Preface to the Great Thousand Worlds, Vientiane Soul Some people are great because of their complexity, and some people are great because of their simplicity. Voltaire, the urchin of European intellectuals, knew almost everything. He wrote poems, novels, commentaries, plays, philosophical dictionaries, calculus mathematics, looked at the stars with a telescope, cared about religion but was anti-religious, built houses for the poor, and helped the unemployed. A man opens a factory, preaches a revolution, escapes arrest, and his life is full of romance, noise, and climaxes.And the founder of the Japanese school of ancient Chinese diction, Hagyu Sorai, lived alone in the poor village where his father was exiled until he was 25 years old. Because he had nothing to do, he repeatedly silently wrote the only decent book at home, "University Proverbs", Because of this simplicity, he has a unique sensitivity and interest in the quality of ancient prose.

Some people succeed by sticking to their beliefs, and some people succeed by changing their beliefs. At the end of the fifteenth century, it was still doubtful that India could be reached by sailing westward from Europe. However, Columbus led his fleet westward with unshakable conviction, overcame the crew’s doubts and treachery in the Atlantic Ocean, and finally discovered the New World of America. But he still firmly believed that what he had discovered was India.Conrad, who has been interested in the ocean since he was a child, longed to go to Africa, and became an excellent captain of a COSCO ship as he wished, but at the age of thirty-seven, he suddenly took out a pen and paper, began to write novels, and finally He gave up his interest in sailing and became an outstanding novelist. Later generations began to know Conrad, who was once a captain, because of his novels.

Some people benefit from the regularity of their lives, and some people benefit from the chaos of their lives. The German philosopher Kant was a person who lived a regular life. He got up at 4:45 every morning and went out for a walk at 4 o'clock every afternoon. He was like an active standard clock. People in the neighborhood used the time when Kant walked through their door to adjust their clocks.Except for one trip to Danzig, he never left his hometown of Kossberg, perhaps because of his extremely regular life, which enabled him to write such classics as "Critique of Pure Reason".But the French philosopher Descartes was a very chaotic person. He was weak and often stayed in bed. Dozing and lethargy were commonplace, and he lived a wandering life with no fixed place. During that period of time, it was considered the most stable, but I also moved 23 times.However, he has a very clear philosophical concept. Perhaps because of this chaotic life and clear concept, he was able to put forward the great idea of ​​dualism of mind and matter.

When we extract the wisdom and enlightenment of life from great and ordinary people throughout the ages, we often find that life itself is full of all kinds of unpredictability, and it is difficult to have any simple and clear guiding rules. Human experience cannot provide us with any enlightenment, but when facing them, we need to rely on our own wisdom to screen them. Almost all of the one hundred short articles in this book are excerpted from my personal past articles in "Mind Magazine", because of the relationship between the material and the number of words, it is natural to have short chapters, small philosophical revelations or Inspirational taste, but they are mainly showing the Vientiane soul in the world.

Wang Yijia March 1990