Abstract
Recent research on Daoism has distinguished various models of self-cultivation present in the tradition, in particular those which aim at returning humanity to a natural, spontaneous form of existence (often associated with early pre-Qin “philosophical” Daoism), and those which aim at transcending human nature through technical practices (often associated with later “religious” Daoism). During the Wei-Jin period, organized Daoist religion was still in its early stages, yet the difference between the two models was very much an issue in the Dark Learning (xuanxue) thought of the intellectual elite. In this paper, I trace this debate as expressed in Wei-Jin thinker Guo Xiang’s Commentary to the Zhuangzi, in particular in Guo’s criticisms of the desire or attempt to exceed the limits (ji) of one’s inherent nature and his reinterpretation of the Zhuangzi’s criticisms of technical practices. While Guo follows Xiang Xiu in rejecting many of the claims of radical transcendence through self-cultivation, I argue that this does not imply that he lacks any positive conception of self-cultivation, but rather that he sees such cultivation as only possible through an immanent historical process in which both natural spontaneity and artificial techniques have a role to play.
Highlights
In the main Chinese philosophical and religious traditions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, self-cultivation is an issue of central importance, with the former two traditions in particular emphasizing the attainment of individual psychological stability and personal discipline through “governing the self” as the foundation for effective participation in social life and the governance of the state
I focus on the question of the possibility of self-cultivation in Guo Xiang, which appears problematic for him given his deterministic, naturalistic metaphysical world-view, and suggest that Guo’s account of self-attainment and the relation between practice (xi 習) and inherent nature, along with his re-interpretation of the critique of technical action in the Zhuangzi, offer a possible response to this issue
Guo Xiang’s conception of self-cultivation through spontaneous self-attainment still seems to correspond to some degree with the criticism of external “techniques” of cultivation found in the Zhuangzi itself as discussed by Roth, Kirkland and Møllgaard, in which all forms of technical instructions which aim at the “completion” of specific goals or practices need to be
Summary
In the main Chinese philosophical and religious traditions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, self-cultivation (xiuji 修己 or xiushen 修身) is an issue of central importance, with the former two traditions in particular emphasizing the attainment of individual psychological stability and personal discipline through “governing the self” (zhishen 治身) as the foundation for effective participation in social life and the governance of the state (zhiguo 治國). While for early Confucianism, such self-cultivation typically focused on ‘external’ aspects such as acquiring the familiarity with classic literature such as the Poetry (shi 詩) that was the mark of a cultured person and becoming proficient in the traditional rites (li 禮) that governed personal and social conduct, in pre-Qin Daoist texts such as the Laozi 老子 and Zhuangzi 莊子 it tended to focus more on what is referred to in the Guanzi 管子 as “inward training” (neiye 內業) and “techniques of the mind” (xinshu 心術), i.e., ‘internal’ spiritual and mental cultivation through psycho-somatic practices (Roth 2015). I focus on the question of the possibility of self-cultivation in Guo Xiang, which appears problematic for him given his deterministic, naturalistic metaphysical world-view, and suggest that Guo’s account of self-attainment (zide 自得) and the relation between practice (xi 習) and inherent nature (xing 性), along with his re-interpretation of the critique of technical action in the Zhuangzi, offer a possible response to this issue. I argue that since in Guo’s view, artificial practices and techniques are not necessarily opposed to natural spontaneity, but are ideally complementary to it and constitute inseparable aspects of a single plane of nature encompassing both spontaneity and artifice, so his emphasis on spontaneity need not imply a rejection of practices of self-cultivation, a view at odds with certain views found in the original Zhuangzi text on which he comments
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