Chapter 28 Section 2 Profound Philosophy, Self-improvement Spirit

"Yin Fu Jing" says: "Observe the way of heaven, stick to the way of heaven, and it will be exhausted." The way of heaven is also the way of heaven.This means that if you know and master the laws of nature, you can deal with everything. What are the laws of nature? "Yin Fu Jing" says that there are five things in the world that harm each other.Know them and you will prosper.Keep these five evils in your heart and take action against the sky, and the entire universe will seem to be in your hands, and everything will be created by humans. "Five kinds of thieves harm" means that the five elements restrain each other. In the Han Dynasty, some people called the mutual restraint of the five elements as the five elements' mutual restraint (qiangqiang).He also believes that the five elements harm each other, which is of great significance to people.If they don't kill each other, people have no tools to use.For example, if metal cannot harm wood, it would be difficult to have various wooden utensils; if fire cannot harm metal, there would be no various metal tools, and so on.In our opinion, this is a very profound thought.

The ancient Chinese divided the substances in the world into five categories: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.The relationship between them is mutual generation and mutual restraint. "Xiangsheng" means to produce each other.The ancients believed that wood produces fire, fire produces earth, earth produces metal, metal produces water, and water produces wood. "Xiang restraint" is the aforementioned mutual harm: wood restrains earth, earth restrains water, water restrains fire, fire restrains metal, and metal restrains wood.Human beings develop and produce, from the perspective of the generation and restraint of the five elements, many of them use the mutual generation of the five elements.For example, agriculture can be said to use aquatic wood to grow crops, trees, and vegetables.Use wood to make fire to live, use native gold to mine and so on.But we know that people can be distinguished from animals only if they can make tools; the progress of tools is the most fundamental progress of human beings.Among the tools, the most important is the emergence of metal tools.To obtain metals, one should first know "earth-born gold". Metals are hidden in stones and buried in soil.But the more important thing is to know "fire overcomes gold" in order to refine the metal.And to make tools, gold must be used to overcome wood.A large number of ancient tools are a combination of gold and wood.Even today, the same is true for many tools.In this sense, the history from ancient times to the present is a history of fire conquering gold and gold conquering wood. "Yin Fu Jing" says that if you understand the mutual killing of the five elements, everything in the world can be created by people.This is the author's praise of human beings' ability to transform nature, and it shows the great confidence of human beings in conquering nature.

"Yin Fu Jing" says: "Heaven, it makes all things come into being and destroys all things. It is a natural principle."Heaven and earth are the thieves of all things; all things are the thieves of man; man is the thieves of heaven and earth.When the three thefts are properly adapted, heaven, earth and people will be at peace. The idea that man is a thief from heaven and earth is related to a story in Liezi. "Liezi·Tianrui Pian" said: Xiang from the state of Song asked a certain state from the state of Qi how to get rich?Guo said that I am good at "stealing".So Xiang became a thief, was caught, convicted, and fined.Xiang thought that Guo had lied to him, so he questioned Guo.Guo said, when I said "stealing", I didn't mean stealing from people.It's about "stealing" the weather and "stealing" the location.You plant in spring, and you harvest in autumn.There are forest products on the mountain and fish and shrimps in the water. You have to use them. This is called stealing the world.

The idea of ​​"Yin Fu Jing" is the idea of ​​"people stealing the world".It advocates that people use everything in nature to create their own beautiful future. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Liu Ji, who helped Zhu Yuanzhang win the world, wrote a book "Yu Ion", one of which was "The Thief of Heaven and Earth".He further developed the idea of ​​"people stealing the world".It is said that theft is not just taking things, but more importantly, using natural forces.Such as planting in spring and harvesting in autumn, making use of the weather; building houses in high places, digging ponds in low places, making use of favorable geographical conditions; sailing a boat on water, using the wind to make sails, making use of natural forces.As for indiscriminate logging and indiscriminate harvesting, it will deplete natural resources, which is wrong.Liu Ji called the former "thief of heaven and earth" and the latter "thief of man".He is in favor of thieves from heaven and earth but against human thieves.

"Yin Fu Jing" advocates making full use of the opportunity. "Yin Fu Jing" says that when someone steals the opportunity, anyone can see the superficial deeds, but no one can understand the reason. "Yin Fu Jing" believes that timing is very important. Only when people's behavior is in line with the timing can things be done well. But "Yin Fu Jing" does not advocate opportunism, but advocates seizing the opportunity from the normal movement of things.So it says that the movement of the sun and the moon has rules, and the size of things has a certain size. These things are not mysterious, but the great achievements and infinite wisdom come from here.Ordinary people only know that mysterious things are miraculous, but they don't know that non-mysterious things are miraculous.Some people often guess, but "Yin Fu Jing" does not advocate guessing, it advocates seizing the opportunity from the normal movement of things to make oneself smart.

The discussion of mechanism is the most important feature of the philosophy of "Yin Fu Jing". Dao means a relatively stable connection between things, and it is also a relatively stable and normal way for people to do things.The movement of things will never just repeat the past like sunrise and sunset, but will continue to change and change the state of motion.The machine describes the turning point of two processes and the turning point that occurs at this point.It is said in the book: "Everything comes from the machine and enters the machine" ("Zhi Le"), "Its development is as if it is contained in the machine" ("Qi Wu Lun"), "Those who have things must have a mind" ("Heaven and Earth").That's what it means.The prototype of the machine is a machine, which is a tool for changing the direction and magnitude of force.The machine world we live in today is a complex combination of transformation tools. "Yin Fu Jing" attaches great importance to Dao, but more emphasis on machine.

Dao is divided into heaven and humanity, and machine is also divided into heaven and man.Tianji refers to the turning point of objective things or the turning point that is about to happen; in human terms, it is called scheming or conspiracy.Tao wants to show it. The "Yin Fu Jing" says: "It is almost as obvious as it is." That is to say, it must be clearly manifested as a phenomenon.Chances don't show up in ordinary times, but only when things happen suddenly.Therefore, the turning point of the change of things is usually not easy to detect; people's prediction of the development trend of things and the extraordinary measures to be implemented are also carried out in secret, with a secret nature.Machine and change are associated, called "machine change".Machines and secrets are associated and are called secrets.

Tao is a normal code of conduct in a society.If a person does not abide by these norms, but is only keen to speculate on the turning point of things, or even create these turning points, in order to benefit himself, this kind of behavior is often called conspiracy and is regarded as a kind of evil; people are regarded as villains.However, if a person only knows how to abide by normal rules, is unaware of the development trend of things, and has no foresight of the upcoming turning point, so that he is calculated by others, runs into a wall, and is unlucky, he is either stupid or too kind.Or even though you are aware of it, you can't stop it, and you don't get angry until the sky is turned upside down. With the help of a thunderbolt, you are either corrupt or incompetent.

Therefore, in a sense, grasping the opportunity is more important and less difficult than grasping the Tao.The turning point of things often determines the fate of a thing.Therefore, the ancient Chinese talked about "the chance of survival" and "the chance of chaos" very early on.Grasping this turning point and taking the necessary actions require not only a high degree of intelligence, but also a highly intense activity of intelligence, which is the most exciting, intense, and vivid scene of all human activities. "Yin Fu Jing" regards mastering the way of heaven as its ideological basis, in order to be able to "execute in the sky". "Yin Fu Jing" attaches great importance to the machine, and what it pays attention to is the machine of the human heart, which is the machine to steal the world and everything.Both aspects point to one direction, that is, human practical activities.It is the characteristic of Chinese philosophy to regard the practice of the subject as the center of research.

"Yin Fu Jing" also has many dialectical thoughts. It says that life is the root of death, and death is the root of life.Favor arises from harm, and harm arises from grace.This thought is also very profound.We also know that doting on children is actually harming children, and those who are hurt are prone to anger and achieve something. From the "Yin Fu Jing", we don't see negative things, what we see is the ancient Chinese's deep understanding of the world, and what we see is the self-confidence and self-improvement spirit of the ancient Chinese. The "Yin Fu Jing" is named Huangdi, and the center is preaching, not talking about Confucian benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, etc., so people also attribute it to Taoism, and it has become an important classic of Taoism.