Zhuangzi's original text is:
Yan Hui said, "It's good for you." Zhong Ni said, "What is it?" He said, "I will forget benevolence and righteousness." Yue: "Yes, but not yet." When he looked again, he said, "It's good to be back." Yue: "What is it?" Say, "forget the music!" " Yue: "Yes, but not yet." When he looked again, he said, "It's good to be back!" Yue: "What is it?" He said, "Sit down and forget." Zhong Ni suddenly said, "What is forgetting?" Yan Hui said, "If you have a broken limb, you will know it. It's the same as Datong. This is called' sit and forget'. " Zhong Ni said: "If we are the same, there will be no goodness, but if we are changeable, it is not eternal. If it is benign! Qiu also asks you to come back later. "
"Sit and forget" comes from this, and to say "sit and forget", we must first say Zhuangzi's thought.
Here, Yan Hui spoke Zhuangzi's heart, as if he had a direct dialogue with Confucius, the founder of Confucianism, but this is not what Confucianism really cares about. On the contrary, Confucianism pays more attention to realistic ethics and politics, pays attention to self-cultivation and governing the country, and Laozi also stresses governing the country, but in different ways. He said, "Can you do nothing by loving your country and governing the people?"
However, in Zhuangzi, there is a growing tendency to break away from limited reality or transcend reality. He believes that "the emperor's business is a saint's business." So what is his ideal of being a saint?
Wandering around puts forward the general concept of "people have no self, gods are useless, and saints are nameless", and also depicts the god who shoots mountains, that is, "God and people live in harmony." If the skin is like ice and snow, if you are a virgin, you don't eat grains, suck the wind and drink dew, ride a dragon on a cloud, and travel around the world; Its spirit is condensed, so that things will not be flawed and mature. "Obviously, there is a very obvious religious spirit here, especially later, he discussed a person's profound image in a way in his article, such as a wonderful and mysterious description in The Great Master:
"What is a real person? The real people in ancient times were not rebellious, successful or ignorant. If so, you will regret it, but you will not be complacent. If so, it is not difficult to climb high, without entering the water or the fire. Even those who know may be false to the Tao. Real ancient people, sleeping without dreams, feeling carefree, reluctant to eat, take a deep breath. The real person's breath is in the heel, and everyone's breath is in the throat. What gives in is full of words. People who think deeply are shallow. The real people in ancient times did not know how to live or die; Don't go out, don't go in; However, it has gone, but it has just arrived. Don't forget the beginning, don't ask for the end; Enjoy it and forget it, that is, don't donate Tao with your heart, and don't help heaven with people. Yes, just a real person. If so, its mind, its silence, its embarrassment; Sad as autumn, warm as spring, joys and sorrows, suitable for things without knowing their extremes. "
This is the man with profound morality in his mind. Of course, his description of the ideal Taoism inherited Lao Zi's thought, but Zhuangzi's interpretation of its true image in words directly means that Taoism can be learned and grasped to a certain extent, and its main purpose is to persuade the world how to cultivate Buddhism and how to get rid of it.
His transcendence method is revealed in Zhuangzi, which not only makes people realize the nature of the world and people, but also provides concrete transcendence methods, namely "keeping in mind" and "forgetting".
In On Earth, he expounded his theory through the dialogue between Confucius and Yan Hui.
"Yan Hui said,' When I returned home, the poor were those who didn't drink or eat meat for months. "So, can it be lent out?" He said, "This is a sacrificial fasting, not a spiritual fasting. He replied,' I dare ask my heart.' Zhong Ni said: "If you make up your mind, you won't listen with your ears, but listen with your heart, listen with your heart! Listening stops at the ear, and the heart stops at the symbol. Angry people confuse the real with the fake. Only the Tao is empty. Empty people are also hungry. " "
Will Confucius and Yan Hui be like this? Maybe we believe that Confucius would admire Taoism, but he didn't practice it, but did the opposite, so most scholars think that this is Zhuangzi's voice through Confucius.
In fact, "Xin Zhai" has realized the emptiness of the mind, but what about "sitting and forgetting"?
"Sit and forget" refers not only to the sitting posture, but also to the so-called "forgotten" state. It should be a real life state proved by body and mind, not a narcissism or anesthesia. "Yin Tian Zi Zuo Forget" said:
He who sits and forgets gets what he wants and forgets what he wants. Don't you just mean "sit" when you walk without seeing your actions? Don't you take action when you have opinions? Isn't that what "forget" means? What is "no"? Yue: "My heart is still there." What is "missing"? Yue: "All shapes are lost." Here, "sitting" should be a way from form to substance, just like a raft crossing a river. When you reach the other shore, you can't miss it, and "forgetting" is an unmoved state beyond the rules of the secular real world. Obviously, this does not mean self-anesthesia and escape. First of all, self-anesthetists can't completely forget their worries, and escape is not an eternal way. One day they will have to face the real world. I'm afraid it's difficult. The only thing I can do is to be completely clean. At this time, there are two ways:
First, we should transcend reality, complete reality and then surpass ourselves in order to achieve spiritual purity;
Secondly, to transcend oneself and return to life as the sustenance to practice the transcendence and perfection of body and mind. Obviously, Zhuangzi prefers the latter. Some people say it is an artistic realm, while others say it is a religious realm.
Dr Yu Heng pointed out:
Forgetting is to settle down, that is, the person who has forgotten is actually in a state of centering. Shen Jie, the son of Yin Tian, said: "Fasting means faith, being at ease means leisure, thinking deeply means wisdom, sitting and forgetting means determination, faith means leisure, and the four schools mean god.". In other words, sitting and forgetting is the fourth stage of the five levels of Taoist cultivation, and it is a stage of centering and resolving. The symbol of success is sacred understanding and enlightenment, which means whether success is forgotten or not, and enlightenment is the best measure. And also made a profound comparison with Buddhist meditation, such as:
Although meditation and meditation have basically the same status in their respective cultivation systems, they are both necessary conditions and direct forces for acquiring the Tao, but their processes, contents and final results are completely different: the object of meditation is Zen, and the object of meditation is things and me; There are many ways to participate in meditation, and the means of sitting and forgetting is just silence and ignoring; Meditation can be a gradual practice or an epiphany, and meditation can only be a gradual practice; The result of meditation is enlightenment and liberation, while the result of meditation is enlightenment and eternal life. These are all different.
In fact, his comparison is more based on the difference between Taoism and Buddhism, but the concept of "sitting and forgetting" is not only a Taoist method. With the trend of the integration of the three religions, "Zuoforgetfulness" has been used in many new fields and given new concepts, such as integration with Buddhism, learning from Confucianism, and application to literature and art, so "Zuoforgetfulness" has been.
In my opinion, the fundamental difference between "forgetting to sit" and people's usual escape and anesthesia is that it is a fixed environment, not like a smoke cloud floating in an instant, nor like a frog in the well. It is a high grasp of the subjectivity of life and an understanding of the original intention of life.
Of course, this is just a way of life. For example, Feng Youlan said, "The so-called sage in Buddhism is a person who has reached a state. This saint can be said to be a quiet bottom. For example, the Buddha statue is to close your eyes and meditate. " This coincides with the holy land reached by "sitting and forgetting". Of course, Feng Youlan's statement is one-sided, such as Mahayana Buddhism.
I think Zhuangzi's original intention may not be to let people be completely quiet and completely immersed in the inner world of individuals. If the external situation is really bad, individuals can't help the world and live a leisurely life outside this world, which is beyond reproach, not to mention the possibility of leaving artistic and other heritages.
It is also obvious that "forgetting" can achieve a static holy land, but at some point it will also become a tool for people to get rid of their responsibilities and missions. "Song scholars are inherently opposed to this kind of static sage. Their saints are those who want to achieve something in life, that is, in the daily life of so-called interpersonal relationships. "
"The so-called saints of Ming Dow scholars in the Song Dynasty are those who can live according to their own way of life. ..... live according to the way of life, born with it, and the living need considerable efforts to live according to it. Such people are called saints. Familiar people live naturally without hard work, so they are called saints. "
This kind of "sage" theory of Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties has the main enlightenment to the development of the theory of "sitting and forgetting". People can't completely pay attention to the personal world, but must transcend it in the external reality, that is, become a person with certain moral significance in the real ethical world.
I think the development of the concept of "forgetting" has three levels:
One is medical care;
The second is the way of thinking;
The third is the philosophical level. Then let's take a look at the definition and understanding of health care. Often said in the benefits of learning qigong:
Health, martial arts is called heaven, and the sky is retrograde; ..... Retrograde, that is, practicing Qi, practicing Qi spirit, practicing spirit is still empty, practicing deficiency is not, practicing deficiency is still a day. In other words, people have never been born out of nothing, and they have to return to being unable to adapt to nature. It is said that this is the evolution and promotion of Japanese things, so what is empty is real, and what is out of nothing is there. Therefore, Confucianism calls the result of this ascension "transcendental holiness", Taoism calls it "feathering into immortality", Buddhism calls it "nirvana into Buddha" and disambiguation calls it "real person".
From here on, his explanation seems to say that keeping in good health is heaven. What is heaven? Also called retrograde, will retrograde violate the aesthetic and monastic principles of letting nature take its course?
Zhuangzi said, "My life is limited, but so is my knowledge. With the limit, there is no limit, and it is almost there. Knowing what you already know is almost enough. There are endless fame for good and endless punishment for evil. The Governor thinks that you can protect yourself, you can live all your life, you can support your loved ones, and you can spend all your years. "
First of all, Zhuangzi does not advocate that we should do too many things that are far from the essence of life. He opposes alienation.
Secondly, if he wants us to enter the secular society, we should try our best to act according to the rules of the secular society. Even if you want to realize your personal value, you have to act according to the way of nature and the way of society. This point was fully explained by him in my understanding of cattle.
The author believes that health preservation is really based on nature and the highest principle, but there are two aspects to true nature:
First of all, it's natural,
Secondly, it also includes human behaviors and thoughts that conform to the laws of nature and society.
Then the heaven mentioned above is the behavior and thought between people that conforms to the laws of nature and society. It emphasizes the sublimation of people's conformity with heaven, rather than letting their own behavior go.
Simply put, if you can choose two kinds of food, A is good for you and B is bad for you. If you know this knowledge, if you were given a choice, what would you choose? If you want to choose with a laissez-faire view, you are resigned to fate, just like guessing the pros and cons of a coin falling. In fact, your choice at this time is not the kind of "natural" idea, because you have already participated, but you have given up another opportunity. And if you want to choose with a kind of "man-made behavior and thought that conforms to the laws of nature and society", then you will definitely choose A. Of course, we can't say whether A and B are suitable for us yet.
Above, I explained the specific problems about health care from a personal point of view. To some extent, sitting and forgetting is a way and achievement of keeping in good health.
Of course, we can also elaborate on Chinese medicine and fitness techniques. For example, Master Deqian of Shaolin attributed Shaolin's method of prolonging life to the method of meditation, in which meditation is of great significance. Meditation says that meditation can dredge human meridians, unblock qi and blood, balance yin and yang, strengthen physical fitness and enhance vitality. He also said that "the quiet can nourish the heart" because "the heart is the head of the five internal organs, and the heart governs the blood and the mind. The heart is normal and healthy, and the five internal organs are healthy. If the heart is weak, the blood will drop, causing the whole body to get sick. "
On the level of health preservation, there is not much difference between Taoist meditation and Zen meditation. From a modern point of view, their combination lies in Qigong and some health care concepts.
What the method of "sitting and forgetting" can achieve is a static state of human beings, who can restore their vital functions, achieve the best balance of physical and mental health, and even develop their potential. In modern psychology and modern therapeutics, there are also many explanations and applications, so I won't repeat them here. This state contains a mysterious experience, which was mentioned in Laozi, but later Laozi returned to the realistic ethical level, which is different from that of Zhuangzi. Later generations, Taoism and hundred schools of thought talked a lot, and the realm of meditation and monasticism was profound. In fact, "Xin Zhai" is also integrated with "sitting and forgetting". In other words, Xin Zhai is a way to start, and sitting and forgetting is the realm of achievement. It is worth mentioning that the forgetting state is related to what Bergson said, that is, when entering the forgetting state, psychological time may have disappeared.
How to acquire intuitive ability, Gu Jiasheng said in Bergson's Research on Intuitionism: "Intuition is hard work, and it requires the efforts of the will. Only by turning people's thinking from the habitual direction of rational thinking, beyond the scope of perceptual experience, rational understanding and practice, abandoning all logical thinking forms such as concepts, judgments and reasoning, or even using any language symbols, can all the possibilities of fixed and stagnant understanding be eliminated. Because metaphysics must use intuitive methods to achieve absolute reality. "
This is very similar to eastern Taoist meditation and Zen, for example, forgetting "benevolence and righteousness" and "rites and music" and transcending specific knowledge and skills to gain a mysterious spiritual experience and ability, which is related to intuition. In fact, meditation and meditation are almost equivalent at the level of thinking, because they have been used for reference and mixed.
The important role of intuitive thinking can be seen from the two sentences in Laozi, that is, "learning to be excellent is an official, and learning to be excellent is an official". Explained to Zhou Lisheng:
"Lao Tzu called his understanding of various concrete things' learning', and his grasp and cognition of Tao style was called' smelling Tao'. In his view,' learning' and' learning' are two completely different ways of understanding. One is the understanding of physical things, which can be obtained through sensory experience; One is the metaphysical knowledge about Tao, which can only be obtained through intuition. Of course, the accumulation of specific knowledge is more and more, so it is said to be' more and more'. However, the realization of Tao is different. To abandon the concrete, I call it "the loss of the day", and to "lose and lose, so as to do nothing", so as to reach the realm of ignorance and inaction, that is, to enter the realm of "things and me". He believes that the more concrete knowledge, the more obstacles to understanding and grasping the Tao. Only by excluding sensory experience can we achieve unity with Tao and enter the realm of Tao. "
In this way, intuitive thinking is mainly used to understand the "metaphysical way" rather than specific "metaphysical" knowledge, so it is not difficult to understand the philosopher's explanation of intuition.
Intuitive thinking mode and experience are also very obvious in art, for example, in the field of poetry, which is more direct.
Many poets in the Tang dynasty also pursued intuitive experience, all of which were lifeless. "The specific way for them to learn lifelessness is meditation, that is, to sit still and be pure, to calm their thoughts and emotions to the maximum extent, and to keep their body and mind in an empty state close to silence. This can transform the pure consciousness of the individual's heart into an intuitive state, such as spontaneous light, which produces insights and feelings of the integration of all things and enters the realm of' I' where things and I are integrated. "
It is this intuitive way of thinking that leads to many dazzling poems, such as the ethereal realm of "moonlight in the pine forest and crystal stone in the stream" embodied in Wang Wei's famous poem Autumn Mountain.
In the exploration of cognitive methods, the East attaches great importance to inner peace and transcendence, which may remove all kinds of factors that hinder understanding, especially emotional factors. The pursuit of inner peace and transcendence is not only because of these factors, but also because of the pursuit of intuitive understanding. Intuition usually exists in a high degree of rationality. Instead of abandoning rationality, it begins to understand life with intuition and rely on rationality to improve the quality of intuition, just as Lao Zi said. Can it be as soft as a baby? Can repairing the mysterious view be seamless? How can it be unwise to love the people and govern the country? Can Tianmen be opened and closed for women? Understand four, can you be ignorant? "Finally, I returned to the rational goal. This is also the part that Zhuangzi surpassed. In other words, this is a transcendental philosophy, but it is introverted. Sima Chengzhen said in "On Sitting and Forgetting": "Why can't a husband forget? I don't know the whole body inside, but I don't know the universe outside. I am one with the Tao and worry about everything. So Zhuang Ziyun is with Datong. "
This philosophical way is obviously a philosophy of life with a very strong humanistic consciousness. Because this way of transcendence is based on people themselves.
Yan Xianglin summed it up today.
"Time and space constitute the main material limitations of life. In view of this, Zhuangzi first made a philosophical denial of time and space. " And this is also "a way of poetic imagination and intuitive experience."
So how did this intuition begin?
One of the important methods is to "sit and forget".
For the specific operation method of sitting and forgetting, he made the following explanation. He divided sitting and forgetting into the following parts:
First, forget moral consciousness and values;
Second, forget to feel the body or sensory organs;
Third, forget the psychological "intelligence";
Fourth, forget about knowledge forms and cognitive activities;
Fifth, it also contains the ideological connotation of forgetting the worry of death;
Sixth, there is the idea of forgetting "love".
Of course, it must be noted that this transcendence seems to be purely intuitive cognition, but it is not. First of all, if we want to admit that everything is purely intuitive, then first of all, theorists have to abandon the original understanding itself-the knowledge and methods about intuition and transcendence. Secondly, as mentioned above, all intuition in Tao Te Ching begins with rationality and ends with rationality.
However, in the end, the theory of transcendence about sitting forgetting was used for religious transcendence, not because of the lack of language of later scholars, but because sitting forgetting itself contains a certain degree of religious factors, that is, can some characteristics of people or people trained through certain procedures really achieve eternal existence beyond the limitations of time and space?
This kind of doubt has been lingering in some people's minds, and it has been practiced by them, especially the later Taoist Neidan School, which developed Yang Shen's theory of rising from the shell to the fullest, and claimed that these theories can be successfully practiced to some extent.
In short, the transcendence mode of "sitting and forgetting" is very introverted. This transcendence is contrary to the idea that faith and power transform the world, but it does not mean that the two are irreconcilable. On the contrary, they are complementary. Once human beings really make good use of complementarity, they will be one step closer to the free world. It is worth noting that in modern society, there are millions of lifestyles, and so are life forms. It seems that these can no longer be divided by a certain standard, but the re-evaluation of all values is not endless. It, the ultimate ideal of mankind, will never be divorced from the greatest freedom for an eternal reason. This kind of freedom is an orderly state of existence, which always requires people to have externalities to a greater extent.
What's more, when everyone's mind is attracted by the brilliance of the outside world, it is easy to ignore the modernization of the inner world. This situation is that the development of internal and external, spirit and material, mind and skills presents an imbalance, and the wasteland phenomenon in modern philosophy and literature is actually an extreme imbalance in the above situation. This is a one-way imbalance, that is, in the highly developed shell of science and technology, countless hearts like deserts and wasteland are struggling. Of course, the dangerous situation is not limited to these, there are more variables, either bright or dark.
In this situation, the transcendence of Taoist thought is undoubtedly a very important concern, which not only shines on the metaphysical level, such as health preservation, but also has a dazzling and moving light on the metaphysical level.
Of course, we should also explain that "sitting and forgetting" is a historical theory, and its progressive role is also enormous in the process of human physical and mental growth and social changes.
First of all, it is most likely to violate the original intention and intention of life in its name, that is, when life is in crisis, it does not strive for strength, builds a drunk's dream and hides in it to kill time numbly. This is not an achievement of "forgetting", but a real "forgetting";
Secondly, the strong introversion of "forgetting" should play a great role in some fields (such as art and philosophical metaphysics);
Furthermore, the theory of "sitting and forgetting" needs new development. During the Neo-Confucianism period of the Song and Ming Dynasties, especially Wang Yangming, had regarded meditation as a means to deal with the real world, and no longer pursued religious realms such as meditation.
Zheng Xuan, a health care expert in the Ming Dynasty, wrote a famous work "Yesterday's Unforgetted Anns", among which there is a cloud "Sit and forget the inscription":
Often silent vitality does not hurt, think less about candlelight.
Not angry and calm, not angry and calm.
Don't ask for flattery, but don't be square.
If you are not greedy, you will be rich. Do not be afraid of the king.
The taste is absolutely spiritual, and the breath will be really long.
Touch will be in a trance, think will dream of leaving the body.
The air leakage is like a ridge, and the mind leaks to death.
Only when the mind dies can the spirit survive, and after the death of the spirit, the soul will be strong.
Natural resources are difficult to be poor and ingenious, and we must change from reality.
The essence is trance, and the elephant is in a daze.
Taoism is like materialization, and ghosts and gods are unpredictable.
If you don't drink, eat or sleep, it means that the real person has forgotten. "