Disciple Rules: Be as wide as possible, work hard, and when the time is up, the stagnation will be cleared.

Original text

The width is the limit, work hard, when the time is up, the stagnation will be cleared.

Translation

When you encounter a difficult place, you should study more attentively. As long as you have the time, you will naturally understand it. This is what is meant by reading a book a thousand times. Self-appearance.

Story

Zhang Xuecheng was the first to fly

Zhang Xuecheng was a historian and thinker in the Qing Dynasty. He had poor memory since he was a child and was often criticized by his teacher. The classmates all laughed at him, but he said: "It doesn't matter if you have a poor memory, I want the stupid bird to fly first." Others read an article several times to become familiar with it, but he had to read it dozens or even hundreds of times. Whenever he couldn't understand something, he would copy it down and ask the teacher, or look it up in a reference book. When he read the words in "The Doctrine of the Mean": "If a person can do it with one thing, he can do it with a hundred; if a person can do it with ten things, he can do it with a thousand. If you can do this, you will be wise even though you are stupid, and you will be strong even though you are soft." This means that when When others are much smarter than us, they may learn it in one go, but if we train repeatedly with a hundred times of effort, we can achieve it ourselves, and we can be like others; if others use ten times of effort, they can achieve it. Once you learn it, you can achieve it. If we are a little bit behind, it doesn't matter, so don't be afraid of difficulties. If we try it a thousand times, maybe we can complete it. Zhang Xuecheng suddenly had an enlightenment. He said: "I finally understand why my knowledge is not good? It's because I didn't use my skills." Hard work paid off, Zhang Xuecheng's knowledge made great progress, and finally became a generation of academic masters. His works such as "Wen Shi Tong Yi" have been passed down to later generations and have an influence to this day.

Wang Mian diligently studied and made meritorious deeds

During the Yuan Dynasty, there was a poet and painter named Wang Mian in Zhuji County, Zhejiang Province. Wang Mian's family was very poor when he was a child. When he was seven or eight years old, his father asked him to herd cattle on the field. He secretly ran into the school to listen to the students reading. After listening to it, I always remember it silently. When he returned home in the evening, he had forgotten all the cattle he had been grazing. Wang Mian's father was furious and beat Wang Mian. But after that, he was still like this. When the mother saw it, she felt very distressed and said to his father: "This child is so obsessed with reading, why not let him alone?" The father thought for a while and agreed. But the conditions at home were too poor to study, so Wang Mian left home and stayed in a temple. As soon as night came, he would secretly come out and sit on the lap of the Buddha statue. He held a book in his hand and read under the light of the lantern in front of the Buddha statue. The sound of the book was loud until dawn. Most of the Buddha statues are made of clay, and each of them looks ferocious and scary. But Wang Mian, who was young, looked calm, as if he hadn't seen anything.

In this way, over time, Wang Mian finally became a learned man.