Only One Word DifferentM
　　encius said: “There is love between father and child, obligation between sovereign and subject, distinctionbetween husband and wife, respect between the elder and the younger, trust between friend and friend.”According to Bai hu tong, Three Guides and Six Rules, ruler guides subject, father guides son, and husband guideswife, etc. The three Chinese characters “love, obligation, difference” mentioned by Mencius are changed into onecharacter “guide”. “Guide” means playing a principal or dominant role in decision making. It means that onlysubject bears the obligation of being loyal to sovereign, only son filial to father, and only wife obedient to husband.Although only one word is different, it indicates the practice of feudal ethical code.Love, obligation and difference stressed by Mencius implies mutual love, obligation and distinction－subject,son and wife have their own personality characteristics. This conception reflects mutual relationship betweenindependent individuals, and features modern democracy and contract. Mutuality is the concept we are appealing totoday－mutual love, obligation, distinction, respect and trust.
　　The Mean but Not the Centre
　　By no means does The Mean simply refer to righteousness, moderation, impartiality or equal punishment. Asimplified understanding of it may cause the shrinkage of human wisdom.When things are in balance, we do not need to do anything about it. However, when things are out of balance, underthe force of leverage the poise of scale should be adjusted to the accurate position so as to produce righteousness,moderation, and impartiality. To strike a balance, the poise never stays at the very centre but keeps searching for aproper position between the two poles.
　　Clearly the accurate position of a poise is not the center, but leads to The Mean. The position between the two polesis The Mean, but not the very center.T
　　he Mean between the two poles is the key to maintaining balance while the non-center at an accurate position is themain reason for the occurrence of righteousness , moderation and impartiality. Accuracy must be based upon cleardiscrimination. This is a reasonable explanation of the concept of the Mean, which implies an access to wisdom. Inthis way the value of the Mean is realized in the form of common sense, common way and common practice.
　　At fifty, I knew the Mandate of Heaven
　　The idea of knowing the mandate at fifty is different from determinism or predestination.“Heaven” refers to the law governing the movement and change of every thing in the universe instead of theconcrete sky.
　　“Mandate” means both decree and destiny.
　　To “Know” is to be able to distinguish.
　　A law may be an advantage or a disadvantage to man, from which order and decree are derived. To move or to standstill counts on whether it is advantageous or not. The insightful always follow the Way and reason of heaven andearth. As Heaven follows the Way and moves with great vigor, Earth follows the Reason and runs with effect. Amiddle-aged man should know that the decree of law implies the co-occurence of movement and stillness, and theadvancement of wisdom; he should know reason can be realized only by following the Way.
　　Half and Half
　　Each man undergoes life and death. Life means movement; death means stillness. Life and death as Yin and Yangmake a complete person. Life consists of both work and rest. Life means movement; rest means stillness. Work andrest as Yin and Yang make a complete life. More Yang or more Yin makes incompleteness. More movement or morestillness makes incompleteness. Half daytime and half nighttime make a complete day. Receiving sunshine onlyhalf a year for each inch of the earth makes a complete year. Half movement and half stillness make a complete life.Being half and half is the core of completeness and the prerequisite of fulfilment. To work hard and to sleep soundlyis to follow the Way.
　　The Oneness of Man and Nature
　　Man should not regard himself as the subject outside nature, man and every thing in the universe. Do not be confinedto the concept of the three. This different perspective produces a totally opposite result. Nature, man and everything in the universe are the phenomena occuring in the same time and space. That is called the oneness of man andnature. Each phenomenon in time and space is neither the subject nor the object of the other. They are both subjectsfor they send out information; they are both objects for each is perceived by the other. They interact, perceive andrefer to each other to achieve the oneness.
　　There must be abstract laws governing phenomenon and mutual movement among phenomena, which is the kernelof the movement, change, birth and death of each phenomenon. The correspondence between laws results from thesame origin－ the oneness of man and nature.
　　Constant Mobility
　　The judgement of right or wrong in western art is based on its emphasis upon form rather than spirit. This is anextremely opposing conception of right or wrong. However, the earth is not simply made up of two polars. No lifeexists at the two polars whereas life flourishes between the two. As the countrymen said, similarity or dissimilarity,right or wrong, form or non-form, spirit or non-spirit are in contant mobility.
　　The Commencement of Cosmopolitism in Contemporary Times
　　About geography: The world human beings knew before Columbus’s discovery of the “New Land” was nota cosmopolitan one. Without a cosmopolitan perception of world geography, there would be definitely nocosmopolitan perception of culture and thus no global reflections. The same is true of both the East and the West.
　　About culture: Christianity, Islam, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism all reveal their cultural limitations becausethey all perceive and interpret cosmopolitism in terms of their own culture systems.About modern times: The artists nutured by their own cultures in the world all consider issues from the perspectiveof their allegedly complete culture systems. They all prove their own cosmopolitism in their own culture system.
　　The conformability of a system can not be testified in the system itself, let alone be used to attest the cosmopolitismoutside this culture system. Therefore, they can not be called cosmopolitan artists.About contemporary times: Since modern times, global culture merge has begun to take the place of conflictsbetween cultures, thus promoting the global reflections from the cultural perspective. Each culture has begun torealize its own imperfection and chosen not to strive for superiority. As a result of this, cosmopolitism starts incontemporary times.
　　About China: Being released from the restriction by Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism characterizing the Chinesenation means not only introspecting, merging, reforming and opening up to other cultures, but also a perception ofthe world from the global perspective. Besides, a new interpretation of the culture of Confucianism, Buddhism andTaoism is made on the basis of various cultures in the world so as to realize the mindset of modern culture values.So it can be justified to conclude that cosmopolitan artists appear in contemporary times.
　　Non-feudalism of Tradition
　　Tradition evolves in a non-feudal process; creation becomes a common sense of the development of history,particularly that of post-history.
　　After Confucius put forward the notion of “Education for All”, the knowledge and education enjoyed only by theprivileged noble were , for the first time, spread among the common people who set up private academies. Hisideas and conducts went against feudalism. From its birth through Sakyamuni to other doctrines and sects such asTheravada (the Way Of the Elders), Mahasanghika (the Way of the Great Assembly), Hinavana (the Lesser Vehicle),Tantrie Buddhism，(the Diamond Vehicle), Buddhism has been established and developed through changes.Chairman Mao Zedong said: “ Imitation is the most futile literary and artistic dogmatism.” His ideas were alsoformed and developed in a non-feudal way.The formation of a tradition means the creation of the previous one. Failure to perceive tradition by placing it in achanging process results in a feudal subject of thinking. Tradition is a solid record of the past, which is not feudalor non-feudal in itself. However, people as the subject of tradition may have feudal or non-feudal thinking. Feudalthinking surely leads to feudal tradition.Western and eastern arts are both beautiful; nevertheless, we can not live on the charming corpse.
　　The Shapeless Shape
　　Chinese character has evolved from ideograph to non-ideograph, and its basic components are combined in variousforms to produce a beautiful image. This sense of beauty does not derive from the realistic image, but from thestructure. Just as the structure of a Chinese character, the form of organizing a picture is the key to creating abstractbeauty. This form is the shape of the whole picture, a shapeless shape because the sense of beauty is created bymatching the proportional changes in its digital rhythm with human nature.
　　Seeking Truth from Facts
　　As the saying goes, art serves workers, farmers as well as army men. In the past, the laborer was made up of workersand farmers while today it has become a new kind of laborer at different levels and with different characteristics.Hence, art’s aesthetic values and forms have altered.
　　This new kind of laborer is the representative of productivity, the promoter of domocracy, freedom, humanity andlegality, as well as the children of traditional workers and farmers. Chairman Mao Zedong is wise to advocate “seekingtruth from facts”. How would he, if he were still alive today, compose his speech delivered at the Conference onLiterature and Art in Yan’an to expound upon the targets of art and its forms.
　　Passion and Reason
　　In ancient times, reason is believed to be perfectly rational.
　　In modern times, the theorem of imperfection put forward by Godel proves that the rationality of reason can not betestified by itself. As the Spanish poet Miguel de Unamuno said, the greatest triumph for reason is to suspect its ownrationality. The failure of reason stems from its demand for consistency. Even in maths, paradox can be found hereand there. Reason is never perfect.
　　In contemporary times, art serves passion rather than reason; passion justifies art. To be passionate is art; to bereasonable is argument. The highest level of passion is reasonable; the highest level of reason is passionate. Reasonserves passion. According to the common phrases we often use such as “both passionate and reasonable”, “Inaccordance with passion and reason”, the word “passion” precedes “reason”.Law stresses reason, which seems to be the most important, while passion is the basis for any legislation. Any codewhich is against passion must be revised for law serves to protect passion. It plays such an important role in law, letalone in art.
　　Continued suspicion: Is passion perfect?
　　Talk about passion in non-passion; talk about reason in non-reason. Different ways originate from the same One,which shows no Yin (阴) or Yang（阳）, but contains both passion and reason. The One originates from Zeroor Nothing, which shows no passion and reason, but contains deep passion and reason. The passion obtained butforgotten is the most reasonablel; the reason obtained but forgotton is the most passionate.