Asian Restudy Journal

Journal of Asian Restudy

Journal of Asian Restudy Edition 2023 Winter Part. II

_______________________ Published by Education on Cultured Way ¹Toronto ON. Canada Email:AsianRestudyBureau@outlook.com ISSN 2564-31

Copyright belongs to Asian Re-study Journal 1

Journal of Asian Restudy Content Editor's Words.

Call for submission of orignal articles. P. 6

Disclaimer Please be noted we have zero tolerance for plagiary and will not accept any articles copied from or with main ideas similar to that of other publications.

Special Topics of Today The forming and evolution of souls -- How the soul came into being and the meaning of its evolution. P 44 Maybe it is really the time for us to recycle the Eco-system.

Poems for Appreciation The Journey Is Difficult《行路难》by Li Bai(Tang. dynasty) P 31

The Proses that set moral standards for more than a thousand years and would steal your hearts with their beauties.

The Praise to Boyi 《伯夷颂》By Han Yu. P 24 The Master's Statement《师说》By Han Yu. P 4 2

Journal of Asian Restudy The Best Policies Come from the Greatest.

Wisdom 《旬子君道第十二篇》By Xunzi. P 13

People on Painting The picture of collecting thorn ferns 《采薇图》By

by Li Tang (Song dynasty) P 20

The Stories on Idioms and Proverbs The loudest voice can't be heard–大像无形 大音希声 P 37 The hard and the strong are the ones going to their demise easily, while the soft and the low are the.going to prevail – 坚强者死之徒, 柔弱者生之徒.

P.39 The high adroitness is hidden in the dumbness, while the true intelligent people usually look. foolish -- 大巧若拙. 大智若愚. P 41

Humour The tutor. P 11 The story of earthworms. P 35

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Journal of Asian Restudy 师说

韩愈(唐)

古闻道也固先乎吾，吾从而师之；生乎吾后，其闻道也亦先乎吾，吾从 而师之。吾师道也，夫庸知其年之先后生于吾乎？是故无贵无贱，无 长无少，道之所存，师之所存也。 嗟乎！师道之不传也久矣！欲人之无惑也难矣！古之圣人，其出人也 远矣，犹且从师而问焉；今之众人，其下圣人也亦远矣，而耻学于师。 是故圣益圣，愚益愚。圣人之所以为圣，愚人之所以为愚，其皆出于此 乎？爱其子，择师而教之；于其身也，则耻师焉，惑矣。彼童子之师， 授之书而习其句读者，非吾所谓传其道解其惑者也。句读之不知，惑 之不解，或师焉，或不焉，小学而大遗，吾未见其明也。 巫医乐师百工之人，不耻相师。士大夫之族，曰师曰弟子云者，则群 聚而笑之。问之，则曰：“彼与彼年相若也，道相似也。位卑则足羞，官 盛则近谀。”呜呼！师道之不复，可知矣。巫医乐师百工之人，君子不 齿，今其智乃反不能及，其可怪也欤！ 圣人无常师。孔子师郯子、苌弘、师襄、老聃。郯子之徒，其贤不及孔 子。孔子曰：“三人行，则必有我师。”是故弟子不必不如师，师不必贤 于弟子，闻道有先后，术业有专攻，如是而已。 李氏子蟠，年十七，好古文，六艺经传皆通习之，不拘于时，学于余。 余嘉其能行古道，作《师说》以贻之。

Shī Shuō

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Journal of Asian Restudy Gǔ zhī xuézhě bì yǒu shī. Shī zhě, suǒyǐ chuándào shòuyè jiě huò yě.

Rén fēi shēng ér zhīzhī zhě, shú néng wú huò? Huò ér bù cóngshī, qí wèi huò yě, zhōng bù jiě yǐ. Shēng hū wú qián, qí wén dào yě gù xiān hū wú, wú cóng'ér shī zhī; shēng hū wú hòu, qí wén dào yě yì xiān hū wú, wú cóng'ér shī zhī. Wú shī dào yě, fū yōng zhī qí nián zhī xiānhòu shēng yú wú hū? Shì gù wú guì wú jiàn, wúcháng wú shǎo, dào zhī suǒcún, shī zhī suǒcún yě.

Jiē hū! Shī dào zhī bù chuán yě jiǔ yǐ! Yù rén zhī wú huò yě nán yǐ! Gǔ zhī shèngrén, qí chū rén yě yuǎn yǐ, yóu qiě cóngshī ér wèn yān; jīn zhī zhòngrén, qí xià shèngrén yě yì yuǎn yǐ, ér chǐ xué yú shī. Shì gù shèng yì shèng, yú yì yú. Shèngrén zhī suǒyǐ wéi shèng, yúrén zhī suǒyǐ wéi yú, qí jiē chū yú cǐ hū? Ài qí zi, zé shī ér jiàozhī; yú qí shēn yě, zé chǐ shī yān, huò yǐ. Bǐ tóngzǐ zhī shī, shòu zhī shū ér xí qí jùdòu zhě, fēi wú suǒwèi chuán qí dào jiě qí huò zhě yě. Jù dòu zhī bùzhī, huò zhī bù jiě, huò shī yān, huò bù yān, xiǎoxué ér dà yí, wú wèi jiàn qí míng yě.

Wū yī yuèshī bǎi gōng zhī rén, bùchǐ xiāng shī. Shìdàfū zhī zú, yuē shī yuē dìzǐ yún zhě, zé qún jù ér xiào zhī. Wèn zhī, zé yuē:“Bǐ yǔ bǐ nián xiāng ruò yě, dào xiāngsì yě. Wèi bēi zé zú xiū, guān shèng zé jìn yú.”

Wūhū! Shī dào zhī bù fù, kězhī yǐ. Wū yī yuèshī bǎi gōng zhī rén, jūnzǐ bù chǐ, jīn qí zhìnǎi fǎn bú néng jí, qí kě guài yě yú!

Shèngrén wú cháng shī. Kǒngzǐ shī tán zi, cháng hóng, shī xiāng, lǎo dān. Tán zǐ zhī tú, qí xián bùjí kǒngzǐ. Kǒngzǐ yuē:“Sān rénxíng, zé bì yǒu wǒ shī.” Shì gù dìzǐ bùbì bùrú shī, shī bùbì xián yú dìzǐ, wén dào yǒu xiānhòu, shù yè yǒu zhuāngōng, rúshì éryǐ.

Lǐ shìzi pán, nián shíqī, hǎo gǔwén, liùyì jīngzhuàn jiē tōng xí zhī, bùjū yú shí, xué yú yú. Yújiāqí néng xíng gǔdào, zuò “shī shuō” yǐ yí zhī.

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Journal of Asian Restudy 译文 古代求学的人必定有老师。老师，是传授道理、讲授学业、解答 疑难问题的人士。人不是一生下来就懂得道理的，谁能没有疑惑？有 了疑惑，如果不跟老师学习，那些成为疑难的问题,就始终不能解开。 出生在我之前的人，他懂得的道理本来就比我早，我会拜他为老师； 出生在我之后的人，如果他懂得道理也比我早，我也跟从他，并拜他 为老师。我是向他学习道理的，哪管他的年龄比我大还是小呢？因 此，无论高低贵贱，无论年长年幼，道理存在的地方，就是老师所在 的地方。 唉！古代从师学习的风尚不流传已经很久了，要人没有疑惑也难 了！古代的圣人，超出一般人很远，尚且要从师请教（他，焉为代词） ；现在的一般人，才智不及圣人也很远，却以向老师学习为耻。因此， 圣人更加圣明，愚人更加愚昧。圣人成为圣人的原因，愚人成为愚人 的原因，大概都是由于这个原因吧? 爱自己的孩子，会选择老师来教 他。但是对于他自己，却以跟从老师学习为可耻，这真是糊涂！那些 儿童的老师，教他读书，学习书中的文句，并不是我所说的传授道理 ，解答疑难问题的老师。不知句读要问老师，有疑惑不能解决却不愿 问老师; 小方面的东西知道要学习，大的方面却放弃了。我没有看到 他的明达之处。巫医、乐师、各种工匠这些人，不以互相学习为耻。 士大夫这一类人，听到称“老师”称“弟子”等等，就聚在一起嘲笑他。 问他们（为什么笑），就说：“他和他年龄差不多，懂得的道理也差不 多。把地位低的人当做老师，实在足以感到耻辱；把官大的人当做老 师，会被认为近于谄媚。”哎！求师的道理的难以恢复由此可以知道 了！巫医、乐师、各种工匠这些人，有道德有修养的人不屑一提，现 在他们的智慧竟然反而比不上这些人了，这真是奇怪啊！ 圣人没有固定的老师，孔子曾以郯子、苌弘、师襄、老聃为师。郯 子这些人，贤能都比不上孔子。孔子说：“几个人同行，那么里面一定 有可以当我的老师的人。”所以学生不一定不如老师，老师不一定比 学生贤能。接受道理有先有后，学问和技艺五花八门，各有所专。如 6

Journal of Asian Restudy 此而已。 李家的孩子叫蟠的，十七岁，喜欢古文，六艺的经文和传记都普遍 学习，不被耻于从师的世俗限制，向我学习。我赞赏他能履行古人之 道，写《师说[1]》送给他。

Translation The Master's Statement

by Han Yu(Tang Dynasty)

Ancient people must have teachers when they engaged in studies.

Teachers were the ones who explain the Dao, teach the knowledge and know-hows to their students, and/or address their questions. People are not born knowing the truth of things. Who wouldn't have questions or doubts ? If a person has doubts and never tries to study from a teacher, those questions would never be answered and problems would never be solved. People who are born before me know the Dao of certain things that I don' t know, I would learn from him; people who are born after me, if he knows things that I don't , I would also take him as my teacher and learn from him. I am learning the truth of the universe from the learned ones. why should I care whether he is older or younger than me? Therefore, there is no difference between the superior and subordinate, neither between the elder and the younger ones as far as learning is concerned. Wherever the truth exists, where the teacher is.

Well! It has been a long time since we lost the tradition of seeking masters for learning the Dao. It is not likely for people to have no questions about this world! Ancient sages were much better learned 7

Journal of Asian Restudy than the ordinary people, still they were willing to lower themselves to learn or take advices from others; Today's scholars, who are far less intelligent than them, however, feel ashamed of learning from masters.

Therefore, the sage becomes more intelligent while the fool becomes more ignorant. The reason that saints become saints and fools become fools are probably all this same, right? They love their children and choose teachers to guide them. But for themselves, they consider it something shameful to learn from the teacher. That is stupid! Those children's teachers teach them to read, and learn the words and sentences in the books. They are not the type of teachers teaching Dao and addressing questions. If you don’t know how to read a sentence, you have to ask the teacher, but If you have doubts that bother you, how come you don’t want to ask the teacher? Is it that you only want to learn trival things, but give up on the real important things? I don't come to its understanding. Witch doctors, musicians, and various craftsmen are not ashamed of learning from one another. Now, when our people such as scholar - bureaucrats heard someone among them being called "master" or "disciple", they would gang up and laugh at those people. When being asked why they laughed, they said: "They are about the same age and should be at the same level of intelligence. To call someone of a low status as the master is enough to feel shameful; Treating someone in a high official position as a master would be considered as flattery."

Why! That shows how difficult it is to re-establish the tradition of seeking teachers for personal improvement! Witch doctors, musicians, and all kinds of craftsmen are people upon whom we scholars have normally looked down, but it appeared that some of us are actually inferior to them when it came to the wisdom of learning. How strange that is!

A sage does not have a fixed teacher. Confucius once had Tanzi, the king 8

Journal of Asian Restudy of the State Tan, as his teacher to address the concerns regarding the name of official ranks and titles in the court of antique time, Changhong to learn the music, Xiang to learn playing the musical instrument Qin, and Laodan as his teacher for the etiquettes of East Zhou dynasty, even though people like Tan Zi and the like were not as knowledgeable as Confucius. Confucius once said: "If there are three people walking together, there should be someone among them who can be my teacher." Therefore, students are not necessarily inferior to teachers, and teachers are not necessarily more capable in everything than students. There are people who could have by chance learned truth of certain things earlier than others, also there are many specializations in the studies of our society. That is the reason.

The son of the Li family is called Pan, who is seventeen years old. He likes ancient Chinese literature, and has studied the classic scripts and biographies of the Six Arts. He is not ashamed of being a student to others by the secular rule, so he came to learn from me. I admired his courage to follow the ancient wisdom and wrote this prose "The Master's Statement" as a gift to him.

【Note】 Scholar: a person who studies, especially who studies the learnings of Confucianism.

Dao: here, it refers to the philosophy, political principles and theories of Confucius, Mencius and other famous Confucianists such as Xunzi, Dong Zhongshu, etc.al. You can refer to Han Yu's "Yuan Dao".

Han Yu (768 - 824 AD), born in Heyang, Henan province, was a governmental official, writer, thinker, philosopher, politician, and educator in the mid-Tang Dynasty of China.

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Journal of Asian Restudy Han Yu was orphaned at the age of three and grew up with his brother and sister-in-law. He studied the Six Classics and Hundreds of Schools since he was a child, and passed the entrance examination to get into an official career by becoming a Jinshi in the eighth year of Zhenyuan.

Han was a pioneer of the Classic Prose Movement since he opposed the trend of the flamboyant parallel writing style started from the Han dynasty and appreciated the prose writing style originated from the period before the Qin dynasty. He felt the prose style was the more suitable one for argumentation, description, and narration of things, for it is more concise, clear and flexible in phrasing, paragraphing and wording, especially for writing utility articles. He applied different modes of proses for his work and communication with others. Han was regarded as the one of Eight Greatest Masters of Literature in Tang and Song dynasty.

Han was an unbending Confucianist, known for his high moral standards in the scholar circle. However, he wasn't a believer of Buddhism. Yet, it was a miracle that he stood strong through his political career. He was promoted to the highest rank as vice minister of the then Human Resource Department of the government, or called as the Organization Bureau.

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Journal of Asian Restudy The Tutor The story had it that there was another young man who was in his last year of college study. He didn't always have good grades for his studied courses. But he did pretty well in one selective course of his freshman year's study. That was the crafting class. He liked to use the paper, thread, and wood pieces to make crafting items. So, at this critical moment before entering a competitive labour market, he planned to do some volunteer work in order to gain necessary work experience.

One day, he found one post in the website looking for tutor for a primary student to work at the family's home. They asked the tutor to assist with their kid's homework and review of the studied lessons. He called the family up by telling them that he would like to give it a try without getting paid, which is a pretty alluring offer. So the family told him that their son was at the second year of the elementary school, who was a bit naughty or disobedient, and disliked the school, and if he was still interested in trying, he could come over in the early afternoon of the coming Saturday.

This young college man took the address of the family and arrived at their place on Saturday as arranged. That boy wasn't a very bad kid, it was just that he wasn't good at concentration on things. The tutor opened his text book and asked where he was right now in his study.

The boy shook his head and threw a blank eye at him. Then he randomly picked one page from the beginning part of the book and asked him a question. He shook his head again. When the tutor was planning to ask more questions, the kid had grown bored and started to look around, who then picked a toy and began to play with it.

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Journal of Asian Restudy The tutor got frustrated. It seemed to him that this kid is nothing more than an idiot. So he grapped the book and turned to the first page, then began to read it in loud voice. The kid laughed and looked at him in amusement. So the young tutor asked him: ”You have heard what I read, didn't you?" The kid nodded this time. The moment he saw the nodding, the tutor suddenly tore off the first page of the text book, and made a flying paper bird with that piece of paper, then sent it to the air in the room. The kid was amazed and started to show more interest.

Then the tutor did the same with the second, third, fourth and more pages of paper, but by making a different crafting item, such as chicken, pig, puppies, etc al, until the kid finally got worried when the tutor had turned to the pages of the middle of the book, and asked the tutor that how he should do his homework as he had just tore off the very page for that day's homework and had cut it into pieces. The tutor said very crispily:" Give me your homework book, I will help you!" Then he took over the homework book and tore off each page of the booklet, then made paper toys from them.

Now the room was filled with paper toys and other crafting items. The boy went out of the room to see his parents with a pile of paper toys in his hands. His mother asked him: how is the study? Did you like your tutor?" He nodded. "Have you done your homework?" the father asked this time. He answered: "It is all done! No more homework! " Then he extended out his hands to his parents by showing those paperworks to them. His mother was shocked to see the pages from the text book among those crafting items, while his father forced out a smiling face after a moment of contemplation, as he thought his son had made them, since he had never read his son's text book.

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Journal of Asian Restudy 荀子君道第十二篇 至道大形：隆礼至法，则国有常；尚贤使能，则民知方；纂论公察，则民 不疑；赏勉罚偷，则民不怠；兼听齐明，则天下归。 然后明分职，序事业，材技官能，莫不治理，则公道达而私门塞矣，公 义明而私事息矣。如是，则德厚者进而佞说者止，贪利者退而廉节者 起。《书》曰：“先时者，杀无赦；不逮时者，杀无赦。” 人习其事而固。人之百事，如耳目鼻口之不可以相借官也。故职分而 民不探，次定而序不乱，兼听齐明而百事不留。如是，则臣下百吏至于 庶人莫不修己而后敢安止，诚能而后敢受职；百姓易俗，小人变心，奸 怪之属莫不反悫, 夫是之谓政教之极。 故天子不视而见，不听而聪，不虑而知，不动而功，块然独坐而天下 从之如一体、如四胑之从心，夫是之谓大形。《诗》曰：“温温恭人，维 德之基。”此之谓也。

Zhì dào dà xíng: Lóng lǐ zhì fǎ, zé guóyǒu cháng; shàng xián shǐ néng, zé mín zhī fāng; zuǎn lùn gōng chá, zé mín bù yí; shǎng miǎn fá tōu, zé mín bù dài; jiān tīng qí míng, zé tiānxià guī zhī.

Ránhòu míng fēn zhí, xù shìyè, cái jì guānnéng, mòbù zhìlǐ, zé gōngdào dá ér sī mén sāi yǐ, gōng yì míng ér sīshì xī yǐ.

Rúshì, zé dé hòu zhě jìn'ér nìng shuō zhě zhǐ, tān lì zhě tuì ér lián jié zhě qǐ.“Shū” yuē:“Xiān shí zhě, shā wú shè; bùdǎi shí zhě, shā wú shè.”

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Journal of Asian Restudy Rén xí qí shì ér gù. Rén zhī bǎishì, rú ěrmù bí kǒu zhī bù kěyǐ xiāng jiè guān yě. Gù zhí fèn ér mín bù tàn, cì dìng ér xù bù luàn, jiān tīng qí míng ér bǎishì bù liú.

Rúshì, zé chénxià bǎi lì zhìyú shù rén mòbù xiū jǐ érhòu gǎn ān zhǐ, chéng néng érhòu gǎn shòu zhí; bǎixìng yì sú, xiǎo rén biànxīn, jiān guài zhī shǔ mòbù fǎn què; fū shì zhī wèi zhèngjiào zhī jí.

Gù tiānzǐ bù shì ér jiàn, bù tīng ér cōng, bù lǜ ér zhī, bù dòng ér gōng, kuài rán dú zuò ér tiānxià cóng zhī rú yītǐ, rú sì zhī zhī cóng xīn, fū shì zhī wèi dà xíng.“Shī” yuē:“Wēn wēn gōng rén, wéi dé zhī jī.” Cǐ zhī wèi yě.

中文翻译: 最好的政治策略来自真正的大道理：推崇礼义，使法制高于一切，那 么国家就会有常规；尊重贤德的人，任用有才能的人，那么民众就会 知道努力的方向；集体审查，公正考察，那么民众就不会怀疑了；奖赏 勤劳的人，惩罚偷懒的人，那么民众就不会懒惰了；同时听取各种意 见，完全明察一切事情，那么天下人就会归顺他。 然后明确名分职责，根据轻重缓急的次序来安排工作，安排有技术的 人做事，任用有才能的人当官，没有什么得不到治理，那么为公家效 劳的道路就畅通了而谋私的门径就被堵住了，为公的原则昌明了而 谋私的事情就止息了。像这样，那么品德淳厚的人就得到起用而巧言 谄媚的人就受到遏止，贪图财利的人被黜退而廉沽奉公的人被提拔。 《尚书》说：“在规定的时刻之前行动的，杀而不赦；没有赶上规定时 刻而落后的，杀而不赦。” 人们往往因为熟悉了自己的工作而固守本职不改行。人们的各种工 14

Journal of Asian Restudy 作，就像耳朵、眼睛、鼻子、嘴巴等不可以互相替代官能一样。所以 ，职务划分后，民众就不会再谋求他职；等级确定后，秩序就不会混乱 ；同时听取各种意见，完全明察一切，那么各种工作就不会拖拉。像这 样，那么大臣百官直到平民百姓就无不提高了自己的修养以后才敢安 居，真正有了才能以后才敢接受官职；百姓改变了习俗，小人转变了 思想，奸邪怪僻之流无不转向诚实谨慎，这就叫做政治教化的最高境 界。 所以天子不用察看就能发现问题，不用打听就能明白真相，不用考虑 就能知道事理，不用动手就能功成业就，岿然不动地独自坐着而天下 人顺从他就像长在一个身体上一样、就像四肢顺从思想的支配一样 ，这就是最好的政治原则的最大效验。《诗》云：“温柔谦恭的人们， 是以道德为根本。”说的就是这种人。

Translation The greatest wisdom for best political policies is to respect etiquette and erect justice, and put the laws above everything else, then the country will have basic rules and remain stable; respecting the virtuous people and employing the talented ones, then the people will know the direction of their efforts; If collective investigation is enacted and fair review is followed in important affairs, then people won't doubt the justice of the society; if reward the hard-working people and punish the robbers, then the people will not stay lazy; if listen to all kinds of opinions at the same time, and are fully aware of everything, then the nation will be under the control.

Then clarify the names and responsibilities of jobs, assign the work 15

Journal of Asian Restudy according to the order of priority, hire skilled people for work and appoint talented people as officials, then nothing will not be managed, and the door to serve the public will be open and the way to seek personal gain will be blocked, while the principle of public service will prevail and selfish pursuits will cease. In this way, people with moral characters will be promoted, people of flattery will be stopped; greedy people will be removed, and honest ones will be recruited. "The Book Shang Shu" said: "Those who act before the pre-arranged time will be aced without mercy; those who fall behind the scheduled time will be removed without mercy."

People often stick to their jobs and do not usually change careers because they are already familiar with the work of their jobs. People's various tasks, just like ears, eyes, nose, mouth, etc., which cannot replace one another's functions. Therefore, when duties are clearly divided, people will not seek other positions; when job levels are defined, procedures will be in order; when various opinions are audited at the same time and everything is fully understood, then no task will be delayed. Like this, from ministers and other officials to common people, none of them dares to stay inert until they have gone through the proper cultivation and personal improvement to achieve desired qualifications; the candidates for official career will not dare to accept official positions until they have real talents, and the same for ordinary people in their pursuit of careers. If the people have changed their social customs, the villains have changed their mindsets, and the cunning and eccentric ones have all turned honest, morals and etiquettes, as the highest state of political education have come to its effect.

Therefore, the king can discover problems without looking, understand the truth without asking, know things without thinking, make achievements without taking action, and sit alone and steady without 16

Journal of Asian Restudy worry, while the people of the nation all obey him, just as limbs obey the dictation of thoughts of the brain. This is the greatest result of the best political principles. "The Book of Poetry" says: "Gentle and humble people take morals as the foundation of their life." The above is the kind of person it is talking about.

—--------------------------------------Xunzi ( 310 – 238 BC) a Chinese Confucian philosopher during the late Warring States period, was from the state of Zhao. After his predecessors Confucius and Mencius, Xunzi is often ranked as the third greatest Confucian philosopher of ancient China. He is regarded as an advocates of "Li". "Li", as one of the main pillar values of Confucianism school of learning, just as Mencius said: "Li", is to polish and modify the behaviours of "Ren" and "Yi", in order to make them look decent and good for people to accept, while easy and pleasant to implement.

Xunzi had been to the famous Xijia Academy of that time and learned all popular schools of philosophies of the period. He made an important and coherent revision of Confucius and Mencius's learnings, and had taught Han Feizi and Li Si who were both prominent figures of then political circle.

Xunzi's ideas were further developed by later Confucianists and, together with theories of Confucius and Mencius, eventually gained attention of the court of Han dynasty as a foundation for establishing the state ideology, which was to last for more than 2000 years.

In this article, Xunzi had given very good illustration above why it is important to develop a set of good public regulations and social rules, as well promote fine customs among people, while he mentioned what those proncipal rules are. Here, morals, good social customs and rules are all related, to make public affairs work smoothly, for the society to 17

Journal of Asian Restudy stay in peace with fairness, for getting people motivated to pursue personal improvement and self-cultivation and be settled with their jobs, clear about their responsibilties, for the officials to stay in line with their qualifications and keep up to the expectations of their duties. and for the head of the nation to carry out their plans and keep their authority without worry, so the nation would prosper for long term.

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Journal of Asian Restudy

Picking the Thorn Ferns 采薇图 By the famous Painting by Li Tang of Song dynasty This painting tells about the story of saints Boyi and Shuqi who abdicated their thrones in order to follow certain principles of the society.

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Journal of Asian Restudy The picture of picking thorn ferns - 采薇图 — The story of Boyi and Shuqi Three thousands years ago, in the land of current Qinhuang Dao, there was a state under the Shang dynasty, called Guzhu State. It was a well established nation, judging by the national scale of economy and civilized level of people. Under the blessing of the heaven, three princes were born and brought up by the royal family of this Guzhu state, during the reign of the emperor zhòu who was a notorious dictator and cruel ruler. And the story of Boyi and Shuqi was rolled out from this place at this particular time period.

Boyi was the oldest son of the family, while Shuqi was the youngest one. The king felt the youngest son was more desirable for the rulership, and made a will to let Shiqi inherit the throne. When the king died. According to the custom, Boyi should be the one to become the king, but Boyi thought it as non - benevolent behaviour to go against the will of his father, so he escaped from the state and went on an exile. Everyone in the Guzhu state thought that the third son Shuqi should have no reason to decline the crown right now. But Shuqi felt that if he inherited the throne, it would be considered against the social etiquette and conduct of a righteous person by taking away the throne from his eldest brother.

So he also left the country and went to stay with Boyi for an exiled life.

The throne was finally given to the second son of the old king.

Boyi and Shuqi lived in the east coast for a while, where the people had lagged behind in their civilization level than some other states, without getting steady support from any reliable source. Then they heard that the state Zhōu under the rulership of King Wen was doing very well,

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Journal of Asian Restudy where people were happy and had good life, while the state treated the elders generously by giving them good benefit.

So, they went on a journey to the state Zhōu. Just as they arrived at Zhou, they happened to run into the King Wu, the son of King Wen, who was on the road of a military expedition to fight against Emperor zhòu, with the master of King Wen on the chariot, accompanied by their capable state and military counsel Jiang Shang, as King Wen had just passed away at this exact time. Shocked and disappointed by the news, the two brothers immediately ran to stop the horse of King Wu and remonstrated him by saying: "your father just died, you didn't get him buried right away, instead embark on a war at this very inapropriate moment, that is not a benevolent behaviour! Also, you, as the duke under the emperor, should share duties with him, instead inflicted a war against him. That is not a righteous act! Please retreat the army!"

The guards of King Wu saw some unknown street elders were so bold that they dared rush over to yell at their king, immediately ran over to arrest them and wanted to kill the two brothers. The counsel Jiang Shang instantly knew who these two men were and said to King Wu:" They are noble people with good integrities. Let them go!" So, King Wu asked the guards to release them.

The military expedition wasn't an easy one, as the Emperor Zhou had quite some states behind him, since not every duke wanted to let other people of equal status to suddenly ascend above them by using a war, also there were quite some very loyal court officials of Emperor zhòu, who were just talented, wouldn't tolerate rebellion from any state. So both sides had incurred tremendous loss of army men and damages to supplies and local facilities. However, the Emperor zhòu's despot regime had irritated the heaven, by harming too many righteous people, including this monarch's own family members, and damaged the national economy to a great scale for satisfying the ridiculously 21

Journal of Asian Restudy self-indulged life style of the emperor and his concubine Daji, to let most people at the end of this dynasty suffer tremendously.

Finally, In year 1046 BC (BC: before the birth of the Christ), in the battle of Muye, the slave soldiers of Emperor zhòu defected at the front of the battlefield and let the army of King Wu win the battle, they broke into the palace of zhòu, who committed suicide. At last, the king Wu won the war and established the dynasty Zhōu.

The people of Zhōu were all thrilled for this victory as they loved their own king and believed that he was going to be a good emperor.

However, the hearts of Boyi and Shuqi were saddened. They felt it a shame to receive life support from a new regime that had seized power from their old dynasty through a violently way. So, they refused to eat the millet from the new regime and ran to hide in the mountain of Shouyang. They lived on picking the thorn fern as food. They knew they were going to die by continuingly living like this, but they never surrendered to their hunger. Before dying, they were still singing their own composed song: 原文 登彼西山兮，采其薇矣。 以暴易暴兮，不知其非矣。 神农、虞、夏忽焉没兮，我安适归矣？ 于嗟徂兮，命之衰矣!

Dēng bǐ xīshān xī, cǎi qí wēi yǐ.

Yǐbàoyìbào xī, bùzhī qí fēi yǐ.

Shénnóng, yú, xià hū yān méi xī, wǒ ānshì guī yǐ?

Yú jiē cú xī, mìng zhī shuāi yǐ!

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Journal of Asian Restudy 译文 登上那首阳山，采摘薇来充饥。 (周) 用暴虐去替换暴虐，却不知这种做法的错误。 神农虞舜古代圣君转瞬即逝啊，我要到哪里寻找理想的归宿呢？ 多么可悲啊，已是生命垂危之际，命运是这样不济！ Translation Climb the western mountains and pick the weeds of thorn fern for living.

No one knows what is wrong to replace a despot regime through violence.

How come the good time under rulers like Shen Nong, Yu and Xia has suddenly. disappeared from the world? and Where would be our desired home?

What a pity that we are going to die of starvation, yet The fate isn't fair to us!

Then, they died of starvation finally, in the Shouyang Mountain. And let many morally noble hearts to weep and sing for them and appraise them. Confucius had highly regarded their behaviour by saying that they were the ones who were pursuing benevolence through their life and were able to achieve it finally, by standing by their belief without any compromise. They were the ones who had truly received admiration from people of later generations. Also just as Confucius said: "The King of Qi had a thousand horses in his horse stalls for his one person's enjoyment. When he died, the people of his state had to pay their respect to the king by appraising him at the funeral, but Boyi and Shuqi had nothing left after them, while people of all later generations are appraising them after their death.

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Journal of Asian Restudy 伯夷颂 韩愈(唐) 士之特立独行，适于义而已，不顾人之是非，皆豪杰之士，信道笃而自 知明者也。一家非之，力行而不惑者，寡矣；至于一国一州非之，力行 而不惑者，盖天下一人而已矣；若至于举世非之，力行而不惑者，则千 百年乃一人而已耳。若伯夷者，穷天地亘万世而不顾者也。昭乎日月 不足为明，崒乎泰山不足为高，巍乎天地不足为容也！ 当殷之亡、周之兴，微子贤也，抱祭器而去之；武王、周公圣也，从天 下之贤士与天下之诸侯而往攻之：未尝闻有非之者也。彼伯夷、叔齐 者，乃独以为不可。殷既灭矣，天下宗周，彼二子乃独耻食其粟，饿死 而不顾。繇是而言，夫岂有求而为哉？信道笃而自知明也。 今世之所谓士者：一凡人誉之，则自以为有余；一凡人沮之，则自以为 不足。彼独非圣人，而自是如此。夫圣人乃万世之标准也；余故曰：若 伯夷者，特立独行，穷天地亘万世而不顾者也。虽然，微二子，乱臣贼 子接迹于后世矣。

Bóyí sòng shì zhī tè lì dúxíng, shì yú yì éryǐ, bùgù rén zhī shìfēi, jiē háojié zhī shì, xìndào dǔ ér zì zhī míng zhě yě. Yījiā fēi zhī, lìxíng ér bùhuò zhě, guǎ yǐ; zhìyú yī guó yī zhōu fēi zhī, lìxíng ér bùhuò zhě, gài tiānxià yīrén éryǐ yǐ; ruò zhìyú jǔshì fēi zhī, lìxíng ér bùhuò zhě, zé qiān bǎi nián nǎi yīrén éryǐ ěr. Ruò bóyí zhě, qióng tiāndì gèn wànshì ér bùgù zhě yě. Zhāo hū rì yuè bùzú wéi míng, zúhū tàishān bùzú wéi gāo, wēi hū tiāndì bùzú wéi róng yě!

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Journal of Asian Restudy Dāng yīn zhī wáng, zhōuzhīxìng, wēi zǐ xián yě, bào jìqì ér qù zhī; wǔwáng, zhōugōng shèng yě, cóng tiānxià zhī xiánshì yǔ tiānxià zhī zhūhóu ér wǎng gōng zhī: Wèicháng wén yǒu fēi zhī zhě yě. Bǐ bóyí, shū qí zhě, nǎi dú yǐwéi bù kě. Yīn jì miè yǐ, tiānxià zōng zhōu, bǐ èrzi nǎi dú chǐ shí qí sù, è sǐ ér bùgù. Yáo shì ér yán, fū qǐ yǒu qiú ér wéi zāi? Xìndào dǔ ér zì zhī míng yě. Jīnshì zhī suǒwèi shì zhě: Yī fánrén yù zhī, zé zì yǐwéi yǒuyú; yī fánrén jǔ zhī, zé zì yǐwéi bùzú. Bǐ dú fēi shèngrén, ér zì shì rúcǐ. Fū shèngrén nǎi wànshì zhī biāozhǔn yě; yú gù yuē: Ruò bóyí zhě, tè lì dúxíng, qióng tiāndì gèn wànshì ér bùgù zhě yě. Suīrán, wēi èrzi, luànchén zéizǐ jiē jī yú hòushì yǐ. 译文 读书人的立身行事独特，符合道义罢了。不理会别人的赞誉或批评的 ，都是豪杰之士，也是忠实地相信自己的道并且清楚知道自己的人。 全家的人批评他，仍坚定执行而不迷惑的人很少。至于一国一州的人 批评他，仍坚定执行而不迷惑的，大概整个天下只有一人罢了。若是 到了全世界的人都批评他，仍坚定执行而不迷惑的，则千百年来只有 一人罢了。像伯夷这样的人，是穷尽天地，经历万世也不回头的人。 （与他比较），即使光明的日月也不算亮，雄峻的泰山也不算高，宽广 的天地也不算能包容。 当殷商要灭亡而周要兴盛时，微子这样的贤人都抱着祭祀的器具离 开殷商。武王、周公是圣人，率领天下的贤士和诸侯前去进攻殷商， 未曾听说有人批评过他们。独有伯夷、叔齐认为他们不该。殷商灭 亡后，天下承认周为宗主国，伯夷、叔齐二人独认为吃周的粮食是羞 耻的，即使饿死也不后悔。由此说来，他这样做难道是要博取甚么 吗？是因为忠实地相信自己的道并且清楚知道自己罢了。

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Journal of Asian Restudy 现今的所谓读书人，当有一人称誉他，自以为该得到更高的赞誉。有 一人不满他，自以为别人的话未尽正确。他可以独自批评圣人而自以 为是到如此的地步。圣人的行事是万世的标准啊。所以我认为，好像 伯夷这样的人，是立身行事独特，穷尽天地，经历万世也不会回头的 人啊。虽然这样，如果没有他们二人，乱臣贼子便会接连不断地出现 在后来的世代了。

Translation.

Praise to Boyi Scholars can be independent and act on his own will and to his own belief, which is compatible to the definition of "Yi" - righteousness.

Those who do not care about the gossip of others on the wrongs and the rights, are real men with majestic spirit. They are true believers of their belief and know themselves very well. If a whole family negates one person's conduct, he still would do his best to carry on his conduct.

How many people of this kind do we have, very few. If the entire state or country negates one's behaviour, he still relentlessly stick to it. There would only be one such person in the world. And the one who could resist the objection of the whole world to keep his own steady behavior, there would only be one person for a thousand year. If you are a person like Boyi, you will be still on your belief no matter where you are under the heaven until the end of the world. The light of the sun and moon isn't bright enough to illuminate his glow, the sublime of Mount Tai isn' t enough to reach his nobleness and the room between sky and earth isn't spacious enough for the greatness of his character.

When the Yin Dynasty fell and the state of Zhou prospered, Wei Zi, the virtuous man of Shang dynasty, took the sacrificial vessels of the family 26

Journal of Asian Restudy and left. King Wu, the duke of Zhou, who were then sages, united other dukes and wise men, and all went to attack the despot regime of Shang.

I have never heard of any one to criticize them. Boyi and Shuqi are the only ones who acted differently. Since the Shang Dynasty was destroyed, the world was taken over by Zhou Dynasty, and the two brothers were the only ones who were ashamed of eating the millet from Zhou and starved to death without regret. In this case, they didn't do it for gaining favors. It is only because they were sincere with their belief and knew themselves well enough to stick to the belief.

The so-called scholars in this world, if there are people who praised them, they would think they are better than what is said in the compliment; if there are people who criticized them, they would think they are not good enough. They are not saints, but they behaved in such way. The saint is the standard for all ages; so I would say: If you are like Boyi, you would stay independent and stand strong and high, and you will not care about what other people are doing in the world for all ages. Well, without people like these two brothers, the world will always be filled with unrighteous officials and sneaky persons for good.

—--------------------------------There are some people would probably think that the two brothers Boyi and Shuqi were too old-fashioned in their behaviour and overly stale in their mindset, according to some "practicalists" in current world. But that wasn't the point that Han Yu wrote this article.

The point is that Boyi and Shuqi were people with belief. They truly believed what they had learned from ancient sages, the ones even before Confucius, such as Shen Nong, Yu, Xia, etc.. We could tell that the values of "Ren - Benevolence" or "Yi - Righteousness" had existed long before the period of Confucius. However, Confucius re - brought 27

Journal of Asian Restudy them up for a turbulent historical period about six centuries after Boyi and Shuqi, the Spring and Autumn Period, in its destitute moral situation and gave them some new meanings, which made him a saint.

Han Yu was a staunch advocate of Confucianism, and opposer to Buddhism, the latter of which would only highlight his uprightness and positive attitude to change and better the society since the Buddhism passed down from the Southern and Northern Dynasties Period contained quite some negative ideas and elements of superstition. Han, as a very well learned man, whose behavior would be considered acceptable to go against that trend of Buddhism.

The two brothers had behaved exactly to what they had been expected for their belief through all their life. Firstly, they both abdicated their throne in order to comply with the standards of a moral man. They rationalized their conducts by mentioning the values of "Ren" and "Yi".

Then they used the same standards, trying to admonish the King Wu by persuading them from attacking regime of Shang dynasty. They failed in their persuasion, then they chose to die of starvation rather than to eat the millet of Zhou dynasty that, under their viewponit, was an unjustified regime.

Some people would say that they had asked for their own demise. They had very good chance to live perfect life as kings and nobles, or at least not to die of starvation under the good benefit to elders of Zhou dynasty. For common people without belief, when getting belly fed is the number one thing in their life, it would be like a dream life to eat like what the king eat in the palace, but they would never have the worries of what the king worries about. The king should worry about the life of their people. If they don't have enough for eat, and if they are constantly ill-treated by their governmental officials, they would rebel and/or the nation would recieve the punishment from the heaven even if there is no rebellion, according to ancient sages. So they had to set a 28

Journal of Asian Restudy good example for their people in order to correct the customs and erect the principles of the society, and in order to make the moral behavior prevail. That is why Boyi and Shuqi, who had truly understood what the kingship was, decided to abdicate the throne, in order to avoid any unpredictable future troubles to the state.

They had probably heard about the monstrous behaviours of Emperor Zhou, but they had heard more of the ancient wise rulers who surrendered their thrones to others. So they thought it was totally wrong to fight the Zhou's despot regime with violence, which was like to use one's spear to attack one's own shield. And it is true, each battle meant loss of lives. In antique time, life was even more precious. From the historical point of view, King Wu and Duke Zhou, who were also regarded as sages by some scholars, were on his right side to remove Emperor Zhou's regime too, for economical and political purposes.

While they also had their personal reasons to do so, since Emperor Zhou had once imprisoned King Wen and then killed one of his(King Wen) favorite sons who came over to see his father. Both incidents were for no good reasons, but to reveal the extreme cruelty and treacherousness of this despot regime. No doubt, this was only one of many awe-dropping victimization cases infliged by Emperor Zhou. Just as Confucious said also:"It was perfectly justified to get Zhou eliminated, who wouldn't be regarded as a ruler, but a cruel loner that had been abandoned by heaven."

Whether Boyi and Shuqi or KingWen and Duke Zhou, both sides had their reasons of doing their separate things. They had an occasion of small confrontation, but Boyi and Shuqi definitely would't hurdle King Wu's expedition, since they didn' t want to fight against Zhou by violence, they wouldn't do it to King Wu either. The nature of their separate conducts would suit the need of a good society very well. Boyi and Shuqi are the standards for educable people who have the 29

Journal of Asian Restudy potentials to understand the values of a civilized society. While King Wu and Duke Zhou also set an example for their informidable bravery and perseverance to remove the villains, and the admirable kindness and generosity for their respecting the righteous ones and well treating the commoners. They are all people who truly lived up to the standards of a civilized society. If one day, both side were able to accept each other and meet in peace in a right place, that would mean the evolution of the civilization had made a major breakthrough.

In short, if everybody, no matter what positions they are in, would only care about personal interests, then they would surely come to breach the moral standards and bend their integrity to engage in undesirable conducts. That would jeopardize the communal interest and eventually cause disasters to the society. And this type of society would never be able to make it out, but to be drowned in its own forever vicious cycles.

So, just as Han Yu said that saint is the standard for a thousand years.

Once people get into a decent belief, they shouldn't easily give it up or bend its standard mindlessly, especially for people in power, who could intervene in and ruin other people's life. No matter what good scheme and what nice desire they have, they will always end of nowhere by breaching the principal rules of the society. Those rules or values to people are just like the chart of constitution to each nation, above all other laws and regulations. How many people have ever bothered to check on the chart of constitution of their state in now days. Probably very few! But while those self-claimed patriots of their countries are breaching the very fundamental laws of their own nations, which had been set up by their fore-fathers, the founders of their territories. How worrisome!

Once again, as Mencius said that there is something more important than life - "Yi" and there are things that people shouldn't do in order to avoid death, as there are things more fearsome than death for a moral 30

Journal of Asian Restudy man and that is non-righteous conduct.

出自唐代李白的《行路难·其一》 金樽清酒斗十千, 玉盘珍羞直万钱。 停杯投箸不能食， 拔剑四顾心茫然。 欲渡黄河冰塞川， 将登太行雪满山。 闲来垂钓碧溪上， 忽复乘舟梦日边。 行路难！行路难！ 多歧路，今安在？ 长风破浪会有时， 直挂云帆济沧海。 chūzì táng dài lǐbái de “xínglù nán·qí yī” Jīn zūn qīngjiǔ dòu shíqiān, yù pán zhēnxiū zhí wàn qián.

Tíng bēi tóu zhù bùnéng shí, bá jiàn sìgù xīn mángrán.

Yù dù huánghé bīng sāi chuān, jiāng dēng tàixíng xuě mǎn shān.

Xián lái chuídiào bì xī shàng, hū fù chéng zhōu mèng rì biān.

Xínglù nán! Xínglù nán!

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Journal of Asian Restudy Duō qílù, jīn ān zài?

Cháng fēng pòlàng huì yǒushí, zhí guà yún fān jì cānghǎi.

Translation Life Is Difficult

by Li Bai(Tang Dynasty) The wine of pure fragrance in this gold goblet would cost ten thousand coins for each Dou, while The delicates in jade plates also cost ten thousand coins. But I couldn't eat, as I left the wine cup and threw chopsticks aside, when I draw out my sword and looked around at a loss.

When you want to cross the Yellow River, you found that it was blocked by ice, when You want to climb the Taihang Mountain, you saw it was all covered with snow.

When I was free and went to fishing on that blue greenish water of a brook, For a moment, I suddenly fell into a delusion that I was in a boat that had sailed to the side of the sun.

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Journal of Asian Restudy How difficult is the journey!

There are many different roads under the heaven.

Where am I now? I wish There will be times when the blowing wind will give the travellers a lift by boosting the sail to connect with cloud, to help them Reach a place where no turbids could stop them, and where they would realize their dreams or ambitions.

Li Bai (701-762 AD), most known from Sichuan province, also known as "exiled immortal" as well was honored as the "Immortal of Poetry". The greatest Romanticist Poet in Tang dynasty. He received enormous influence from the Daoist philosophers such as Laozi, Zhuangzi, Liezi, etc.. and liked drinking. He was also called an Immortal of Wine Drinker.

He had wrote a poem to show that character of his: When the son of heaven - the emperor sent an envoy to invite him to accompany them in a cruise ship, he proudly declined it by claiming that he was the immortal of the wine drinker.

Li Bai luckily gained attention of Xuanzong and was given an imperial envoy position in year 872. But he was favored by Emperor Xuanzong because of his poetry skills, who could write poems to make the monarch and his gorgeous concubines look and feel good. Li Bai was a vigorous swordsman who had perhaps imagined a serious political career as the swordsmanship, sharp, fluent, unbridled and artistic, just as his character. But Xuanzong didn' t think so. He had been through hardship to inherit the throne, which should have belonged to the family of his uncle, Zongzong, who failed due to his naiveness. He liked Libai for his personality and talents as a fun companion for his lesure 33

Journal of Asian Restudy time. Libai was depressed for his aspiration to help the nation wouldn't get appreciated. He became indulged in drinking, and offended the favored eunuch of the emperor, Gao Lishi. The drunken people wouldn't usually hide their contempt upon the disliked ones. Then he was given some monetary reward and advised to leave the capital Changan, in a word, he was forced to quit his official career due to the slandery of some of the court officials. This career only lasted about two years.

Li Bai wrote this poem in this year of 874, when his friends set up an banquet to say farewell to him. He was in a very confused status of emotions, not to know what he should do, by facing a very unpredictable future. He knew it was not possible nor easy to compromise with those scandalous court officials and/ or eunuches in the capital. However, he still remained some delusion to realize his dream of achieving success in politics so that he could serve the court in a serious way, rather than being hustled around for entertainment purpose. Just as he said in the poem that he was fishing by the water, as Jiang Shang, the later prime minister of Zhou dynasty did before King Wen invited him out to help his state, manifest that he was going to live a secluded life trying to avoid the dirty mundane world while waiting for right chances, then he felt that he had suddenly sailed to the sun side, a metaphor to indicate Emperor Xuanzong finally wanted to use him for good purpose.

At the end of the poem, he showed a very optimistic attitude, to consolate his own sadness and disappointment, or to comfort his friends for seeing him off? Maybe, both!

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Journal of Asian Restudy The Story of Earthworm There was a young man again from some place of some time, who also liked to help. One day, there was a team of construction workers appeared in front of his home, who were trying to move away those cracked bricks on the sidewalk of the street in order to pave new ones on it. The mud of the underground showed up after the bricks were gone.

This young man, thought he could give a hand to this project. So, after the workers left, he dug out quite some dragon worms from his backyard and secretly dumped the earthworms into the already exposed mud ground. He thought the worms could craw down into the underground of other not yet removed bricks and thus to get them easily moved away, since the earthworm could loosen up the mud and detach the concrete object to the ground. He was right on this side, but the problems was that the devil seemed to have played a trick on them, that the construction workers didn't show up for days. And after several days of underground work by earthworms in sunny days, the dry mud was filled with tiny holes - traces left by the worms, and wind had blown over seeds of varieties of wild grasses into those holes. Then, on the day before the construction workers returned, there had pouring rains that made all mud become tight and slippery. The workers had very hard time to do their job. It seemed the earthworms had collaborated with devil to hurdle the project. Still, all the bad bricks were moved away and were replaced by new ones finally after some work of hardship.

After the pavement was done, the sidewalk looked very nice - flat and

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Journal of Asian Restudy clean. But some days later, the young man was surprised to see that wild grasses started to show up between the bricks and covered some of those bricks. After the wash of the rain, those bricks were slowly covered by greenish moss and became very slippery in rainy days to walk on them. This very young man had incurred more bad lucks than others by falling on those bricks since he had to walk on them almost every day.

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Journal of Asian Restudy The greatest person has no figure, while the loudest voice can't be heard.

— 大像无形 大音希声 There was a man always like to leave the door of his home open, thinking it was a more healthy living style since the rooms can always get fresh air. He would have the door open through the whole day of the daytime, and during the night, he just close the door without putting on the bolt. People had warned him to be careful of thieves or other bad guys. But he replied very cheerfully: " People in ancient time won't even bother closing the door during the night, and nobody would pick valuable stuff left on roads by other ones either. Why should we close the door in now days? The society should always go on the direction of becoming better."

However, his wife wasn't so sure of what he said. She was a lot more cautious person than her husband. However, she didn't want to get into quarrels with her husband either. So she tried to find a way to change the situation. Firstly, she found out that her husband thought there was a dog in the courtyard of of the building who had always been staying over night outside the residents' doors. If there were people approaching, the dog would have barked. However, there were quite some occasions that the dog did not bark at all while there were people who had entered the apartments and stolen stuff from inside.

One day, the door was closed by itself as an thief in invisible apparel came in and accidently closed the door behind him by habit. The wife used this occasion to tell her husband:" See. even the Heaven wanted 37

Journal of Asian Restudy us to close the door. There was some great person who just helped close the door for us." The husband was surprised:" Who was that person? How come I didn't see him?" The wife replied:" Didn't you know that the greatest person has no figure -大像无形?" That word made great sense to them, since both were believer of Daoism. From then on, when the husband saw the door closed, he would let it, instead ran over to open it immediately.

One morning, the wife woke up and found that some of her stuff had been made a mess by somebody, obviously due to the careless fumbling of some night intruder. So she got out of her apartment and scolded the dog: " There was thief sneaking in my room last night, how come you did not bark?" as she saw the dog was still waiting in the court. The dog replied silently:" I had wanted to bark to warn you guys, but they stopped me from barking, and I couldn't help it." then he said again:" However, I spoke in this way to pass the message to you." The wife said:" How come I didn't hear it?" Dog answered:" I heard you often say that the loudest voice can't be heard - 大音希声. Maybe, that was just like it, and I thought you could hear it."

The wife felt that the dog had tried to snob at her, but suddenly she understood something. She put the bolt on the door that night after her husband went to sleep. And the next morning, she told her husband that some voice during their sleep told her that they should put the bolt on the door in order to keep the family safe. The husband asked:" What voice? How come I didn't hear it?" The wife retorted:" Don't you also know that the biggest voice can't be heard?" The husband came to its understanding immediately. Now the bolt would always be put on the door before they went to bep

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Journal of Asian Restudy The hard and the strong are the ones going to their demise easily, while the soft and the low are the ones going to prevail.

— 坚强者死之徒, 柔弱者生之徒 One day, the son moved away the big mattress from his bed only days after he returned from the college for holiday, and placed it in the study room.

The mother saw the mattress and asked her son:" Isn't that the mattress from your bed? Why don't you want it?" The son answered:" Yes, it was in my bed, but it wasn't comfortable to sleep on it! So I moved it away. " The mother said:" No matter what, it should be more comfortable than sleeping on the wood planks!". "Don't worry, I am used to sleep on the wood box of the bed. It won't hurt me! " Mother was upset:" Why must you always try to be so strong and hard-cored?

Haven' t you heard that the hard and the strong are the ones going to their demise easily, while the soft and the low(weak) are the ones going to prevail? - 坚强者死之徒, 柔弱者生之徒 But now, you choose to stay with the hard one by insist on sleeping on the hard wood planks, rather than on the much softer mattress?" The son replied in a very mystic tone:" Don' t you know that the real hard and strong one is hiding inside the mattress. I am only trying to avoid the real 'hard and strong' ones!

Just imagine between the wood parts and metal parts, which is harder and stronger?" The mother stared at him in surprise. Then the son whispered in her ears:" The metallic spring imbedded inside the mattress is really getting me? (as it could easily became an effective conductor and trigger electric field in the space around it to harm the objects nearby.)" The mother seemed to have understood it and then stopped the conversation and let his son go.

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Journal of Asian Restudy --------------------In now days, there had been a lot of privileged people using high - tech devices everywhere, to get on other people. Many wired and metallic stuff are easily stimulated to produce high density of electric field and cause damage to the health of people and durability and utility of things in the field. That exactly explained the situation that more and more people in higher position (the politically and economically stronger ones) are using tougher(harder) and tougher devices (the high technology products) to get on others, especially on the common people, while common people had to try hard to avoid the harsh treatment by looking for an more tolerable environment (the soft treatment).

However, please be noted that the people in higher position - usually in a risk to expose to various attacks, could further jeopardize their chance of survival if they choose to use hard and tough devices to deal with common people. If they stay in low key and try to treat people nicely, in a word, softly like the gentle breeze of the wind, they would stay and prosper.

So, by extending the meaning to all people, everybody gets a chance to choose their way of life, being a soft character or a hard(cruel) figure in their way of treating others. Only that the ordinary people usually have less choices than the privileged people. Being humble, fair and nice to others is their best way of survival. For privileged people, who have more choices, also more risks, they should make right decision on sound judgment in order to stay in their position.

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Journal of Asian Restudy The high adroitness is hidden in the dumbness, while the true intelligent people usually look foolish.

— 大巧若拙. 大智若愚 A fine and clever woman was married to a son of a well established family. This family's women were well - known for their skilled work in embroidery. This new bride, brought with her a sewing machine imported from foreign nation as a wedding gift from her own family, since her father was a merchant engaged in the international trade.

Seeing the bride was a very fine young lady combined with beauty and grace, the wife of the eldest son felt a bit uneasy. Nobody knows why that would happen between sisters - in - laws. Are they going to get into fights for the inheritance of wealth of the family? Not very likely. How would the looks of the daughters- in - law affect the decision of the father to divide his wealth to his sons? Or, maybe that was just the nature of women who would engaged in the eternal wars of envies.

That wasn't t the nature of all women, but as those incidents were going on and on and that would have at least said partial of the reasons.

On the day of the first reunion for all the wives in the family after the bride moved in, his eldest sister-in-law just put on a big manner in front of her. She raised her pair of delicate hands with jade-like skin, and ten slim fingers by doing some playful movements adroitly and inadvertently, trying to show off her inborn tributes for unusual sewing and embroidery skills once again, in front of everybody. She seemed to want everybody to remember she was the real favored daughter-in-law of this big family. After the new bride told her that she was into sewing work too, and would like to seek chance to learn from her. The eldest sister squeezed out a slim of smile on her face and replied indifferently: "Why don't you make something right now, and I would like to wait for 41

Journal of Asian Restudy a chance to appreciate your workmanship in sewing." The bride nodded. She returned to her residence and took out her sewing machine, then she quickly made a blouse in a half day, while it would normally take other women days to complete all the sewing work. The next day she went up to the residence of the eldest daughter-in-law and showed the newly made blouse to her. The latter was amazed, and asked how she had done it.

The new bride then went back to her own residence to bring her sewing machine. She showed the sewing machine to her eldest sister-in-law and said: "You see, I don' t have as delicate hands as those of yours, neither as good hand workmanship, but I know how to use this gadget that may looks like a dumb poor thing that was awfully put together by some rough pieces. This is called 'the high adroitness is hidden in the dumbness ' - 大巧若拙."

Het eldest sister in law was impressed by this thing and the smartness of her younger sister, but she still didn't want to yield to a new comer in in a place she had been used to be the boss among all women under her mother-in-law. So she once again, by using her clear voice tinted with a bit of natural arrogance, and in slow rhythm, said to her: " In this family, we are doing quite some embroidery work too, since so many men and women's dresses, decoration in the houses, and everything needs a foral needle work all depend on this artisanship. Have you ever done this type of work before?" The new bride replied honestly:" My mother and sisters had taught me some stitch work before." " What genre of stiches have you used? The Pekin knot or the Satin stitch?" The bride remained in silence for a moment, then said:” I don't know particular which stitch it was, since I haven't gotten much deep in embroidery." The eldest sister continued to ask: "What style of embroidery have you gotten your hands on then? Su Xiu - Suzhou embroidery, Yuexiu - Guangdong Embroidery, Xiang Xiu - Hunan 42

Journal of Asian Restudy Embroidery, or the Shu Xiu - Sichuan Embroidery?" The bride laughed and said in embarrassment: "I have touched a bit of everything, not even remembering the names of them, neither good at any of those.

You believe it that my mother had never asked me to get my hands on those work for serious usage."

The truth was that she had discovered a secret that she could use the sewing machine to do the embroidery work too, in a faster way with finer workmanship. The sister wasn't sure why she laughed and asked:" Maybe you could show me something, we will see from there. You know it that, in this family, which is well-known in this town, we need a lot of embroidery work to be done."

The new bride returned to her residence. For a moment, she had an emotional rush trying to use that sewing machine for the work, but she remembered what she was told "the true intelligent people usually look foolish-大智若愚". So she hand - made a handkerchief with single sided brocade on it, which was not very bad, but obviously not an impressive piece of work. Then she went up to show it to her eldest sister- in -law, who had once come to her current authority in this family because of her almost flawless refined embroidery work that gained all woman's admiration to her. That was true that the latter wasn't impressed by the work of the bride this time, who felt her confidence come back to her and her sympathy upon this new comer started to grow. She changed her tone of voice and said calmly and softly: " We had all started from the same level. Don't worry, you will be fine."

This new bride finally felt a release of anxiety and felt lucky for things haven't gone too bad for her new marriage.

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Journal of Asian Restudy

By Journal of Asian Restudy. Feb 2nd, 2024

The Forming and Evolution of Human Souls – How the soul came into being and the meaning of its evolution Unlike other animals, human didn't just evolved through the mutation of the genes, change of chromosome patterns, and/or the influence of the physical environment. Current research on the human evolution solely depends on the evidences collected from the archeological work.

But the problem is that the result on the research through the biological or statistical method wouldn't always work toward to humans. The first mankind may presented similar biological features as those of the prime apes. But what was the turning point that some apes turned into real humans if the latter were truly evolved from the former species.

Many events and incidents appeared in modern world indicated that It could be the appearance of human souls.

We suppose, up to today, most people won't have problem to accept the fact that human has soul. Humans are self- conscious animals. The soul made them to become that. They are probably very confident that they are higher beings than other animals since they are more intelligent than them. It is true that they could be more intelligent than each of them, but whether or not they are higher beings, it waits to be debated upon. Human has better developed nerve system and relatively greater size of brain compared to the size of their body, which renders human the ability for more complicated logic process and better physically maneuvering of subtle things. Nevertheless, good tribute, in other side, could be a defect itself, the finer nerve system led human march into direction of technical operation in pretty much everything, and mechanical logic thinking habit, which is precise, but

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Journal of Asian Restudy not dialectic. While the nerve systems of animals are less complex, which, however, can stick to some very basic principles of the nature better than humans as a whole, even though they won't come out the wisest ones in the world and that would still give them the reason to snob humans in this sense.

Human's higher nerve system could be one of the reasons for human to have soul, which is the creation of human civilization. The prime human civilization could have created the soul under the supplies of electric magnetic waves(EMW) which is invisible to human eyes, and can travel through air, the solid matter, as well as the vacuum. During far antique time, the sun, the lightening and the earth polars accompanied by rotation of the earth were the main sources of EMW, the biological bodies produce some EMW too. For example, the brain could produce brain wave which simulates the nature EWM. The sun could be a very good source of EMW, since it provides most of the energy to humans for its living purpose. People like to have the sun bathe, knowingly for the biological benefits from its visible light wave, but could be for the goodness of soul too. The sun's EMW could resonate with the oscillation of human body's EMW to boost the energy of the latter. The EMW from earth polars due to the rotation movement of the earth might be a good source also, that may help develop soul's sense of orientation for life journey, etc.. The lightening isn't a stable source of EMW, and it probably won't do much good for the soul. However, people tend to believe that the soul composed of higher density of sun EMW could give a personality of being more frank and outgoing.

We would imagine, the earlier the time, the more likeness they share in their thoughts between human and other mammals, or even the birds.

Since the transmitted EMW could bump into one another anywhere and merged into other waves which then bounced back to humans or animals through some means to further influence their behaviours. We 45

Journal of Asian Restudy may call that as enlightenment from nature, through which, human could get a feeling about what birds regularly read from the sky, how the mammals understood the surrounding woods. or even what water animals found about the sea or river. After the soul came into being, humans has since marched in a bright sunshine boulevard for better chance to take the enlightenment from the nature, under a condition that the eco-system hadn't been badly polluted by emissions and radiation resulted from the their own action of playing with high technologies. Believe it or not, humans have done a lot of stupid things by clutching on their own throat again and again.

As the prime human evolves, the grafties on wall became sophisticated enough to deliver more complicated meanings, and the same happened to their oral communication. There had appeared large groups of them under better organization endeavor due to higher communication skills, better supplies of food, in order to satisfy the bigger scale of hunting games and other effort for obtaining food. The larger the group, the more diversified their life would become and the more likely the members would have chance to develop their personal preferences for mates in a more subtle way rather than by natural instincs, as well for looks, taste of foods, and ways of doing things and means of recreations, which indicated the forming of distinctly different personalities not on biological bases. This would further propel the development of their nerve system that could consequently produce more and more different ranges of waves to be sent to the air and be echoed by the nature EMWs, the merged and mingled waves could linger in the air or bounce back to the person by choice of their matching energy type of each prime humans, to strenghen their own EMWs. And that feature of this biological species had began to walk away from the kingdom of other animals. They would probably feel the privilege of their life style, and would want to keep it to them. So be it for a more diversified life style, for the evolved individuality of each 46

Journal of Asian Restudy person, or for better living condition, something got to come out to sustain that privilege for them. That is called evolution.

When there was a demand, there would be an offer. We suppose, soul was the best choice of human to accomplish that task then, offered by nature, due to the availability and feature, of the main composing element - the EMW, There could be some other unknown elements included in the soul that hasn’t been discovered yet. How exactly that soul would develop into its desired size and utility and got into human body. That may still remains a myth. It could be that more and more brain EMW lingered and then concentrated itself inside the body of human, since the thoughts are produced by the brain as well as some parts of nerve system penetrating into various body parts/organs, which are closely related to functions and activities of body organs, bones and muscles of the human; while the brain thoughts in form of EMW could communicate and attract the EMW of other people's brain as well as the reflections of all sorts of other biological EMW in the air too to mingle or merge with them, if the ray in the environment is strong enough. The latter scenario would further strengthen some popular waves related to prime human's activities and their understanding of the natures. As the density of those waves got high enough, under some stimulus, it could be pressed into certain size in a limited available space of the body, which should be close to the nerve system, such as near the spine. Suppose the ray in some far ancient time was strong enough for a period of time as stimulus to propel this process, before the plants got ambitious and covered up the whole earth.

The soul should mark the clear line to separate human from other animals, and made humans burdened with one thing too, the self-consciousness, which, however, had made human stand out from the animal kingdom. If good tributes of human such as self-respect, sense of shame, sense of responsibility, diligence, bravery etc. al. are 47

Journal of Asian Restudy guided by that self-consciousness, they could energize the person and help make great achievement. In a group, if each person is energized, the team could get synergized, as each unique energy type by their unique character is needed to prompt the reaction of synergy. That explains why the evolution of human civilization went so fast. But its shortcoming is that this self-consciousness could develop into selfishness in some cases. The greed and selfishness don't seem to be a big problem among animals, but present themselves the greatest problem in mankind. It is usually the greediness and selfishness that had led to other human weaknesses, such as cruelty, shamelessness, aggressiveness or cowardliness, stupidity, dishonesty, no sense of responsibility, no sense of communal interest, etc.. Also, if they are not well organized, the differentiation of energy types among human would lead to higher chaos in the society as well as in the surrounding air space, the latter two of which have great influence upon each other.

This is just the double natures of anything. So, humans should learn how to control its bad side while promote its good side.

The soul greatly influences the behaviour of the people and guide them for going through each life's journey. Normally, human can not survive without the soul, especially for younger ones. And it evolved together with the human biological body and the civilization of the group. Souls evolved through reincarnating into humans' biological bodies and by going through self-cultivation during the life time of the reincarnated person. The soul decides the character of the person, and supposedly to make improvement through each life cultivation in every positive thing the person is doing. Just as it was said, the life experience is also one type of wealth. After the life time, the soul returns to the dead world to get itself purified of all undesirable deposits from dirty thoughts, immoral ideas, and evil conducts, etc., before it gets ready to reincarnate into another human body for a new life. Generally speaking, the longer the soul, the better cultivated it would be, to suit the need of 48

Journal of Asian Restudy a better civilized society.

As the population of human grows, there are always new souls being created. Does that mean that souls could spin off from its original one or divide itself into multiple ones by absorbing new energy into it. Or the EMWs lingered in the air, related to past and existing humans, which contains the memories of human's everything, had formed some models in the air to let new souls come into being naturally under the stimulus of sun light and provision of sun EMWs, as long as there is a message sent into air for new souls. If that is the case, it would raise a question on the source of the souls in modern world, since the eco-system has been badly polluted by various gases expelled from industry production and operation of vehicles, as well as the emission of all sorts of radiations from man-made products and extracted radioactive minerals. If human EMW in the air was polluted by waves of unnatural sources such as electric products or even harmful sources such radioactive objects, then those EMWs could penetrate into the surrounding particles and cause damage to the potential new soul or even the brain and body of this person, while the non-ideal source of EMW with different wave frequencies or energy density from that of normal soul EMW could produce different results or efficiency of the soul. Also, the composed information in the soul from different sources of EMW could possibly give different interpretation of meanings of human life. Suppose, the souls from a highly civilized society, to compare with ones from a poorly civilized place, while souls from a very cultured city, to compare with ones from an industry concentrated region, the expected results from the souls could be quite different if excluding the factor of soul migration.

Don't we feel, coming along with each explosion of population, there would normally be great gap formed between the older and younger generations. It might be due to the difference of source of EMW or 49

Journal of Asian Restudy some other unknown essential elements for forming the souls.

The older the soul, the more likely they would act to the law of nature, since the ancient people were much less exposed to or influenced by technologies, especially the high-tech products related to electricity, information communication, satellite based operation, etc. al. While the new souls, especially the ones came out during the period of industry and electronic revolution and current era of artificial intelligence programs, would usually be contaminated by the unnatural source of EMW and would think and act very differently from the ancient souls.

Which ones are better? Just take a close look at your surrounding world and think about it. Should the principles that had once helped establish this human civilization in the first place be abandoned all of sudden, or the human should just start all over from some new rules that have fundamentally ruined the social morals and greatly damaged the eco-system that humans depend on living their life. It is really the time to find an effective way to recycle the eco-system, not only for the physical environment, but also for the spiritual environment. Don't we want to keep some fresh air in our world, for the health of our biological life, also for that of our souls!

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