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Ming straight to my family’s road – The fifth series of “Mind Thoughts” in the history of thinking
Author: Sun Haiyan
Source: Author authorized by Confucianism. Originally published by “Walking into Confucius” No. 5, 2022, slight revision
This series of articles aims to discuss the characteristics and position of the book “Mind Thoughts” in the history of thinking. After doing the above description, we must unblock this article and extract a section that is not directly related to “Records of Thoughts”, but is related to Confucian “The Way of Saints”. This is a real insight that the writer has thought about Confucianism and humanitarian problems for many years. He hopes to gain the correct teachings and pre-sets of the academic community. He also makes some theoretical preparations for analyzing the essence of the Song and Ming dynasties and the short and long scale.
1. Four levels of humanity
Confucianism generally believes that the human heart represents the spiritual wisdom of the universe. “Travels·Travels” says: “Man is the heart of the six combinations and the end of the five elements.” Judging from the level of human mind, humanity has developed four levels of aspects or realms, which are psychology, emotions, sensibility and perception (or called spirituality, divinity, etc.). The psychological (or biological, natural) layer includes psychological desires such as dormant, breathing, and sluggishness. Among them, eating men and women are involved in the dispute over internal resources, so they are the most important things. This is a layer shared by humans and other animals, which expresses the energy interaction between people and the outside world, and has basic and psychological characteristics. If this kind of desire cannot be satisfied, there must be competition among the forests. Of course, Confucian self-cultivation cannot be achieved at this time. However, psychological desires are related to the life and death of the body and life. They are the conditions and foundation of all high-level needs and the foundation of a social stability. Therefore, they cannot stop it and end it. In this regard, although Confucianism advocates “a scholar is committed to the Tao” and strictly follows “distinguishing the power of profit” in the problem of “cultivating oneself”, it does not advocate abstinence and asceticism; but in the problem of “governing people”, it is concerned about the common people’s incest, and advocates first and then teaching, and seeks political politicians to “nurture people’s desires and give them to others.”
The emotional level is a humane aspect that is higher than the psychological level, with many contents such as affection, love, friendship, etc. They are originally derived from the deepening and upgrading of psychological desires, and are accompanied by the emergence of long-term memory, which makes the inner abstraction of psychological desires and The result of objectification (this “feeling” refers to a socialized emotion rather than an intensified “emotion”, not the “seven emotions” commonly said in ancient times, such as joy, anger, sorrow, love, and evil), this aspect has gone beyond the psychology, and Confucian self-cultivation is precisely what it takes (“Tao starts with emotion”). Ask, in addition to the desires of men and women, what are the positive feelings that people first experience in their personal life? In fact, it is the dependence, gratitude and admiration for the parents who have nurtured themselves. This kind of natural emotion is based on memory representation as the quality of mind. Many high-level animals have already seen their talents, especially humans. With this feeling, people canBreak the limitations of the psychological self and respond to some of the psychological satisfactions of parents taking the initiative to abandon themselves. Liang Shuming said, “In love, people always only see the other person and forget themselves; on the contrary, when people want to see them, they only want to see them but cannot see them” (Chapter 5 of “Essentials of Chinese Civilization”), which is actually seen here. This kind of family relationship that reproduces due to psychological satisfaction is also the humanistic origin of Confucianism that advocates filial piety. The “Filial Piety” claims that “those who do not love their relatives but love others is contrary to morality” is based on people’s gratitude to their parents’ general nature. Needless to say, this feeling still has clear limitations. It establishes an emotional self (social learning calls “interactive and beneficial”), that is, love only one’s own parents and not other parents. Everyone must consider their own family and continue to fight. Therefore, Confucianism talks about self-cultivation, and although it has the natural feelings (even upgraded to the joy of “Tianlun”), it cannot stop here.
The sensory layer is based on thoughts and concepts (abstract symbols) as the mental quality, and is a unique world of energy (Aristotle called “people are sensual animals”), the emergence of human civilization (the invention of words is the symbol), and people have self-consciousness (including “learning” that can perceive and move), which are all things about this layer. Differences between psychology and emotions. The characteristic of sentiment is to follow objectivity logic, pay attention to causal order and actual consequences, especially as a self-perception of “purpose” and “method”. With sensibility, people can understand the many desires of humanity through cognitive talents such as analysis and logical reasoning, and use their cognitive talents beyond the limitations of psychological directness and emotional scenes. The whole world is also given meaning and reasoning, and no longer has the inseparable subject and object, and is chaotic and dark. The Confucian “love is different” is a good example. It is neither a “uniform love” that is independent of it, nor is it limited to one’s own selfishness, but can put it in favor of oneself and others, and realize that people should not only love their parents, but also promote this “love” to be broadened, “respect our elderly and the elderly, and the young and the young.” The master cooperates to build a wonderful society that “does not only respect their own feelings, but also does not only care about their children” (in the end, even beyond human beings themselves, and is the same as all things in Liuhe). When a person’s sentiment matures to a certain level, he can raise more general moral principles such as “Do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you”, “If you want to stand up, you will stand up, and if you want to reach others”,” and other more general moral principles. I think that Master Mo Mu had a passage that abstractly described the evolution of humanity from psychology, through emotions, and then to ethics: Because the baby knew how to eat milk, he knew how to love his mother. When he was young, he knew how to be filial and younger brother. The heart of filial piety and brother seems to have exceeded the birth and form, but to the beginning, why not come from the final needs of this state. It is only because people have a spirit that they can move from eating to filial piety and brotherhood, so they move from the way of eating to the way of filial piety and brotherhood. As this step begins, people and birds are far behind. There are also some birds, sometimes like filial piety and brother, but the spirit of human hearts has changed again.From self-cultivation to the Qi family and to governing the country, the further you will be, and the farther you will be, and there will be countless miles apart from the ways of birds and birds. (Second Lecture on “The Pure View of Chinese Thoughts”)
Humanity is exactly like this, both self-extension and self-destruction. Sensibility has become a humane high-level to enrich the meaning level, but it has not yet eliminated the infinity of human experience knowledge, and the solidification of thinking methods composed of ethnic traditions, and is to form a “sensual self”. Due to this self-arrangement, people are unable to avoid being involved in the binary opposition of long-term and short-term concepts such as errors, and coupled with the sudden stirring of passions with other levels, it leads to the mortal world of sorrow. In all, ordinary people have these three levels of face. The individual differences of people (such as good or unfairness) are the proportion of desires and the differences in the expression methods among the three levels of face. From the descriptions of some prophets and believers at home and abroad, it can be seen that there is a higher level of perception above the sensory level. From the perspective of cognitive methods, perception is the unrestrained self-sufficiency of rational experience and perceptual thinking in the “only and unique” mental clarity. When sexual intercourse is used, people can already detract from the constraints of sensibility, emotions, and desires, and the “language” of sensual things has also lacked the description. Of course, since all kinds of humanistic experiences are all conscientious and dedicated, the perception will inevitably be divided into “purity” and personalized e