Saint of the Confucian way

Fang Yun continued: "among the alien races I have heard of, there is a group called Greece, which also appears in politics At first, they had no holy places or ancestors, but like the previous group, they also created many holy ancestors and holy places in the form of stories. Different from the previous group, the saints of this group are exactly the same as themselves. They are either greedy, lustful, jealous, vicious, vain or proud. Of course, In addition to these evil deeds, there are also virtues. They believe that whether the holy ancestor or the holy throne is just a powerful person, not a perfect existence. "

"This great Greek ethnic group can ridicule or even vilify their holy ancestors, that is, those who 'despise' them. Therefore, a powerful force has been born in their ethnic group, that is, there is no bondage! They can fail, but nothing can imprison the soul pursuing freedom!"

"Indeed, this idea will make their society relatively chaotic, difficult to stabilize and finally defeated by foreigners. However, it is the existence of this idea that they can have one thing in common with our Chinese civilization, that is, even if they are defeated, they can in turn affect or even assimilate the victors. This is one of the symbols of a civilization that can be called great."

"In fact, the Greek ethnic group that belittles gods has changed in blood, but their spirit has not been erased and has been passed on. They have not completely succumbed to the false ancestors and have not let themselves become slaves of the ancestors. Under the influence of this spirit, even if their descendants are conquered, they can break through the blockade of powerful ethnic groups and make future generations powerful Civilization is willing to be their successor. I admire that. "

"They have their light, we have our greatness, and no one can hide each other's brilliance. However, if we want to be greater, we must recognize the brilliance of others and humbly learn everything that can make us greater! Even learning how to avoid their failure."

Yansheng Justice: "then I understand. Other ethnic groups always regard the illusory ancestors as powerful, great and worthy of respect. However, although we human race also fantasize about some gods and ancestors, since Confucianism, what we really inherit and promote is to learn from sages, predecessors, real success and true correctness."

Fang Yun nodded and said, "good. Therefore, Confucianism has paved a never-ending education avenue for the human race since Confucius, which makes us understand that learning, change and progress are better than everything. However, the education Avenue, the way of Confucius, has been read by crooked scholars!"

"Why?" asked Lord Yan.

Fang Yun said, "Kong Sheng has a saying. He thinks of Qi when he sees the virtuous, and introspection when he sees the virtuous. Almost all the Confucian disciples spin in the four words' think of Qi when he sees the virtuous'. Like crickets in a cage, they can't jump out of this circle all their life! Everyone has forgotten another sentence. It's more important to introspect when they see the virtuous!"

"Please advise Mr. Fang." Lord Yan's eyes were slightly bright and faintly aware, but he still straightened his body and bowed his head a little like a child.

Fangyun Road: "Before canonization, like everyone else, I believed that 'virtuous' in this sentence was a virtuous person, while' non virtuous' was some other non virtuous villains. This sentence means that when you see a virtuous person learn from him, you should also reflect on whether you have the other party's mistakes. This statement is not controversial. After all, in the Analects of Confucius, the previous paragraph of this sentence is' a gentleman's metaphor ' Yu Yi and villains are compared to profit. "There is a connection between the two." virtuous "corresponds to a gentleman, and" immoral "corresponds to villains. But after canonization, I realized that the scale we used to look at the Analects was too small."

"Scale?" Yan Shenggong keenly found the key to the problem.

Fang Yun smiled: "Yes, that's the scale. If we use the smallest scale, the context of this sentence is only a few people we see in front of us, including talents and villains. But if we use a larger scale, such as extending the scale of time and space, we will look for two different people we have never met in history. For example, I am not good with Kong Sheng and Kong Shengxian. That is In this way, the difference is still small. "

Yan Shenggong nodded gently.

Fang Yun continued: "Well, we are expanding the scale and quantity of this sentence! We want to include the sages and immortals in all ethnic groups from ancient to modern, Shengyuan and Wanjie! What will we find? We can't accurately mark everyone, what should we do? What we want to learn is not a sage, but the common excellence of all people Talent. We're not looking for a villain to introspect. We're looking for everyone's mistakes to introspect. "

"It's called..." Lord Yan felt he understood something, but it was hard to say.

"Extracting the common and essential things from phenomena is also called abstraction." Fang Yun said.

"It's wonderful!" Yang Shenggong praised.

Fang Yun continued: "When we ignore the individual of Kong Sheng, and when we gather the sages of that era or even those not adjacent to it for analysis, we will find that the vast majority of sages are learning, either from books or from personal experience, and those sages continue to progress with learning, so we come to the conclusion that Kong Sheng's Enlightenment Avenue and Kong Sheng's learning The way of learning is never easy, but it is the foundation of all ages. "

Lord Yan nodded heavily.

Fang Yun added: "however, if we compare and measure Kong Sheng and Meng Sheng together with those famous officials who are really successful in governing the country, what do we find? Those famous officials do not govern the country according to the benevolent politics, rites and music of Kong Sheng and Meng Sheng, and they have all had considerable success. So, how can I believe that Kong Sheng's concept of governing the country is correct?"

Yan Sheng said justly: "Sir, I ignored Kong Sheng and used your... Abstraction to abstract rites, music and benevolent government from the Zhou Dynasty."

Father Yan's eyes twinkled with childlike clarity and cunning.

Fang Yun smiled and said, "because what he drew out may not be the essence, and only takes a few dynasties such as the Zhou Dynasty as the sample, this scale is too small. Yan Shenggong, if we summarize the reasons for the victory of the Zhou Dynasty now, do we still use the method left by Kong Sheng, from the perspective of Kong Sheng, according to the context of Kong Sheng, and according to the scale of the spring and Autumn period?"

Yan Shenggong was silent for a long time and said slowly, "before your political science appeared, I would really follow my ancestors' method. But now, I can't do it. Especially after listening to your words, I can't go back completely."