A Study On Cheng Xuanying’s Thought Of Chong-xuan

From the Six Dynasties to Sui and Tang Dynasties, the teaching system anddoctrine Medieval Daoism had undergone great changes owing to the changes of thesocial structure and political system. What’s more, the Buddhism also had a hugeimpact on them. At this time, Taoist scholars began to put their interest in Taoist theoryinstead of technology. That means the scholars paid more attention to the building ofTaoist Doctrine than the practice of Taoist technology. From then on, there was a rise ofthe study of chong-xuan. At present, there are still some different views about whocreated the study of chong-xuan and when they created it in academic circles. Butalmost all the researchers agree that the study of chong-xuan doesn’t have a completetheory system until Cheng Xuanying improved it.The academic circles have achieved fruitful results about the study of ChengXuanying’s study of chong-xuan and they seem to have the same point of view onCheng Xuanying’s thoughts, especially when it comes to his two posthumous works:Subcommentary on Tao Te Ching and Subcommentary on Chuang Tuz. They claim tohave an agreement on which book is more important than the other and which one canrepresent his thoughts. However, in my opinion, their views just look alike. In fact, theirknowledge is not necessarily appropriate and there are still some questions to bediscussed. This thesis, as a special paper of the study of Cheng Xuanying’s thoughts, isfocused on that problem to express my own shallow insight. I also hope this paper caninvite better opinions in this academy field.Although Cheng Xuanying was a prolific writer and he wrote many books, most ofthem are missing. Only Subcommentary on Tao Te Ching and Subcommentary onChuang Tuz are complete and visible nowadays. Thus, these two books have becomethe main historical material on the study of Cheng Xuanying. But the previous research results show that the researchers have a generaltendency or a mainstream point of view that Subcommentary on Chuang Tuz is hismasterpiece which has a concentrated reflection of the study of chong-xuan. And thisview which is probably caused by first impression seems like unalterable principles. Fora long time, nobody doubts the legitimacy, therefore, Subcommentary on Tao Te Chingis looked down as if it doesn’t have any importance in Cheng Xuanying’s system. Myview is different from it, I think Subcommentary on Tao Te Ching can represent thethoughts of Cheng Xuanying’s instead of Subcommentary on Chuang Tuz.This paper which is based on absorbing the academic achievements, is focused onthe demonstration of such a view that Subcommentary on Tao Te Ching is the Taoism’stype of scholastic philosophy which has systematically established the study ofchong-xuan. The main aspects of Cheng Xuanying’s study of chong-xuan, includingsystems of chong-xuan, Tao and mind, are reflected in this book. Subcommentary onChuang Tuz only reflects the secondary aspect of his ideological system.The main part of this paper is the second part，it discussed the philosophy ofSubcommentary on Tao Te Ching， mainly including the thought of chong-xuan, Taoand mind. These three parts are what the Subcommentary on Chuang Tuz is shortfor, but they constitute the main part of the study of chong-xuan. In this part, firstly weanalyzed the meaning of chong-xuan and explain its significance in ontology andepistemology. And then we briefly compared the difference between the study ofchong-xuan and Three-Treetise. Secondly, we analyzed the content of body theory andrevealed the meaning of essence and trace, and then analyzed the relationship betweenTao, Li and Qi, and discussed if things are existing by themselves or by Tao. Finally wediscriminated the core content of the mind–the way of changing acquired mind(including worries and lust) to real mind.Based on the above, the third part of this paper investigated the theory of the natureof matter which Subcommentary on Tao Te Ching doesn’t have according toSubcommentary on Chuang Tuz. The theory of the nature of matter holds the opinionthat even though this idea and Guoxiang’s thought of the given nature have similarmeaning in the concept.，the former is not the simple copy of the latter. Cheng Xuanying’s thought of nature of matter is the integrated innovation results ofChuang-tzu’s thoughts of xiao-yao and qi-wu, and Guoxiang’s thoughts of self—transformation and the given nature.The conclusion of this paper is that if the theory system of Xuanying Cheng ismainly composed of the thought of chong-xuan, Tao, mind and nature. ThenSubcommentary on Tao Te Ching is supposed to be the masterpiece of Cheng Xuanyingin the study of chong-xuan, judging from the thoughts showed above which are raisedby the two books.