What is self-cultivation? Semantically speaking, "repair" refers to rectification and improvement, and "repair" refers to cultivation and edification. That's what the so-called "learn from Jude and cultivate Jude" means. "Cultivation" is a concept with a wide meaning, which can be used to express people's ideological cultivation, moral etiquette cultivation, theoretical knowledge and technical skills cultivation and so on. The so-called moral cultivation refers to the process and efforts of self-training, self-transformation, self-cultivation and self-education in order to cultivate excellent moral quality.
If moral education is the external factor of moral internalization into conscience and quality, then moral cultivation is the internal factor of moral internalization into conscience and quality. Moral cultivation mainly refers to the actor's self-analysis, self-education, self-cultivation and the moral level and moral realm achieved from it. Moral cultivation is an important way to form moral quality and shape moral personality. Moral cultivation is one of the important forms of moral practice and the only way to improve self-moral cultivation, cast ideal moral personality and cultivate excellent moral personality. The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, "Education is the second sun for educated people." Moral cultivation is a ladder to cultivate one's own quality and sublimate personality.
The essence of moral cultivation is the process in which individuals as cultivators consciously struggle with their immoral thoughts and behaviors, especially the process in which individual moral rationality struggles with instinctive lust. An important connotation of moral cultivation is to consciously guide desire with reason and solve the contradiction between reason and desire. Of course, this does not mean obliterating and destroying natural lust, but using moral reason to control natural lust, so that natural lust can be sublimated and surpassed, and rational self can reasonably regulate perceptual self and ideal self to realistic self. The great significance of moral cultivation lies in that it promotes individuals to realize the transformation from "natural person" to "moral person", encourages individuals to constantly surpass themselves, perfects their personality, and realizes the unity of individuals and society.
Marxist ethics believes that people's moral quality is not innate, but acquired. One characteristic of people's moral quality is sociality and variability. A person's ability of good and evil in moral quality is not innate, but formed in certain social relations, which is closely related to personal self-moral cultivation. Without his own subjective efforts, it is impossible to cultivate noble moral quality. In the practice of socialist morality, we can often see such a situation: some people have similar backgrounds, education, experiences and environment, but some people have made rapid progress and noble moral quality; While others make slow progress, lack the minimum moral quality, and even become decadent. The reason is often inseparable from their personal subjective efforts and self-cultivation. A person with high morality must be a person who consciously carries out moral cultivation.
In China's traditional moral culture, there is a fine tradition of attaching importance to personal moral cultivation. The ancients regarded self-cultivation as the basis of "keeping the family in order", "governing the country" and "leveling the world". Tao Xingzhi, a people's educator, not only practiced and attached importance to moral cultivation, but also asked people to ask themselves every day: "Has my morality improved?" Call on people to pay attention to the cultivation of "public morality" and "private morality" and "build the Great Wall of Personality". Today, we shoulder the sacred mission of building Socialism with Chinese characteristics. Therefore, we should pay more attention to moral cultivation and cultivate ourselves into a person with high moral quality.
Second, the method of moral cultivation.
In the history of ethical thought, many ethical thinkers have explored the ways and methods of moral cultivation, and some even conducted their own experiments. In ancient China, people paid special attention to the study of moral cultivation, and many thinkers put forward many valuable methods of moral cultivation. To sum up, there are generally three things: learning, thinking and doing. The so-called "learning" means learning and mastering moral knowledge. Confucius asked his disciples to "keep pace with the times". In his view, "straight is difficult to learn, and the cover is also twisted; If you are brave and study hard, your cover will be messy; This is difficult to learn and crazy. " In other words, if you don't study, honesty will turn into bitterness, courage will turn into offense and chaos, and fortitude will turn into arrogance. So he advocated learning etiquette to restrain his behavior. The so-called "thinking" is to reflect and think about one's moral words and deeds. Confucius believes that "learning without thinking is useless", that is to say, after learning, without thinking, you will be confused. Mencius advocated "intention", "small desire" and "nourishing qi" The so-called "doing" means practicing and applying moral knowledge. Xunzi believes that "if you don't smell it, you will have it, if you don't see it, you will have it, if you don't know it, you will learn." Although there are some positive and reasonable factors in these moral cultivation methods, on the whole, most of them are idealized, formalized, abstract and divorced from social practice, which exaggerates the main role unilaterally and thinks that as long as we maintain an abstract "kind heart", we can change reality, society and ourselves, so it is illusory.
Critically inheriting the valuable things in the moral cultivation of ethicists in history and transforming them into a scientific moral cultivation system can make moral cultivation become self-education, self-transformation and self-improvement related to social practice, instead of thinking behind closed doors and cultivating the mind, as ethicists said before. Therefore, moral cultivation can not be divorced from social practice, but should consciously cultivate and exercise moral consciousness and moral emotion in practice. Moral cultivation mainly master the following methods:
1, combining learning with thinking. Learning and mastering certain moral knowledge is the premise of forming moral quality. Socrates believes that virtue comes from knowledge, and knowledge is the mother of all virtues. The first method of moral cultivation is to learn and master all kinds of moral knowledge and principles of being a man, and to think deeply about all kinds of moral knowledge and philosophy of life. Only in this way can we cultivate the moral intention and emotion of pursuing good and avoiding evil in our own hearts, so as to choose good and do it. The process of moral cultivation is not only the process of mastering moral knowledge, but also the process of fighting against all kinds of backward and wrong moral concepts. "It is human nature to make mistakes." For various reasons, everyone will have shortcomings and mistakes of one kind or another, and will be eroded and influenced by backward, wrong and decadent moral thoughts. This requires us to carry out self-criticism seriously while mastering correct moral knowledge, not to whitewash ourselves, to be strict with ourselves, to dissect ourselves consciously, and to clean and clear ourselves as frequently as "washing face" and "sweeping floor".
In moral cultivation, it is very necessary to learn from others' moral knowledge, moral examples and moral experience. Facts show that whether a person is civilized or noble is closely related to his knowledge and cultural accomplishment. Vulgar, barbaric and unreasonable are often inextricably linked with ignorance and ignorance. In moral life, moral knowledge is not only the forerunner of moral behavior, but also plays a guiding role in the whole moral behavior. Socrates put forward that "knowledge is virtue", China ancient Confucianism linked "respecting virtue" with "teaching morality", emphasizing the basic position of "teaching things" in moral cultivation, and Piaget emphasized the significance of moral cognition to moral self-discipline, all of which saw the inseparable connection between moral knowledge and moral journey to varying degrees. In addition, an important feature of moral knowledge is that it is not only found in books, but also in the exemplary behavior of others. Therefore, while learning moral knowledge, we should also learn from other people's moral examples and moral experience. In learning, we must combine our own moral experience and think rationally, so as to understand and grasp the moral inevitability, and the internal subject transformation and sublimation of learning results can occur.
Question: How to understand "Virtue is knowledge"?
2. Be cautious and independent. The word "cautious independence" comes from the Book of Rites. The Doctrine of the Mean: "Destiny is nature, frankness is Tao, and cultivation is teaching. Tao can't be separated for a moment, and non-Tao can be separated. So a gentleman is wary of what he can't see, and fear is almost unheard of. Don't be invisible, don't be insignificant. Therefore, the gentleman is cautious and independent. " "Caution" means being cautious and alert at all times; "Independence" means being alone, acting alone. It means that the moral principle of being a man can't leave for a moment. Therefore, people with noble character are always very cautious when others can't see them, and always very vigilant when others can't hear them. The most hidden things can best reflect people's quality, and the smallest things can best show people's soul. Therefore, a virtuous person is always very careful not to do anything immoral when he is alone and unsupervised. As a method of self-cultivation and self-cultivation, "cautious independence" is to unswervingly and more cautiously adhere to one's moral beliefs, consciously act according to moral requirements, and not act rashly without external supervision. It is characterized by its emphasis on "micro" and "concealment". On the one hand, "don't do it because of small kindness, don't do it because of small mistakes", to prevent the delay, and to avoid the situation that "a levee of a thousand miles will collapse in the ant nest"; On the other hand, be strict with yourself and behave ethically where people don't notice or notice. Although Shen Du emphasized "invisibility" and "subtlety", he could see the big from the small and see the big from the small. Generally speaking, in full view, people will pay attention to their words and deeds except those with obvious evil deeds, but in the case of unsupervised, especially when no one can know what they have done, many people will relax their demands and even be unscrupulous. The cautious and independent cultivation method appeals to people's high moral consciousness and self-conscious spirit. Therefore, being able to be "cautious and independent" shows that moral cultivation has reached a high level, and adhering to "cautious and independent" is a very difficult method of moral cultivation. It is this cultivation method that makes practitioners become virtuous people who are consistent in words and deeds, true in temperament and true in self-discipline. Being able to practice the cultivation method of prudence and independence well can exercise people's self-control spirit in moral cultivation, and truly achieve moral cultivation for me and not for others, thus reaching a higher moral realm.
When it comes to moral cultivation, we must be "cautious and independent". In a sense, it can be said that without "cautious independence", there is no moral cultivation. Everyone with a minimum moral awareness should be "cautious and independent", resolutely correct and overcome the phenomenon of duplicity and "dual personality" and resolutely fight against immoral behaviors that violate morality.
As we know, social morality, as a norm to adjust people's behavior, mainly plays a role in supervising and guiding people's behavior through "public opinion" and "inner belief". Generally speaking, when a person's behavior is under the supervision of the social collective and there is "public opinion" at work, he will pay more attention to the moral cultivation of his external behavior. However, when a person engages in professional activities independently, his actions are "invisible", "invisible" and "invisible" by others and collectives, and may never be noticed by people without the supervision of public opinion. At this time, a person's moral cultivation is more important and more difficult, which depends entirely on his "inner belief". The more in this case, the more one needs to cherish and love himself and restrain himself with the requirements of socialist morality. If you don't pay attention to self-moral cultivation and cultivate the quality of "cautious independence" when you are alone and unsupervised, you will have ulterior "privacy" in your heart, which will inevitably hurt yourself and others and cause serious harm to the interests of others, society and the collective.
How should a person be "cautious and independent"? Practice tells us that to be cautious and independent, we must first work hard in a "hidden" place. The place where others can't see or hear is an important place for a person to exercise his moral character. Qu Yuan, a progressive thinker in China during the Warring States Period, said in Ode to Oranges: "Keep closed to the outside world, be cautious and not slack off;" Bingde is selfless and lofty. The ancient Greek philosopher Democritus also said, "Be careful, even when you are alone, don't speak ill or do bad things, but learn to be more ashamed in front of yourself than others. "It is what we often say in our daily life: walls have ears; If others don't know, unless it's over. To be "cautious and independent", we should also pay attention to starting from little things. As the saying goes: a levee of a thousand miles, collapsed in the ant nest. Small goodness makes great virtue. To cultivate teachers' morality, we should start small, prevent minor delays, do little good and do little evil.
"Cautious independence" is the highest state of moral cultivation, which is extremely difficult to achieve and needs to go through a process from unconsciousness to full consciousness. Suhomlinski said: "A person can introspect and repent to his own conscience, which is the highest realm of spiritual life"; A person with high moral character should constantly strengthen self-moral cultivation in practice and move towards the moral realm of "cautious independence".
3. Provincial examination and treatment. Introspection is to discover and find out your bad thoughts and habits in behavior through repeated inspections. Solidification is to overcome and correct, that is, to get rid of those found bad thoughts and habits. Judgment constitutes the cognitive premise of moral cultivation, and it is a desire and impulse of moral subject to consciously abandon evil for good. Without this desire and impulse, moral cultivation is impossible. This method is aimed at "evil" and put forward from the perspective of "restraining evil" to change the character of "evil". While mastering moral knowledge, we should seriously carry out self-criticism, be strict with ourselves, dissect ourselves consciously, clean up and eliminate our bad thoughts and habits at all times like "washing our face" and "sweeping the floor", constantly resist and eliminate the erosion of external temptations and maintain good conduct. This applies not only to people who have gone astray and fallen, but also to ordinary people. Facts have proved that a person must work hard on "checks and balances" to improve his virtue.
4. accumulate goodness and become virtue. The so-called "accumulation of goodness" means to accumulate good deeds and connect them into a whole, and then consolidate, strengthen, expand and sublimate them, and gradually condense them into excellent moral character. The seeds of personal good deeds and virtues need to be carefully maintained, cultivated and carried forward in order to accumulate and grow, from temporary good deeds to long-term stable good virtues, from small goodness to great goodness, from small virtue to great virtue. This method of self-cultivation is different from "inspection and treatment", and it focuses on the cultivation and cultivation of "goodness". Personal cultivation in this way can not only cultivate their goodness or morality, but also prevent their moral degradation. Xunzi said: "The accumulated soil is a mountain, and the wind and rain are prosperous; The water drops merged into the ocean and the dragon was born; Accumulate goodness into virtue, the gods are complacent, and the sacred heart is prepared. Therefore, you can't take Wan Li Road without accumulating steps; If you don't accumulate small streams, you can't become rivers and seas. " (Xunzi). Noble moral quality and moral personality can not be cultivated overnight, it needs a long-term process of accumulating goodness. Only by not abandoning small goodness can we accumulate great goodness; Only by accumulating all the goodness can we cultivate noble virtues. If you don't behave yourself at ordinary times and accumulate good deeds, it is impossible to stand up and stand up at a critical moment one day.
5. practice. Zhu is a representative of Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties. He believes that moral cultivation "has only two things, attention and practice". To achieve the goal of moral cultivation, "Kung Fu is in the first line". Because the process of moral cultivation is essentially a process of self-education, self-transformation and self-improvement, whether it is to carry out self-criticism or to be cautious and independent, it depends on the "consciousness" of the moral subject, which is the key link of moral cultivation. Only on the basis of self-consciousness, can moral subjects take advantage of various opportunities to cultivate their good moral quality in social practice.