Celebrity examples of dialectical thinking

Do you really understand Laozi and Zhuangzi's dialectical thinking of "no distinction between high and low"?

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2065438+August 24th, 2009 Creator in the field of quality culture.

Hello, everyone. Today we continue to share Zhuangzi. Today we are going to share the autumn waters of Zhuangzi.

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Autumn Water is the seventeenth article in Zhuangzi, and it is also one of the foreign articles, but the importance and ideological connotation of this article can even be compared with the famous Theory of Everything by Zhuangzi. Why is the article Qiushui so important? Because it profoundly explains the "dialectics" of Taoist thought. What's the explanation? How is it different from our usual understanding? I hope I can inspire you differently today.

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As we all know, an important feature of Taoism is "dialectical thinking". What is dialectical thinking? In short, it is necessary to observe and analyze things from different perspectives and see that everything has two sides.

As Laozi said in the Tao Te Ching, "Everyone knows that beauty is beauty and evil is self-defeating. As we all know, goodness is good, but it is not good. Therefore, whether there is mutual existence, it is difficult to complement each other, the length is in phase, the height is oblique, and the sound is in harmony. "

Beauty and ugliness, good and evil, existence, length, advantages and disadvantages in the world are all relative. There is no beauty without ugliness, and there is no goodness without evil. You may think it doesn't sound great, especially for us modern people. Isn't this a very common thinking?

In this Autumn Water, Zhuangzi further explained this dialectical thinking of Taoism through several stories. Please read on.

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The first story: the Yellow River and the sea.

There is a lot of rain in autumn. With the arrival of the season, water from small rivers and streams flows into the Yellow River. The water surface of the Yellow River is very wide. From one side of the river to the other, you can't even tell the difference between cattle and horses on the other side. So Hebo, the God of the Yellow River, gloated that all the beauty in the world was in himself. He followed the current all the way east to the seaside, looked east, but could not see the end of the water. Herb's face changed in an instant He looked at the sea and said with emotion to the god of the North Sea. As the saying goes, "I heard a lot of truth and thought that no one could compare with myself." This sentence is about me. Moreover, I once despised Confucius' knowledge and Boyi's righteous deeds. At first, I didn't believe it. Now I have been witnessing your endless vastness. If I don't come to you, it will be bad. I may always be laughed at by people who have ways.

In fact, every time I look at Taoist thought, I have different feelings, and I can gain new knowledge every time. If I ask you a question: Everything is relative, has two sides, even many sides, what does it mean?

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I have a friend who worked as a technician in a company in Shenzhen in his early years. He is very clever and capable. By chance, he found that he could make money for himself by taking advantage of a business omission of the company. Of course, he began to use this opportunity to make money slowly, more and more. Because it is easy to make money, over time, he will not do anything else. He specialized in this business and made a lot of money. He even started his own company privately and became a successful person in the eyes of people around him. After a few years, the market environment changed and his skills failed. As you may know, he still only knows this thing, so he is gradually eliminated by society and his wealth is slowly exhausted.

In fact, everyone has some such friends around him. These people are smart, young and good at finding and seizing opportunities, but we are easily blinded by our own success and ignore the risks. In fact, what I want to say is that not only good, evil, beauty and ugliness are relative, but also risks and opportunities, which are two sides of a coin. When a person feels that he has seized the opportunity and had a good trip, maybe at this time, greater risks are just like the shadow. And this kind of risk and opportunity must be accompanied. You may think you've found a shortcut, but there's a big hole ahead.

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We all know that risks and opportunities coexist, and even sound like chicken soup, but in it, it is difficult for us to detect the approaching risks. For an inappropriate example, in the years of rapid development of the Internet, all walks of life have become more and more intelligent, our lives have become more and more convenient, and our work efficiency has become higher and higher. These are the good influences that the Internet has brought to us.

However, the situation is changing in the past two years and is developing in another direction. For example, with the development of Internet and artificial intelligence, ordinary people are becoming more and more shallow and stupid. Ask Baidu if you don't understand, and the food is called takeaway. Internet and artificial intelligence make our life and work fast and convenient, but at the same time, we slowly lose our thinking and action.

Now, many experts and scholars are beginning to realize the risks. Artificial intelligence may replace most human roles, and even one day this new substance may completely replace human beings. This may be two sides of things, but everything is the same. When we enjoy the sunshine bath, a bigger storm is brewing. Therefore, understanding the two sides of things, with this dialectical thinking, will understand the importance of "preparing for danger in times of peace" and "preparing for a rainy day". Because everything is contradictory and unified at any time. As Laozi said, "Misfortunes never come singly, but blessings never come singly", this sentence has had an impact on our Chinese civilization for thousands of years.

It's a little far. Let's go back to the article "Autumn Water in Zhuangzi" and continue to talk about how Zhuangzi explained "relativity".

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The second story: frog in the well

The god of the North Sea said that we can't talk about the sea with the frog at the bottom of the well because we are limited by space. We can't talk about ice and snow with insects in summer because of time constraints; We can't talk to extreme people because they are bound by ethics. The so-called "well frog can't talk to the sea, but is confined to the air; Summer insects can't talk to ice or time; Qu's family can't talk to Taoists, but should be tied to religion. "

The God of the North Sea then said to Hebo: We are all small, and the four seas exist between heaven and earth, just like a small grain of rice in a big granary. There are thousands of things in the world, and people are just one of them. Compared with everything, everyone is like a hair on a horse. What the five emperors abdicated, what the three kings fought for power, what the benevolent people worried about and what the chivalrous people worked for, can be seen through. Boyi resigned to gain fame; Confucius thought that the Six Classics were profound and profound, but it was nothing compared with the sea.

Here Zhuangzi illustrates the limitations of everything by comparison. The size of heaven and earth is beyond our comprehension, and everyone's existence is very small. These two stories show that we are limited by time and space and can't see the whole world. But then, through the dialogue between Hebo and the God of the North Sea, Zhuangzi continued to explain that there was no need to divide the size. Just as Zhuangzi said in "A Happy Tour in Zhuangzi", Dapeng birds can fly as high as 9,000 Li, while birds just shuttle through the forest, but each has its own happiness and happiness. Next, Zhuangzi continued to use dialectical thinking to explain this visual change.

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The third story: According to the Taoist point of view, nothing is noble and nothing is cheap.

Hebo asked the God of the North Sea, "I regard heaven and earth as big, but I regard a hair on my head as small, okay?" ? The god of the North Sea said: This is not good either. For all things, the size of the volume has its own reason. People with great wisdom can see Qingyuan and its vicinity, so don't think too little about the small ones, and don't think too big about the big ones. He knows that the size of the volume is different, just like the length of life is different, and there are joys and sorrows. They have a thorough understanding of life and death, so they don't think living is happiness, and death is not a disaster, because they know that life and death have no real beginning.

This is the so-called "knowing calmly, being born without words, dying without suffering, and not being too old to know the end."

Hebo continued to ask: How to distinguish the size and dignity of things from the inside and outside? The God of the North Sea said, "In the view of Taoism, there is nothing noble." From the standpoint of Taoism, there is nothing noble. From a secular point of view, high and low are not decided by themselves. From the big aspect of things, everything is not trivial; In a small way, nothing is small. Size is only everyone's subjective intention. From the functional point of view, everything is useful as long as you look in the direction where things are useful; If you look in the direction where things are useless, then everything is useless. Follow the affirmation of things, then everything is not without affirmation; If you deny what is denied, everything will be denied. More than 2000 years ago, our ancestors had these profound insights and had to admire the wisdom of the ancients.

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Zhuangzi also cited an example: Emperor Yao and Shun Di inherited the throne by abdicating; Rebecca Kuang and Zi died of abdication (here Rebecca Kuang gave way to his seat and died of civil strife for three years); Shang Tang and Zhou Wuwang were kings by fighting, but the king of Chu died by fighting. From these examples, some people are respected and some people are spurned. Therefore, high and low are not static. As the saying goes, "A great achievement is a waste of bones", killing one person is a criminal, and killing ten million people is a general. This is a fact.

Zhuangzi and Laozi's dialectical view of the world is also reflected in modern psychology, such as "confirmation bias": that is, we tend to look for evidence that can support our own views, pay more attention to information that supports our own views, or explain the existing information in a direction that can support our own views. When we look at the problem from different angles, we will come to different or even diametrically opposite conclusions.

Laozi said: "Heaven and earth are heartless, and everything is a grass dog;" Sages are heartless and treat people like pigs. "

There is no goodness in heaven and earth, and everything is treated equally; This is also true for saints, and it is also true for everyone. As Zhuangzi said, "According to the Taoist view, nothing is noble." There is no distinction between high and low. The so-called high and low, high and low, big and small, is just the way everyone sees the world from their own perspective. As the philosophers Schopenhauer and Kant said, "The world is my appearance". Everyone has his own world in his eyes. Do you think so?

Ok, that's all for today. If you like my article, please pay attention to the "small broadcast reading" or share it with your friends. Thank you.

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