On Xunzi's "unmasking" method and the technique of "curing qi and nourishing the heart"
About the Author 丨 Kuang Zhao, Associate Researcher of the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, whose main research direction is pre-Qin philosophy.
The original article is published in 丨 Journal of Anhui Normal University. Humanities and Social Sciences Edition, Issue 04, 2019.
summary
In the "mind technique" with the goal of "nourishing the heart", Xunzi values first of all the mind to "know" and how to "know". This is equivalent to the spiritual cultivation of intellectual virtue, and Xunzi's views on spiritual cultivation in this aspect can be decomposed into two links: first "unmasking" and then reaching "Great Clarity". In addition to the "mental techniques" related to the cultivation of intellectual virtue, Xunzi, who has never given up the pursuit of traditional Confucian moral virtue, also takes into account the spiritual cultivation techniques related to them, that is, those cultivation methods related to "qi". For the thinking of the latter way of cultivation, Xunzi called it "curing qi and nourishing the heart", and the related thinking was mainly from the perspective of correctivity. Xunzi's so-called "qi and nourishment of the heart" technique is a means of learning and self-cultivation aimed at changing oneself, and these techniques, together with other techniques advocated by Xunzi, such as classical learning and ritual training, constitute what he calls the "study of a gentleman" of "beautifying oneself".
In previous studies, many scholars tended to oppose the content of the spiritual level that Xunzi was concerned with and the innate moral ability of the mind that Mencius spoke of, as the fundamental difference between the two Confucians, such as Xu Fuguan, who decided: "The mind that Mencius grasped was mainly on the moral side of the mind; while Xunzi was on the cognitive side of the mind; this was the great watershed of MengXun." [1] Mou Zongsan in 146 had a similar assessment: "Xunzi only knows the animal nature of man, but in the area between man and animal, he does not know the other true nature." Here it collapses, and humanity becomes pitch black. After all, Xunzi did not follow the animal nature and rolled down to become nihilistic. Outside the layer of 'animal nature', he saw a higher level of people. This layer is the heart (heavenly king). Therefore, Xunzi turned over in the animal nature and ruled the nature with the heart. But its so-called mind is not Mencius's 'mind seeing' mind. Mencius's mind is the 'moral heavenly heart', while Xunzi Yu's mind only knows its speculative uses, so its mind is the 'knowing mind', the immoral mind; it is wise, and the mind of non-benevolence, righteousness, and wisdom is also the same. But in short, it is known that with the intellectual mind, not with the benevolent mind. [2]224 These evaluations only see the difference between Xun and Meng, but do not emphasize enough the continuity between XunZi's thinking and moral practice. The content of the former has long been well known, and from the latter aspect, whether it is Xunzi's cultivation of people's ability to think and know, or Mencius's development of people's moral ability, both serve personality shaping and moral cultivation - more precisely, Xunzi's first impression on posterity is more concerned with the acquisition of intellectual virtue, while Mencius pays more attention to the acquisition of moral virtue. 1 But as a Confucian Xunzi, he will never give up the pursuit of moral virtue when pursuing intellectual virtue, just as Xunzi has both the training of the mind and the care for "curing the qi and nourishing the heart", and even we can infer from Xunzi's own writings that he should have seen the continuity between the above two spiritual cultivation techniques. It is also worth noting that although Xunzi differs greatly from Mencius in his view of the human mind, if he takes a step further from the position that he has the ability to think in his heart, as Socrates implies, and advocates that the mind also possesses certain innate knowledge, then the difference between his position and Mencius's position will become very subtle, and the difference between innate moral ability and innate moral knowledge is only slightly different in practical emphasis. Of course, although Xunzi valued the ability of the mind to know, he did not give too much trust to the human mind as the ancient Greeks did, and the above possibilities did not appear in Confucianism.
I. How the Heart "Knows"
From the above point of view, in the "mental technique" with the goal of "nourishing the heart", what Xunzi values is undoubtedly the first thing that the mind can "know" and how to "know". Xun Zi once said: "The saint knows the plague of the heart, and sees the scourge of the blockage... And Chen all things and Zhongxian Hengyan... What is balance? A: The Word. Therefore, the mind cannot be unaware. (Xunzi Jiezhi) For the time being, without considering the special statement of "the affliction of mental skills", the way xunzi knows is of course the criterion for judging whether it is whether it is the same as whether it is the same as whether it is the tao: "With its Daoist heart and The Daoist people, it is not the Tao, and the cure is also necessary." Why don't you know? Therefore, the key to governance lies in knowing. Xun Zi went on to argue that "how can people know?" The key to this lies in the "mind," the mind that has the ability to think, "knows" because of its thoughts, and then follows the "Tao," and the way in which it changes itself accordingly is "false": "The mind that can move for it is called hypocrisy." Xunzi also believes that the good qualities in the personality are also created, the so-called "good and false" ("Xunzi Sexual Evil"), this kind of value creation that obviously goes beyond the meaning of knowledge also depends on the ability of the human mind to think first. Since the human heart is the starting point of all problems, xunzi needs to analyze it more carefully: "The reason why it is born is called nature. ...... Nature is nature. Sexual good, evil, joy, anger, sorrow, pleasure, called affection. But the heart chooses the name of the worry. The "sex", "feelings" and "worries" that appear here are general explanations of the human heart from three aspects, and "sex" represents the basis of the life endowment of the heart, on which the first aspect of the heart is "feeling" in the sense of emotion and emotion, and the further processing of "feeling" gives rise to the second aspect, that is, the content "worry" at the ideological level. Xun Zi believes that thoughts are related to emotions, which is obviously related to the various statements about "emotions" in "Sexual Pretense". Later, Xunzi continued to extend the analysis of the mind to "desire" or desire: "The sex is also the nature of the heavens; the lover, the quality of sex; the desire and the love of the should also be." In xunzi's conceptual genealogy of the analytical mind, "sex", "feeling", "worry" and "desire" are not separated from the innate nature of life endowments, and the more important view is that in these innate and value-free contents, some of them will lead to negative effects - such as "feelings" and "desires", while others are positive factors that lead people to the "Tao"—such as "worry". The thoughts of the heart are also called "knowledge" by Xunzi: "Speaking, therefore, joy, anger, sorrow, joy, love, evil, desire with a different heart." The heart has knowledge. Here Xunzi associates "feelings" (joy, anger, sorrow, pleasure, love, and evil), "desire" and "saying" and "therefore" with the heart, and continues to expand the scope of the mind's ability to think and know by using his knowledge of the latter contents that are already present in the debate.
Xunzi still advocates the domination of the human body with these abilities: "The mind is the king of form, and the lord of the gods is also." ("Xunzi Jieshao") This positioning is closely related to the idea of "the throne of the mind body" in the "Four Chapters" of Huang Laoxue's "GuanZi", far in line with the saying in the "Chinese" that "the seven bodies are used to serve the heart", and from the perspective of the ideological inheritance of confucian content, it is closely related to the content in Guodian Jian's book. Xun Zi also expressed a similar expression in the "Treatise on Heaven": "The shapes of the ears, eyes, noses, and mouths can be connected but not compatible, and the husband is called the heavenly official; the heart is in the middle to unify the five senses, and the husband is the heavenly king." Xun Zi cited the example of life and death to illustrate the truth that "the cure of chaos lies in what the heart can do": "What people want, they are born; the evil of man is very bad; the evil of man is very bad." However, man has the dead from birth, and he does not want to be born but wants to die, and he cannot be born but can die. Therefore, the desire is too much to move, and the heart is also stopped. What the heart can be rationalized, then although there are many desires, it is hurt to cure? If you want to move too soon, the heart makes it too. What the heart can be irrational, then although the desire is weak, it will stop at chaos? Therefore, the control of chaos lies in what the heart can do, and it dies in the desire of the love. I do not seek what is where I am, but seek what I die, although I have gained it, I have lost it. The most important concept put forward by Xunzi here is the so-called "reason" in the text, the thinking activity of the mind, and it is precisely because of reason that it is in a higher position than "desire" in the higher position of "stopping" and "making". Reason is under the category of the Tao here in Xunzi, and the mind can "be in the middle", but it is also the meaning that the mind can "know".
Xunzi paid great attention to the argumentation activity itself, and this aspect of course was inseparable from the ability of the mind to think. Not only the "saying" and "therefore" mentioned in the previous article, but also the contents of "discernment" and "words" are also related to the mind: "Those who discern and speak are also like the Tao of the heart." The heart is also the work of the Tao. The Tao is also the manager of the rule. The heart is in harmony with the Word, the word is in the heart, and the word is in the word. (Xunzi Zhengming) For the time being, the terminology used by Xunzi to express the various links of argument is not to be distinguished, but what is important is that Xunzi regards it as a sign of "unity of heart in the Tao", which is equivalent to setting up an objective standard for "knowing" that can be actually grasped. Xun Zi's thinking on the content of the mind's thoughts and knowledge has reached an unprecedented level of detail among Confucian scholars.
The more important content of Xunzi's thinking lies in how the mind "knows", which is equivalent to the spiritual cultivation of intellectual virtue, and Xunzi's views on spiritual cultivation in this aspect can be decomposed into two links: first "unmasking" and then reaching "Great Qingming". Some commentators have summed up the thinking of the pre-Qin Zhuzi from the perspective of traditional epistemology: "The epistemology from the late Spring and Autumn period to the early Warring States period mainly focuses on the sources of knowledge and the methods and ways of seeking knowledge. ...... People have focused on two aspects of the problem: one is what are the factors that hinder correct understanding, and the other is what state of knowing the subject, the 'mind', in order to obtain a correct understanding. [3] 105 It can be said that both aspects of this content are clearly reflected in Xunzi's thought. As far as the "factors hindering correct understanding" are concerned, Bai Xi believes that in the pre-Qin ideological genealogy, philosophers have a large number of views that can be understood from this perspective: "On the question of the factors that hinder correct understanding (that is, why does cognition fall into error) ,...... For example, be cautious to the so-called 'affliction of self-building' and 'tiredness of using wisdom', Song Yu's so-called 'You', Zhuangzi's so-called 'Chengxin', Guan Zi's so-called 'excessive self-use' and 'going to wisdom and reason', Han Fei's so-called 'former knowledge', Xunzi's so-called 'concealment', "Lü's Spring and Autumn" so-called 'You' and '囿', and so on. [3] 106 As far as Xunzi is concerned, the problem naturally focuses on the "concealment" that should be "solved", that is, what Xunzi called: "The troubles of mortals are hidden in one song and hidden in Dali." (Xunzi Unmasking) As for why there is a "disease" of "hiding in a song", Xu Fuguan thinks that it is due to the "untrustworthiness of the cognitive power of the heart": "The "Unmasking" section says that 'the sage knows the suffering of the heart', the technique is a field path, and the heart technique refers to the pathway through which the heart moves outward. The affliction of the mind refers to the untrustworthiness of the mind's cognitive power. [1] 148 Here Xu Shi narrows the object of the term "mental technique", and what Xun Zi wants to explain is that problems may occur in the entire process of spiritual cultivation, but these problems will first manifest themselves in the mind, that is, the suspicion that the human heart is "hidden". However, these "concealments" do not mean that the thinking ability of the human heart itself is unreliable, and Xunzi does not actually show any distrust of the "king" and "lord" of the human body, and even then refers to this mind: "Give orders and receive no orders." Self-prohibition also, self-making also, self-conquest also, self-taking also, self-also, self-stopping also. From the above remarks, it can be inferred that in Xunzi's view, the mind is completely self-directed, and what affects its correct judgment is not the natural defect of the mind itself, but only because it is "blinded", and once these "blinding" are lifted, the mind itself presents a state of "great clarity".
Soon after the beginning of "Unclosed," Xun Zi enumerated for us ten reasons for "concealment": "Therefore, it is concealed: desire is concealed, evil is concealed, first is concealed, finally concealed, far is hidden, near is covered, Bo is covered, shallow is covered, ancient is covered, and present is covered." In Xunzi's own words, the direct source of "concealment" is the objective situation of "all things being different," and as long as the human mind faces these "differences," it is inevitably negatively affected: "All things are different" as long as they face these "differences.": "All things are different, and all things are different, and all things are different, and the public afflictions of this mental technique are also." If we have the ability to remove the above factors that hinder correct thinking, then the mind can "know," and this solves the problem of "how to obtain correct understanding." Some commentators believe: "The eyes of thinkers in the middle and late warring states are focused on the subject of cognition, the 'heart', and they all believe that the 'mind' can obtain the highest cultivation and correct understanding if it is in a certain ideal state. For example, Zhuangzi's so-called 'heart fasting', Mencius's so-called 'heart' and 'nourishing the heart', "Guan Zi" so-called 'heart in its way' and 'virtual element', Xunzi's so-called 'great clarity' of the heart', "virtual and quiet" and so on. [3] 107 The above understanding, to a certain extent, confuses the "mental techniques" of different natures, leaving aside Zhuangzi and "Guanzi", Mencius's so-called "holding the heart" and "nourishing the heart" compared with Xunzi's so-called "great Qingming" and "vain and quiet", emphasizing different types of spiritual cultivation work, the former focusing on the acquisition of moral virtue and related to the cultivation of "qi", while the latter focusing on the acquisition of intellectual virtue, which is related to the cultivation of "thinking".
If "unmasking" is only the first link in the spiritual cultivation related to thinking and knowledge in Xunzi's eyes, then the subsequent link is that the mind reaches the state of "great clarity" or "emptiness and stillness" after getting rid of the influence of "concealment", and the latter state is both the overcoming of "concealment" and the presentation of the innate ability of the mind. After discussing all kinds of "concealment" and related examples, Xun Zi summed up these factors from three aspects as "Zang," "two," and "moving": "The mind has not tasted Zang, but there is the so-called emptiness; the mind has not tasted two, but there is the so-called one; the heart has not tasted and not moved, but there is the so-called stillness." By overcoming these three negative factors separately, we will achieve the ideal state of "virtual oneness and quietness": "not to be described as vain by what has been harmed by what has been harmed", "not to be harmed by one to be one", and "not to be quiet in the chaotic knowledge of dream dramas". ("Xunzi Unmasked")
As far as Xunzi's so-called "Zang", "two" and "movement" are concerned, what "Zang" refers to is the subjectivity brought about by the original knowledge in the human mind, and first of all, only by eliminating this subjectivity is to make the mind "virtual" is the correct way to understand the "Tao". As for "two" referring to different opinions, the aforementioned Xunzi believes that the ten reasons for "concealment" can be reduced to a single word for "different," and this "difference" is actually the so-called "two": "Those who are different also know at the same time; and both know at the same time, two also." Our goal is to try to avoid contradictions and conflicts between them and to achieve the "oneness" of unity between the two different opinions. Finally, the so-called "movement" refers to the adverse effects of various illusions or misinformations, and trying to avoid the above illusions and "meditating" on the mind is also necessary for "seeking the tao." As for the activities of the mind around the above three aspects, Du Guoyu, after Guo Moruo, noticed the relationship between Xunzi's related ideas and the "Four Chapters" of Guan Zi as the center of the "Four Chapters" of Jixia Huang Laoxue. From the perspective of academic history, it is not surprising that Xunzi's thought will be associated with The Yellow Old School of Jixia—the existence of the Minoru Xuegong links them together, and in terms of the details of their ideological connections, Du Guoyu has discussed in detail what Xunzi calls "virtual and quiet" from a traditional epistemological point of view. [4] 134-157 "virtual" has always been a Taoist saying, which can easily be traced back to Lao Tzu's words of "to the virtual pole, keep quiet and do", and there is also a saying in the "Guan Zi Xin Shu Shang" that "emptiness is desire, god will enter the round", Du Wen believes that this "virtual" is related to Song Zi's "lack of lust"--this is probably a wrong conclusion influenced by Guo Moruo's unreliable examination of the author of the "four parts" of the "Pipe", but he correctly pointed out that, contrary to the above ideas, Xunzi does not advocate a simple "desire". As we understand it, "not to harm what has been done is what it will suffer" (Xunzi Unmasking) represents a rejection of the subjectivity of the human heart. As for the question of "one", Du Wen noticed that the so-called "single-minded concentration" and the like in the "Four Articles" of the "Guan Zi" focused on health maintenance, while Xun Zi, on the contrary, advocated a unified and different point of view in the sense of sizhi, "not harming one by one" ("Xun zi and unmasking"), but did not understand that the unity of thinking emphasized by Xun Zi still had a similar spiritual cultivation significance to that of "Guan Zi". Similarly, Du Wen also found that Xunzi's view of "Jing" was also very different from that of the "Pipe", and the "Four Chapters" of the "Guan Zi" were designed to calm the mind with static braking, as the "Guan Zi Nei Ye" said: "Where there is nothing in the Tao, the good heart is at peace, the mind is calm, and the Tao is stoppable." The mind can be still, and the Tao will be self-determined. Xunzi's proposition of "not knowing in a dream drama" ("Xunzi Unmasking" is advocating a positive sense of "stillness". In short, Du Wen believes that Xunzi emphasizes the positive cognitive role of the mind, while the "Four Chapters" of the Guan Zi are completely stuck in the Taoist position of being quiet and inactive. Putting aside this difference in positions, Xunzi's understanding of "virtuality", "oneness", and "jing" all has the positive significance of actively eliminating subjectivity, unifying different views, and getting rid of the interference of illusion, while his views on the above contents do not stay at the traditional epistemological level but are related to self-cultivation, and these spiritual cultivations related to thinking and knowledge are still aimed at the acquisition of virtue, the shaping of personality, and the change of people themselves.
In Xun Zi's view, if our cognitive mind can reach the above-mentioned state of eliminating the influence of "Zang", "two" and "movement", it is to achieve the "great clarity" necessary for "knowing": "All things are invisible, invisible and indifferent, and out of place." Sitting in the room and seeing the world, it is a long time ago. Neglect all things and know their feelings, participate in the control of chaos and pass through them, through the latitude and longitude of heaven and earth and the material of all things, and control Dali and the universe. Restore the vastness, who knows the extreme? Looking at the wide and wide, who knows its virtue? Who knows what it is? Ming ginseng sun and moon, the great full eight poles, the husband is called the adult. Evil is hidden!" Xun zi gave full trust to such unmasked "adults", and such people thus moved from the ordinary sense of "human heart" to the "Taoist heart". Xun Zi vigorously praised those who had mastered the subtlety of the "Tao" in their hearts, and for such a person he called "zhiren" in a Zhuangzi-like tone later in the "Unmasking". Of course, such a "supreme person" is by no means a Taoist figure who soars in an inexplicable state of emptiness, and here in Xunzi he is still a Confucian sage based on benevolence, although this saint, because of his dependence on the external Tao, cannot help but show some Daoist style of "doing nothing" and "no strength": "Therefore, the path of the benevolent person is also the way of doing nothing; the path of the saint is also the way of the saint, and there is no strong." ("Xunzi Unmasked")
Second, from health to self-cultivation
Although Xun Zi attached the greatest importance to the spiritual ability to think and the corresponding spiritual cultivation, he did not stay at this level alone. Strictly speaking, this level of spiritual cultivation may only be the beginning of Xunzi's envisioned effort to change himself, and after the cultivation around sizhi, there will be further follow-up work. In addition to these "mental techniques" related to the cultivation of intellectual virtue, Xunzi, who has never given up the pursuit of traditional Confucian moral virtue, also takes into account the spiritual cultivation techniques related to moral virtue, that is, those cultivation methods related to "qi". For the reflection of the latter way of cultivation, Xunzi called it "curing qi and nourishing the heart".
Before discussing "curing qi and nourishing the heart", Xunzi first put forward the problem of "self-cultivation" and opposed it to "curing qi and maintaining health", collectively referring to it as "the degree of flatness":
The degree of flatness - to cure qi and maintain health, then pengzu; to cultivate oneself, it is equipped with Yao Yu. It is advisable to pass through the times, to deal with the poor, and the letter of etiquette is also. Whoever uses flesh, will, and knowledge is ruled by etiquette, and is not disturbed by etiquette; food and drink, clothing, residence, and stillness, by etiquette and festivals, and by etiquette, it is troubled by etiquette; appearance, attitude, advance and retreat, tendency, courtesy is elegant, and by etiquette, it is solid, secluded, and vulgar. If the old man is rude, he will not be born, if he is rude, he will not succeed, and if the country is rude, he will not be restless. ("Xunzi Slimming")
Under this title of "The Degree of FlatNess", Xunzi first compares two different types of "self-cultivation": one is the Taoist," "health maintenance" with the goal of pursuing "longevity and long-term vision," which is the same purpose as the earlier Lao Tzu, focusing on emulating Peng Zu's long-term preservation of physical life; first, the Confucian-style "self-cultivation" with the goal of pursuing "etiquette and faith," which focuses on the pursuit of virtue, just like confucius before. Xunzi completely incorporated the former kind of "self-cultivation" into the latter kind of self-cultivation, which is equivalent to canceling its independent status and significance.
In the above remarks, Xunzi actually made two arguments. First of all, it pointed out the intention of the self-cultivation activities, and in the cultivation activities related to "qi", the "health maintenance of qi" that was simply aimed at the preservation of the body was excluded; secondly, it did not limit the scope of "mental techniques", made a holistic explanation of the self-cultivation activities, and analyzed the three aspects of the cultivation practice. It is worth noting that what Xunzi really emphasizes here is the "ritual" that he uses as the general principle of all self-cultivation activities, not as a "ritual" of a certain self-cultivation technique or approach—the so-called "ritual" here of Xunzi is consistent with his so-called "Tao", which is the specific standardization of the latter, covering all aspects of personal and social life, and its meaning goes beyond the "ritual" in the sense of the early Confucian "learning for oneself" problem area[5].
The three aspects that Xun Zi points out here as the result of self-cultivation practice are the aspects of body, life, or "sex" such as "flesh, will, and mind", the aspects of personal and public life related to "food, drink, clothing, and residence", and the aspects of physical training related to human appearance and posture. The first aspect is related to the Taoist tradition of "nourishing qi" with the intention of "eternal life and long-term vision", while the latter two aspects reflect the characteristics of Confucian self-cultivation practice, the content of which can be traced back to various records in the Analects of the Xiang Dang, and recently related to Mencius's "practice of form", Confucianism has always believed that people's inner virtues should have a corresponding external reflection. The ultimate principle of cultivation can be boiled down to self-cultivation with rituals—Xunzi concluded that the content represented by rituals is absolutely indispensable to both individuals and groups.
In Xun Zi's above-mentioned thinking on "self-cultivation and self-fame", he first paid attention to the "health maintenance" at the physical level, and this may be related to his more positive view of the "desire" and "affection" directly related to the endowment of life. Although to a certain extent, the above-mentioned physical level projects are all objects of cultivation, this aspect of the content is definitely not the core of his thinking. In the Confucian tradition, there has never been an emphasis on the independent topic of "health maintenance" for the object of physical life, and XunZi is no exception, and in his thinking, this aspect is always reduced to the topic of "etiquette and righteousness": "People are not precious to life, mole to be at peace; therefore, those who are healthy and happy are not greater than etiquette." In other words, the requirement of "health maintenance" at the physical level is the proper meaning of the "etiquette" advocated by Confucianism, which Xunzi emphasizes:
A gentleman has both his nourishment and his others. What do you mean? A: The noble and the lowly are equal, the elderly and the young are poor, and the rich and the poor are both weighed. Therefore, the Heavenly Son's Great Road crosses the seat, so it nourishes the body; the side carries Sui Zhi, so it nourishes the nose; the former has a wrong balance, so it nourishes the eyes; the voice of the Luan, the step in the martial elephant, the middle of the Shao Protection, so the ear is also nourished; the Dragon Banner Nine Axes, so the YangXin is also; the Sleeping Tiger, Jiao, Silk, and Milong, so yang Wei ye; therefore the horse of the Great Road will believe in it, teach Shun, and then ride on it, so Yang An also. The reason why the husband is out of death wants to be healthy is also! The reason why I know the cost is to raise money! The reason why Yu Zhifu respectfully resigned to let Yang Anya! The reason why I know the fu li yi wen li is also nurturing! ("Xunzi Li Theory")
Etiquette requires us to pay attention to the "health" at the physical level, and the focus in this regard lies on people of different identities and states should enjoy different life treatment, as for Xunzi when talking about the "degree of flatness", from the perspective of self-cultivation technology, the reason why we should care about the content of clothing, food, shelter, appearance and posture is definitely related to the above considerations - the specific requirements of etiquette include provisions on how different people should wear clothes, how to speak and act, and so on. From this point of view, the key to "health" at the physical level is to "moderately" take care of the body, otherwise the effect of "health" will be counterproductive. At the end of the Treatise on Music, Xun Zi regarded "unbridled health" as a "sign of a chaotic world", and he also explicitly said elsewhere that "indulgence" of undistrained "indulgence" is fundamentally harmful:
Therefore, those who want to nurture their desires and indulge their feelings, who want to nurture their nature and endanger their form, who want to nourish their pleasures and attack their hearts, who want to raise their names and mess with their deeds, so that although they are crowned princes, they are no different from their husbands and thieves. ("Xunzi Zhengming")
The reason for the negative effects of the above-mentioned "health maintenance" is, of course, because the above-mentioned "indulgence" fails to follow the etiquette and becomes of no positive significance. As for the cultivation of clothes, diet and appearance and posture, it is simply that the activities concerned must comply with the requirements of etiquette, which involve both private and public life and physical training, and are ultimately attributed to the cultivation of personality values because they are unified in "etiquette".
Under the topic of "the degree of flatness", the most important content of Xunzi's attention is of course still the traditional Confucian virtue seeking and personality shaping, and its introduction to self-cultivation practice has long exceeded the content of the "mental technique" level from a technical point of view, but no matter what kind of self-cultivation technique is used in the process of pursuing value, for Xunzi, in the sense of the early Confucian advocacy of "mental technique as the mainstay", the mind will not be absent from these cultivation activities:
If the heart is worried, it will be mouthed and not know its taste, listen to the bells and drums but do not know its sound, look at the mole and do not know its shape, light and warm and flat and the body does not know its safety. ("Xunzi Zhengming")
opposite:
If the heart is happy, it is not as good as the maid and can nourish the eyes, the sound is not as good as the maid and can nourish the ears, the vegetable soup can be nourished, the cloth of the cloth, the shoes of the silk, and the body can be nourished. Bureau room, reed curtain, manuscript, machine feast, and can be cultivated. ("Xunzi Zhengming")
The reason for this situation is that the "mind" is dominant relative to the body.
3. The art of "curing qi and nourishing the mind" and corrective cultivation
Since under the topic of "self-cultivation and self-name", no matter what type and level of self-cultivation techniques will be involved, the position of "mind technique as the mainstay" will not be shaken, then it is very natural that XunZi, after thinking about the above topic as a whole, quickly turned to the technique of "curing qi and nourishing the heart" within the scope of more specialized spiritual cultivation. From the perspective of argumentative strategy, Xunzi obviously contrasts it in context with the so-called "qi control and health maintenance" technique, and highlights the importance of the former by the incompleteness of the latter:
The art of curing qi and nourishing the heart: if the flesh is strong, it is soft to reconcile; if the knowledge is deepened, it is easy to be good; if it is courageous and fierce, it is supplemented by The Way; if it is convenient, it is moved; if it is narrow and small, it is broad; if it is wet, late, and greedy, it is resisted with high ambition; if the mediocre crowd is scattered, it is killed by teachers and friends; if it is sluggish and discarded, it is a disaster; and if it is foolish, it is combined with liturgy and happiness, and it is common to think. Whoever cures qi and cultivates the heart, Mo Daoyu is polite, mo wants to get a teacher, Mo Shen is good. ("Xunzi Slimming")
However, xunzi's talk of the art of "curing qi and nourishing the mind" if it is regarded as a specific explanation of the "mental art" in the narrow sense and spiritual cultivation sense, it contains some special problems that must be explained.
Xunzi's so-called "curing qi and nourishing the heart" involves the conditioning of nine aspects of people's mentality, and most of its specific contents have not been considered in detail by philosophers, and Xunzi here proposes corresponding governance countermeasures for the pride, insidiousness, roughness, deceit, narrow-mindedness, meanness, laziness, slackness, and stupid stubbornness that people may show, but if his countermeasures are also regarded as spiritual cultivation techniques related to qi, then there are at least three obvious differences compared with previous Confucianism.
The first difference lies in the grasp of the concept of qi. Judging from Xunzi's own positioning of "qi", his grasp of this concept actually contains internal contradictions, on the one hand, it seems to regard it as the "flesh qi" known to people in the Spring and Autumn Period--this "blood gas", like the "blood gas" used by Xun Zi when he talked about the "degree of flat goodness", should belong to the content of the body; on the other hand, from the perspective of Xun Zi juxtaposing "blood qi" with a series of spiritual contents that followed, he seems to regard it as spiritual content. In the past, the concept of "flesh gas" has been mentioned many times in "Pipe", which as a natural force driving life, originally stays at the level of "qi" of the nature of materials, such as the so-called "water person, the flesh of the earth" in "Water and Earth", and the so-called "four bodies are positive, and the flesh and gas are static", which probably still expresses this meaning. This "flesh qi" in the physical sense, like the breath of the breath, can be gradually associated with spiritual activities in the case of unity with the phenomena of life, and eventually transition within the Taoist system to the essence that is closely related to the mind. Therefore, qi is also regarded as the content of the spiritual level, and the related cultivation has also appeared within the scope of spiritual cultivation. This has already been expressed in the Thought of Huang Laoxue reflected in the "Four Chapters" of the Guanzi, and within the Confucian lineage, the introduction of qi and the corresponding cultivation ideas from the very beginning has focused on the qi on the spiritual level beyond the body—whether it is the "virtue qi" in the Five Elements or the "Haoran qi" in Mencius. That is to say, in some parts and all of the early Confucian thought of Huang Laoxue in Jixia, the distinction between flesh and spirit is very clear, but in Xunzi's case, from the perspective of his before and after use of "flesh qi", the above distinction seems to be somewhat ambiguous. The emergence of this situation, or Xunzi's insistence on discussing "flesh and blood" and juxtaposing it with various spiritual contents, may be related to his consistent emphasis on human physiological life endowments, or it may be related to his "vague" dissatisfaction with the various confucian sayings around "qi" in the past, but from the overall ideological state of early Confucianism, Xunzi's way of discussing qi seems to be less fluent.
The second difference is the grasp of the direction of cultivation related to qi. The cultivation of spiritual qi in the early Confucians clearly pointed to the acquisition of moral virtue, and this feature is completely impossible to find in Xunzi. The nine aspects of "curing qi and nourishing the mind" that Xun Zi talked about contain a variety of completely different types of content: among them, there are elements related to intellectual virtue, such as "knowing" and "thinking", as well as elements related to moral virtue, such as "bravery", and also mentioning moral models such as "teachers and friends". If these contents are all related to the cultivation of qi, then the previous Confucian cultivation direction related to moral virtue will be completely lost. Beginning with the introduction of a new classification criterion of virtue based on "inside and outside" by the Confucians between Confucius and Mencius, the division of intellectual virtue and moral virtue established by Confucius himself began to become blurred, and the driving force behind the above divisions that eventually withdrew from the stage of history because it was obscured was Mencius. The development of early Confucianism to Xunzi, the above distinction between rational virtue and moral virtue may have been completely forgotten, and he only unconsciously followed the Confucian distinction between work in the field of spiritual cultivation, talking about the "unmasking" work related to thinking and the "healing qi and nourishing the heart" work related to qi, but there was no understanding of the special pertinence of the latter type of work. It is worth mentioning that judging from the text of "Unmasking" in "Xunzi" and the remarks on "sincerity" in "Non-Goo", it is speculated that Xunzi attaches the greatest importance to spiritual cultivation work related to "thinking", and believes that this kind of work has undoubted priority over the acquisition of other virtues, and probably does not violate Xunzi's original intention, nor does it conflict with the logical relationship between the above-mentioned different types of virtues. What is even more interesting is that what Xunzi has in common with Mencius in these aspects is that they actually follow the corresponding distinction in spiritual cultivation on the basis of not understanding the distinction between rational virtue and moral virtue, except that the former emphasizes the work related to "thinking" and the latter attaches more importance to the cultivation related to "qi".
The third difference lies in the grasp of the overall direction of cultivation, and this distinction is not even limited to the scope of "curing qi and nourishing the mind." In the past, when Confucians discussed qi-related work, in the sense of using qi as a dynamic factor in the realization of virtue, the explanation of practice was always positive and constructive, while the cultivation techniques mentioned by Xunzi here were completely from a negative and corrective point of view. In the field of "mind techniques" in the early Confucians in the past, there has actually always been a type of cultivation aimed at eliminating bad tendencies in spiritual activities, such as the "righteous mind" of the "University", the "widowhood" of Mencius' words, and the "unmasking" of Xunzi's words are all spiritual cultivation work from this corrective point of view. Thinking in this direction can still be traced back to Confucius himself, whether it is the teaching of "self-denial" or the so-called "Zi Zhi Si" proposition: "No intention, no will, no solidity, no self" (Analects of Zihan), all of which require us to strive to eliminate the negative impact of some inner activities with bad tendencies on the perfection of personality. However, this type of negative spiritual cultivation practice, which in the past seemed to be regarded as a relatively independent activity, did not directly associate it with "thinking" or "qi", but in Xunzi's case, it was not only associated with the cultivation of qi, but also with the cultivation of thought, as not stated above. Probably from this position, when Xunzi talked about self-cultivation techniques related to qi, he did not use the phrase "nourishing qi" like Mencius, but used a more severe term of "controlling qi", which is exactly the same as Confucius's previous "ke". Thinking about spiritual cultivation techniques from a corrective or negative direction, it should be said that Xun Zi is the most concentrated and distinct here, and his spiritual cultivation work is strictly speaking, starting from this perspective. The progress of this line of thought in early Confucianism, in addition to the content covered above, was clearly revealed in Guo Dian's jianshu "Sexual PretentiousNess":
Whatever is sexy, or moving, or inverse, or intercourse, or strong, or out, or nurturing, or long. Whoever is active, the thing is also; the contrarian, the joyful; the intercourse, so also; the strong, the righteous; the outgoing, the potential; the nourishing, the habitual; the long, the Tao.
For the shaping and cultivation of "sex" in the text of the Jianshu, not only the constructive expressions of "raising" and "long", but also the corrective expressions of "reverse" and "strong". If the above-mentioned positive or negative activities are governed by the whole person, then in the narrow sense of "mental technique", "Sexual Self-Reliance" has also put forward some critical suggestions: "Whoever is impatient with his heart thinks more." Those who are ill with wisdom suffer even more. Those who use affection are even more mournful. These reflections directly directed at "the impatience of the heart" and the "disease of using wisdom" may have inspired Xunzi's corrective position on spiritual cultivation techniques to a large extent.
In the full realm of the early Confucian "learning for oneself", the above corrective position also existed in other ways, and the original Analects of Yang Goods contained a record of Confucius's so-called "six words and six masks":
Zi Yue: "Yuya, the female smell six words and six hidden?" Right: "Not yet." "Residence! My language girl. Good benevolence is not easy to learn, and its concealment is also foolish; good knowledge is not easy to learn, and its concealment is also swinging; good faith is not easy to learn, and its concealment is also thief; good straightness is not easy to learn, and its concealment is also twisted; good courage is not easy to learn, and its concealment is also chaotic; good is not easy to learn, and its concealment is also crazy. ”
Here, Confucius explains the importance of "learning" for personality shaping in a general way, and the so-called "cover" echoes the later Xunzi. In addition to the content mentioned above, "Sexual Self-Assertion" also has the following statements about the behaviors that "should not exist" in the practice of self-cultivation:
The body desires to be quiet and not □, the desire to be deep and not to pull out, the desire to be brave and will come, the appearance is strong and not to pull out, [the heart] wants to be soft and harmonious, the desire to be wise and dies, the desire to be happy and ambitious, the desire to be frugal and not to be bored (stuffy), the anger to be full and not to be happy, the desire to be inferior but not clever, the desire to follow without lightness, the desire to be all degrees and not false.
The "undesirable" behavior here not only involves people's hearts, but also has a lot to do with "body", "behavior" and "appearance". In the "Zun De Yi", in contrast to the "should have" ritual music indoctrination, some "should not have" teaching items are also mentioned:
If you teach with etiquette, the people will be fruitful; if you teach with pleasure, then the people will fight for the general; if you teach to argue, then the folk art will be □ and noble and forget; if you teach art, the people will fight with the wilderness; if you teach with skill, the people will be less stingy; if you teach with words, the people will be humble and trustworthy; if you teach things, the people will be strong enough to make profits; if you teach with power, the people will be lascivious and dim- and the people will have no relatives and benevolence.
This is also advocating the exclusion of some of the contents that are considered negative factors from all the activities of self-cultivation as a whole. Combined with a "rigid" and "soft" statement that appears in "Sexual Pretense": "The Pillar of Rigidity" and "The Covenant of Softness", we may think that Confucianism has always advocated self-cultivation practice from two different directions, of which the constructive, positive, and positive method is the "rigid" method, and the corrective, negative, and negative method is the "soft" method. From this point of view, in terms of the three approaches of early Confucianism's "learning for oneself", spiritual cultivation and liturgical training can be described as rigid and soft—the former needless to say, while the latter, as implied in the Analects of the Xiang Dang, include both instructions for appropriate behavior and prohibition of inappropriate behavior; as for the study of classics, it is probably biased towards the main "rigid" method - Confucius and his later studies will never deliberately "attack heresies".
4. Creativity and Inheritance
Xun Zi finally summed up the specific countermeasures he was talking about in terms of the "art of curing qi and nourishing the heart": "Mo Dao is polite, mo wants to be a teacher, and Mo Shen is good." The first aspect here still returns to Xunzi's view that "ritual" is the general principle of self-cultivation, while the second and third aspects are actually about the same thing, and Xunzi emphasizes the importance of mentors and role models in the learning process. Beginning with Confucius, early Confucians have proposed a new dimension of human relations: the teacher-student relationship, and Xunzi has shown great importance to this aspect. As for the importance of "attaining a teacher", it is clear in the Xunzi Self-Cultivation:
Gentleman long teacher and relatives and friends;
The liturgical person, so the right body, the teacher, so the righteous ceremony also. Why is rudeness right? Is it also true that there is no teacher Wu An Zhi Li? However, it is the love of the peace and the liya; the master of the clouds and the clouds is the knowledge of the master. The love of the entourage, the knowledge of the master, is also a saint.
As for the so-called "one good," it does not simply mean "toward goodness," and the "good" here is still related to the teachers and friends who are guides and role models. The so-called "good person", that is, "close to his person": "Learning is not close to his person." Li le fa without saying, poetry books are therefore not cut, spring and autumn are about but not fast. In Xunzi's view, "good people" and "close people" are even more important than "long li", and without the guidance of suitable people, even if the self-cultivation method of poetry and book lile is, its effect will be greatly reduced. Therefore, Xun Zi will advocate "the teacher, so the right etiquette", pointing out the importance of the guide and the role model in the practice of self-cultivation, or the indispensable position of the teacher-student relationship for the cultivation of virtue. Xunzi's so-called "one good" should mean that he should concentrate on following the examples that are worthy and should be followed. Under the dual role of learning examples and fundamental principles, Xunzi's so-called "healing qi and nourishing the heart" technique is a means of learning and self-cultivation aimed at changing oneself, and these techniques, together with other techniques advocated by Xunzi, such as classical learning and ritual music training, constitute what he calls the "study of gentlemen" ("Xunzi Persuasion"), and Xunzi clearly positions it as the study of "ancient scholars for themselves" - this is undoubtedly the last Confucian master of the pre-Qin Dynasty who opened up a reflection on Confucius and how to achieve this "should be" In a conscious response, from Confucius to Xunzi, the problem domain of early Confucianism's "learning for oneself" has always presented a relatively clear image.
Continuing to be concerned with the self-cultivation techniques within the scope of the mind, Xunzi is also involved in some of the spiritual cultivation methods that have been discussed by the Confucians earlier, for example, in Xunzi, the importance of "province" and "sincerity" may be second only to "unmasking" and "controlling qi". Xun Zi repeatedly emphasized "self-examination" or "introspection", as he said in "Self-Cultivation": "If you see something bad, you will be introspective with self-examination" "If you want to cultivate, you will be proud and rich, and if morality is heavy, you will be light on the prince; introspection and external things are light." In "Wang Ba", XunZi also has the saying of "internal self-examination". Xun Zi's understanding of "self-examination" in the sense of self-cultivation undoubtedly comes from the inheritance of Confucius's pioneering thought, and very clearly and consciously places it in the problem domain of "learning" or "learning for oneself":
The wooden straight rope, the wheel, its curved rules, although there is a violent, not to stand up, to make it so. Therefore, the rope of the wood is straight, the gold is sharp, and the gentleman is erudite and the daily reference is self-conscious, then he knows and acts without fault. ("Xunzi Persuasion")
The statement that Xunzi is "erudite" and "introspective" here is a response to Confucius's emphasis on "learning and thinking". As for Xunzi's emphasis on "sincerity", such as his judgment that "a gentleman cultivates his heart and is not good at sincerity, and sincerity has nothing else to do" ("Xunzi Bugou"), on the one hand, it inherits the confucian views between Confucius and Meng, and on the other hand, it is also related to his own greatest concern about the work related to "thinking". Xu Fuguan had already seen that in Xunzi's case, "'sincerity and benevolence' and 'sincerity and righteousness' are based on honesty in words from the perspective of work"[1]93, and this kind of work related to the acquisition of intellectual virtue will further produce various external effects in Xunzi's view, such as manifesting in appearance and speech, and reflecting in the relationship between father and son and monarch.
Finally, it is worth noting the lineage between the Confucians who may have existed in Xunzi and the ideas reflected in Guodian Jian's book, who had once disappeared from history. For example, Xun Zi also said: "The thoughts of the benevolent are also respectful, and the thoughts of the saints are also happy." This way of healing the heart also. His statement that he links "the thoughts of the benevolent" and "the thoughts of the sages" with the spiritual cultivation methods is obviously related to the "thoughts of benevolence" and "the thoughts of the saints" that appear in the Five Elements sutra, and is a mental technique similar to the work of the aforementioned "sincerity", which proceeds from a constructive point of view and revolves around the acquisition of intellectual virtue.
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exegesis:
1 The possible distinction between the two types of virtues in Confucianism, see Humble Article, "The Division of Virtue and Order in Early Confucianism", Philosophical Studies, No. 7, 2014.