Xin As The Seat of The Emotions in Confucian Self-Cultivation
Xin As The Seat of The Emotions in Confucian Self-Cultivation
Xin As The Seat of The Emotions in Confucian Self-Cultivation
SELF-CULTIVATION
ANDREW H. PLAKS
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
The aim of this essay is to reconsider the use of the term xin ᖗ, in
early Chinese sources to signify the seat of the emotional faculties of
the inner self, as this relates to the broader Confucian notion of self-
cultivation. This study will focus upon the canonic conceptions formu-
lated in the Four Books, especially in key passages in the Daxue, the
Zhongyong, and the book of Mencius, as well as in the Xunzi and
certain other Warring States and Early Han texts. I will argue that
what is conventionally translated as the ‘heart’ or the ‘mind’, in its
double role as the locus of both the emotional and the cognitive men-
tal functions, occupies the middle ground between the deeper layers of
interior selfhood, on the one side, and the interface of the inner self
with its surrounding natural and human environment, on the other.
This position as an intermediary zone bridging the interior and exte-
rior dimensions of consciousness may seem at first glance to present a
rather unproblematic picture of the human heart. But in a variety of
classical Confucian texts, the imperative of cultivating or ‘regulating’
the thinking and feeling core of the self remains profoundly ambigu-
ous–particularly with respect to the question of whether the emotional
responses need to be refined and brought to fulfillment, or they must
be contained and held in check.
Before we proceed to an analysis of certain crucial passages in the
relevant sources that bear upon this issue, it may be helpful to review
the broader semantic range covered by the term xin in a variety of
early Chinese classical and philosophical writings. My survey has
been facilitated by using Christoph Harbsmeier’s Elementary Exer-
cises in Ancient Chinese Conceptual History No. 1 (‘The Ancient
Chinese Concept of the Heart’) as a point of departure.1 We observe
that in a large portion of these usages, the term is extended from its
8 Zhongyong, p. 20.
9 Mengzi yizhu, p. 189.
10 Mengzi yizhu, p. 197.
120 ANDREW H. PLAKS
What are the basic human emotions? They are seven in number: joy,
wrath, grief, fear, love, abhorrence and desire. ... Thus desire and abhor-
rence constitute the principal points of inception for the workings of the
heart ... Should one wish to penetrate these feelings in a consistent
manner, failing the expressive medium of ritual what other means does
one have to do so?
ԩ䃖ҎᚙΨ୰ᗦઔ័ᛯᚵ℆Τϗ㗙…ᬙ℆ᚵ㗙ᖗПッгʿʳ…ʳ℆ϔ
ҹもПΤ㟡⾂ԩҹઝΩ19
in which the essential function of ritual is understood both as a set of
normative structures for containing unruly behavior and as a mode of
expression for refining and bringing to fulfillment the emotional con-
tent of human experience.
REFERENCES
Chunqiu fanlu yizheng ⾟㐕䴆㕽䄝, comp. Su Yu 㯛㟜, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
1992.
Daxue ᅌ, in Sishu jizhu ಯ䲚⊼, Taipei: Shijie shuju, 1968.
Harbsmeier, Christoph, Elementary Exercises in Ancient Chinese Conceptual History,
No. 1, unpublished manuscript.
Liji zhengyi ⾂㿬ℷ㕽, in Shisanjing zhushu कϝ㍧⊼⭣, comp. Ruan Yuan 䰂ܗΤ
rpt. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979.
Lunyu yizhu 䂪䁲䅃⊼, comp. Yang Bojun ԃዏ, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980.
Mengzi yizhu ᄳᄤ䅃⊼, comp. Yang Bojun ԃዏ, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1990.
Shangshu zhengyi ᇮℷ㕽, in Shisanjing zhushu कϝ㍧⊼⭣, comp. Ruan Yuan 䰂
ܗ, rpt. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979.
Xunzi jijie 㤔ᄤ䲚㾷, comp. Wang Xianqian ⥟ܜ䃭, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1988.
Zhongyong Ёᒌ, in Sishu jizhu ಯ䲚⊼, Taipei, Shijie shuju, 1968.