2020.05 58-2 Mandala Model of the Self: Kungfuism to Solve Hwang Kwang-Kuo Problem

In this paper, the author starts from the Mandala Model of the Self (MMS) to illustrate that the MMS developed by Hwang Kwang-Kuo just describe how one changes from a biological "individual" into a social "person" to make him or her to become a relational self instead of an individual self. However, the MMS lacks the concept of the self but only contains the ego. The MMS fails to rotate the Mandala leading to incapably develop the self, leaving no room for a person become the sanctification defined by the Confucianism. In addition to clarifying the original meaning of mandala, the author also points out that we need to explore all Confucian wisdom we lying in the four dimensions that we confront together: virtue, knowledge, practice, and desire. Virtue refers to the spiritual selfrestraint. Knowledge means the understanding about the world. Practice is the existing actions. Desire is to satisfy one's needs; There are two axes. The first virtue axe includes virtue and desire. The first knowledge axe includes knowledge and practice. These two axes in the mandala model will produce the conscious ego. If these two axes are both balanced, it would generate nutrition to the ego. The ego would the gradually changes into the self, representing the intergeneration for these two axes; On the contrary, if these two axes are not both balanced, this conflict will cause the ego to deteriorate and idle, representing the inter-restriction for these two axes. However, intergeneration or inter-restriction is affected by the four combinations of human life. They are virtue and practice, practice and desire, desire and knowledge and knowledge and virtue. We should ask ourselves the question: how we face and place the four dimensions which converge and integrate ourselves on earth? By doing so, one’s life naturally comes up with the self transited from the ego, attaining the ideal life of sanctification. Accordingly, the kungfuism includes two axes and four dimensions, which can be discussed in combination with the Ying and Yang Theory of as follows. The two axes form the property of the ego and, they are earth in the center, referring to that the ego has its own foundation and serves as the foundation for a social person. The four dimensions are flexible (water), growable (wood), combustible (fire) and sharp (metal), referring to the four basic properties for human and they keep changing. The Book of Changes considers the four dimensions" as the four phenomena taking place in the daily life between the Yin and Yang interplay. Carl Gustav Jung has pointed out that the four dimensions have touched the deepest bottom of the human's unconsciousness, and continue to have a strong impact on it. For this reason, the  representation of the four dimensions is universal to the human. In the present paper, the author proposes the path of virtuous circle of the self that from Confucian ethics therapy and its theory can be developed. The Confucian ethics therapy also offers practice, facilitating the meticulous inspection and coping in the life world. The kungfuism can connect the micro world to life world, with the aim to solve the Hwang Kwang-Kuo Problem in terms of both psychotherapeutic and counseling perspectives.

Keywords
Four dimensions, Hwang Kwang-Kuo Problem, kungfuism, life world, mandala model of the Self.

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