Results for: eastern%20lightning
Reflections on the Writings of Louis Cha
[…] beautiful ladies, with embroidered cushions on their chairs… There were bunches of flowers all over the room, the strong sense of makeup assaulted the nose. On the eastern end of the room, someone sat beside a dressing table. He was dressed in pink, and held in the left hand an embroidery frame, and in […]
Taking Confucian Spirituality Seriously
The Renovation of the Heart in Dallas Willard and Zhu Xi
[…] witness to the human struggle to solve it” (p. 12). In a footnote to this sentence, Willard concedes, “There is, of course, an ocean of literature from Eastern thought on the formation of the human spirit” (p. 282). What a magnanimous and graceful acknowledgment! All Christians working in or for Asians should take this observation very seriously. In an online essay, “Idaho Springs Inquiries Concerning Spiritual Formation,” Willard replies to a number of frequently asked questions. The eighth question is, “Isn’t spiritual formation a human project, equally well expressed in many traditions other than the Christian?” Willard replies, “Much that is good is to be found in every great human tradition of spiritual formation, and the Christian will do well to respect what is good wherever it is found. ‘Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights’ (James 1:17, NIV). If we cannot afford to be generous, we possess little.” Theologically this view can be justified by the doctrine of “common grace.” God’s grace has been extended to East Asian peoples through Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist spiritualities, and we had better respect them. Disrespect reveals our cultural chauvinism. We should not erect an artificial barrier to sharing the gospel of Jesus by insisting on a Western language that non-Christians in Asia are not familiar with. Jesus is the answer, yes, but to what questions? East Asian people have a rich tradition of spiritual formation in the general sense of renovating the heart. Historically, they place a heavy emphasis on self-cultivation (the cultivation of the interior self). Can the Christian gospel reply to their spiritual questions in their terminology so that the answer can make better sense to them? In the rest of this essay, I will focus on neo-Confucian spirituality, a common heritage of the peoples in China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Spiritual Formation in Neo-Confucianism In the Song and Ming Dynasties, there were two rival schools of neo-Confucianism, the Cheng-Zhu (程朱) School and the Lu-Wang (陸王) School. Both schools agreed that the heart was the master of one’s life and placed heavy emphasis on the cultivation of the heart. In terms of subsequent influence, however, Zhu Xi (朱熹1130–1200) was widely acknowledged as the most influential Confucian thinker in the last 1,000 years for China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Part of his influence was due to the fact that he was instrumental in creating a much shorter canon of Confucian classics, known simply as the Four Books, which consist of the Analects, Mencius, Great Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean. The Great Learning is placed as the very first book, instructing learners on what genuine learning is all about. In the preface Zhu Xi explains that in very ancient times, at age eight boys would start the “elementary learning” (xiao xue 小學). Then at age 15 they would be enrolled to “higher learning” (da xue 大學), which is about “the way of self-cultivation and governance of men through the fathoming of principle and rectifying of the mind” (De Bary and Bloom, p. 723;「窮理、正心、修己、治人之道」). However, in subsequent times there were no more sage-rulers; hence there was no more “transformation of the people through education” (jiao hua 教化). Consequently, the deterioration of personal morals and social customs became widespread. This short treatise, the Great Learning, is brought to the forefront to address this issue. For Zhu Xi, learning is not only an intellectual exercise; it is, above all, the learning to be fully human. The first chapter of this treatise is subsequently very famous because Zhu Xi sums it up as the articulation of the “three intended learning outcomes” (pp. 725-726; 三綱領) and the “eight successive steps in cultivation” (八條目). The former consists of three goals of learning: (1) “clearly manifesting luminous virtue” (明明德), (2) “renewing people” (新民), and (3) “resting in the utmost good” (止於至善). The “eight successive steps” can be divided into four stages: Acquiring knowledge: investigation of things, extension of knowledge (格物、致知); Ordering of interior life: rectification of heart, making intention sincere (正心、誠意); Cultivation of personal life: self-cultivation, regulating family life (修身、齊家); Rendering public service: governing a state, bringing peace to all-under-Heaven (治國、平天下). Since the time of Confucius and Mencius, rendering public service has been a firm commitment of Confucian teachings; there is nothing new in Zhu Xi’s exposition in this regard. What is new is the emphasis that a good public and social life begins, and only begins, with one’s interior life properly formed. Everything starts from the heart. In the commentary, Zhu Xi explicitly affirms that “the heart is the master of one’s person” (p. 727; 心者，身之所主也). However, the human heart is often malformed; hence the “rectification of heart” (正心) is called for. In his political writings the rectification of the heart is a constant refrain. Only if the heart is rectified can personal, familial, and social life be rectified. Only when the emperor’s heart is rectified can his ministers’ hearts be rectified. Only when the entire imperial court’s hearts be rectified can the governance of the nation be rectified. Can we hear the loud and clear echo of the “renovation of the heart” here? As for another short treatise, the Doctrine of the Mean, again, Zhu Xi clearly sets up his education agenda in the preface. In the very first paragraph, he reminds us that in very ancient times there was “The Message of the Heart” (xinfa 心法), a 16-word, four-phrase message from an ancient text (p. 732): The human heart is prone to error. (人心惟危) But the Dao-heart is subtle. (道心惟微) Remain discerning and single-minded. (惟精惟一) Keep steadfastly to the Mean. (允執厥中) (Ching, p. 114) This cryptic saying exhibits a profound realism on the strife and turmoil of human interior life, that is, the conflict between the Dao-heart and the human heart. In the second paragraph, Zhu Xi elaborates on the complexity of the struggle of our inner being: As I have maintained, the heart…is one and only one. But if we make a distinction between the human heart and the heart of the Way (Dao), it is because consciousness differs insofar as it may spring from the self-centeredness of one’s individual physical form or may have its source in the correctness of one’s innate nature and moral imperative. This being so, the one may be prone to error and insecure, while the other may be subtle and barely perceptible… These two are mixed together in the square-inch of the heart, and if one does not know how to order them, the proneness to error becomes even more prone, and the barely perceptible becomes even less perceptible, so that the sense of the common good of Heaven’s principle is unable in the end to overcome the selfishness of human desires (De Bary and Bloom, pp. 732–733). In other words, the turmoil of society and of the warfare of the world that we know all too well begins with the turmoil and perpetual warfare within the human heart (the warfare between the Dao-heart and the human heart). The intended learning outcome of Confucian teaching is therefore “making sure that the ‘heart of the Dao’ is master of one’s self and that the ‘human heart’ always listens to its commands” (p. 733). A Chinese Christian cannot agree more and should add that our Bible speaks of the Dao too in the beginning of John’s Gospel. In other writings Zhu Xi has another way of explaining this perpetual conflict; it is between the “nature of Heaven and Earth” and the “nature of psychophysical endowment” (天地之性、氣質之性). The goal of learning is “to transform the psychophysical endowment” (變化氣質 Chan, 1963, pp. 624–625). Again, do we hear the call for the renovation of the human heart? For a Christian, such a struggle is all too familiar, reminding us of the famous passage in Romans 7. In an article entitled “Spiritual Formation and the Warfare between the Flesh and the Human Spirit,” Willard says early in this article, “The problem that confronts us here is not, we should note, one that is peculiar to Christians. It is a severe difficulty at the heart of humanity. It is the problem of not doing the good that you would sincerely say you intend to do, that you clearly wish you would do, and that you grieve over and regret not having done. It is a fundamental problem for all who see life clearly and think deeply about it.” So in conversation with an East Asian non-Christian who is cultured in Confucianism, a Christian does not have to start from the Bible. Instead, the conversation can begin with Zhu Xi’s program of spiritual formation. Zhu Xi produced many writings that cannot be summarized in this article. I only want to draw our attention to a very succinct short treatise entitled Neo-Confucian Terms Explained (《北溪字義》), authored by Chen Chun (陳淳), one of Zhu Xi’s eminent students. It is divided into two parts, and part one consists of the following 14 terms: ming (命), nature (性), heart (心), feelings (情), capability (才), purpose (志), will (意), humanity, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faithfulness (仁義禮智信), loyalty and faithfulness (忠信), loyalty and empathy (忠恕), one thread running through all (一貫), sincerity (誠), reverence (敬), respectfulness and reverence (恭敬). Please note that they are all terms relating to our interior life, and that is half of the book, half of the key terms in understanding Zhu Xi’s thought. The deep spirituality of Zhu Xi’s thought should not be missed. For hundreds of years Korean lives (personal, familial, social-political) were guided by Zhu Xi’s instructions. The major spokesman of Zhu Xi was a Confucian intellectual Yi Hwang (李滉, 1501–1570), who is more commonly known by his title (號) as Toegye (退溪). One of his best-known works is the Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning (《聖學十圖》), published entirely in Chinese. In ten diagrams, with succinct explanation, he summarizes Zhu Xi’s thought on spiritual formation. It was presented to King Sŏnjo in 1568 on the eve of his retirement from public service. In the prefatory “Address to the King” Toegye explains why he chooses the diagram form to express his ideas. He hopes that each diagram is “to be made into a screen to be placed where Your Majesty spends his quiet leisure. And perhaps another copy might be made in a smaller format as a handbook which Your Majesty might always keep on his desk” (Yi, p. 33). Each diagram can serve as, in contemporary terms, a spiritual exercise. If one takes up one diagram for consideration, he should entirely focus his attention on that diagram, as if he did not know there were any others; if one takes up one matter for practice, he should entirely focus his attention on that one matter as if ignorant that any other existed. Whether morning or night, there should be constancy; from one day to the next there should be a single continuity. At times one should go over and become steeped in its savor in the restorative atmosphere of the early predawn hours when the mind is clear; at others he should deepen his personal experience of it, nurturing and cultivating it in his intercourse with others in daily life. (Yi, pp. 34–35) Diagrams eight to 10, in particular, are practices for the formation of the heart. Below is diagram eight, “The Learning of the Heart.” Let us take a quick look. Source: Yi Hwang, To Become A Sage: The Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning, translated, edited, and with commentaries by Michael C. Kalton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), p. 161. Source: 張立文主編，《退溪書節要》，北京：中國人民大學出版社，1989，頁50. At the center of the upper section is the “heart” (心) which Toegye specifies as “the master of the entire person” (一身主宰). At the center of the lower section is “reverence” (敬, rendered as “mindfulness” by the English translator) which Toegye specifies as “the master of the heart” (一心主宰). The entire lower section of the diagram is about two major types of cultivation “efforts” (工夫) of “reverence.” On the left-hand side (right-hand side in the Chinese diagram) is the summary of the negative method: human heart – > desires/lusts – > “overcome and return,” “recovering the errant heart,” “rectifying the heart.” On the right-hand side is the summary of the affirmative method: heart of the Dao – > principle of Heaven – > “preserve the Dao heart,” “nurturing the heart,” “exhaustingly realizing the heart.” This is a very accurate summary of Zhu Xi’s thought. A Christian understands this way of […]
Lead Article
The Changing Face of China’s Church
[…] in the early 80s, the Chinese church has been bedeviled by an increasing number of cults, many of them homegrown. There are the Lingling, Beiliwang (Established King), Lightning from the East, Cold Water, Disciples, Wilderness Sect as well as others. We must not overlook the fact that Buddhism, Daoism, folk-religion and secret societies are […]
Supporting Article
“Spiritual Pollution” in the Chinese Church?
A crisis threatens the Chinese church worldwide. We have heard of the dangers of materialism and the seductions of cults such as Lightning from the East, but this wolf has crept into the sheep-fold almost undetected. I refer to the “spiritual pollution” of alien ideas from the West. To deal with this threat, we […]
December 6, 2012
[…] the scope of the government,” said Carsten T. Vala, an expert on Chinese Protestant Christianity who teaches at Loyola University in Maryland. “But he was also a lightning rod, seen by those in the house churches as having compromised by leading the Communist Party-controlled church.”Theologian says China to have largest Christian population (December 1, […]
Chinese Movies for Religious Eyes
[…] to be circulated among journalists and entertainers that dissuade them from including religious content in movies and other popular media. Despite the restraints of guidelines, with the lightning fast spawning and acceptance of new ideas (and repackaged old ideas, who cares? let's forget the debates) in the age of the internet, movies with Christian […]
March 27, 2014
[…] doesnt describe itself as asking whether belief in an Abrahamic being is necessary to morality, but rather asking whether belief in any supreme being is. China's Deadly Lightning (March 24, 2014, Christianity Today) A Chinese cult known for physical violence and coercion is prompting Chinese pastors to upgrade theological instruction in their congregations and […]
Beyond Beijing
Life in the Chinese Countryside
[…] can be seen in every major large Chinese city as well as throughout most of China’s coastal provinces. This transformation is due in large part to: The lightning-speed, State-supported growth of many of China’s industrial sectors China’s dramatic expansion in factory-produced exports combined with simultaneous development of broad global distribution channels China’s seemingly never-ending […]
Loving the Unlovable
An introverted and irritable man from Beijing, Cao Xiao Jing experienced an incredible transformation that led him to remote areas of Yunnan Province where he served the marginalized of society, including drug addicts and minorities. The story of Cao’s conversion and call to ministry is told in the online journal Jingjie. Out of his experiences […]
Things I Wish I’d Known
[…] a week or two to transition well by reflecting and processing the months and years you spent preparing, packing, and moving. Rest before hitting the ground at lightning speed. 2. The dogs will be smarter— Language Study. Things that once seemed second nature like grocery shopping, home maintenance, making a phone call, or meeting […]