Research On Liu Yuan's Life Thoughts

Liu Yuan(1768-1856),also known as Liu Zhitang,Shuangliu,Sichuan Province native.He was a famous Confucian scholar during the period of late Qing Dynasty,developed a unique system of thought,Huaixuan School,which merges Confucian learning with ideas and practices from Daoism and Buddhism.Liu Yuan's life thought takes the Original and Acquired Theory as the basis,takes the Xing-ming Theory as the core,and takes the harmony of human and nature as the ultimate goal.Its practice includes two main aspects:inner cultivation of vital force and original nature,and outer application of Confucian social values.With the practice of his own theories,Liu Yuan successfully recovered from the diseases that he had been suffering for years,and created the legend of having eight sons born after the age of sixty.The study of Liu Yuan's life philosophy aimed to provide some life nurturing advice for the modern society,and inspire the development of medicine in the future.This thesis includes six parts in total.The first part is a brief introduction of Liu Yuan,including his biography and academic writings.Liu Yuan spent the rest of his life took care of his mother,maintain the harmony among family and neighborhood,he also founded his own charity to help people in need.In academic field,Liu Yuan focused on explaining and teaching the Confucian classics,he founded Huaixuan School and had thousands of students in tens of years.He also achieved lots in personal cultivation.Liu Yuan had practiced the way of Great Learning,in the different aspects as the enlightenment of brilliant virtues,the remolding of people and the pursuit of ultimate goodness.The second part is Liu Yuan's academic background.Liu Yuan's thought is mainly influenced by three aspects:family,Confucianism and Taoism.Liu Yuan's family has a tradition of studying Yiching,his Original theory was preliminarily formed by Liu Yuan's Father.Confucius' benevolence theory is the foundation of Liu Yuan's academic thought,with which he then critically inherited from the neo-confucianism of Song Dynasty and was also influenced by the spirit of "seeking truth from facts" in the Qianjia neo-confucianism.During the time of Ming and Qing dynasty,The Quan Zhen sect flourished in Sichuan,created an academic environment for Liu Yuan to merge the Taoist Inner Alchemy Theory with medicine.Influenced by how Taoism values the accumulation of service and devotion,Liu Yuan paid more attention to the practice and application of Confucian social values than other Confucian scholars.Eventually,Liu Yuan formed a life thought which is characterized by Original and Acquired Theory,roots in the Confucian Xing-ming Theory,integrates with the Taoist Inner Alchemy Theory,and values both inner and outer cultivation.The third part is the basic viewpoint of Liu Yuan's life thought,including his Original and Acquired Theory,the Confucian Xing-ming Theory.Within the Original and Acquired Theory,the thesis discusses Liu Yuan's idea of the origin of the universe,Qianyuan Taichi,on the basis of which he developed the Xing-ming Theory.Liu Yuan thinks the separation of nature and human after born is because the reversing of Xing and Ming,therefore the return of Xing is the way of having human and nature becoming one again.Liu Yuan thinks Xing and Ming based on water and fire,so he takes water,fire and earth as the three basic vital forces,also known as essence,Qi and spirit,all three of them have the original and acquired side.Liu Yuan takes the nourishment of the original three in to his life thought practice.The fourth part is the practice of Liu Yuan's life thoughts,focusing on the return of original Xing and Fuyang,starting from nourishing essence,Qi and spirit,which are the three levels of his life cultivation system.Liu Yuan's study based on Confucianism,therefore,he values spirit the most,and then nourish the qi,the essence stands for physical body which is the lowest level of his life cultivation system.In the practice of nourishing the three,Liu Yuan has penetrated his guiding ideology of return of original Xing and Fuyang as the principle.It is emphasized that medical practitioners should not be entangled in a certain organ or medicine,but should be based on the original side and hold the holistic view.Based on the theory of original nature,Liu Yuan also pointed out that doctors must pay attention to the humanistic care of patients,and patients need to have self-reflection first,change their past lifestyle instead of relying solely on the external help of the doctors,nor can they rely on the bless of external gods.This idea helped break the feudal superstition at that time and provides a reference for the improvement of the doctor-patient relationship today.The fifth part takes zheng Qin'an Fuyang Medical School as an example to analyze the influence of Liu Yuan's life thought on later medicine.Zheng Qin'an as Liu Yuan's student,practiced Liu Yuan's Original and Acquired Theory in medicine,he inherited the idea of vital force based on water and fire,formed the prescription principle of Fuyang which doesn't constrained with organs,and created herbal decoctions like Qianyang Dan,Bukanyili Dan.The improvement made by Zheng Qin' an is a further development of Liu Yuan's life thought in the field of medicine.The sixth part is conclusion.From the perspective of combining with the Original Tao,Liu Yuan thinks the returning of Xing is the way of having human and nature becoming one again.Liu Yuan hopes that our realm of life is not just about pursuing longevity and social status,fame and fortune,but that we can discover and explore the original nature of our lives,return to the essence of life,and enhance the realm of life,also provided with the reference of the direction of future medical development.