Normative dimensions of the world serve as warrants for early Chinese thinkers who employ them to ground their evaluative attitudes- which values to hold, how to see the world, which virtues to cultivate, what counts as Heavenly. These reasons motivate to the extent that they constitute an appropriate response to the world and converge with a desire, common among early Chinese Masters, to act based on our conformity to and harmony (he 和) with that reality. Although the presentation of the normative aspects of the world may not be readily apparent, many early Chinese thinkers, including Mencius, suggest that one can possess veridical access to those realities through different forms of revealed knowledge or revelation. The perception of normative realities like Heaven (tian 天), even if they cannot be strictly described as “mystical” states, serve as grounds which make evaluative attitudes and practical reasons appropriate or inappropriate, more or less reflective of the Way.
The Mencius appears to describe how one can obtain veridical access to normative realities through various methods and techniques (some mystical, others less so) that provide epistemic warrant for reasons for action and different forms or styles of life. Early Confucians understood the Dao as a reflection of the design of Heaven which could be accessed through the wisdom of ancient sages or even more immediately, in the case of Mencius, through the natural inclinations of the heart-mind (xin 心). These early Masters were not only “disputers of the Dao,” engaged in debate on the nature of the Way, but were also involved in disputes about how veridical access to the Way is obtained. Although they parted ways in regard to the source of normativity and the best methods or techniques for fully realizing its significance in one’s practical life, these early Masters seemed to share the belief that normative realities could be revealed to them through various modes of veridical human cognition, including different forms of intuition, perception, study, and revelation.
What is unique about Mencius’s ethical program is how he marries ideas of the cosmos and moral anthropology with contemplative practices aimed at achieving certain physiological states meant to enable noetic insights into the nature of the self and the source of its natural predispositions. The structure of these contemplative practices can be imagined along the following lines:
- Nourishing the qi 氣 or vital energy: In practices such as restorative sleep (6A8), empathetic extension (1A7), and ritual performance (3A5), Mencius suggests that the moral agent can cultivate a “flood-like qi” (haoran zhi qi 浩然之氣). As he remarks to Gongsun Chou in 2A2: “If one cultivates it with uprightness and does not harm it, it will fill up the space between heaven and earth. It is a qi that harmonizes with righteousness and the Way. Without these, it starves” (3.2/16/1-2). Descriptions like this intimate the thought that physiological substrates accompany the presence of moral emotions as a necessary but not sufficient condition for moral mastery. It is neither a form of voluntarism that understands the will as being decisive as some commentators have suggested nor a kind of non-cognitivism that views the attainment of mystical states as ends in themselves, but a synthetic view of moral mastery which sees physiological states as enabling conditions for veridical human cognition.
- Attainment of mental calm and tranquility: Nourishing the qi through such contemplative exercises and repeated acts of goodness disciplines the heart so that it can become “unperturbed” (bu dong xin 不動心) and not fall into fears (kongju 恐懼) or doubts (huo 惑) or be led astray by baser inclinations. To use Mencius’s language of sprouts, the stilling of the heart diminishes or halts the growth of other, less desirable beginnings or feelings centered around the self and its hedonic appetites.
- “Reflection” (si 思) and the contemplation of our Heavenly-endowed nature: Reflection is the process by which one understands the Heavenly-endowed nature of our sprouts of goodness. We can think of it as a form of revelation, a kind of mystical gnosis where the practitioner realizes her moral potential and the normative orientation of her heart-mind. As Mencius states in 7A1: “To fully fathom one’s heart is to understand one’s nature. To understand one’s nature is to understand Heaven” (13.1/67/15). Mencius appeals to the authority of Heaven to ground his normative claims about what human nature is really like and what sort of attitudes and actions it is appropriate for us to embody.
Even though Heaven endows all human beings with natural dispositions towards goodness in the form of the four beginnings, we only realize this normative reality when we can access it through “reflection” [si 思]. In 1A7 Mencius leads King Xuan to reflect on his natural dispositions during an episode when he showed compassion towards a sacrificial ox and encourages him to “extend” this compassion towards his people to become a virtuous king. Since King Xuan has not properly reflected on his innate dispositions, he is at a remove from them in terms of his own moral motivations. It is only when he can appreciate the nature of his sprouts of goodness that he can be motivated to extend his compassion towards his own people. This explains why some people become great and why some people become petty. As Mencius states in 6A15, “The office of the heart-mind is to reflect. If it reflects, then it will get it. If it does not reflect, then it will not get it. This is what Heaven has given us. If one first takes one’s stand on what is greater, then what is lesser will not be able to take it away. This is how to become a great person” (11.15/60/27-11.5/61/1). Mencius is arguing that we can understand our Heaven-given potential simply by reflecting on our intrinsic natures, but this discernment can only occur when we nourish the qi through contemplative exercises that discipline the heart and give normative guidance to our practical actions.
This paper explores the range of contemplative practices presented in the Mencius and argues that the cultivation of “flood-like qi” through practices like restorative sleep, self-examination, and empathetic extension constitutes the physiological substrate to psychological states of gnosis or noesis that provide revelatory insight into the nature of human goodness endowed by Heaven. Mencius suggests that by engaging in these contemplative practices, one can achieve states of mental calm or an “unperturbed heart” which can serve not only as an enabling condition for noetic insights or “reflection” in regard to the goodness of human nature but can also diminish or weaken other baser impulses like the desire for profit. The promotion of these contemplative exercises along with their attendant spiritual goals suggests that Mencius understood the Way as a holistic process that required both cognitive attunement to the design of Heaven as well as harmonization of one’s psycho-physiological energies.