Page 81 - 2022(1) International Confusion Studies

74 J. Ren

the state. In short, self-cultivation fosters an upright personality, enables making
the choice between what is right and what is selfish, so as to realize the goal of
moral cultivation: “Righteousness triumphs over selfish desires.” (Lou, 2018, p. 30)
Self-cultivation means purifying the heart so as to have a sincere heart, and this
specific meaning is derived from the recursive process of “rectifying the heart and
being sincere in thought.” However, here the “self” need not be to expound the
illustrious virtue but ratherto put morals and ethics into practice. In other words, the
individual’s moral cultivation extends into the social and political spheres of
“regulating one’s family affairs,”“governing the state well” and finally to “ensuring
peace to all under heaven.” This is how the individuals endeavor to expound
illustrious virtue through “studying things to acquire knowledge, being sincere in
thought, and rectifying one’sheart.” In this way, self-cultivation is transformed into
attempts to renew the broader public in social and political spheres.
Wang Yangming (王阳明 1472–1529) discussed this succinctly. His “Clearness
of the Heart” theory is about ascertaining the true essence of morals through the
heart’s control of the body. He explained that the heart imparts meaning and value
to all things under heaven. The heart is the master of the body; through cognition,
the heart is also the light that illuminates the self as well as all things. Self-
cultivation here means to rectify the heart, namely an internal endeavor of the
individual to expound illustrious virtue.
The “self-cultivation” in the eight principles that links expounding illustrious
virtue by renewing the people is thus clearly about individuals cultivating them-
selves, not about relationships, or collective entities, even less about states.
However, there are problems here of bridging this gap between individual self-
cultivation and regulation of family affairs, good state governance, and peace to all
under heaven. On the one hand, according to “from the Son of Heaven down to the
broad population, all must consider the cultivation of the person as the root of
everything,” all need to work together, and yet there is no direct relationship
between them. Individuals already have great difficulty communicating with each
other, so converting self-cultivation into good state governance and peace to all
under heaven is a much greater challenge. That is why self-cultivation needs to rely
on the structures of the state in order to transform into governance and peace to all.
On the other hand, the Son of Heaven and the wider population both share the
same ultimate goal in their self-cultivation within the framework of the “eight
essential principles,” and must all examine themselves against the various ele-
ments listed in both the progressive and the recursive orders within the “princi-
ples” and the “cardinal guides.” They seem here to be on an equal footing, since
they can all make independent moral choices. In fact, this actually conceals their
different identities. Though they all share the same ultimate goals in terms of moral
and sociopolitical practice, their specific, concrete reasons are very different. The