Harmony Of Body And Mind

Zun Sheng Ba Jian(Notes on Keeping Fit in Eight Pamphlets),compiled by Gao Lian,a famous opera writers and collector in the Ming Dynasty,was printed in Wanli nineteen years(1591).Based on the theme of Zun Sheng(Keeping Fit),this book included nineteen volumes,and according to the content of the different focus,those volumes were summarized as eight notes.This book had a huge system,and related to literati life in the Ming Dynasty in all aspects,so it was a far-reaching cultural masterpiece.In the traditional culture,the function of Zun Sheng Ba Jian was actually leisure and recreation,and its goal was keeping fit in the body and mind,and as a literati work,this book was full of aesthetic feeling in its writing and thinking.However,in the modern academic context,Zun Sheng Ba Jian was earlier and more studied as a traditional Chinese medicine or health work.But the traditional literati life was not equivalent to the modern sense of health,and the aesthetic meaning of the literati in original book was difficult to be fully clarified by the study of health.Since 2000,Zun Sheng Ba Jian has aroused the concern of aesthetic researchers,especially Taiwan scholars.However,the current aesthetic research on Zun Sheng Ba Jian was limited by the Western aesthetic tradition.In other words,these studies tended to proceed from the artistic category,and only picked up the contents about the art from the whole book,so they were often one-sided discussion.In view of that,the author tried to study the whole system of Zun Sheng Ba Jian and its complete aesthetic form.Taking into account the traditional style of the book and the development of contemporary aesthetics,this paper chose the perspective of the leisure aesthetics to carry out this research.At the beginning of this article,the author examined Gao Lian's life and the whole book system,and analyzed the influence of Gao Lian's life on Zun Sheng Ba Jian,and clarified the architecture of the book which was based on Shen(the unity of body and mind)and constructed by the form of program-practice-ideal.Exactly,this architecture of the book was in accordance with the system of Bent Ti-Gong Fu-Jing Jie,as the Chinese discourse and theoretical system in the study of the aesthetics and leisure based on the physical and mental experience.Therefore,this article could study the whole Zun Sheng Ba Jian comprehensively,systematically and consistently from the perspective of the leisure aesthetics.Zhi,meaning Ge De Qi Fen(each performs its own nature),is the Ben Ti(the original Being of life,or ontology)of the leisure aesthetics.As for Zun Sheng Ba Jian,its Ben Ti was the unity of the body and mind,which was the basis of Yang Sheng(health preserving),so Zhi was reflected as the body and mind both performing their own nature and keeping just right in the book,and it was expressed by Xing Shen He Yi(harmonization between soma and spirit)as the core view of the Qing Xiu Miao Lun Jian.Xing Shen He Yi illustrated triple Ben Ti meaning:Jing Qi(vital essence)was the source,Xin Shen(mind)should be peaceful and Xing(body)should be healthy.Respectively,the triple meaning was in accordance with three aspects of Gong Fu(life practice)in Zun Sheng Ba Jian:Xing Qi(breathe conditioning,or pranayama),Xian Shang(leisurely appreciation and travel),and Yang Xing(maintenance of the body to prevent disease).From the point of actual implementation,the three aspects could be classified as two categories of Gong Fu:Xing Qi and Yang Xing in body,and Xian Shang in mind(Xin in Chinese philosophy).They were the Gong Fu of the leisure aesthetics which distributed in the six notes in the middle of the book,including massage,breathe adjustment,diet,sex,living and resting,antique appreciation,four seasons travel,floriculture and burning incense and so on,which has together built a life picture filled with leisure and aesthetic feeling of late Ming literati.Chen Wai Xia Ju Jian,as the the last note of the book,showed that the Jing Jie(ideal life realm)of the book was Chen Wai Goo Yin(hidden outside secular world).However,based on its Ben Ti and Gong Fu of leisure aesthetics,the actual realization of the leisure aesthetic Jing Jie in the book was Shen Yin(hidden in Shen,or hidden in body and mind),which was generated from the secular world,and in which the naturally self-contained Shen(the unity of body and mind)was the basis and purpose.So,enjoying delicate and rich body senses and cruising in the free aesthetic time and space out of secular pressure,the aesthetic subject got the fun and meaning of Yin(hidden).In a nutshell,the whole leisure and aesthetic system of Zun Sheng Ba Jian regard Shen as its Zhi:the unity of body and mind was the Ben Ti of the leisure life and aesthetic experience,and was the fundamental evidence of various Gong Fu of the leisure aesthetics,and was the space that generated leisure aesthetic realm.Therefore,the final conclusion of this paper is:in terms of surface meaning the original content expressed directly,Zun Sheng Ba Jian was a leisure life encyclopedia that based on Zun Sheng(Keeping Fit)of the late Ming literati,but from the perspective of contemporary academic research,it was actually a leisure aesthetic system which based on the Ben Ti of Shen.So the leisure aesthetic system of Zun Sheng Ba Jian,which based on the traditional Chinese concept of body and mind,and basically incorporated aesthetics and Zun Sheng,and covered almost all aspects of traditional Chinese literati life,would inspire us to interpret the profound Chinese classical culture from the perspective of contemporary aesthetics.