This idiom comes from "cutting mountains with forests", and Bole's Xiang has the saying that "the hoof is like a tired mulberry at dusk", and his son holds "Ma Jing" as a horse. When he met the big toad, he said to his father, "I got a horse, just like that one, but its hooves are not as good as music."
Sun Yang, a native of Qin in the Spring and Autumn Period, is said to be the most famous horse expert in ancient China. He can tell a horse at a glance. Because it is said that Bole is the god in charge of horses in the sky, people call Sun Yang Bole.
It is said that Bole compiled his rich horse knowledge and experience into a book "Xiangma Jing". In the book, he wrote down various characteristics of a swift horse and drew many illustrations for people to understand horses.
Bole has a son with poor intelligence. He has read his father's Sweet Horse Sutra, and he really wants to go out and find a swift horse. Not far away, he saw a big toad, quickly caught it and told his father, "I found a good horse, which is similar to what you said in your book" Xiangma Jing ",except that its hoof is not like a folded bar of wine!"
Bole looked at the big toad in his son's hand and couldn't help but be funny and angry. He said humorously: "This' horse' loves to jump and can't ride!"
draw cakes to allay hunger
During the Three Kingdoms period, there was a man named Lu Yu in the state of Wei. He became an orphan at the age of ten, and his two brothers died one after another. During the war, he worked hard to support his widowed sister-in-law and nephew, and his life was very difficult. He was praised by people for his personality and knowledge.
Later, Lu Yu became an official. He has been an honest official for more than three years and put forward many good suggestions. Wei Mingdi trusts him very much.
At that time, officials were generally recommended by people, and referees often only recommended famous people. Most of these celebrities only pay attention to empty talk, not to reality, and flatter each other, which makes Wei Mingdi very dissatisfied. When selecting Zhong, he ordered: "This selection should be recommended by Lu Yulai. Don't just look at reputation when choosing people. Being famous is like drawing a cake on the ground, but you can't eat it! "
The idiom "painting cakes to satisfy hunger" comes from this story. Nowadays, this metaphor is often used to comfort yourself with fantasy, or to show that a false name is useless. There is also an idiom "looking at plums to quench thirst", which has a similar meaning.
Quench thirst by thinking of plum-masturbating with illusory hope
Liu Yiqing in the Southern Song Dynasty wrote "The Twenty-seventh Time in the World": "Wei Wu lost his way in the battle and the whole army was thirsty, so he said,' The day before yesterday, there was a great Meilin, who pardoned his son and quenched his thirst with sweet and sour." When the foot soldiers smell it, they can get the source with their mouths full of water. "
Psychological principle of looking at plum to quench thirst
In other words, Cao Cao led his army to a place without water, and the soldiers were very thirsty. In order to boost morale, Cao Cao said to the soldiers, "There is a big Meilin not far ahead, with many plums, sweet and sour." Then we will have a good time. " Hearing this, the soldiers all drooled and stopped crying, speeding up the March.
In the film Shangganling, our lovely company commander also successfully performed a modern version of "Looking at Plums to Quench Thirst". There is such a plot in the movie: under the crisis of serious water shortage in the tunnel, the company commander told the soldiers a story of "plum", which attracted the soldiers to swallow their saliva one by one.
In fact, the allusion of looking at plum to quench thirst is about a very interesting and common psychological phenomenon-synaesthesia. Synaesthesia refers to the psychological activity that one feeling causes another feeling. Specifically, the allusion of looking at plum to quench thirst is the sense of taste caused by hearing. Besides the synaesthesia of taste and hearing, we also have such experiences in our daily life: seeing red, orange and Huang San will produce a warm feeling, while seeing blue, blue and green will produce a cold, cool or refreshing feeling, so the former is called warm color and the latter is called cool color. This is the result of temperature perception caused by vision.
The most common is color-hearing synaesthesia, that is, hearing a sound will cause the perception of a color, usually bass causes dark color and treble causes light color. Psychologist H. S. Langfeld once did an experiment about color auditory synesthesia. The results show that different notes will cause different color perception, and the relationship between tone and color is quite stable for the same person. Some people still maintain the corresponding relationship between C and red, D and purple, F and pink, B and bright copper after 7 years.
It is precisely because of the universal existence of synaesthesia that people apply this psychological principle to daily life, especially in modern advertisements.
Stealing a clock to plug your ears-deceiving yourself.
During the Spring and Autumn Period, Zhi Bo, a nobleman of the State of Jin, was defeated. Someone took the opportunity to steal from Fan's house and saw a big clock hanging in the yard. This clock is made of exquisite bronze with exquisite shapes and patterns. The thief was very happy. He wanted to take this beautiful clock home. But this clock is big and heavy, so it cannot be moved. There is only one way he can think of, and that is to break the clock and move home separately.
The thief found a sledgehammer and threw it at the clock desperately. There was a loud bang, which startled him. The thief panicked and thought that this was bad. He jumped on the bell and tried to cover it with open arms, but how could the bell be covered? The bell is still echoing in the distance. The more he listened, the more afraid he became. He involuntarily withdrew his hands and covered his ears hard. "Hey, the bell is getting smaller and I can't hear it!" The thief was very happy. "wonderful! Cover your ears and you won't hear the bell! " He immediately found two cloth balls to plug his ears, thinking that no one could hear the bell. So I let go and hit the bell. When the bell rang, it spread loudly to far away places. People heard the bell rush in and caught the thief.
The story comes from Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals: Self-knowledge. "Stealing a clock" is described as "stealing a clock", which is a metaphor for covering up stupidity and deceiving others.
Excessive enthusiasm will spoil things.
During the Warring States Period, there was a farmer in Song State who planted a piece of land. After planting the seedling, he hopes it will grow tall soon. Bear fruit. He goes to the field to see it every day, but the seedlings grow slowly and he is in a hurry. How can we make seedlings grow taller as soon as possible?
The weather is fine and sunny. He went to the field to pull up seedlings one by one. After returning home, he proudly said to his family, "I'm exhausted." I helped He Miao grow taller. " When his son went to the field, all the seedlings died.
Pulling out seedlings to help: the original "pulling out seedlings to help" was changed to "pulling out seedlings to help".
Comments:
This fable vividly illustrates a truth from the opposite side: we can only do bad things with good intentions without proceeding from objective reality.
Work as skillfully as a skilled butcher cuts the carcass of a cow-do sth very skillfully/professionally.
An expert who knows cows was later used by Zhuangzi to describe the fable of keeping in good health.
From Zhuangzi. In other words, "being good at understanding cows" is actually a word created by Zhuangzi.
On this day, my technical workers were invited to Wenjia to slaughter a beef cattle for him. I saw that his hands pressed the cow, his shoulders rested on the cow, his feet stepped on the cow, and his knees rested on the cow. His movements were extremely skilled. When he stabbed the butcher's knife at the cow, the sound of meat peeling from the bones and muscles matched the movements of a skilled worker like me when carrying the knife, which seemed so harmonious and beautiful. When he butchered cattle, his movements were like dancing on the Shang Tang-era music Sanglin, and his voice when he untied cattle was in tune with Yao Le's Jingshou.
Wen, who stood by, was shocked. He couldn't help exclaiming loudly, "Oh, it's amazing! How can your skill in slaughtering cattle be so superb? "
When asked, my technical worker quickly put down the butcher knife and said to Wen, "I prefer to explore the laws of things because it is better than ordinary technical skills." When I first learned to slaughter cattle, I saw a huge cow because I didn't understand the body structure of the cow. After I slaughter cattle for three years, I will fully understand the structure of cattle. When I look at the cow again, what appears in front of me is no longer a whole cow, but many detachable parts! Now that I have slaughtered many cows, I just need to feel them with my heart, not with my eyes. I know where to cut cattle and where not. According to the natural structure of cattle, I can skillfully pierce the knife directly into the gap between the bones and muscles of cattle, and use these gaps to make the butcher knife not be damaged at all. Since I can't even touch the flesh-and-blood part, let alone this big bone. A skilled chef, because he cuts meat with a knife, usually changes a knife every year; And more chefs cut bones with knives, so they have to change a knife every month. My knife has been used for 19 years and killed more than a thousand cows, but the blade is as sharp as if it had just been sharpened on a grindstone. Why is this? Because there are cracks in the joints of cattle, and the blade is very thin, so I insert the thin blade into the cracks in the bones of cattle, which naturally looks generous and comfortable. So my 19-year-old knife is still like a new one that has just been ground. Nevertheless, whenever I meet a place where bones and muscles are intertwined, it is often difficult for me to start. At this time, I should be especially vigilant, keep my eyes open, slow down and use less force. When I find the key part, I can cut the cow open with one knife and spread it on the ground like dirt. After killing the cow, I stood up with a knife and looked around. I can't help feeling complacent and carefree. Then I clean the knife and put it in the scabbard for next use. "
Wen Huijun listened to my words and nodded again and again, as if he realized something: "Well, after listening to your good words, I learned a lot about cultivation!" "
This story tells people that everything in the world has its inherent regularity. As long as you practice with your heart and keep exploring, over time, practice makes perfect, and things will be done very beautifully.
Think children are smart and doubt your neighbors.
There was a rich man in the state of Song. It rained heavily and the wall of his house was broken. The rich man's son said, "If you don't build it, thieves will steal it." The old man next door said the same thing. At night, the rich really lost a lot of things. As a result, the rich man thought his son was very clever, but he suspected that the old man in the neighborhood had stolen from his family.
The moral of this story is that emotional closeness and alienation often lead to misunderstanding.
cut the feet to fit the shoes
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Huainanzi said Xun Lin.
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During the Spring and Autumn Period, King Chu Ling personally led a thousand chariots and 654.38+ten thousand people to conquer Cai. The expedition went very smoothly. When King Chu Ling saw that he was accomplished, he sent his younger brother to stay in Cai State after recovering from illness, and took full charge of the military and political affairs there. Then he lit up 65,438+10,000 troops to move on, ready to destroy Xu State in one fell swoop. The younger brother of King Chu Ling gave up the disease, which was not only poor in quality, but also ambitious. He doesn't want to be just the leader of this small place-Cai Guo, so he is often unhappy. Miracle has a consultant named Wu Chao. This man is very calculating. On this day, he tried to say, "Since Wang Ling left this country with his troops, this country must be empty. You might as well take your troops back to China at this time, kill Wang Ling's son, establish a new king, and then let you decide the affairs of the court. Is there a problem with being king in the future? " Hearing Wu Chao's words, Miracle led the army back to Chu, killed the son of the Elf King, and made Woods, another son of his brother, king. On the way to the conquest, King Chu Ling heard that the country had changed and his son was killed by his younger brother. Suddenly, he shuddered. Thinking that living in the world was meaningless, he hanged himself. Knowing that King Chu Ling was dead and abandoned his illness at home, he immediately threatened Ziwu to commit suicide and became king on his own. He is the infamous King Chu Ping. & ltBR & gt Another story is that Jin Xiangong dotes on Li Ji and does everything she says. Cheating Ji proposed to make her youngest son king of Qi. Jin Xiangong readily promised to kill the former prince and his own son Shen Sheng. Li Ji has done these two things, but she still feels uneasy because Jin Xiangong has two sons, Zhong Er and Yiwu. At this time, both sons have grown up, which is a great threat to the future succession to the throne of Qi, so she suggested killing Heyiwu and readily agreed. But when their plot was discovered by an honest minister, they immediately told Zhong Er and Yiwu. When they heard about it, they immediately took refuge abroad separately.
Commenting on these two things, the author of Huai Nan Zi said: "It is unwise to listen to the bad guys and let the father and son kill each other like cutting their toes to suit the size of their shoes."
Carve a mark on the side of the moving ship to show where someone's sword fell ―― take measures regardless of the change of environment.
Explain dogma, metaphorically stick to the law, stubborn and inflexible.
During the Warring States Period, Lv Buwei wrote "Lv Chunqiu Cha Jin": "The Chu people waded into the river, and the knife fell from the boat into the water, saying,' My knife fell from this. "The ship stopped at the destination, and the Chu people jumped into the water from the marked place to find the sword. The boat works, but not the sword. If you want a sword, isn't it confusing? "
Method linkage; As predicate, attribute and adverbial; derogatory sense
For example, Xia Yan's Emancipate the Mind, Unite and Progress: "Let's look at the literary theory we used to use in the past, not ~"
This story tells us that things in the world are always changing, and people should take this change into account when thinking about problems and doing things, and adapt to this change.
Looking at the sky from the bottom of the well-the view is very narrow.
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"Zhuangzi Waipian Qiushui": "I don't know what's the matter with my husband? The tortoise in the East China Sea said, "I am very happy! Out of the jumping beam, on the shaft, into the rest of the cliff; If you go to the water, you will hold your arms, and the mud is not enough to destroy; If you fight with others, it won't work! In addition, it is also very important that my husband is good at a ditch of water, but he is willing to cross the well. Does Mr Xi visit occasionally? "The turtle in the East China Sea has not entered his left foot and his right knee has been broken, so he wandered around and told the sea," It is not enough to lift it thousands of miles away; A thousand meters high is not deep enough. At that time, ten years and nine years, water benefits; There was seven droughts in eight years in the soup, and the cliff was not damaged. It is also a great pleasure that the East China Sea does not last long and does not advance and retreat many times. "
Han Yu, a great writer in the Tang Dynasty, wrote in his "The Original Road": "Sit on a well and watch the sky, saying that it is not small." This means that sitting in a well and watching the sky will make you feel that the sky is small. In fact, it's not that the sky is too small, but that people who look at the sky stand low and have too narrow eyes.
From these two articles, there are two idioms with similar meanings-"Frog in the well" and "Watching the sky from the well". Frog in the well is used to satirize those who are narrow-minded and short-sighted, but they are blind and arrogant, do not accept new things and do not understand the overall situation. "Looking at the sky from a well" describes a narrow and limited vision.