A Research On Fan Zhong-Yan's Thought Of Worry And Happiness

Fan Zhongyan's motto of "be the first to bear hardships and the last to enjoy themselves" is widely known. This paper will analysis Fan Zhongyan's thought of worry and happiness.The spirit “be the first to bear hardships and the last to enjoy themselves” run through Fan's words and deeds in his whole life. Not only appears frequently in his poems and essays, but also reflected in his political activities. This shows Fan Zhong-yan's actions were consistent with what he said. From the formation mechanism, Fan Zhongyan's thought of worry and happiness came out of special historical condition, In succession on the basis of Confucian traditional of worrying mentality, Fan absorbed and combined some Taoism and Buddhism, established thought of worry and happiness which has his own typical feature.Fan Zhongyan's worry is a gentleman's worry which concerned about his country and people, and his happiness is a kind of spiritual happiness. His thought of worry and happiness is extension and expansion of the core of Confucian thought“benevolence”. It gives expression to the idea of Taking the world as one's own duty","Scholars should aspire after and show interest in Tao" and "Extensive loving all things".The practice of “be the first to bear hardships and the last to enjoy themselves”is also the practice of Confucianism idea “internal saints and external kings”.Fan advocated the Confucian tradition of "Confucius and Hui's Cheerfulness" publicly, and took it as the theoretical premise of his thought of worry and happiness.This is the first time in Confucians of Song Dynasty. Fan shows the way of Mind-Nature Theory for the Construction of Neo-Confucianism. By doing this,Fan laid the historical position as a pioneer of Neo-Confucianism.