Among China's classical novels, The Journey to the West's content is the most complicated. It combines the thoughts and contents of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, which not only allows the immortals of Buddhism and Taoism to perform at the same time, but also injects the human feelings of the real society into the world of gods and buddhas, and sometimes inserts a few words of Confucian wisdom like a schoolbag, which is harmonious and interesting. The appearance of The Journey to the West opened up a new category of ghost novels.
The ingenious combination of well-meaning satire, bitter satire and serious criticism in the book directly affects the development of satirical novels. The Journey to the West is the pinnacle of ancient romantic novels and plays an irreplaceable role in the history of China literature. First of all, from the first cycle to the seventh cycle, the author wrote the "centering ape" of Wuxing Mountain from the noise of "cultivating the mind and giving birth to the Tao", that is, he wrote the "heart" of all beings clinging to their own nature. What is the Temple of Heaven in Journey to the West? It is the pictographic spiritual world that all beings dream of. What is a "heart"? It is the spiritual noumenon of all sentient beings, and all actions of all sentient beings are moved by it, commonly known as moving only when the heart moves. Therefore, the heart is an intrinsic thing relative to the physical body of all beings. There is a poem in The Journey to the West that says, "I don't know the inner view, so there is no phase (for the first time)", which means that all beings have no corresponding inner world or spiritual phenomenon. The book skillfully "borrowed" the behavior of a monkey, and vividly described this inner world or spiritual phenomenon without external image. There is also a poem in The Journey to the West, which says: "Seven chapters are written in a big sky, just like" Zhuangzi ". Formed the "inner chapter" of Journey to the West with human inner world or spiritual phenomenon as the main body, which is a very complete thinking system with "human will". For the first time, I wrote a mountain named "Huaguo Mountain". The word "flower" in this mountain name actually implies "name" and "Lao Zi". The first chapter says: "Tao can be Tao; Extraordinary. Name, name; Very famous. " Among them, "name" refers to the product of people's inner world or spiritual field. Because "name" is constantly developing and changing, ancient thinkers in China have always regarded "name" as one of the most basic propositions of China's philosophy.
Secondly, from the eighth cycle to the fourteenth cycle, the author searched for Buddhist scriptures from Guanyin on Chang 'an, and wrote that "the heart is reformed, and the six thieves have no trace" is the "body" of all beings. What is the Tang Priest in Journey to the West? It is to write the "body" of all beings who are "good in nature" but "narcissistic" by means of "borrowing". What are the six thieves? That is, "borrowing" refers to the "six desires (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind)" of all sentient beings, and all their actions are caused by the "six desires". Therefore, Tang Priest refers to the external things relative to the mind of all beings. There is a poem in The Journey to the West that says: "Externally tangible (for the first time)", that is, the "flesh" of all beings is located. Guanyin wrote seven chapters to find Buddhist scriptures, just like Zhuangzi. Like Waipian, The Journey to the West's Waipian is written with Tang Priest who is "good in nature" but "narcissistic" as the "subject". The ninth edition (some of which are appendices) fictionalizes a story of Tang Priest's father, named "Chen Calyx", which is obviously inconsistent with reality. However, the word "calyx" in this name implies the concept of "reality" in China's ancient philosophy, that is, the "flesh" in the material form outside the inner world of human beings. This "physical body" does not refer to a specific person with a real name, but refers to the body of all beings who "fake their names and surnames for the first time with Dan Cheng". The "calyx" in this name corresponds to the "flower" in the first seven mountain names, that is, "calyx", which is a basic philosophical category often used by ancient Chinese thinkers when discussing philosophical issues.
In the third chapter, from chapter 15 to chapter 98, the author uses twelve groups of fables with the structure of "seven" to describe the struggle between god and demon. How is God? Is it evil? Don't talk about rewards and punishments This is like the style of Zhuangzi, "use absurd words, absurd words, groundless cliff words, sometimes arrogant, sometimes not distorted." With the magic pen and play pen of ghost story, it describes the story that the ghost becomes trance, "mixed words (Lu Xun)", which is a form of entertainment, in fact, "secretly transmitting the truth in the game (Li Zhi)". Therefore, The Journey to the West, like Zhuangzi, can achieve the social effect of "taking words as rambling words, taking words as reasoning, and taking fables as wide", and can "understand the spirit of heaven and earth alone, take charge of everything, keep right and wrong, and be secular". Therefore, it is inferred that these twelve fables are imitations of Zhuangzi. Miscellaneous articles. Chapter 15 also wrote a place name "Lishe Temple", which was interpreted as "Lishe is a village; The community is a community of land gods. " This implies that some "earth gods" are accumulating somewhere. These "earth gods" probably refer to a group of "inexperienced" scholars. What are these scholars doing here? Of course, discuss their interests. At this point, there is a "name", a "reality" and a "society" to discuss the problem, which has actually completely deduced the "theory of name and reality" that The Journey to the West wants to talk about. "Theory of Name and Reality" is a proposition of ancient thinkers in China about the most basic category of philosophy.
At this point, it can be asserted that The Journey to the West took ghost stories as the form of expression, borrowed the thinking mode of the ancient school of Laozi and Zhuangzi, and formed a complete and systematic thinking system. Its real content is to discuss the dialectical relationship between "name and reality" through a complete and systematic thinking system, and critically inherit China's thought of "three religions and nine streams" in ancient times, so that future generations can continue to "learn bodhicitta" in the "game" of appreciating ghost stories (first.
Here is a question that must be explained: Laozi, Confucius, Zhuangzi, Mencius, etc. They are only ancient thinkers, and their thoughts are both "flowers" and "calyx", but they are more systematic thinking methods left to us than fixing their thoughts on why they are cult leaders. Worship them as leaders is just a prank made by ignorant descendants. The author of The Journey to the West has expounded this point of view many times in the stories of ghosts and gods by teasing. Knowing these problems clearly, we won't spend time and energy in The Journey to the West to study things repeatedly studied by ancient thinkers in China, such as "Confucius Ethics", "Then Avenue" and "Buddhism". But to explore China's subjective philosophy in Calyx and Mingshi.