I think reading is like visiting a house - an "invisible" visit. If you want to see an admired teacher or pay a visit to a famous scholar, you don't have to say hello in advance and you don't have to worry about disturbing the host. You can break into the door as soon as you open the book, and enter the room after turning a few pages; and you can go often and at all times. If you can't get the point, you can leave without saying goodbye, or find another Gaoming and confront him. No matter whether the host we want to meet lives at home or abroad, whether he belongs to modern times or ancient times, what his major is, whether he speaks serious principles or chats and laughs, we can come close and listen to enough. We can respectfully listen to the disciples of Confucius recounting Master's last words, or we might as well ask Master Meng with a mischievous smile, who always said, "It's just benevolence and righteousness." If he had been born in the same era as ours, would he have been a Marxist-Leninist? Old gentleman? We can stay with Socrates before his execution and listen to him talking to a friend; we can also ponder doubts about the Stoic Epictetus's "Good Words". We can listen to the anecdotes of past dynasties, and we can also experience the most mysterious innovative theories or pretentious theories that are deliberately shocking. Anyway, if the words don't make sense or don't hit the ears, you might as well withdraw and leave, or even slam the door - that is, close the book with a snap - and no one will be offended. This is a rare freedom in the world outside books!

In a pot hung by the Master of the Pot, there is heaven, earth, sun and moon. Every book—no matter novels, plays, biographies, travel notes, diaries, or even prose poems—has its own world, its own sun, moon and stars, as well as the characters who live in it. We don't have to rush to a certain place and spend money to buy tickets to see some fakes or "lifelike" stand-ins. We only need to open a page of a book, enter the real world, meet the real person, and watch it intimately. What is said: "If you want to see a thousand miles away, reach a higher level"! We can even see the side of the earth beneath our feet, and we can reach it in an instant. Although the ancients described books as "vassing the ocean", the world of books is truly "as close as the world is to the end". This is by no means an idealistic comparison. No matter how big the world is, there is no barrier. The Buddha said that "three thousand worlds" are extremely large. As for the realm of books, the "present realm" also includes the "past realm" and the "future realm". It is really all-encompassing and connects the three realms. But we can experience whatever we want without leaving home, and seek advice from teachers at any time. Who says that scholars are short-sighted, unreasonable, and unconcerned with worldly affairs? Here you can get rich experiences and meet a variety of people from all over the world.

If you often "visit" in books, you can at least get rid of a bit of ignorance and become more thoughtful, right? When we see Mr. Ren who is sanctimonious and full of lofty words, we don’t need to be discouraged or timid, because even though they don’t open the door to their own homes and let no one break in, we have always been to the homes of their relatives and friends, and we will know the true faces behind their pretentiousness. . Once I drove across the magnificent bridge over the Seine River in Paris, and I saw a group of poor people living under the bridge who made a living by picking up garbage and covering it with newspapers to keep warm. It’s not that I can bend my eyes, it’s just because I once visited that area. It is a pity that the "body" that is "hidden" but still exists when we "visit" is, after all, just a mortal body. We do not have the wisdom of the Tathagata Buddha to see at a glance the wisdom accumulated over thousands of years in the human world. We have to always remember Zhuangzi's famous saying, "Life has its limits, but knowledge has no limits." We are just insects that live and die, burrowing into the world of books, crawling here and stopping there. Sometimes we meet the person we like, hear pleasant words, or occasionally gain insights into the issues hanging in our hearts, just like reading Understanding the aperture of the mind, enjoying forgetting words.

"Happiness" and "the pursuit of enjoyment" shouldn't be the same thing, right?