Fan Deng talks about Mencius.

Hello, everyone. Today we begin to learn from Mencius. Mencius is not as famous as Confucius, but Mencius is very cute. In Historical Records, Mencius was called Monk and Zou Ren.

Who is Zisi? "Who is Zisi? Zisi is the grandson of Confucius, that is to say, Confucius taught Ceng Zi, Ceng Zi taught Zisi, and Zisi's master taught Mencius. We speculate that Mencius was born in 372 BC and Confucius died in 479 BC, so the difference is about 100 years, which means that Mencius was born nearly 100 years after Confucius died.

Mencius' most famous story should be "Three Major Movements in Meng Mu" at first. Meng Mu grew up with Mencius when he was a child. At first, they lived near the cemetery. Later, he found that this little Mencius followed others to learn about weddings and funerals, and arranged weddings and funerals all day. The mother said no at first sight, taught the child badly, and then moved to the market.

Living in the market, I found that this child learns to do business with others every day, doing business, buying goods and setting up stalls. My mother felt useless and later moved to live next to the school auditorium. Next to the school auditorium, children can slowly read poetry books and learn etiquette, and become better and better. Therefore, the story of Meng Mu's "San Yun" laid the foundation for China traditional culture to buy school districts. Even today, parents are struggling to find a better learning environment for their children. This sentence comes from Mencius.

Of course, the most important thing Mencius left us was masculinity. He said, "I am good at cultivating my noble spirit." You have completely different feelings when you read Mencius and Confucius. Confucius is a man who looks like he is warm. He is relatively moderate and moderate. Mencius is a man who dares to quarrel with anyone, that is, Mencius once explained himself very well: he said, "It is difficult to argue if you give it." Do I like arguing with others? I have to do this.

Why did Mencius argue with others? Everyone should know that after the death of Confucius, Confucianism fell into a trough. At that time, the most important remarks in the world were Yang Zhu on the one hand and Mo on the other. Everyone pursues fame and fortune, so the whole society is in dispute and chaos.

So at this time, if there is no such person as Mencius, and then vigorously debate with everyone with the attitude of "Who" to carry forward the Confucian spirit of benevolence and righteousness and the ideal of harmonious society he advocated, it is likely that Confucianism will be buried in the troubled times of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. So Mencius is a very important pillar of Confucianism.

In history, Mencius' two most important promoters, namely his biggest fans, can be said to be Han Yu and Wang Anshi. When you find these people who want to do things, you will find Mencius' speech very important. He set a moral standard for future generations and is very important to all scholars. In the Zhu era, Mencius was selected into the four books. In this case, The Analects of Confucius, Mencius, University and The Doctrine of the Mean have become compulsory subjects for all scholars.

Because Mencius put forward the idea of valuing the people over the monarch long ago, in fact, westerners will think that Mencius is the bud of China's democratic thought. He believes that "the people are the most important, the country is the second, and the monarch is the light", that is, if a monarch is fatuous, then the people can overthrow him. In Zhu Yuanzhang's view, this matter is a big mistake. After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, fewer and fewer people read Mencius. It was not until the recent upsurge of Chinese studies that everyone began to pick up the Four Books and Five Classics and began to re-read. Mencius and The Analects of Confucius are well known together.

This time, we will explain Mencius word for word from beginning to end, just like I told The Analects. You will find it particularly interesting. Moreover, there are many idioms that make you feel familiar, such as, different people have different opinions, and pot calling the kettle black, who encourages young plants and reneges on their promises. These words are from Mencius.

Because Mencius' article is long, I am very tired to read and my voice is not very good. We hired a very good teacher. You can know who he is as soon as you listen to his voice. Let the teacher read the original text of Mencius to everyone first.