On The Ideal Personality Of The Book Of Changes

The Book of Changes is named "the Leader of all Classics", "the Originality of the great Tao", which is the live source of Chinese traditional culture and philosophy, whose position and influence is incomparable in Chinese traditional philosophy. In Chinese traditional philosophy, the theory on the ideal personality is extremely rich, and the ideal personality in the Book of Changes is representative to some extent.The ontological basis of construction of its ideal personality is "That which is above shapes is called Tao", which is developed from Taoism's outlook that Tao is nature; its methodological basis is the Rule of Changes of Yin and Yang, which is abundant of dialectics. Finally, the Appendices to the Book of Changes established the proposition of reunification of Heaven, Earth and Human, which reflected the style of ideal personality of following Heaven and Earth, Heaven and Human, two combining into one, demonstrated human's subjective initiative.The main personality roles mentioned in the Book of Changes are small man, great man, gentleman and sage. The ideal personality roles are gentleman and sage. Gentleman is the low level of ideal personality, is realistic to some extent. Yuan, Heng, Li, Zhen, which is benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, which are the most fundamental characteristics of a gentleman. And his total cultivation are appropriation modest, self-improvement, and wisdom. Sage with some transcendence is the high level of ideal personality. Great virtue and contribution, combining into one with Heaven are the characteristics of sage; following Heaven and improving the ability to understand are his behavior.Compared to the theory of moral personality that excludes the natural basis of personality, from the low-level gentleman to the high-level sage, following nature, learning the spirit of the universe is the main characteristics of the ideal personality of the Book of Changes. There have been some mistakes of divorcing from human's essential characteristics and neglecting the security of personality. Its superb theory that defining personality from the relation between Heaven and Human and protecting personality with morality, is a great referable significance to reconstruct the personality in contemporary society.