Essay on Lao Tzu’s Aesthetic Thought of Inaction

In our daily study, work and life, we often have new ideas due to certain things or people. At this time , you can write an insightful article to record your thoughts. In order to help you master the writing method of insights, the following is a collection of essays on Laozi’s aesthetics of doing nothing but doing everything. They are for reference only. You are welcome to read them.

Keywords of the paper: Laozi’s doing nothing but doing everything for the purpose and regularity

Abstract of the paper: “Doing nothing but doing everything” is the core of Laozi’s aesthetic thought An important point, it was not only of great significance at the time, but also has important guiding significance for our current study, life, and everything in the world. We must absorb the essence of Laozi’s aesthetic thoughts and apply it well to our study and life.

Introduction

China, as an ancient civilization with a long history of 5,000 years, also occupies an important position in the history of world music aesthetics. It is a music discipline that stands on three pillars with Greek and Indian musical aesthetics. When talking about ancient Chinese music aesthetics, people will inevitably mention the Confucian music aesthetics represented by Confucius and the Taoist music aesthetics represented by Laozi. In this article, I only represent my personal experience of Laozi’s aesthetic thought of “doing nothing but doing everything”.

1. Introduction to Laozi and the aesthetic implication of "doing nothing without doing anything"

Laozi's surname is Li, his given name is Er, and his courtesy name is Boyang. He was a native of Ku County, Chu State, in the late Spring and Autumn Period. A famous thinker in ancient times and the founder of Taoism. Laozi is committed to the personal moral cultivation of "weakness" and "inaction". His main work, Tao Te Ching, is the most authoritative classic of Taoism. Regarding the aesthetic thought of "doing nothing without doing anything", Laozi regards it as the law that transforms all things, which contains the understanding of the important laws of beauty, namely freedom and necessity, and the law of purpose and harmony. The so-called nature means that it is the way it comes from, and the nature is like this. The so-called "doing nothing without doing anything", "inaction" does not mean doing nothing, but refers to the nurturing of Tao, nourishing all things, and allowing them to develop fully according to the nature of things, without any other purpose or action. "Doing nothing" means that "doing nothing" achieves the life of all things and the beauty of the world, and finally achieves the goal. Laozi believes that only by complying with the laws of nature can man achieve freedom. Deeply aware of the unity of freedom and necessity, the unity of purpose and law. For example, in Chapter 34 of the "Tao Te Ching" it is said: "Things are born based on them without giving up, achievements are not named, clothing supports all things without being the master. If there is always no desire, it can be called small. All things return to where they are without doing anything. The Lord can be called great. Because it does not think of itself as great, it can become great. "It is not named as being, but it is not the Lord." It means that Tao transforms all things and has no other pursuits. It does not regard itself as the creator of all things. It is natural and does not dare to do anything (Chapter 64). It completely follows the nature of all things and allows them to grow. In addition, it does not have its own purpose and actions. This is "inaction" and it is precisely because of the "inaction" that the Tao reaches "doing nothing". It achieves the growth of all things and the beauty of the world and finally achieves its goal. It does not think it is great, nor does it pursue greatness, but it has become truly great and appears to be extremely great. . It can be seen that the reason why Tao is successful is that it completely integrates its purpose and pursuit into the nature of all things, instead of pursuing it outside of it. From the relationship between purpose and laws, the purpose is integrated into the laws. Rather than being external to the laws. In terms of the life movement of all things in the universe, all things have their own characteristics. Only if they comply with their growth laws can all things show their style and the world can become a beautiful world. It violates the nature of all things and encourages growth, which violates the laws of nature. The nature of things is distorted or strangled, and the world becomes ugly and without beauty. It can be seen that Laozi sees the beauty of everything in nature from the life movement of all things. The changes are unconscious and purposeless, but the results are in line with a certain purpose. Nature does not consciously pursue or achieve anything, but it achieves everything and achieves it invisibly. everything.

2. The inspiration for us from the aesthetic thought of "doing nothing but doing everything"

From the above simple analysis of Laozi's aesthetic thought of "doing nothing but doing everything", we can easily see that the essence of Laozi's aesthetic thought lies in his proposition Everything should be based on nature, and everything should be done in accordance with the laws of nature. You should not rush for success. You should do everything with your heart with a "do nothing" heart. Only in this way can you "do everything" and actually be quiet. This thought of Lao Tzu has great guiding significance for many things we do now. It is not only closely related to our daily study and life, but even many things and phenomena in nature follow this law invisibly. . Regarding this issue, I would like to make an analysis from my personal point of view

1. The inspiration for vocal singing from "doing nothing without doing anything"

As a bel canto student majoring in vocal singing, I am often very troubled because my vocal skills cannot reach the height that the teacher wants. Sound is a very abstract concept that cannot be seen or touched. Its quality can only be judged through hearing. And many times the sound you hear is often different from the sound heard by the teacher. The sound you feel comfortable with may be the worst sound to others, so it is difficult to get a good sound. , this difficulty mainly refers to whether the grasp of the concept of sound is accurate. For example, if the teacher asks the students to move their voices forward, if the students do not grasp it well, the voices will be too bright and appear too white, or the real voices will lose their original beauty. The most taboo thing at this time is to be too hasty. The more you want to find a good and correct voice, the further away you will be from the correct voice. Why? Because at this time, in order to blindly pursue the sound that is comfortable to one's hearing, a certain part of the body or cavity will feel stiff, so the sound must be bad, which is what I call "if it violates the laws of nature" , things will become unattractive.” So when we encounter similar situations in daily classes, we might as well think more about Lao Tzu's thought of "doing nothing without doing anything". In other words, don't overcomplicate the sound, let it come naturally, invest your emotions, and sing the most comfortable sound according to your most comfortable feeling. Then the sound at this time will be good in most cases. Of course, it is not possible to blindly pursue nature and keep all parts of the body in an absolutely relaxed state, because that will not produce the excitement during singing, and naturally you will not get a good sound. There may be many teachers who feel that the best people to teach among their students are those who have simpler ideas and think less. Why? Because most of these students have a sense of indifference and simple thinking. They just follow the teacher's ideas and sing how they want. They think less and don't particularly care about whether they can sing well. Instead, they can quickly follow the teacher's instructions. Meaningful and good sound. This is the so-called "doing nothing without doing anything". Of course, this does not mean that every student with an 'indifferent' attitude will definitely be able to sing well, but it means that those who think too much about vocal music always set their goals too high and never reach them. Students who want the results they want may wish to relax and study its regularity with an attitude of "inaction" and study how to conform to its natural laws. In this case, maybe one day you will find that "inaction" is transformed into "Doing nothing" finally achieved what he wanted. Therefore, for those students (myself included) who are not going smoothly in their vocal music career, I personally believe that they should not be too impatient. Rushing for success is like "stealing a child's growth" and doing things against nature, which will inevitably backfire. In fact, the voice is nothing more than having a very open cavity, sufficient breath support, rich emotional expression, and a good voice foundation. Then just coordinate the relationship between the various parts and sing it, but it is easy to say but difficult to do. Because the coordination of these parts is a difficult thing, if you are not careful, some of them may go wrong. Therefore, we must realize that vocal music and many other subjects require a lifetime of concentrated study. Only with a heart of "inaction" can we not be too impatient and study it calmly, so that we can slowly master it. Follow its rules and ultimately achieve success. The above are some personal experiences on how to use the aesthetic idea of ??"doing nothing but doing everything" to better guide your own learning in vocal music singing. In fact, not only in study, the aesthetic thought of "doing nothing without doing anything" in life also inspires us everywhere and teaches us how to be a better person.

2． The impact of the aesthetic thought of "doing nothing without doing anything" on personal cultivation and life

We live in such a modern society, where the pressure of life, study pressure, and economic pressure often weigh people down. Out of breath. Many people around us are invisibly comparing themselves to each other, blindly comparing those who should compare and those who shouldn't. Over time, they make many unnecessary mistakes in order to achieve their own goals and satisfy their own vanity. He did not do what he should do, thus losing something very precious in his own human nature. If you are so eager for quick success and do things unscrupulously, even if you achieve your goals for a while, you will not be able to achieve your goals for a long time. In the end, your cleverness will be mistaken for your cleverness, and you will end up with a bad result. So, in the face of such a stressful society, how can we prevent ourselves from drifting with the crowd and losing ourselves? I think it is really important to have a "doing nothing" mentality, don't be eager for success in anything, let nature take its course, do everything with a positive attitude, and don't pay too much attention to the results. In this way, there will be less fighting between people. Everyone is just doing their own thing well, and they will not care too much about what they get less than others. Invisibly, people will be harmonized. If everyone can live in harmony with each other, then the whole society will be harmonious. Therefore, I think that in order to improve a person's personal cultivation and build a harmonious and peaceful social family, the idea of ??"doing nothing without doing anything" is very instructive to us. When society and people can really reach such a harmonious state, nothing will be impossible. Now our country has been advocating the establishment of a harmonious society, and it is precisely following this principle.

3． Nature gives people the inspiration of "doing nothing without doing anything"

Everything in nature is the most precious and beautiful thing given to mankind by God. We are in it every day and enjoy the beauty of nature. Give us infinite joy. But with the progress of society, people's awareness of the protection of nature is getting worse and worse. They go against the laws of nature to transform it or even destroy it. We think that we are the spirits of all things, that we have thoughts and consciousness, and that we can create things. , can also change things, so we think that we are the masters of all things, we can order and direct all things at will, dominate the growth and development of all things, and we can enslave all things as we want. How naive and ignorant this idea is! How sad and deplorable this mentality is! Little do we know that we rely on all things to survive and develop. All things provide us with vitality and energy. If we are truly the masters of all things, then when we ravage all things wantonly, they will have no choice but to swallow their anger and not dare to resist. But why do we suffer the revenge of nature? For example, we cut down a large number of trees, destroy vegetation, and cause soil erosion. The result is drought on the land, dry rivers, strong winds, and yellow sand in the sky. Another example is that we arbitrarily cull wild animals, and some rare animals have even become delicacies on our tables. As a result, the living environment has become increasingly poor, and a series of infectious diseases such as SARS have spread. There are also the Wenchuan earthquake that shocked China and the world just now, the rare snow disaster, the increasingly obvious temperature rise, etc., which are not nature's resistance to people. Therefore, we modern people must have the ideological realm of "doing nothing without doing anything", and must follow the laws of nature to protect and transform it. We cannot transform it out of order for temporary benefits. Only in this way will nature be able to Give humans a fresh and natural space.

3. Summary

From the above analysis, we can clearly see that Laozi’s aesthetic thought of “doing nothing but doing everything” is embedded in every bit of our lives and is guiding our lives all the time. We must better understand the mysteries in our future study and life, have a peaceful heart, do everything with an attitude of "doing nothing", and ultimately achieve "doing nothing".

Bibliography: "Tao Te Ching" Laozi

"Aesthetics" 2003 first issue published by Renmin University of China;