This requires the use of mystical experiences. I have read the complete works of Xiong Shili many times, and finally found six of them. All six life experiences occurred before the creation of his Yogacara system, even before the publication of his first book and new book, that is, before he became a conscious philosopher, he had such a mysterious experience many times. So, he will be very self-centered, conscience is a manifestation, so he will be dissatisfied with the new Yogacara school, he will be dissatisfied with modern philosophy, and he will create a new Yogacara system.
I will briefly share these life experiences with everyone on the other side, and we will analyze them in our next class when we have time. I will pass them on to everyone first. The so-called life experience, let me explain, is not to say that I am in pain today. I am currently experiencing pain, not this. In other words, it is the experience of daily life that we talk about. His so-called life experience, if you are willing to use a mysterious experience, is also an experience of the true nature of the heart. I cannot say this now, I cannot tell you. If I say it, it will be different.
To borrow the words of pragmatic philosopher Rorty, we should use narrative language instead of analytical language. Narrative language, let me recite it for you through these six experiences. Xiong Shili may have had more than six times in his life. He's quite strange, otherwise he wouldn't have had so many ideas. I can only find these six times.
The most important times I will show you are a few times. His first book in the new series was in 1918, when he was 34 years old. I don't know why he kept saying he was 35. Ancient people's chronology was messy. He said he recalled a life experience when he was 13 years old. You know, at the age of 13, it happened to be the most melancholic time for him because his father passed away at the age of 12. The family was already poor with nine children, and with his father's death and his own past situation, what kind of state did he develop?
Watching the 13-year-old climb high, and then the last sentence, suddenly feeling that everything is illusory. I don't know if it's possible for you to be 13 years old, but many people may be 13 years old earlier. I always have this kind of illusionary feeling, I don't have the kind of innate feeling that he presents, I always have this feeling of emptiness. I said that several of Xiong Shili's six life experiences were a sense of disillusionment, the kind of expulsion towards everything, and several times it was a kind of self presentation of the big self.
I don't have the kind of big self presented to myself, perhaps not in the same atmosphere as our era. I also present the kind of emptiness and vastness. So, when I was in graduate school, I heard Professor Yang Zhikang say he was reciting Heidegger every day. Once he said you didn't understand, in the last class he said you discussed, he said you understood, and I said he was fearless. I often have it, and I am troubled by it, but Xiong Shili's lectures have a great feeling.
When he was around seventeen or eighteen years old, he read an article by Chen Baisha, which was a kind of self presentation. I don't have this feeling, to be honest, but I can imagine that if you have it, you are very happy and have a sense of conscience. Because this was probably in his twenties, he himself said that some people only remember things from a young age, and then he told the story of the time when he was 13, which seemed to be a plot for him. He kept recalling it and then said that he read Yizhuan when he was in his twenties, which triggered a great feeling of this kind. The passage 'Essentials of Reading Classics Poetry' was written by him in 1944. At around the age of 60, he reminisced about his youth when he went to college and studied abroad, which gave him a sense of greatness.
In 1949, when he was sixty-five or five years old, he wrote it, and he once again experienced the feeling of being completely useless. I have verified that it seems to be in 1913, when he asked the military government to disband him, he may have been particularly depressed. In Wuchang, he had a huge illusion that everything was empty. This kind of life experience, I probably hope you don't have it in your daily life. I'm just talking about it, you must not have it. It's not a good thing for those of us who study philosophy to always have this feeling.
But Xiong Shili has this, and it is very meaningful to explain the proof of quantity theory to him. Cai Yuanpei said that this is an illusion. Cai Yuanpei was a staunch realist, as if he were classmates with Li Siguang, a famous geographer, and Xiong Shili, and good friends with the younger. Li Siguang said he often sees me.
Speaking of this experience, the last time was when I said he completely withdrew from the revolution without wearing the red robe. Xiong Shili was a veteran revolutionary figure at that time. In 1918, he went to the Guangzhou Military Government and thought that these people were too bad. Then he said that one day, he suddenly possessed his soul again and had a mysterious experience. From then on, he took off his red robe and put on a black robe to become a teacher in academia.
Due to time constraints, let me briefly explain to everyone that the key is the analysis that follows. What does the analysis say?
It is these non objectified understandings that laid the foundation of his philosophy. That's the amount of evidence.
You say you borrow from Buddha, you say you see emptiness, you say you have insight into nature. This is not something that formal logic can help you achieve, nor is it something that dialectical logic can do. Only you can prove it yourself, so he is called 'Zheng Liang'. Is there a specific method of cultivation? Xiong Shili was not aware of this at first, because he spoke in Buddhist language, but later he realized that it could be achieved, and where to do it. The Confucian concept of cultivation is like this.
But later on, he felt that in my life experience, I knew there was a cognitive ability in life. Confucianism called it "seeing the body", while Buddhism called it "proving quantity". For example, Kant's philosophy talked about free will, but Kant said that the soul of free will does not die, and the existence of God is three promises, three hypotheses, or logical reasoning. He could not personally prove it because Kant's philosophy said that morality is a formal concept, and once it is attached to the concrete, it cannot be fully manifested.
However, the Confucian concept of seeing the body and the Buddhist concept of verification mean that the transcendent existence is directly manifested in concrete individuals, that is, the incarnation of the body. Perhaps only Jesus, who descended into human form in Christianity, can be comparable.
But in Western philosophy, this is a religious existence. It is impossible to say why Jesus descended from a Son of God into a flesh. The Word is infinite, and the existence of the flesh is concrete. However, in religion, this can be considered a miracle.
In philosophy, Kant is impossible, but in Confucian philosophy, it is also acknowledged that conscience can be directly presented to oneself through changes in temperament. In my daily life, I always have spontaneous attacks, but if I cultivate myself or gain extraordinary life experiences, I may have a clear understanding of the mind, nature, and body. This is different from the mythological explanations of religion and the rational inferences of Western philosophy. Rational inferences can only be said to be logical, you can only promise, and you cannot let them be presented directly.
The presentation of religion is a metaphor, a manifestation of personality image, and Confucianism says that we directly realize life itself through the living body, which is the measure of realization. So, some people say that this kind of evidence has a lot of mysterious colors, while others call it Eastern mysticism. If you don't read his last paragraph about cultivation, you will feel that it is indeed true. Xiong Shili himself also has a feeling of mystery.
He once compared his own mysterious experience to the traditional Song Ming Confucian school. I earnestly request everyone to read this paragraph, because it is impossible to use analytical language to directly present something. We can only read the story. In 1949, Xiong Shili took on a disciple and guided the child to write an article that collected various mysterious experiences of Song Ming Daoists.
For example, if there were people like Lu Jiuyuan and Yang Jian, then the founder of Neo Confucianism, whose disciple was named Yang Jian, was two years younger than him. Then there were many disciples of Lu Xue, such as Xu Zhongchen and Zhang Zilan, all of whom had a seemingly mysterious experience.
Then came the Ming Dynasty's School of Mind, Wang Yangming. What made Wang Yangming famous? Two things. One was that he learned Zhu Xi's method of investigating things to gain knowledge when he was in his twenties. He looked at bamboo grids every day, but for a long time, he didn't see any clues. He didn't gain any knowledge of physics or aesthetic feelings. He only had anxiety and asked why he couldn't see in bamboo, so he fell ill. From then on, he no longer believed in Cheng Zhu Neo Confucianism.
This is a particularly popular legend about him, and another one is that when he was in his twenties, he sent eunuch Liu Jin to a farm in Guizhou. One night, he was sweating profusely, as if he had had a mysterious experience, which laid the foundation for his psychology.
Xiong Shili said that such a state must be achieved in tranquility. Tranquility leads to the delusion of subduing and dispelling thoughts, and the original spiritual perception of the heart is revealed. It is said that this is not a solid state of the Dao, and if one is completely immersed in it, how can it be called delusion? This principle is not unique to Zen masters, Confucian scholars do not see this principle, and non secular scholars are dull in their ears.
If you are a Confucian, or rather a philosopher, without any upward thinking, always in the causal chain of form and effect, what is the difference between Confucianism and Buddhism?
Zen masters take this as the ultimate goal, while Confucians understand that after comprehending this, one must also understand the body and achieve practical results in real life, which is called cultivating virtue, speaking, and making achievements. This is a turning point, but this mysterious experience or life experience may be something that all philosophers should have a tolerant attitude towards. No matter what kind of research you are doing, even if you are analyzing philosophy, you must admit that the understanding of the absolute existence beyond existence is not derived from logical deduction. Logical deduction can also derive a logicality that can give you rational satisfaction.
