1, gild the lily

"gild the lily" is an idiom, which means to do superfluous things, self-defeating. This idiom reveals profound philosophy. The idiom says: Chu has a noble family. After the sacrifice, they made a toast to several guests. Several public guests were at a loss what to do when faced with a glass of wine. Later, a doorman came up with an idea and said, "I have an idea." Let's draw a snake on the ground. Whoever draws first will drink this glass of wine. " All the guests agreed and began to draw snakes separately. Suddenly, one of them drew a snake first. He picked up the cup and wanted to drink it. Seeing that others had not finished painting, he held a cup in his left hand and a pen in his right. He was ecstatic and said, "Look, this snake has no feet. Let me add some. " Just as he was adding feet to the snake, another passerby had already painted the snake, so he grabbed the glass from the first man and said loudly, "The snake has no feet, why do you want to add feet?" Say, raise a glass and drink. The snake-footed painter was tongue-tied and couldn't say a word.

Snakes originally had no feet, but smart people forced a few feet on them, and as a result, they turned from winners to losers. The philosophical truth contained here is that people should truthfully reflect the true face of objective things, otherwise, artificially or subjectively beautifying and distorting the actual face of things will inevitably be punished accordingly. Broadly speaking, people should truthfully reflect what the laws of objective things are. In the process of reflection, there may be mistakes or insufficient understanding, but they must never be subjectively and arbitrarily distorted. Although "gilding the lily" is a long story, we sometimes encounter similar situations in practical work. When dealing with problems, some people don't truthfully reflect the objective reality, don't make plans and find ways according to the actual situation, but are smart and do something new at will, forcing their dreams on the objective reality, thus causing mistakes in their work. This is essentially the same as "gilding the lily", and it is a philosophical thinking method that adopts subjective arbitrariness rather than objective reality. We should eliminate or try to avoid this way of thinking.

2. Jing people followed suit.

Speaking of rigid thinking, the story of "Jing people follow the table" in Lv's Spring and Autumn Review is typical. The plot of the story is like this: once Chu and Song fought. Chu intends to sneak into the Shenhe River and attack the State of Song. So he sent someone to the river and marked the shallow water he could cross. Later, the river suddenly rose, making it impossible to cross the river on foot. However, no matter how the situation changed, the Chu army still crossed the river on foot at the marked place on the bank of Luanhe River in the middle of the night as originally planned. The river was so swift that it drowned 1000 people. The soldiers panicked, as if the house had collapsed, shouting and making a mess. It is really "the Jing people still follow the watch and guide them, so they are defeated."

This story vividly depicts the rigidity of the Chu army. The river is not a backwater, and the priority of depth will not remain the same, but the Chu army will certainly make a big mistake if it just follows. In fact, everything is in constant movement and change, and it is conditional for things to appear in a relatively stable state. As time goes on and conditions change, the original state will change. Sun Wu put it well: "The five elements are impermanent, the four seasons are impermanent, the days are long and the months are life and death." From the point of view of Marxist philosophy, that is, the existence state of specific things will change with the change of conditions. If people's thoughts do not pay attention to the changes of specific conditions of things and make corresponding adjustments with them, they will make their thoughts divorced from reality, make their thoughts rigid and make mistakes in concrete actions.

Rigid thinking is very harmful. People always have a certain plan to do things, and the correct plan only comes from the accurate analysis and judgment of objective things, which essentially means a correct understanding of the existing state and conditions of objective things. But objective things always change, which requires people to make corresponding changes in their thinking, otherwise it will lead to outdated guiding ideology, thus making the consequences of actions run counter to their own wishes. This is true for both individuals and countries. Take the country's handling of economic problems as an example: the contradiction between supply and demand in the market always presents various specific situations with the change of specific conditions, sometimes the supply is in short supply, and sometimes the supply is in short supply. If we don't pay attention to these specific changes, or apply the economic policy aimed at oversupply to contradictory situations, or apply the economic policy aimed at oversupply to contradictory situations, it will lead to major mistakes in economic decision-making. Of course, solving all kinds of problems depends on all kinds of professional knowledge, but from the harm of rigid thinking mentioned above, it shows that mastering correct philosophical thinking can make people look at problems both materialistically and dialectically in thinking methods, thus avoiding making mistakes in general thinking methods.

3. Cats and sheep live in harmony

As we all know, there is an idiom in China called "irrelevant". This allusion comes from "Zuo Zhuan Xi Gong Four Years": "You are in the North Sea, and I am in the South China Sea, which is just a wind horse." It means that you live in Qi State in the north and I live in Chu State in the south. The two places are 108,000 miles apart. Even if you lose your horse and cow, you can't reach the right territory. Later generations used this metaphor to show that irrelevant things cannot be linked together. However, what we are talking about here is the harmony between cats and sheep, and it is not surprising that cats and sheep can be harmonious and connected. This is Darwin's great discovery. "Food chain" is a famous and interesting discovery that Darwin mentioned when he discussed the viewpoint of biological evolution. When studying biology, he observed that where there are more cats, there are more sheep. What's the relationship between cats and sheep? It turns out that sheep eat a kind of clover, which is pollinated by marsupial bees, and voles often destroy their hives to eat this honey. So there are more voles, fewer bees, and fewer opportunities for clover pollination. On the contrary, the more cats there are, the fewer voles there are and the more marsupials there are. The more opportunities for clover pollination, the better the harvest. The more clover there are, the more pastures there are, and the more sheep there are naturally. Therefore, "a cat, a vole, a pill bee, a clover and a sheep" form an interrelated biological food chain.

Darwin's discovery of the "food chain" reveals the law that the biological world is interrelated, interdependent and restricted. It shows that many things seem irrelevant, but in fact they are inextricably linked. In fact, in the objective world, there are not only food chains, but also other interrelated "chains". From cosmic galaxies to microscopic particles, from inorganic world to organic world, from nature to human society, from objective world to subjective world, they are all in the mutual influence and restriction of universal contact. As Engels said: "When we carefully examine nature or human history or our own spiritual activities, the first thing that comes to our eyes is a picture that is endlessly intertwined with various connections and interactions." The growth of plants is always related to certain sunshine, temperature, rain and dew, moisture, soil and so on. A person's growth can not be separated from the social environment, and it is related to certain social, school and family influences. All parts of human organism are inextricably linked, and all systems, organs, tissues, cells and their functions of human body are interrelated, interactive and mutually restrictive.

In short, based on objective facts, observing and thinking about problems with materialistic and dialectical eyes can link seemingly unrelated things. Of course, this is not man-made, but objective things are like this, just being correctly recognized by people.

4. Skillful cow solving

During the Warring States Period, Wei Huiwang, the monarch of Wei, once came to see my master slaughter cattle. My master is a famous cook in Wei State. When he dissects a cow, the movements of his hands, feet, shoulders and knees and the sound of a knife. Rhythmic as music, he easily separated the bones from the meat of the cow and dropped his hands neatly. Wei Huiwang was amazed and admired after reading it. He asked him, "Why is your craft so high?" My master replied, "Actually, it's nothing strange, because I'm already familiar with the structure of beef and bones. At first, I only saw a complete cow. After studying for three years, I didn't see a whole cow, where are the joints, where are the bones and muscles, where is the knife cutting, and how much effort is needed. I know all about it. I separated the meat and bones one by one along the place where they met, effortlessly. " He went on to say, "generally, the knives used by cattle butchers have to be changed once a month because their blades often touch bones." A skilled cattle butcher can change his knife once a year, because he only uses one knife to cut the inside. However, my knife has been used for more than ten years, dissecting thousands of cows, and it is as sharp as a new knife. Because there was a gap between the meat and the bone, I saw it gently inserted a knife and the meat fell off piece by piece. Of course, in the face of complex structures, I have to concentrate, be careful and be foolproof. "

My understanding of the cow is not just a complete cow in his eyes, but the relationship between the various parts of the cow. In objective things, contact is very common, including internal, external, inevitable, accidental, essential and non-essential. The inherent, stable, inevitable and essential connection of the sum of things is the regularity of things. This regularity determines the nature, existing characteristics and development trend of things. Law exists objectively, and it is independent of human will. Whether we admit it or not, whether we admit it or not, whether it is beneficial or harmful to us, as long as conditions exist, it will certainly play a role. Therefore, we must correctly understand the law in the process of work and consciously abide by the requirements of objective laws. This is the requirement of materialism monism. At the same time, people are not completely passive in front of the law. We can understand the law, make good use of it, and achieve good benefits in transforming nature and society. This is the problem of giving full play to people's subjective initiative.

My master consciously or unconsciously follows this basic principle in practice. He knows that understanding cattle must start from its own structure, not rashly, and follow the law of understanding cattle. If you want to know cows well, you should give full play to your subjective initiative to practice and understand them. After 20 years' practice, he finally got a clear understanding of the position of various organs and the characteristics of bone channels of cattle, and realized that understanding the regularity of cattle is the only way to easily separate the bones and meat of cattle.

It's too late to cross the street now.

During the Warring States Period, there was a famous thinker named Yang Zhu. One day, his neighbor ran away and lost a sheep, so the whole family went out to look for it and asked the slaves in Yang Zhu to help him find it. Yang Zhu asked, "Why do you need so many people just to find a sheep?" Neighbor said: "There are too many forks in the road outside the village, so no one can go." So Yang Zhu asked his slaves and neighbors to look for sheep together. After a long time, people looking for sheep came back one after another. Yang Zhu asked his neighbor, "Did you find the sheep?" He said sadly to his neighbor, "I lost it, but I didn't find it." Yang Zhu asked again, "Why can't I find it?" . The neighbor replied, "There are too many forks in the road, and there are also forks in the road. Who knows where the sheep went? " So I can't find it. ""I see. " Yang Zhu pondered for a long time, but didn't laugh for a long time. His students were all surprised to see him like this, and asked inexplicably, "It's no big deal to lose a sheep, besides, it's not the teacher's." Why is Jiao so glum? " Yang Lai replied: "I am not doing it for a sheep, but it is related to our study and research. "If other students grasp the east and the west with one hand in their studies, they will not concentrate, and they will find nothing like looking for a sheep on the fork."

Here, Yang Zhu expounded a very profound philosophical principle, that is, we should pay attention to the principal contradiction in doing any work. In the development of things, the existence of contradictions is universal, and there are many contradictions in the same thing. In complex contradictory groups, the development of various contradictory forces is unbalanced, and their position and role in the development of things are different. Among them, the dominant and decisive contradiction in the development of things is the main contradiction; The main contradiction determines the nature and development direction of things. The existence and development of this contradiction determines and affects the existence and development of other contradictions. On the contrary, other contradictions in a secondary position are non-principal contradictions, which do not play a decisive role in the development of things, but in turn will affect the development and resolution of the principal contradictions. Because the relationship between various contradictory forces is constantly changing in the process of content development, the distinction between principal contradiction and non-principal contradiction is not static, and their status will change under certain conditions. This is the relationship between the principal contradiction and the secondary contradiction and its role in the development of things. The main contradiction determines the existence and development of things. Therefore, we must pay attention to the main contradictions in our work; The minor contradiction affects the solution of the major contradiction, and we should pay attention to the solution of the minor contradiction while paying attention to the major contradiction. This is true for both study and work. There are too many differences in the allusions of the Lost Sheep. If we allocate manpower equally regardless of priorities, the result will only be in vain. If we analyze the situation of each road and see which road the sheep is most likely to go to focus on, the possibility of getting it back is much greater.

Step 6 talk on paper

The ancients said well, "Be the first, know the first; On the importance, behavior is the most important ",which is China's simple view of knowing and doing in ancient times. According to Marxist epistemology, it is the relationship between theory and practice. How to treat the relationship between knowledge and action, theory and practice embodies different philosophical thoughts. "On paper" is a metaphysical mistake that emphasizes theory unilaterally and ignores practice. Historical Records of Lian Po's Biographies of Shang Xiangru says: During the Warring States Period, Zhao She, a famous soldier of the State of Zhao, had a son named Zhao Kuo, and Zhao Kuo "learned the art of war when he was young, saying that military affairs were beyond the power of the world", and he really knew the art of war like the back of his hand. In fact, his father had already seen through him and thought that Zhao Kuo was just a dogma of learning books. If you really let him lead the troops, "those who break the Zhao army will be among them." Xiang Ru also saw this, saying that Zhao Kuo could recite his father's art without knowing how to use it in practice. Unfortunately, the prince of Zhao refused to listen to persuasion and took Zhao Kuo as the general to resist Qin Jun. Sure enough, 400,000 troops were wiped out by Zhao Kuo's dogma, and Zhao Kuo also died in the disorderly arrows.

This story vividly illustrates the harmfulness of theory divorced from reality. It is essential to know or understand the theory, but if you just know and don't know how to do it, it will cause endless harm. Some people only show off their knowledge by talking, and when they encounter specific problems, they are helpless and useless. There is a story of "Fei Tiezui" in Fan Zhen's Notes on Dongzhai, which vividly illustrates this point. One day, the king of Shu heard that Song Tianbing was going to attack Shu, and he was very afraid. The ministers of the DPRK are all looking for people who can resist the heavenly soldiers. At this time, a man nicknamed "scrap iron mouth" came to the king to answer. Everyone thinks he has not only knowledge, but also courage. He listened carefully and said, "I never dared to do this." So, everyone smiled and retired from the DPRK. "Scrap iron mouth" can only be said. What's the use of not doing it? So everyone laughed at him.

The purpose of human mastering knowledge or theory is to play a role in practice. Only such theories and knowledge can have vitality. Only when people flexibly apply theory and knowledge according to the complicated and changeable specific conditions and deepen through practical progress can it become a valuable asset of mankind. No matter how good the theory is, if it is not combined with practice, it can only be an armchair strategist. Zhao Kuo was defeated and killed because he read the Art of War and didn't know how to use it.

7, hope plum to quench thirst

"Looking at plum to quench thirst" is a short story in the romance of the Three Kingdoms. On one occasion, Cao Cao led the troops to fight. On the March, the soldiers were thirsty and thirsty, but they couldn't find water. When Cao Cao saw this, his eyebrows frowned and his thoughts were myriad. He pointed a whip at the forest ahead and said, "There is Merlin ahead. There are many big and sour fruits on the tree that can be used to quench thirst. " When the soldier heard that it was a plum, he secreted a lot of saliva in his mouth and was not thirsty.

This story of looking at plum to quench thirst, more accurately speaking, should be listening to plum to quench thirst, because there is no Merlin, so people naturally can't see Merlin, just listen to Cao Cao. What is reflected here is the connection between human digestive system and plum acid. Cao Cao used this connection to subtly reduce the threat of thirsty soldiers. And this connection can be explained by conditioned reflex.

The interaction between humans and animals and the surrounding environment is carried out through reflex activities, which can be divided into conditioned reflex and unconditional reflex. Unconditional reflex is an innate reflex of human beings and all other animals, and it is a genetic instinct. Conditioned reflex is based on unconditional reflex, which is established by the experience of animals' own activities, or acquired. For example, food can arouse the excitement of dogs and immediately secrete saliva, which is an unconditional reflex. But if you are stimulated by light every time you feed the dog, the dog will drool at the sight of light for a long time. At this time, feeling the excitement of light and feeling the excitement of food are interlinked. This reflex is called conditioned reflex. Whether conditioned reflex or unconditional reflex, people and other animals have something in common. This is not the difference in reflection between humans and other animals.

Conditioned reflex is a reflex activity caused by accepting external stimuli. There must be some way to establish this reflection. The reflex produced by transmitting external stimuli to the brain through sensory organs such as eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body is called the first signal system, which is shared by people and other animals. However, human social practice is a creative activity, and what human consciousness needs to reflect far exceeds other animals in depth and breadth. The first signal system can't meet the needs of this reflection, so the second signal system appears. That is, the reflection activity caused by the reflected signal of language. Language abstractly expresses the essence and regularity of objective things, so the breadth and depth of human reflection have reached a height unmatched by other animals. The reflection of the first signal system is the reflection of a specific image. The reflection of the second signal system is a rational reflection of abstract generalization.

People spit when they see Merlin and sour plum, which is a reflection on the basis of the first signal system. When people hear others talking about merlin and sour plum, they cause reflection and saliva secretion through language, which is a reflection based on the second signal system. This is the essential difference between man and other animals. No wonder the soldiers felt less thirsty when they heard that Cao Cao lied about Merlin.

8, have answers

In the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a famous painter named Wen, who was particularly good at painting bamboo. The bamboo he painted is vivid, delicate and lifelike, and it is excellent. Wen and painting are very serious. In order to draw bamboo well, he planted many bamboos in front of the window, and carefully observed the state and growth of bamboo branches and leaves every day to understand the morphological changes of bamboo in different seasons and different weather. After long-term practice and observation of planting bamboo, he not only knows the characteristics of bamboo like the back of his hand, but also forms various images of bamboo in his mind. Because of this, before he began to paint, he had an outline of what kind of bamboo he wanted to paint, how to compose the composition and how to ink it, and he could paint all kinds of bamboos with ease and vividness without thinking repeatedly. So one of his friends praised him and said, "You can draw bamboo, so you have a plan." In other words, when Wen and Ke painted bamboo, they already had a perfect bamboo image in their hearts.

Wen and Hua Zhu can splash ink because of his own Chinese painting skills; On the other hand, his long-term observation and practice reflect the development of human understanding of things from necessity to freedom. Inevitably refers to the law of objective things, that is, the internal, essential and stable connection of objective things. Freedom refers to people's understanding of the inevitable law and the transformation of the objective world. Freedom lies not in getting rid of objective laws and becoming independent, but in understanding these laws and using them to transform the objective world. The law is objective and independent of human will. Whether we can recognize it or not, whether we like it or not, whether we need it or not, as long as the conditions are met, the law will play a role. When people haven't realized a certain law, they are blindly dominated by some way, and there is no freedom at all. Once a person knows a certain law, he can consciously use it to transform the objective world, and then he has mastered freedom. Judging from the situation of the whole society, primitive people knew little about objective laws, so they had little freedom. When modern people master certain natural and social laws, they will have greater freedom. With the development of society and the progress of science and technology, human beings will have more and more freedom, but due to the infinite development of the objective world, absolute, complete and inevitable freedom does not exist.

Literature and paintable bamboo have such a development process from necessity to freedom. When he began to draw bamboo, he was not comfortable either, but just copied the shape of bamboo mechanically. At that time, he was still painting the necessary realm of bamboo. In order to draw bamboo well, he planted bamboo and looked at it. Not only remember the general shape of bamboo, but also remember the changes of bamboo branches and leaves in different seasons and the characteristics of different kinds of bamboo. At this time, his understanding of bamboo moved from the inevitable realm to the free realm, and he naturally drew bamboo with ease and confidence.

9. Carve a boat for a sword

During the Warring States Period, a Chu man crossed the river by boat. When the boat was sailing in the river, he was careless and plopped down and dropped his sword with him into the river. He immediately carved a mark on the side of the boat where he put down his sword, and said to himself, "This is where my sword fell." The ship sailed in the river for a long time and finally landed. He quickly jumped into the water from the marked place on the boat to look for the sword. I didn't catch anything for a long time.

This is the famous fable of "carving a boat for a sword". The boat went straight ahead, and the sword landed in the middle of the river, far from the shore where the boat docked. How can I find the sword by marking the boat? Therefore, we must correctly grasp the dialectical relationship between motion and stillness.

The material world is in eternal movement, change and development, and absolute stillness and stillness without movement do not exist. From the macro world to the micro world, from the inorganic world of life to the organic world and then to the human society, nothing is motionless. As far as the basic form of movement is concerned, it includes not only simple position movement and mechanical movement with changing position, but also physical movement and chemical movement. There are not only metabolic movements in which every organism changes itself, but also social movements marked by the emergence, intensification and resolution of basic social contradictions. Movement is universal, objective and independent of human will. The absolute movement of recognition and non-recognition is one of the fundamental differences between materialist dialectics and metaphysics.

Movement is absolute and unconditional. Then the specific material form has a static side, for example, a person can't see any change in appearance for a period of time. Compared with other things, a piece of furniture has no change in position. We sat on the boat, the boat was moving, and we didn't leave our seats. It is very important to realize this stillness under certain conditions, otherwise we will not be able to correctly understand objective things. But this kind of stillness is only relative, and it is a special form of absolute motion. Although a person has not changed much for a period of time, he just has no qualitative change, and quantitative change is always there; A piece of furniture does not change its position in the house, but it has internal molecular movement; We are sitting on the boat, and we are not moving relative to each other, but we are still moving relative to the reference objects on the shore. Therefore, motion is absolute and stillness is relative. The Chu people don't understand this truth, thinking that as long as their sitting posture remains unchanged and other conditions remain unchanged, they will never find their own swords.

10, Zheng Ren buys shoes.

During the Spring and Autumn Period, a man in Zheng planned to go to the market to buy shoes. So he first measured the length of his foot and wrote down a size, but he accidentally left it at home when he left. I was buying shoes when I found a place to sell shoes in the market. Suddenly remembered the size, he said to the seller, "I left the size of my shoes at home, so I'll buy them when I get home." Then he ran home. When he ran home to take measurements and hurried back to the market, it was getting late and the market had already dispersed. He made two trips for nothing, but didn't buy shoes. Someone found this strange and asked him, "Why don't you try on shoes with your own feet, but you must go home and get the size?" He replied plausibly, "My measurement is very accurate. How can I measure accurately with my feet? "

This fable of "one person buys shoes" satirizes those who only believe in dogma and ignore objective reality. Dogmatism in practical work mainly means not understanding the relationship between rational knowledge and perceptual knowledge, and making rational knowledge absolute. When we know something, we only contact and understand its surface connection and external characteristics at first. This is perceptual knowledge, intuitive and one-sided. In the process of our continuous practice, perceptual knowledge is constantly accumulated and repeated, so our understanding of this thing is also deepening, which correctly reflects the essence and regularity of this thing. This kind of understanding is rational knowledge. Rational knowledge is produced on the basis of perceptual knowledge, and it is an advanced stage of knowledge, which cannot be completed by senses alone. It is an understanding formed by abstract thinking and can guide practical activities. In our practical activities, practice without theory is blind practice, and the success rate is extremely low. However, if we only pay attention to theory without proceeding from reality and don't believe in the reality that produces rational knowledge, we will fall into the wrong path of dogmatism. This Zheng man's two trips were in vain. He only believed in his own size, but not his own feet. In fact, he made such a dogmatic mistake. In real life, some people are still repeating the mistake of Zheng Guoren buying shoes. They despise or deny perceptual knowledge, do not proceed from reality, do not investigate and study, and only proceed from books. Marxism–Leninism is not regarded as a guide to action, but as a dogma and a cure-all prescription. He applies it mechanically regardless of time, place and conditions, but he is helpless about what is not mentioned in this book. This dogmatism essentially sucks the soul of Marxism and stifles the truth, so it must be abandoned.