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daizhicheng1
  • 2025/7/1
文字稿
00:00more than two thousand years ago in the warring states period when a hundred schools of thought
00:15contended for supremacy there was a thinker who put forward a different attitude towards life
00:20he did not talk about fame he did not fight for worldly affairs and he did not even care about
00:27success he said true freedom is inner peace not external clamor he is shuanzi shuanzi was a taoist
00:36philosopher but he was not bound to a system he didn't want to go with the flow and he didn't want
00:42to force himself to be a qualified man of the world in this episode through the two key words
00:49wu wei and and life we'll approach shuanzi's free thinking and see how he kept his mind clear and
00:56peaceful in the midst of chaos let us first understand wu wei in shuanzi's thought this is
01:08one of the core concepts of taoist philosophy but to understand it we must not just take it literally
01:14as doing nothing in shuanzi's case wu wei refers to a way of behavior that is not deliberate not forced
01:21and not against nature it is first of all a response to and reflection on the confucian idea
01:28of doing something in the view of confucianism a gentleman should be ambitious virtuous and
01:34responsible and should set an example to others even taking the world as his own it is said in the
01:41e g re a gentleman will be a man of action confucius also said people can promote the way not the way
01:48promote people he always emphasized that man's subjective efforts could influence the world
01:54however in shuanzi's view such doing something is sometimes detrimental to one's life
02:01he criticized confucius ideals for being too obsessive arguing that those noble actions
02:07while admirable could easily lead to individual internal conflict and social conflict
02:12shuanzi said beginning to use the four reaches the title and wealth and to the endless the benefit
02:20of things is not one's own what he wanted to express is that the status and reputation one obtains
02:26mostly depend on external conditions rather than one's own real will or ability in other words you may
02:34have worked hard for half your life but you still fail or succeed because of luck connections or the
02:40circumstances of the times how much real value is there in this kind of doing something
02:45shuanzi was not against effort but against the effort of controlling the result he believed that
02:52we should follow our inner nature and should not force ourselves to accomplish goals that do not belong
02:57to us those who do something always think of changing others and the world while those who do nothing
03:05try to settle themselves first not to be disturbed by the outside world and not to be trapped by the
03:10world this is an attitude of life that transcends utilitarian calculations it is not to give up action
03:18but to let action follow the rhythm of the heart and nature
03:21in fact wu wei is not a term exclusive to taoism confucianism also talks about doing nothing
03:32in his later years confucius also said to govern with virtue is like the north star which is in
03:39its place and arched by all the stars this means that the ideal governance does not rely on power but
03:46on the attraction of one's own character however confucianism's doing nothing is the result of doing
03:53something to the extreme you try to cultivate your body correct your mind be sincere and align your family
04:00and when you have achieved the ultimate you can naturally influence others so you don't have
04:04to deliberately pursue it the taoist wu wei especially zhuang zi emphasized is an essential
04:11non-intervention mr zhuang danian once summarized confucianism's wu wei is the extreme and reach
04:18taoism's wu wei is the pure wu wei so it seems to be the same but in fact it is very different
04:26confucianism's wu wei hides the moral efforts and zhuang zi's wu wei is to follow the natural course
04:35of nature without making the true attitude zhuang zi's proposal of doing nothing does not encourage
04:44people to escape from society and do nothing what he emphasized was not to go against nature
04:50not to be driven by selfish desires and not to force results there is a famous analogy he wrote
04:57about a crooked neck tree that lived the longest because it was so ugly that no one cut it down
05:01zhuang zi said this tree seems to be useless but because of useless and can save life live freely
05:09this seemingly useless existence in fact is the embodiment of a kind of wisdom
05:15he also said calmness and loneliness nothingness and inaction the peace of heaven and earth and
05:22morality the virtue in zhuang zi's eyes is not the moral code of confucianism but a way of behavior
05:29that conforms to nature and conserves one's nature he advised people to downplay their desires let go of
05:36their obsessions and stop chasing after external fame fortune and comparisons because a lot of troubles
05:44and pains come from our strong desire for things that do not belong to us
05:48closely related to wu wei is another important idea of zhuang zi and life in ancient china fate was a
06:00concept that mixed the laws of nature with the idea of predestination today we may say fate is unknowable
06:07but in the eyes of the ancients fate was both the will of god and an objective law according to zhuang
06:14zi in the face of fate we should not fight against it but learn to be content with it and follow
06:19nature to rest in one's fate is not to passively accept failure but to actively let go of attachment
06:25to the outcome recognizing that many things in life are not entirely determined by our subjective will
06:32zhuang zi said a man is born soft and weak but he dies strong from these simple words we can read that
06:40resilience of life's essence lies in its suppleness not in its strength in reality many inexplicable
06:47events the death of a loved one sudden illness injustice zhuang zi reminds us do not be trapped in
06:56the why me question but slowly learn to accept we must learn to accept it to be at peace with one's life
07:04is not to compromise but to find inner balance it allows us to minimize conflict with the world and
07:11freeze the mind from attachment true freedom is not that you can change everything in the world
07:16but that you can maintain clarity and peace in your heart in the face of the unchangeable
07:20zhuang zi's wu wei and and life are not vain or negative but a possibility for individuals to find a
07:29free settlement in the chaotic reality he believed that the most important thing in life is not to
07:35conquer the world but to find one's own freedom to do nothing is not to make no effort but not to be
07:41trapped by obsessions to be at peace with one's life is not to resign oneself to one's fate but to
07:48accept the uncertainties of life with a calm mind in this era of faster and faster pace and more and more
07:54desires zhuang zi's thoughts may be able to give us a revelation through the millennium