Since I was a child, I have loved to read miscellaneous books, and the more esoteric and incomprehensible books I am, the more interested I am. I have a good memory, I read books very quickly, and it is not too much to say that I can read ten lines at a glance. After reading those esoteric and difficult books several times, I slowly understood them, which was a feeling I had at the time.

When my grandfather was still there, there was a bookshelf in his upstairs room, and there were many books on the shelf, such as Guo Pu's "Funeral Sutra", Confucius's "Analects", Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching", Plato's "Ideal State", Russell's "History of Western Philosophy", Schopenhauer's "The World as Will and Appearance", Nietzsche's "The Birth of Tragedy", Feng Youlan's "A Brief History of Chinese Philosophy", and China's "I Ching" None of these books are easy to read, but I just like to gnaw hard bones, and after a week of continuous night battles with flashlights in the bed, I finally got a little bit of a gain.

According to my understanding, the Four Books and the Five Classics are Chinese philosophy, and philosophy is the study of the outlook on life and the world. Of course, there are other questions in addition to this, such as how did man come to be, where do they go after death, are there ghosts or gods in this world, what are the basic substances that make up the universe, and what are the things of time and space? These are all important questions that philosophy has to ponder. But for me, I am most interested in the philosophical questions of life.

The biggest problem in the philosophy of life is life and death, every child who comes to the world, the first voice starts from crying, the sage said, life is the source of life's suffering, Plato also said, the body is the prison of the soul. If a person wants to attain the highest attainment, he must get rid of the suffering of the world, he must leave the society, and go to the mountains or desert islands to live in seclusion, only in this way can he get liberation from the world.

Therefore, one of Confucius's students asked about the meaning of death, and Confucius replied: "I don't know how to live, but I don't know how to die?" If I don't even understand life, and I still come to die, isn't that looking for death? Confucius's sentence "I don't know how to live, but I don't know how to die?" directly led to the fact that Chinese Confucian intellectuals did not believe that there were ghosts in this world, and that believing that there were ghosts in this world was superstition. Superstition is a Buddhist thing, and Confucianism does not believe in that. However, Confucianism places great emphasis on funerals and sacrifices, and since it does not believe that there are ghosts in this world, why should it engage in ancestor worship and sacrifices? This is precisely the contradiction of Confucianism, so much so that Mozi of the Mohist family also criticized Confucianism, saying: To learn rituals without ghosts is to learn to be a guest without a guest, and to be a fish net without a fish. Of course, the Confucian interpretation is that the sacrifice of ancestors is entirely out of filial piety, and the sacrifice of heaven and earth is out of gratitude, and this grateful filial piety is the so-called rite. How can this society be rude?

In ancient society, when parents died, children had to serve three years of mourning, and during these three years, they were not allowed to drink alcohol and eat meat. The funeral of the husband for three years is also the mourning of the whole world. This means that children are completely dependent on their parents for at least the first three years of life, so after the death of their parents, children should spend the same amount of time mourning and expressing gratitude, which is a natural and minimum requirement.

As the first teacher of the common people in the true sense, the greatness of Confucius is of course not only these, but the wisdom of just one [Analects] is enough for future generations to look forward to the dust, sigh with admiration, and quench the thirst of the plum. For example, when a monarch asked Confucius how to govern the country, Confucius said, "The monarch, the minister, the father, the son." These four words summarize the concept and method of governing the country, which is really too bullish, because as long as the courtiers listen to the emperor's words, and the sons listen to their father's words, then the society will not be chaotic.

Confucius said: I have five out of ten, and I am determined to learn. Thirty and standing. Forty is not confused. Fifty knows the destiny of heaven. Sixty and ear smooth. Seventy and do what you want, not exceeding. This sentence of Confucius has set a benchmark for the self-cultivation of the Chinese. This means that at this age, if you don't meet this standard, you're outdated. Ning Gao Gao thought to himself, Confucius is so great, how many people can meet the standard of his saint? Isn't there only one Confucius in China's 5,000-year Chinese history? Who else is a saint after Confucius? Hardly, right? Mencius, a sub-sage, can only be regarded as half a sage. (Mencius's sentence "The people are precious, the community is secondary, and the king is light.") Since everyone can't meet this standard, why is this sentence so bullish? Because for thousands of years, this sentence of Confucius has been an example of Chinese practice, a goal to strive for, like a beacon that never falls, standing high there.

Of course, Confucius is most famous for the doctrine of "benevolence", Confucius said: "Do not do to others what you would not do to yourself." Those who are benevolent will establish people if they want to establish themselves, and they will reach people if they want to reach them. In the words of Confucius, this idea of benevolence is "loving others", because to love others is to love oneself, and to love oneself must first love others. This sentence is full of philosophical dialectical thought, just like the five elements of gold, wood, water, fire and earth.

Another very important idea of Confucianism is the golden mean, and the core idea of the golden mean is "don't go too far", that is, don't go too far in everything. Because anything in nature and human society develops to one extreme, it will reverse the other. All year round, spring, summer, autumn and winter, the cold comes to the summer, and the summer comes to the cold. Misfortune and blessing are relied upon, and blessing and misfortune are lurking. Hegel's most famous phrase, "Everything contains its own negation", was stolen from Chinese Confucianism, especially the Zhou Yi.

The Confucian idea of loyalty and filial piety and the doctrine of benevolence and moderation, although remarkable and the most profound image of China's 5,000 years of ideology and culture, still aroused criticism from Lao Tzu, who said: "If you are not virtuous, you will not fight the people." Inexpensive and rare goods, so that the people will not be robbed. If you don't see what you want, the people's hearts will not be disturbed. It is the rule of a saint, who is humble in his heart, solid in his belly, weak in his will, and strong in his bones, and often makes the people ignorant and desireless. Lao Tzu also said: "Loss of morality and then virtue, loss of virtue and then benevolence, loss of benevolence and then righteousness, loss of righteousness and then courtesy." The husband is the one who is faithful, and the first of chaos. Lao Tzu also said: "The five colors are blinding." The pentatonic tone is deafening. The five flavors are refreshing. The beauty in bed is maddening. There is no greater misfortune than discontentment, and there is no greater blame than desire. In Lao Tzu's view, human knowledge and desire are the root causes of chaos. ”

I once heard Li Yunshen say such a strange thing - in the Middle Ages, there was a sage named Cangjie who suddenly invented writing one day, and that night, thunder and lightning flashed, torrential rain poured, and the ghosts and gods in the forest cried for seven days and seven nights, because the invention of writing was the beginning of all the sins of mankind. Human civilization, the germination of self-consciousness, the privatization of property, the emergence of classes and states are all due to the invention of writing, and the ghosts and gods in the forest may have foreseen this result, so they could only cry and cry and shed those sad tears.

Therefore, from the perspective of nature and the whole universe, Lao Tzu's doctrine is more appropriate, it is better to be a man or be stupid, so what is the wisdom to do? As long as you fill your stomach, you don't have any ideals, no desire and no desire is the highest state of life, in this sense, those primitive people who have not yet been civilized in ancient times have reached the highest state of life, and they are all saints. Even Confucius admitted this, because the golden age of the great harmony is gone.

Find out what happens next, and listen to the next breakdown.