Xie Lingyun, the ancestor of China's landscape poems and a native of Taikang, Zhoukou, once served as an official in Yongjia (now Wenzhou), built water conservancy projects in Wenzhou, encouraged agriculture and mulberry, and promoted education. At the same time, he created a large number of beautiful landscape poems, which had a positive and far-reaching impact on the formation and development of Ouyue culture. We should trace back to the origin of Central Plains culture and Ouyue culture from Xie Lingyun, so that the two cultures can achieve mutual benefit and win-win in exchanges and cooperation.
The brand of Central Plains culture on Xie Lingyun and its characteristics of the times
Since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, with the continuous integration of North and South cultures, people at that time were liberated from the dogma of "ousting a hundred schools of thought and respecting Confucianism alone", and gradually formed a prosperous situation of metaphysics in a period.
Metaphysics takes Laozi's Taoism, the foundation of Central Plains culture, as the mainstream. Korean metaphysicists pay attention to "governing by doing nothing", while the opposition advocates "nature". For a long time, the way of Laozi and Zhuangzi became the mainstream culture in the ideological circle at that time. Xie Lingyun is no exception.
When Xie Lingyun was four years old, he was sent to Qiantang (now Hangzhou) to study with Taoist Du Ming. The Taoist concept of advocating nature and the beautiful landscape of Qiantang have influenced Xie Lingyun since he was a child, which has left an indelible spiritual imprint of Central Plains culture in his heart since he was a child.
From the end of the Eastern Jin Dynasty to the Southern Dynasties, although the trend of metaphysics was stronger than a spent force, it was not until five years after Xie Lingyun's death that Song Wendi established the Four Pavilions, and metaphysics was still listed as a national study alongside literature, history and Confucianism. Influenced by society and family all his life, Xie Lingyun cultivated a strong Taoist complex from an early age, which paved the way for the contradiction of "seclusion and being an official" throughout his life, and laid the foundation for him to become the originator of China's landscape poems in the future. It can be seen that the origin of Xie Lingyun and Central Plains culture is not that he chose history, but that history chose him.
Xie Lingyun's Thought of Governing by Doing Nothing and Its Practice in Wenzhou
Taoist culture applies the philosophical thought of "Taoism is natural" to social politics and puts forward the political principle of "governing by doing nothing". "Governing by doing nothing" is not passive inaction, but conforming to the way of nature, governing the country and the people according to the laws of nature, conforming to public opinion, taking care of people's feelings, and letting people develop themselves and live a quiet and simple life. Xie Lingyun lived in an era when metaphysics flourished. He was nourished by Taoism and Buddhism since childhood, and his thoughts were deeply rooted in Taoist philosophy. This can be found in his behavior and poetry.
Since ancient times, China scholar-officials have always followed the life path of "Confucianism is the official, Taoism is the livelihood" and "haste makes waste, be immune to it". After observing Yongjia, the Taoist thought of inaction gradually gained the upper hand in his mind.
Exploring Xie Lingyun's laissez-faire, on the one hand, reflects the tragic complex of ancient China literati expressing their feelings about mountains and rivers and singing songs about the moon after being frustrated in officialdom, on the other hand, it also conforms to the core idea of Taoism, that is, "Taoism is natural". Xie Lingyun's behavior of indulging in mountains and rivers, surpassing the world and being broad-minded is the recovery and explosion of the original energy of Taoist thought stored in his bones. Because of the release of this energy, he traveled all over the beautiful mountains and rivers in Yongjia County, wrote many poems describing mountains and rivers, and gradually got rid of the shackles of metaphysical poems in Wei and Jin Dynasties and became the originator of China's landscape poems. Wenzhou landscape has become the cradle of China's ancient landscape poems, and a resort for literati to find the soul of poetry. Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei, Meng Haoran and Liu Zongyuan all drew nutrition from his works, and many people came to Wenzhou one after another, leaving a lot of poems chanting mountains and rivers, which made the road of Tang poetry in eastern Zhejiang. After more than a thousand years of development, the landscape culture of Wenzhou has gradually become an important part of Ouyue culture. The long-term subtle influence of landscape culture has created the pragmatic entrepreneurial spirit of Wenzhou people and their flexibility and flexibility as water, which has taken care of Laozi's philosophical ontology of "Tao gives birth to everything" and life strategy of "being good as water" very skillfully.
It can be seen that Xie Lingyun is really a preacher and practitioner of Central Plains culture in Wenzhou.
The practical significance of the exchange and cooperation between Central Plains culture and Ouyue culture.
Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty "ousted a hundred schools of thought and respected Confucianism alone", especially after the Song and Yuan Dynasties, Confucianism has long occupied the orthodox dominant position in the ideological field of feudal society. The Central Plains is located in the hinterland of political and economic rule in past dynasties, and its cultural foundation Taoism was ignored by the ruling class, and its influence gradually declined, and it retired to the mountains in the form of religion. After a long period of subtle influence, the Confucian doctrine of the mean gradually controlled the general cognition of people from all walks of life and was handed down from generation to generation, and gradually formed a relatively unified value orientation and an indelible "official standard" thought. Coupled with the special agricultural geographical conditions in the Central Plains, the importance and dependence of agricultural nationalities on agriculture has developed into the concept of attaching importance to agriculture and neglecting business over time, and it is difficult to move away from their homeland.
Xie Lingyun, on the other hand, absorbed and accepted the nourishment of many cultures, learned from others and embraced the cultural blending brought about by three large-scale population migrations and overseas trade in history. It has gradually evolved into the down-to-earth spirit of Wenzhou people today, and the market economy characteristics of "fickle" and "competitive" in Ouyue culture.
It is worth noting that the practice of learning Wenzhou spirit in many parts of the country is essentially a phenomenon of cultural feedback. Although Ouyue culture is a native regional culture, it benefits from the nourishment of many cultures, especially the Taoist culture in the Central Plains. Many connotations of "Wenzhou model" and "Wenzhou spirit" are permeated with the potential of Taoist thought. Today, when she is thriving, it is undoubtedly of great practical significance for the strategy of the rise of the Central Plains to repay the feeding and blood transfusion of the Central Plains culture.
Taking Xie Lingyun, a native of Yongjia, Zhoukou, as the medium, it is of positive and far-reaching practical significance to explore the origin of Central Plains culture and Ou Yue culture, and analyze and compare the different internal attributes, advantages and disadvantages of the two cultures, so as to promote exchanges and cooperation between the two cultures, fundamentally find out the reasons for the backward economy of Central Plains and realize the complementary advantages of the two cultures.