Mencius · Philosophy
Mencius’s account of moral cultivation at full strength: the ‘flood-like qi’ (<em>haoran zhi qi</em>), a vast moral energy grown by the steady accumulation of righteous acts, and his warning, in the parable of the man of Song who pulled up his sprouts, that such growth can be neither neglected nor forced.
You learned that Mencius’s ‘flood-like qi’ (haoran zhi qi) is a vast moral energy produced by the accumulation of righteous deeds, guided by a firm will, and that cultivating it means neither forgetting it nor forcing it - the error of the man of Song who pulled up his corn. Explain the flood-like qi…
Leads to Confucius.
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