As for the source of Chinese traditional culture, there has been a long debate in academic circles. However, the "three generations" of yao, shun and yu that Confucius talked about repeatedly in the analects of Confucius, and the "three generations" of xia, shang and zhou that we talk about today, have been separated by twice the time in terms of time, if we extrapolate the book of changes to fuxi, we shall find that it is more ancient and, at the very least, thousand-year old.
It means that the books we read today are cultures connected with the profound past. Therefore, on the one hand, Chinese culture is a culture with broken characters and continuous forms. On the other hand, it is also a culture of word of mouth, which is transmitted by the method of mind and can withstand the test of time and space.
On the first question, everyone can understand. As for the latter aspect, we can see it from the discussion of Confucius in some classics.
For example, the analects of Confucius begins with this question. The master said, "to tell the truth without making a statement, and to believe in the truth, is better than to steal from the past. Correspondingly, the original meaning of "letter" is "truth". From "truth" and extended, evolved into today we speak of "integrity", "faith", "faith" and so on. This can be evidenced by the saying in the tao te ching, "believe words are not beautiful, beautiful words are not to be believed."
The master said, "to be silent and knowing, to be insatiable in learning, and to be tireless in teaching, what is in me?" The meaning of this "knowledge" is not simply a simple recognition of memory, but a kind of heart reception that needs to be combined with self-understanding. This can be traced back to the master, who said, "for there are those who do not know and act, and I am not. The more you hear, the better you choose. The more you see, the more you know. It can be seen from this that Confucius was more concerned with the knowledge and wisdom he received, rather than simply learning and memorizing knowledge.
Therefore, I think Confucius meant that the study of mind and nature has a long history. The learning method is to follow the way of the ancients to study, do restore to the ancients at that time under the space-time of the true interpretation, in order to get something. Therefore, the sage of Confucius is so humble in front of such knowledge (or civilization), let alone us ordinary people.
Learning Chinese culture is to realize and practice the civilization of the last era. The process of learning must be connected with daily life and our own lives.
