Reflections on the Book of Time

Introduction: An introductory book to understand China's solar terms culture, a book that can be read on time for one year, so as to understand time, space and its significance to our lives. The following are my thoughts on the book of time for your reference.

I read the Book of Time 1 24 solar terms, which are a supplementary calendar made by China in ancient times to guide farming. The 24 solar terms intuitively express the changing law of climate factors in nature in a year. The creation of the 24 solar terms is a combination of scientific knowledge such as astronomy, meteorology and agriculture, and it is also the crystallization of the long-term experience and wisdom of ancient working people. Because the main political, economic, cultural and agricultural activity centers in China are mostly concentrated in the Central Plains of the Yellow River Basin in history, the 24 solar terms are divided according to the climate and phenology of this area and the position of the sun on the ecliptic, so the production of the 24 solar terms is actually determined by the natural environment and is inseparable from the influence of the Central Plains culture.

As early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, China people used the standard table to measure the sun's shadow to determine the time of winter solstice and summer solstice, and came up with the concepts of south solstice and north solstice. Then people divide a year into 24 equal parts according to the change of the sun and moon's running position and the natural laws of weather, animal and plant growth, and arrange all solar terms and neutral gases at equal intervals, each equal part accounts for 15 degree of the yellow diameter, which is 24 solar terms. The "December Period" in the Spring and Autumn Annals of the Warring States Period has eight solar terms, including beginning of spring, Spring Equinox, Long Summer, Summer Solstice, beginning of autumn, Spring Equinox, beginning of winter and Winter Solstice, which clearly divides the four seasons of the year.

China people's summary and induction of natural phenomena cannot be separated from the cultural context and the way of thinking of "analogy with images". If beginning of spring, Changxia, beginning of autumn and beginning of winter are used to reflect the seasons, they respectively represent the beginning of the four seasons; The vernal equinox, autumnal equinox, summer solstice and winter solstice have more astronomical scientific concepts, reflecting the turning point of solar height change; Rain, Grain Rain, light snow and heavy snow reflect precipitation, while white dew, cold dew and first frost reflect water vapor condensation. Xiaoman and Miscanthus reflect the maturity and harvest of crops, and awakening and Qingming reflect natural phenology. The naming of these solar terms is first related to people's generalization and summary of natural phenomena and crop growth laws, and also reflects the thinking mode and cultural metaphor of "analogy".

"Twenty-four solar terms" is not only a cultural ecosystem, but also a natural ecosystem. The appearance of the "twenty-four solar terms" is first determined by the natural environment. In the Yellow River valley of China, the four seasons are distinct, and the ancestors were able to correspond the 24 solar terms with the calendar, which made a unique contribution to human understanding of the laws of nature. Culture will change with the changes of history, but the soul and spiritual core of a nation are hard to change, which is also the "dynamic" and "static" of culture. Therefore, the "24 solar terms" can't be superficial, and we can't just look at the phenomenon without seeing the spirit. We should come from culture and go to culture.

After reading the book of time, 2. Nowadays, all kinds of literary Weibo like to say "China people have no imagination" and "China people don't understand the true meaning of romance". They like to say that the magical world of Harry Potter shines with a halo, tim burton's gorgeous and bizarre Gothic life, and the heroic plot interpretation of Marvel comics. ...........................................................................

However, the romance of China people is another matter. It is a very exclusive existence, but it is not easy to understand. It seems dull, rambling and illogical, but there is nothing in the heart. Connecting the world with time and space, you can see the world and all beings with your heart.

Teacher Yu Shicun's book explaining the 24 solar terms has a very nice name, called The Book of Time. Yes, this is the romance of China people. The most ordinary time, every inch of the day, every second of blooming, every moment of glory and decline, and every time of long disappearance naturally happen around us. It is this ordinary auspicious feather that permeates the texture of life and casts a symphony of China people's simple but romantic thinking about nature and time and space.

Our wise ancestors gave them twenty-four names with unparalleled language talent and imagination, which are the twenty-four solar terms. There are many poetic expressions in these very precise and incisive names. Just two words can be unique and unique. For example, Millennium, Grain Rain, Qingming and the first frost are all colored and tangible, and the four seasons are vivid, so clear and natural!

When I was a child, I watched a Dream of Red Mansions, and I liked the poetic fragments in which the phenology of bloom in the four seasons and the life of the characters were intertwined. They are like very delicate and independent embroidery. They are gorgeous and elegant, with a long aftertaste, but when they are combined together, we will find that it is these thoughts that are completely unique to China people and constitute the greatest philosophical thinking of this wonderful book on people, the world and time and space.

For example, the cold fragrant pills used by Xue Baochai to recuperate the body are described as follows: white peony flowers bloom in spring, Bai Lianhua in summer, white hibiscus flowers in autumn and Bai Meihua in winter. In the vernal equinox of the following year, four stamens were dried and ground together with the medicinal powder. Twelve dollars for the rain on this day, twelve dollars for the dew of the Millennium, twelve dollars for the first frost and twelve dollars for the light snow. Mix these four kinds of water with the medicine, add 12 pieces of honey and 12 pieces of sugar, make pills as big as longan, put them in the old magnetic altar and bury them under the flower roots. If you are sick, take out one pill and take it with Cortex Phellodendri 12 minutes.

Rain, frost and snow in spring, summer, autumn and winter, the essence of the four seasons is in one pill. Isn't this cold fragrant pill that Cao Xueqin buried in a dream of red mansions, staring at all things in the world and getting a glimpse of the depths of time and space? This inclusive vision embodies the most common but exquisite imagination and wisdom of China people about nature and time.

Teacher Yu condensed the book of time into 24 solar terms with 48 characters, which was developed with rich and gorgeous brushwork, extensive quotations, meticulous and full emotional connection and scientific explanation.

Among the 24 solar terms constructed by Mr. Yu, we can see the changes of time, climate, flowers, trees, birds and animals fleeing, and there are also corresponding divinatory symbols, people's lives, customs and eating habits. These entities, which no longer exist in today's digital virtual world, have really penetrated into the lives of China people for thousands of years.

It is described in the book that ancestors in China made twelve bamboo tubes from bamboo, corresponding to twelve months. Arrange the bamboo tubes in order of length and insert them into the soil. The bamboo tube is empty, and the ash burned with reeds is stored in the bamboo tube waiting for the soil to be planted. On the solstice of winter, the sun rises. Sun be the spirit all one's life, the first pipe is called Huang Zhong, full of gas, and the reed ash in the bamboo pipe also flies out, making a "buzzing" sound. This kind of sound is called the yellow bell, which is a child at this time and the solar term is the winter solstice.

How did such an idea full of genius and imagination come into being after three observations and brain storms? Among them, the most attractive are actually some seemingly unreasonable, but in fact mysterious coincidences. Scientific or not, it reveals a beautiful connection. Between heaven and earth, between all things, between all beings, these spiritual exchanges and moments shine like stars in corners that we have never noticed, in the long river of time and space.

This is the unique imagination and poetry of China people. In the twenty-four solar terms, the grass grows and warblers fly, and they work at sunrise, but rest at sunset, and the snow melts and insects sound, which is also in the world and among all beings.

The book of time is a book about time. It has written many stories about time with the theme of 24 solar terms. In the book, we can savor the 5,000-year farming civilization and marvel at the crystallization of wisdom handed down by our ancestors for thousands of years.

"The spring rain shakes the spring and the valley days, the mountains and rivers in summer are hot in summer, the autumn dew is frosty, and there is snow and ice in winter." This is a children's song about honesty. My first impression of honesty as a child was learned from here, so I never felt anything about honesty. It was not until I read the book of time by my teacher Yu Shicun that I saw the texture of time in his article. Suddenly, I have a new understanding of "Twenty-four Holidays". In teacher Yu's book, a year is like a lifetime, and life is like a day. The ancients said that the avenue is nature. The most natural thing is to step on the drum of time and be a man in time. In other words, Mr. Yang Ming said, "Scholars who believe in their own conscience are not confused by anger and often become people above Emperor Xi."

After reading this book for the first time, we can understand the different characteristics of the 24 solar terms, the phenology of each solar term, the impact on farming, and what natural phenomena can distinguish different solar terms ... After reading it deeply, we will understand many stories behind the solar terms, understand the relationship between man and nature, and better enhance our position in a century of life. At the time of the first frost, autumn is coming to an end, and people cut trees at this time, so they found the tree rings. Tree rings not only explain the age of trees, but also explain the changes of annual precipitation and temperature. They also record forest fires, early frost and chemical components absorbed from the surrounding environment, and even tell us what happened before and about the future. People learn from these natures, the most important of which is the law of causality.

In the book of time, the "24 solar terms" are just popular science. What is more important is the truth of being a man, the understanding of nature, the tradition and present of man, the textual research and cultural inheritance of poetry. Therefore, the book of time is a real encyclopedia about time based on the 24 solar terms. At least, it is close to the hearts of the people of China. Teacher Yu himself is called "one of the thinkers with the greatest ideological influence, historical mission and intellectual temperament in contemporary China". The first time I knew him, I think it was in an editor's book that he mentioned "a small country and a big country" in Yu Shicun. With the rapid development of science and technology, modern people have surpassed time and lost their sense of time. The ancients had a day's plan in the morning and a year's plan in the spring; There are still plans for a hundred years and worries for a thousand years. But modern people don't feel this way. Without a sense of time, the biological clock will be disordered and people's physical and mental state will be abnormal. The most intuitive thing is that many people are unwell, inflamed and have acne on their faces. This is the result of their loss of sense of time. The significance of time sense to modern people is not only health, but also happiness and life.

Man's existence depends on time. Heidegger said in Being in Time that this is not the case. Life is a day, and a day is a year. Time is a mysterious concept, it is not just the concept of time. After reading Yu Shicun's Book of Time, at least, we should respect time and be honest with it.

After reading the Book of Time Part IV: We have machines and institutions, but we have no civilization.

We have complicated feelings, but we have nowhere to turn for help.

We have many voices, but no truth.

-Mu Dan's "Hidden"

Mr Yu Shicun often quotes this poem when he talks about his literary attitude. Yu Shicun's name is no stranger in the cultural circles of China. He is a poet, thinker, scholar and freelance writer. He worked as a middle school teacher, newspaper editor, official and volunteer, and also served as the executive editor of Strategy and Management and the assistant editor of Science Times. In his rich past, what impressed people most was his almost paranoid adherence to the conscience of traditional intellectuals in China. This stubbornness is manifested in the preface of Yu Shicun's book Rebuilding Life: "I remember Lu Xun firmly saying that I am living and I exist. However, how many people care about life and existence? ..... We dream almost every day, giving up rationality, conscience, justice, human freedom and dignity, and living on the promise of grand narrative. We know that one day, all our lives will be a perfect golden world, a paradise on earth where our desires are met infinitely and instantly. One hundred years of hard work has brought us a lot of pain. A hundred years of vicissitudes have given us everything, but we have never had a life. " Yu Shicun is known as "one of the most influential thinkers in contemporary China with historical mission and intellectual temperament". We may have many cynics, but we actually need Lu Xun more.

165438+1October 30th, the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage officially passed a resolution, which listed China's "Twenty-four solar terms-the time knowledge system formed by China people through observing the anniversary of the sun and its practice" in the UNESCO representative list of human intangible cultural heritage. Fortunately, this time, the things left by our ancestors were successfully applied for and were not misappropriated by our neighbors inexplicably. In view of our past habits, Yu Shicun's Book of Time: Yu Shicun Says Twenty-four Solar Terms (hereinafter referred to as the Book of Time) should be regarded as a kind of "forgotten memorial" in a sense, because after all, Christmas is coming, and the end of the year will be very hard. Who remembers? Who cares?

Do you remember who wrote and carved time?

"The Book of Time" is not a "work for the occasion". The reason why this book was published is because Mr. Yu Shicun opened a column at the request of National Humanities History magazine and wrote it for a whole year. It is the author's research achievement in the past year, and it is a profound thought to combine the book of changes and other medieval philosophical works. Now, almost everyone knows when Christmas is and when it is "Double Eleven", but few people can completely describe the traditional "24 solar terms" in China. It's no exaggeration for People's Daily to call this book "the first national reader to comprehensively interpret the 24 solar terms". Because the book of time contains a lot of information, involving astronomy, geography, agriculture, biology and so on. Classical poetry and modern poetry are also quoted a lot, such as Mu Dan's poems and Rilke's poems. Mr. Yu Shicun said: "If I borrow Heidegger's words, my book is about the relationship between solar terms and our individuals and society, and solar terms are the existence and time of China people;" If I borrow Hawking, my book is about a brief history of time in the eyes of China culture. "

According to records, China knew the period of the solar calendar in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. Shangshu clearly pointed out that the solar calendar is 366 days a year. In ancient China, the lunar calendar was used to record the years and months, and there was no strict and fixed relationship between the lunar calendar and seasons and meteorology, so it was very inconvenient to master the production activities in farming season, so our ancestors determined the solar terms by measuring the length of the sun shadow and the position of the Big Dipper at dusk. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period about 2,500 years ago, there were four solar terms: the second solstice (winter solstice, summer solstice) and the second vernal equinox (vernal equinox, autumn equinox). Lu Chunqiu recorded eight solar terms, which were gradually supplemented later. It was completed in the Qin and Han Dynasties 2 100 years ago, and the book Huai Nan Zi by Liu An in the Western Han Dynasty also has the same 24 articles as now.

Mr. Yu Shicun has made a comprehensive reflection on the ancient people's view of time in China in the previous Great Times: Rediscovering the Book of Changes, and this Book of Changes is a further study and confirmation. The Book of Changes has two angles to observe time. One is the rational time abstracted by later generations, such as "righteousness when preparing", "righteousness when reforming" and "righteousness when reforming". The ancients divided time into preparation, readiness, transformation and other multidimensional time types. Unfortunately, we only know Thai time, but we have no time, no time and other time types. Mr. Yu Shicun demonstrated another observation angle in detail in The Great Times. The ancients used the modern solar calendar system to divide a tropical year into 64 segments. Combined with this division, various images are distributed in the Book of Changes. The Book of Times further pointed out that if the ancients divided a solar cycle into four images, there would be four time and space images in a year. For example, if you divide them into eight pieces of gossip, there are eight kinds of time and space in a year. The finer the division of Taiji students, the more specific the function of each time and space, and the clearer the meaning. In the twenty-four dimensional time, every one-dimensional time puts forward requirements for the life and people in it. Our ancestors had a keen sense and understanding of the weather beyond the times, in a sense.

That year, apricot blossoms rained, grass grew and warblers flew.

In Time, Mr. Yu Shicun made a profound explanation of the concept of "material mode". The ancients knew the difference between rough work and fine work, and they also knew that the output of crops was different. Sowing is not a simple planting, but is divided into seed selection, breeding and planting, and everything must conform to the material way. Mr Yu Shicun cited an example in his book to illustrate the great significance of this material way. Ancient farmers in China participated in the formation of paddy soil, which had a far-reaching impact on human agriculture. An acre of wheat can carry about 25 people, an acre of corn can carry about 50 people, and an acre of rice can carry about 200 people. In the profession of farmers, the ancient people in China reached the acme. In the investigation report written at the beginning of the19th century, British agronomists believed that the use of land by farmers in the East reached an artistic level, and one acre of land could feed six times more people than that of Britain, which was very remarkable in interplanting, fuel, food utilization, fertilization cycle and soil protection ... All these were closely related to farmers' subtle understanding of time and subconscious understanding of things.

This understanding and deep respect for the way of things has formed a unique intensive cultivation method in China. Weather is the way of things, and the way of things is the way of things In the Book of Time, Yu Shicun showed the solar terms of ancient agricultural production in a panoramic way, which made people feel that the ancients fixed time and production in a state of harmony and even integration between man and Tao. "beginning of spring" indicates the beginning of the spring when everything is revived, and the vast land will present a vibrant and prosperous scene, which also marks the beginning of a year's farming activities. "Rain" and "thorn" after "beginning of spring" indicate that rainfall began to increase, thunder began, and hibernating insects began to wake up. "Tomb-Sweeping Day" and "Grain Rain" after the "vernal equinox" indicate that the temperature is getting warmer, the vegetation is sprouting, the spring is clear, and the rainfall is gradually increasing, which is suitable for grain growth. "Long summer" means that the sunny spring has passed and entered the summer busy farming season. After the "long summer", "small full" and "in the middle of the mountain" mean that the crops are full and vigorous. The "light summer" and "great summer" from summer to the future represent the hottest season, and it is also a busy and tense season for agricultural activities such as summer harvest and summer sowing. "beginning of autumn" means that the heat is over and the autumn is crisp. "beginning of autumn" is followed by "Summer" and "White Dew", indicating that the summer heat has subsided, the dew is getting thicker and the weather is getting colder. The "cold dew" and "first frost" after the "autumn equinox" further indicate the coming of frost, which is a busy season for harvesting crops in autumn and sowing crops in winter. "beginning of winter" is the beginning of winter, indicating that farming activities have entered the end of the year; The "light snow" and "heavy snow" after "beginning of winter" indicate the beginning of snowfall; The "slight cold" and "great cold" after winter indicate that solstice has entered the coldest season of the year.

Apricot blossoms and misty rain, grass grows and warblers fly, flowers are similar year after year, and people are different year after year. Although the ancients did not enjoy today's advanced technology, their lives were not boring. They have their own quiet and comfortable life, which is integrated with things and Tao. At that time, "China on the Tip of the Tongue" swept the country. I believe that all the friends who like this documentary, while being shocked by countless delicious foods, can also deeply feel a material way with a deep sense of history, and this material way comes from our 24 solar terms. It is in this sense that Mr. Yu Shicun quoted a sentence from the Book of Time: "Young man, your duty is to level the land, not to worry about time. You do things in March and April, and you have your own answers in August and September. " I feel that we all know the sense of existence today, but we are not sensitive to the passage of time. Whether classical or modern, people have a profound connection with time.

This is the feeling of China people.

The preface of Yu Shicun's The Book of Time is called A Passage to Xia Zhishi. Confucius said that his way to serve the country is "to swim, to take advantage of Yin and to serve Zhou Zhimian". Mr. Yu Shicun originated from Confucius' words and put forward Confucius' theory of "traveling to Xia Zhishi" in the era of globalization, that is, using the Gregorian calendar to enjoy the products of various countries, retaining the elements of China and embracing human feelings. In this sense, Mr. Yu Shicun came from an extraordinary road, China people and a big country with a small population, and then turned to study Laozi and Yijing. In his own words, this change is inevitable from youth to middle age, and has nothing to do with returning from a warm life to a quiet study. His words are not academic or learning, but still fighting and inspiring. The Book of Time is undoubtedly an extension of his knowledge or ideological mission since the May 4th New Culture Movement. He tried to provide effective ideological resources for the society, correct and stabilize the people in the world, and tried to shout again and again from the conscious angle of a traditional intellectual.