庄子美学的基本特点及其现代意义

理解《庄子》的钥匙是“心斋”或“坐忘”,它清楚展示了人类心灵的三层面及精神活动的逐渐深化。这一理路贯穿全书,其美学思想也据此而展开。庄子学派要求超越炫惑耳目的感性形色、樊然散乱的道德观念以获得精神的自由,即游心于万物之所终始的玄妙境界。庄学的主导倾向不是客观唯心主义,而是心学,是如何达到心灵澄明之学,其超越性与内指性浑为一体。庄子美学经过魏晋玄学的中介开始广泛渗透于我国的艺术观念中,至中唐以后逐渐取得主导地位,这既是社会发展的气运使然,同时也得益于禅宗美学的相助。庄子美学追求天人的境界可以弥补现代人生存的缺失,执著于德全有助于克服现代人格的畸形,它将成为全人类的精神财富。

The Main Characteristics and Contemporary Significance of Chuang-tzu's Aesthetic

The key to understand Chuang-tzu is "Xin Zhai", (Chinese words which means the extreme quietness, emptiness and concentration of the mind,) and "Zuo Wang", which mean sitting and forgetting all about yourself and the world around you. This theory shows the three layers of the soul and the gradual deepening of spirit. Chuang-tzu's aesthetic is based on this theory. This school demands to transcend all the dazzling things you become aware of through your five senses, and to transcend the confusing moral concepts so that to reach the freedom of your soul. In other word, in doing so, your soul will be wandering in the wonderful pure land where are the beginning and ending of all the things in the world. The main tendency of Chuang-tzu's thought is not objective idealism, but the theory of the soul, how the soul can reach the extremely emptiness. This theory is a combination of transcending and introverting. Introduced by the metaphysics in the Wei (220-265) and Jin (265-420) dynasties, Chuang-tzu's easthetic began to permeate through the Chinese artistic concepts and it gradually became the main literary trend after the Mid-Tang Dynasty. This result came both because of the inevitability of the development of Chinese history and because of the help from "Zen", Chinese Buddhism. The unity of the universe to soul which Chuang-tzu's aesthetic is pursuing can remedy the defects in life of our contemporaries, and its pursuing of the "full possession of human nature" can help our contemporaries get over their personality abnormality, it will certainly become the spiritual wealth of the whole world.