Zhang Chao, a litterateur of the Qing Dynasty, has this passage in his "You Meng Ying": "People don't like to be idle. It doesn't mean doing nothing. When you are idle, you can read, and when you are idle, you can visit famous places. When you are free, you can make friends, when you are free, you can drink, and when you are free, you can write books. Which one is greater than this?" It seems that most of the fun in life is achieved in a state of leisure.
People in the Song Dynasty called burning incense, ordering tea, hanging paintings, and arranging flowers "the four kinds of leisurely things". Chen Laolian's "Sixteen Views of Seclusion" in the Ming Dynasty was an expansion and interpretation of the "four kinds of idle things". The play reflects his yearning for a leisurely and undisciplined lifestyle, full of interest and realm.
Passing away is like a whirlwind, and the giant hand of time will always ruthlessly erase many old scenery. Once upon a time, with the passage of time and changes in world affairs, the "many life" advocated by the ancients gradually drifted away from us. This makes people sigh: the flowers are similar every year, but the people are different every year. For most people, the joy of life only remains in the realm of "what the body cannot reach but the heart longs for".
Are you troubled by trivial matters and overwhelmed by heavy burdens? Have you ever thought about: A person has two lives, material life and spiritual life. Today, when material life is relatively abundant, The latter is more important, it may be your real life.
If the world is too noisy, there are many ways to calm down. Some people think that walking into the mountains and listening to the wind blowing can calm them down, and some people think that drinking a pot of tea alone can also calm people's body and mind. Some people like to burn a wisp of fragrant incense to soothe the troubles in their hearts while breathing, and they will have inner peace at the same time.
"There is scenery in my heart, and nothing in my mouth is right or wrong. If I have books, I will be really rich, and if I have nothing to do, I will be a little fairy." Let us go through the years and see the leisurely feelings of the ancients, and how did the ancients cultivate their body and mind? Can we still learn from it today? Let go of what is on your mind and let your soul be at peace. Don't care what others think, if you are happy, the world will be happy. Isn't it?
1. Burning incense
Burning incense has been a way to naturally calm the body and mind since ancient times. The ancients often used incense as a friend when they were studying, and liked to use incense as a companion when they were alone.
When you are happy to be quiet, burn a piece of incense and enter a quiet and peaceful state of mind as the elegant scent diffuses. Set up a tea table and light a stick of incense to quickly calm your body and mind and experience the true taste of tea.
Feeling proud in a stick of smoke and taking a break in the dust, this is the romance of burning incense.
2. Playing the Qin
The Qin is the instrument of sages and gentlemen. The Song Dynasty's "Qin Lun" says: "Playing the qin is like meditating on Zen. After years of practice, you can comprehend everything at a glance, and you can experience the wonderful uses in all aspects." Li Zhi of the Ming Dynasty continued: "The way of sound can be connected with Zen." In today's life, being able to play the piano is the happiest thing, and it is also the best way to cultivate your spirit, spirit, and temperament.
In ancient times, there was a harpist named Gong Mingyi who played the harp to a group of cows, but the cows did not respond. He then imitated the sound of a calf braying and played another song, but the cow remained indifferent. Gong Mingyi lamented: I don’t know how to appreciate playing the piano to a cow. But if you think about it carefully, a truly leisurely and contented person will not worry about the outside world. If you want to be romantic, you must have a sense of "self". For example, Tao Yuanming could not play the piano, but he kept a stringless piano at home all year round. Whenever he was drinking and enjoying himself, he would touch it gently, and the silence would be better than the sound, which could be regarded as a kind of sustenance.
Those who know how to play musical instruments can enjoy themselves with just a flick of their fingers, no matter where they are. If your heart is comfortable, you can do it without strings. This is the romance of playing the piano.
3. Game of Chess
"If you don't do useless things, how can you send this destined life away?" In ancient times, people with academic status played chess for entertainment. They also exercised their ability to consider the overall situation and enhanced their strategies. Therefore, in teahouses in busy cities, leisure people often played chess for entertainment.
There is a saying in Li Weng's "Xian Qing Ou Ji": "Playing chess is not as good as watching chess, because the spectator has no intention of gaining or losing." Watching chess is an interesting thing, just like watching bullfights, cockfights, and cricket fights. But there is also something sad about watching chess. Watching chess without saying anything is a kind of pain. My throat feels extremely itchy, and I feel like I want to spit out my thoughts.
4. Reading
Zeng Guofan once said: "It is difficult to change a person's temperament due to his nature, but reading can change his temperament." He also said: "There are only two of us who study. One thing is a matter of advancing virtue, and the other is a matter of cultivating one's career."
Jin Shengtan once said: "Reading leisurely books with red sleeves is one of the great pleasures in life." The ancients have long seen through the path of life, and regard cultivating a pure heart as the greatest fulfillment of one's life. "If you have books, you will be rich and noble, and if you have nothing to do, you will be a little fairy."
In the past, although the meaning of the words was clear, few people practiced it and it was as if they were ignored. After being tempered by the world, I finally believed in it and regarded reading as my first pleasure.
5. Appreciating paintings
A poem by Wang Mojie of the Tang Dynasty goes: "Looking at the mountains from a distance, they are colorful, and hearing the water up close is silent. When spring goes, the flowers are still there, and when people come, the birds are not surprised." The ancients To paint, you need a pen and a piece of rice paper, freely and freely, with freehand brushwork.
Appreciating paintings has always been an elegant enjoyment that can cultivate one's sentiments and keep one's body and mind healthy. It can make people's mood sink into the atmosphere of art and be influenced by it, so that they can gain more experience in life and feel relaxed and happy.
The ancients all had deep meanings in their paintings, and they all had their own ideas and thoughts when writing. Kuang's name is not empty, and it has been passed down for a long time, so he must be outstanding.
6. Picking flowers
Since ancient times, there has been a saying that "it is difficult to enter the elegant realm if the charm of flowers is not clear". It is difficult to find flowers in the evening mist. The jianjia is white, and the dream is flying to the end of the world. Chinese flower culture has a long history, and flowers are an important theme in many artistic works.
Ancient songs include "Spring River Flowers on a Moonlit Night", "Three Plum Blossom Lanes", "Yushu Backyard Flowers", etc. Folk music includes "Jasmine", "Why Are the Flowers So Red", etc., and there are countless poems and paintings with flowers as the theme. Even in traditional crafts such as embroidery and ceramics, floral patterns are also important decorations.
When people appreciate flowers, they not only appreciate its natural beauty such as color, fragrance, and appearance, but also integrate their own feelings about the flowers and give them a style and character. Those who love orchids love them to be elegant and refined; those who love chrysanthemums love them to be independent in the cold autumn; those who love lotus love them to grow out of the mud without being stained; those who love plum trees love them to fight snow in the cold.
7. Tea tasting
When Su Dongpo came to Hangzhou to take office, Master Nanping Qian of Jingci Temple heard about it and came specially to order tea for Dongpo. We meet each other in a hurry in the dust, but Master Qian is calm and focused, grinding carefully. Dongpo sat across from him, watching him quietly as he boiled water, poured water, and mixed ointment. He held the tea spoon in his hand and turned it around, his face as quiet as a Buddha's. In Master Qian's hands, the tea soup turned into fine milky white foam. After finishing the matter, Dongpo raised his tea cup with both hands and tasted the tea, thinking about it for a long time. He composed a poem on the spot: The Taoist came out of Nanping Mountain at dawn to try out the tea samadhi technique. Suddenly, I was startled by the rabbit hair spots on the noon lamp, and made a spring vat of goose wine.
This kind of deep meditation is Zen and a taste of life. Tea has various flavors. As long as you brew it carefully and taste it, it always has the power to bring joy to your heart. Brewing a pot of strong tea in the midst of a busy schedule, choosing a quiet and elegant place, and pouring and drinking it by yourself can wash away worries, improve your thinking, and boost your spirit. You can also sip it carefully and slowly to achieve beautiful enjoyment. Still water flows deep, light yet flavorful, this is the romance of drinking tea.
"Guests come to drink tea on a cold night, and the soup in the bamboo stove is red when it boils." Chinese people pay attention to the word "taste" when drinking tea. Whether tea is used to quench thirst and clear the mind, or whether tea is used to clarify one's nature and practice, expresses everyone's different attitude towards tea. In fact, the realms are different, and there is no distinction between superior and inferior. There is no rich or poor, no high or low tea. It can be simple and simple, or it can be grand and exquisite, elegant and elegant, all in daily life.
8. Drinking wine
In the ninth year of Yonghe in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, on the day of Shangsi, Wang Xizhi called his friends to the newly built Orchid Pavilion to play a game. They sat on the ground on both sides of the clear stream in Lanting, filled a small boat-like container with fine wine, lowered it upstream, and drifted through the winding stream. Whoever stopped in front of the glass would be forced to drink wine and compose a poem.
Amidst the gentle wind and lush bamboo trees, they either bare their chests and arms, or were drunk and hazy. The celebrities of the Wei and Jin Dynasties laughed in the mountains and forests, broad-minded and relaxed. What they drink is not just wine, but the kind of unfettered feeling in troubled times. No matter how many years pass, my love for life remains unchanged.
Wine and green plums boil together and overflow the cup. Intoxicating, the shades are always suitable. Most of the wise men of ancient and modern times understood the world, fully understood life, and cultivated their own character from the state of drunkenness. An old saying goes: "Drinking is a matter of learning, not eating." It is also said: "The universe is great when you are drunk, and the sun and moon are long in the pot." I have a jug of wine, which is enough to soothe the wind and dust. This is the romance of drinking wine.
9. Listening to the Rain
Zhang Chao, a lifestyle expert in the Qing Dynasty, said that it is better to read in the spring rain, to play chess in the summer rain, to search for things in the autumn rain, and to drink in the winter rain. The rainy day that ordinary people see as annoying, he said, looks like a painting. I have been reading poems written by ancient people about rain since I was a child. There is a very interesting sentence: I sleep in a bamboo studio and listen to the rain, and moss grows in my dreams.
The most pleasant time on a rainy day is to lie on the bed at home and listen to the rain. When I fall asleep in the rain, wet moss grows even in my dreams. My consciousness seems to turn into raindrops, and the boundary with the world slowly disappears in the sound of the rain. No one could blame this sentimental laziness.
We may not be able to change the environment, but we can change our state of mind. Lying asleep listening to the rain, a dream comes to life, this is the romance of a rainy day.
10. Appreciating the Snow
It was a winter day. Bai Juyi brewed light green rice wine and heated up the small red clay stove. His friend Liu Yutong had just entered the house. It is getting late and the snow is getting thicker. The two of them chatted for a while, and as the wine got hot, one of them poured wine for the other. After one glass, they sighed with contentment and laughed.
If you were passing by outside the house at this time and saw this light of fire on a snowy night, ordinary people would think that it was just a fragment of life that was so ordinary that it was not worth mentioning. But for the two of them, they didn't know how they would laugh and talk about the Spring and Autumn Period that night, and how many poems they would write.
Sometimes I feel that cherishing the present is a talent in life. For example, when we are in the hot summer, we will miss the coldness of winter, but in the twelfth month of winter, how many people will feel the beauty of the moment? Whether we live a leisurely, leisurely and interesting life depends on how much beauty we can see in the moment. It's snowing in the evening, so being able to drink a glass of wine is the romance of enjoying the snow.
11. Hou Yue
A poet said: To view the moon, you must be near the water, you must go alone, you must go to an empty and secluded place, so that you can communicate with the spirit of heaven and earth alone. It was under such a situation that Zhang Ruoxu wrote the ever-famous poem "Moonlight Night on the Spring River".
In many poems about the moon, the poet blends the moon into his inner thoughts and emotions, and makes the moon and inner thoughts and emotions reflect each other, creating many beautiful aesthetic conceptions and integrating the poem's Literary taste, ideological connotation and artistic attainments have been raised to a very high level.
The naughty boy Li Bai is said to have done something stupid like fishing for the moon in a drunken river. But facing his close friend the moon, he also showed his deep and sentimental side: when he was drinking alone in the flower room, he invited the moon to drink with him. , "Raise a glass to the bright moon, and make three people in the shadows";
Some people say: The moon is the eye of the sky. And looking at the moon is also looking at myself. The moon is the oldest romantic image of the Chinese people. Using the moon as a mirror, communicating with the heaven and earth alone, this is the romance of waiting for the moon. Waiting for the moon, have a date with the moon at night, bathe in the moonlight, enjoy the beautiful scenery of this good time, and your feelings are as gentle as water.
12. Planting flowers
Lin Hejing, a poet in the Song Dynasty, can be regarded as an "authentic nymphomaniac" in today's terms. He lived in the mountains for a long time, never held an official position, never married a wife, or had children. He only planted plum blossoms around his residence. He was accompanied by flowers and a white crane all his life. Later generations called him "Plum Wife and Crane Son".
Flowers are not flowers but are better than companions, and those who love flowers are the most romantic. Zhu Xishou, a famous scholar in the Qing Dynasty, once used flowers to describe women: chrysanthemum, a talented woman who is good at writing; tea, a person who is good at talking about Zen; peony, a woman named soil; lotus, a daughter of a famous scholar, and Weilan is a peerless beauty...
Planting flowers means planting flowers. Waiting for flowers is like a couple, reading flowers is like a person, this is the romance of growing flowers.
Thirteen. Looking for a quiet place
Try to imagine a morning, strolling outside the ancient temple, the rising sun shining on the jungle. The winding path leads to a quiet place, where monks sing sutras and worship Buddha, hidden among flowers and trees. The clear mountain light and the reflection in the deep pool eliminate all the worldly thoughts in people's hearts.
When Chinese people travel to mountains and rivers, they do not have the desire to conquer them like Westerners, but appreciate their profound, elusive and unfathomable beauty, so it is called "seeking for beauty". Abandoning the mortal world and being silent with nature is the romance of seeking seclusion.
What nature always has is natural freedom. Compared with the chattering world of mortals, its broadness and silence can always soothe people's hearts.
The ancients focused on cultivating one’s body, cultivating one’s sentiments, and taking good care of one’s own life when one was poor. Da Ze and benefit the world. There is both worldly idealism and worldly open-mindedness.
Elegance comes from inner tranquility and indifference, withdrawing from busyness and leaving a leisurely space among the numerous thoughts. Su Dongpo, a Song Dynasty poet, said in a poem: "The wind and moon in the mountains and rivers have no permanent owner." , He who is idle is the master.”
If you don’t have a leisurely mind, how can you be elegant?