righteous chi

A recent sharing I had with my weekly meditation group: 

Zhuangzi was a wild, Diogenes-like, "don't block my sun" kind of philosopher born 370 BC. His writings, along with the Tao-Te-Ching by Laozi, form the foundation of Taoism philosophy of ancient China.

One story in his writings goes like this:

One day Zhuangzi was taking a stroll with his friend Huizi. As they stepped onto a bridge and stopped, watching the fish swimming down below, Zhuangzi commented, "See how happy those fish are!"

Huizi, a quick witted philosopher of different sort who liked to challenge Zhuangzi's, said, "How do you know they are happy since you are not a fish?"

To that, Zhuangzi replied: "How do you know I don't know they are happy since you are not me?"

Then he added: "I know they are happy from where I stand!"

I think he means to praise the universal joy he senses and shares with the being down below.

The Confucianism has been the dominating philosophy in Chinese culture since about 2000 years ago, when the emperors of China decided they liked the way it teaches people to respect the family, the social orders, the authority, and the emperors themselves ("Obey your emperor even when he is in the wrong") and promoted it through education and political/bureaucratic system.  

Ostensibly, Confucianism has never become a religion in form or spirit, but gradually and inwardly, traceable starting some 950 years ago, some great "gentleman-scholars", or I may borrow the word "gnostics" here, in a good way, who not only were well versed with Confucian philosophy, but also extended his humanistic thinking to include the harmonious co-existence of all things in the universe: "All people my fellows, all things my kind" (民胞物與); "Heaven and Man are one" (天人合一), they'd say.

So, for example, one article we were taught in high school was by a famous "ethnic hero" who was a learned man who picked up arms and led the national army to fight the invading Mongols and failed and got imprisoned for years but refused to surrender and finally got executed by the admiring Mongols. The article started like this:

"A righteous spirit (chi) exists in heaven and earth, appearing in various forms. Below it forms rivers and mountains, above it forms sun and stars. Grand in a man, exuberant in the universe..." (天地有正氣，雜然賦流形。下則為河岳，上則為日星。於人曰浩然，沛乎塞蒼冥...)

He died for/with such "chi", I believe, way beyond the superficial Han people vs the barbarian Mongols thing the traditional teaching may want us to believe.

A few hundred years later, another gentleman-scholar/gnostic made that spiritual and mystical aspect of neo-Confucianism even clearer. Long story short, this great guy's aha moment came when he realized "all the meaning of the universe resides in your heart;" (心即是理) and "if you really 'know' something, you are actually doing it already." (即知即行)

And "the innate state of the heart has no good nor bad; good and bad only comes when the intent comes..." (無善無惡心之體，有善有惡意之動...)

That I think is pretty consistent with Christian contemplative thinking if we substitute "the innate state of the heart is good" for "the innate state of the heart has no good nor bad" since the Bible says all things were good when God created the world... But, what the heck, call it "good", or "indescribable", I am good (pun intended) with either term!