Slow product? ▏ Nanxi Academy, Fangtang is still there, what can Zhu Xi find?

tj Writing/Photography of Traveler Boundless

(Youxi, Nanxi Academy)

Nanxi Academy, south of Youxi County, was originally the building of Zheng Yizhai, a Yi people. In the fifth year of Xuanhe in the Northern Song Dynasty (1123), Zhu Xi's father, Zhu Song, was appointed as the commandant of Youxi County, and lived in Youxi after he went to the official position. Zhu Xi was born here in 113, the fourth year of Jianyan in the Southern Song Dynasty. After Zhu Xi's death, Li Xiu, the county magistrate, donated money in the first year of Jiaxi (1237) to the original Jianwengong Temple, Weizhai Temple, Banmu Square Pond and Zundaotang, in memory of Zhu's father and son. In the first year of Baoyou (1253), Song Lizong granted "Nanxi Academy".

(Statue of Zhu Xi in front of Nanxi Academy)

After returning to Youxi from Guifeng Village, we will have a bowl of fast food and walk to Nanxi Academy after noon. It's still drizzling, and the breeze is blowing on my face, only I feel less cold. Located in the south of the city, the Academy has become a scenic spot, and a tall and majestic statue of Zhu Xi stands in the center, reminding you to enter the sacred place of science of "Nishan in the middle of Fujian". Seeing the two "Shen Lang Zhang" planted by Zhu Xi, behind the lush is "Nanxi Academy".

(Zhu Xi's portrait)

Zhu Xi lived here for seven years as a child, and then returned many times, caring for the mulberry and supporting the academy, leaving many articles, poems and anecdotes.

(Nanxi Academy, Zhu Xi planted "Shen Lang Zhang" by hand)

Inside and outside the Academy, there is a "one pond and two Zhang" landscape.

The two ancient camphor trees on the left side of the Academy are said to have been planted by Zhu Xi, and they are called "Shen Lang Zhang" (Zhu Xi's birth name is Shen Lang). The trees are 3 meters high and need three or four people to hug each other. They have been towering for more than 8 years, sheltering this sacred place of Neo-Confucianism. The trees in the rain are a little lonely, and there are few tourists, even those who hide from the rain. The branches and leaves are ringing in the breeze, and there is a trace of empty hope in the whisper. I use the lens to pay tribute and look at it from a distance to appreciate the whole picture.

(Nanxi Academy, half-acre square pond)

The "half-acre square pond" opened the courtyard, and a stone bridge was divided into two parts, because Zhu Xi's "Feeling about Reading" was poetic. The water is glistening with the rain, the fish swim in the sky and make a mess of shadows, and the stone tablet with a "half-acre square pond" on the corner is gray. Back in those days, there would be a cold pond under the Yuxiu Peak in the south of Youxi City, which was just the auspicious image of holding water around the mountain. There were flowers and willows, ducks and geese swimming, and the bank of that slope should be loess and thin stones, covered with fine grass, giving a faint natural taste of the country house, unlike the cement square pond that is cold at present. Many of Zhu Xi's childhood legends happened here, such as "Two Peach Blossoms in a Half-acre Square Pond", "Little Shen Lang sitting in the sand painting divination" and "Six-year-old children win chess", and so on. That childhood was naturally happy.

(Half-acre square pond)

Thirty-six years later, 42-year-old Zhu Xi went south to Youxi because of the funeral of his uncle Zhu Jiao, and returned to Zheng's house, where he was born. He saw his father Zhu Song's "Recent Flowers" inscribed on the wall. Drunk in Zheng's Pavilion, "Qingxiao Fangtang opens a mirror, falling flocs and flying flowers, willing to settle for the spring breeze." Seeing things and thinking about people, I recalled the old dream of the square pond in front of the museum, and wrote a well-known book "Thoughts on Reading Books":

When half an acre of square pond is opened,

the sky is shining and clouds are wandering.

ask the canal so clearly,

because there is flowing water from the source.

Zhu Xi borrowed the idea that the pond water is clean because of the injection of living water, and compared it with the idea of eliminating disadvantages and seeking new ones, and made it a famous article from generation to generation. There are students taking pictures by the pond after the college entrance examination, as if praying for "living water" to bring good luck.

(Zhu Xi's story on a porcelain vase)

Nanxi Academy has read all about spring, summer, autumn and winter. The camphor trees are full of leaves and cages, and the square pond is clear and bright, and the students are talking about the past under the shadows, and they are chanting sacred scriptures in the carved columns, which is full of delicate colors and literary atmosphere. I don't know what kind of immersion it will be.

(Interior of Nanxi Academy)

Among the four major academies in China: Yingtian, Yuelu, Bailu and Songyang, I still have a reverence for the academy when I visited the third. To digress, at the beginning of my work, it coincided with the criticism of Confucianism. I mistakenly entered the theoretical group, and I had a fifth-grade primary school education. How can there be any theory? I can't even tell the difference between "Zhuzi" and "Zhuzi" and make a joke. It was only after people pointed out that one was the floorboard of the pre-Qin school, and the other was the honorific title of Zhu Xi, a master of Confucianism. It was after college that we learned more about it.

(A huge pen is like a rafter)

When I visited Weizhai Temple, Guanshudi, Yuxiufang and Yuxiuting in the Academy, I really felt that Zhu Xi was a master of Confucianism, a philosopher, thinker and educator. He wrote 126 books and more than 7 volumes in his life, making him "the first person to write in ancient and modern times". He founded 27 academies by himself, and trained 362 talents, including Zhen Dexiu (Prime Minister). He has profound knowledge and noble personality, and is a cultural sage who has made great contributions to the history of human thought after Confucius.

(Illustration of Zhu Zi's Family Instructions)

But it seems that Zhu Xi has not mentioned it very much for a long time. Confucius is still "practical", and the later sages are even more silent. They are only in their hometown, celebrating and applying for the World Heritage, and they can still be used as gods. Fortunately, in the return of traditional culture, Zhu Xi's thought of "attaching importance to agriculture, promoting literature and education, being honest and benefiting, observing principles and rituals, being loyal to filial piety and loving relatives" was also mentioned in class; The well-known allusions of "flowing water from the source" and the proverbs of "Don't do small things with kindness, don't do small things with evil" in Zhu Xi's Family Instructions have more or less standardized family education and influenced people's hearts subtly. From this point of view, inheritance is not a high-profile empty advocacy, not a luxurious construction of the former residence, or even a rhetoric of boasting ancestors and Yao Zong, but a need to expect inner training, a piety when admiring elegance, and a sense of belonging under tranquility and tranquility.

Nanxi Academy, are you telling me? I seem to hear that the flowing water in the square pond is trickling, and the green leaves of the ancient camphor tree are also eagerly awaited.

(Zhu Xi's Birthplace Monument)

(Wengong Temple)

(Half-acre Fangtang Monument)

(Zhu Xi's handwriting)

(Nanxi Academy location)

(Zhu Song's sculpture)