After the death of his wife, why didn t Zhuangzi not only not be sad, but instead sang back?

Because Zhuangzi was more optimistic, he felt that it was a good thing that his wife died. Zhuangzi realized that birth, old age, sickness and death are the basic laws of this world. There's nothing to grief about.

As we all know, Taoism has produced two very influential masters. One is Lao Tzu, the founder of the mountain, who has risen to the top of Chinese philosophy with a 5,000-word Tao Te Ching. Another Zhuangzi, on the other hand, combined Taoist thought with the natural spiritual world of the individual and carried it forward, which fascinated countless people.

Taoist. This Zhuangzi is the most special among the hundred sons, in addition to his own writings, with a large number of fables, strange imagination, vivid images, articles flow out at will, unbridled, full of fun, in addition to the style of other people's writings, this person's style of action is also unpredictable.

Zhuangzi's real name is Zhuang, his name is Zhou, and he was a native of the Song Dynasty during the Spring and Autumn Period. When he was young, he was a local Qiyuan official in the Song Kingdom, and it can be said that his status and family background were very ordinary, but in this way, people asked him to go out to be an official, but he refused.

Zhuangzi. He also smiled and said to the envoy of the Chu State: "Qianjin, heavy profit; Prime minister, honorable position.

But don't you see the sacrificial ox? Feed it for several years, and then take it to the temple where the ancestors are worshipped to serve as a sacrifice. At this time, it wants to be a little pig and avoid being slaughtered, and it can't do it.

You hurry up and walk away for me, don't insult me. I would rather be happy in the mud pond like a turtle than be bound by a king, and I will not be an official for the rest of my life, so that I will always be free and happy. "This is incredible to us now, but people can do it.

This is not the most special, the most peculiar thing is that one year, when his wife died, relatives and friends came to the house to mourn, but I saw Zhuangzi spread his legs and sat on the ground like a dustpan, holding a wooden stick in his hand and a clay pot in front of him. Zhuangzi used the wooden stick to beat the clay pot rhythmically and sang a song.

Zhuangzi sang with a drum.

His friends were very angry when they saw this behavior, so they asked him, "How can you be a husband like this, your wife is dead, you don't feel sad, but you still sing, it's too much."

When Zhuangzi saw the reaction of his friends, he immediately explained: "You are wrong, how could I not be sad when she just died? However, qi changes and becomes form, deformation and life, and now it changes into death, and death turns into qi.

The life and death changes of the deceased are like the alternation of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Though she died, man still slept between heaven and earth, and I wept with sorrow, thinking that I was not in the right place of fate, so I stopped mourning and sang. ”

Zhuangzi. In Zhuangzi's view, life is between heaven and earth, it should come and go with the time, although life and death, it is still in this vast universe, this is the principle of nature, there is nothing to be sad about.

Since then, there have been stories of Zhuangzi singing and sending his wife to the throne in later generations, which is used to express people's inner open-mindedness towards life and death and parting.

No, the reason why Zhuangzi sang after his wife's death was because he had seen through the red dust of the world and seen through the avenues of the world.

In Zhuangzi's view, life and death are the same as the growth and decline of all things in the world, all things have ups and downs, people have life and death, and all things in heaven and earth are the same, they are all the aggregation and dispersion of qi. To come is to come at the right time, and to go is to go with the trend. Gains and losses come and go, all like life and death, all like the prosperity and withering of plants and trees, all of which are natural laws.

Zhuangzi is not ignorant of etiquette and does not understand accidents, but what he pursues is the "Tao" between heaven and earth, so when facing the death of his wife, Zhuangzi can deal with it calmly. It's not that he doesn't grieve, but he has a transcendent understanding of life and death, looks at life and death with an accessible mind, and accepts the unknown.

The concept of heavenly way

In Zhuangzi's view, the highest state of life is the realm of Tao. How to expand people's inner life is the problem that Zhuangzi is concerned about. People are blinded by the environment in which they live, and they are constrained by their knowledge and opinions, forming a closed mind.

What Zhuangzi is concerned with is not the satisfaction of the physiological self, the realization of the family self, or the completion of the social self, but the embodiment of the ideal of the universe self.

Heaven and earth are born together with me, and all things are one with me", which is the embodiment of the universe and me. The embodiment of the cosmic self depends on the manifestation of the transcendent spirit. The meaning of transcendence lies in the renunciation and elevation, the abandonment of worldly values, and the elevation to a higher and broader spiritual realm.

After the death of his wife, Zhuangzi not only did not show a sad attitude, but instead sang a song, which most people did not understand. Because Zhuangzi's understanding of life and death has surpassed that of ordinary people, he believes that human death is a kind of delay, so he doesn't want to cry, otherwise it will be a manifestation of inaccessibility. There is a original text here, and history records that it is not born at the beginning, and it is not born in vain but also formless, that is, man was shapeless at the beginning, and the same is true after death, which is equivalent to returning to nature.

After the death of someone around you, people who have empathy and normal will definitely be very sad, and they can't help but burst into tears. What's more, if it is a wife who has been giving birth to children for Zhuangzi and taking care of the housework, Zhuangzi should behave more painfully, so as to be more in line with the world. But Zhuangzi sat on the ground, and then put a percussion instrument between his legs, and sang while striking the instrument, looking very joyful.

In fact, Zhuangzi's grief is only not shown on the outside, and his heart may be crying and it is very painful, but he suddenly figured it out, so he stopped crying.

Human life will come to an end, and the day of life will represent a time of death. You can be kind to this person when you are alive, and you need to look away after you die, and you can't follow the other person and pass away, after all, the living still need to live and do more things. Zhuangzi's attitude towards life and death is very optimistic, and he can face the life and death and gains and losses in the world with a very calm attitude, and has the concept of not being happy with things and not being sad with himself.

Therefore, later generations also understood Zhuangzi better, and perhaps people at that time could not understand this advanced concept of life.

Literati all have their own temperaments, and their attitude towards certain things is really different from ordinary people. From the Zhuangzi incident, it can also be extended to today's society, we should have a relatively peaceful attitude towards everything, and not always be happy and sad.

This is exactly the Taoist concept of life and death: life does not like death and is not afraid. Zhuangzi said: "The life of man is the gathering of qi; Gathering is life, and scattering is death. If I die and live as a disciple, what will happen to me! Therefore, all things are one. ”

Because Zhuangzi's wife said that don't make him sad after he dies. Instead, you should be happy, because you have finally gotten rid of the troubles of the world.

Because he has a transcendent understanding of life and death, he feels that death is a relief.

The Zhuangzi of Zhuang Zhou Mengdie, he has his own philosophical thoughts, he does not seek the world to understand, only wants himself to be able to transcend the world. When Hui Shi doesn't understand what he does, what can we ordinary people do? Hui Shi and Zhuangzi were good friends, and they often debated with the same ideas, but after Hui Shi's death, Zhuangzi no longer argued with othersThe Hui Shi who knew that he was the most approachable and able to understand his thoughts was gone, and there was no one in the world who could understand his philosophy.

The reason is precisely because Zhuangzi saw through life and death, and felt that his wife should not be sad after death, she was experiencing a cycle of life and death in a form, so the great philosopher Zhuangzi looked at life and death with a detached attitude.

The origin of the story is this, after the death of Zhuangzi's wife, his good friend Hui Shi came to mourn, originally wanted to comfort Zhuangzi and let him mourn, but he saw Zhuangzi sitting on a percussion instrument, so Hui Shi was very angry and began to teach Zhuangzi a lesson. said that his wife took care of him so much during his lifetime and gave birth to children for him, but after his death, he ended up in such a field, and Zhuangzi was not sad about it, and Hui Shi was really angry.

But Zhuangzi did answer very indifferently that he was not unsympathetic to his wife, and Zhuangzi was also very sad at the beginning, but because Zhuangzi realized the true meaning of life and death in the process after the death of his wife, he thought that life and death are so changeable, and everything in the world has its own lifespan, so there is no need to be overly sad, but should feel happy, his wife is entering a new form, staying by his side in this new form.

Zhuangzi advocates nature, heaven, earth and man, and is consistent with natureThat's why nature is in a cycle of change. We ourselves are in nature, and we are experiencing the changes that nature has made to us. Zhuangzi believes that his wife, in the midst of nature, is inherently lifeless, and even has no physical form, but exists in the form of qi, floating between nature and nature.

And according to the social environment at that time, death is not a real relief, Zhuangzi lived in an era of frequent wars, the people were not able to make a living, people lived in the world, but also experienced these kinds of tribulations, although after death is not seen, but the real is to save this kind of tribulation to be freed, this may also be a reason for Zhuangzi to beat the drum and music.

As soon as he entered the house, he saw Zhuangzi sitting cross-legged, knocking on the basin and singing there, Keiko asked him with a reproachful tone: "Your wife gives birth to children for you, supports your parents, and takes care of housework, even if you don't cry or feel sad, but you sing here, do you still have a human touch?"”Zhuangzi said:

No, my wife died, and I was very sad at first, but when I thought about it, I was just a mortal, I didn't know the truth of life, and I didn't know how heaven and earth worked, so when I thought about it, there was nothing to be sad about. ”

Keiko continued, "What is the principle of life? Zhuangzi said:

At the beginning of our life, there was no form and no qi, yin and yang converged in the darkness, and then there was qi, and after the change of qi, there was form, and after the change of form, there was life, and now life has passed away. So you see, the changes in life and death are like the changes of the four seasons in spring, summer, autumn and winter, and although my wife is dead, she is still lying between heaven and earth. ”

Keiko said: "Although the truth is like this, how can your feelings withstand such a blow?" Zhuangzi went on to explain:

Human life and death are arranged by fate, just like the day and night change in the sky, it is very normal, we originally have no body, our body is given to us by heaven and earth. Human life and death are like the alternation of day and night, so there is no need to rejoice in life, and there is no need to be sad in death. "You see, in Zhuangzi's view, life and death are very common things, so after the death of his wife, he is not sad and sad, and he can be said to be a very open-minded person.

It is because Zhuangzi realized that this is a cyclical process, from the formless to the tangible to the nothing. He sang to celebrate his wife's return to the beginning.

Therefore, Zhuangzi believes that man evolved from the Tao of the universe and is the concrete manifestation of the Tao in the world. Human life, like all other life, is only a moment in the evolution of the universe, and there is no difference between life and death. Since there is no difference between life and death, and it is not a pleasure for people to live, there is no need to be sad when they die.

Therefore, the wisest attitude towards life is to go with the flow.

This is one of Zhuangzi's philosophical ideas. He believes that human life and death are like the alternation of the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, and the cycle is endless. If you know this cycle, you will not mourn for the dead.

Because he understands that his wife originally existed in all things on the earth, and that she had no life and no body before, and now she has passed away, and she has only returned to the previous world, so there is nothing to be sad about.

The death of Zhuangzi's wife is not that he is not sad, but that he expresses the sadness in his heart by singing a song

The reason why he sings is that he restrained his ordinary feelings, and examined death from a higher level, and the opening or withering of life is just a law of nature. In the eyes of religious believers in the past, death was either for the sake of "the next life" or to pay for the sins of this life. Zhuangzi, on the other hand, rejects the pessimistic color and believes that life and death are just natural changes, so why not live optimistically and die with transcendence?

Zhuangzi said: "The life of man is the gathering of qi; Gathering is life, and scattering is death. If I die and live as a disciple, what will happen to me! Therefore, all things are one. ”

The meaning of this passage is that human life is a gathering of qi between heaven and earth. Life is the gathering of qi, and death is the dispersion of qi. Life and death are the process of gathering and dispersing qi between heaven and earth.

In this way, Zhuangzi regarded death as a law of nature, like the flow of wind and clouds, like the blossoming and falling of flowers, and as natural as the full moon and the lack of the moon. Zhuangzi said that life is born in nature and death is born in nature. My wife is back in the avenue of nature, she is back where she came from, she is back where she should be, so what do I have to be sad about?