What is the life of Great Sage Zhuangzi?

Zhuangzi, named Zhou, was born in the Song Dynasty in 369 BC (now Shunhe Temple in Shangqiu, Henan). He was a Taoist master in the middle of the Warring States Period.

Zhuangzi lives in slums and poverty. He even made a living by playing straw sandals. During his time as a painter, his income was very meager, just enough to make ends meet. One spring drought, there was no food for cooking, so I had to borrow rice from Jianhe Hou, a water conservancy official of the Yellow River in the Song Dynasty. He is very stingy. He said, "Well, at the end of the year, people in China will pay taxes for me, and I will definitely lend you 300 gold." Zhuangzi was declined, and his friends were angry and scolded. He could only tell a joke to satirize each other and himself. He said: "On my way here, I saw a crucian carp lying in the wheel grinding groove on the side of the road. It said, "Please give me a liter of water so that I can live." I bypassed it and said,' I'm going to swim in the south of the Yangtze River, and then I'm going to Shu to release water into the Yangtze River and let the Yellow River flood, so that you can be saved. The crucian carp said,' Then you might as well come to me at the dried fish shop early.' "From this, we can see the poverty and embarrassment of Zhuangzi's life. When he saw the king of Wei, he was only dressed in linen with a patch on his lapel.

Zhuangzi was knowledgeable, and he studied all the schools of thought at that time. In particular, he deeply discussed the origin of the universe and the problems of everything. He believes that everything in the world originates from Tao, which can be biochemical, constantly changing and has its own laws of movement. "Tao" is an invisible and intangible thing, which can be generated automatically and will never die. He believes that "Tao" is not only invisible, but also "inaction". He also believes that heaven is natural, and advocates that people should conform to nature, otherwise it will violate the nature of all things.

When Zhuangzi's wife died, Hui Shi went to offer her condolences. He saw Zhuangzi sitting on the ground, singing while knocking on the pottery bowl, and said, "Your wife has lived with you all her life and worked hard to give birth to your children. Now that she is dead, you can stop crying and sing. I'm afraid this is too much. " Zhuangzi said, "No, she just died. How can I not be sad?" But then I thought that there was no life in the world at first, not even a body. Only through change can life be born. When people die, it's as safe as sleeping between heaven and earth. I still want to cry for her. This is a natural change that I don't understand my destiny! "

Zhuangzi who sees through the world of mortals is unwilling to be an official. It is said that when Chu Weiwang heard that Zhuangzi was knowledgeable, he sent messengers with generous gifts to invite him to be an official. Zhuangzi said to the messenger, "You'd better go away quickly. I would rather be happy in the mud pond like a turtle than be bound by the Lord of a country. " These stories all reflect Zhuangzi's world outlook, that is, life and death are regarded as natural laws, and life is not enough to be happy and death is not enough to be sad; Despise the powerful and pursue the ideal realm of harmony between man and nature. In the era when Zhuangzi lived, the warring states fought endlessly for mutual annexation, and the scale and intensity of the war exceeded the previous era, so Zhuangzi's thoughts of detachment and world-weariness became more extreme. He even thinks that the age when man and beast are mixed is the most virtuous age.

Wandering freely and On Everything are Zhuangzi's philosophical and literary masterpieces, and they are precious ancient documents.

Zhuangzi described his thoughts with wonderful fables and vivid language. There is a fable in "Happy Travel" that there is a big fish named Kun in the North Sea, which is thousands of miles long. When it becomes a bird, it is called Peng, and Peng's back is thousands of miles long. Peng Teng flies with wings hanging down from the sky like clouds. Peng Cheng flew with the sea water oscillating, stirring up waves of 3,000 miles, setting off a whirlwind, spiraling up and flying high into Wan Li. When the birds heard about it, they all laughed at Dapeng and said, "Why did it fly so far?" I flew only a few feet, and then I fell and soared in wormwood. This is the pinnacle of flight. Where should I fly? "Little sparrow laugh Dapeng don't understand. Zhuangzi believes that whether the big Pengfei flies to Wan Li or the hemp capers to Artemisia, there is only a difference in size, which is actually limited by time and space. Only those who want to leave time and space can enter the realm of absolute freedom-carefree travel.

Zhuangzi believes that everything in the world and people are one, all originated from Tao, and their essence is the same.

In 286 BC, Zhuangzi died at the age of 83. Zhuangzi thinks that although things are ever-changing, they give people different feelings. If we can realize that everything is essentially Tao, everything will be the same. This is his homogeneity theory.

Throughout Zhuangzi's theory, his world outlook and outlook on life belong to the category of idealism, but in epistemology, Zhuangzi's thought shines with dialectical brilliance. Many chapters in Zhuangzi reflect his understanding of the constant movement of things, the relativity of things and the mutual transformation of opposing things.

A story about Hebo and Hai Ruo illustrates this point: Hebo, the god of the Yellow River, thinks he is in charge of the most spectacular waters in the world because of its vast surface. However, when he came to Beihai and saw the vast Wang Yang, he couldn't help feeling ashamed, so he told Hai Ruo, the god of Beihai, about his understanding and transformation. Hai Ruo said approvingly, "People's arrogance is limited by environment and vision. Beihai is the largest water area in the world, but I have never been proud of it, because Beihai is like a small stone on Mount Tai between heaven and earth. Man is just one kind of everything in the world, and the size of everything is relative, both infinite and infinitesimal. "

At that time, Zhuangzi had come into contact with the macro-world and micro-world problems. He expounded Taoist philosophy with interesting fables, which had profound implications and amazing imagination. For example, he told such a fable: Ren Gongzi caught a big fish, used huge fishing gear and the meat of 50 cows as bait, sat at the top of Huiji Mountain and fished in the East China Sea. After fishing for a year, after catching a big fish, Ren Gongzi gave the fish to people from eastern Zhejiang to Benshan, Hunan to eat meat. Finally, people ate enough fish. This fable has a strange conception, which enlightens people that only those who have lofty ideals, know how to be good at their duties, but are not in a hurry to achieve success can achieve great things.

Zhuangzi was brilliant in Wang Yang, and he used words like Zhu Quan, which gushed everywhere. Many words he created enriched the language treasure house of the motherland, such as "Pengcheng Wan Li" and "Swallow knows the swan's ambition", and so on, which are still often quoted by people today.