Three minutes to talk about culture
Zhuangzi on size
I am born to be useful" This is what I see from the big realm, and many people can only do nothing all their lives when standing in the small realm. How does Zhuangzi distinguish between the size of the realm?How can we reach the great realm in Zhuangzi's heart?
One day, Hui Shi saw Zhuangzi and said, "The king of Wei gave me some seeds of a big gourd, and after planting them, a huge gourd grew. It can hold something weighing five stones. But it can't be lifted with waterCut it open to hold water, this scoop is big and flat, how can it hold water?No way. I had to smash it. What do you say?”。
Huizi borrowed this to ridicule Zhuangzi, who talked about great truths.
Zhuangzi laughed and told a story to Huizi:
There is a family in the Song Kingdom, and the ancestors shed an ancestral secret recipe, according to this secret recipe to apply ointment, so that people can not frostbite their hands and feet in cold weather. The family relied on this secret recipe to earn some money to support the family.
A passing merchant heard about this and said that he was willing to pay 100 gold for this secret recipe. The family held an emergency meeting overnight, because at that time, 100 gold was a huge amount of money, and several generations did not have to worry about food and housing, and they could also take a small part of the capital to do other trading business, and the old bank could continue to do it, so it was unanimously agreed.
The merchant got this secret recipe and went directly to the state of Wu to meet the king of Wu, at that time Wu and Yue were the land of water, and there was a war due to territorial disputes. The merchant said that if the king wants to launch a water war against the Yue Kingdom in the cold winter wax moon, this secret recipe can completely defeat the Yue army.
Sure enough, the soldiers of Wu did not get frostbite on their hands and feet because of the secret ointment, picked up their weapons, and defeated the unprepared Vietnamese army. So this merchant was immediately made Hou Houlu and became a huge rich man at that time.
Zhuangzi told this story to tell Huizi that small secret recipes in the hands of people in different realms will have completely different effects. The size of a person's realm determines the huge difference in a person's value to society.
Don't give me your big gourd, why can the big gourd only be used as a scoop?I can tie it around my waist with a rope and swim in the rivers and lakes. ”
In fact, Zhuangzi's discussion of size gives us an eternal topic:
What does it mean to be useful?What does it mean to be useless?
For example, our current education is often imposed on children by teachers or parents in a limited realm, ignoring the huge imagination space that children's essential childlike innocence has.
Only by breaking this limitation can it be possible to appreciate Zhuangzi's infinite realm of leisurely travel.
Zhuangzi is a great wisdom, he will never teach us small skills and small skills, what he wants to teach us is to have a big realm and a big pattern.
Zhuangzi's "The World" tells the story of a big tree:
A carpenter and his apprentice were passing by Quyuan in the Qi Kingdom when they saw a huge oak tree with shade large enough to shelter thousands of cows.
There were many people watching, and his apprentice was very curious, but the carpenter kept walking on without squinting.
The apprentice looked at it enough, and then asked curiously, "Why doesn't the master even have the interest to look at such a good wood?"”
The carpenter replied, "It is a useless tree." It is easy to sink when making a ship, perishable when making a coffin, easy to rot when making utensils, and easy to be eaten by insects when making pillars and beams. ”
And it is precisely the "uselessness" of this big tree that saves it from the scourge of felling and preserves itself, and the world still regards it as a sacred tree, offering and worshipping, and finally becoming a great use.
Therefore, Zhuangzi said in "Wandering Away": "Those who are useful are endlessly useful;The useless use, its use is useless, so it can become a great use. ”
Usefulness and uselessness are relative, and the uselessness at this time may have an immeasurable impact on your life or life after the passage of time.
When we look at things in the small realm of the world, we often have some useful and useless thoughts.
The debate of "big and small" is an important idea of Zhuangzi's philosophy.
Great knowledge, knowledge is wisdom, people with great wisdom are always calm and unhurried, people with great wisdom can grasp the great laws of many people, things and things in the world, know human reason, affairs and physics, so they can judge people right and wrong, will not follow the crowd, do not follow the clouds, this judgment is based on the law. Xiaozhi is Xiaozhi, which generally refers to Xiaozhi, and Xiaozhi people always peep into opportunities between people, things, and things, opportunistically, and often worry about things when encountered.
How do you distinguish between the big and the small in your mind?How to achieve the great state in Zhuangzi's heart?