smoking and usage

bkadoctaj · #1 (**permalink**) 05-08-2008, 09:13 AM

Quote:

22 Truth (the path) has no form; it cannot be grasped or felt. To seek it in a bigoted and obstinate way in literary style or expression only, is far from correct. It may be compared to men discussing heaven. As a matter of fact, when have they ever seen heaven? They say that sun, moon, wind, and thunder are heaven. They cannot say that men, things, grass, and trees are not heaven, while the doctrine is heaven. When the individual once comprehends, what is there that is not truth? People for the most part think that their little corner of experience determines the limits of truth, and in consequence there is no uniformity in their discussions. If they realized that they need to seek within in order to understand the nature of the mind, there would be neither time nor place that would not be pregnant with truth. Since from ancient times to the very present it is without beginning and without end, in what way would there be any likenesses or differences in truth? The mind is itself truth and truth is heaven. He who knows the mind thereby knows both truth and heaven.
Sirs, if you would truly comprehend truth, you must recognize it from your own minds. It is of no avail to seek it in external things.

23 The nature of all men is good. The state of equilibrium and harmony is originally possessed by all men. How, then, can they be said not to have it? However, the mind of the usual man has things that becloud, and therefore, though nature is manifested at times, the condition is such that it is sometimes manifested and sometimes extinguished. It does not represent the functioning of the entire being. When a condition has been reached in which there is a continuous state of equilibrium, it is designated as the great root (great fundamental virtue). When a condition of continuous harmony has been acquired, it is designated as the universal way. Only when a condition of the most complete sincerity under heaven is reached, is it possible for the individual to establish himself in this great fundamental virtue of humanity.

24 Nature is the highest good. Nature is in its original condition devoid of all evil, and for this reason is called the highest good. To rest in the highest good implies returning to one's natural condition.

25 The ability to distinguish between right and wrong is common to all men, so that it avails nothing to seek them in external things. Investigation implies appreciation of that which one's own mind experiences. It will not do to go outside of the mind for this, as though there were additional possibility of understanding.

26 The human mind naturally finds pleasure in the principles of righteousness, just as the eyes take pleasure in color and the ears in sound. He alone who is obscured and embarrassed by passion does not at first take pleasure in these principles. If the individual daily expels passion, he will daily be more imbued with the principles of righteousness. How can he then do otherwise than take pleasure in them?

http://www.humanistictexts.org/wang.htm

Wang Yang-ming is a Neo-Confucian philosopher.

What do you think about his analysis of human nature being essentially good?