ABSTRACT
Ancient Chinese thinkers studied human cognition and emotions not out of curiosity but for a pragmatic purpose – how to manage human conducts for a harmonious society. As such, unlike Western psychological studies of man, which often began with examinations of human abnormalities – Freud’s study of Anna comes to mind – Chinese thinkers focused their attention on normal human beings in an effort to gain knowledge of patterns of how regular people’s reasoning generated their behavior. What modern psychologists call “cognitive psychology” was put under the category of “zhi lu lun” (the theory of knowing, perceiving and contemplation). While “knowing” refers to sensory input, “contemplation” was thought to be the critical step in obtaining true knowledge and understanding. Chinese sages cautioned that undisciplined emotions and excessive desires were capable of overwhelming the thinking heart and misleading the person’s judgment and behavior, and as such jeopardized the harmony of society. Accused of being the leading culprits behind personal and societal troubles, the general consensus was that undisciplined emotions and excessive desires must be curbed. Indulgencing one’s passion was deemed undesirable, while being able to “qingxin guayu” (clear one’s heart and thin one’s desire) was considered virtuous by Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism.
