【 Guangming Forum 】 Drawing on the Ecological Wisdom Tradition | Ecology | Culture Contained in Excellent Traditional Chinese Culture
Guangming Forum
Author: Qiao Qingju
The ecological environment is the foundation for the emergence and continuation of civilization, and changes in the ecological environment directly affect the rise and fall of human civilization. With the deepening of ecological civilization construction in our country, we increasingly realize that a good ecological environment is an important support for the survival of the Chinese nation, and the construction of ecological civilization is the fundamental plan related to the sustainable development of the Chinese nation.
Looking back at history, Chinese civilization has become the only ancient civilization in the history of human civilization that has not been interrupted and has continued to this day. One important reason for this is that Chinese civilization has created rich and profound ecological ideas and culture. Our ancestors have implemented the idea of respecting nature into specific measures and systems, maintaining the ecological home on which the Chinese nation relies for survival, and laying a solid ecological foundation for the Chinese nation to still stand among the nations of the world today. Today, we should still draw wisdom and strength from the excellent traditional Chinese culture in building a socialist ecological civilization.
He once quoted traditional concepts such as "fishing without outline, swimming without shooting at the destination", "all things are nurtured together without harming each other, and the Tao runs parallel without contradicting each other", and "all things receive their own harmony to make a living, and each receives their own nourishment to achieve success" to explain the relationship between humans and nature.The profound and extensive accumulation of excellent traditional ecological culture in China has important implications and practical significance for continuously promoting the construction of ecological civilization and promoting the modernization of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature.
The unity of heaven and humanity, the coexistence of all things, and the profound reflection on the vitality of nature in the excellent traditional Chinese culture. The concept of integrating human and nature runs through traditional Chinese culture, shaping the ancient people's understanding of the way humans exist, from "knowing heaven with all one's heart" to "coexisting heaven and earth with me, and all things with me as one.". Traditional ecological culture believes that nature is not the sum of natural phenomena, and the essence of nature is the never-ending trend exhibited by the entire natural world. The saying goes, "The great virtue of heaven and earth is called life" and "life is called easy". The nature of life is a dialectical unity that includes the birth and death of every spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Because nature is also alive, ancient people advocated for harmonious coexistence between humans and nature.From the perspective of life and health, looking at the Yangtze River and the entire natural world is a reflection of this ecological concept of harmony between heaven and humanity.
Benevolent to the people and loving to the people, the excellent traditional Chinese culture deepens the moral and emotional foundation of ecological responsibility. Traditional culture holds that humans possess virtue, which is benevolence. Love for people and things is called benevolence. People should further promote "loving others" to "loving things", take responsibility for others and society, and then take responsibility for nature, making all things in nature their friends. If a person is limited to their loved ones and cannot further promote their love for things, it is because the moral cultivation of benevolence has not been completed, and they are not a perfect person. Therefore, "The Doctrine of the Mean" requires people not only to "fulfill their own nature" and "fulfill their human nature", but also to "fulfill the nature of things", that is, to let all things realize their own nature. The nature of land is to nurture all things, the nature of rivers is to achieve natural circulation, the nature of animals and plants is to continue to grow, and the nature of all things is to treat nature well, achieving "virtue and animals", "water and plants", and "kindness to the earth". Only by achieving these can one be said to "praise the cultivation of heaven and earth" and "participate with heaven and earth". By helping all things in heaven and earth grow and develop, one can become a person with perfect morality and unity with heaven and earth. From this, it can be seen that benevolence, as a virtue, contains an ecological dimension of treating nature well and nurturing its vitality. From a deeper perspective, human moral responsibility towards nature is not only an obligation, but also a positive and proactive emotion. Ren is the compassion of a person, compassion is the emotion of the soul, which can be moved and awakened. If a person's love for nature cannot be awakened, it is numbness. Traditional culture deepens ecological responsibility into the depths of human emotions, and understanding the ecological sentiments within can enable us to make ecological civilization construction a conscious choice, truly internalizing it in our hearts and externalizing it in our actions, promoting the stable and far-reaching development of ecological civilization construction.
The construction of ecological civilization is the continuation and development of the traditional Chinese civilization.Actively drawing on the wisdom and strength of ecological civilization construction from excellent traditional Chinese culture, taking active action, and being an active disseminator and model practitioner of the concept that green mountains and clear waters are invaluable assets, we will definitely make greater contributions to jointly building a clean and beautiful world.
Guangming Daily
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