Settlement And Ablation:The Idea Of Death In The Pre-Qin Confucianism

Everything will die.But death can only set off huge ripples in human consciousness through human reflection.The philosophy of death was born in this ripple that is still stunned.There is no "Philosophy of Death" in Confucianism,but death is indeed a fundamental issue on both sides of the same coin as life.The contradictions and connections between life and death,the self-awareness and contemplation of death are found in many Confucian texts.It is especially urgent and necessary to reconstruct the pre-Qin Confucian ideas of death by using the philosophy of death to interpret Confucianism.This article attempts to trace the germination,formation and development of the ripples of death by combing the history of pre-Qin thought and Confucianism,in order to show the different features implied by pre-Qin Confucian philosophy.At the beginning of primitive society,before the emergence of a conscious concept of death,humans had only a primitive awareness and perception of natural phenomena and natural forces.In the obscure world of early human consciousness,surrounding the flesh and death,a natural myth,primitive religion and soul consciousness have been formed.They believed that the death of the physical body was not the same as the death of the soul,which still carried everything of the living,and continued to exist in a transformed abode.The mystical illusions of life and death and other natural phenomena dominated and motivated the primitive people to properly store the bodies of the dead and to exchange benefits and expectations in burial and ritual activities,which led to the development of a series of rituals and techniques—sacrifice and witchcraft.After the ancestral spirits were deified and gradually became objects of worship,the death of this alienated self not only provided the original possibility and feasibility for the connection between man and god and"heaven and man united as one",but also laid a potential path for the development of Confucian moral and ethical doctrine with blood ties as the link and the pursuit of immortality as the driving force.From the beginning of the Axial Period,man’s vision shifted from nature to himself,and "man" had the self-expectation of "being human",and "the discovery of death" was thrown out as a fundamental philosophical issue.The self-consciousness of the inevitable death of the individual became the driving force of the initial philosophical construction,and the philosophical paradigm of explaining the emergence and change of life by the harmony and dispersion of "Qi" emerged,thus the original idea of death collapsed.At the same time,the dual progression of the ideas of time and the consciousness of death prompted the philosophers to start a long-lasting contemplation and inquiry on the relationship between life and death,spirit and flesh,and "death consciousness" became the theoretical fulcrum of the occurrence of classical Chinese philosophy.The ideas of time and life and death took on a new appearance.Time was expressed as a dual structure of "present co-temporal" and "linear ephemeral".While time established order for experience,consciousness also reconstructed itself,and the way to reconstruct itself was the enrichment and development of life.The unidirectional and fluid nature of time became the only measure of life,and under this constant measure,"Yin and Yang changed" and "all things were born".The present mixed "passing and coming",which made each living entity become a paradoxical body that can both notice the passing of the "past" and foresee the continuation of the"future".Under the dual temporal perspective,the event of death also reflected two different traits,"natural,empirical”and "humanistic,transcendent".The pre-Qin Confucian view of death chose a theoretical path that did not entangle with the paradox of life and death,nor focused on the contradiction between death and life,but"walked with the times",taking the current as the entry point for settling individual lives,focusing on the construction of the present order of existence,practicing the rituals of benevolence and exploring the immortality of life in the ever flowing possibilities of the moment.Under the care of the pre-Qin Confucian philosophy of death,the practice and achievement of the value of life is the immortal ladder for the individual to fight against the finite life and inevitable death.Only through the pursuit of moral life can the virtue of the birth of heaven and earth be manifested in the subject.If heaven does not give birth to people,there is no "one" to inherit;if man does not perceive himself,there is no "one" to follow the mandate of heaven.From the limited life of man’s inheriting,the virtue of heaven and earth becomes inevitable through nature;and from the understanding of absolute death,man gains the subjectivity of experiencing natural life and the dynamism of achieving value life,thus revealing the essence of a real man.Therefore,the pursuit of immortal life is not only a way for individuals to resist the decline of life,but also a prerequisite and purpose for people to stand up among the "three elements",in tune with the heavens to enable others and to complete themselves.In this way,man has completed all the paths laid out by pre-Qin Confucianism,from "practicing benevolence himself" to "learning to be a complete man",and "knowing life is knowing death"!...