On The Life Of Propriety-music

The life of propriety-music is 'the eternal nostalgia' of Confucianism's, whose looking forward to and thinking for life of propriety-music means the aims and expectance of existence. The Book of Rites (Liji,礼记) , which is one of Five Classics ( Wujing,五经) , is very important for shaping the national soul and guiding the cultural spirit. In the history, most of researches on the Book of Rites paid more attentions on the forms of ceremony, not the life style or attitude of existence, which contained in it and will be studied here.In a sense, the Book of Rites could be regarded as the conscious reflection on 'the disintegration of ceremony' (Libengyuehuai,礼崩乐坏) . And this reflection points out that 'turning rites to music' is not only a kind of political cause, but also a kind of wish for the style of ceremonial existence, which could be discovered from the meaning of rites and music. There're three periods for the development of the meaning of rites and music, they are magnificence of rites and music (ceremony), emotion of rites and music (moral emotion), essence of rites and music (essence of existence) which has been interpreted in the Book of Rites. In the horizon of 'three debates' (Sanbian,三辩), rites and music play an important role in the debate of the relation between man and animal, Chinese and non-Chinese, gentleman and mean person. The life style of rites and music agrees to the ideal unity of the form and essence (culture and nature), reason and emotion, through revealing the difference of the kinds, the civilization and the level of existence. In addition, rites and music has become a symbol that displays the process of civilization of Chinese.Life of propriety-music is not the guideline of value, but also has the real basis. According to the description of rites, there is conclusion that the rites and music filled in the life of individual and common. And from the Book of Rites, we could say that life of propriety-music has its own ontological basis. First, the order of rites and the harmony of music is the constitutive factor of the world, in other words, the world has its characteristics of rites and music. Second, man is 'the heart of heaven' ( Tiandizhixin,天地之心) and in the unique position in the world. Only man can understand the spirit of rites and music, and then convey the spirit through turning rites to music. Third, there are innate relations between the rites and music and the virtue. In the interaction of rite and music, man, world, life of propriety-music receives the ontological assurance. Among the emphasis of the unity of rites and music, the core meaning in the Book of Rites is that world is the unity of order and harmony, man is the unity of body and heart.The thinking way displayed by life of propriety-music is different from what by the mental self-cultivation. The former requires a kind of practical activities to guide spiritual life. But also different from modern civilization which assures the order of existence with mandatory norms, life of propriety-music pays more attention on the improvement of the virtue of subjects. In this way, the unity of specific form of life and virtue of subjects becomes true.As matter of fact, the picture of ceremonial existence has already been criticized in Pre-Qin (Xian Qin,先秦) . In a word, the tendency that more attention paid to the essence is shared by schools of Taoists, Legalists and Mohists. There're two main points, although the specific contents they criticized are different. First, whether the actual effects of life of propriety-music are consistent with its goals? Second, is the rites and music based in our emotion and nature or outside the latter? There's no doubt that the unity of specific forms of life and the improvement of human's virtue which displayed in the life of propriety-music is one guiding thinking for the unity of life community and achievement of consensus.