Thousand Characters

Chapter 12

[Original text]

Covering this body hair, the four great five constants.Gong Wei Ju Yang, how dare you damage.

【Note】

Gai: The words placed at the beginning of the sentence have no practical meaning. "Body" and "fa" here refer to our body.Four major: Refers to the four substances of earth, water, fire, and wind. These four basic substances constitute the world.Wuchang: Refers to the five basic virtues of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faith, which are endowed to us by God.Gong: respectful.But: obedience. "Ju" and "raise" both mean to bring up.

The first two sentences of these four sentences tell us that part of human life is composed of four substances: earth, water, fire, and wind, and the other part is composed of five virtues: benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faith.The last two sentences come from the "Book of Filial Piety", "The body is given to the parents and dare not damage it", which tells us that the body is given to us by God and our parents, not our own.So you must take good care of your body and don't let it get hurt, otherwise you will hurt your parents and be considered disobedient.

【Interpretation】

Our bodies are made up of four basic substances: earth, water, fire, and wind. God also endows us with five basic virtues: benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faith.The body, hair and skin are given to us by our parents, we should love and protect them carefully, how can we easily damage and destroy them.

【allusion】

Hejian Wang Seeking Truth from Facts During the Western Han Dynasty, Emperor Jingdi Liu Qi had 14 sons.Liu De was the second son of Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty. He was conferred the posthumous posthumous title of King of Hejian by Emperor Jing of Han Dynasty in Hejian.It is said that Liu De, king of Hejian, loved collecting books.After Qin Shihuang burned books, ancient books were extremely rare among the people, and Liu De spent a lot of money to buy them everywhere.Knowing that King Hejian had this hobby, many literati and scholars searched out ancient books handed down by their ancestors from their homes and dedicated them to Liu De, and some even took refuge in Liu De's mansion to study with him.In this way, Liu De accumulated a large number of classics and ancient books. He not only carefully kept them, wiped them clean, and placed them neatly. .As a result, many people were willing to discuss knowledge with Liu De, and even scholars in the emperor and ministers came to ask Liu De for advice.For a time, Hejian Wang Liude's down-to-earth and assiduous academic attitude was well known in the local people, and it became a good story.Later generations spoke highly of Liu De's spirit of concentrating on learning.Ban Gu, a historian and writer of the Eastern Han Dynasty, wrote a biography "Hejian Xianwang Biography" specially for Liu De when he was writing "Han Shu".At the beginning of this "Hejian Xianwang Biography", Ban Gu made a general evaluation of Liu De's academic attitude. It's true." The idiom "seeking truth from facts" we later talked about came from here.

(End of this chapter)