溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Is the Root of Everything Cultivating Myself?
Does even setting the world right begin with cultivating this one self?
From the Son of Heaven down to the common person, all alike take cultivating the self as the root.
The Great Learning drew the road to governing the world as eight steps — investigate things, extend knowledge, make the will sincere, rectify the heart, cultivate the self (xiushen), order the family, govern the state, bring peace to all under heaven. Yet at the very center of this ladder stands "cultivating the self." The ruler who would pacify the world and the nameless commoner alike have the same root: cultivating this one self. The question branched. Confucians saw self-cultivation as the center of concentric circles widening to family and state; Laozi, though he too said "cultivate the self and its virtue is true," leaned toward non-action, wary of cultivation aimed at rule. Socrates's "care first for the soul" points to the same root. The hand that would change the world turns first toward itself.
In an age when it is easy to blame others and the world, this old saying — the root is cultivating one self — lands heavy again.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
I often say the world is wrong — that person, that system, these times are the problem. The Great Learning quietly turns that finger back to me: the first rung of the ladder that sets the world right is cultivating this one self. It sounds grand but is in truth a humble word. Before fretting over an all-under-heaven I cannot move, care first for the only person I can govern today — myself. At the end of a month spent questioning myself, I now ready to widen the question beyond me, into relationship. Everything begins with cultivating the self.
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