The Study Of Guo Xiang’s Thought About "Xuan Ming"

"Xuan Ming", one of Guo Xiang’s philosophy thought, is a category that indicates a relation, under which objects or human bings are able to achieve a common, understandable and harmonious state, and the highest state of this harmonious relation is the syntonic philosophy in the case of perfectly realizing the nature of things.The rich thoughts and connotation of "Xuan Ming" consists of self-production, self-nature, self-development, self-transformation etc."Self-transformation", the symbolic concept of Guo Xiang’s philosophy, refers that everything exists with its own nature and contentedly takes its ease without any secular expectation. In other words, self-transformation is the self-realization of things. In the process of self-transformation, everything contentedly and supra-mundanely develops with its nature but cooperates with each other, trying to form the harmonious state of identity (or Xuan Tong) and interlink, which is the essence of Xuan Ming. Therefore, self-development of things is also the development of Ming. In a word,"Xuan Ming" means that everything in the universe harmoniously and identically interrelates with each other in the case of obeying its own nature. However, this identity doesn’t means changeless. It is a dynamic process, integrated to the change of all things.The key function of "Xuan Ming" is to serve people and society. Guo Xiang tried to illustrate a faith, by self-nature and self-development of things, that people and society should reach into the highest state of effortless effort through self-transformation. In the secular world, only can sages and kings achieve the state of identity. Therefore, sages need to work hard but be indifferent to fame and fortune to make the world harmonious, namely,"Xuan Ming" state which is also the ideal society prospect of Guo Xiang. He expected a judicious king to administer a country in the way of quietism with his nature, so that officials and people can do utmost to live with conscience, to perform their own functions and to be self-satisfied. The above content is quintessence of Guo Xiang’s doctrine of "Xuan Ming".