Chapter 97 Obscure and Conservative

The beauty of Pokhara's scenery made it difficult for me to write quietly. I kept looking around and didn't settle down until night.Last night I simply turned off the lights and lit the candles on the table to write.Thinking that this is in a mountain house under the snow-capped mountains, I really feel extravagant. This morning, I got up early alone and crossed the river to see the top of the snow-capped mountains that were dyed red by the rising sun.The raftman pulled up the icy rope that had been soaked in the river overnight with both hands, and said to me: You are so lucky, the snow mountain was covered by clouds for five days, and you only showed your face today.

Everything is silent under the snow peak, and I am still continuing yesterday's thinking, looking for the reasons for the decline of several ancient civilizations. I think that apart from being dragged down by expeditionary horses, burned by barbaric wars, trampled by disorderly feet, and buried by the anger of disputes, the ancient civilizations of mankind have many reasons for their own decline, such as ignorance and keep. Civilization needs to be studied, so it is very easy to dig into a dead end; civilization needs self-respect, so it is very easy to exclude others; civilization needs to spread, so it is very easy to exaggerate. became a self-destructive disaster.This situation is most concentrated in religious fanaticism, which we felt very deeply along the way.

All high-level civilizations are always based on rationality, including religion.For example, in the series of relics of Shakyamuni's penance in caves, enlightenment under the tree, and lectures we visited recently, there are no traces of superstition and extremes.Most of the other religions are also clear and clear in the founding period, but as time goes on and there are many believers, it is easy to lose their spirituality and gradually change in the internal and external competition. Go to extremes.Even religious wars will be launched, leading to human tragedies.Sometimes within the same religion, blood flows like rivers.

Recall how many scenes of corpses strewn across the fields in human history are related to religious wars?This is really contrary to the benevolent principles of the founders of religions. Religious wars are a kind of spiritual mopping up, and they only choose other people's civilizations to attack.For this reason, even the ruler of the Mughal dynasty in India, Akbar the Great, who came to power through religious conquest, naively hoped that various religious sects would unite and integrate into a new religion.He didn't, and it's a pity we've come this far, seeing that religious strife remains a major problem in the world today, and it's hard to be optimistic about the next century.

Some religions also breed another evil result, which is to ignore the normal value of life, quality of life and social progress, causing a large number of people to only think about things before and after death, and make a mess of real life, which is unbearable. In some parts of North Africa and West Asia, especially in South Asia, the lifestyles of the huge extremely poor groups are not at all like the poverty we have seen before, but show an intentional indifference to education and persuasion.Obviously, this is not entirely due to economic or political reasons, but is related to long-term religious misleading.This has repeatedly weakened the civilization of one's own people and continues to devastate other civilizations.

When I say this, it does not affect my respect and devotion to those lofty religious spirits in human history.These religious spirits have excavated and maintained the noble inner quality of human beings, coordinated the harmonious relationship between man and the universe, and created a splendid art world, which will always be the treasure of human civilization. It is a fact that Chinese civilization lacks a lofty religious spirit, but it also avoids the all-round infringement of religious obscurity.From ancient times to the present, Chinese culture has always emphasized reality rather than fantasy. From content to form, it has been honest and practical, and it does not pursue the ethereal images of the world on the other side. Therefore, it also gets rid of the danger of being submerged in the water after leaving the world on the other side.

China accepted Buddhism with an open-minded attitude, but among the ordinary officials in ancient times, they were often based on Confucianism and believed in Buddhism and Taoism, and they also made changes to Buddhism closer to family ethics.In this way, this kind of religious belief is closely related to real life and is tested by real life from time to time, so it is unlikely to fall into the ambiguity of the whole. The flexible attitude towards various religions in ancient China will definitely lead to the denial of many fundamentalists.But now you can see that they are the ones who caused so many human disasters.It is precisely they who have destroyed various civilizations, including religions.

Another reason for the decline of civilization itself is conservatism. The greater the civilization, the more reason there is to be conservative, but conservatism is against the nature of civilization. What is the nature of civilization?It seems to me to establish an order that maintains creation.Conservation leaves order and loses creation. This situation is often unavoidable, because the development of most ancient civilizations is related to the support of autocratic monarchs. Whether it is internal political needs or external needs for conquest and self-defense, it will lead to a conservative form of culture.The Babylonian civilization of Mesopotamia and the Pharaonic civilization of Egypt lasted for a long time without much change, which are examples.

How can a civilization that lacks change even in its glory days develop normally in the future?When the main civilization is no longer creative.Then, as long as the special protective factors are lost, it will inevitably give way to low-level civilizations and primitive civilizations, just like the trend of Buddhism gradually giving way to Hinduism in India after King Sharija. On the contrary, although the European Renaissance movement is not centered on Greece, it has eloquently proved the magnificent results of ancient civilizations like Greek civilization, once it gets rid of the shadow of conservatism and is endowed with new creative vitality, it is a pity that this The revival did not occur in several other civilizations.Among them, many defenders of civilization often become the ruiners of this civilization.The priests in Egypt, the monks in India, and even the fundamentalists mentioned above all play such roles.

No matter how great a previous civilization was, it must find its new fulcrum after entering a different time course and receiving groups.At this point, several major civilizations seem to be inelastic.The Mesopotamian civilization was only practical at the time, and the flexibility was very small, which is conceivable; Egyptian civilization can only be said to be in a closed state if it is not lost; The original may not exist anymore. The fundamentals of Chinese civilization are also quite conservative, which has caused it to repeatedly produce crises.However, it hides a kind of inner elasticity, so that the conservatism will not reach the level of brittleness.

This inner flexibility is the inclusive spirit of harmony in diversity and the balance principle of the golden mean.This spirit and principle avoids both exclusiveness and extremes, and has enabled Chinese civilization to emerge from crises time and time again.In the field of Chinese culture, there have been a large number of conservatives with extreme attitudes from ancient times to the present, but the facts have proved that these people are always abandoned by people sooner or later because of their extreme attitudes. As a result, their conservatism is difficult to grow for a long time. One point is very different from the interpretation of Chinese civilization by many people. Chinese civilization often causes headaches for both innovators and conservatives. This interesting state also buries another reason for its enduring. December 28, 1999, Pokhara, Nepal, overnight at Fish Tail Lodge