Hallo, this is Dr. Bin Song for the introduction of Buddhism.

After contemplating ancient Greek philosophers and Chinese Confucian (Ruist) scholars, I believe my students will have an even greater cultural shock when starting to learn Buddhism.

If ancient Greek philosophy starts from stargazers’ unquenchable curiosity towards the being of the cosmos, and ancient Chinese philosophy starts from the self-taught Confucius’s study of ancient civilizational customs and conventions termed as 禮 (li), the Buddhist thought starts from almost a fairy tale, a story of a semi-divine figure’s personal life, whose real name is Siddhartha Gautama who lived around the same axial age of human civilization as Socrates and Confucius.

As a scholar grown up in China, I always felt the great impact of Buddhist thought, and consequently, I heard, read, and thought over Buddha’s biographical story for a number of times. In the beginning of this encounter with Buddhism, I was greatly amazed by each detail of the story, and got to figure out why Buddhists venerate the relic of Buddha’s body so much since understandably, such an extraordinary human being must have stimulated among his followers an extraordinarily pious feeling towards something which is of uttermost significance for human life. However, as I grew elder, experienced more, and learned more, I became a bit suspicious towards the authenticity of the told story whenever I re-read it. My suspicion derives from the fact that each major turning point of the story can be interpreted as having been used by someone to convey exactly the corresponding point of a philosophy. In other words, the more I read the story, the more philosophical it turns out, and consequently, the less story-telling it becomes. Since its purport can be so philosophical, I doubt whether the story was actually compiled by later Buddhist followers to serve a distinctively intellectual purpose. So far as we know from nowadays’ scholarship, the historical real Buddha is as much of a conundrum as many other founding figures of world religions such as Jesus, Moses, and others.

Nevertheless, the ideological thrust of Buddha’s story does provide convenience for us to learn a great deal of Buddhist philosophy, as well as the social background of ancient India where this philosophy originated and interacted. Since you can learn a great deal of Buddha’s story from this unit’s assigned writing and documentary, I would just pick up several major philosophical points of this story in the following, so as to provide an initial overview of the Buddhist tradition.

Firstly, when Siddhartha was born, he was predicted by an astrologer that he would either be a great king or a great religious teacher. In order to avoid his son’s path of being a religious leader, Siddhartha’s father secured an extremely luxurious and self-indulgent lifestyle for the youth of Siddhartha. Here, the contrast between the this-worldly success and the other-worldly spiritual accomplishment is impressive. It seems that from the very first beginning, the Buddhist thought envisions a dilemma between the two optional paths of human life: you can be either materially abundant or spiritually enlightened, but nothing in-between.

Since we have learned ancient Greek philosophies, and ancient Chinese thought, a comparison can make this Buddhist vision even more compelling. Politics was a central concern of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle; and Confucius wandered for more than one decade to find an enlightened ruler in order to realize his political ideal, although he also would like to simply choose to be a hermit if no environment in any state allowed a Ru’s constructive political work. In comparison to all of these, what is indicated by Buddha’s biography does not indeed concern itself much with politics. Its ultimate message is about how to use a certain type of wisdom to defeat ignorance, and furthermore, to stop human sufferings as “sufferings” understood mainly in an individual and inner-psychological sense. It is not the case that this individualistic and inner-psychological mentality of early Buddhist thought cannot be employed by social activists to engage politics; instead, as indicated by the later development of Buddhist thought around the world, Buddhism can sometimes become politically very engaging. However, in the earliest moments of Buddhist thought, what is taken to be the foundation of religious enlightenment for each human individual is indeed of a thin relation to what’s going on outside humans’ inner psyche in society and politics.

Secondly, the four chariot rides that the young Siddhartha sneaked into were depicted as a turning point of his life, which propelled him to eventually leave his luxurious royal household to seek spiritual liberation. During these four rides, Siddhartha witnessed aging, sickening, and dying as three major forms of human suffering, and finally, he saw a religious renunciate who was practicing asceticism in order to find the desired liberation from the suffering cycle of birth and death. Here, we came across the reality which made Siddhartha formulate the first and second among four noble truths that was the first Buddhist sermon he preached after his enlightenment. Namely, human life is constantly suffering (noble truth 1) because we remain ignorant towards the reality that everything is impermanent and hence, has no fixed self (noble truth 2).

But more importantly, the story of Buddha’s four chariot rides spoke to the distinctively Hindu background from which Siddhartha derived his thought. Before the birth of Buddhism, the religious teaching of ancient Hinduism had gone through its earlier two stages, the one of ancient Hindu Valley and another one distinguished by the enormous ritual and wisdom collection of books called the Vedas. When the Buddha saw the religious renunciate, and decided to go to the forest to practice asceticism, he was following the method of religious liberation advocated by the third stage of Hindu religion: the so-called speculative Hinduism as embodied mainly by the teaching of the Upanishad. This form of Hinduism teaches that in order to get released from the endlessly suffering process of reincarnation (samsara) to achieve religious liberation (moksha), every human individual needs to renounce the society, treat their own bodies harshly, and accordingly find their genuine self – Atman, which, in the final analysis, submerges itself within the ultimate unchanging reality of the universe, called Brahman. So, why did the young Siddhartha see life and death as a tormenting burden for human life? Why did he go to the forest in order to get rid of the burden? It is all because of Upanishadic Hinduism.

However, as the story goes, Siddhartha finally denied this ascetic path of Upanishadic Hinduism, and realized that neither the self-indulgence before he entered the forest, nor the asceticism in the forest can afford the peace and happiness that he was longing for. The ultimate Buddhist path is depicted therefore as a middle way: you should still treat your body well, live a normal human life, but just don’t be attached to, or as Buddhists say, “cling to” it.

I believe that for many beginning learners of Buddhism, it may feel overwhelmed by the so many intricate details involved by the intellectual side of Buddhism, particularly its relationship with Hinduism. However, this is actually one of the most fascinating aspects of the learning process of Buddhism: we are able to get to know that Buddhism derived from the Hindu religious life as a boisterous voice of dissent, since 1) the Buddha philosophically critiqued the Hindu idea of genuine self, “atman,” and advocated instead that nothing has a self, and hence, there is “no self”, “anatman,” and 2) as mentioned, the Buddha also denied the extremely ascetic lifestyle of religious renunciates steeped in the teaching of Upanishadic Hinduism. More importantly, Hinduism continued to evolve after the movement of Buddhism, and eventually, Buddhism found no popular reception among Hindu people, and got to migrate to south Asia, Tibet, China, Korea, Japan, and nowadays, it continued to set afoot in modern western countries. In other words, like Christianity, Buddhism has become a missionary religion which was uprooted from its indigenous land, and flourished itself all over the world. Why and how Buddhism proceeded as such, both philosophical, spiritually and socially, would be a great phenomenon for us to study. This would also be a major topic for us to ponder in our continual study of Buddhism and Eastern religions.

The third point I want to emphasize about the distinction of Buddha’s life is his seven-day meditation under the Podhi tree which eventually lead to his “enlightenment,” viz., his realization of the four noble truths which defeats the human ignorance towards true reality.

Still, let me use some comparison to express my overall feeling to this part of Buddha’s story. We all know that Socrates, Plato and Aristotle all had a certain level of formal education before they constructed their philosophies. We also know that Confucius and virtually all Ru scholars were very much cherishing the value of education. However, what education did the Buddha get? We didn’t find any mention of teachers or tutors when he stayed in the royal household; when we get to know that one central teaching of Buddhism is the concept of “no-self,” neither could we find where this concept came from, except that the concept was a direct refutation against the idea of “Atman” in Upanishadic Hinduism. In other words, it is truly remarkable for Siddhartha to ground his central teaching not upon any book, any tradition, or any source of historical authority. Rather, the genuine foundation of the Buddhist teaching was actually the experience which a human figure, Siddhartha, got from an intensive and prolonged practice of meditation!

Actually, the defiance against literature, artifices and even words can be so radical in the later development of Buddhism that there was a unique type of Buddhism, called Zen Buddhism, which historically originated from China, and developed in Korea and Japan. Zen Buddhism proclaimed “words” as being a great obstacle to enlightenment. And the slogan for the ingenuity of Zen Buddhism is that its wisdom is “not established in any word, but transmitted outside the Buddhist teaching.” But how can a Buddhist teaching be transmitted outside the Buddhist teaching? Negatively, it is done so through the denial of the value of words and the teachings based upon words. Positively, it is through practices and human experiences, among which meditation takes an extremely significant role. Although virtually all major world religious traditions teach, practice and theorize meditation, the preponderate role Buddhism ascribes to it still makes Buddhism very distinctive in this regard among its peers.

Good, I have elaborated several major points of my philosophical understanding of Buddha’s story. As we will learn down the road, Buddhism evolves and diversifies greatly across varying geographical regions of the world and in varying periods of human history. It would be very inspiring to get to learn all these variations within Buddhism; however, as Buddhism started from a fairy tale with such a philosophical density, we can expect that the meaning of the tale will grow, proliferate, and twist according to different readers, and according to different ages of the same reader’s.

According to the structure of emotional reasoning indicated at the beginning of the course, emotions are triggered by both a report and a rating under the guidance of a rooted belief. Therefore, self-defeating emotions may be caused by either an erroneous rating or an ungrounded report. The fallacy of “over-simplification” is such a sort of ungrounded report, and there are three forms of it identified by the practitioners of philosophical therapy:

Firstly, Over-generalization, which is to categorize realities in a scope broader than what evidences can corroborate. I once had a client who believed that all marketing strategies are to sell things that customers do not want, which is wicked! Hence, he refused to learn any marketing skill which is actually crucial to his business. Here, this client clearly over-generalizes the marketing industry, which created a bunch of problems to have complicated his life.

Secondly, Pigeonholing, which is to squeeze realities into rigidly dualistic categories, such as right or wrong, good or evil, friends or enemies, success or failure, etc. For instance, one of the most deleterious thinking habits of humanity both in history and today is still to fit individuals into nationalistic terms, and then, to characterize nations either as friends or enemies. Nowadays, because some of Chinese-Americans oppose the Chinese Communist party and see it as an enemy, they would accept any American politician as their friend who seemingly dares to confront certain immoral deeds of the party, with a pigeonholing idea that the enemy of one’s enemy is a friend. However, while doing so, they may remain blind to how the policies proposed by the politicians could do harm to their own life, and as a result, they may vote for whomsoever will govern in a way contrary to their own interest.

And thirdly, Stereotyping, which is to stick to pre-established categories regardless of exceptional realities. Since it has been a while for me to write and publish academic articles, I am very cautious to use broad categories to characterize phenomena which are of interest in my field, precisely in order to avoid stereotyping. For instance, whenever I mention the term “Confucianism,” or write the phrase “according to Confucian philosophy,” I try to give my reference to pin down what philosopher in what place at what period of time thinks so, since the term may mean vastly different things across different places and times. For the same reason, for a long time, I have felt uncomfortable to be introduced as a “Chinese philosopher” or a scholar with an expertise in “Chinese philosophy” in varying events, since, as I anticipated, there are prevalent stereotypes about what “Chinese philosophy” means among the audience, and those stereotypes could by no means fit my own approach to the study of Chinese thought.

These three forms of over-simplification are clearly inter-connected. All cases of stereotyping are over-generalization, and once we overgeneralize, dualistic categories such as friend and enemy will be pit against each other so as to pigeonhole their corresponding realities.

Furthermore, all these forms of over-simplification are about the misuse of the basic units of human language, category. According to Aristotle, categories are born from the inductive reasoning, viz., the process to distill generic traits from the observation of samples in groups. Once established, these categories can be put into use in the deductive reasoning through which varying relationships among categories infer different generic traits of those observed samples in groups. Clearly, the soundness of human reasoning according to this categorical method of Aristotelian logic crucially depends upon whether we can reach the exact degree of generality for the exact amount of samples. This would imply that whenever we generalize more than samples can indicate, no matter how consistent our reasoning is, it is not sound. For instance, the deductive reasoning “all swans are white, this is a swan, and hence, this is white” is not a sound one because the generalization “all swans are white” cannot cover all samples of “swans.” When one uses the over-generalized category of “swan as white” to perceive all swans in the world, they are clearly stereotyping swans, and pigeonholing them as either “being swan as white” or “not being a swan at all.” In the latter case, I do not think those black swans would be happy. Therefore, to confront all forms of over-simplification which over-generalize and misuse human categories, philosophical therapists recommend the virtue of “objectivity,” namely, to perceive realities exactly as they are, and thus, to be ready to revise pre-established categories for exceptional and changing realities.

This virtue of “objectivity” in terms of seeing the things as they are is also advocated by Confucian philosophers. For instance, Xunzi’s ethics relies upon the intelligence of exemplary humans to accurately perceive the value of things in the world, and hence, to achieve a state of mind called “vacuity, single-mindedness and quietude”:

“How do people know their Way? I say: with the heartmind. How does the heartmind know the Way? The heartmind is always holding something. Yet, there is what is called being ‘vacuous’. The heartmind is always two-fold. Yet, there is what is called being ‘single-minded.’ The heartmind is always moving. Yet, there is what is called being ‘quiet.’ Humans are born and have awareness. With awareness, they have focus. To focus is to be holding something. Yet, there is some state called being ‘vacuous.’ Not to let what one is already holding harm what one is about to receive is called being ‘vacuous.’ The heartmind is born and has awareness. With awareness, there comes awareness of different things. These differences are perceived at the same time, and when they are perceived at the same time, this mental state could be to be two-fold. Yet, there is what is called being ‘single-minded.’ Not to let one perception harm another perception is called being ‘single-minded.’ When the heartmind sleeps, then it dreams. When it relaxes, then it goes about on its own. When one puts it to use, then it forms plans. Thus, the heartmind is always moving. Yet, there is what is called being ‘quite.’ Not to let dreams and worries disorder one’s understanding is called being ‘quiet’.” (Xunzi, chapter 21, translation adapted from Eric Hutton)

Here, Xunzi urges one’s emotions not to interfere our awareness of the world so that what we already know not bring harm to what we are about to, and what we know one thing not perturb what we know about another. Clearly, this is a Ruist call not to over-generalize, pigeonhole or stereotype.

In an ultimate term, if we admit freedom and autonomy is a fundamental principle for good human living, and accept that each human individual is unique, non-replicable, and cannot be put exclusively in any “category,” then, we need to acknowledge that the difference between any two individuals can be bigger than any two races, ethnicities, genders, societies, economies, countries, and even cultures, because all the latter can be treated as merely categories, but individuals cannot. Precisely because of the essentially non-deterministic traits of human living, we need to continually construct, deconstruct, and refine our categories to adapt ourselves to changing realities in society.

It is because change is a fundamental feature of the reality we humans are trying to deal with, the Confucian tradition also contributed another way to our looking on the function of “categories.” Categories are not only formulaic terms to carry over generic traits of a group of items from one corner of our mind to another. Actually, if whenever we mention a category that is of ethical concern to us, we can simultaneously point out how we practice it in real situations of human life, these categories can be instead treated as performing examples so that we can emulate these examples to find appropriate reactions to our own unique situations.

For instance, in the Analects, when Confucius was asked by students how to understand the cardinal human virtue of humaneness, Ren, Confucius once gave a universal definition of it as “loving people.” (Analects 12:22) However, most often, Confucius’s strategy to explain the concept is to use practical words targeting students’ different situations. For people who are glib and fast to talk, he will say humaneness means reserving a solemn tone of one’s rare speeches (Analects 13:27); for people who traveled a lot and were extremely sociable, he would recommend to find the right friends in order to keep humane. (Analects 15.10) An advantage of this individualized pedagogy is that whenever the category of “humaneness” is mentioned, students will grasp it may mean different things for different people, and thus, they would truly pay attention to specificities before they apply the universal ethical teaching of humaneness.

Similarly, Mencius also thinks of the virtue of humaneness as what distinguishes human beings from non-human beings, and thus, being a category in its own right. However, more importantly, Mencius indicated through a thought experiment that ordinary humans will spontaneously have the feeling of alarm and fright whenever they see a baby about to fall into a well. In this way, Mencius argued that every human has their incipient sprout of humaneness to work on, and the process of being humanized depends upon whether one is dedicated to creating a social environment beneficial for the natural growth of the moral sprout. Again, the good thing for Mencius’s argument on the virtue of humaneness is that after we take the feeling of alarm and fright triggered by that concrete situation as a performing example of the category of humaneness, firstly, we understand it not only intellectually but also in an embodied way; and secondly, we can remain sensitive to our own situations so as to emulate the virtue of humaneness discussed by Mencius while not entirely photocopying it, which means, the feeling of commiseration rooted in the virtue of humaneness may be acted out in diverse ways.

In my view, for human transactions that are of ethical concern, if we can consistently practice this Confucian sensitivity towards the practical implication of categories, and hence, treat categories as imitable examples with no need of photocopying it, it will greatly contribute to avoiding the thinking fallacy of over-simplification.

To continue the instances I gave above, if by mentioning the term “friends” we always bear in mind cases of exemplary friendship in human history, we will hold on to the fact that while using “friends” to categorize humans, what we deal with are still concrete human persons., rather than a lump of abstract generic traits which can be easily pigeonholed or stereotyped by categories.

In a Confucian term, this mindset to categorize while exemplifying realities is once depicted by one very popular slogan in the period of neo-Confucianism: “the principle is one, while its manifestations are many.” Also, in Aristotle’s virtue ethics, Aristotle admonishes us to form the “practical wisdom” so as to apply universal ethical principles to concrete and changing situations. Here, different from the misuse of categories by the thinking fallacy of oversimplification which demands the uniformity of traits of realities in order to put these traits into established, neatly bounded categories, we are called upon to pay attention to how realities within a category can merely bear an analogical resemblance to each other. Hence, evolving situations would continually urge us to refine our understanding of those categories, and modify our reifiable emotional and behavioral patterns.

In my view, for the sake of good human living, we definitely need to make use of categories in this enriched and enriching way.

Dear students in the course of “foundations of morality”:

Among all thinking fallacies we have dealt with so far, the following one, I find, is particularly difficult for me to write about. This is the fallacy of bandwagon thinking, the one that forces people to think, learn and live their lives for the sake of the others, rather than thinking, learning, and being their own person for the sake of their own self.

I said this is difficult for me to write about because, in my life, I have been such a person who tries to think, learn and be myself for so long a time. It started from when I was about 15, when I was in the second grade of my high school, just two years before I entered the college. It was the first time in my life when the bizarre, boring, and unjust phenomena in the educational system of the country where I grew up strongly disillusioned me, and for virtually all my leisure time outside the school fence, I preoccupied myself with reading, thinking and writing in a very private style. But, normally, this sort of writings cannot be much useful for my academic score, and there is a Chinese idiom to call it “drawer literature,” since except tossing those pages into the bottom of one of my drawers and letting them stay there until perhaps disappearing, there is no space in the world for them to lie afoot. And these writings of mine did vanish a lot primarily because of the moving and dislocation of both my home and my person.

You may feel I am bragging myself since “thinking for yourself” is such a slogan frequently evoked by all people with their vastly different views to recruit their followers. This is a bit ironic, I know.  But in the sense that I eventually felt the enormous reward of independent, free, and non-bandwagoned thinking, I am indeed proud of myself, and determined to continue to be so in the remaining parts of my life. However, as I said, it is still difficult for me to directly write about it.

Firstly, this is because once you took “thinking and being for yourself” as an ingrained, unshakable belief, you have almost nothing to write about it, since all things happening to your life, no matter whether they are themselves worth writing or not, are reflected by it, derive from it, and in the most authentic sense of the word, rooted in it. In other words, for people who have been habituated or even trained to do so, independent and free thinking can become a commonplace so banal barely worth mentioning. Seen from this perspective, everything I have written so far for the video lectures, and every exposure you witnessed to my personal life in this course, as well as all your wonderful contributions to my own thought, are all about it. Since all is about it, it emerges everywhere, and hence, I barely feel any need to capture it and write something particular about it.

However, I believe there is a deeper reason for me to feel the resistance from some corner of my heart to write something particular about it. Humans as a species are so inclined to jump into the fallacy of bandwagon thinking that as someone who is habituated not to do so, I have just encountered so many inconveniences (to say the least!) in my life, some of which were definitely depictable as personal traumas.

Let’s start one instance of those inconveniences which are less traumatic. You know I am a Confucian scholar, with “Confucian” here being understood both in the sense of critical scholarship and personal spiritual commitment (yes, for Confucian scholars, these two can blend seamlessly!). However, in 2014, I participated an international conference of Confucianism and philosophy of education organized by a university in the northeast of America. During the first, welcome dinner of the conference, I was so appalled by the fact that every speech, either from the organizers or from invited keynote speakers, and no matter how long or short the speech was, always started from a Confucius quote. Before these speakers said anything solid, they always let “Confucius once said … …” go first! And as a Confucian scholar, I could immediately realize whether that saying of Confucius’s was misquoted or misinterpreted; but the most disappointing aspect was that, due to its unaccountable shallow repetition, the Confucius quoting generated a formulaic and routinely bearing which wrapped the entire banquet with some gaudy certainty of something which everyone present was thought of as must take for granted. I was very unpleasant at that moment because although Confucian studies is a minority in the American academia, this formulaic pomposity still reminded me of how local units of a communist party organize their so-called “life of organization,” as well as every happenstance that George Orwell once so brilliantly described in the animal farm governed by the all-mighty Napoleon. Confucius in the Analects once taught “an exemplary human aims harmony without uniformity (和而不同), whereas a petty human aims uniformity without harmony.” Because of this, Confucius also says that an exemplary human is fond of being social, yet not of forming parties and cliques (群而不党). In other words, an authentic community comprises authentic persons, whereas for a community to become genuinely authentic, it must always contain a structural feature to accommodate diverse views, freshing people, and hence, an intrinsic vigor to grow and renew.

The remaining part of the conference was actually quite pleasant, since many scholars were doing their jobs, delivering great presentations, and discussing ideas. However, because of the distaste the beginning banquet of the conference begot, I was determined to avoid anything similar in my following years of my graduate studies in the U.S. I founded and organized the first student faith group of Confucianism in the U.S., titled as “Boston University Confucian Association,” when I studied in Boston during 2014-2018. I didn’t keep any email list of the so-called affiliates. I didn’t do any recruiting activities normal to many other registered religious groups. Instead, I deeply believed in the pedagogy of traditional Confucianism to urge “it is proper for students to come to learn, but not for teachers to go out to teach” (The Classic of Rites), and therefore, on every Friday night, I just bought pizzas, opened the door of the assigned study room by Marsh Chapel, and then, waited for anyone to come to learn and discuss. This “marketing” strategy didn’t make our group super large, but it didn’t make it super small either, since with generous donations from participants, we never lacked pizzas to eat for the weekly event.

Ok, this is the instance of inconveniences that one’s independent thinking can engender, which is less traumatic. I will briefly (and you know why it needs to be brief) describe another instance that is more so as follows.

Group thinking needs taboos, viz., topics that in-group affiliates cannot even mention, and this is because group thinking is based upon a certain form of exclusive identity, for the sake of which any intrusion from outside the boundary of the group needs to be censored. However, can you imagine taboos are also prevalent in philosophy classrooms? Philosophy classes are supposed to be the most open and free-spirited among all college classes; however, at the country where I grow up, there are taboos of topics hovering and looming around all my philosophy classes. Partly because of this, I decided not to teach there, and thus, to give up my well-secured jobs and leave the country when I entered my thirties. During those tumultuous days of my life, my daughter was also born, and at one moment, I suddenly realized that I may completely lose all previous means of abundance to support the basic material needs of my family, especially including my newly born baby. At that time, I did not have an American degree yet; my savings were being run out; and life was so uncertain and risky down the road that as a more or less intelligent Chinese boy growing up in a middle-class family in China, I had never anticipated my life can go so low.

The above story definitely has a happy ending; otherwise, I would not sit here and write to you, my dear students in the course of philosophical therapy at Washington College. However, the message I do want to convey is that we pay costs for escaping group thinking. Freedom cannot be in any sense taken as granted; it is always hard fought, and hard maintained.

But your question may be, since independent, free, and non-bandwagoned thinking is so difficult for individuals, on what basis do we human beings still long for it, strive for it, and even get trained to acquire it? My answer to this is very simple. No, this is the not the case. Once acquired as a habit, independent and free thought is actually the easiest way of life that humans can ever take for the sake of their good and happy human living, and this is primarily because it makes individuals’ life self-sufficient.

Let’s still use the classical philosophical writing, Plato’s allegory of cave, to make the case. Please just envision how difficult the life is for those chained prisoners in the cave. They compete for the thing everyone uniformly thinks worth competing, viz., to predict which shadow comes next on the wall of the cave; since the standard of success is so narrowly and unilaterally defined, you can also imagine how despondent people constantly feel if they lose the competition. Furthermore, for any of those prisoners who ever thought of the worth of their individual life, it is evident that the worth must rest upon the approval from other group members: you need to be joyful for the same thing, be sad for the same thing, and eventually, try to have a life lived by the same sort of people. Since there could be only one winner for each of this sort of competitions approved by a whole group, we can legitimately ask, can anyone chained in the cave be genuinely happy for their life?

However, if I was the lucky prisoner who happened to climb up the cave, just imagine how easy life could become for me. Firstly, knowing that those chained prisoners would see me as an enemy and try to kill me if I came back to tell them of the truth, I would not deliberately jeopardize my life as such. However, I did feel “sorry” for my chained human fellows, as Plato originally described it; so I would choose to occasionally go back to the cave, dwell after the wall separating the fire and those chained prisoners, to make whatever noise needed to inform them of the truth. But more than that, since I already acquired an ability to climb up whatever cave there is in the world and seek for enriching and inspiring light of wisdom, the majority time of my life would still be dedicated to exploring the wonderful and infinitely rich and diverse natural world and human history.

Using this hypothesized human situation of a freed prisoner, what I try to message is the indescribable ease and reward that one can get from the habit of non-bandwagoned thinking and living. In this situation, we say what we do, we do what we believe, and most importantly, we believe what we know is genuinely valuable for our own life and for the world. In other words, every component of our life, the words, deeds, emotions, thoughts and beliefs are lined up with each other, and all of them keep changing, growing and perfecting while aiming the flourishing of all conceivable human potentialities. In a Confucian term, this status of human being is called “self-contentedness”(自得, zide) acquired through an endless process of making our life genuinely “authentic” (誠, cheng). Keeping it in mind how self-content we can be after we are habituated to authentic human living, we will understand all those told difficulties are actually merely inconveniences that we can exert our willpower to eventually overcome during the process of fleeing bandwagon thinking. It is like the sore eyes felt by the released prisoner when he saw the origin of the light in the cave; yes, it is sore and painful, but definitely worth overcoming given how rewarding human life could be alternatively.

So, with an independent, authentic, and non-bandwagoned thinking habit, there would be no caves in our life. What we are longing for would be neither approval from others nor accomplishments measured by the standard of others. Instead, we would long for authentic human relationships, and valuable human projects from which we can learn from disagreements, grow ourselves through trials, and most importantly, “remain content towards ourselves in whatever situation we happen to enter” (無入不自得, wurubuzide; from the Centrality and Commonality).

Quiz:

1, “An exemplary human aims harmony without uniformity, whereas a petty human aims uniformity without harmony.” Is this a true Confucius quote?

2, According to the existentialist philosophy Heidegger, what feeling does one try to escape when he/she loses him/herself in the “they”?

A, angst of being “being-towards-death”
B, angry of being alone.
C, anxiety of not being accomplished.

3, what is the following proposition unique to the philosophy of existentialism?

A, existence precedes essence
B, essence precedes existence.

4, For the humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers, being congruent (which means that your inside matches your outside, and thus, to be transparent) is an important condition of constructive change and personal growth. Is this statement true or false?

Hallo, This is Prof. Bin Song at Washington College.

As explained since the first unit of the course, one distinction of philosophical therapy, distinct from other types of therapeutic methods in mental health, is its emphasis upon free thought and autonomy. It believes most of issues of mental health start from fallacious thinking habits in our mind, then get translated into varying negative emotions, and eventually, embodied in one’s self-defeating behaviors. Therefore, in order to live a good and flourished human life, we need to work up ourselves starting from our mind, viz., from how we think.

Once again, the fallacy that this unit intends to deal with, the so-called one of can’stipation, confirms the magnificent significance of free thought for human beings. For instance, a young wife may say that she cannot help feeling angry when her in-law intrudes her home for an uninvited lunch; however, she may not say that she cannot even think of an alternative situation where she could have a constructive conversation with her in-law with a relatively calm mood. Similarly, a son under a constant verbal abuse of his father may say that he cannot help keeping silent whenever the abuse happens because he does not want to look bad to his father and other family members; but he may not say that he cannot even think of an alternative behavior through which he could speak up to his father in a rectifying and respectful way so as to change the self-defeating dynamic in his family. In all these and other similar instances, the concerned human beings may say that they cannot help feeling in a certain way (which is the fallacy of emotional can’stipation), behaving in a certain way (viz., behavioral can’stipation), or it may be the case that they say they cannot put up with a certain distressed situation so as to refuse to do anything about it (viz., volitional can’stipation). Nevertheless, in all these three different types of can’stipation, what our human fellows may not say is that they cannot even think of a certain alternative way of living, which, if carefully studied and cultivated, can lead to a brighter path to overcome their varying can’stipations, and hence, contribute positively to their wanted way of human living.

In other words, we may think it impossible to change a certain reactional pattern of our emotion, behavior, and volition to the world; however, under a deeper thought, we find that this impossibility is actually merely about the reality that we have presumed is predetermined in a certain way. Quite contrary to this presumption, if we close our eyes, remain silent, and start to freely employ our thought in our mind, we will find that whenever this impossibility is presented to our thought, we are able to start to think of an entirely alternative picture of the reality where it is OK for the presumably impossible thing to happen. One further instance we can give here is that if you are overwhelmed by the stress that you shall go through in an impending important examination, it is totally Ok for you to just sit down, take a breath, and think that due to the diligent work you invested in the process, you have already passed the examination and even started to celebrate it with your family and friends. And the beautiful thing in all these mentioned situations of human life is that there is literally nothing to preclude us from thinking of an alternative.

The use of free will to think alternatively has been documented in the history of philosophy for quite a long time. When Socrates says unexamined human life is not worth living, he means that without a careful consideration of alternatives, any chosen way of living, no matter how good it seems to be, cannot be sincerely pursued. Because only a democracy affords its citizens this opportunity of weighing in alternatives in order to live a sincerely desirable human life, Socrates would rather die for it, instead of fleeing Athens and living a wandering, safe, yet under-human life. In modern philosophy, Descartes answers the question in what sense he exists as a human being in the most striking and impactful way: he exists solely in so far as he thinks; and whenever he stops thinking, he stops being. In the first Meditation which is infused with a lavishly skeptical mode of thinking, Descartes doubts whether any object in the world can exist at all. For instance, our perception of the big tree before our eyes may be false, the hands using which we type words into the computer may just appear to be moving in a dream, and even our mathematical knowledge may be wrong since we may live in a world of simulation where things are coded in a way contrary to realities. However, after considering all these alternative perceptions of the world, Descartes concludes that the only thing he cannot doubt is the fact that he is doubting itself, and hence, he concludes: “I think, therefore I am.” In my view, there is really no more striking example than Descartes’s Meditations to indicate the principal discipline of philosophy as freely thinking of alternatives.

This discipline of thinking alternatively does not only prevail in western philosophy, non-western philosophies such as Confucianism also believes the change of thought constitutes the seminal seed for all needed changes in one’s life. Please just read how the classical Confucian philosopher, Xunzi, depicts the freely thinking ability of human consciousness, which is termed as “heartmind” (心, xin):

“The heartmind is the lord of the body and the master of one’s spirit and intelligence. It issues orders, but it takes orders from nothing: it restrains itself, it employs itself; it lets itself go, it takes in whatever it wants; it makes itself proceed, it makes itself stop. Thus, the mouth can be compelled either to be silent or to speak, and the body can be compelled either to contract or to extend, but the heartmind cannot be compelled to change its thoughts. What it considers right, one accepts. What it considers wrong, one rejects. And so I say: there is no restraint for the heartmind to make a choice among what it perceives; its attitude towards objects would always emerge by itself so that although objects of thought are varying, these objects appear to the heartmind without any duplicity.” (Xunzi, Chapter 21, adapted from the translation of Eric Hutton)

In other words, for Confucian thinkers such as Xunzi, it may be out of human control for objects and affairs in the world to be present in one’s life or not, but it is entirely up to the heartmind to assess and think of these objects in its own way.

All these mentioned western and non-western philosophies convey a crucial message for anyone who may think they cannot control their emotions and behaviors, and the message is: a good human life starts from a good habit of thinking; more importantly, it is an undeniable evidence for the transformability of human life that thank goodness, we human beings retain our full freedom on choosing how to think. We can choose to think rationally, which means to base our thinking on evidential and logical reasoning just as we have practiced it so many times in this course; or we can remain to think irrationally, which is quite often the deep root of varying self-defeating lifestyles and habits.

After we have the right of way of thinking intended by the practice of philosophical therapy, what remains to do is to learn “techniques” to transform these right thinking into the right emotions, and furthermore, into the right behaviors. The entire process would not be quite different from how we use those obvious everyday technologies such as cars, airplanes, refrigerators, computers, etc. In other words, existing laws of causality in the world indicate a highly probable sequence of events in the form of cause and effect; if human mind intends for certain effects to take place in order to fulfill certain human needs, then, humans would create technologies to make use of the causal sequence so as to produce or change causes to engender the intended effects. Similarly, in the area of philosophical therapy, once we make sure what is the right way of thinking, we will use all available knowledge revealed by varying human, social and natural sciences to utilize the causal sequences prevalent in human life, and hence, practice the right causes to eventually produce the intended effects. The process is truly “artistic” with a unique emphasis that now, as an artist of living (which is almost synonymous to the term “philosophical therapist”), we apply these living techniques upon ourselves so that we treat our own life as a continually perfectible artwork. 

In the assigned chapter on can’stipation, the author mentioned many “techniques” for the practice of philosophical therapy. For instance, we know that thoughts alone cannot be easily transformed into desirable emotions; however, we can utilize one emotion that is approved by the reason to counteract another undesirable one so as to eventually transform the latter. Also, behaviors can change our mood to a great extent, and thus, practices such as “shame attacking” would force our emotions to change as a consequence. By the same token, I also encourage philosophical therapists to learn broadly those empirical knowledge gathered by disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and neurosciences in order that we can find the needed techniques to transform clients’ behaviors. Besides, varying world philosophical and religious traditions also accumulated an amount of knowledge and techniques for the sake of human transformation. In the following, I will briefly enumerate four “techniques” of good human living that are consistently practiced by Ru scholars throughout the long tradition of Confucianism in East Asia.

• Firstly, Meditation.  Similar to many spiritual traditions in human history, Confucianism develops its unique style of meditation called “quiet-sitting (静坐, jingzuo).” To practice this Confucian style of meditative quiet-sitting, we do not need to go to temples, churches or monasteries to double-cross our legs for a prolonged period of isolation. We can just choose whatever chair, stool, or any place to sit on, and then, straighten without stiffing our back, put our hands on the knees, and concentrate upon our breath. The greatest benefit philosophical therapists can get from practicing meditation as such is to create a space between thought and its connection to a certain pattern of emotions and behaviors. It is like cutting off temporarily the energy circuit of thought, emotion and behavior hardwired in our everyday life; obviously, for the sake of defeating self-defeating lifestyles, this deconstructive process of meditative reflection would be the condition for any intended reconstruction of one’s everyday life.
• Secondly, “nourishing vital-energies (养气, yangqi).” The transformation of human life clearly needs energy. In the term of Confucian philosophy, the entire universe comprises an all-pervading field of vital-energies, and the well-functioning of human life in all its aspects will rest upon how much vital-energies are constantly restored and replenished within human body. Therefore, to cultivate a good human life, the Ru tradition since the time of Confucius, Mencius and Xuzni develops varying methods of “nourishing one’s vital-energies” such as healthy diet, somnology, and meditative breathing. As being quite distinct from some other contemplative traditions in East Asia, Confucianism emphasizes the significance of daily moral practice for nourishing one’s vital-energies. The idea is that if one is constantly dedicated to doing good, they will muster a great sense of moral self-confidence, and thus, their vital-energies would not be hurt by inappropriate behaviors. Eventually, their abundant life energies will radiate into the surrounding environment in the form of transformative impacts and influences.
• Thirdly, “investigation of things (格物, gewu).” According to the eight steps of the Confucian program of self-cultivation elaborated by the text of Great Learning, everything good happening to human life starts from a comprehensive and thorough “investigation of things” by human heartmind. This investigation of things will try to find the way to harmonize varying interests of all involved beings, and thus, create the path of individual activities that would encounter the least resistance so that an ideal status of co-thriving can be created in evolving situations. More specifically, “investigation of things” includes approaches such as reading books, learning with exemplary humans, having dialogues with people, and also, practicing one’s knowledge in real life situations. All together, “investigation of things” will hardwire human mind in the right way so that expected outcomes of emotions and behaviors will follow en suite.
• Fourthly, “Discussion and Practice (讲习，jiangxi).” The Classic of Rites once described that if one always studies alone without friends to learn together, then, their learning will remain shallow and ignorant. Therefore, in the Confucian tradition, it is an utterly important practice for students to find their companions so as to “discuss and practice” what they have learned. For the sake of philosophical therapy, this communal dimension is particularly important since different from the normally one-to-one type of psychotherapy, students can learn, discuss and practice varying philosophies in classrooms and study-groups. If all connected people strive for good human living in reliance upon their own initiative and mutual support, it would not be difficult for an individual in this environment to keep being uplifted by the synergy.

So, in a word, free thinking is the graceful endowment of the universe upon human being, which proves transformation as an utterly probable human achievement. While learning and practicing broadly varying techniques of good human living from different disciplines and traditions, humans can truly become their own masters of life, and then, grow into a specific kind of artist, an artist of good human living.

Quiz:
1, Which of the following belongs to the types of fallacy termed by philosophical therapy as “con’stipation”?

A, emotional con’stipation
B, behavioral con’stipation
C, volitional con’stipation

2, Socrates’s view “unexamined life is not worth living” advocates to investigate alternative ways of living in order to live a sincerely desirable life. Is this statement true or false?

3, In the practice of philosophical therapy, therapists take human life itself as an artwork, and use rational thinking and all techniques of good human living to perfect it. Is this statement true or false?

4, which of the following belongs to the arts of living practiced by the tradition of Confucianism?

A, meditation
B, nourish ones’ vital energies
C, investigation of things
D, discussion and practice.

5, “When you are in an emotional tizzy, change the focus of your consciousness to a different, less contentious object.” What kind of philosophy does this technique represent?

A, Husserl’s phenomenology.
B, Kant’s deontology.
C, Hume’s empiricism.

6, “The will to overcome an emotion, is ultimately only the will of another, or of several other, emotions.” Which philosopher’s view does this quote represent?

A, Nietzsche
B, Socrates
C, Confucius.