Confucian and Taoist views and records on ancient marriage

Confucianism is like this:

The harmonious relationship between husband and wife is the primary factor in marriage harmony. Since ancient times, people have put forward many useful ideas for husband and wife to live in harmony and build a harmonious family. Confucianism lists the relationship between husband and wife as one of the three cardinal principles, attaches great importance to the morality of husband and wife, and puts forward the behavioral model of "the husband is righteous and the wife is obedient". Ban Zhao's "Female Commandments" gave a general explanation of Confucian marital ethics: "The way of husband and wife is to coordinate yin and yang, understand the gods, believe (sincerity) in the righteousness of heaven and earth, and the great integrity of human relations." According to "Li" When a man and a woman are valued, the meaning of "Guan Ju" is stated in the poem. From this point of view, it must be valued. If the husband is not virtuous, he cannot serve his wife, and if the woman is not virtuous, she cannot serve her husband. The virtue of heaven and earth directly affects family morality, social stability and simplicity of ethics.

In Confucian discussions, there are many classic statements that discuss the harmonious relationship between husband and wife. Here are some excerpts and some annotations for the reference of modern families.

If the body (1) does not follow the Tao (2), it cannot do (3) to the wife; if the (4) person does not follow the Tao, he cannot do the (5) to the wife. ——"Mencius? Do your best"

Notes: (1) Body: oneself. (2) OK: Follow. (3) No way: the instructions are not put into practice. (4) Envoy: Envoy. (5) Impossible: The order cannot be obeyed.

Annotation: An ancient saying goes: "Rectify others first." As a husband, if he does not follow the Tao, then his wife will go against the Tao; if he drives his wife arbitrarily and unethically, the wife will not obey, even if It is forced, but it is also done unwillingly and unwillingly. This means that "one's actions cannot be correct and one's words cannot be done". In modern society, there are some couples where the husband behaves inappropriately and behaves arbitrarily towards the wife, which will inevitably destroy the relationship between the couple and affect the harmony of the family.

The husband and wife are gentle. ——Jia Yi: "New Book? Etiquette"

Note: Between husband and wife, what matters is the husband's docility and the wife's gentleness. This is the basis for creating a loving relationship between husband and wife. If a couple has bad tempers, it is not conducive to harmony.

When husbands are married, righteousness is used to make them happy, and kindness is used to make them happy... When the kindness and righteousness are gone, the couple separates. ——"Book of the Later Han Dynasty? Women's Commandments"

Note: Only by observing morality can a husband and wife live in harmony, and only by loving each other can they be together for a hundred years. Otherwise, the name of the couple will no longer exist, and divorce will not be far away

If the husband is unjust, the wife will be disobedient. ——Yan Zhitui: "Yan Family Instructions: Managing the Family"

Annotation: If a husband is unrighteous, his wife will be ruthless, and if she is ruthless, she will be disobedient. There should be affection and righteousness between husband and wife, so that the marriage can last long.

Cultivate yourself with purity, serve your elders with respect, serve your husband with gentleness (10), care for your subordinates with generosity (2), and do not let the gentleman see it easily. This is etiquette, and it is naturally more important than the husband. - "History of the Liao Dynasty? Biographies of Women"

Notes: (1) Rou: docile. (2) Care for the children with kindness: Raise the offspring with kindness.

Note: Be a wife. How can you be respected by your husband? To be clean and respectful to your elders, to be gentle to your husband, and to be considerate to your descendants is the way of etiquette and righteousness. Otherwise, it is frivolous and is despised by a gentleman. The monarch and his ministers are all united by righteousness. The rituals of husbands are based on emotion (1), and so are fathers and sons. … Love is the root of people’s deep hearts and wisdom (2). A fool forgets his wife. ——"Quan Tangwen" Volume 131 Wang Ji: "Reply to Du Shijun's Letter"

Notes: (1) Author: rise, make (2). So***: Everything.

Note: Husband and wife are united because of love and righteousness. Love comes from the heart and is shared by all people. With friendship, even a fool will never forget his wife.

The kindness between husband and wife is still great...We usually treat each other with sincerity and sincerity. —Li Zhi: "Book Burning" Volume 2 "Answers to the Book? With Zhuang Chunfu"

Notes: (1) Eyebrows aligned: A metaphor for husband and wife to respect and love each other.

Notes: When raising a case, eyebrows are aligned, and they respect each other as if they were guests. This is a manifestation of the love between husband and wife.

A woman trusts her husband for life (1), sharing joys and sorrows, safety and happiness. ——Zhang Luxiang: "Mr. Yang Yuan's Collection" Volume 48 "News". "Confucius"

Note: Life-long trust: Life-long trust

Note: The wife is the husband's lifelong support, so the husband should share the joys and sorrows with his wife. **Stay safe. Otherwise, we can only "fly away when the disaster comes"

I don't believe that you can forgive others if you don't forgive your wife.

——Tang Zhen: "Qian Shu? Couple"

Note: A husband should have a heart of forgiveness. He cannot forgive his wife, but he can forgive others. This is not believed by others.

If a husband and wife turn against each other (1), they cannot get married. ——"The Book of Changes? Small Animals"

Notes: (1) Enmity: discord.

Annotation: Husband and wife turn against each other and quarrel all day long. How can there be harmony?

The couple will be harmonious and then the family will be harmonious. ——Cheng Yunsheng: "Children's Qionglin Couple"

Annotation: Only when the husband and wife are harmonious can the family be harmonious. As the ancient saying goes, "Everything prospers when a family is harmonious." Family harmony is first of all a husband and wife.

The way of husband and wife is to be harmonious and not selfish (1). If you are harmonious, you will obey your parents, if you are private, you will harm your brothers (2); if you are harmonious, you will not lose your love, but if you are private, you will not protect your end. To be good at home (3) is the great precept of a gentleman; to abstain from selfishness, not to abstain from harmony. ——Tang Zhen: "Qian Shu? Living Room"

Notes: (1) Private: preference. (2) Harming brothers: harming the relationship between brothers. (3) Wife-loving: Preference for wife. Nei: refers to the wife.

Note: Husband and wife form a small family, and small families always live in big families. Therefore, the way to achieve family harmony is based on harmony, without favoritism. Only by being filial to your parents can you avoid losing family ties; showing favoritism will hurt the family ties between brothers. If not, it will also affect the relationship between husband and wife and make the relationship between husband and wife not last long. Therefore, a husband cannot blindly favor his wife. The purpose of giving up favoritism is to live in harmony.

If the couple is righteous, then everything will come from righteousness. ——Li Zhi: "Miscellaneous Notes? Theory on Couples", Volume 3 of "Burning Book"

Annotation: If the relationship between husband and wife is upright and unhindered, everything will naturally be right and not evil. This is the so-called saying of "rectifying one's conduct first".

In modern society, there are many conflicts and emotional breakdowns between couples, leading to a high divorce rate. Although there are many reasons, the most fundamental reason is that modern couples lack a sense of family responsibility. The ultimate result of a marriage without a sense of responsibility can only be divorce. Although Confucianism's discussion on marriage ethics is not golden, it is still helpful for modern couples to build a harmonious marriage.

Taoism does not have much discussion on marriage ethics, and mainly analyzes marriage into sex:

Taoist alchemy has a complex mystical system, which includes health-preserving techniques, outer elixirs, and inner elixirs. , Zhaijiao and miscellaneous arts, etc. Health-preserving techniques also include Qi refining, sun exposure, fasting, food intake, guidance, Qi circulation, Fangzhongshu, dietary maintenance, etc.

The method of refining qi is a mysterious practice method related to yoga.

The method of sun exposure is not what is called solar therapy today. It also has some mysterious mechanisms and mysterious procedures. A man holding a sun sign in his hand and exposing his body to the sun is a method of "absorbing the sun's rays" ". The woman held the black word "Moon" on the yellow paper and exposed her body to the moonlight. There are differences between men and women, following the Yin-Yang Five Elements theory of male-yang and female-yin.

Being bigu means not eating fireworks, grains and rice. "The Book of Mountains and Seas" says: "Liegu Sheshan is in the Haihe Island. There is a god on the mountain. He breathes wind and drinks dew. He does not eat grains. His heart is like a deep spring and his shape is like a virgin." This is about a fairy.

There are two stories about fasting in the "Baopuzi Duisu Chapter" written by Ge Hong, a Taoist priest in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. One of them quoted Chen Zhonggong's "Strange Stories" saying that Zhang Guangding, a county man, hid a four-year-old girl in an ancient tomb with a vertical hole when he was fleeing chaos. He only gave her a few months of dry food and water. When he came back three years later, he wanted to When he collected his daughter's bones, he didn't know that she was still alive. It turned out that she had imitated the animal in the tomb and lived by breathing air after she ran out of food. Zhang Guangding found that the breathing animal turned out to be a giant tortoise. The stories of fasting that Taoism preaches are all immortal stories that cannot be verified and are very strange. Some Taoist priests also eat grains, but they don't eat nothing, but eat some unusual things like pine nuts. Most of those "big grains" who don't eat anything do it for fame and fame, making a living by breathing air in the open and stealing grains secretly. who. Around 1989, Gu Baoguo, a retired worker from the Zhengzhou Radio Factory, claimed to be "Shanquan Gong" and taught people the "food-preserving exercise". He gave lectures at Beijing Broadcasting Equipment Factory and other places and "taught the practice with lectures," causing countless "eating-retaining" practitioners to starve to death. (Tu Jianhua: "Getting Out of the Scam", China Overseas Chinese Publishing House, 1999 edition, page 317)

Qigong master Yan Xin also promotes the power of fasting and believes that the reason why fasting does not make you hungry but is full of energy is because " It opens its own 'nutritional inventory' - which stores the body's protein, fat, trace elements, vitamins and other life materials.

"(Guo Qinghua: "Chinese Superhuman Art" Times Literature and Art Publishing House, 1994 edition, page 97) The Bigu Technique in modern Qigong inherits the Taoist "Bigu" health-preserving technique, and further exaggerates and mystifies the "Bigu Technique".

Daoyin is a kind of gentle gymnastics, which may have evolved from the dance performed by wizards when praying for rain. Joseph Needham believes that Daoyin was later called kung fu and internal strength. The ideological basis of Yin may be the concept of ancient Chinese medicine, which believes that the pores of the body are easily blocked, and blocked pores will cause blood stagnation and disease. In addition to Yin, there are also massage techniques such as Tai Chi and Hexiang Zhuang. Guiding gymnastics.

It is unimaginable in Confucianism and Buddhism that Fangzhongshu is discussed and operated as a doctrine, but Taoism has done it in the study of the most sensitive and secret sexual skills of human beings. It is quite meaningful. Mr. Feng Youlan said: "Taoism is the only mystical system in the world that is not very opposed to science." Of course, the contribution of Taoist alchemy to modern chemistry and medicine cannot be ignored. < /p>

The reason why Fangzhongshu can be studied by Taoism is not unrelated to the prevalence of "Yin and Yang Theory". The theory of Yin and Yang explains the world with two qi, and men and women are typical examples of Yin and Yang. Therefore, Taoists believe that. Sex is not an obstacle to immortality, but it is an important help. The practice of sexual intercourse between men and women in private is called "yin and yang health preservation". As the "Xuan Nu Jing" says, "One yin and one yang complement each other"

There were books on Fang Zhongshu in the Ming Dynasty, perhaps even earlier than 1903 when Ye Dehui collected "Su Nv Jing". "Xuannv Jing", "Jade House Secret Code", "Dong Xuanzi" and "Heaven and Earth Yin and Yang Great Music Ode" were compiled into "Shuangmeijingan Series". The poet Bai Juyi of the Tang Dynasty had a younger brother named Bai Xingjian. The Japanese "Yixin Fang" was written in 982 AD, but was not published until nearly a thousand years later in 1854. Both it and "Yufang Zhiyao" contain many ancient works. Fragmentary information on Fangzhong surgery.

Most of Fangzhong surgery is not outrageous, but the outrageous ones are far away, such as "replenishing yin and replenishing yang" and "returning essence and nourishing the brain", etc. In "White Deer Plain", there is a Guo Juren who married his second wife named Xiao'e. "She didn't want a baby just to sleep with her. She only wanted to make dates for him." Every night, three dried dates were stuffed into the place reserved for women, soaked overnight, and the next morning they were taken out, washed, and given to Guo Juren to eat on an empty stomach. " (Chen Zhongshi: "White Deer Plain", People's Literature Publishing House, 1993 edition, page 128) The original meaning of Taoism's "collecting yin and replenishing yang" is that men "have sex without leaking", and "several exchanges of women are not necessary for purging sperm". Because "The rapid climax of female sexual intercourse can enhance the vitality of men, so men's sexual intercourse should be prolonged as much as possible to achieve the purpose of gathering yin and replenishing yang. " (Joseph Needham: "History of Ancient Chinese Scientific Thought", Jiangxi People's Publishing House, 1999 edition, page 169) These methods have become methods of soaking dates in novels, and there are many similar versions of this idea among the people. , this is by no means an unfounded idea. However, can this method achieve the effect of "replenishing yang"? It is said in "White Deer Plain" that "Guo Juren has been rejuvenated in the past two years since he started eating her pickled dates."

The technique of "returning essence and replenishing the brain" is recorded in the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty". The book says that Leng Shouguang performed Rongcheng's technique to achieve immortality. The so-called "returning essence" means compressing the urethra between the scrotum and anus during ejaculation. , so that the semen can enter the urethra and be excreted together with the urine. Taoists do not know about this. They believe that the sperm can nourish the body. It is said that the Taoist method of returning semen is "the reverse flow of the Yellow River", which is practiced among the people. There are still many people who do this.

The most amazing thing about Taoist religious behavior is that it makes the ordinary marriage life and personal practice public and turns it into a ritual called "Zhong." "Qi Zhen Shu" is also called "He Qi" between men and women. This technique began during the period of Zhang Liang and Zhang Daoling in the second century AD. By 400 AD, under the leadership of Sun Simiao, it had become very common. The purpose is to "exonerate sins". After fasting, on new moon and full moon nights, there is first a dance called "dragon entangled tiger dance", and then there is a public religious union, or a congregation in the temple. Various techniques are used for continuous sexual intercourse in the private room. This kind of sexual intercourse ritual in which the congregation despises class, values ??humanities, and mixes up regardless of social status is astonishing to the ascetic Buddhists and the sanctimonious Confucians.

In the Qigong sect. Today, there are many things in the room, and there are still some residues in the room.

According to reports, the newspaper "International Qigong News" sponsored by the International Qigong Science Federation, an illegal organization that was banned in 1994, once published an advertisement for holding correspondence classes to teach Taoist "Xuanjue Alchemy" and "Yin and Yang Dual Cultivation".

In addition to health-preserving techniques, Taoist alchemy also includes external alchemy, inner alchemy, fasting, and miscellaneous techniques. Practicing Nei Dan is to practice the Qi in the body, using methods such as holding one's breath to firmly fix the Qi in the five internal organs and prevent it from leaking to the outside. The essence, Qi and Shen are mixed into one elixir, so that "you will never grow old and rest with the sky", which is also to practice the Qi in Dantian. . In modern qigong, the theories and methods of true qi, qi of the Dantian, qi of the meridians, qi of the internal organs, as well as relaxation methods, breathing methods, qi movement methods, tranquility methods, mind-abiding methods, etc., are all derived from the inner alchemy theory. External alchemy includes Huangbaizhu and Jindan. The golden elixirs refined using various techniques include Da Huan Dan (mercury oxide, oxygen lead), Xiao Huan Dan (mercury sulfide), light powder and powder frost (mercury chloride), etc. The elixir training reached its climax in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and there were Many emperors died after mistakenly taking the golden elixir. Of course, alchemy also discovered the production of solid aqua regia and the refinement of realgar, and invented gunpowder. There are about a hundred kinds of works on external alchemy in "Tao Zang". Zhaijiao and miscellaneous techniques include Zhaijiao, talisman blessings, forbidden incantations, step-fighting, riding, five escapes, Shougengshen, soul-binding and soul-making techniques, transformation techniques, etc.

The theory of yin and yang and the five elements is the ideological basis of Taoism. It runs through all aspects of Taoism's theory of cosmogenesis, genealogy of gods, and alchemy. In terms of alchemy, the "Eternal Alchemy King" and "Zhouyi Shen Tongqi" mention the Dharma symbols of Kan, Li, water, fire, dragon, tiger, lead and mercury, and use the yin and yang and the five elements as the talisman for advancement and retreat. Wait. Taoist alchemy, such as fortune telling, fortune-seeing, star destiny, Qimen Dunjia, Kanyu, etc., are inseparable from the Yin and Yang and the Five Elements. The Taoist pursuit of immortality is very attractive. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was an emperor who pursued immortality. There was a man named Li Shaojun who claimed to know the art of immortality. He fell in love with the emperor and came to Chang'an. This gentleman is fifty years old, but he claims to be seventy years old, which makes people feel like a fairy. Shaojun said, "Zhiwu and cinnabar can be turned into gold, and gold can be used as eating utensils to increase longevity" to promote his theory of alchemy. But before he could finish teaching the art of immortality, the young gentleman died, which made Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty very sorry. Emperor Wu actually didn't think of this: Since Shaojun has attained enlightenment and become an immortal, how can he just die after death?

The same joke was made in the Soviet Union. Bogomolets developed a theory about longevity. He claimed that people could live to be 150 years old. Stalin was very interested in the research results of this scientist, so he has always been very concerned about his research work. Any request of Bogomolets was unconditionally met, resulting in a good harvest both materially and spiritually. He was awarded various medals and honorary titles by Stalin: Academician of the Academy of Sciences, Stalin Prize winner, Hero of Socialist Labor. Bogomolets died in 1946 at the age of 65. Stalin was more enlightened than Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. He suddenly realized: "It seems that this guy has deceived everyone."