Postscript: From salvation by atoning to symbiosis by redeeming happiness

— The spiritual and cultural background and contemporary appeal of Symbiosism

Qian Hong

SYMBIOSISM: The Mind Power to something on An Innovative Lifestyle (《共生:一种约定创新生活的精神力量》), which is a book about the historical transition from the Axis Age to the Symbiosis Age, and the construction of a “live and let live” symbiosis civilization at zero marginal cost with the wisdom of love. It is also the first book that I have published in the English-speaking world on the principles and contemporary applications of symbiosis philosophy.

Symbiosism tells the story of the “sons of the universe” who have built the rainbow bridge in ancient and modern times and at home and abroad. It enlightens our contemporary people: knowing advance and retreat, understanding profit and loss, poverty leading to change, change leading to prosperity, prosperity leading to respecting differences, persuing co-operation, atonement leading to salvation, redeeming  happiness to perfection leading to  symbiotic

As COVID-19 aggravates the “three major asymmetries” of information, resources and rights brought about by privilege, monopoly, manipulation, and the “three limitations” of growth, confrontation and evil, it is bound to generate “six conflicts” and “three imbalances”. As the Chinese scholar Jin Guantao(金观涛) said: “Human beings need new beliefs, new spiritual pursuits, new values and ethical and moral systems.” Mankind is on the eve of another great change in history, and it is urgent to lead forward with meta-synthetic wisdom! meta-synthetic wisdom is The symbiotic wisdom, so, the human way of life innovation and re-choice, will become the new era of the agreement!

I would like to tell you about the spiritual and cultural background and contemporary appeal of Symbientism from the perspective of a contemporary person, through the extension of the history of the Two Oriental Sages and the Western Bible by Zhang Zai(张载) and Wang Yangming(王阳明).

Part One

Zhang Zai and Wang Yangming each have four sentences with different emphasis on the inside and outside. Each has its own charm for Chinese officials and people!

For us contemporary people, the four-sentence teaching of Zhang Zai: “Establish a heart for the heavens and the earth, establish a life for the people, continue to learn from the sages, and open peace for all generations.” Most of us like to put it on the wall, although it looks not bad. You don’t know that the heart of heaven and earth, the life of the people, is there. Does it mean that you set your heart for it and your life? To go to the sacred is to go to the sacred, and the jerk is the jerk. You cannot continue it and the continuation is the most inspired by the impersonation of “little words and great justice”. In this way, isn’t the last sentence “make peace for all generations” a blank check?

Furthermore, every person and every generation has a special spirit, physical stamina, and life self-organizing spiritual power and external connection balance. How can you (replace) him, her or it?

Nowadays, scholars who do not know how to make money teach money-making businessmen how to make money, successful businessmen who are not good at learning teach students how to do learning everywhere, and politicians who do not understand how to do learning and can not make money have unified control over scholars and businessmen! The performers still use the old tricks, but change their gameplay with a few western words! As for a certain successful businessman claiming to “make his life for the businessman”, it is nothing but arty, which should not be taken seriously!

Now we will discuss Wang Yangming. In an era when there is a serious surplus of smart people and not enough fools, Wang Yangming’s “to conscience” has almost become our religious belief. As early as 500 years ago, Wang Yangming lamented the difficulties of the world, that is, some people said, “Believe in the theory of conscience, and understand the wisdom of the world through the door of the holy way.” “Conscience is actually the thought passed down by the ancient saints.” The doctrine of conscience is understood from the many difficulties and dangers.” “Learning is the beginning of action, and action can lead to success in learning.” “After the rebellion of Chen Hao, Zhong, and Tai, I believe in conscience even more. I can forget adversity, leave life and death, examine the practices of the kings of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, build the knowledge between heaven and earth, question ghosts and gods, and admire Xunzi(荀子). No one has found the same practices as mine.” By the age of 56, I finally summarized his thoughts into four conclusions: “No good and no evil are the essence of the heart, there is a movement of good and malicious thoughts, knowing good and evil is conscience, and eliminating evil for good is the law of exploring all things.” So today, “Yangming fanaticism” far surpasses “Confucius fanaticism” among the people and society, among private entrepreneurs. In the overseas Chinese society, the so-called “religion of conscience” has long appeared. Since the new century, various non-governmental education and training institutions in mainland China, and even individual universities have reproduced various “four doctrines”, “knowledge and practice as one” and “The education of conscience.”

To be honest, I was once deeply influenced by it, because it seemed to bring Buddhism’s “emptyness”, Lu Jiuyuan’s “real intention”, Mencius’s “conscience”, “Intuitive Knowledge” and “Good Energy” and the university’s “from object-observing to knowledge”, and even Descartes’s “My Thoughts” and Kant’s “A priori rationality”. Bergson’s “life force” and “creation”, Whitehead’s “life process” … Almost melted into a furnace! Moreover, with my observation, understanding and belief, that is, the above-mentioned “everyone, each generation has a special mental fitness and life self-organizing spiritual motivation and external connection balance” of the common symbiotic concept (Symbiosism), is really consistent!

However, can the “unity of knowledge and action”, or the “separation of knowledge and action” derived from the “cause of conscience”, be used to “eliminate evil for good” by means of terms and objects? Excuse me, ask anime writers and directors the world over: why are scientists, doctors, politicians and media mogul almost always villains in the anime that kids around the world love? Why? There are three answers:

First, ” knowledge ” does not mean “wisdom”. Because “Intuitive Knowledge” does not contain the richness of “Conscience” and “Intuitive Energy”. The Han Buddhist classic ” Prajna theory of ignorance ” (Monk Zhao) also has to “seek wisdom through  karma, however, wisdom is not knowledge” said Monk zhao. And according to the principle of four, “wisdom does not depend on knowledge”, with the true and vulgar method, expounding the relationship between “wisdom” and “knowing”, from the separate, the edge table of “bewilderment”, to the poor, general understanding of the “sacred wisdom” or good wisdom.

Beautiful Mind: soul, love, thought, wisdom, values and practical ability. The internal structure of good wisdom is that it activates Conscience, discovers Conscience and exercises strenuous Energy. Based on The five minds put forward by Howard Gardner of The US for The future — The Ethical Mind, The academic and professional Mind, The Synthesizing Mind, The Creating Mind and The Respectful Mind,

Qian Hong’s version of Symbiosis Philosophy puts forward he concept of “Extension of Mind” and predicts that after The Internet and The Internet of Things, “The Minds Networking” will be built. The six “Minds” in English all point to The basic meaning of “good intelligence” in Chinese.

Symbiosis ‘ Beautiful Mind Theory’ holds that in the process of studying people, events and things, there is a division between “image method” ,such as the ancient Chinese method of “the method of understanding of Time and Space of the Chinese calendar “, “the three literary expression techniques of Fu, Bi, Xing(赋比兴)” and “abstract method” ,such as “geometry” or “formology” logic” in ancient Greece. Therefore, appearance and phenomenon are the category of “cognition”, and the general understanding and abstraction are the category of “intelligence”. We have said before that the connotation of good conscience is the mind, thought, wisdom, values, practice ability, the internal structure of good conscience is, to mobilize conscience, discover the initial thought, fulfill the intuitive energy (see Du Weiming, Qian Hong: “conscience, good knowledge, good ability Tweed: Chinese secular God!” Call for the “Social heroes of great distinction ” of Contemporary China (2007.6.21-25), first issue of NEW WORLD TIMES, Washington, D.C., including ” The Original Moral: Philosophy of Great Power” P226-232, China Radio and Television Press, 2012 First Edition).

Second, ” Unity of knowledge and action” does not mean “unity of virtue and action”. “Integrating knowledge and practice” is far from guaranteeing the propriety or propriety of value orientation. For example, the perception that stealing is a shortcut to riches is integrated with the practice of stealing, which is a combination of knowledge and action, but the participants’ behavior is impropriety, which we call “disunity of virtue.” Similarly, sacrificing oneself to save another is the unity of virtue, but not the unity of knowledge and action, because the knowledge that a person who can not swim to save a drowning person will be drowned, and the failure to save another person is the unity of knowledge and action.Throughout history, including the popularization of genetically modified technology, the addition of melamine, sweeteners, hormones, anti-counterfeiting vaccines, commercial control of the people’s five technologies, the salt-iron franchise of Sang Hongyang, advocacy of success, taking sides in politics or cynicism, opportunism, formalism and so on, all have the economic, political, cultural benefits of some people in the ” Unity of knowledge and action ” .

However, we must see that the reason why there are ” Religion of Conscience  “, “Yangming fanaticism”, “Four-sentences teaching”, “Conscience education”, “Yangming institution”, who knows in the heart of a common sense is: knowledge is power, science and technology is power, management is power, political power is power, capital is power. However, knowledge, science and technology have no direction, knowledge, science and technology is also “not a printed coin that can be used” (Bacon), must go through the individual life self-organization and external connection balance “clear conscience” “hidden.” And management, power, capital has power, but also has its own direction, can manage, power (planning and domination), capital direction, pointing to evil (manipulation, monopoly) probability, far greater than pointing to legitimate appropriateness (justice, equilibrium), at least with “two cans.” This is because, in the sense of social division of labor, knowledge, science and technology belong to the category of information energy, is a non-exclusive tool, and management, power, capital belongs to the category of material energy, is an exclusive tool, and therefore has a tendency of value. Contemporary China prevails in all kinds of ” Unity of knowledge and action ” “knowledge as one” “success learning”, however, “lack of virtue” to do? What do you do when you say good things and do evil? “Replace logic with rhetoric, choose facts and legal principles by position”? Deliberately confuse “public and private” with “fake public and private”? What about Impropriety? This was also the initial question facing Adam Smith when he published The Theory of Moral Sentiment in 1759 (the Theory of the Rich was published 15 years later).

 Therefore, the simple “to conscience”, after all, is the “convenient method”, can not solve the problem of “the limitation of the information source and channel of system thinking”, can not solve the problem of “knowledge, science and technology are power but no direction”, and “management, power (planning and domination), capital has power, but also has bias”. Philosophically speaking, it cannot solve the problem of “the reverse movement of the cognitive function and the participation function”, that is, “universality” does not necessarily lead to ” inclusiveness”.

Third, the behavior style of “good wisdom-civilization-symbiosis”. Only with good intellect, civilization, and symbiotic behavior can solve the problem of people’s “reverse movement of cognitive function and participation function”, thereby regulating the integration of contemporary human thinking mode and value orientation. Because from the perspective of “fixedness” or “local realism”, our human self-righteous knowledge is actually primitive fixedness (commonly known as “preconceivedness”, now called “brainwashing”), Especially the behavior patterns and written classics of the predecessors. Facing the traditional knowledge of classic texts, each generation generally has two tendencies. This is the dilemma that Lu Xiangshan discovered and argued with Zhu Xi in the East, namely: “I comment on the Six Classics” or “The Six Classics comments on ” I”? In the West, it is Martin Luther’s reformation and the dual opposition proposition of fighting against the Holy See, namely: “justification by faith”, that is, “justification by faith in Christ, not justification by faith in canon.” Today it has also evolved into: “Justified by faith in Christ” or “justified by faith in canon”? Obviously, later generations can easily find that Lu Wang’s Philosophy of the mind has opened up a broader space for cognition and participation than Cheng Zhuxue’s Neo-Confucianism, just like Martin Luther’s Protestantism has opened up a broader understanding and access to the mind than the Holy See.

However, Lu Jiuyuan and Martin Luther both set up a selective trap of binary opposition. I will not enter this “Lu Jiuyuan choice circle” or “Martin Luther’s Law of Xiaohe” here. I only talk about the problems of the two, so that contemporary people can understand that they are nothing more than “the traditions of the ancestors Our nightmare” (Marx). We contemporary people need to have a warm respect for tradition to show that you have a culture and inheritance, but the tradition has become a nightmare, you must stay away to show that you have completed the “transformation from the inheritor to the exporter” (Backgroundism , 1994). Because there are many problems in “I Annotate the Six Classics”, which always dispel people’s “contemporary” cognition and participation. It has the exclusive right to interpret the classics like the “Inquisition” set up by the Holy See; This has led to the chaos of “many in-laws”, for example, after Martin Luther’s “justification by faith” religious reform, more than two thousand opposing denominations emerged, and each denomination requires its followers to be “justified by canon.” So it returns to the “closed self-organization of class (community)”, which eliminates the self-organization of human life. This is also the “practical paradox” of all utopias from Plato’s Utopia to later generations.

The “Theory of intuitive wisdom” of symbiosis philosophy believes that conscience is the unity of intuitive knowledge, conscience and intuitive Energy. Moreover, when people resolve the contradiction between “thought and reality”, they will inevitably encounter the recognition of the way of thinking and value orientation. In order to resolve the contradiction between the knowledge function and the participation function, conscience presents itself as a dynamic process, that is, a continuous cycle of “activating conscience, discovering conscience, and exerting conscience”, endless self-organization and external-connection balancing process. Therefore, only good intellect can solve the problem that knowledge, technology, management, power, and capital have both strength and proper direction.

From the 19th to the 20th centuries, mankind has gone through a hundred years of glory and dreams, to greed and impetuousness. The elites of various sovereign countries have indulged in technologicalism, intellectualism, opportunism, formalism, and developmentalism. Driven away, blindly chasing “power, capital, and hue”, and fell into a state of “busy, blind obedience, and loss”. In the first 20 years of the 21st century, God’s two “angels in black”-SARS and the new crown virus, sent by God to persecute us (We the Contemporary), who think “it’s harder to take away benefits than to touch the soul”, return to the inner calm and tranquility, with the wisdom of love, to reflect on the “sixth mass extinction” , which is more fundamental than Huntington’s “clash of civilizations”. We should reflect on the behavior and lifestyle of contemporary people, letting production return to life, life present ecology, so as to repair the body, mind, and spirit that have been traumatized by the loss of the value of the soul!

Part Two

I believe that the Bible formed by the Old Testament and the New Testament is the “Covenant” between God and man. Now, for man and all the living beings created by God in the universe, we still need a new agreement to uphold the covenant, the covenant of perfection and symbiosis, the seven-color rainbow of the covenant “signs” (Genesis 9:13)!

In “From Justification through Honesty to Symbiosism — Preface to English Version of Symbiosism”, I still have a lot to say:

Bible describes the process of engagement between God and man.

So I’ve always thought that a translation of the Bible into the Covenant might be more in keeping with God’s original meaning than a translation of the Bible, and it would be better to understand why a New Testament was needed when there was an Old Testament, and why, from the great Aurelius Augustinus and Thomas Aquinas to Martin Luther and Calvin’s justification by faith.

Based on this, if SYMBIOSISM, which synthesizes the essence of “sons of the universe” thoughts of ancient and modern times, can be regarded as a continuation of the “covenant”, then I would venture to believe that the “covenant” has gone through and will go through the three stages: the Old Testament, the New Testament and Symbiosis, which are to meet the spiritual needs of the “global reorganization of human life style”:

 The first stage: The Old Testament records that Moses gave the “ten commandments” (commandments) and other commandments to the Jews so that they could understand “Your words are a lamp to my feet” (Psalm 119:105a). The Old Testament tells the Jews that God loves them, wants to save them, and waits for them to repent and be converted.

 The second stage: The “New Testament” describes Jesus’ birth, birth, growth, and preaching of the gospel (four gospels-“Matthew”, “Mark”, “Luke”, “John”), being The Jews refused to be crucified, resurrected, and established churches to pass on God’s protection and love to everyone. The “New Testament” tells people all over the world that God loves them, “that people of God may be perfect and be prepared to do their own things. Such kind of good deeds” (2 Timothy 3:17) to save them, waiting for them to believe in Jesus’ repentance and conversion, and atonement for salvation. Since then, the “Bible” is no longer just for the Jews but for everyone in the world.

The third stage: Symbiosism empowers God’s love and wisdom to every living individual and creature created by God by retelling the diachronic and synchronic exploration of “children of the universe” in ancient and modern times, at home and abroad. They are all born with full and not alone — God empowers them with spiritual energy, life self-organization spiritual power and external connection balance force. Symbiosis, therefore, no leader – and there is no god and to make an atonement for the blood of Jesus “savior”, “agent” and “utopia”, everyone must also be responsible to self, full of “love of wisdom”, “your blessing there” to his senses, and in good faith from his (her, its) he redeems to take happiness, share  happiness and live there and let others live (live and let live), redeem the symbiosis and the circle of life! Therefore, “Symbiosis” is a new covenant adhering to God — the covenant of symbiosis of beauty, which is the “sign” of the covenant of seven colors rainbow!

This is exactly what I’m talking about:

The original sin has been redeemed, and God will redeem faith.

Happiness should depend on diligence, and only love can redeem symbiosis! 

In a word, to keep a promise, or not to keep a promise, to accept, or not to accept, is a matter of life and death for the soul, that is, an old question of “to be, or not to be” under new circumstances!

Some friends said that when it comes to the simplest and most realistic problems, “keeping a contract” is called the spirit of contract in the West and honesty in the East”, but the focus should be placed on the implementation of the agreement. If we do not live up to our promises, both the western spirit of contract and the eastern sincerity will be castles in the air and will soon collapse.

For example, people often say “God Bless America.” But would the Mayflower have reached North America if Christians had only relied on prayer? Would the United States have become independent in 1776? Would religious belief and the rights and freedoms of “We the People” exist? …All of these things come from God, of course. However, God does not give all of these things to people just by praying. He gives them to people who are “actively self-organizing and building rainbow Bridges.”

Back to an eastern common sense: Heaven rewards honesty; Genuineness rewards diligence; Humanity rewards love!  ” Honesty, diligence and love” is also the contemporary appeal of symbiosis philosophy: to respect and allow each special individual to exert his or her own spiritual and physical strength, as well as the power of self-organizing life and the balance of external connection.

When everyone is in a state of open and energized, then no one will become vulnerable groups of “sacrificial”, so ” division-opposition-conflict ” solution also will be a historical change – In the past, one side regardless of the sufferings of the other side, greatly reduced the likelihood of winning by using plot, is unlikely to just “you die or I live” solution, because this way could be the result of the “destruction together”, namely “if people can’t live together, then they will die together” (symbiosis is spontaneous or self-organization of moral bottom line), so the human way of solving ” division-opposition-conflict “, comes back to the contract justice based on the modern political civilization — the legal way to practice the contract.

Therefore, I believe: with symbiosis (Symbiosism) philosophy thinking and values, to redefine human and nature (nature), others and I (society), mind and matter (body and mind)”three basic relations”, all in line with “I live and I also want others to live” (live and let live) spirit, Give full play to the spiritual and physical strength of “We the People” as well as the self-organizing and externally connected balance force of life, can resolve the “division, opposition and conflict” in the relationship between man and nature, man and society, man and himself (body and mind), to create a world in which “the future lifestyle of mankind can be re-chosen” — thus making “any attempt at imperial political domination of the world impossible”.

Clearly, this is a life-or-death decision for peoples, nations, communities and citizens that must be put into practice in a global undertaking by “you, me, him (her, it)” — an act of “global symbiosis” to achieve permanent peace for mankind.

May our contemporary people, may the global symbiosis people, listen to the call of the soul, maintain the nature of sunshine, release the Beautiful Mind, create Civilization, go with the tide, and practice symbiosis Symbiosism!

                     Xin Yin Nov 28,2020 at Vancouver