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Confucian method of nourishing the mind – taking Mencius’s mind as the middle
Author: Huang Yusong
Source: Author authorized by Confucian Network, originally published by “Zhongzhou Academy of Sciences” 2023 No. 8
【Summary】 From the perspective of individual life and life care, Mencius’s study can be regarded as a kind of nourishing the philosophy, and its main theme is “serving heaven and waiting for fate”, that is, nourishing oneself to serve heaven and cultivate oneself to wait for death. As a result, the cultivation of life has gained the meaning of ultimate worship. To this end, Mencius’s “mind learning” is a set of methods of nourishing the mind. (1) Nursing is “nurturing”, but it is not only the “nurturing body” of the flesh, but the life body that is a unity of the body and mind. To further explain, the most basic foundation of nurturing is not “nurturing small bodies”, but “nurturing large bodies”, that is, “nurturing mind”. (2) Cultivation includes the cultivation of emotional, will and emotional talents. The key to nourishing one’s mind lies in “few desires”, that is, “having something unreasonable”, that is, eliminating the desire for “unruly” and focusing on the desire for “desirable”. (3) The essence of the mind is “nourishing nature”, that is, the talent of nourishing oneself. The step of nourishing nature is to “intellectually” with “intellectually”, and then “intellectually” with “knowing the sky”. “Every heart” includes as much emotion, as much intention and as much thinking, that is, to fully exploit emotional talents, will and emotional talents. “Intellect” is a self-reflection that entrusted the humanity, aiming to “know the heaven”. “Knowing the Heaven” contains the knowledge of the inner supernatural heaven and the inner extraordinary heaven, which is exactly the manifestation of the ultimate worship of the theme of cultivation. (4) The way to nourish one’s nature is to cultivate a strong and righteous atmosphere. The most basic way to nourish the energy is to “cultivate the energy directly”, that is, to “gather the energy”, that is, to protect your vitality by cultivating a sense of righteousness.
[Keyword] Mencius; nourishment; mental method; nourishment; nourishment; nourishment; nourishment
The so-called “harness” refers to the person raising his body and mind to nourish his life. According to the World Health Statistics 2021, the Chinese people’s expected life expectancy in 2019 is 77.4 years old, and the expected life expectancy in Ankang is 68.5 years old. As for Mencius’ era, the average life expectancy was only 20 years old. [1] But Mencius was actually 84 years old, and in the era when “life is rare in seventy years”, he was actually a rare and powerful person. So, how did Mencius live? This is a very worthwhile subject to discussion. Since the 1990s, the academic community has begun to pay attention to Mencius’s thoughts on cultivation. [2] However, these fragmentary research results often only regard Mencius’s “nursing view” as part of Mencius’s thoughts, and “this child!” Jung Ju helplessly slammed, “Then go back, Xiao Fei, the overall system characteristics of Mencius’ philosophy. This article aims to clarify: Mencius’s whole “mind learning” thinking system can actually be regarded as a kind of nurturing philosophy, that is, its “mind learning” is a set of nurturing methods.
Introduction: Main theme
The method of raising the mind is to talk about “how to raising the body”, but first answer one question: Why should raising the body? This is the main problem of nurturing. Anyone who thinks that the goal of raising one’s life is to “prolong life and become more and more powerful”, which is actually a clean, narrow, and even dangerous method. The problem is: What does “year-old” mean? Where is the meaning of nurturing? This is an important issue in fertility philosophy. Not to mention how innocuous the ordinary life of a walking corpse is, there are even “hollow people” who died because of “living”; there are also some “cultivation experts” who died young, precisely because they did not solve the main problem of raising life, and even “to do what they do, seek what they want, and to take the wood and fish”[3Baoqiang.com], the result is just as Meng Yunqing’s poem “Another goodbye” says: “Everyone is considered to be old, but who dies have never been old?”
Mencius’s main theme of raising life philosophy, he himself conceives the “service to heaven and wait for fate”:
Keep his mind and cultivates his nature, so he serves the heaven; he does not pay attention to his premature sacrificial self-cultivation, so he establishes his destiny. [4]
The “premature” problem here is exactly the problem of nurturing. Mencius obviously said that “serving heaven and waiting for fate” can be divided into two levels: serving the heaven and serving the heaven; cultivating oneself to wait for death.
(I) Raising to serve the heavens
The so-called “serving the heavens” is to serve the Emperor of Heaven and pursue the way of heaven. Zhaoqi’s notes: “Work and heaven are in harmony, so it is said that ‘the reason for serving heaven’.” Zhu Xi’s collection of notes: “Things are not wrong.” [5] In Mencius’s contemplation, “Heaven” is “God” [6], and it is shown as “the way of heaven” [7]; “Heaven” is born with humans and all things, that is, “the birth of heaven is easy to approach” [8] and “the creature of heaven” [9]. Mencius said, “There is to serve heaven”, and “There is” confession: “The cultivation of “the mind is to cultivate one’s nature” is not the goal, “the service of heaven” is the goal, and raising one’s life is to “serve the heaven”.
This is the most basic question that ordinary fertile people have no interest in knowing: Why do fertile people need to “serve the heaven”? Mencius pointed out that this is because everything in humans, including life, is given by heaven, that is, “this heaven and me” [10]. According to the science of heaven now, natural life is determined by the genes of the acquired. Therefore, natural life is called “Heavenly Conclusion”. Therefore, the pursuit of nurturing life, “if a man is successful, it is heaven”[11], “it is not something that man can do. If nothing is done and what is done is heaven; if nothing is done and what is coming, it is fate”[12]. Therefore, Mencius pointed out: “Those who are smooth and those who go against the sky will perish.” [13] Life must be kept in mind: it is absolutely impossible to overcome the “reverse”Heaven, rebelling against the natural way of heaven.
Mencius believed that, on the one hand, the practice of defying the natural way of heaven, especially attempting to live forever and immortality, is “to go against the heaven”; but on the other hand, “serving the heaven” is not an absolute act of nothing, otherwise there will be no desire to “nourish”. Despite the fact that people’s poverty is natural, if they do not nourish their lives vigorously, it is also “to go against the heaven” and cannot “finalize the heaven” [14]. As Mencius said, “Although there are things that are easy to produce in the whole countryBaobao.com, it is violent one day, it is cold for ten days, but no one can live. “”It is not because of the unique talent of heaven, but because it is obsessed with its heart.” [15]
Having the attitude of “serving heaven”, nurturing life has gained a sacred and noble meaning: “I am worthy of the sky, and I am not embarrassed by others. ”[16] This means that nurturing life is not only about the work of prolonging life, but about the work of ultimate worship: there is no respect and respect for heaven, but actually lacks the ability to live. Only by “serving heaven” can one gain the meaning of preservation, the value of existence, and the power of nurturing, and prevent “empty grudges”.
(II) Cultivate oneself to wait for death
The so-called “waiting for destiny” and “waiting for death” are about waiting for the arrival of the number of heavenly sacrifices. Zhaoqi’s note: “Change your body to wait for destiny.” “Zhu Xi’s note: “Cultivate oneself to wait for death, and serve heaven to end the body. ”[17] The “fate” here refers to the “destiny” and the “destiny” contained in it, that is, the acquired fortunes and natural amounts of people and all things, just as Zixia said, “There is life in death”[18]. Therefore, the whole book of Mencius mentioned “sanctification” twice, and they are all connected with death: “There is no regrets in death, and the beginning of dominance” TC: