Zhuangzi’s Philosophy of Life and Education of Life

• Main Authors: YANG CHIH HUI, 楊智惠
• Other Authors: Shyr Jau-Ying
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/3q9ty2

博士 === 中國文化大學 === 哲學系 === 104 === This thesis essays to argue that the essence of Zhuangzi’s Philosophy of Life is Xiaoyao(The Absolute Freedom) and that this philosophy can be practically applied to the Education of Life. In the beginning, with the realm of research concentrated on the Text of Zhuangzi, and the use of the traditional Chinese hermeneutics, our thesis proves via the free interpretation of Zhuxi upon Zhuangzi that the common misunderstanding of the philosophy of Zhuangzi as a kind of selfish escapism is unfounded. In contrast to such kind of misunderstanding, Zhuangzi has positive meaning in the achievement of individual freedom in the visages of Perfect Man, Spirit-like Man, and Sage, via the Dao of Laozi. Xiaoyao is not external determined, but inner freedom: acquiescence to the occasion and let nature take its course, in order to solve the natural difficulty of life and death; take what is doomed to be what is natural, in order to solve the social difficulty of conflicting public duty and private security; to settle the spiritual nature in tranquility, in order to solve the subjective difficulty of internal affection and desire, restoring the internal peace and harmony, further toward the heavenly peace and harmony. These self-cultivations fulfill the value and meaning of individual life, let individuals attain the harmony in nature and in human world, till he reaches to the absolute freedom beyond the internal and the external plight, arriving at the ideal realm of man: the Sage enjoys his freedom within heaven and earth; the Spirit-like Man enjoys his freedom beyond the world; the Perfect Man enjoys his freedom in the action of non-action. The philosophy of life for absolute freedom comes from the moral cultivation of non-action, with the spiritual freedom as its ideal. The Daoist vision of life emphasizes the inner original power of lifeexerting itsvitalityin the not-yet-formed non-teleological free action. As for education: spiritual education nourishes the vitality for the growth, accomplishment and fulfillment of life, avoiding the implementation of reward and punishment that damages the vitality, instead by non-action to restore them back to the source of life-Tao; the adaptive physical education to help each child to find her or his own spiritual endowment, allowing each unique life to fulfill, achieving heavenly peace and harmony in harmonious life; the environmental education to help them to use their own endowment to treat every sentient being without discrimination; the education of life and death to help them to face life and death as naturally equal; the Daoist moral education to let their nature develop freely without depression or pretension, but staying in the harmonious balance or degree zero; the crafts education that bring them to the direct experience of Dao through the concentration in bodily practice. All these are proper ways to respect the spiritual freedom of life, and none of these can work without the cultivation of non-action by the teachers. Only the non-action in education can let the free nature of each one involved in it blossom. the education of freedom of life not only raise individuals with their freedom, but on the foundation of that, it prepares for the modern democratic society the internal way of the sage and the external way of the kingship toward the truly equal and peaceful world.