Famous sayings of Zhang Zai, a Neo-Confucianist in the Northern Song Dynasty
Heaven and earth have no intention to change, and sage counselors change to teach, seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages, with this as the goal-understanding and transforming nature:)
The living have weak hearts and heavy desires, and saints guide them to do good and make a living for them.
Around the ages, it is this heart that goes to the holy land and has the hope of peace. Therefore, in order to attend the holy school, we should open peace for all generations.
Even if peace cannot be achieved, this research should continue:)
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On the total disadvantages of Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties from Zhang Zai's famous words
Zhang Zai, a Taoist scholar in the Song Dynasty, has four famous sayings, which can almost be regarded as the declaration and program of Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties, namely:
The heart of heaven and earth,
Make a living for the people,
For the sake of past success,
Create peace for the world.
These four famous sayings attracted many people, not only the ancient Confucian scholars were amazed, but even today's scholars, even an "economist", fell in love with them and even advocated them in their articles.
In fact, none of these four sentences is right, and the mistakes are so harmful that Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties, the so-called pseudo-philosophical system of the second Neo-Confucianism, has harmed the Chinese nation for about a thousand years, even spawned the third Neo-Confucianism in modern times, and even recently came the fourth Neo-Confucianism, which is really ridiculous and disastrous.
Now let's analyze it sentence by sentence and see where its mistakes are.
First of all, look at the sentence "make a heart for heaven and earth"
Heaven and earth are the universe. Laozi established the "common way" for the universe (heaven and earth) and Kant "legislated" for the universe (established the laws of nature), which are the first (true or false, existence or not) judgments that are very correct for the universe itself. Zhang Zai (and the Neo-Confucianists of Song and Ming Dynasties) wanted to "establish a heart" for the universe. What is the Confucian "heart"? It is the ethics of "filial piety, loyalty, forgiveness" and "monarch, minister and son". The judgment of "standing on the heart" obviously belongs to the third judgment about beauty and ugliness. In other words, Zhang Zai and other Song and Ming Neo-Confucians used the third judgment instead of the first judgment to define the universe ontology. This obviously made the most serious logical mistake and violated the most important first truth. Violating the first truth is tantamount to abandoning the first foundation of China's wisdom.
Look at the sentence "making a living for the people" again.
Life is the wealth of human nature. According to Confucianism, people's life is "wisdom is above stupidity", "life" is above, and "temperament" is below. People are born in an immovable and extremely unequal hierarchy. Today we regard "strangers" as citizens, and all citizens are born equal. Therefore, what really wants to "stand" for the people is not an unequal "fate", but an equal constitution and constitutionalism before everyone. Obviously, this sentence is another big mistake.
Let's look at the third sentence, "a lesson from the past."
Confucian sages include Yao, Shun, Yu, Tang, Wen, Wu, Duke Zhou and Confucius and Mencius. Confucian Juexue is an absolute and outstanding Confucian study of Confucius and Mencius, which simply does not include other philosophers, such as Laozi and Mozi. It can be seen that his "forgetting the past" is a harmful autocratic tradition that continues to stubbornly adhere to "exclusive respect for Confucianism" and to stubbornly adhere to all people's freedom rights such as thought and speech. Can this sentence be good?
Finally, look at the sentence "Open peace will last forever"
This is a very unrealistic boast and madness. Just look at the above three, they will never bring any "peace" to the Chinese nation. In fact, the disastrous history of China about 1000 years later has given them the most powerful refutation.
In my comments on Zhu and Wang Yangming's articles in the future, I will continue to profoundly expose the great harm that Neo-Confucianism has brought to the Chinese nation.
Obviously, the above four famous sayings are completely wrong and must be corrected as follows:
Establish a common way between heaven and earth (law and reason),
Establish a people's constitutional government (constitution, law),
In order to honor the saints (a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend),
Create peace (harmony and equality) for the world.