Page 80 - 2022(1) International Confusion Studies

“Self-Cultivation as the Root of All” 73

focus shifts after the statement on “regulating one’s family.” Before it, the focus is
on self-cultivation; after it the focus shifts to social and political matters.
Zhu Xi’s second statement explains how “self-cultivation” relates to other
parts of the “eight principles.”“Studying things to acquire knowledge, being
sincere in thought and rectifying one’s heart” all fall into the category of an in-
dividual’s moral cultivation, while “regulating one’s family affairs, governing the
state well, and ensuring peace to all under heaven” shift into practical action
outside the individual and into a renewing of all people within a social and po-
litical framework. Moral cultivation thus moves from action within the individual
and self to a relationship between the individual and others. Similar to the
explanation of the “three cardinal guides” to the “eight essential principles,” this
moral practice aims to abolish what is old and establish in its place a new order of
things. However, here self-cultivation now is no longer a personal matter but a
sociopolitical process in which one has to extend personal feelings to others. Zhu
Xi also says: “To renew the people is to make them get rid of old ways of thinking.
One has to extend his own feelings to others to make them get rid of such old ways
of thinking.” (Zhu, 1983, p. 3) In this process, members of society influence each
other, thus showing the key role self-cultivation plays in transforming individual
moral cultivation into political action by “renewing the people.” Thus it serves as a
link between “studying things to acquire knowledge, being sincere in thought, and
rectifying one’s heart” and the “family-state-all under heaven” discourse in the
“eight principles.”
Although improving individual “self-cultivation” is a major content of these
Confucian principles, it is, however, not given substantive discussion in The Great
Learning. Xunzi (荀子 313 B.C.E.–238 B.C.E.), an early Confucian scholar, did deal
with it in a relatively systematic way in his own writings. Later, the Neo-Confucian
philosophers of the Song and Ming dynasties all discussed the relationship be-
tween body and heart in great depth.
According to Xunzi, self-cultivation is based on the quality of goodness. He
pointed out that good actions and bad nature must be differentiated, and that self-
cultivation is what determines the boundaries between them. By adopting good-
ness to guide individual self-cultivation, a person can draw the line between good
and evil. In Xunzi’s view, to cultivate oneself socially implies complying with
social norms, namely rites (礼), and doing so means complying with moral rules in
all things. Self-control is necessary to combat immorality, remain persistent and
dauntless in the face of adversity, and follow the rites always and everywhere. This
will make things smooth and easy, the reverse will lead to coarseness and vul-
garity. This is because rites are rules for survival, for handling affairs, and for
governing the state. That is why in this context, self-cultivation is the basis of the
“eight essential principles” and has a direct influence on the self, the family, and