Why do you say "benevolence is the foundation of life"?

I think the transformation of China culture from "pre-axis era" to "axis era" is the awakening of human initiative. From the early culture before the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Book of Changes, the concept of "heaven" or "god" and the relationship between man and heaven have undergone important changes. This important change began with solving the important problem of "heaven" before the Western Zhou Dynasty, but it was difficult to understand, communicate and clarify the will of heaven. That is to say, people are no longer passively praying for the signs of the gods as before, but trying to use an abstract rational form of divination while maintaining the concept of "heaven", that is, by simulating everything in heaven and earth to "understand the virtues of the gods and resemble the feelings of all things". The Book of Changes says, "Look up at the sky, look down at the earth and descend to the dharma, and watch the birds and beasts. The nature of the land is suitable, so you can get close to all bodies and far away from all things, so you can gossip, and you can understand the virtues of the gods and feel the feelings of all things." In Zuo Zhuan, it can be said that "Yi, the works of saints in previous dynasties, are also praised by the gods. That is to say, this rational divination form in the Book of Changes has the characteristics of "being ethical, convincing people by reasoning, exhausted, and even dying". This is the reason why the sage is extremely deep in the Book of Changes. Only deep, it can pass the ambition of the world; There are only a few, so it can become a matter of the world; God is the only one, so I can't do it if I don't hurry. " This description is clearer.

The role of divination in the Book of Changes is explained as follows: "There are four camps for Yi, and nine out of ten divinations are made. Gossip and small success. Drawing is extended, touching grows, and the ability of the world is completed. Showing God's virtue is a reward and blessing to God. " It is believed that man can "show God's virtue with this symbolic rational ability, so he can reward and bless God". Confucius replied, "He who knows how to change knows what God has done": "The Book of Changes has four ways of being a saint: those who use words still speak, those who use practitioners still change, those who use utensils still look like, and those who use divination still occupy. Therefore, if a gentleman does something, he will do something wrong. When asked, his orders will sound like a ring, and he will know where he comes from. If it's not the best in the world, why are you here? Participate in countless changes. Through its changes, it becomes the text of the world; Very few, so the image of the world. If the world hasn't changed, why is it here? Yi, without thinking, without doing anything, without moving, understands the world. If it is not the highest god in the world, what can it do with it? The reason why saints study Yi is very deep. Only deep, it can pass the ambition of the world; There are only a few, so it can become a matter of the world; God is unique, so I can't do it without rushing. Confucius said: "There are four ways to become a saint in the Book of Changes. Judging from Confucius' answer, that is to say, the things in Zhouyi are so "knowledgeable" that people have to ask, "If it is not the best in the world, why is it here?" "If it is not the highest god in the world, how can it be here?" .

Of course, from the significance of Zhouyi to political and social life, it can be said that "being clear about heaven and observing people's principles is to revitalize the spirit and use it for the people first." From his theory, he also confirmed that "there was heaven and earth first, then everything, then men and women, then men and women, then husband and wife, then father and son, then fathers and sons, then princes and ministers, then ups and downs, then politeness and righteousness" (Introduction to Eight Diagrams). No matter whether such a "way to understand the nature" can really be used in the past, and whether the order confirmed according to the theory of Zhouyi is reasonable today, one thing is certain, that is, Zhouyi is an attempt by people to "understand the virtues of gods" in an abstract rational form, and its active "research" spirit of "in-depth research" and "working hard" Under such a new spiritual relationship between heaven and man, which is full of people's initiative, later Confucians developed the inner psychological route of "knowing heaven" from "heart and soul" and "intellectuality", and launched the ancient science of understanding the external natural world with "excelsior". The basic spirit that runs through it is the positive spirit of textual research of people who really wake up from the Book of Changes under the spiritual structure of harmony between man and nature, that is, "delving into a few things", "working hard" and even "extensive and meticulous". It is not that the belief in heaven has faded, but that people no longer passively pray for the sign of the gods, and people actively "reach the understanding life of heaven" through everything born in heaven, especially their own spiritual world. Undoubtedly, the highest goal of all Confucian theories is that people strive to gain "enlightenment" and enter the holy land of "reaching heaven and know life" in their ordinary life's cultivation, life and achievements. It is no exaggeration to call Confucianism in this spirit.

Under the above background, we can understand why Confucius specifically put forward "What did Heaven say?" Even for ghosts and gods. Because his main intention is not to directly tell you what the world looks like in the name of the incarnation of "heaven" or "god", but to focus the main focus of civilization on people "reaching dawn" through their understanding, cultivation and achievements in themselves and the world. It can be said that Confucius consciously avoided taking the road like Jesus. But this only means that people need their own initiative to "reach their destiny" through understanding, cultivating and achieving themselves and the world, rather than directly from any incarnation of God or his instructions and expectations. This does not mean that Confucius denied religious belief. On the contrary, the spiritual orientation of man possessed by the spiritual structure of heaven and man is the fundamental foundation of Confucian cultural tradition. Otherwise, the Confucian spirit will cease. Without the spiritual belief of God and Heaven, Confucianism has no spiritual necessity of "one heart", "intellectuality" and "knowing Heaven". Seeking "Heaven" or "Heaven's Creations" becomes unprovoked in spirit; Even the political and social order of Confucianism cannot be established as the legal basis of "the ceremony of heaven" and "the statement of heaven" If this spirit is lost, it means that the Confucian moral humanity, the order of rites and music, and even the practice of "creating nature" and "creating things into things" are floating things with no foundation in spirit. Will be fundamentally weakened or even subverted.

According to the orthodox clue in the history of Confucianism, the Confucian tradition is based on Confucius' theory of mind and nature, the Book of Changes modified by Confucius and Dong Zhongshu's theory of heaven in Han Dynasty, and the theory of everything in Song Dynasty and Zhu's theory of everything as the external line, "knowing life and reaching heaven". In Confucius' place, it is both internal and external. On the one hand, Confucius turned the ceremony into the inner feelings of people in the category of "benevolence" and the moral requirements of the inner spirit, and inherited the thought of "people are only dangerous, the Tao is only subtle, and they are only fine, leaving them in a daze", which inspired Mencius to "know their nature to the best of his ability, and then to the well-known Confucian psychology of Lu Xiangshan and Wang Yangming; On the other hand, Confucius revised the ideas in Zhouyi and Yi Zhuan, that is, "it is easy to be consistent with heaven and earth, so we can learn the way of tomorrow", "Looking up, we can observe the astronomical phenomena, looking down, observing the culture of birds and animals and their suitability to the place, getting close to the body and taking everything far away, so we can open gossip to clarify the virtues of the gods and the feelings of all things". Therefore, saints should know the ambition of the world, set the industry of the world, and be suspicious of the sky. "Yi Fu, do things well and take the road of the world, that's all." This is to grasp the world from the external route of all things in heaven and earth ("easy to conform to heaven and earth, so we can learn the way of tomorrow"), and it requires "being kind to all things", "knowing the virtue of gods" and "making things happen" (science and industry). As Confucius said, "The world is the same way, but in different ways, consistent and considerate." We can say that the internal route and external route of the Confucian spiritual and cultural tradition are "the same way in the world", that is, in the inner world and the external world, they take the same road of "reaching the dawn" and both point to the spiritual "heaven realm". Confucian spirit seeks to gain experience, consciousness, understanding, knowledge, truth and aesthetics from inside and outside in the present reality through the "heart" instead of staying in the "heart" and through the universe instead of being enslaved, but it goes beyond them and pursues the supreme religious realm of "reaching the dawn". We will not get lost in the "delusion" of the mind, which transcends the fate of life and death. Rational spirit and spiritual consciousness exist. We look at the world in the realm of heaven, serve heaven, settle down, actively join the WTO, and achieve greatness. "Only when the world is sincere can we manage the great classics of the world, establish the foundation of the world and know the teaching of heaven and earth. How can a husband rely on things! If you are kind, you will have a deep origin and a broad sky. If you are not solid, you can know it! " (The Doctrine of the Mean). This is the classic expression of this realm.

The "saints" under the inner route are spiritual saints (saints under the psychological route), while the "saints" under the outer route are saints at work (saints of heavenly creations). Their "achievements" generally correspond to morality and science. This is the true state of "sanctification" under the Confucian cultural tradition, which is also the fundamental basis for why Confucianism can be called Confucianism (non-Christian Catholicism) as "heavenly religion". Its remarkable feature is that it does not have and does not need the concept of "original sin" like Christianity. Unlike Christianity, people like Jesus pretend to be God or an angel of God and preach in the name of God. It holds that people can know, comprehend and discover the will and secret of "Heaven" from the nature, principles, order and everything in the world in their own hearts, and obey and convert to "Heaven" in spirit (China people call death "Death in Heaven" and the so-called "Death in Heaven"). Sages and Confucius are properly regarded as "wise and knowledgeable" (the golden mean), so they just teach their spiritual realm, perception, understanding and knowledge to others as "teachers" who grasp the Tao, while others are just "friends with fate" under "all kinds of troubles" (freedom of thought). Under the concept that "God has a heaven that will always be called" (Zhang Zai's True Dream), anyone can explore ("explore"), know, understand and discover the laws and will of heaven, instead of pretending to be God to "preach" or communicating with God only through the church. This kind of religious characteristic extends to religion in the west. This is why ancient China was ahead of the world in many aspects, and Chinese civilization is considered as the most fundamental reason for the precocity of civilization. It should be noted that compared with the logicism (logical rationality) and epistemological tradition of western ancient Greece and Rome, China's cultural tradition is relatively weak in this respect and needs to be absorbed and used for reference. In fact, this is also an important reason why despite the above-mentioned important cultural background and potential possibilities, China has never succeeded in developing democracy, science and large industry in the modern sense, thus learning from the West in modern times, especially under the slogans of "May 4th Movement", "Mr. Sai" and "saving the country through industry". Under the spiritual structure of harmony between man and nature in China's cultural tradition, when people can fully develop and learn from their own conscious spirituality, and pursue the spiritual realm of "reaching heaven and know life", under the profound religious spirit, morality ("benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom and trust") and science ("opening things naturally" and "learning from things"), art (Bell of Love) If Confucianism can absorb Indian Buddhism and China Taoism, then the outside of Confucianism can absorb western learning, making China's Confucian cultural tradition the most inclusive and compatible in the world, while maintaining its own basic cultural characteristics and consistent cultural traditions. This is due to the great possibility of the spiritual line of internal and external cultivation and the spiritual structure of harmony between man and nature in the deep structure of Confucian cultural tradition. This should be the continuous ideological creation of modern neo-Confucianism. Today, it is time to systematically expound the modern neo-Confucian theory which is consistent, internally coordinated and eclectic, inherit the Confucian orthodoxy and open up the modernity of Confucianism. But the deep core of all this is only possible under the spiritual structure of harmony between man and nature and the belief of heaven. Confucianism and its religious spirit around the belief in Heaven are the real core of China's cultural tradition. The unification of "the greatest comes first, and the smallest cannot be taken away" is the fundamental foundation of China tradition's tenacious vitality, eclecticism and cultural regeneration.

I think the transformation of China culture from "pre-axis era" to "axis era" is the awakening of human initiative. From the early culture before the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Book of Changes, the concept of "heaven" or "god" and the relationship between man and heaven have undergone important changes. This important change began with solving the important problem of "heaven" before the Western Zhou Dynasty, but it was difficult to understand, communicate and clarify the will of heaven. That is to say, people are no longer passively praying for the signs of the gods as before, but trying to use an abstract rational form of divination while maintaining the concept of "heaven", that is, by simulating everything in heaven and earth to "understand the virtues of the gods and resemble the feelings of all things". The Book of Changes says, "Look up at the sky, look down at the earth and descend to the dharma, and watch the birds and beasts. The nature of the land is suitable, so you can get close to all bodies and far away from all things, so you can gossip, and you can understand the virtues of the gods and feel the feelings of all things." In Zuo Zhuan, it can be said that "Yi, the works of saints in previous dynasties, are also praised by the gods. That is to say, this rational divination form in the Book of Changes has the characteristics of "being ethical, convincing people by reasoning, exhausted, and even dying". This is in "Fu Yi", the reason why saints are extremely deep has been verified several times. Only deep, it can pass the ambition of the world; There are only a few, so it can become a matter of the world; God is the only one, so I can't do it if I don't hurry. " This description is clearer.

The role of divination in the Book of Changes is explained as follows: "There are four camps for Yi, and nine out of ten divinations are made. Gossip and small success. Drawing is extended, touching grows, and the ability of the world is completed. Showing God's virtue is a reward and blessing to God. " It is believed that man can "show God's virtue with this symbolic rational ability, so he can reward and bless God". Confucius replied, "He who knows how to change knows what God has done": "The Book of Changes has four ways of being a saint: those who use words still speak, those who use practitioners still change, those who use utensils still look like, and those who use divination still occupy. Therefore, if a gentleman does something, he will do something wrong. When asked, his orders will sound like a ring, and he will know where he comes from. If it's not the best in the world, why are you here? Participate in countless changes. Through its changes, it becomes the text of the world; Very few, so the image of the world. If the world hasn't changed, why is it here? Yi, without thinking, without doing anything, without moving, understands the world. If it is not the highest god in the world, what can it do with it? The reason why saints study Yi is very deep. Only deep, it can pass the ambition of the world; There are only a few, so it can become a matter of the world; God is unique, so I can't do it without rushing. Confucius said: "There are four ways to become a saint in the Book of Changes. Judging from Confucius' answer, that is to say, the things in Zhouyi are so "knowledgeable" that people have to ask, "If it is not the best in the world, why is it here?" "If it is not the highest god in the world, how can it be here?" .

Of course, from the significance of Zhouyi to political and social life, it can be said that "being clear about heaven and observing people's principles is to revitalize the spirit and use it for the people first." From his theory, he also confirmed that "there was heaven and earth first, then everything, then men and women, then men and women, then husband and wife, then father and son, then fathers and sons, then princes and ministers, then ups and downs, then politeness and righteousness" (Introduction to Eight Diagrams). No matter whether such a "way to understand the nature" can really be used in the past, and whether the order confirmed according to the theory of Zhouyi is reasonable today, one thing is certain, that is, Zhouyi is an attempt by people to "understand the virtues of gods" in an abstract rational form, and its active "research" spirit of "in-depth research" and "working hard" Under such a new spiritual relationship between heaven and man, which is full of people's initiative, later Confucians developed the inner psychological route of "knowing heaven" from "heart and soul" and "intellectuality", and launched the ancient science of understanding the external natural world with "excelsior". The basic spirit that runs through it is the positive spirit of textual research of people who really wake up from the Book of Changes under the spiritual structure of harmony between man and nature, that is, "delving into a few things", "working hard" and even "extensive and meticulous". It is not that the belief in heaven has faded, but that people no longer passively pray for the sign of the gods, and people actively "reach the understanding life of heaven" through everything born in heaven, especially their own spiritual world. Undoubtedly, the highest goal of all Confucian theories is that people strive to gain "enlightenment" and enter the holy land of "reaching heaven and know life" in their ordinary life's cultivation, life and achievements. It is no exaggeration to call Confucianism in this spirit.

Under the above background, we can understand why Confucius specifically put forward "What did Heaven say?" Even for ghosts and gods. Because his main intention is not to directly tell you what the world looks like in the name of the incarnation of "heaven" or "god", but to focus the main focus of civilization on people "reaching dawn" through their understanding, cultivation and achievements in themselves and the world. It can be said that Confucius consciously avoided taking the road like Jesus. But this only means that people need their own initiative to "reach their destiny" through understanding, cultivating and achieving themselves and the world, rather than directly from any incarnation of God or his instructions and expectations. This does not mean that Confucius denied religious belief. On the contrary, the spiritual orientation of man possessed by the spiritual structure of heaven and man is the fundamental foundation of Confucian cultural tradition. Otherwise, the Confucian spirit will cease. Without the spiritual belief of God and Heaven, Confucianism has no spiritual necessity of "one heart", "intellectuality" and "knowing Heaven". Seeking "Heaven" or "Heaven's Creations" becomes unprovoked in spirit; Even the political and social order of Confucianism cannot be established as the legal basis of "the ceremony of heaven" and "the statement of heaven" If this spirit is lost, it means that the Confucian moral humanity, the order of rites and music, and even the practice of "creating nature" and "creating things into things" are floating things with no foundation in spirit. Will be fundamentally weakened or even subverted.

According to the orthodox clue in the history of Confucianism, the Confucian tradition is based on Confucius' theory of mind and nature, the Book of Changes modified by Confucius and Dong Zhongshu's theory of heaven in Han Dynasty, and the theory of everything in Song Dynasty and Zhu's theory of everything as the external line, "knowing life and reaching heaven". In Confucius' place, it is both internal and external. On the one hand, Confucius turned the ceremony into the inner feelings of people in the category of "benevolence" and the moral requirements of the inner spirit, and inherited the thought of "people are only dangerous, the Tao is only subtle, and they are only fine, leaving them in a daze", which inspired Mencius to "know their nature to the best of his ability, and then to the well-known Confucian psychology of Lu Xiangshan and Wang Yangming; On the other hand, Confucius revised the ideas in Zhouyi and Yi Zhuan, that is, "it is easy to be consistent with heaven and earth, so we can learn the way of tomorrow", "Looking up, we can observe the astronomical phenomena, looking down, observing the culture of birds and animals and their suitability to the place, getting close to the body and taking everything far away, so we can open gossip to clarify the virtues of the gods and the feelings of all things". Therefore, saints should know the ambition of the world, set the industry of the world, and be suspicious of the sky. "Yi Fu, do things well and take the road of the world, that's all." This is to grasp the world from the external route of all things in heaven and earth ("easy to conform to heaven and earth, so we can learn the way of tomorrow"), and it requires "being kind to all things", "knowing the virtue of gods" and "making things happen" (science and industry). As Confucius said, "The world is the same way, but in different ways, consistent and considerate." We can say that the internal route and external route of the Confucian spiritual and cultural tradition are "the same way in the world", that is, in the inner world and the external world, they take the same road of "reaching the dawn" and both point to the spiritual "heaven realm". Confucian spirit seeks to gain experience, consciousness, understanding, knowledge, truth and aesthetics from inside and outside in the present reality through the "heart" instead of staying in the "heart" and through the universe instead of being enslaved, but it goes beyond them and pursues the supreme religious realm of "reaching the dawn". We will not get lost in the "delusion" of the mind, which transcends the fate of life and death. Rational spirit and spiritual consciousness exist. We look at the world in the realm of heaven, serve heaven, settle down, actively join the WTO, and achieve greatness. "Only when the world is sincere can we manage the great classics of the world, establish the foundation of the world and know the teaching of heaven and earth. How can a husband rely on things! If you are kind, you will have a deep origin and a broad sky. If you are not solid, you can know it! " (The Doctrine of the Mean). This is the classic expression of this realm.

The "saints" under the inner route are spiritual saints (saints under the psychological route), while the "saints" under the outer route are saints at work (saints of heavenly creations). Their "achievements" generally correspond to morality and science. This is the true state of "sanctification" under the Confucian cultural tradition, which is also the fundamental basis for why Confucianism can be called Confucianism (non-Christian Catholicism) as "heavenly religion". Its remarkable feature is that it does not have and does not need the concept of "original sin" like Christianity. Unlike Christianity, people like Jesus pretend to be God or an angel of God and preach in the name of God. It holds that people can know, comprehend and discover the will and secret of "Heaven" from the nature, principles, order and everything in the world in their own hearts, and obey and convert to "Heaven" in spirit (China people call death "Death in Heaven" and the so-called "Death in Heaven"). Sages and Confucius are properly regarded as "wise and knowledgeable" (the golden mean), so they just teach their spiritual realm, perception, understanding and knowledge to others as "teachers" who grasp the Tao, while others are just "friends with fate" under "all kinds of troubles" (freedom of thought). Under the concept that "God has a heaven that will always be called" (Zhang Zai's True Dream), anyone can explore ("explore"), know, understand and discover the laws and will of heaven, instead of pretending to be God to "preach" or communicating with God only through the church. This kind of religious characteristic extends to religion in the west. This is why ancient China was ahead of the world in many aspects, and Chinese civilization is considered as the most fundamental reason for the precocity of civilization. It should be noted that compared with the logicism (logical rationality) and epistemological tradition of western ancient Greece and Rome, China's cultural tradition is relatively weak in this respect and needs to be absorbed and used for reference. In fact, this is also an important reason why despite the above-mentioned important cultural background and potential possibilities, China has never succeeded in developing democracy, science and large industry in the modern sense, thus learning from the West in modern times, especially under the slogans of "May 4th Movement", "Mr. Sai" and "saving the country through industry". Under the spiritual structure of the harmony between man and nature in China's cultural tradition, when people can make use of and rely on their own conscious spirituality, fully develop and learn from instrumental rationality and their own abilities, and pursue the spiritual realm of "reaching heaven and know life", under the profound religious spirit, morality ("benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom and trust"), science ("naturally opening things" and "teaching things"), art (Bell of Love) If Confucianism can absorb Indian Buddhism and China Taoism, then the outside of Confucianism can absorb western learning, making China's Confucian cultural tradition the most inclusive and compatible in the world, while maintaining its own basic cultural characteristics and consistent cultural traditions. This is due to the great possibility of the spiritual line of internal and external cultivation and the spiritual structure of harmony between man and nature in the deep structure of Confucian cultural tradition. This should be the continuous ideological creation of modern neo-Confucianism. Today, it is time to systematically expound the modern neo-Confucian theory which is consistent, internally coordinated and eclectic, inherit the Confucian orthodoxy and open up the modernity of Confucianism. But the deep core of all this is only possible under the spiritual structure of harmony between man and nature and the belief of heaven. Confucianism and its religious spirit around the belief in Heaven are the real core of China's cultural tradition. The unification of "the greatest comes first, and the smallest cannot be taken away" is the fundamental foundation of China tradition's tenacious vitality, eclecticism and cultural regeneration.