feelings
of Cheng Yi
7
Feelings are problem for the Neo-Confucian, Cheng Yi. In his view, these seven feelings have the power to corrupt people’s original purity if allowed free rein. Even though human nature starts off pure, the social world that we inhabit corrupts it. The task we all face, therefore, is the endless struggle of protecting this tender shoot of goodness from the onslaught of life at large. This list of seven feelings is an interesting departure from notions more familiar to the Western reader, such as the Seven Deadly Sins. Cheng Yi’s seven feelings include ideas such as love and pleasure, which for Cheng Yi are as much danger as hatred and anger.
7
feelings
of Cheng Yi
Feelings are problem for the Neo-Confucian, Cheng Yi. In his view, these seven feelings have the power to corrupt people’s original purity if allowed free rein. Even though human nature starts off pure, the social world that we inhabit corrupts it. The task we all face, therefore, is the endless struggle of protecting this tender shoot of goodness from the onslaught of life at large. This list of seven feelings is an interesting departure from notions more familiar to the Western reader, such as the Seven Deadly Sins. Cheng Yi’s seven feelings include ideas such as love and pleasure, which for Cheng Yi are as much danger as hatred and anger.
CULTURAL NOTE
Cheng Yi is one half of a dynamic duo known as ‘the two Chengs’, brothers who were instrumental in ushering in the Neo-Confucian movement. Cheng Yi was reportedly a far more difficult character than his warm and generous older brother and an anecdote is told of the brothers entering a hall with a crowd of followers. As they took positions at opposite ends of the hall, Cheng Yi found he was standing on his own while the crowd flocked around Cheng Hao. Still, as a philosopher and teacher, Cheng Yi inspired devotion. An episode that has become proverbial is two of his disciples standing in the snow for hours so as not to disturb their master’s sleep: 程門立雪 chéngménlìxuě (‘standing in the snow before the gate of Cheng’).
喜
xĭ
pleasure
怒
nù
anger
哀
aī
sorrow
樂
lè
joy
愛
aì
love
惡
wù
hate
欲
yù
desire
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The Four Books of Zhu Xi
The new thoughts of Neo-Confucianism (or restored thoughts, depending on point of view) required a new canon. Zhu Xi was instrumental in defining the direction of Confucian orthodoxy and the required reading for centuries to come.
