“Designation” is the provisional naming that refers to things that lack any intrinsic nature. In Buddhism, some schools argue that nothing in the universe exists. The reason why things appear to be different from each other is that as soon as they are designated by different names, what the names refer to are mistaken as the distinctive objects t…
The term means the ability to reflect and evaluate. Confucian scholars considered this a unique quality of the human mind. By reflecting, a person will keep himself from being led astray or getting confused by what he sees or hears. Through reflecting, a person will discover the foundation of morality. This leads to understanding the way of heaven, …
The heart, a vital organ of life, underpins one’s emotions, awareness, and value judgments. Different from the ears, eyes, nose, and mouth, which sense the outer world in a passive way, the heart is capable of thinking and performing intellectual and moral evaluations on the basis of analyzing and sorting out what these organs have sensed. Mencius …