The True Meaning Of To Set The Mind For Heaven And Earth

To Set the Mind for Heaven and Earth is the core of the Heng-ch'u Four-Sentences Teaching. Almost every Confucianist during every dynasty regards these sentences as their own aphorism. Though to set the mind for heaven and earth has been eulogized for thousands years, learners have forgotten its true meaning nowadays. If a Confucianist wants to set the mind for heaven and earth, the first problem he must face is that what is the mind of heaven and earth clearly. In ancient China heaven and earth is the same as Tian, these two concepts have a same meaning but different names, so the mind of heaven and earth is the same as the mind of Tian which is an important concept impressed Confucianists deeply during thousands of years. From ancient official files and talking notes and essays and letters, we can find mind of Tian which is used frequently. Especially, Fu from which we can find the mind of heaven and earth () is one of famous sentences about the mind of Tian. Its true meaning is that Tian has created everything and brought up everything in the world since the beginning of the cosmos from which we can find the love of Tian. Creating everything and bringing up everything is considered that Tian has a character of WuWei but it's also regarded as personal mind. In another word, the mind of Tian is a mind of supreme god which is a personal mind and which is ignored by today's learners for a long time. But to ancient Confucianists, the mind of Tian is a mind of supreme god that is confirmed. Such as the mind of Tian is moved and the mind of Tian is not happy and so on, we can find these sentences easily from ancient official files and talking notes and essays and letters, from which we can conclude that to ancient Confucianists the mind of Tian has its own personal mind. The object of this thesis is to search the true meaning of the mind of Tian of set the mind for heaven and earth. Only to know the meaning of the mind of Tian clearly, then we can understand what ancient Confucianists wanted to set truly and what is their holy idea actually.