Zhuangzi's Fable Literature and Free and unfettered freedom!

Zhuangzi is an alternative among the pre-Qin philosophers, and the book Zhuangzi is also an alternative among the pre-Qin works. The history of Zhuangzi's life is concise and magical. Even Sima Qian, who is famous for his preciseness, only said a few words in Historical Records: Lao Zi Han Fei Biography, and introduced that Zhuangzi was a Mongolian native of the Song Dynasty, named Zhuang Zhou, and worked as a lackey in the lacquer garden in his hometown.

However, Zhuangzi's literary achievements are well-known and far-reaching, and its literary achievements are praised by later generations as the peak of pre-Qin prose, that is, it is placed in the whole long river of history, even with Tang poetry, Song lyrics, Yuanqu, Ming and Qing novels and other literary talents. Compared with it, Zhuangzi is also a first-class article.

The literary style of Zhuangzi is always based on fables, unlike Lao Zi, which often uses aphorisms and analogies to explain the truth. Nor is it like the Analects of Confucius, which is a compilation of quotations and full of life; It is not as well-founded and speculative as Han Feizi. "Zhuangzi" likes to arrange strange characters and fable stories, which are true and false, magnificent and incomparable, and realize its profound truth in the extremely beautiful literary experience.

in the core content of Zhuangzi, fables account for nine tenths, tautologies account for seven tenths, and endless riddles emerge. The so-called fable is to speak under the guise of outsiders or even foreign objects; Writing in this way, readers have a more sense of substitution, cordial and easy-going; The so-called rhetoric refers to the speeches of respected elders, which are authoritative enough to convince others; The so-called nonsense is the speech without subjective prejudice, which is natural and arbitrary.

Zhuangzi's fables are the bulk of the pre-Qin period, which have a great influence on later generations. The most obvious ones are jokes and novels. Whether it is the modern literature "Laughing in the Woods" or classical novels such as A Dream of Red Mansions, their origins are all pre-Qin fables, and they are inseparable from the open source paradigm of Zhuangzi, the highest achievement of pre-Qin fables.

Another great achievement of Zhuangzi is philosophical thought. As we all know, Zhuangzi's theory originated from Laozi, and he is a representative of Taoist school. Together with Laozi, he is called "Laozi and Zhuangzi", which is a great theory that rivals Confucianism in the history of philosophy in China. The other two Confucianism and Buddhists in the history of cultural thought in China have a deep impression of Taoist thought.

The core of Zhuangzi's philosophy is freedom, and he advocates putting life into infinite time and space to experience the philosophy of nature. Zhuangzi was poor all his life, hiding in the avenue, and turned off Chu Weiwang's heavy money. He said that he would rather play in the sewage than be ruled by the monarch, and he didn't want to be an official all his life. Only in this way did he feel happy.

Zhuangzi's freedom at large became the source of metaphysics in Wei and Jin Dynasties. Laozi, the founder of Taoism, is like an understanding elder, with just over 5, words. In Tao Te Ching, he expounded the origin of Taoism, the virtue of doing nothing, and the beauty of softening water. Zhuangzi, like an enlightened scholar, bluntly pointed out the realm reached by the wise, pointing out that people should not be artificial, but should learn from nature.

This enabled people of insight who had experienced frequent wars of the Three Kingdoms and witnessed the cruel battles of the vassals to find their spiritual homes. Therefore, metaphysics prevailed in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and the wind of idle talk flourished. Zhuangzi was valued by the world, became the mainstream of Taoist thought, and even had a great impact on Buddhism introduced to China.

During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Buddhism, a gradually emerging foreign culture, had a wonderful response with Taoism, Laozi and Zhuangzi after entering the mainland of China. Kumarajiva, a famous Buddhist sutra translator and Tianzhu monk, especially praised Zhuangzi's carefree spirit. His ten philosophers and four sages were scholars who studied Laozi and Zhuangzi. The most famous of them was Seng Zhao and Seng Zhao, who took Laozi and Zhuangzi's thoughts as their heart, and developed the middle-level Prajna theory. The Prajna here is the highest and deepest wisdom system in Buddhism.

Zen and Taoism are interlinked, so it is particularly easy for Zen masters to understand the Zhuangzi. Only when the Zen masters pursue the wisdom of Prajna and Zhuangzi's body, mind and external things are empty can they get real freedom. The "Tao" among them is interlinked, so that later Buddhism and Taoism merged, forming Buddhist factions in China, such as Tiantai Sect, Huayan Sect and Zen Sect.

In particular, the classic question-and-answer of Zen Buddhism is sharp and concise, which is exactly the same as the talk style popular in Jiangnan during the Eastern Jin Dynasty. It adds beautiful colors to the Buddhist culture that was originally just meditation, and it stirs up among the scholars who moved south to avoid chaos in Jiangnan, adding a lot of fun to the Zen masters who practiced in China and Taoist laymen who were ashamed to talk about state affairs.