Li Xuetao, author of "Thought Sketches"
Text / Xia Kejun
In an era of restless turmoil, in an uncertain era of transition, the best way to maintain a sound mind is to write a skit. Because any tirade no longer has the ability to integrate the fragments of the times, and the academic research behind closed doors is actually just a foil for nothingness, which is why the Zen public case arose between the Tang and Song dynasties, and why Montaigne wrote wise prose during the Renaissance.
Entering modernity, Nietzsche's "The Wanderer and Its Shadow" and Baudelaire's "The Melancholy of Paris" both deeply influenced Lu Xun's essay writing in the early 20th century and gave birth to the style of essays. Now, we have Professor Li Xuetao's "Thought Sketches".
The essay has always been a flash fragment collected when reading idly, and it needs to be idle, that is, to flip through it casually, but to maintain the sensitivity of awakening. This is a paradoxical experience of thought, a hidden arrow in the sleeve that is ready to be shot and retracted at any time. The essay is the third kind of "distraction" game in the middle between the "concentrated" study and the boredom of "distraction".
In an era when more and more information is interfered with by various information and the reading material is increasing rapidly, it is possible to find scattered starlight in the squeeze of various scattered information, and does not deliberately promote it to form a clustered constellation, but allows it to maintain a loose and leisurely relationship, but afterwards, in the process of picking, with an invisible thread, these twinkling pearls are connected, which is also the double feeling of openness and joy of the seaside shell picker.
This thread is actually the devotion of thought, the attention of the soul, a kind of prayer cultivation, and a self-cultivation method with a certain sense of religion. These essays of Brother Xuetao are actually a kind of mind power that he obtained by studying comparative religion in Germany and reading buddhist scriptures in depth, which is a shining block after the mind has been crystallized.
This is also the germination and blooming of the seed of the spiritual root of life, but with the maturity of time, he can easily find the relationship between these fragments and our time and the basic experience of life in one classic Buddhist words, concepts and words, and discover the mirror symmetry law of ancient wisdom and humble human nature.
I even thought that these small essays of Brother Xuetao, with pieces of wisdom from decades of reading experience and reflection experience, seemed to be the beads on the string of Buddhist beads that were twisted during the chanting. Of course, the Xuetao Brotherhood humbly said that this was not a pearl or a gemstone, just a small "wooden block", or even just a small "ugly stone".
With a secret epiphany, but with a clumsy blunt thief pleasure, these fragmentary thought essays, the content seems to be common, but there is a sharpness of thought, so this is not an ordinary stone, but a small stone that makes people awaken: although the essay is small, it has sharp, and has the ingenuity to hit the heart, this small is not small, but an accurate blow of the mind. Every stone throwing question can break our inertial thinking and open up a transcendent gaze from religion, but it is not an existing theological logic, but a primitive poetic "bit-and-piece beating", a perspective of "crossing" between entry and exit.
Brother Xuetao's essay writing is like carefully collecting all kinds of rare and small stones. These essays come from the vast buddhist thought, from the heart transmission of Chinese Zen Buddhism, from the contrast with the Japanese experience, from the reflection on the historical disasters of Europe, from the most basic errors and confusions of human nature itself, which broaden the inner thickness and embody the vastness of world history and the wisdom of the Dharma Eye, which requires rich philological ability and philosophical reflection conscience.
Seemingly short fragments, just like a strange life form said by the early German Romantics, a basic meaning of the genre itself, this is the "hedgehog fragment". These fragments are full of thorns, with the sharp edge of aphorisms or proverbs, which we cannot directly understand, unless we add our own experience, we can form a protective film.
Once we touch these little stones, we ourselves have to start turning them in our hands, start thinking, start feeling the searing heat of these pieces. The ordinaryness of the essay is more likely to stimulate the reader's enthusiasm for thinking on his own, rather than trapping the reader in the trap of the philosophical system.
These essays do not deliberately move toward systematic conclusions and philosophical constructions, but remain open— you cannot grasp a hedgehog without stabbing your own hand, stay open, remain sensitive to the thorns, just as we remain open and sensitive in our daily lives, on the edges of danger, and in a single thought, we withdraw from evil and misfortune and gain the protection of life. Brother Xuetao mainly writes about the fragments of Buddhism that are full of logical challenges and daily wisdom as a talisman for modern people, and in the smile of the heart, we receive a certain blessing.
Xiao Pin Wen is a kind of self-tempering of the mind, which is also realized by Brother Xuetao, "In a few words, it is like seeing the heart of the sages of the ages." This is not a show-off of knowledge, but an insight of wisdom, a connection between everyday experience and the wisdom of civilization, a comparison between individual experience and sacred inheritance, and an instantaneous synthesis of those familiar idioms or thoughts with the experiences of other cultures or different periods in order to obtain wisdom that penetrates history and human nature.
This kind of writing requires the experience of repeatedly traveling and freely shuttling between different forms of wisdom such as various cultures and civilizations, and it needs a kind of world history vision, which is also the academic great cause that Xuetao Brother has engaged in in recent years. Thinking about the interaction between civilizations from the broad perspective of world history is an academic ambition to "look at the small with the big", such as thinking about the moving details of the spread of Buddhism and missionary culture, and the bitter situation of modern Chinese scholars when they study the West.
Xiao Pinwen, on the other hand, is his method of "looking at the big with the small", which is very Chinese—such as the thousand-mile trend of landscape painting within easy reach, or the bonsai-style shrinking construction and play, and of course, the Zen Gong case-style Daigo empowerment.
Reading Brother Xuetao's thought sketches naturally reminds me of Qian Zhongshu's "Pipe Cone Compilation", but Mr. Qian combines the pedantic text world with his excellent memory and aesthetic taste, and Brother Xuetao's "Thought Sketches" is in the great classic text, breaking through one gray hole after another, forming a fifth-dimensional instantaneous crossing, looking for the potential wisdom bottom line of world civilization.
Brother Xuetao is also different in that he has a pair of detective eyes, which are the curiosity and discovery of modernity, like Benjamin's insight into the distracted gaze of wanderers and the praise of the detective's gaze on the street. This is also why at the end of this anthology, Brother Xuetao uses the stories of Japanese detective novelist Keigo Higashino to discuss the most basic and severe life problems in contemporary society, and brings in the "third eye" of "The Eye of The Dharma", a unique view of wisdom and synthesis.
Curiosity about detective fiction is the most basic mentality of modernity—always curious, always expecting unexpected events, and keeping questions open. Why do Japanese detective novels have such a character, while China lacks them? Perhaps it is because of the lack of detective novels in China, and the popularity of only a large number of historical detective dramas is caused by the lack of thinking training. Perhaps modernity began in Britain and is also related to the British passion for prose and the writing of stories of detective experience?
Each of us, every fragile life, may suffer accidents at any time, and in the end it is just a small essay! With the complexity of communication, we have no time to sort out and systematize and improve, which can only be an improvised combination. That is, in an era without saints, each of us modern people is a small essay in the style of life.
This is Nietzsche's insight into modernity, after breaking up various idols, modern people can only write in the meta of aphorisms and fragments, as a spur style of thought expression. The humility of the essay is that in a world devoid of wisdom, the enlightened can only pick the petals that are about to wither on the dead branches of the times, but as long as the petals are still alive, the words can bear fruit.
Reading these essays also inspired my own enthusiasm for returning to the diary of my thoughts, which reminded me of Heidegger's obscure and flickering Black Book written during the crisis years, and of course, the diary of Jaspers, who was more beloved by Brother Xuetao, in the cataclysmic years. Fragments of these thoughts occasionally touch on the crisis of the times, revealing the most secret nature of the individual, but being faithful to one's own mind and maintaining a high degree of consciousness of thought.
As Brother Xuetao said, Xiao Pin Wen, in Chinese society, is the third way between authoritarianism and critical theory. As far as the world's thoughts are concerned, the essay is the umbrella that guards one's own mind in times of crisis, and it is the beacon light on the rivers. For life, it is the third heavenly eye on the brain of human nature, just like Sun Wukong's "golden eye of fire", we cultivate every day, it is possible to see through the strangeness of this world.
Brother Yukitao pointed out that the last sentence of Keigo Higashino's novel "Shoot Hard" was "a gust of wind blowing, and the petals fell like snow", and believed that this was the extremely clever point of the structure of his novel, which had both the sentimental mood of life unique to The Japanese and a detached flowing posture. Then I would also like to say that the same is true of Brother Xuetao's essay: this is the most beautiful petal that falls on the dead branches of human wisdom.
Perhaps, these texts are the multicolored stones that constantly rotate between the fingers during the daily prayer on the beads of the bodhisattva, from sharp to smooth, and from smooth to sharp, so that our minds are awakened.
Our beloved German novelist Hesse wrote the magical novel "The Glass Ball Game" at a time of historical crisis in the 1940s, and perhaps the essay is like a mysterious game that combines the volume of the I Ching, the fugue of music, and the bitter behavior of yoga, paradoxically combining arduous training with epiphany meditation. The essay is the image of thought found by the humble human individual in the twinkling cosmic picture of the human starry sky, which looks so far and so close.
This article is the preface to the book "Ideological Sketches" by Li Xuetao, authorized by Guangxi Normal University Press, Xinmin Said)
Selected Chinese books
"Thought Sketches"
By Li Xuetao
Guangxi Normal University Press, Xinmin said
September 2021
The author is attached to the sketches and intends to continue the literary tradition that has existed since the pre-Qin dynasty. According to the theme of the writing, this book is divided into twelve chapters such as "As I Hear", "Beauty and Worry", and "Time-Space". The paragraphs under the chapter are like beads, and the ink is not complicated, but it is small and righteous, and it does not lose its ideological and intellectual nature.
The author has long studied in the humanities, is familiar with German, English, Japanese and other languages, and is familiar with ancient and modern Chinese and foreign humanistic classics, so he can see the introduction of classics everywhere in the book - both a large number of historical literati palms, Zen public cases, depicting many ancient and modern Chinese and foreign intellectual portraits; there are also etymological evidence, translation and deliberation, sharing the author's learning experience. In addition, the book also incorporates the author's personal life observations, pedagogical reflections, aesthetic understanding, and philosophical reflections. The words are intriguing.
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