A Comparative Study Of Mind Metaphors In Confucian,Buddhist And Taoist Documents

Mind metaphor,that is,metaphor with "mind" as its noumenon,is a common rhetorical phenomenon in the process of argumentation and interpretation of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism.The reasoners often make full use of the strange Association and the change of culture,and use the familiar and superficial things to clarify the abstract and unspeakable noumenon of "mind",which is convenient for people to understand and accept,so as to achieve the purpose of propaganda and education.From the perspective of rhetoric,based on the detailed analysis and statistics of the mind metaphor corpus in the representative mind literature of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism,this paper makes a comparative study of its ontology,body,words,interpretation and other elements and their forms.Among them,the connotation of noumenon "mind" is broad and profound,profound and mysterious.Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism also have different opinions on its understanding and interpretation,and they all understand and read the "body" and "use" of mind,the mind and the transcendent mind from the psychological,ethical and moral levels.The main difference lies in: Confucianism focuses on the "mind" as the moral subject of human beings becoming sages,Buddhism regards it as the entity of consciousness and liberation of all living beings,and Taoism is the subject of cultivating truth and enlightenment.The types of metaphor are rich and diverse,which can be roughly divided into 10 types,such as character type and body related type.It not only reflects the material civilization of different regional culture and living environment rooted in Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism,but also reflects the spiritual civilization of different verbal communication,logical thinking,religious mythology,customs and habits.Although the types,quantity and frequency of metaphors are different,their use and evolution path basically follows the development law of ancient Chinese,and can find the inheritance and evolution of metaphors used by people in daily verbal communication in the context of modern Chinese.Metaphorical interpretation includes more than 20 pairs of dialectical relations,such as "clean and dirty","bright and dark","settled and disorderd",etc.As for the "positive and negative" or "one to many" and "many to one" mapping phenomenon between metaphor and interpretation in Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism literature,we can combine the "two handle multilateral" view put forward by Mr.Qian Zhongshu to give a perfect solutionAccording to the looming situation of the elements of metaphor,the forms of simile in the literature of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism mainly include simile,metaphor,alternative metaphor,metonymy and sustained metaphor.Each has its own preference in specific application,which is closely related to different national thinking,cognitive tendency and the survival and communication of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism.In addition,this paper also analyzes the function and significance of "mind metaphor" from four aspects: cognition,expression,aesthetics and literature.It is believed that the three schools of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism have constructed their own values centered on ethics and morality by means of mind metaphor,which has exerted a subtle influence on Chinese thinking mode and enriched people’s life world and meaning world.In particular,the literary function of mind metaphor in promoting the creation and development of poetry is rare and even unique,which should attract the attention of relevant scholars.Today in the 21 st century,it is not only of great significance for people to fully explore and highlight the contemporary value of Chinese philosophy of mind supported by Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism,but also to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism,the theory of figurative rhetoric,and the development of poetics.It is not only of great significance for enlightenment,but also a "new way" and "shortcut".