Quién es el docente y cómo constituye su práctica

Knowing the world of value, the world of reason and the world of qi is essentially a matter of exploiting Dao, and it is also a matter of Dao’s presentation. Dao is infinite, understanding of the infinite Dao is limited.

As a result, culture is formed. In other words, cultural phenomena are the result of use of the mind. The result of use of the mind of life forms the life culture or life system of culture, and the result of using the mind of cognition forms the system of knowledge.

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As juezhi (or illumination) manifests the value-life, and ganzhi (or sense perception) manifests the biological life, so culture manifested by juezhi (or illumination), such as morals, religion, literature, art and so on, can be called value culture. The culture manifested by ganzhi (or sense per-ception), such as sports, entertainment and so on, can be called biological culture. As value-life and biological life interact with each other, value culture and biological culture also infiltrate each other. Therefore, as the products of mind, value culture contains some elements of non-value or even negative value (the false, evil and ugly), while biological culture contains some elements of value (the true, good and beautiful).

Because the world of li (or reason) contains two parts, namely zhili (or the law of value) and qili (or the law of matter), knowledge culture should also be divided into two kinds, namely value knowledge and nat-ural or scientific knowledge. The former comes from the world of value, and then become the bridge to the world of value; the latter came from the world of qi, and then created the new man-made world of qi, that is material culture. Once the systems of culture have been formed, they became the means, tools and way for mind to know the worlds of value, of qi and of reason. On the other hand, once culture has been formed by mind, it then becomes the object mind.

In respect to epistemology, we can say mind has the ability to know, the worlds of value, of qi and of reason are the prospective objects of knowledge, culture is the present object of knowledge, and the remain-ing part of the worlds of value, of qi and of reason that have not been understood by mind are unknown.

Animals have sense perception and cognition concerning the law of matter, so they can create some simple biological and material culture.

4.2 FINAL VALUE AND THE GENERAL VALUE

As we already know, in value-life and the juezhi xin (or the mind of il-lumination), the peak state of life manifests the final meaning and ulti-mate concern of life. This is the final value. It can be named an^安. The Chinese term an has the meaning of quiet, peaceful, calm, stable, safe, easeful, happy, harmonious, etc. The final value an appears as a firm belief and as the norm of conduct in civilizations.

The three basic value categories, the true, the good and the beautiful, are the values manifested by the various approaches to the peak state of life, but not the values manifested by the peak state of life itself. In other words, they are not the highest and final value.

Therefore, the three basic value categories may be expanded to four basic value categories, namely the true, the good, the beautiful and an (or spiritual quietness). Among them, an is not on the same level with the other three, but the final value which is higher than the other three.

In this value system, values that do not involve the final meaning of life, such as ethical values, social values, political values and so on, could be called general values.

In this way, culture could be divided into four systems, namely the final value system, the general value system, the biological system and knowledge system. Of course, the importance of different kinds of cul-tural phenomena differs for each human being. The final value is most important, it decides the fundamental purpose of human beings; follow-ing this is general value, then biological system, and lastly, the know-ledge system.

4.3 THE HUMAN WAY AS THE FINAL VALUE SYSTEM

Dao is a core concept in Chinese philosophy, and was held in high esteem by Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism. But every school interpreted it differently. Generally speaking, as a philosophical concept, Dao is used in two fundamental senses. One is law, principle and norm, which ex-tended from its original meaning (namely, road and way); another is the source of the universe and the nature of the world. The concept Dao we discussed above belongs to the latter.

In the philosophy of Daoism, Dao ^道 is a metaphysical and ontologi-cal concept used to express the source of the universe and the nature of the world. But almost all Confucian philosophers in pre-Qin Period, including Confucius, Zisi, Mencius, the author of the bamboo book Xing Zi Ming Chu, and Xunzi, took Dao as law, regular pattern and norm.

Generally speaking, excluding cases where it is explicitly defined — such as tiandao^天道 (or the Way of Heaven) and didao ^地道 (or the Way of Earth) — the concept Dao ^道 (or the Way) is rendao ^人道 (or the Way of Human Beings) in Confucian philosophy in the pre-Qin Period. This means the Way that people should behave.

So what is the Way that people should behave from the point of view of Confucianism? As a whole, Dao (or the Way) in Confucianism has two dimensions. One is the spiritual spheres of living; another is ethics and virtue. The former emphasizes individual cultivation, and the latter emphasizes the order of society. They combine into one. Confucius said,

“At seventy I could follow my heart’s desire without transgressing moral

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principles.”³¹ This is the highest spiritual sphere of living, as well as the highest moral sentiment. Therefore, in Confucianism, Dao manifested as a series of moral categories. According to the Confucian classics in the pre-Qin period, Dao could be interpreted as the general term for morals.

For instance, Confucius said, “The Dao of the superior man is threefold, but I have not been able to attain it. The man of ren (or humanity) has no worry; the man of zhi (or wisdom) has no perplexities; the man of yong (or courage) has no fear.”³² Here Confucius takes humanity, wisdom and courage as Dao.

Throughout the Song and Ming dynasties, Neo-Confucianists ab-sorbed both fundamental levels of Dao, and further put forward the term daoti ^道体 (or the Sphere of Dao). Thus, the two fundamental senses of Dao were united. The Dao of metaphysics and ontology is the source of the Dao of moral norms, while the Dao of moral norms is the manifesta-tion of the Dao of metaphysics and ontology.

Therefore, the Dao as the Way that people should behave, is the final concern and belief of Confucianism, and also the Dao of daotong ^道统 (or orthodoxy) in Confucianism. It represented the Confucian final value.

The so-called daotong is the tradition of the sages and virtuous men who search, find, and develop the Way that people should behave through ages. Confucius said, “It is man that can enlarge the Dao which he fol-lows; and not the Dao that can enlarge men.”³³ The Dao came into being through the agency of ancient sages and virtuous men, and was devel-oped in endless succession by the continuous work of the sages and virtuous men through the ages.

In my opinion, Dao and daotong (or orthodoxy) as the final value and its tradition have universal value. Though the value systems among civilizations are different from each other, where they may be generalized into a system of behavior standards, that is the Way that people should behave. The sphere of Dao is an inexhaustible source of value. Just like Confucianism has developed its Dao (or the human way) and orthodoxy, other value systems in the world have also developed their own Dao or the human way and orthodoxy. Up to now, the various transcendental concepts such as Tian (or Heaven) in Confucianism, Dao in Daoism, the Unconditioned in Buddhism, God in Christianity and Allah in Islam, are

31 The Analects, 2:4, translated by the author.

32 The Analects, 14:30, Chan, Wing-tsit, A Source Book in Chinese Philoso-phy, Princeton, 1969, 42 (with some minor changes).

33 Ibid., 15:28, 44.

all the realization of the sphere of Dao from different standpoints and angles by different civilizations, and at last all of them developed into the Way that people should behave so as to direct the behavior of human be-ings. Therefore, approaches to final value by human beings can be called rendao (or the human way).

As the final concern, belief could be divided into two kinds, namely religious belief and humanist belief. As the final value of human beings, the human way could be correspondingly divided into two kinds, namely the human way of religion and the human way of humanism. The belief of most of the world is religion, so that their final value is the human way of religion; but the belief of most Chinese includes both religion and humanism, and inclines to the latter, so that their final value represents both the human way of religion and the human way of humanism, and inclines to the latter.

4.4 A RE-ESTIMATION OF CIVILIZATION

In traditional society, material civilization was very backward and the political system largely restricted personal freedom. Even more impor-tant, however, this was a society that revered final value. Just as Mencius said, “If we first build up the noble part of our nature, then the ignoble part cannot overcome it.”³⁴ If one just protects and lives according to the final value then one can protect the place of human meaning and spirit.

This was then the fundamental source from which people of those times gained their feelings of security and belonging.

The basic values of contemporary society are science and democ-racy. Yet we already know that science is a tool of life and not life itself.

Although the advance of science has broadened our understanding and increased our knowledge, it has not helped our spirit in the least nor resolved problems concerning human purpose.

As for democracy, this is fundamentally a problem of the appearance of a system belonging to what I call general value and not final value.

Today’s notions of freedom, including freedom of faith, political freedom, freedom of speech, economic freedom and so on, belong to outside free-dom and cannot in the same breath be compared to life freefree-dom which belongs to internal freedom.

In this way, contemporary people primarily seek not final value but rather the tools and methods of life’s existence. The style of

contempo-34 Mencius, 6 A, translated by the author.

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rary thinking is to use the “tool of rationality” to fully establish a point.

Using the language of Mencius, the key aspect of contemporary society is “allowing the ignoble to injure the noble, or the small to injure the great”.³⁵ Contemporary people are truly “small men”, intent on “nurtur-ing the small part”. This means that contemporary man has already forgotten life’s value.

Talking this way is not to deny science and democracy, and is not to say that contemporary society is unlivable. What I am emphasizing is that the science of a so-called knowledge culture needs to obey a value culture and that the political system of so called general value needs to obey final value, giving true meaning to “If we first build up the noble part of our nature, then the ignoble part cannot overcome it”.³⁶ This would then be a robust society.