The Exploration Of The Wang Yangming’s Ideal Personality

Wang Yangming,known for his "three immortal",began to explore the way to sainthood when he was a young man.Through continuous refinement of himself,he not only found a suitable path to sainthood for himself,but also researched feasible ways to perfect his ideal personality.He showed the world how to learn to become a sage,and formed a unique thought of anthropology.Wang Yangming’s path to sainthood is also a path to the achievement of self-morality and the perfection of self-personality.The doctrine of Yangming occupies an important position in the development of Neo Confucianism.Based on the previous studies,this paper explores Wang Yangming’s ideal personality from the perspective of becoming a saint in the light of the historical background and the origins of his doctrine.The paper is divided into five parts.The first part examines the background of Wang Yangming’s ideal personality,including the historical background and theoretical origins.The second part elaborates the connotation of Wang Yangming’s ideal personality,including its definition and the “conscience of the heart is called saint”.The third part elaborates the realization path of Wang Yangming’s ideal personality.On the basis of confirming that Wang Yangming’s sainthood can be learned and achieved,it discusses how to achieve sainthood,which means how to achieve ideal personality through self-cultivation.Firstly,the path of moral cultivation is needed.Through the three kinds of work of stillness,which are establishing a will,living in respect,and sitting in meditation,remove the selfish desires that obscure the conscience of the human heart,reveal the potential conscience in the heart of everyone,and give full play to the role of self-consciousness.Secondly,through the path of moral practice,he realizes the unity of action and stillness as well as knowledge and action,and achieves the highest standard of conscience through the two kinds of work of action,i.e.,the examination of the rule and the refinement of things.The fourth part elaborates the ideal state of Wang Yangming’s personality.It includes three aspects: "the state of no-self","happiness is the essence of the mind" and "the benevolence of all things in heaven and earth".The fifth part explains the significance of Wang Yangming’s ideal personality and analyzes its influence on the society at that time and on the scholars of the middle and late Ming Dynasty,as well as its contemporary value.Through the analysis of Wang Yangming’s ideal personality,this paper discovers the reasonableness within certain limits in the establishment of the connotation of ideal personality and the cultivation methods,and provides useful references for contemporary people to form an independent and sound personality.