Confucius said, "Eating coarse grains, drinking white water, and bending your arms as pillows can also make you happy! The lack of wealth and righteousness is like a cloud in the sky to me. "
This is Confucius' self-evaluation, which is about his own state.
"eating food sparingly" means eating some coarse grains, which can also be understood as rough and crude food. At that time, hot water became soup, and "water" meant cold water. Drinking water means drinking cold water on weekdays. "Bend your arm and pillow it" means that you don't have a pillow, but rest it on your arm. In Confucius' view, these have their own taste, "happiness is also in them."
"Being unjust and rich and expensive is like a cloud to me". According to Confucius, if you do something unjust, such as planning with people like Yang Hu and Ji Shi, you will become rich and expensive even if you can get land, property, power and status, just like a cloud in the sky.
When Song Ru took an examination of students, he asked "What is the happiness of Confucius and Yan", and Yan Hui's happiness was "a cup of food, a cup of drink, in a mean alley, people can't bear their worries, but they won't change their happiness when they go back"; Confucius' joy is "eating sparingly and drinking water, bending his arms and resting on his pillow".
what is the source of happiness in life? For example, a person needs to breathe, and breathing itself is the greatest miracle of life. Don't you think life is wonderful? Breathe out in one breath and you can breathe it back. If you just breathe out and don't breathe in, it won't be wonderful. When a person can experience the joy of breathing and the joy of the origin of life, the feeling of "full of dharma and joy (the joy of practicing epiphany)" comes.
Confucius has a strong ability to perceive happiness, and he can get happiness anytime and anywhere. Happiness is not a state, but an ability. If a person thinks that happiness is the rule, that happiness is rich, and that happiness is a good car, then happiness is a state. In fact, some people have a thousand horses, but their hearts are still wandering and their souls are helpless. Because happiness has little to do with how many things you have, but needs the ability to perceive happiness. If you have the ability to perceive happiness, you can be very happy by eating and drinking sparingly and bending your arms and pillows; If you don't have the ability to perceive happiness, you will be restless even if you have a lot.
sentiment: happiness is not a state, but an ability. Happiness has nothing to do with how much you have, but the ability to perceive happiness.
Fifty years to learn Yi
Confucius said, "Add me a few years, and fifty years to learn Yi can be no big deal."
Confucius said, "If God can let me live a few more years and learn Zhouyi at the age of 5, then I can make no big mistakes in my life."
Four Books: The Analects of Confucius, Mencius, University, The Doctrine of the Mean
Five Classics: Poems, Books, Rites, Book of Changes, Spring and Autumn Annals
The Book of Changes: Lianshan, Guizang, Zhouyi
Lianshan and Guizang.
"add me a few years", and "add" is a generic word, while "fake" means borrowing. Confucius said: If life can lend me a few more years, I will start learning Zhouyi at the age of fifty, and I won't make any big mistakes in my life. This shows that Confucius thinks highly of Zhouyi, which is obviously a great praise for Zhouyi.
This sentence should be a retrospective emotion that Confucius said after he was fifty years old. Confucius learned Zhouyi when he was sixty or seventy years old, and suddenly found that Zhouyi was full of the true meaning of life. The Book of Changes is not about fortune-telling, but about attitude towards life, which includes "Never use a hidden dragon", "See the dragon in the field", "Work all day long", "Leap in the deep", "Fly in the sky" and "Be brave and regret".
In Zhouyi, why is it so important to be dry and dry? That is, people should keep a modest attitude at any time and place. This is a great image. Another example is "no great success", which tells us that if life is desperate for a while, as long as we keep fighting, good things will happen.
The most important knowledge provided by Zhouyi to Confucius, including all our later readers, is definitely not divination. No country can manage well by divination, and no enterprise can manage well by fortune telling. The cultural accumulation brought by Zhouyi lies not in fortune telling and prediction, but in letting us understand the laws of the world and let us know that people should learn to control the rhythm of their own lives, not to do things to extremes, but to learn the golden mean.
after reading Zhouyi in his later years, Confucius found that the golden mean offered to him was a very good support and proof, so he felt that "if God lends me a few more years, I can learn Zhouyi when I am 5 years old, and I will be fine".
what are the great faults of Confucius in his life? It's hard to draw a conclusion. But he must have suffered a lot when he traveled around the world at the age of fifty-six. His students also suffered a lot with him, and there was inevitably some remorse in his heart.
sentiment: I decided to continue studying the Tao Te Ching and the Book of Changes after finishing the Analects of Confucius. After reading the Tao Te Ching briefly, I feel that the pattern of my life has been opened to a certain extent. After listening to a few classes, I learned a lot. If I had studied it a few years ago, I might have made less mistakes in the first two years. Of course, if my cognitive level is not improved, I may still make the same mistakes, and I will make myself realize that it is important to grow up and learn by making mistakes. If you don't make mistakes, you may still muddle along and live in a daze. Everything has two sides, and it is also a kind of growth to grow from mistakes. Of course, from now on, study hard by yourself, which is responsible for your future. Come on! Grateful!