Self-Cultivation in Early China

Paul Fischer

Description

Self-Cultivation in Early China is an introduction to multiple aspects of the foundational practice of self-cultivation in early China (c.1000 to 100 BCE). Drawing on the Chinese classics and the dozens of scholars' texts (both received and excavated) that together form the basis of intellectual history for China and all of East Asia, the book's analysis relies on the topics and categories that were central to the thought of these authors, including such well-known thinkers as Confucius and Laozi. This book describes a salient point of view from which we may consider the broader landscape of Chinese intellectual history and presents an important paradigm of the scholarly Chinese worldview that is ideal for comparison with paradigms in other communities, ancient or modern, across the globe.
Acknowledgments
Book Title Translations

Introduction

Part I: Person (人)

1. Body (體)

2. Nature (性)

3. Mind (心)

Part II: Environment (地)

4. Virtuosity (德)

5. Timeliness (時)

Part III: Objects (物)

6. Learning (學)

7. Music (樂)

Part IV: Cosmos (天)

8. Fate (命)

9. Destiny (天)

10. Spiritousness (神)

Works Cited
Index

Sujets

• HISTORY
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Religión
• East Asian religions
• History of Asia
• Eastern
• Asia
• China

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438488356
• Langue: English

Extrait

Self-Cultivation (修身) in Early China
SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture

Roger T. Ames, editor
Self-Cultivation (修身) in Early China
PAUL FISCHER
Cover art: Image courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Light Snow on the Mountain Pass . Unidentified artist. China, late Ming (1368–1644)–early Qing (1644–1911) dynasty. Bequest of John M. Crawford Jr., 1988. Accession Number: 1989.363.168
唐人楊昇畫關山蒲雪圖, 宋御府所藏.
康熙丙午得見於長安借綠堂, 因以重價購得.
此畫有所賞心, 永寶. 沚鑑題.
Tang artist Yang Sheng painted this Light Snow at Mt. Guan , which was in the collection of the Song Imperial court.
In the bingwu year (1666 CE) of the Kangxi emperor, I was able to view [this painting] at the Borrowed Green Studio in Chang’an, and then purchased it for a hefty price.
This painting has something that appeals to the heart, and I will treasure it forever. Inscribed by Zhijian [i.e., Feng Xianshi 馮仙湜; fl. mid-17th to 18th cent.] Translation by (and thanks to) Yunchiahn Sena.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2022 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Fischer, Paul, author.
Title: Self-cultivation in early China / Paul Fischer.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2022. | Series: SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021051929 (print) | LCCN 2021051930 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438488332 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438488356 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Ethics—China. | Conduct of life.
Classification: LCC BJ117 .F57 2022 (print) | LCC BJ117 (ebook) | DDC 170.951—dc23/eng/20220120
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021051929
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021051930
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
“If the mind does not have its Heavenly wanderings, then the six senses will be mutually confused.” (心無天遊，則六鑿相攘。)
—Zhuangzi 莊子
“As truth is gathered, I rearrange … inside out, outside in: perpetual change.”
—Jon Anderson
Contents
Acknowledgments
Book Title Translations
Introduction
Part I. Person (人)
Chapter 1 Body (體)
Chapter 2 Nature (性)
Chapter 3 Mind (心)
Part II. Environment (地)
Chapter 4 Virtuosity (德)
Chapter 5 Timeliness (時)
Part III. Objects (物)
Chapter 6 Learning (學)
Chapter 7 Music (樂)
Part IV. Cosmos (天)
Chapter 8 Fate (命)
Chapter 9 Destiny (天)
Chapter 10 Spiritousness (神)
Works Cited
Index
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the many very nice people I met during my years studying in China: teachers, fellow students, office workers, librarians, bookstore workers, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, taxi drivers, neighbors, shop owners, restaurant workers, tea shop servers, bartenders, barbers, bicycle-fixers, everyone who sold things at Beijing’s Panjiayuan 潘家园 market, all those who gave me directions when I was lost (this was in the early 2000s, before cellphones with GPS were common), and all those who just walked up to me and started a conversation; all of those interactions were overwhelmingly positive and left a lasting impression that is somehow related to the theme of this book. I would in particular like to thank my fellow sinologist Lin Zhipeng 林志鵬 for his many years of help and friendship. I would also like to thank the Visiting Scholars Program of the International Center for Studies of Chinese Civilization (ICSCC) at Fudan University (复旦大学中华文明国际研究中心访问学者计划). Zhang Ke 章可 and Qian Yu 钱宇 of the ICSCC were especially gracious and helpful in facilitating my visit and the attendant conference in the summer of 2015. Six years later (while also attending to my day job), I have finally finished what I began that summer in Shanghai. I further thank another fellow sinologist, He Jianjun 何建軍, for his encouragement and friendship. Thanks also to Jimi, Jimmy, David, Steve, and Trey, for their spiritousness. Last, according to custom, but not least, ldl.
Book Title Translations
Because many of the primary sources in this monograph do not have single, agreed-upon English translations for titles, I will transliterate them throughout. I translate them here for the interested reader. For example, in the text, I refer to the Shujing , not the Documents Classic . Also, in the list below, there is a space between the Chinese words in the title which correspond to the translation (e.g., Shu for Documents and jing for Classic , below, but Shujing in the text). In the text, most of these spaces are omitted to follow convention (which is rather arbitrary).
Classics
Chun qiu 春秋 (Annals [of the state of Lu]; literally “Spring [and] Autumn”)
Li ji 禮記 (Protocol Record)
Shi jing 詩經 (Odes Classic)
Shu jing 書經 (Documents Classic)
Xiao jing 孝經 (Filiality Classic)
Yi jing 易經 (Changes Classic)
Zhou li 周禮 (Zhou Protocols)
Scholars
All eponymous Scholars’ texts end with “zi.” Thus, Mengzi 孟子 (Scholar Meng), Xunzi 荀子 (Scholar Xun), and so forth. These need not be translated below. Other such texts include:
Chu ci 楚辭 (Chu Elegies)
Guo yu 國語 (State Sayings)
Han shi wai zhuan 韓詩外傳 ([Mr.] Han’s Commentarial Account of the Odes)
Heng xian 恆先 (Abiding Antecedent), excavated, now in Shanghai Museum
Kong zi jia yu 孔子家語 (Scholar Kong’s School Sayings)
Liu de 六德 (Six Virtuosities), excavated from Guodian
Lü shi chun qiu 呂氏春秋 (Mr. Lü’s Annals)
Lun yu 論語 (Selected Sayings, aka Analects)
Mu tian zi zhuan 穆天子傳 (Biography of Heavenly Scion Mu)
Shang jun shu 商君書 (Lord Shang’s Writings)
Tai yi sheng shui 太一生水 (The Great One Creates Water), excavated from Guodian
Wu xing 五行 (Five Conducts), excavated from Guodian
Xin yu 新語 (New Sayings)
Xing zi ming chu 性自命出 ([Human] Nature Derives from [Heaven’s] Mandate), excavated from Guodian
Yan zi chun qiu 晏子春秋 (Scholar Yan’s Annals)
Yu cong 語叢 (Sayings Thicket), in four parts; excavated from Guodian
Zhong xin zhi dao 忠信之道 (The Way of Loyalty and Trust), excavated from Guodian
Zuo zhuan 左傳 ([Mr.] Zuo’s Account [of the Annals Classic])
Introduction
“Those who wish to achieve great things in the world must first cultivate themselves in private.”
— Xinyu ch. 6
夫建大功於天下者，必先修於閨門之內。《新語。慎微》
Aim, Scope, Method
The aim of this book is to introduce a general, interested audience to the practice of self-cultivation (修身) in early China. Self-cultivation is a broad term that denotes a multi-faceted pursuit of three distinct but related goals: individual health, social harmony, and environmental concord. (Each of these can be further analyzed into more precise concerns; for example, individual health can be divided into physical and mental health; social harmony, into political stability and ethical pluralism, and so on.) “Self-cultivation” may be readily understood in English, but it is nevertheless an enigmatic term; while it is a central and rather well-understood term in the intellectual history of China, if not all of East Asia, it has no specific cultural traction in the West. The closest example in the West may be the ancient Greek idea of eudaimonia (well-being), but this remains a relatively unknown term outside of Classics or early Philosophy specialties. Thus, a better point of comparison for the Westerner may be soteriology, the study of how to be “saved.” This comparison founders on the fact that early China had no “heaven” and “hell” with the religious sense that they commonly hold today, nor was there the idea of an eternal soul which would go to one of these places after death. But the comparison works well teleologically because self-cultivation and soteriology both occupy similar central places in the intellectual histories of the East and West. Early China has had an extensive and lasting influence on Chinese culture that extends to the present day. Meanwhile, modern China once again has an extensive and still-growing influence on the rest of the world. For anyone who is curious about global approaches to the meaning of life, then, an inquiry into the early Chinese approaches of self-cultivation should be of interest.
My general argument is that early Chinese self-cultivation is analyzable into the ten constituent parts that make up the ten chapters of this book. All ten of these topics are important and well-known in Chinese history. Thus, the broader theme of self-cultivation and the subsequent ten subjects are presented in terms that would immediately be recognizable to a literate ancient Chinese person. Likewise, these ten topics may be subsumed under four broad categories that are also traditional categories in the Chinese context: the person (人), the environment in general (地), particular objects (物), and the larger context of the cosmos (天). Self-cultivation that focuses on the “person” includes the body, human nature, and the mind. The “environment” includes virtuosity and timeliness. (I classify virtuosity under “environment” because virtuosity is primarily a social concern, and therefore most relevant to the social environment.) “Objects” pertain to those useful to a relevant task, like books that are necessary for learning, and instruments that are needed for music. Finally, relations with the “cosmos” may be considered via fate, destiny, and spiritousness.
In the chapters that follow, there are many primary-source quotations because these quotes constitute the evidence for my claims. It is important, for several reasons, to include the original Chinese in a discussion of these topics, along with the translations, even though my