teach my husband and son-in-law to look for a feudal lord."Life is complicated. If you can't have both together and being a Marquis, must it be better to take Ju and give up Marquis?Different people must have different choices.Even if different people focus on theory and categorically say that one is better than the other, or that the other is better than this, there will be difficulties.And not only that, but there is also the fact that long gatherings attract, even if it is slight, indifferent or even annoying, if this is the case, the decision of whether to get together or not will become more complicated than simple.The complexity will be aggravated by the ever-changing specific situation. Take a hypothetical person as an example. He has relatives and may be very unfriendly. As for the person himself, he may also be indifferent or quiet and unwilling to get close to others. In the current situation, when it comes to the advantages and disadvantages of gathering and dispersing, it is obviously more difficult to make a final decision.As a last resort, I had no choice but to say a few words close to principle.There are three points.One is that all forms of gatherings should be cherished.Life is short, you should seek more valuable income.There are many kinds of income, but the deep affection must be an important one.Obviously, such favors can only come from Ju.Poly has such a high value that it should be taken seriously.How to pay attention?It's just trying to go up and avoid going down.For example, harmony, beauty and intimacy are upward, and vice versa is downward; mutual care and help are upward, and vice versa; mutual encouragement, higher and more elegant is upward, and vice versa is downward.All in all, since there is an opportunity to get together, one should be good at making use of this opportunity, and seek to recall after separation, so as not to feel regretful.Second, where there is a gathering, there must be a breakup, and some breakups are deeply related, especially those that come from accidents, which will cause great pain. This is also human nature, but suffering is always unwelcome. What should we do?You can use the Confucian method, temperance, or even add a little Taoist method, "know what to do and be content with it."Whether it is destiny or man-made, anyway, this separation has become inevitable, so we have to let it go.Feeling emotional, even heartbroken, is naturally inevitable, but knowing the principle of gathering and parting, the mood will always be calmer, this is the power of temperance.Third, after getting together and parting, how to settle the emotional account after a long period of time?My thoughts are worse than forgetting.Why?Because this is a part of our own life, as long as we still have to love life, it is always wrong to look back and forget the people in the past.

At this point, we have finished talking about the gathering and parting of people, and turn to the parting and parting of things.According to the spirit of "Does it hurt people? Don't ask horses", things should not be juxtaposed with people, so the problem is relatively simple.There are many things related to people's life, so it is necessary to narrow the scope, saying that the so-called things here only refer to beloved things.It can be big, like the Golden Valley Garden, or small, like a rain flower stone, but since it is limited to what the heart loves, daily necessities such as food, clothing and housing are not counted.The beloved has the word love, so it is related to emotions, and it will also lead to the problem of how to treat it.Let’s talk about beloved things first, which generally refer to books, gold and stones, calligraphy and painting, literature and entertainment, etc., or descendants, which also refer to wealth and the like.Wealth, making a fortune, and how to evaluate it are complicated issues. Here I want to only talk about books, gold stones, calligraphy and paintings, which are fascinated by many so-called elegant people.Be obsessed with it, okay?It should be said that there is nothing bad, especially books, if you still read them after you buy them, you should say they are very good.Here we focus on getting together and breaking up, and I just want to point out two points. One is that getting together is okay, and don't be greedy.Some people become greedy because of their extreme love, and the result is first, they do everything in order to get something, including stealing and plundering;This will lead to self-harm, or harm to others.So you should not be greedy, it is good to have it, and it is okay to not have it.The second is that after getting together, it is inevitable to break up due to natural disasters, man-made disasters, or other various reasons. It is best not to fall in love.Love is hard to let go, and it will cause great pain.We read history, hear about it, experience the so-called incidents and movements, see, disperse, and the cases of liver and intestines cut off due to dispersal, there are really too many.This will lead to lessons. To borrow the words of Li Qingzhao's "Gold and Stone Records Post-Preface": "If there is something, there must be something, and if there is a gathering, there must be a breakup. This Yi'an layman herself is not so open-minded, and her words are always worth pondering for those who are overwhelmed by the separation of things.