A person who knows is not knowledgeable, and a person who is knowledgeable does not know. (From Chapter 81 of the "Tao Te Ching")
There are several versions of the explanation of this sentence on the Internet
1. A wise man specializes in a few areas, and his knowledge is not extensive; while a wise man specializes in a few areas, and his knowledge is not extensive; It is impossible for a person in many fields to reach the level of a wise man.
2. People who like to show off their intelligence do not have extensive knowledge, and people who are knowledgeable do not deliberately show off themselves.
My own explanation is: A true wise man is only proficient in a certain aspect, his knowledge is not necessarily extensive, and he will not show off himself everywhere. And people who show off their extensive knowledge everywhere will not be particularly proficient in any aspect.
Analysis Most people will show off their talents everywhere, hoping that others will understand their talents and admire their knowledge. Moreover, he is also arrogant and does not care about others. Only when you have suffered a loss and learned a lesson can you repent. A truly wise person can be as wise as a fool, and can contain light within without showing it.
Philosophical Extensions
Su Shi is a genius in ancient Chinese literature. He knows everything about poetry, calligraphy and painting, and has achieved good results in all aspects. His free and easy and open-minded man has become a A model for the world, respected and admired by later generations of literati. However, when he was young, he also liked to show off his talents and was teased by others for this.
Su Shi and Monk Foyin were good friends. They often joked and teased each other. Once when they were playing together, Su Shi smiled and asked Foyin what he looked like. Foyin replied: "I think you look like Buddha." Su Shi laughed loudly. Foyin asked him why he was laughing. Su Shi replied: "You think I look like Buddha." Buddha, I think you look like shit!" He laughed so hard that he couldn't stand up straight. After a while, when he stopped laughing, Foyin said: "Looks come from the heart, and you can see whatever is in your heart." Only then did Su Shi realize that he wanted to tease others, but was teased by others.
Another time, Su Shi was studying Buddhism and felt that he had reached a certain level, so he wrote a poem: "Jishou is in the middle of the sky, shining brightly on the universe. The eight winds cannot move, sitting upright on a purple golden lotus." "The eight winds" refer to the eight situations that people often encounter in their lives: praise, ridicule, slander, praise, benefit, decline, suffering, and happiness. He felt that his understanding was very profound, so he immediately asked the boy to cross the river and show it to Zen Master Foyin. After Foyin read it, he knew that Su Shi was showing off his literary talent to him, so he wanted to tease him, so he immediately wrote a four-character inscription and asked the boy to give it to Su Shi. Su Shi opened it and saw the words "Fart! Fart!". He was so angry that he immediately got up and went to argue with Foyin.
When Su Shi met, he shouted: "Zen Master! It doesn't matter if you don't like my poems, and they can't be insulting!" Foyin said calmly: "When did I insult you?" Su Shi took it. He came out of the paper and said: "Today you must give me an explanation!" The Zen master suddenly burst into laughter: "Eight winds can't blow it, and a fart crosses the river." After hearing this, Su Shi was very ashamed and knew that his cultivation was not enough. .
When Su Shi was an official in the imperial court, he once visited Wang Anshi. Wang Anshi happened to be away, so Su Shi was waiting in the study. He saw an unfinished poem with only two sentences on the table. ——"The bright moon barks on the branches, and the yellow dog lies in the heart of the flower." Su Shi looked at it again and again, and felt that Wang Anshi was really scribbling. How could the bright moon bark on the branch? How could the yellow dog lie in the heart of the flower? So he started writing. After Wang Anshi came back, he was very dissatisfied with Su Shi's changes to his poems, so he demoted him to Hepu. Su Shi knew that he had no other faults and felt that Wang Anshi was really petty. One day, he went out for a walk and saw a group of children gathered in front of a bunch of flowers and yelled "Yellow Dog Luo Luo". Out of curiosity, Su Shi walked over and asked the child what he was shouting. The child said: "Let's ask the bug to come out quickly so we can catch it." Su Dongpo walked closer to the flower and saw several small bugs as big as sesame squirming in the flower's stamens. Ask the child what kind of insect this is? The child said: "Yellow dog insect." Su Shi left the flowers and heard a crisp bird call on the tree not far away, and asked someone else: "What kind of bird call is this?" The other person replied: " This is called the Moon Bird." At this moment, Su Dongpo suddenly realized that he was self-righteous and had corrected Wang Anshi's poem wrongly, so Wang Anshi taught himself a lesson.
After these teasings and lessons, Su Shi began to become introverted, no longer deliberately showing off in front of others, and wrote a poem to his son: "Everyone raises his son hoping to be smart, but I have been fooled by my wisdom throughout my life. I only hope that my son will be foolish and rude, and that he will be free from illness and calamity." This expresses his idea of ??being ignorant and not arrogant.