Mencius Finding the Lost Heart

Confucius teaches that rituals can transform patterned behaviors we’ve fallen into, and in this process of self-cultivation we can grow beyond who we believe ourselves to be. These rituals can be seen to draw out our higher selves that has better qualities and mannerisms, and is a better version of ourselves that we are practicing to become.

Mencius followed Confucian schools of thought, and also believed that one should go with the flow of life and work with the different experiences that present themselves to us as an opportunity for personal growth. Mencius believes in Li as a practice that can be, and needs to be, learned. He admits that within the practices of Li are the expressions of “humanity and righteousness” that are individualistic to each human being. In this way, the human nature of the individual can be coaxed out and brought into the external.

“Charity is in the heart of man, and righteousness in the path of men. Pity the man who has lost his path and does not follow it and who has lost his heart and does not know how to recover it. When people's dogs and chicks are lost they go out and look for them and yet the people who have lost their hearts do not go out and look for them. The principle of self-cultivation consists in nothing but trying to look for the lost heart”

Each individual has similarities to other individuals, but also has unique differences that can be crucial for personal growth. Rather than making plans for a projected future we can simply put into action the behaviors that we are naturally good at and continue along that path. In that way, one can find oneself. If one loses one’s heart, then one is liable to become degraded and suffer from an unbalanced ch’i with various health and behavioral problems.

The underlying human nature that Mencius bases this personal growth upon is inherently good, and within this Hsing is tendency of man to grow beyond personal limitations toward full actualization of his own individual human nature. In this way, the four beginnings (ssu-tuan) can be developed, in which case the four virtues can mature within oneself and become spontaneous. The free will that one has over conscious decisions can nourish the ch’i can allow an individual to order their senses and cultivate the proper environment for the heart to maintain a feeling of spontaneous goodness, uncorrupted by the evils, degradation, and exploitations of the world. Through this processes then the individual can embody Heaven.

This Heavenly nature that one can embody within one’s essential human nature “Hsing” is a spiritual or transcendental realm that arises from following one’s own spontaneous heart. Heaven is then arising from within, or self-realized through a combination of yu-wei self-effort, as much as wu-wei spontaneity. So in this process of attaining Heaven, one must know oneself and one’s own heart completely as an individual entity that is capable of attaining a supernatural force that is potentially revealed to everyone who nurtures their own goodness.

Heaven also seems to have an active will of it’s own, and can decide successors to the throne of the King. There are references to Heaven which describe a rhythm or cyclical timing which can appear and disappear. Even so, the embodiment of Heaven is achieved through self-cultivation of one’s own good nature, and also easily lost through getting lost or absorbed with evil influences of the world.

Xunzi

In Xunzi’s philosophy, we find an insatiable appetite for sense gratification that is an unlimited capacity to distract oneself. Unlike the philosophy of Mencius, who viewed human nature as inherently good with free will towards cultivating a spontaneous heart, here with Xunzi we have spontaneous and overwhelming desires for sense gratification and ignorance that characterizes human nature.

Since individuals are seen to have boundless desires, then a system of rituals in order to allow for self-cultivation to create a sense of limits and austerity. Xunzi advocates for moral behavior strengthened by education and a sense of rules and laws that can further reinforced by institutional laws and penal codes which are led by a group of rulers who have the qualities and control over themselves. The laws themselves are upheld by noble rulers who can serve as an example and give guidance to the others. Xunzi believes that since most men will refuse to internalize the practices of li that lead to righteousness, then punishments must be made available. The rulers are not teachers in that sense, but are put in place to create order within society.

For Xunzi, learning is a central tenant of his philosophy, where he is focused on the mind as having capacity for personal growth through mental exercises and mental experiences which can acquire empirical knowledge, reason, and have logic. “The nature of man is without li and righteousness and man must strenuously engage in learning in order to seek to obtain them” These faculties separate from one’s human nature, and do not depend on an inherently good human nature. Learning results in self-mastery from a determined and disciplined effort that takes some exertion to internalize the spirit of “li and righteousness”.

Xunzi’s chapters of li and music show ritualistic devotion to music that can reinvigorate the spirit. In this way, li departs from a utitlitarian concept towards a spiritual practice reaching towards engagement with a sacred world in the service of spirits. It’s a cultural creation that li orders society towards and alignment with heaven and the universe. The universe serves as a blueprint for the natural laws of society to also order individuals in community circulate and are in harmony with to create societal order and create sacred space for the interaction with Heaven to occur.

Xunzi describes enlightenment “among the ten thousand things there is no form which one does not see… sitting one’s room one sees the four seas; located in th present one sees all eternity” That is only acquired by intellectual efforts. There are also some preconditions to achieve a  proper inner nature of emptiness and quietude in order to fully visualize the transcendental dimensions of human intelligence. These preconditions allow for a clear state of mind in order to receive new knowledge. The cosmic intellectual download of knowledge. Xunzi describes a fierce attention towards recognizing and ridding oneself of the the inner evil or recalcitrant nature that pervades human affairs and clearing space of and cultivating a conscious mind that partakes in yu-wei efforts to control their minds and ultimately create order within themselves so as to participate in society to create order as well. The activism of this fierce discipline is then reinforced by rewards and punishments, that can then allow the desires and passions to be channeled into a state of higher service to create one’s higher self.

Han Feizi’s Rewards and Punishments

Han Feizi 韓非(280-233 B.C.E) was a major political theorist and member of the state of Han. During the Warring States period, He wrote a book with 55 chapters, and within it are a collection of essays on government, state power, history, and commentaries on philosophical works. Most of the chapters are addressed to Kings. He was a student of Xun zi, along with Lizi who was the prime minister of the state of Ch’in.

Han Feizi had visions of a utopian society, and the belief in a unified state under the Legalist philosophy and politics. He believed in a rational government that served public interest would bring people together and create peace and harmony.  In Han Feizi’s system he eliminates the need for “men of worth” and “enlightened rulers” with their own “private theories” with the vision that these men will bring about the creation of a collaborative system, that no longer needs them to orchestrate it or be a part of it.

By systematically using Fa (law), leaders can be maintained, and resources managed in order to then provide a practical means for administration. Fa is impersonal and gives weight to one’s merit to be a ruler, but does not exclude one from being rewarded and punished. This system of Fa has to be put in place by a sage ruler, who has good qualities and virtues. His position has to be clearly established to enact the rewards and punishments, and not surrender his duties to ministers or other men of a lower rank. Otherwise, then the ruler could also become subject to the dealings of rewards and punishments of his own ministers. Only after this sophisticated legal system is in order will man’s true nature be realized.

“Government through law exists when the ruler’s edicts and decrees are promulgated among the various departments and bureaus, when the certitude of punishments and penalities is understood in the hearts of the people, when rewards are given to those who respect the law, and when penalties are imposed on those who violate the ruler’s decrees.”

Once the new system of Legalism has been constructed with a government exhibiting bureaucratic behavior then a system of rewards and punishments “the two handles” will be upheld by the rulers and then all of society will natural fall subservient to those decrees. These laws provide incentives for the society to secure the rewards of completing tasks and proposals, and also avoid punishments by neglecting to uphold their duties and achieve results.

“Therefore, an enlightened ruler uses the people’s strength and does not listen to their words; he rewards their achievements and completely prohibits useless activities. As a result, the people exhaust every ounce of their strength in obedience to their superiors.”

A “natural” system of human organization will be aligned with the Tao and a wu-wei state of harmony and spontaneity will naturally arise due to the enlightened ruler’s natural ability to set the right example for others to follow. The enlightened ruler, allows his subordinates to achieve higher ranks according to their merit, thus giving incentive for men to work harder to gain a higher level of service. It’s the job of the ruler to make sure that the ministers make proposals and then allow them to fail to match it with actions or results.

Taoism has two primary thinkers who developed Taoist thought, Lao-Tzu and Chuang-tsu. The chronology of thought and logic of the development of Taoism has been obfuscated by the books themselves and the fragments of thoughts and notions within them that seem to arise from different historical periods. Confucius also did identify notions tao and wu wei in the Analects, and still Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu are still considered dated after Confucius but still part of an earlier stratum of Taoist ideas.

In both cases, the fundamental concept of wu wei, or non-action is advocated. This is contrasted with yu-wei activity, where both Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu both see the Confucian noble men and Mohist men of worth, as busybodies who are living in illusion about transformation of society by their various activities. Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu advocated for self-preservation as superior to self-sacrifice. Taking care of one’s health and withdrawing from activities that may cause bodily harm so as to live free of anxiety and stress was primary, while performing various social activities and duties and pursuing social gains seen as secondary.

Chuang-tzu’s text gives many descriptions of the indescribable tao, which somewhat echo’s that of Lao-tzu, although Chuang-tzu’s philosophy diverges whereby ordinary mundane reality is injected with mystical grandeur where there’s a transcendental humoristic quality that transforms one’s life away from the mundane. He goes onto document the trancelike mystical experiences of the mystic sages. Such as one passage where Yen-cheng Tzu-yu inquires ‘what is this-can the body really e made to become like a withered tree and the mind like dead ashes? The man who sits here now is not the man who was sitting here before” In this text, we can understand that in approaching the mystical states of Taoism there is a metaphoric death, or approaching of the death of oneself and in seeing all of the qualities of oneself that are not in alignment with the Tao die away from oneself in the mystical meditation. In approaching one’s transformation, it is like looking at the dead and dying parts of oneself and going through a transformation or rebirth to a higher state of consciousness.

This concept is then further illustrated with the image of a hunchback cicada-catcher, who is praised by Confucius for his unwavering attention towards the object of his desire, the cicada. As we know, the cicada is a famous symbol in Chinese culture for rebirth and transformation. The life cycle of the cicada involves one beetle burrowing underground for several years, sometimes up to 10 years, and then changing bodies and becoming a winged insect. In this way, the image of a hunchback thinking of nothing but the cicada wings is indeed not only humorous, but it’s also symbolic of wanting a full transformation of oneself and the unwavering attention towards this death of self. The creative illustrations of the protean changeability of nature is emphasized in contrast to unexpected changes, or even the order and regularity of the mundane world.

What’s even more evident in the character of the hunchback is the theme of virtue in being yourself. Even people who do not have a perfect body can still be respected, and should feel comfortable being themselves. Indeed the concept of the “true or perfect man” arises in Chuang-tsu’s line of thought, and how he faces the problems of his body, but is still not his body and resides in heaven in his heart, and completes his activities with no obsession over his looks. This theme comes up several times in the works of Chuang-tzu, where ugly or deformed men are admired by everyone in a particular village, or become teachers. It is emphasized that “virtue has no form.”  In this way, a living man is capable of transcending his ordinary reality and achieve a higher existence.

I am like a sensitive bat. Moving abroad to China has been a very receptive time for me, and I frequently feel isolated as if I live in a cave. In an attempt to see through the darkness, I go alone to the longevity temple. Longevity in China is depicted by the character (寿) shòu, often times found decorating porcelain with five flying red bats surrounding it.   The flying red bats appear flying the clouds on the ceiling of the entrance hall of the building. There’s nothing to say when by oneself, and everything to absorb and take in. The pagoda in the final room draws me in. It’s a five feet high tower, made ​​of copper, lead, arsenic, zinc, silver, gold and other metals alloyed together pointing upwards in the encompassing, protective rainbow painted hollow of the temple. The small pagoda room is about the overall square footage of my current living quarters.

My situation living on a Chinese college campus has been uniquely isolating, in that the campus dormitory allowed me to have my own room.  I would outright refuse to stay on campus if I had to share a room, and luckily the campus administration accommodated my request. Conversely, a Chinese master’s student on that same campus would room with 6-8 other girls or boys in a room stacked with bunk beds. The lessons in humility in what a Chinese student endures are very real, what to speak of the crowded subway, traffic, spitting, cutting in line overall, in the city of 20 million people. Quiet never seems to come easily, but patience has to, so much that awareness is an innate quality in most of the people I come across. I have been able to live a fairly ascetic life in a single occupancy dormitory, outside of which there’s a quiet courtyard where bats just happen to nest and fly.

The danger of becoming very alone in a foreign country is great.  The danger of letting go and leaving everything you once knew behind is also very great. I have found that I never fully let go of the things that haunt me the most: the infatuations, betrayals, and patterns that have me caught in recurring cyclic fractals still won’t leave me, and they still show up here. Even during a nice walk through a 16^th century temple, an imperial dwelling place that houses innumerable relics and ancient art treasures isn’t enough of a meditation.  It takes sitting, absorbing, being receptive.

The small temple has but a small path to circumambulate the octagonal pagoda. The concept of yin and yang describe how opposite and contrary forces are actually complementary. I find the yin and yang duality appears prominently in this temple space.   The inside of the temple walls (the womb of the temple) painted with bright colors, and dragons (a very yang symbol), and the pagoda itself (also a prominent yang symbol) being made from cold dense metals and stone. Very powerful for me to internalize the masculine becoming the feminine and vice versa, as both the yin and yang elements of the temple also possessed qualities of their opposite.

Tourism to the temple sites with a camera felt guilty like robbery, as if I was raiding the building. Taking photos of the Buddhas inside the temples was forbidden. At first, I was like any other tourist taking pictures, and even though I knew better than to take photos, I couldn’t resist.  I wanted to remember and share my journey.  I didn’t want to mimic the Chinese way of honoring the deities. I had to connect in my own way and have an awareness and intention for visiting.

Photography became another meditation on the space, to find the right composition or make some artistry out the visit.  At first, staying “present” in the meditation was impossible, I only wanted to look back and be back and feel back. I didn’t want to look ahead, and looking through the shutter seemed tolerable. Everything I did in terms of travel felt immature and foolish.  I became lost. The temple complexes and Chinese imperial buildings were some solace with their alchemical historical magic. I slowly got lost enough to recognize the different dynasties artworks, and recognize the deities in their different forms each rendition offering a new face, and a new mood. I see myself becoming like a deity with a golden light aura, wearing fine ornaments, exquisitely crafted. The reflections on the deity somehow managed to sink in, in many different angles, with many different shades and tones. It helped me stay present enough to notice the details, and find things that were different.

I snuck on the bus to Rebkong, Qinhai province, at 6am with a white and turquoise Tibetan shawl covering my head and face. The owner of the small hostel I stayed at near Labrang monestary warned me that due to a recent self-immolation there that they weren’t allowing foreigners to get on the bus, but he said to conceal myself and I would be fine. I wanted to visit Rebkong because I discovered on the internet some information about this small traditional thangka painting village and I wanted to visit it. Luckily it was cold enough out that the heavy jacket and scarves seemed normal, I darted my green eyes quickly around to get through the ticketing booth, and I quickly pretended to be asleep in the front of the bus for the two or three-hour journey.

The bus arrived into the area and I found myself staring and lots and lots of half finished cement apartment construction as we near the small town. The Chinese development companies were building a small city on top of this small Tibetan town.  I got out of the bus and headed towards a small hotel hoping to find lodging easily here. They did not allow foreigners to stay at the first hotel I stopped at but luckily there was another place in the area with the necessary permitting. After checking in, I took a walk through the town. On my walk, I saw the newly established business malls and ranks of Chinese soliders, dressed in their standard green uniforms with a red cuff, parading in unison through the town in a group of thirty. I noticed the oppressive government as well as the Chinese business culture which had established itself in one area of the town. Many of the shops were blaring Chinese music. At this same moment that I arrived there, I was reminded of my own families losses. Suddenly, I felt a deep connection with the female monk who had performed self-immolation after seeing the drastic amount of construction there. The parcel of land I grew up on with my family on was auctioned off by my grandparents and set to be developed, and just before the construction was set to begin my brother had committed suicide on the land there. It's not the same situation at all. I don't know why my mind was suddenly drawing this parallel. I wanted to see the situation from her side too and relate to her in some way, and my mind wanted to find some meaning there. It's not the same, and my brother didn't commit suicide because of the development, but because of his own issues. He was troubled with heartache at the time. It seems like the act of self-immolation is so powerful, and the loss that the town was experiencing could be very palpably felt in the psychic ethers, and seeing the military presence there made me think seriously about my decision to arrive there. Did I need to continue hiding? Would I be kicked out? As I walked through the town with my head and neck covered trying not to be noticed by anyone, especially the police forces, and I felt a kinship with the people there who were also suffering from this loss. I felt heavy in my spirit knowing this had happened there, especially after seeing her sweet photograph dressed in the maroon robes, the entire community may have been also feeling this similar heaviness.

My interest there was in the temple complexes, and Tibetan culture, which was weaved throughout the town in the architecture and artistic touches on the buildings. There are two large impressive temple complexes, Longwu and Wutun and a nunnery. The largest monestary Longwu, is in the center of the town. I wandered through in awe of the architecture. It was different than what I thought it would look like. I had only been in China for 6 months, and the temple construction I had seen up until that point was by Nepali and Tibetan sculptures and painters in America, or Chinese temple construction in Beijing. So, the first time in the middle of a large Tibetan monestary complex was mysterious, and I had wanted to see all of it. Then I wanted to know more about how to tell the difference between the buildings in the different school of Tibetan Buddhism, such as Black hat, Red hat, or Yellow hat, which each had definite features on the buildings.

There were many different temple buildings that opened according to the different schedules of their caretakers. A few times I felt lucky to track down and find those with the keys to be let inside, and other times I had no such luck. Some of the temples seemed closed for the entire day and others told me to come back at certain times. I knocked on doors trying to get keys to get inside and be alone in some of the temples. Sometimes I was lucky, other times, I was left wanting.  I must have seemed eager, and almost demanding to the monks who held the keys. I was also being kind of sneaky, taking photographs and working covertly to capture this place in my camera so I could share the magic I had found with everyone. 

The temple for Tsongkhapa, a prominent teacher from the Gelug school of Buddhism, was especially ornate, with a three small tiers to the temple building, each a different layer of paintings, reaching to the top of the 30-40 foot deity which had a small photograph of the Dalai Lama enshrined on his lap. Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), was a buddhist scholar who led a renaissance of Buddhist teachings, and is regarded as a reincarnation of Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri, and Vajraprani and yet did not display any magical powers yet advocated for teachings of pure virtue and lived his life as a role model. The dieties of Maitreya, future Buddha, or Avaloktisvara, the Goddess of Mercy, were studded with gems and embossed with several metals, and the elaborate story paintings of Guru Rinpoche, and sophisticated decorations created contained spaces for meditations and spiritual experience to manifest itself in the heart. Multicolored quilted silk decorations hang from the tall ceilings nearly touching the meditators. I walked slowly through the area from smaller temples to the bigger temples up to the top of the hill, following endless lines of prayer wheels to spin as I walked. Every pillar covered in cloths and paintings.  Through stairwells up to the rooftops, circumambulating the deities at the top of the temples, being blessed by tiny Buddha's hiding in all corners and levels of the complex. 

During the walk, I met a nice young man. He looked very modern, wearing a down jacket and carrying a Nikon camera around his neck. He told me in his broken English that he is from Rebgong and that he is a painter and a photographer. He got out his IPAD and began showing me the photographs of the area that he’s taken which are bright and well composed. He was an impressive photographer. Then, he began to show me pictures of the Thangkas that he had painted, which are masterpieces of the arts, black background with think gold feather think brush strokes, white background with full color depictions of gods and goddesses in the Buddhist pantheon. It was hard for me to believe that he was really a painter and not a young sales guy repping for some old man. It actually had taken me several months of getting to know him before I actually believed him, several months later, when he had effortlessly sketched on a canvas a small deity to paint in myself. His original story to me was that his father was a painter, and his father’s father was also a painter who worked for the Panchen Lama. He told me that he began training for painting when he was 6 or 7 and was trained for his entire life until now, and he’s 25. The paintings he produced, although similar to the others in the area, had been recognised among several arts circles and societies which he hoped would one day actualise his dream of going to Europe to study despite strict Chinese laws about not giving Tibetans passports to get out of the country. There are few people who had achieved his level of mastery and he was getting all of the proper recognitions in place. We spent the day leisurely walking around the temple complex together and taking photographs. We hardly talked while walking around and he tried to show me a few of the areas I would have missed had a local not wanted to show me around. I gave him my phone number and email excited that he was planning to come to Beijing soon. He walked me back to the hotel and we said goodbye.