The Historical Evolution of the Neo-Confucian Concept of"The Dao in Everyday Life"during the Song and Yuan Dynasties and Its Generative Significance
The discourse of"The Dao in Everyday Life"in Song and Yuan Neo-Confucianism had a long-standing ideological origin and cultural tradition,as well as a relatively clear historical development.The connection between"Dao"and"everyday life"could be traced back to the"Xici"(系辞)in the Book of Changes(Zhou Yi周易).Although the exact phrase"The Dao in Everyday Life"or similar expressions did not appear in the pre-Qin Confucian texts,their original meanings had been recorded in various pre-Qin writings.The development of the Confucian idea of"The Dao in Everyday Life"was neither linear nor uniform,nor was it static.The emphasis placed by Confucian representatives on discussing"Dao"or"Nature"from a metaphysical perspective,and their focus on the practical aspects of"Dao",is in-herited from the Book of Rites(Li Ji 礼记).Furthermore,pre-Qin Daoist texts also contained ideas about"Dao"related to daily life.From the Han dynasty until the early Tang dynasty,"The Dao in Everyday Life"was not a focus of atten-tion.Starting from Huineng in the early Tang period until the reign of Emperor Zhenzong during the Jingde era of the Song dynasty,Zen Buddhist texts regarded"everyday life"as the"effort"in"seeking the Dao".From the mid-Northern Song to the end of the Yuan dynasty,scholars of Neo-Confucianism absorbed various thoughts from pre-Qin texts such as the Book of Changes,Doctrine of the Mean(中庸),Analects(论语),Book of Rites,and Zhuangzi,as well as Zen texts like the Platform Sutra(坛经)and Record of the Transmission of the Lamp(景德传灯录),expanding the connotations of the discourse on"The Dao in Everyday Life"in terms of principles and applications.This development closely linked it to several Neo-Confucian discourses.Thus,"TheDao in Everyday Life"acquired several defining characteristics and gradually became regarded as one of the conceptual frameworks distinguishing Confucianism from Daoism and Bud-dhism.Consequently,this discourse permeated the relationship between heavenly Dao and human Dao,possessing attri-butes of ontology and ethics,cultivation and practice,as well as aesthetics and realms of existence,thus serving as one of the key cultural nodes in the"network of principles"in Song and Yuan Neo-Confucianism.
Song and Yuan DynastiesNeo-ConfucianismThe Dao in Everyday LifeHistorical Evolution
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