The Research On "Highest Happiness" Thought Of Pre-qin Daoism

"Tao" is the highest category of Taoism,but the purpose of attaining Tao is not limited to understanding and grasping the objective world,but through the spiritual cultivation of eliminating fame,wealth and desire to obtain happiness.Taoism is not the pursuit of vulgar happiness,but the true happiness and highest happiness which is beyond the secular happiness,therefore,highest happiness is the true purpose of Taoism.Cosmology.The researchers have not done systematic research on "Highest Happiness",and even some scholars have put forward the idea that "happiness is not an ancient philosophical concept".Therefore,it is necessary to do a comprehensive study on the connotation,value and the prerequisites,methods and manifestations of"Higheat Happiness".In general,all happiness is obtained by the desire to be satisfied,with the mechanism of the surface-substance structure.Taoist happiness is divided into three types:vulgar happiness,true happiness and the highest happiness.Among them,the vulgar happiness is caused by the material desire to be satisfied,the true happiness is caused by the internal spiritual desire to be satisfied,and the highest happiness is achieved by excluding all the desire.This presents a paradox:the prerequisite of happiness is satisfaction of desire,but the highest happiness is based on "no desire".In fact,the "no desire" is just a representation,because Taoist well aware that desire is the common cause of pain and happiness.So the "no desire" aims to sublimate the ideological realm through spiritual cultivation.The sublimating process is divided into three steps:first,the low level of material desire to rise to a higher level of spiritual desire;then beyond the spirit desire which constraints persons to "no desire"level;the last is "no desire" Itself is completely forgotten.After such step-by-step exclusion,when all the desire to be eradicated,all the pain of life will be resolved and the realm without happiness and pain will be coming.Therefore,the highest happiness is the real pursuit and the ultimate goal of Taoism,and the true happiness is the whole process of distracting desire and achieving the true happiness.The highest happiness in real life can’t be fully achieved,and true happiness is the real embodiment of the highest happiness.Tao(that is "law")and Qi(that is "matter")are the philosophical basis of the highest happiness,the theory of nature is the basis of the existence of the highest happiness,and the theory of human nature reversion is the basis for the realization of the highest happiness.There are another two prerequisites:the external environment and the internal conditions.The external environment is the basic guarantee to achieving the highest happiness,in which the quiet natural environment is not only the survival of the human being but also the object of spiritual empathy,which is conducive to the pursuit of true happiness.The social environment is a dual-Edge sword,often hinder people to perceive true happiness,but the true happiness must be obtained in the community.Intrinsic motivation is the fundamental motive to show,among which the three factors of talent,ambition and study are working together.The talent decides the total "material”that motivation can use.Taoism believes that ambition and talent are not proportional,even appear this situation:the vulgar talent higher,the more painful in life.The ambition is proportional to happiness,but inversely proportional to the difficulty of achieving happiness.Cognition and self-cultivation are two types of learning:the object of cognition is foreign object,the activity of cognition is to obtain the benefit of material;the object of self-cultivation is oneself,emphasizing the idea and state of mind by changing the cognition of the outside with the purpose of "Self-improvement".Taoism raised that it must transcend the cognitive learning to self-cultivation of learning in order to obtain real talent,foster ambition,leading to the highest happiness.Taoism proposed a unique way to achieve the highest happiness.The first is"obey the fate".This view is often regards as a kind of abandonment of human being and loss of will by scholars.In fact,the purpose of "obey the fate" is to deal with the helplessness by adjusting the mentality,so as to keep the inner peace and stability.It is worth emphasizing that "obey the fate" takes the pursuit of Tao as a firm belief and inner support,and contains the self-confidence and strength of "sage brave" and"independent happiness".Followed by "Qi wu".Zhuangzi borrowed some reasonable elements in epistemology to construct the "Qi wu",but we can’t regard the "Qi Wu" as epistemology,but rather as the spiritual cultivation method of soothing the pain.Accordingly,Taoism proposed to eliminate "Cheng-xin",but "Cheng-xin" has a positive role in understanding.The true purpose of eliminate "Cheng-xin" is to eliminate the suffering as much as possible.Finally,"no knowledge" and "no emotion".It should be noted that the meaning of "no knowledge" is to exclude vulgar knowledge,to obtain true knowledge,and "no emotion" is to eliminate the emotional turmoil on people’s destruction.In fact,"no emotion n is the ideal state which can’t be really achieved even the Taoist character itself.True happiness is gradually to get rid of the dependence of outside objects,continue to show the process of the highest happiness,so the true happiness can only be expressed in the human inner spiritual world,and can’t be judged from the external activities of people.On the performance of true happiness can be described as follows:the individual can consciously reduce the desire and make themselves escaping from the cage of fame and wealth,pain in life and fear of death can not pose a threat to them,person is good at the use of "comparative way",that is,comparing with who owns less wealth than himself and comparing with who owns higher spiritual realm than himself;in the society,the entire legal system is to maintain the people’s quiet,the system which stimulates desire and struggle should be canceled.In detail,the criminal law system should be gradually reduced,the essence of etiquette should be highlighted and its form should be ignored,the level of benevolence should be enhanced,the false benevolence should be replaced by true one.How to keep true happiness in the cruel reality is also involved.Taoism puts forward some special methods,such as the "blind obedience" method which ignores the outside world,"forget oneself" method which forgets one’s body,"no regret" method which cuts off the current from the past and the "stick with oneself" method which insists on the loneliness of the heart.All these methods are full of desolation and helplessness,but they can make people gain the precious spiritual consolation and the power to deal with the crisis in the extreme period.