Basing On "Thing" ("Wu") To Pursue The Consolation Of Heart-A Study Of Zhuangzi Philosophy In The View Of "Thing"

"The freedom of spirit" is the essential feature and the most brilliant part of the philosophy of Zhuangzi. But in Chinese philosophy tradition, "how to do" is more important than "what it is" and the core of Zhuangzi philosophy is not "what is the freedom of spirit" but "how to obtain the freedom of spirit". "Basing on 'thing' ('wu') to pursue the consolation of heart" implies that the concept of "thing" is an important foundation on the way to "the freedom of spirit". In my opinion, Zhuangzi's freedom of spirit and his conversion of heart mean that spirit and heart must be out of the "thing".In Zhuangzi philosophy, "thing" has four connotations: the natural things, the social things, the thoughts of human, the life and physiology of human.The "thing" of Zhuangzi philosophy also has four features: Various, Self-satisfied, Changing, Exterior. "Various" refers to the entity of "thing", "Self-satisfied" refers to the individual of "thing", "Changing" refers to the "Tao" and "Exterior" refers to "human being".In Zhuangzi philosophy, "thing" has undoubted meaning and value to human being. First, we survive in the "thing" and can not escape from it, that is to say, "thing" is the background of human life. Second, our wisdom can't transcend the scope of "thing". It is the ultimate reliance of our knowledge and we can only comprehend the natural and social things in the system of knowledge. Third, "thing" as the background of life and the ultimate reliance of our knowledge is very basic, but it is imperfect. In the perspective of Zhuangzi, the imperfect "thing" can view as the chance to transcend. Zhuangzi tried to exceed the limit of "thing" in order to acquire "the conversion of heart", so we can say that "thing" is the very opportunity.The purpose we emphasize the concept of "thing" is to understand the essence of Zhuangzi philosophy. There is no way to realize this purpose except for analyzing the relation between "thing" and "Tao", "Body", "Heart". The relations of "Thing and Tao", "Thing and Thing", "Thing and Body" and "Thing and Heart" are the perspectives which "thing" enlightens us.In Zhuangzi philosophy, we can say that "thing" is the most universal category, "Tao" is the most mysterious category, "Body" is the most basic category and "Heart" is the most essential category. In the perspective of "thing", the relations of "Thing and Tao", "Thing and Thing", "Thing and Body" and "Thing and Heart" are contradictories: "thing" is different with Tao, opposes to other things, be hamiful to Body and confuses the Heart; But under the universal category of Tao, "thing" has the character of similarity, and we can realize the various, self-satisfied, changing and exterior features of "thing". From these, we can infer that the real relationships of "Thing and Tao", "Thing and Thing", "Thing and Body" and "Thing and Heart" are harmony. During the process of harmony, the freedom of spirit appears.In the process from the contradictory to harmony, the relation between "Thing and Tao" implies us with the universal methodology of "inspecting things with Tao". The relation between "Thing and Thing" tells us that we can't neglect the nature around us because it is the platform of our life. The relation between "Thing and Body" emphasizes that we can't live without our body so we must take care of it. The relation between "Thing and Heart" is the ultimate home of Zhuangzi philosophy, the transcendental feature of Heart calls for escaping from the harm of "Thing" to achieve the harmony between "Thing and Heart". We can take the the relation between "Thing and Tao" as the logic beginning of Zhuangzi philosophy, the relations between "Thing and Thing" and "Thing and Body" as the realistic ground, and the relation between "Thing and Heart" as the aim of freedom.