12 Mindfulness Lessons Listened to at Tsinghua University

Chapter 20 Yes and No (2)
The problem is that it is "correct".What is right?One plus one equals two is true, and one plus two equals three is also true.But life is not about solving equations, life is about solving problems.The old abbot in the story smears mud everywhere, no one can offend, and he doesn't have a fair and just image, but he can easily dissolve all anger and solve problems.It may seem wrong, but it is actually true.And those three apprentices each had their own reasons, but without these reasons, there would be no disputes and anger.With these reasons, it is not conducive to resolving disputes and calming anger.Comparing the two, anyone with a discerning eye can tell who is right and who is wrong.

Married people, especially male compatriots, mostly have this experience: for some reason, two people fought a cold war, refused to give in to each other, became strangers, and even got divorced, but as long as one of them is willing to pay Smile, and say: "Honey, just let it be that you are wrong to me!" Everyone knows that the so-called "even if you are right" actually means "you are not right at all", but it is such an unreliable sentence, that is Such a little language regression, without any substantive regression, can often resolve the deadlock invisible.

This is true at home and abroad.

But we must be clear: some things in life are indeed right and wrong.But there is a saying that is good: Right and wrong are irritating.For some big issues, such as the Diaoyu Islands, no matter how angry the Japanese pirates are, how they land on the island, or how they clamor, we must insist on what we should insist on, what we should provoke must be provoked, and what should be taken back must be taken back.As for small things such as some spoons touching the edge of the pot, teeth touching the tongue, you have to persist and persist without slackening.

Life is a cube, which should be viewed from different aspects and angles.Whether you are right or wrong, you can't be "one muscle", let alone either one or the other.Even if the most brilliant judge in the world is invited, it is difficult for him to make a universal judgment.At such times, what is often needed is not to prove who is right and who is wrong, but to be tolerant and to give in.Otherwise, when the "big judge" of life gets angry, the result is often to hit the reasonable and the unreasonable [-] boards each.

4.Right is not right, evil is not evil
Today's students grow up in the age of information technology, and their mastery of information, both in terms of efficiency and content, is far beyond what we used to be able to compare.It is impossible to imagine that the classroom provided to them by the university is a vacuum world where only "always correct" and "absolute truth" can be stored.A professor who candidly tells students about his research on current cultural controversies from his podium can only increase, not limit or stifle students' independent judgment.

——Xiao Ying (Professor, doctoral supervisor, and deputy dean of the Department of Philosophy, Tsinghua University)
Righteousness and evil are very important concepts in Chinese culture.

When it comes to righteousness, the first thing people think of is a series of commendatory words such as justice, righteousness, uprightness, right way, and upright gentleman.No way, this is not only a tradition, but also a fine tradition of our ancestors.Mencius said: I am kind and I am upright.Throughout the ages, who would not want to follow in the footsteps of saints?Even if you call him a sage, a gentleman, or a man of righteousness, he won't punch you twice even if he's an outright bad guy.

There is "righteousness" in the world, but "evilness" is inevitable.There are also many evil words in Chinese, but each one is more derogatory than the other.What evil, evil door, evil way, evil theory, evil behavior.In the past, some people became inexplicably insane, and later claimed that they were possessed by fierce ghosts. People could not explain it scientifically, so they called it "evil spirits".Therefore, people generally have a bad impression of "evil", and it can even be said that they hate it to the bone.

Hate it, hate it, but evil has never been far away from us.It is said that justice will triumph over evil.But in fact, there are many times when evil overcomes justice.Even if justice can defeat evil, it cannot completely eliminate it.It is often said in martial arts novels: There is no balance between good and evil.Righteousness and evil, most of the time, can only be divided equally and fight against each other.

The reason is that, on the one hand, righteousness and evil are interdependent, and without the backdrop of evil, the light of justice cannot be revealed.On the other hand, it is also because the forces of evil are very good at disguising.It's very simple: if you don't pretend, you will be eliminated; if you pretend, you can not only survive, but also grow with dignity.Therefore, there is very little naked evil in life.They are either dressed in the cloak of justice, or intertwined with justice, without a pair of piercing eyes, it is difficult to guarantee that they will not treat the bad guys as relatives.

From this point of view, it is perfectly normal for people to be a little bit sensitive to evil.It is necessary to maintain a vigilant heart, but there should be a limit, otherwise it is very likely to equate a little evil with standard evil, and be used by truly evil people to do regrettable things.

For example, Huang Yaoshi, the typical character "Dongxie" in Jin Yong's "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", said that he is a standard hero, and he absolutely cannot afford it.But it would be too accurate to say that he is an out-and-out villain.He has his shortcomings, such as arrogance and contempt for others, but similar shortcomings are too common among people in the world.The way he treated several disciples back then was rather cruel, but decent people can do similar things, even more cruel than him.

To give a historical example: Hai Rui.This gentleman is a famous upright official in Chinese history.The cleanliness of Hai Rui lies first in incorruptibility.It is said that one day, when Hai Rui's mother celebrated her birthday, Hai Qingtian bought two catties of meat, and the whole city was in an uproar. Even Governor Hu in the provincial capital heard about this and mysteriously said to the officials during a meeting: Do you know?Hai Rui, he bought meat!When Hai Rui died, his colleague Wang Yongji went to his home to help with the funeral, but only found a dozen or so taels of silver after digging through the boxes and cabinets. In the end, he had to find some old friends to pool some money for the funeral.Hai Rui's poverty is so poor that people are awe-inspiring.Followed by cleanliness.According to unofficial records, one day, the servant of Hai Rui's family gave Hai Rui's 5-year-old daughter a piece of cake. Killed my daughter!Hai Rui's uprightness is really hard to agree with.Think about it, if Hai Rui is Guo Jing who believes that Huang Yaoshi killed his five masters in the martial arts, and Huang Yaoshi is a 5-year-old girl with no strength to restrain a chicken, will Huang Yaoshi still survive? portion?

Hai Rui's story tells people: going to the extreme is evil, and it is even more evil than evil.

There is no eternal justice in the world.Let's go back to martial arts novels and pick a few examples: Song Qingshu in "Yi Tian Tu Long Ji", Lin Pingzhi in "Swordsman", Yin Zhiping in "The Legend of Condor Heroes", etc. These people just appeared Not only are they all upright, but they can also be called "root red seedlings are upright", but in the end they all become out-and-out evil people.We have reason to believe that the gentleman Jian Yue Buqun, the head of the Songshan School and the leader of the Wuyue Sword School, Zuo Lengchan, and others did not wear sheep's clothing from the very beginning. Weak, help justice.It's just that they failed to control themselves due to various reasons, and were eventually abandoned by justice.

Correspondingly, while a group of people are going evil, there are also a group of people going the right way due to various reasons.For example, Ren Yingying, the holy aunt of the Demon Sect, and the former flower picker, and later Tian Boguang, the "must give up", including the golden-haired lion king Xie Xun. It can be seen that there is no eternal evil in the world.If you want to kill evil with a stick when you see it, it will inevitably lead to more evil and cause more evil.

Among the four masterpieces worth mentioning is "Water Margin".As we all know, "Water Margin" is also known as "Water Margin of Loyalty", and "loyalty" is its central idea.But let's put ourselves in our shoes, how many of the hundred and eight generals in Liangshan are truly loyal?Lin Chong went to Liangshan not out of loyalty, but because he was forced to do so.The same is true for Song Jiang going to Liangshan.Of course he can have something to do with loyalty.But his loyalty is based on covering the country's first-level wanted criminals.Lu Zhishen was the only one who really talked about loyalty. In order to uphold justice, he beat Zhen Guanxi to death with three punches.But we also have to think from the standpoint of Zhenguanxi: Even if he is guilty, he is not guilty of death!What's more, Lu Da was still a national civil servant at that time, the dignified Lu Tiju.This kind of violent law enforcement style of loyalty cannot be imitated by today's people.

Let alone good and evil.In the eyes of ordinary readers, one hundred and eight generals must be the embodiment of justice.Far from it.Let’s talk about vegetable gardener Zhang Qing and his wife Yasha Sun Erniang. Before they went to Liangshan, they opened the ultimate black shop business.But it was these two people who were outrageous just thinking about it, and they still wanted to wrap Wu Song into buns, but in the end they didn't know Wu Song and went to Liangshan together.Needless to mention these two couples, they are definitely not good men, it is a pity that it is Wu Song, and it is even more a pity that it is Pan Jinlian who only killed Wu Song's brother, but he could not get Wu Song's forgiveness!It turns out that in the eyes of the hero Wu Song, only his elder brother is a human being, so what does it matter if others die or not?Another very representative figure is Wu Yong.This person is known as "Smart Star", but if you read the whole book of "Water Margin", you can't find anything that can be called bright and aboveboard wisdom. In the end, the other party's family was ruined and had to go to Liangshan's "ingenious plan".Such Liangshan, how can there be any justice at all!The so-called justice is just a slogan to attract more people to join the gang.

All in all, many people and many things in life cannot be simply distinguished by good and evil.We must maintain righteousness and guide evil, but to do this, we must first have a pair of eyes and a heart.

5.The more villainous you are, the more you want to be raised as a gentleman
There are a lot of villains in any society, but if a large number of villains in a society do not admire gentlemen, and even take pride in being villains, this society is too cynical; and if a society cannot tolerate the existence of villains , and even treat the villain as a villain and "everyone in the country can be killed", this society is too harsh.

——Qin Hui (Professor of the Department of History, Tsinghua University)
Once, Su Dongpo, a great writer in the Song Dynasty, invited his friend Zen master Foyin to a teahouse for tea.Seeing that Foyin was a monk, especially seeing that he didn't look like a well-known monk, the waiter in the shop seemed very indifferent when entertaining him, but he was very warm to Su Dongpo who was dressed in fine clothes.

Su Dongpo didn't like it, so he bluntly hinted that the waiter in the shop was more polite to Foyin, but the waiter in the shop was obviously a snob, and he was always indifferent to Foyin from the beginning to the end.

Su Dongpo was unhappy: "Check out!" Foyin hurriedly said, "I'll do it." After that, he took out some scattered silver, whether there was more or less, and handed it to the waiter.It turned out to be a rich monk!Quickly thank you, and your attitude instantly became very humble.

As soon as he walked out of the teahouse, Su Dongpo asked Foyin, "This man has a bad attitude, doesn't he?"

Foyin said: "That's right, he..."

Before Foyin finished speaking, Su Dongpo asked again: "Then why are you still so polite to him? It's nothing more than being polite, and you actually rewarded him?"

Foyin said: "You can't learn this—sometimes, villains have to be raised as gentlemen!"

Su Dongpo laughed and said, "Indeed, I really can't learn it!"

(End of this chapter)