When I went to Wangdingguo Road, I did not work on my books, and my book work was not done, which was not enough to take care of the school affairs, but I was still not convinced. From today's perspective, the words "Dingguo" are sincere and correct, but the pen is not used as an animal, so there is no pen ear in the characters. There is a pen in the word, just like there is an eye in the Zen sentence. How can it be easy to say without a deep understanding of the sect?
——"Collected Works of Mr. Huang from Yuzhang"
〔Note〕 Yuanyoujian's characters: Huang Tingjian's characters written during the Yuanyou (Zhezong reign of Song Dynasty) Wang Dingguo: Wang Gong , named Dingguo, and named himself Mr. Qingxu. A native of Shen County. Because of his good relationship with Su Shi, he was involved in the party struggle and was relegated to supervise the Junzhou Salt Tax. He and Huang Tingjian are also good friends. Birds: captured together. Pen: brushwork, penpower. Zen: Zen, a different sect of Buddhism. Zen does not establish words, does not advocate analyzing Zen principles from classics, and emphasizes sudden enlightenment and seeing one's nature to become a Buddha. There is an eye in the sentence: A certain word in the sentence that can particularly alert the reader is called an eye. Zongqu: The purpose of Zen Buddhism.
According to Lu Xinyuan's "Song History Yi", Wang Gong was a person who was "arrogant and arrogant, fond of criticizing others, and his words were formidable, so he was quite intolerable to others." He was also what Su Shi called "a strong and courageous person." "People who are not afraid of force" naturally cannot be tolerated in feudal society. But Wang Gong's friendship with Su Shi and Huang Tingjian was very good. He was once demoted because of Su Shi's troubles, but he had no complaints. Dongpo wrote many poems in reply to Wang Dingguo, which shows that the two still had a good relationship. Ting Jian also valued Wang Gong as a person and regarded him as a friend, so he bluntly criticized Ting Jian's calligraphy. This criticism is pertinent. Huang Tingjian himself once admitted: "When I was in southern Guizhou, I didn't feel that the calligraphy was weak. When I moved to Rongzhou, I saw that the old books were so disgusting that there were probably three or four errors in the crosses." This shows that he actually If you are self-aware, you are not self-conscious.
The calligraphers of the Northern Song Dynasty, Su (Shi), Huang (Tingjian), Mi (Fu), and Cai (Xiang) were all equally famous. Wang Dingguo actually regarded Huang's calligraphy as unskilled, so Tingjian's I can’t figure it out, and it’s not surprising. Fortunately, he later did not hide his "not yet convinced" mentality at that time. When he realized his shortcomings, he frankly admitted that Wang Gong's criticism was correct and pointed out on his own that "you don't know how to use a pen to control animals, so there is no pen in the words". Something wrong. This spirit of seeking truth from facts does not damage his reputation, but is very admirable.