Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.s7.t6.7

v1.c7.s7.t6.7

Debate over moralisation and the nature was intended to identify the relationship between the Confucian ethical code and the nature. The nature is the true look of the universe with no artificial features whereas rite, music and moralisation were created by human beings. Institutions, systems, rite, music and moralisation cultivated and restraint the people’s behaviors and emotions. According to He Yan and Wang Bi, “moralisation (purpose) stems from the nature (means)”; moralisation is incidental and tangible, and the natural is fundamentally intangible. But Wang Bi took faith in Taoism and referred to Taoism and Confucian thoughts, who believed that “ceremony is nothing but a kind of tangible constraints, which is falseness with limits. It is necessary to start from the ontology of nothing, remove the ceremonial constraints, achieve the real morality that rite, music and moralisation target at, and make all things in place”. According to Wang Bi,