After the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core attaches great importance to scientific decision-making, and always puts the people's lives and health in the first place, quickly launched the joint prevention and control mechanism, and under the party's centralized and unified leadership The people of the whole country united as one and effectively curbed the spread and spread of the epidemic. The history of the development of human society is a history of human struggle against the plague. As long as human society exists, this struggle will continue. Everything has a process of occurring, developing and dying, as is the development of this epidemic. "Lu's Spring and Autumn" has a saying: "The whole is indispensable, and the extreme is the opposite." When things reach their extremes, they will transform in the opposite direction. Zhang Zai said in "Zhengmeng": "If there is an elephant, there is a right, the opposite must do the opposite. If there is an anti-Sri Lanka, there is revenge, and the revenge must be reconciled." Struggle, "harmony" refers to the balance and harmony of the unity of opposing parties. The two Qi sympathize together and have an image. Once there is an image, there is an opposite side. If there is an opposite side, there will be opposite movements, so there will be a struggle. The result of the struggle is the balance and harmony of a unified body.
In the face of this epidemic, we must maintain a positive, optimistic, confident, and open-minded attitude. Chinese civilization has always valued people's value, exalted their subjective spirit, and emphasized that as a subjective person, we should neither be slaves of God, nor slaves of things. "The Book of Filial Piety" says: "The nature of the heavens and the earth is precious to man." It is believed that in the various lives between heaven and earth, nothing is more honorable than man. Xunzi further explained that "people are expensive", he said: "Water and fire have gas and no life, plants and animals have life and ignorance, animals and animals have knowledge and no righteousness, people have energy, life, knowledge, and righteousness. The world is also expensive. If you are not as powerful as a cow, you are not as good as a horse, but a horse and a horse are useful. Why? People say that people can be grouped, but they cannot be grouped. "From the above, we can see that the reason why people are unique to all things is because of people. There are ethics and wisdom, and the second is because people have subjectivity. Although the current human understanding of the new crown pneumonia virus is not comprehensive, I believe that we can finally overcome this crisis with our own wisdom.
The ancients believed that, between heaven and earth, "the only person can be heaven and earth alone", showing the importance attached to people. Heaven and earth create all things, but after the appearance of man, it can be side by side with heaven and earth because of its initiative. Therefore, "people" and "sky" and "earth" are also called "three talents". Those who are good at "law and heaven" can participate in all things in heaven and earth, and take the law from the way of heaven and earth for people to use. "Xunzi · Tianlun" said: "The sky has its time, the earth has its talents, and the man has its rule, and the husband is able to participate." This is also the meaning.
"Book of Rites · Li Yun" said: "People have the heart of heaven and earth." "Set the heart for heaven and earth, make a life for the living people, for the sacred to learn from the past, open the peace for all generations", is the Northern Song thinker Zhang Zai for later The precious spiritual legacy left. "Building a heart for the heavens and the earth" refers to the establishment of a spiritual value system for the society with moral ethics such as "benefits" and "filial piety" as the core. He believes that all activities are manifestations of the heart. Every movement of the human heart and change of the human heart will affect the change of all things in the world. Man has such a large role in all things in the heavens and earth, so man must cultivate himself from time to time, and cannot relax.
"Man is expensive" is not to let people dominate everything, but to remind people how to better control themselves, so that everything in the world can occur and develop according to its own development rules, instead of artificially interfering with nature. Everything is born of heaven and earth aura, and man is also a thing born of heaven and earth aura, but this thing is really different from other things. Therefore, one should be self-conscious in controlling himself so that he can live in harmony with all things. In the face of the epidemic, what we humans can do is to protect the natural ecological environment, respect the laws of the overall development of nature, and not to destroy the original ecological chain with self-will and indulgence, and interfere with the laws of the natural world itself. "Do things", do things according to the rules of things themselves; "Make contributions based on resources", according to conditions, rely on conditions to do your thing well, establish the work. Generally speaking, it is necessary for us to "push the trend of nature", that is, to follow the laws of nature.
"Building a heart for heaven and earth" requires us to constantly examine ourselves and stay in the middle. Known as "Biography of the Sixteen Characters", "the human heart is only dangerous, the Tao heart is weak; the only essence is the only one, and it is allowed to be in charge" is one of the essentials of Confucianism and even Chinese cultural tradition. To put it simply, this sentence means that the human heart is dangerous and unpredictable, the Tao heart is faint and difficult to understand, and you should wholeheartedly and sincerely uphold the Zhongzheng Tao. "Sixteen-character Heart Biography" originates from the story of Yao Shunyu's Chanrang. It is both the way of self-cultivation and the way of governing the country. In this sense, moral consciousness is the essence of Chinese culture. Sages have always focused on self-cultivation, in order to improve moral self-awareness, enhance the spiritual realm, cultivate ideal personality, and pursue the unity of "human heart" and "dao heart". During this special period of anti-epidemic, we must not only strengthen our body and body, pay attention to the physical health, enhance our immunity, but also have to be healthy, pay attention to the growth of spiritual life, and improve the quality of life; not only do our best to extend The length of natural life must strive to raise the height of spiritual life. In this way, you can enjoy a real happy life.
(Author: building strong, a professor at Peking University, the International Confucian Association Honorary Advisor)