Ceng Shiqiang: What is "fate"?

In the traditional culture of China, "destiny" is a very important concept, especially in ancient times, before the mysteries of various natural phenomena have been effectively explained, people often take it for granted that there is actually an invisible hand behind all kinds of phenomena, so people call this ability of manipulation "Tao" or "destiny".

Let's take a person's life for example.

Everything a person experiences from birth to death is both accidental and inevitable.

But people can't understand whether this is accidental or inevitable, so they are used to attributing this unexplained phenomenon to fate.

The so-called fate, from this perspective, is also a "destiny."

In the Spring and Autumn Period, Confucius once said, "I know my destiny at fifty"-by the time I was fifty years old, Confucius already knew that there were some things that "man-made" really could not be changed, so he became more calm, that is, "do whatever you want and don't overstep the rules".

So, does "fate" really exist? Or, what is "fate"?

In fact, the so-called "destiny", in the words of Ceng Shiqiang, a master of Chinese studies, is:

"Everyone has his own destiny, and the part that naturally brings to be revised is your destiny."

The general idea is that "fate" can actually be understood from the following three aspects, namely:

First, everyone has a "destiny"

As mentioned earlier, Ceng Shiqiang's "destiny" is a bit like the "justice" in Yangming's mind-everyone has the same justice as a saint.

And "fate" in Ceng Shiqiang's view, the same is true.

Therefore, in Ceng Shiqiang's view, "fate" is not an unknown thing, but will be reflected in everyone, but people don't realize it.

Second, "fate" is the part brought by nature to be modified.

The ancients said: "Destiny" is hard to violate.

The general idea is that "destiny" is hard to violate, but it does not mean that "destiny" cannot be violated.

For example, Teacher Ceng Shiqiang thinks that "fate" is a part that needs to be revised brought by nature, that is, everything we encounter or experience in life is to make up for the deficiency of "fate".

The implication is that the purpose of our life is to complete the defective part of "fate" and return to the original perfect state.

Third, everyone's life is different, which shows that "fate" has exactly the same attributes.

We know that there are no exactly the same people in the world and there is no exactly the same life.

Why?

Because everyone's "fate", although there is no difference at first, has caused different disabilities for some unknown reason, so people need to make up for different disabilities through different lives.

This is the fundamental reason why everyone's life is not exactly the same, and it is also the meaning of "fate" throughout life.

So, to sum up, these three contents are exactly what Ceng Shiqiang said.

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The materials of this paper are mainly quoted from The Analects of Confucius, Zhuangzi, Tanjing, Tao Te Ching, Sit for a while, A Dream of Red Mansions, Jin Ping Mei, The Abandoned Capital, Alone, Philosophy of Life, Plato said so, Historical Records, Wang Yangming's Complete Works, and Wang Yangming's Complete Works.