The book "Tan Zi Hua Shu" is divided into six chapters: "Tao Hua", "Shu Hua", "De Hua", "Ren Hua", "Food Hua" and "Jian Hua", totaling six volumes. All one hundred and ten chapters are titled with two words.
"He expounded the moral principles of Huang Lao in many books, and his writing style is simple, vigorous and profound." Generally speaking, the original Qiwu is transformed into words, the original emptiness is transformed into words, the original non-action is transformed into virtue, the original morality is transformed into benevolence, the people are hungry and hungry, and the original view is simple and frugal. First of all, natural phenomena are listed, such as snakes turning into turtles, birds turning into clams, etc., and philosophical theories are derived from these types to clarify the way to transcend life and death and cultivate one's morality to govern the country. This is the so-called gentleman who understands the body by observing the object, and "knows" by observing the body ( Volume 2) meaning. The first two volumes mainly expound the way of birth, death, and spiritualization, which are ontology and view of nature; the last four volumes mainly discuss the way of self-cultivation and governing the world, which are political view and ethics. The whole book basically develops Huang Lao's Liezhuang theory, inherits traditional Taoist thought, and is greatly influenced by Liezihua, Piotian and other thoughts. Those who use the name "hua" base their theory on the way all things change, and elaborate on the natural view that everything is transformed and the social view of eating equally and frugally.
The highest philosophical category discussed in this book is "Taixu", that is, emptiness, which is called "Taixu and Yixu". All things in the world gradually emerge from the void, and then gradually return to the void. On the one hand, natural forms emerge from the void, "the void transforms into gods, gods transform into qi, qi transforms into blood, blood transforms into shapes, shapes transform into infants, and infants transform into Child, child becomes young, young becomes strong, strong becomes old, old age dies, and death turns into emptiness" ("Death and Life"). Transformation is endless, like an infinite ring, and they all come from Tao, with nothingness as its body. On the other hand, he believes that social life also emerges from the void, "the void transforms into spirit, the spirit transforms into qi, the qi transforms into form, and the form transforms into essence... Chaos transforms into soldiers, soldiers transform into competition, and competition transforms into defeat" (" Dahua"). It is affirmed that the transformation of nature comes first, and then the transformation of society.
The concept of "Taixu" in this book was used by Zhang Zai, a philosopher in the Northern Song Dynasty. He further equated it with Qi and put forward the proposition that "Taixu is Qi", which shows that it has a great impact on later generations. The influence of Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties.
This book also inherits the idea of ??"stealing the sky without causing harm" in the "Chongxu Zhenjing". It believes that "the heaven and earth steal from Taixu, humans and insects steal from heaven and earth, and (insects) steal humans and insects." "("world"). That is to say, the idea of ??"stealing" penetrated into the process of Taixu's creation of heaven and earth, etc., which shows the inheritance of traditional Taoist Liezi thought. On the issue of the relationship between "Taixu" and "Tao", it is said that the relationship between Tao and Tao is: "Xuu turns into God, God turns into Qi, Qi turns into form, form is born, and all things are blocked." That is to say, the development of the Tao of Ren is from the void to the creation of gods, vitality, form, and all things without flexibility. Using the laws of the Tao, one can also develop in the opposite direction. "The purpose of Tao is; form turns into qi, qi turns into spirit, spirit turns into emptiness, emptiness becomes luminous, and all things are connected." This kind of thinking can be said to have inspired the later theory of inner alchemy, "If things go well, people will be born, and if things go wrong, they will become alchemy".
The highest level of practice is "nurturing the weak", which means "the ancient sage reached the source of creation at the end of the road, forgetting the form to nourish the qi, forgetting the qi to nourish the spirit, forgetting the spirit to nourish the weak" ( "Purple Ji Palace Stele"), if you can nourish the deficiency, the emptiness will be clear and clear, so that "existence and nonexistence are connected, things and I are the same, their birth is not the beginning, and their death is not the end. Those who know this way, the form cannot be destroyed, and the spirit cannot be destroyed. "("Taixu"). This theory of "things blocking the way but not connecting" has a direct impact on the Neo-Confucian Zhou Dunyi's idea that "things are blocked and everything is magical".
The social and historical views in the book are entirely based on sympathy for the people. The author not only exposes the social reality of "the people's innermost feelings are always discouraged" during the wars of the Five Dynasties, but also attributes the source of all social evils to the selfish desires of the rulers and exploiters. He vigorously criticized the rulers who "used the power of the poor people as a city wall and took away the people's food as savings" and made the people hungry and discouraged. There is a saying: Food for the people, "The king will take one of them, the countrymen will take one of them, the war will take one of them, the crafts will take one of them, the merchants will take one of them, the people of Dao and Shi will take one of them, Min will take one of them, thrift will take one of them." Also take away one of them. Therefore, when the silkworms have finished, they will be weeding the clothes of the kudzu, and when the harvest clouds are finished, they will be eating the fruits of the oak trees.” Therefore, the author strongly denounces the unfair and unjust feudal king's laws. The king's punishment is unfair, which is extremely unfair; the villain's way of saving is unjust, which is extremely unjust! The resistance to the exploiting class is out of helplessness, "It is not a cunning rabbit, but a cunning hunter; it is not a deceit of the people, but a deceit of officials. Be careful not to blame thieves, for thieves are only called by me; be careful not to blame and punish chaos, and punish chaos and teach me." He also believes that in order to make the world peaceful and enable people to live and work in peace and contentment, the rulers themselves must be "frugal" and believe that "frugality can be the handle of all changes."
The book also gives a unique explanation of "keeping oneness", an important concept in Taoist health care, saying: "The best way to keep oneness is to be thrifty." This had a great impact on Li Liang's idea of ??"equal land" in the Song Dynasty.
In addition, this book also contains a description of the knowledge about convex and concave lenses, saying: "A villain often has four mirrors: a guide, a bead, a stone, and a bowl. The guide looks at it Big, if you look at it as a bead, it will be small; if you look at it with a knives, it will be upright; if you look at it as a cup, it will fall down." ("Hua Shu·Four Mirrors"). This book takes the view of nature in which everything is transformed and the social view of small-scale farmers' egalitarian ideals as its main themes. It has many elucidations on Taoist thought. Therefore, it occupies an important position in the history of Chinese thought. As one of the important Taoist classics, "Hua Shu" was included in "Tao Zang". From the time of Chen Tuan in the Northern Song Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty, Quanzhen Taoism and the regulations of Shifang Jungle all regarded "Hua Shu" as a must-read scripture.
There are many versions of this book. The ones titled "Hua Shu" are divided into six volumes: "Zhengtong Tao Zang" Taixuan version, "Baoyan Hall Secret Book Guangji" version, "Sikuquanshu· "Zibu·Zajialei" edition, "Mohai Jinhu·Zibu" edition, "Anti-Convention Chapter" edition, "Rongyuan Congshu·Bing Ji" edition, "Zhengjue Loucong Ke" edition, "Tao Zang Ju Yao" No. Five types of editions; those titled "Tan Zi Hua Shu" are also divided into six volumes: "The Complete Works of Taoism" edition, "Twenty Masters" edition, "Tang Hua Series·Zi Yu" edition, and "Shuo Yong" Wanweishantang edition ; The commentary version of Yang Shen of the Ming Dynasty is included in "Ten Types of Zhou and Qin Classics"; the proofread version of Yang Shen's comments and Lu Zhiyi's comments is included in "The Complete Works of Confucian Scholars Criticized by All Famous Masters"; the "Xudao Zang" of the Ming Dynasty is included in the title " "Tan Zi Hua Shu"; also divided into one volume are the "Yanyi Zhilin" version, the "Zhucong Bielu" version, and the "Photocopied Yuan and Ming Dynasty Rare Books Series Ten Types". "Zhuzi Praises Different" is collected into three volumes, and Ming Wang Yiqing's notes are not divided into volumes. The title "Qi Qiu Zi" is included in "Zi Hui". The edition of "Tan Zi" compiled and commented by Youguang in Ming Dynasty was included in "Hui Han" of Zhu Zi. Wang Yiqing of the Ming Dynasty wrote seven volumes of "Hua Shu Xinsheng", which has a version of the "Four Classics", which can be used as a reference for its evolution.