Part 2: The Confucian Philosophy of Moral Action

In part one I introduced you to Mencius who was a second generation Confucian and basically he says:

Mencius said "Human Nature is good and the reason we become bad is that we forget our own heart".

Human Nature is good and the reason we become bad is that we forget our own heart.

But like all ancient Chinese texts it is not that easy to translate into English so in the Chinese form what is meant by Heart is usually translated as Heart / Mind because it is very hard to distinguish between the two when it is used in the Chinese text. Sometimes it means emotion like

         The heart can love

         The heart can feel

         The heart can hurt

Sometimes it is used to mean

          The heart judges

          The Heart reflects

          The heart deliberates

Mencius’s Four Sprouts of Human Nature

So heart / mind is really the same thing in Chinese philosophy. When people talk about the heart you can think of it as the mind in western philosophy.

Mencius was saying Human Nature is good because the heart / mind has 4 sprouts. He believed we are born with these original sprouts in us

1. The spout of Compassion
2. the sprout of shame
3. the sprout of a sense of propriety (politeness, decorum, respectfulness, modesty, good manners, decency)
4. the sprout of what’s right and wrong

Human nature is like a crop – you have to cultivate it and then it will grow naturally. He takes into consideration we may grow up in a harsh environment that prevents one or all of the sprouts from growing but generally if you follow the natural path the sprouts will grow into a “good crop”.

So Mencius was saying we have all these things all ready in us. If you perform a bad action it just means you didn’t pay attention to your heart – you abandoned it and followed your desire. Or put another way; you follow your body and that’s your problem. Mencius famously said:

• Don’t listen to your ears
• But listen to your heart

What he means is you can’t let your senses lead you astray because the senses are about desires so if you let your senses control things you will inevitably do bad things. Mencius said if you just develop these sprouts in your heart, its like a fire starting up, you just need to jump start them and then they will keep growing them self.

Chuang Tzu on Mencius

At this point I would like to introduce you to a famous Taoist because he picked up on what Mencius said. His name is Chuang Tzu.

Chuang Tzu - a leading Taoist philosopher

Chuang Tzu said

“No, no you can’t let the heart guide you because the heart is where all judgments are made, it’s trying to tell you this is right, this is wrong and that’s the core of all disorder. The heart tells you; this is good or this is bad so when someone disagrees with you, you get into a fight with the person and then there are arguments, disagreements and strife. So Chuang Tzu modified Mencius’ saying and said

• Don’t listen to your ears
• Don’t listen to your heart
• Listen to your energy

He said “Why do you listen to your heart. You have so many organs in your body, what’s the difference between the heart and the liver or lung anyway. Why do you let your heart be the guide? Actually there is no difference, if you look at them they are all one, they are all part of the whole”.  Chuang Tzu said;

“Try not to differentiate things with your heart, just listen, just see everything as one and then you will be peaceful, calm and you won’t be so disturbed by emotion”.

Chuang Tzu introduced two major concepts, one is the concept of STILLNESS and he used the metaphor of a mirror. so “you should be still as the mirror – you should just reflect whatever comes in and then you don’t make judgments so you can objectively see things as they are”.

The other concept he introduced was the concept of EMPTINESS. This means that you don’t listen with your ears, you don’t listen with your heart, you listen with your energy. So in this way it is pure emptiness.

Xun Zi – The Traitor

The next person I want to introduce you to is Xun Zi he is a third generation Confucianist but many followers of Confucius hate him. They see him as a traitor because he basically said Human Nature is bad and Confucianists don’t like that interpretation.

They think he is secretly a follower of Taoism and that he is trying to make Confucianism into something else (as they did with Taoism – I will discuss this in another article). The other thing they hold against him is that one of his pupils, Han Fe started another school of philosophy called the Legalists, so they blame him for that.

Xun Zi also uses Chuang Tzu’s concept of Stillness and Emptiness but interestingly he modifies them a little.

Remember Chuang Tzu said stillness is like a mirror but Xun Zi said it is ridiculous to say we can be unmoved by emotion, that’s not the case. We are ineffably moved by emotion. When the wind blows our mind moves but the thing is not to let the mud underneath disturb your perception – disturb your clarity. His idea was that you should be still like a pan of water. So in this way it is not complete stillness – when the wind blows you will still be moved like ripples on the water.

He says do not let your dreams or fantasy or false beliefs disturb or distort your perception – that’s called clarity – that’s called STILLNESS.

And Emptiness is not about listening to your Chi and forgetting about your heart – he says because our heart stores things – it’s like a storehouse – something will come in, you have to store it somewhere – you can’t just get rid of everything. But as long as you can keep room in your heart, you don’t let what’s been stored interfere with what’s coming in – then that’s fine.

So Xun Zi’s idea of emptiness is not letting what has been stored, that’s your memories, your assumptions, your biases interfere with any new information you are going to get.

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