Su Shi (1037-1101), courtesy name Zizhan and Dongpo Jushi, was a native of Meishan, Meizhou (now part of Sichuan).

His family is rich in literary tradition. His grandfather Su Xu was good at reading and writing poetry.

His father, Su Xun, was a famous writer of ancient Chinese literature. He once carefully guided Su Shi and his younger brother Su Zhe.

His mother, Cheng, was knowledgeable and well-informed about righteousness. She once told the young Su Shi the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty? The Biography of Fan Pang" and encouraged her son to hone his reputation through the deeds of ancient patriots.

When Su Shi left Shu and entered Beijing at the age of 21, his knowledge and accomplishments were already quite mature.

Su Shi was knowledgeable and thoughtful, and he was at home in the ideological atmosphere of the unity of the three religions in the Northern Song Dynasty.

Su Che described Su Shi's reading process as follows: "I first read the books of Jia Yi and Lu Zhi, and discussed the ancient and modern methods of governing chaos, which is not empty talk. After reading "Zhuangzi", he sighed and said: "I have seen it in the past, but I can't express it. Now I read "Zhuangzi".

"Zhuangzi", it won my heart! '... After reading Shi's book, I deeply understood the truth, consulted Confucius and Lao, and my eloquence was unimpeded.

》) Su Shi not only readily accepted Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, but also believed that they were inherently connected.

He once said that "Zhuangzi helped Confucius", and Zhuangzi's attitude towards Confucius was "Yang squeezes and Yin helps it" ("Zhuangzi Ancestral Hall").

He also believed that "Confucianism and Buddhism coincide with each other" and "are opposite but serve each other" ("Inscriptions of the Elders of Nanhua").

This kind of thought based on the Confucian system and imbued with Buddhism and Taoism is the philosophical foundation of Su Shi's outlook on life.

Su Shi adhered to the Confucian political ideal of managing the world and benefiting the people. At the age of 22, he was a Jinshi, and at the age of 26, he was awarded the third class (the highest grade in the Song Dynasty) in the imperial examination. After becoming an official, he worked hard to be useful to the world.

He is an upright man, pays attention to integrity, is determined to reform government affairs and has the courage to speak out.

Because he focused on the actual effects of policies, he opposed Wang Anshi when he implemented the new law, and held different opinions when Sima Guang repealed the new law. As a result, he was ostracized many times.

When he was in office, he was diligent in political affairs and tried his best to do more practical things for the local area.

He successively served as a local official in Hangzhou, Mizhou, Xuzhou and Huzhou, where he exterminated locusts, provided disaster relief, fought floods and built embankments, and had outstanding political achievements.

Even after he was demoted to Huizhou, he donated money to build two bridges.

As long as the environment allowed, Su Shi always tried his best to make a difference.

However, Su Shi's official career was bumpy throughout his life, and he was repeatedly demoted and was unable to fully display his political talents.

When he was 44 years old, he encountered the "Wutai Poetry Case" and narrowly escaped an accident.

In his later years, he was demoted again and again, until he lived in the remote Hainan, eating taro, drinking water, and living a hard life with the Li people.

Su Shi was not indifferent to suffering, nor did he accept the persecution imposed on him. Instead, he treated the ensuing misfortunes with a new attitude towards life, combining the Confucian perseverance of poverty and Lao Zhuang's contempt for limited time, space and material environment.

The transcendent attitude and the Zen concept of treating all changes with a normal heart are organically combined, thus despising ugliness and dispelling pain.

This paradigm of life that is obsessed with life but detached from external things contains a firm, calm, optimistic and broad-minded spirit. Therefore, Su Shi can still maintain a strong interest in life and strong creative vitality in adversity.

Su Shi suffered two serious political persecutions in his life. The first time was when he was 45 years old and was demoted to Huangzhou for four years because of the "Wutai Poetry Case".

The second time was when he was demoted to Huizhou at the age of 59, and to Danzhou at the age of 62. He was pardoned and returned to the north at the age of 65, spending six years in the demoted office.

Before his death, Su Shi inscribed his own portrait and said: "Ask you about your life achievements in Huangzhou, Huizhou and Danzhou." ("Self-Inscribed Portrait of Jinshan") As far as his political career is concerned, these words are of course self-deprecating.

But for Su Shi, a writer, his unparalleled achievements were indeed established in the adversity of being repeatedly demoted.

Although Su Shi had long been famous in the literary world, and after being demoted to Huangzhou, he did not dare to write more poems for fear of disaster, but the Huangzhou period was still a peak in his creation.

Prose such as "Chibi Ode" before and after, poems such as "Two Poems of Cold Food and Rain", lyrics such as "Niannujiao? Chibi Nostalgic" and other famous works were all written at this time.

When Su Shi was demoted to Huizhou and Danzhou, he was already an aging man who had suffered a lot of sorrows, but his creative passion had not diminished, and he had entered a new realm of profoundness and splendor in art.

His relegation career enabled Su Shi to have a deeper understanding of society and life, and also enabled his creations to more deeply express his inner emotional waves.

In the Song Dynasty, some people believed that being demoted to Hainan was not Su Shi's misfortune, but that adversity was the result of the times for this literary genius.

Natural and majestic, eclectic artistic spirit, good at renovating surprising argumentative essays, the perfect combination of narrative, lyrical, and reasoning functions. Ci Fu and Shiliu Su Shi's literary thought pays equal attention to both literature and Taoism.

He praised the contributions of Han Yu and Ouyang Xiu to ancient prose, and believed that Han Yu's "writing started in the eighth generation and then declined, and his teaching helped the world drown" ("Han Wengong Temple Monument in Chaozhou"), and he also believed that Ouyang Xiu "discussed the Dao like Han Yu" and "recorded events like Sima Qian"

(Collected Narratives of Liuyi Laymen), all focus on both literary and Taoist aspects.

However, Su Shi's view of literature and Taoism was very unique in the Northern Song Dynasty.

First of all, Su Shi believes that the art of articles has independent value, such as "fine gold and beautiful jade, the market has a price." Articles are not just a tool to convey the truth, but their own expressive function is an advanced form of human spiritual activity: "

Everything is inherently rational, and if you don't know it, you can't know it with your mouth and hands." ("Reply to Qian Yu Kuo") Secondly, the "Tao" in Su Shi's mind is not limited to Confucian Tao, but refers to things in general.

For example, people who "live with the sun and water" "have the way to get water" ("Yu Yu").

Therefore, Su Shi advocated that articles should be like the objective world, with natural arts and sciences and full of gestures.