vs 4 But I didn't hold fast to you
Confucius's father's wife gave birth to nine daughters, no sons, and the concubine gave birth to the eldest son, Meng Pi, but Meng Pi had a disabled foot and could not continue the incense. Later, Confucius's father married Fang Xiaofei, when he got married, Confucius's father was 66 years old, and the concubine was not yet 20 years old. Because at that time, the appropriate age for marriage was 16 to 64 for men and 14 to 49 for women, and the fact that Confucius's father belonged to the scholarly class and the concubines belonged to the untouchable class, all of which led to their marriages being unreasonable. At that time, there was a very popular behavior between men and women, called "noai", which was specially established by the vassal states in order to rapidly increase the population. So, they had to settle in the mountains in order to give birth to a healthy son to continue the incense.
Finally, the emperor lived up to his wishes, and Confucius was born. Because Confucius was born with a depression in the top of his head, he was named Kongqiu, and he ranked second among his brothers, so he was also called "Confucius Er". In ancient times, brothers had the saying of "Uncle Zhong Ji" when they were ranking, generally Bo was the eldest, Zhong was the second, Uncle was the third, and Ji was the fourth. Confucius's mother used to pray in Nishan in order to bless her son, so Confucius, the name Qiu, the word Zhongni. When Confucius was three years old, his father died, and his mother was expelled by his father's wife. Confucius's mother lost her husband's protection and had no way to gain a foothold in the family, so she took Confucius to other places and lived a life of poverty.
During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the world was in turmoil, and the princes had long since stopped taking the Son of Heaven in their eyes, and the system of etiquette and music formulated by the Son of Heaven gradually collapsed, the etiquette collapsed, and the lives of the people were miserable. Confucius was raised by his mother, and his childhood was very poor. Although Confucius's mother was a woman, she was very sensible, and while she gave Confucius rich maternal love, she taught him etiquette since he was a child. Mother Confucius was by no means an ignorant and superstitious woman who believed in Zhou etiquette; On the contrary, she is very aware of righteousness, otherwise she would not be young enough to marry a bad old man. At least, she gave Confucius the right side. Under the influence of his mother, Confucius knew how to play the game of etiquette with his friends when he was six years old.
As Confucius grew up, he knew that it was not easy for his mother to raise him, so when he thought he could, he went out to work to help his mother share some of the pressure. When he was fourteen years old, he said: When I was young, I was very lowly and did all kinds of menial labor. It can be seen from this that it is not necessarily a bad thing for a child to suffer a little more when he is young, because in this way, he can see a lot of real pictures, thus enriching his soul. When he grows up slowly, he will be able to realize the difficulty of life and cherish the happiness he has now; In addition, when you do something again in the future, you will show better stamina and have a clearer way of thinking about analyzing things. In the future training, the child's progress is very fast.
I think each of us wants to live a down-to-earth life. It is understandable that the understanding of steadfastness should vary from person to person. Steadfastness is a process, not a result, so we will be honed a lot in the process. When there is material scarcity, we have the spirit of hardship and hard work, and through hard work, we can give our family a down-to-earth life and be full of happiness. But people go to a high place, one day, our material life reaches a very high level, when we tell others about the difficulties of starting a business before, the old tears are horizontal, which is moving for ourselves, but also the venting of eyebrows. All right! The first half of my life has been tempered by hardship, and although the process is a little bitter, my heart is quite steady.
We continue to use the word "grinding", and the tempering is not only physical, but also volitional and spiritual, and it will change and upgrade with the changes in our external conditions and inner cultivation. In the second half of our lives, we are rich and materially abundant, but we still need to live a down-to-earth life. We may have the energy and time to touch something new, or even reach out to the intoxicating life. This is a kind of soft cultivation, which may be given by external conditions, or it may be actively sought by our own hearts. If you can't grasp yourself, you will slowly collapse if you are steadfast. When everything is like a dream, we will begin to reflect: when we are young, we only have one way to go, we just have to bow our heads and walk; As adults, we have built a lot of roads on both sides of the road, and they look more spacious and flat, and we don't know which one to choose? In the end, I chose one, called getting lost. We could have only walked that road for the rest of our lives, and that road is the down-to-earth road.
Therefore, if we take our own life as a gamble, we can only be gamblers, it is God who shuffles the cards, we will definitely win and lose, and we are very complacent when we win, and we are afraid that we will not be able to afford to lose later; As a result, the real troubles and difficulties are caused by their endless **, and if you can truly achieve no desires and no desires, then you will really be happy. A person's life can be like this, crying when he is first born, laughing later, crying again, and finally laughing all the time. Leave a regret, an imperfection, and a deficiency in your heart, and you can get infinite beauty. Slowly, we became not without tears, but with tears in our eyes, we could still run.
(Sorry, I'm a bit off track.) I've been like this a lot, writing here and unknowingly there. We hurried back and continued to talk about Confucius. )
*********
In the difficult years of his childhood, Confucius not only mastered the skills of survival, but also exercised his mind and gradually became clear about what he wanted. At the age of fifteen, he began to consciously shift his focus to his studies and morality. When he was seventeen years old, Confucius's mother died, and it was like the sky was falling for Confucius. If you think about it carefully, you will know that Confucius lived in a pile of women before he was three years old, with nine sisters and three mothers. When his father died when he was three years old, he lived with his mother, and he was also a child who grew up in a single-parent family. It may not be a coincidence to say that many great figures in history, such as Confucius, Mencius, Jesus, Aristotle, etc., are children of single-parent families, and perhaps their unique childhood experiences have made them gain more. Of course, they both lost their fathers at a young age, not their parents divorced.
Confucius has been dependent on his mother since he was a child, and it should not be an exaggeration to say that he has a mother-lover complex. Therefore, when Confucius's mother died, Confucius was at a loss and was in a trance for several days. Mother Confucius was indeed a great mother, she was young and brought up Confucius, without the mother's teachings of Confucius, there would be no merit of Confucius's later sages. Individual life is limited, it is the offspring that allows their lives to continue, Confucius naturally understood this truth, in order to repay his mother's nurturing kindness, he will live well, dare not waste a little time.
Confucius married his wife when he was nineteen years old, and it is said that it was in her that he found the shadow of his mother and decided to marry. In the Analects, except for the sentence "Only women and villains are difficult to raise", which can be regarded as involving Confucius's wife, there is basically no information about Mrs. Confucius. Teacher Kong said: Women are like villains, get close to her, she doesn't pay attention to the rules; Stay away from her, and she will be a resentful again. This seems to be a very realistic quip from Mr. Kong, if Mrs. Kong doesn't love her husband, how can she complain? If Mr. Kong doesn't love his wife, how can Mrs. Kong be so naughty?