Research On Liu Zongyuan’s Way To Mean Thought

Liu Zongyuan (AD 773-819) was an outstanding thinker, statesman andwriter in China in the middle of Tang Dynasty. In this period, the socialcontradictions were serious, and Confucianism faced enormous challenges andpotentially tremendous changes. As an highly representative of the ideologicalcharacter of the mid-Tang period, Liu Zongyuan was concerned about reality andpeople’s living, and then put forward his“way to mean”thought. This articleseeks to find out the overall structure and connotation and denotation of the“wayto mean”, from each chapter works of Liu Zongyuan, and analyzes their causes,summarizes characteristics of the thinking, expecting a certain significance onmodern society.This article is divided into four parts:The first part is an introduction. The Introduction section introduces theresearch background and significance, the relevant theoretical results and thecurrent research situations, and also the main innovation and related structures.The second part is mainly found the momentum of“way to mean”by a briefdescription of Liu Zongyuan’s life background and his life experience. It falls intotwo parts: Confucianism ambition is mainly due to his inherent sense of urgencyand the purpose of statecraft principle outside. This will help us understand theidea of "way to mean" properly and to seize its fundamental features.The third part is the main part of this article. It focuses on the fundamentalthought of“way to mean”，including“rigidity and flexibility”as themethodology and“benevolent thought and people-based thought”as its essentialcontent . On the basis of absorption of the traditional Confucian concept, heproposes the concept“proper”, in the pursuit of a union of rigidity and flexibility.He focuses on " flexibility " thinking, which reflects its critical and innovativefeatures; on the other hand, he emphasizes the combination of benevolent government thought and people-based thought on the basis of respect for people’sopinion, which includes four parts: ruling by people of virtue, officials employedby people, policy of benevolence , serving the people and people servingthemselves.Part IV is about the features of "way to mean" thinking. Clarify the featureof Subjectiveand innovative by the analysis of its criticism and inheritance. Makeclear the relationship between Buddhism and Taoism and his thoughts to knowsimultaneously receipt characteristics. They all lead to statecraft principle. Finally,briefly introduce the present and future significance of the statecraft spirit andbenevolent government thought and people-based thought.