How to read in ancient China

The ancient Chinese theory of reading originated from Confucius. The word "reading" was first used in the Analects of Confucius: "Zi Lu made Zi Lamb the Fei Zai. Zi Lu said: 'The son of a thief's wife.' Zi Lu said: 'There are people in the country, and there are the gods of the earth and grain in the country, so why do you need to study, and then be a learner?' Zi said: 'It is therefore evil to the sycophant.'" Obviously, Confucius believes that "for learning" is to "read", he collected Lu, Zhou, Song countries of the documentary archives, successively organized, deleted the "Six Classics", he founded a private school, advocating the "teaching without class He founded a private school, advocating "teaching without class", taught up to 3,000 disciples, he not only teaching, tireless, and his own reading is also exceptionally diligent, leaving behind a "late reading Yi, Wei Zhisanjie" of a good story. The purpose of education in feudal society is to cultivate "scholarly gentlemen" who are suitable for the development of feudal society and serve the feudal ruling class, which becomes the starting point and destination of reading. The mainstream of Confucianism is to advocate the reading of the "scriptures" for the purpose of "cultivating one's moral character, regulating one's family, ruling the country, and pacifying the world", and to advocate the positive and enterprising spirit of entering the world to build up one's merit and honor. Many of Confucius's disciples, including Confucius himself, used to go around looking for an official, practicing the idea of "learning and excellence", which is the first step of "studying to be an official". Mencius further theorized for "studying to be an official": "He who labors to rule others, and he who labors to rule over others. He who rules over people eats people, and he who rules over people eats people. The world's moral righteousness." Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty respected Confucianism and established the "Five Classics" doctorate, and set up "disciples" for the doctorate, which opened the door to the court for Confucian scholars who studied and sought official positions. The Tang Dynasty followed the Sui system, and established the system of imperial examination, which designed a way for the common people to join the court and become officials, and greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of the common people to study. "A book has its own thousand bells of millet, a book has its own golden house, a book has its own face like jade." "All kinds of things are inferior, only the book is higher." These words have almost become the mantra of the readers. Reading activities have a strong ethical and utilitarian, from "reading to be an official" reflects this. In many historical books about ancient people's reading, it is not difficult to find that "reading to be an official" can be said to be the main purpose of ancient people's reading, which is also inseparable from the social customs at that time. In ancient history, we can see everywhere how someone first studied hard, how hard to read, and then how to "learn the classics and history", how to get a high school diploma, how to get a big official. They believed that reading the "classics" meant "applying them to the world" and achieving the ideal state advocated by Confucianism, that is, "cultivating one's moral character, regulating one's family, ruling the country and pacifying the world". Although they were thinking of consolidating the feudal rule and had a positive and enterprising spirit of entering the world to build a meritocracy, which also contained certain positive factors conducive to social progress and beneficial to the people's livelihood, they were, however, aiming to seek their own selfish interests, and their outlook on life and value orientation determined that they should pursue glory, wealth, honor and glory, excel in the world, fame and fortune, and studying was only a means to achieve "high rank and high fortune" for them. For them, studying was just a "knocking brick" to get high official positions. Today, we have to stand on the height of the times and establish the ethical purpose of studying for the realization of the grand goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Although many children from poor families liked to study, they overcame many unimaginable difficulties and left behind a lot of good stories that made people sigh with appreciation due to the poverty of their families, or they did not have lamps for reading, or they did not have books, brushes, or ink for reading. Feng Jing Di of the Ming Dynasty had written "reading lamp", citing dozens of ancient night reading due to poverty and no lamps and other things to replace the day after day. In our ancient history, such examples can be said to abound. For example, Kuang Heng "studied hard without a candle, and the neighboring house had a candle but could not catch it, so Heng went through the wall and drew its light to read the book against the light". ("xijing miscellany") this is the story of "chiseling wall borrowing light" that has been passed down through the ages. Again, such as car yin "respectful diligence, erudition, family poverty is not always get oil, summer month is practicing bag holding dozens of fireflies to light the book, to night after day". （This is the source of the idiom "Che Yin Sack Firefly" (车胤囊萤). I am sorry, but I have no light to read, so I used to blow the fire in the stables to light the books and recite them. （Other examples such as Lu Wenshu, Zhu Baichen, Gao Feng Liu Mai, Cheng Gong, Jia Kui, Shen Yanshi, and so on, are all familiar. They overcame the difficulties, study hard spirit, let a person respect. As for Su Qin, "I want to sleep after reading, so I stabbed myself with an awl, and the blood flowed to my feet". ("Strategies of the Warring States") Shen Jun "day and night since the lesson, sometimes or sleep, always with a staff to hit themselves. ("Liang Shu") this hard work, diligently read the case, heard of it does not make people moved. Traditional reading methods from the reading of the ancients, we can summarize many reading methods. Such as reading, copying reading, listening to reading, speed reading, reading, etc., these reading methods still have a certain significance to guide our reading. China's ancient not only the children's education to recite the main, and the formation of a social trend, "daily recitation of 10,000 words" is taken as a virtue of reading. Many famous people in ancient history have made great efforts in recitation. For example, Bai Juyi, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, was so diligent in recitation that his mouth and tongue became sore; Gu Yanwu, a scholar of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, "memorized all the Thirteen Classics". Similarly, the words "reciting", "reading" and "satirizing" often appear in ancient history. For example, Ni Kuan "hoeing with the scriptures, always reading and reciting when he rested" (The Book of Han). （Zhu Baichen ("Book of the Han") "used to woodcutter and sell food, and when he was carrying a bundle of firewood, he would read and recite books". ("Book of the Han") Fan Xuan "although living in idleness, often empty, often read and recite for the industry". ("Book of Jin"), and so on, and so on. The reason why the ancients were so inspired, wonderful words, it is through the recitation, there are countless articles familiar with the chest, in order to have such a realm. As the saying goes: "If you know the 300 Tang poems well, you will be able to recite them even if you don't know how to write them." This is the reason why we can be inspired by this. Copying and reading is to achieve an understanding of books by transcribing them. Before the invention of printing or when printing was not very developed and books were scarce and hard to come by, people attached great importance to copying and reading. Gu Yanwu talked about the effect of copying and reading that "one becomes three". He started copying and reading the Ziji Tongjian, which was about 9 million words, at the age of 11. After three years of reading and copying, he had three copies of the Ziji Tongjian, namely, the original, a copy and a copy of the book in his mind. There are many other similar cases in ancient history, such as Kan Ze, who "lived in poverty and had no capital, and often supported books for people, providing them with paper and pens, and when he finished writing, he would read and recite them all over again". ("Three Kingdoms") Zhang Pu "young love of learning, the reading must be copied by hand, copy has been, recite one over, that is, burned, and copy, such as six or seven. So that the right hand to hold the tube calloused fingers and palms". ("Ming Foreign History") they can solve the dilemma of no book, but also can practice calligraphy, but also in the copying of the deepening of the impression of the books, can be said to be a win-win situation. However. Modern people seldom go to copy reading, because copying books is too time-consuming, and also has the side effect of inhibiting thinking. However, reading notes, excerpt cards and other ways of reading still have the ancient traces of copying and reading. For those who can not read due to certain conditions, listening to reading, is also a desirable method of reading. Such as Shi Le "elegant good literature, although in the military, often make the Confucian reading history and listen to it". ("Book of Jin") Wang Coronation "young and poor, his father to make cattle, stealing into the school house, listening to the students recite the book, the twilight to return, forgetting its cattle. ("Ming Foreign History") Hu Dan "like to read, both the loss of Ming, but also let the recitation of history, hidden children listen to a lot of dropouts. ("History of the Song Dynasty"), or because of blindness, or because there is no book to read, or because of illiteracy and can not read, but they overcame these difficulties, find ways to read, study diligently to such an extent. Su Shi, a great writer of the Song Dynasty, once said, "I don't tire of reading old books a hundred times, but I read them well and think y about them." This is to say that reading should be read carefully. Intensive reading is one of the traditional methods of reading in China. There are a lot of records in ancient literature about intensive reading. Such as Tian Min that "reading does not have to be more than eighteen chapters is enough". ("History of the Song Dynasty") He Shibu "case only a book, read from first to last, the wrong school word, to read the end. Before the end of the volume, vowed not to read. ("Mingdao Magazine") Su Shi "I read the book of Han, cover a number of passes and begin to exhaust, such as governance, people, geography, official system, military law, goods and wealth, and so on, each over the Bo seeks a thing, not to be a number of passes, and everything is fine checking carry forward. ("Tianju B record") Indeed, for some of the famous, high learning value, the content of the essence, concise and concise, non-fine reading can not grasp the main points of the book, the difficult points. This is what the ancients meant when they said, "Read a hundred times and see the meaning for yourself". The reading realm of "cultivating and reading to oneself" is "not love books that is to die, let people laugh as book crazy." (Lu You "Jiannan Poetry Draft - Cold Night Reading" However, there are also some readers who do not seek fame and fortune, but only seek self-pleasure. Such as the Ma Shu "Boji history, ...... is sighing tersely said: 'I heard that the noble title to the nest, by the shackles, love of the mountains and forests to Yi, Lv for the management of the library, the bundle of fame and reality is the ruminant mustard under the pillar of the words, play the chaff on the chafing mat said.' He was hidden in Maoshan Mountain and had the ambition of ending his life". ("Book of Chen") Yang Cheng "good learning, poor can not get the book, seeks to be a mandarin attached to the Jixian Yuan, steal the hospital book to read, day and night not out of the house for six years, nothing to understand, and the first scholar, is to go to the hidden Zhongtiao Mountain". （Liu Mianzhi ("The Book of Tang"), "that is, in the suburbs of the Eup, knit grass for the hall, read among them, and plowed for self-sufficiency, tantalizing the world". ("History of the Song Dynasty") They were happy in poverty, tranquil and self-absorbed, delved in books, appreciated the strange and analyzed the doubt, and grew old with no regrets. With a kind of seclusion and freedom to get rid of the shackles of reality, the pursuit of inner, subjective spiritual freedom. They put aside utilitarianism, in the Cancan life journey to build their own spiritual home, to establish a refined and elegant and rich aesthetic meaning of the living environment and mode of life, and to revel in it, to achieve "heaven and earth and I live with me, all things with me," the realm of freedom. From the above can be seen in our country through the generations of celebrities study deeds, although they are in the era, the road of life, the purpose of reading, the size of the contribution is different, but their diligence and self-encouragement, study hard to achieve the road are weathered, in adversity and undiscouraged, through the hardships but the courage to move forward, all give us a deep shock and enlightenment.