What is the basic spirit of China culture?

In the long historical development, the Chinese nation has accumulated and formed its own unique and great national character and spirit. The basic spirit of Chinese culture is characterized by self-improvement, respect for morality, being prepared for danger in times of peace, contentment and advocating etiquette. The core and essence of China culture lies in the word "harmony".

(1) The etymology and ideas of Hehe.

Both Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Jin Wen have the word "harmony". Harmony, in terms of meaning itself, "harmony" means harmony, tranquility and harmony; "Combination" means combination, cooperation and integration. "Harmony" is the way to achieve "harmony", the ideal realization of "harmony", and the ideal relationship between nature, society, interpersonal relationship, body and mind, civilization and many other factors that human beings have been fighting for since ancient times.

The consciousness of attaching importance to and advocating harmony in China's traditional culture is manifested in two aspects: first, "harmony between man and nature" refers to the harmony between man and nature; The second is the "golden mean", which refers to interpersonal relationships, that is, the harmony between people and society. "The unity of man and nature" aims at recognizing the unity of man and nature and opposing their separation. The "golden mean" emphasizes a degree in dealing with the relationship between things to avoid opposition and conflict. Advocating the harmonious consciousness of "harmony is the most important" and "China is the most important" is conducive to dealing with various contradictions in modern society and maintaining social stability.

In China, the idea of pursuing social harmony based on profound and harmonious culture has a long history. Laozi put forward that "all things are negative and embrace yang, and they rush to think that they are harmonious" (Chapter 42 of Laozi), arguing that Tao contains two opposing aspects of yin and yang, and everything contains yin and yang, and yin and yang interact to form and merge. This is the essence of all things in the universe and the foundation of the existence of all things in heaven and earth. The Analects of Confucius? Learning: "The use of courtesy, harmony is precious. "Harmony is the most important thing, as the highest state of doing things and saluting. Other pre-Qin philosophers such as Mozi, Guanzi and Xunzi also discussed "harmony" or "harmony". The concept of "harmony" was basically formed in the pre-Qin period. With the formation of the concept of "harmony", China's primitive culture, after a hundred schools of thought contended, gradually formed two prominent schools of Confucianism and Taoism, and accepted the Indian primitive Buddhist culture which advocated "harmony by reason" and "harmony without difference" in the Han Dynasty. The theory of causal harmony has become an important theory of Buddhism and has also had an important influence in history. Since then, the concept of "harmony" has been widely used by Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism in China's traditional culture and has become the core concept of its own purpose. At the same time, it is also widely accepted and widely used by thinkers of other cultural schools. In the Western Han Dynasty, Dong Zhongshu put forward the idea of "ousting a hundred schools of thought and respecting Confucianism alone" in order to meet the needs of the development of "unified Du Hui". In fact, he took Confucianism as the standard, accepted Taoism, law, Yin and Yang and other ideas, and advocated the combination of etiquette and law, which was obviously influenced by Yanqi culture.

Mr. Qian Mu said: People in China often hold a great ideal of harmony between man and nature, and feel that all novel and fresh things in the outside world can be integrated and coordinated. This is one of the most important features of China's cultural spirit: cultural conflicts are only temporary changes, and it is common to ask for reconciliation. People think that western culture seems to be more conflicted, while China culture is more conciliatory. The greatness of China's culture lies in that it can best reconcile, so that all parties to the conflict can tolerate, coexist and adjust to each other. The love of westerners is close to his sexual desire, while the love of China is also close to his sexual desire. Paying attention to harmony is the characteristic of China culture and even China people.

(2) the harmony between man and nature

"Harmony between man and nature" is the basic idea of ancient people in China to deal with the relationship between nature and spiritual world. Its outstanding characteristics are: man is a part of nature, he obeys the laws of nature, human nature is heaven, moral principles are consistent with the laws of nature, and the ideal of life is the unity of man and nature. Ancient people in China believed that natural process, historical process, life process and thinking process were essentially the same. This ideological feature runs through the basic process of the origin and evolution of the concept of "harmony between man and nature", and runs through ancient philosophy, science and art.

Lao Tzu said, "People everywhere, the land follows the sky, the sky follows the Tao, and the Tao follows nature" ("Lao Tzu? Chapter 25 holds that there are four universes, one of which is inhabited by human beings. Man takes the earth as the law, the earth as the law and the sky as the law, which establishes the relationship between man and heaven from one side. Zhuangzi advocated "harmony between man and nature", "Zhuangzi? Sheng Da said, "Abandoning things does not contribute, saving lives does not lose money, and the husband's shape is perfect, and he is one with heaven." Abandoning the world and forgetting one's life makes one healthy and full of spirit, thus achieving the realm of natural inaction that is integrated with nature. "Zhouyi? Classical Chinese clearly put forward the idea of "harmony with heaven and earth, harmony with the sun and the moon, harmony with the four seasons, harmony with ghosts and gods, innate and unnatural, acquired". In the Han Dynasty, Dong Zhongshu even established a divination system based on the concept of "man's deputy heaven". " Spring and Autumn Story? Yin and Yang mean, "Heaven also has anger, and the heart of sorrow and joy is harmonious with people. Combined with class, heaven and man are one. " In the Neo-Confucianism of the Song Dynasty, the idea of "harmony between man and nature" was more mature, refined and perfect. Zhang zai directly put forward the proposition of "harmony between man and nature"; "Is it? Cheng Ming said: "Confucianism is sincere because of Ming, and sincere because of Ming, so heaven and man are one, and learning can become a saint." "

China's medical classic Huangdi Neijing put forward the proposition of "the correspondence between man and nature", emphasizing that man corresponds to heaven and earth, coincides with the four seasons and is one with heaven and earth. Heaven and man are isomorphic, and the small universe of human body corresponds to the big universe of heaven and earth. The book lists such things as "the sky is round and the head is round enough to respond;" The sky has the sun and the moon, and people have two eyes; There are Kyushu in the land, and people have nine tricks; There are storms, people have emotions, and so on.

Aesthetically, the idea of "harmony between man and nature", a harmonious poetic connection, deeply permeated China's theory of ancient aesthetic realm, which made the ancient people in China particularly emphasize the unity of life realm and aesthetic realm. Secondly, the universal application of harmonic dialectics in the "harmony" culture makes China's aesthetic wisdom pay special attention to understanding and handling the development and framework of a series of corresponding, integrated, dialectical and harmonious aesthetic categories. It has been pointed out that the basic characteristics of China's ancient aesthetics (such as emphasizing the unity of truth and goodness, reason and reason, man and nature, finite and infinite, cognition and intuition, etc.). ) and China's ancient aesthetic ideals (such as Confucian pursuit of "harmony", Taoist pursuit of "strangeness" and Buddhist pursuit of "circle") are the poetic development and logical extension of "harmony" culture at the aesthetic level. This shows that China's poetic wisdom and aesthetic consciousness have special affinity and relevance with the "harmony" culture. "Harmony" culture is the source of China's wisdom in ancient poetry.

③ The golden mean

The doctrine of the mean is the concrete criterion for "harmonious culture" to treat people with things. It is regarded as the highest realm and pursuit goal of life and morality in Confucianism and even the whole traditional culture of China.

The doctrine of the mean was first seen in The Analects. Confucius said: "The golden mean is also a virtue, even worse!" The people have been fresh for a long time. "("The Analects? Yongye) His theory of "five beauties" is actually about the golden mean: "A gentleman benefits without foundation, works without resentment, desires without greed, is Thai without arrogance, and is mighty but not fierce." ("The Analects? Yao Yue ")

What is the "golden mean"? According to Rusong, impartiality means constancy is not easy to be trivialized. This doctrine of the mean of Confucian culture shapes the virtue of the doctrine of the mean of China people, and makes China people form the mode of thinking, behavior and personality of the doctrine of the mean. Faced with many specific bipolar choices in real life, people try to find a balanced fulcrum between the opposing poles effectively, so as to unify the opposing sides. In life practice, keeping the center and not going to extremes became the life creed of ancient China people. In today's context, the "golden mean" is to correctly grasp the degree and coordinate various relations, so as to facilitate social harmony, stability and continuous progress. The true meaning of the doctrine of the mean lies in: sticking to righteousness, seeking the doctrine of the mean, seeking justice and surpassing everything.

Harmony between countries is another practice of harmonious culture. "Harmony is precious", "being kind to neighbors" and "harmony between countries" are the traditional moral basis for the Chinese nation to get along well with people all over the world. From the pre-Qin period in China, Laozi advocated that great powers should be humble ("great powers should be humble" and "great powers should be humble"), to the Western Han Dynasty, Dong Zhongshu advocated "making peace with the four countries", and to the Tang Dynasty, great-grandfather Li Yuan advocated "the way of benevolence and forgiveness" for neighboring countries, and so on. Living in harmony, eliminating the scourge of war and "turning hostilities into friendship" have always been the beautiful wish and realistic goal of the Chinese nation. In this harmonious culture, China rarely used foreign troops in its thousands of years of history.

Harmony without difference is a characteristic of harmonious thought. The so-called "harmony with real creatures, unchanged." "The gentleman is harmonious but different, and the villain is not harmonious." "Harmony" refers to a state in which the collocation, integration and balance between different things reach the most satisfactory level. Music, for example, is called harmony when the pitch of five tones slowly reaches perfection; Another example is diet, where the five flavors are well matched, which is also called harmony; Another example is the body, where the balance between yin and yang is full, which is also called harmony; Another example is virtue, which is one of the five great virtues in ancient times. It can be seen that this harmonious state has three characteristics.

First, it is the state of perfection; Second, it is the perfect relationship between different things; Third, these kinds of things keep their original individuality in a harmonious relationship, and they have not given up their individuality, forming a pile of matchsticks. Harmony is different, and the difference between "harmony" and "similarity" is that it retains their individual attributes.

I hope it helps you.