Liang Shuming not only teaches Indian philosophy, but also teaches Confucian philosophy, Confucius interpretation and other courses, focusing on the study of eastern and western cultures and their philosophies. 192 1 Summer vacation, at the invitation of the Education Department of Shandong Province, I went to Jinan to teach eastern and western cultures and their philosophy for 40 days. According to the 40-day lecture, he wrote a paper on the eastern and western cultures and their philosophies, which was published by the Commercial Press. This philosophical work is China's earliest work to study eastern and western cultures and their philosophies by means of comparative study. In this paper, Liang Shuming draws a surprising conclusion that "the future of human beings in the world will be the revival of China culture" by comparing Chinese and western cultures. After the publication of "Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophy", it was reprinted more than a dozen times, which had a great influence. Even Liang Qichao, a world-famous scholar at that time, personally came to Liang Shuming to ask questions about Buddhism and Confucianism. When Tagore, a famous Indian poet, visited China, he listened to Liang Shuming's explanation of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism and admired his knowledge.
He worked as a lecturer in the philosophy department of Peking University for seven years, which established Liang Shuming's position in the philosophy circle of China. But Liang Shuming believes that giving lectures should be combined with social movements. He doesn't simply talk about philosophy in class and do research in his study, but teaches by example and integrates with social transformation. However, his understanding could not be implemented in any university in China at that time. In order to practice his new understanding of education, in the summer of 1924, Liang Shuming resolutely resigned as a lecturer in the philosophy department of Peking University for seven years. In the autumn of the same year, Liang Shuming went to Cao Zhou, Shandong Province to preside over the Sixth Middle School of Shandong Province. The following spring, because he was eager to compile his father's posthumous work, Mr. Liang's Guilin suicide note, he handed over his school to others and returned to Beijing himself.
Liang Shuming's time in running a middle school in Cao Zhou was short, but it had a great influence. As soon as he left, a dozen high school students came to Beijing to follow him. Liang Shuming and these students rented a house in Shichahai, lived and studied, respected and encouraged each other. This new form of education lasted for more than a year. Then Liang Shuming went to Guangdong, and with Li's support, he set up a workshop on rural politics, which was divided into 10 topics, with an audience of more than 1000 people, but only for one session. Liang Shuming then visited various places and visited rural education. He visited Xiaozhuang Normal School opened by Tao Xingzhi outside Nanjing, then visited the rural education of China Real Estate Education Society hosted by Kunshan County, Jiangsu Province and Huang Yanpei, and then visited Dingxian County, Hebei Province, the experimental area of civilian education society hosted by Yan in North China. 1In the autumn of 929, Liang Shuming went to Henan Rural Political College as the academic director, and he personally formulated the book "The school purpose, organizational outline, curriculum and other rules and regulations of Henan Rural Political College". In the second year of June 5438, school started+10, and he taught rural autonomous organizations and other courses. Henan village Institute of Governance has only been running for one year, and Liang Shuming went to zouping county, Shandong Province to run Shandong Rural Construction Research Institute. This was done for seven years, and it was not until the outbreak of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression that it had to stop.
Shandong Institute of Architecture is located in zouping county. At the beginning, there was only one research department, one rural service personnel training department, one Zouping experimental county and one farm. Liang Shuming personally served as the president of the research institute and gave lectures in the research department. The research department recruits students who have graduated from universities or colleges or have equivalent education. After learning the theory of rural construction, students will further study various topics. The training department recruits middle school students, trains rural service personnel and engages in practical work in rural areas. There are many courses in the training department, such as rural construction theory, spiritual cultivation, rural autonomy, rural customs, rural education, rural economy, rural self-defense, agricultural common sense, soil and fertilizer, livestock breeding and improvement, water conservancy construction, farm sideline, current laws and regulations and so on. After two years' efforts, the institute has been further expanded, taking Heze County as the experimental area, and the institutions, cadres, teachers and students of the institute have also increased. 1935 with Heze as the center, Jining and other counties 13 and 14 were newly added as experimental areas, and more than 3,000 students were trained by various departments of the research institute and the rural teacher service and training department. Various experimental areas have also carried out extensive experiments in rural agricultural schools integrating politics, economy, culture and education. The headmaster has prestige in the countryside, the teachers are rural service personnel and the students are villagers. Courses include literacy, historical geography, music singing, spiritual speech, agricultural technology and so on. Including guiding agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry production, organizing production cooperatives, improving technology, sanitation and epidemic prevention, and even birth control and gambling ban. After seven years of rural construction experiments, the effect is obvious. The social order, economic development, culture and education, customs and habits of the villages in the experimental area have all changed significantly, and a new atmosphere has emerged. Just when Liang Shuming was obsessed with testing his thoughts on rural education and rural construction in Shandong, the Japanese invaders invaded Shandong on a large scale, and most provinces fell, so the research institute could no longer run. Liang Shuming reluctantly left Shandong.
In Peking University for seven years, Liang Shuming became a famous philosopher in China. During his seven years in Shandong, Liang Shuming became a famous educator in China and a representative of rural construction in China.
War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression broke out in an all-round way, and Liang Shuming became a permanent member of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Regardless of his personal safety, he toured guerrilla zones behind enemy lines, ran newspapers in Hong Kong and publicized anti-Japanese activities. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, as a representative of NLD, he actively ran between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party and became a famous social activist.
From the founding of New China to the end of the Cultural Revolution, Liang Shuming's fate was well known. But in the face of adversity, he still insisted on academic research. Under extremely difficult circumstances, he completed his last masterpiece, Heart and Life, in July 1975. The focus of Liang Shuming's writing this book is to correct the mistakes and shortcomings of the book "Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophy" published in 192 1 2008 at the age of 28, and to explain the laws of human psychological activities. However, after it was written, there was no publishing unit. It was not until 1984 that he was 9 1 year old that he had to "pour his daily savings" and publish it at his own expense, with only 2500 copies printed. Unexpectedly, after the publication of "People's Heart and Life", the demand was in short supply. From September 65438 to September 0985, Sanlian Bookstore was published abroad, which set off a "Liang Shuming fever" and attracted the attention of scholars in the United States, Japan, Singapore, Hongkong and Taiwan Province Province.
Liang Shuming made an incisive comment on his academic thoughts in his later years. He studied the characteristics of western culture, China culture and Indian culture from the perspective of life attitude, and put forward three concepts: man to nature, man to man and man to his life.
He believes that "man to nature" is an important feature of western culture. On the one hand, the advantages of modern western culture lie in the progress of natural science and social science. Its main feature is the rise of material civilization and its emphasis on understanding, conquering and utilizing nature. On the other hand, it attaches importance to the concepts of individual freedom and mutual equality.
However, the development of material civilization emphasized by modern western culture has been inspired and influenced by China traditional culture, which is an integral part of human activities.
China's "Four Great Inventions" inspired Europeans to surpass China later. Tracing back to the source, the "people-to-people" characteristics of China's traditional culture are based on ethics and pay attention to filial piety and social harmony.
The so-called social harmony refers to a person's moral code or code of conduct. First of all, we should consider his family and society and do our best for it, instead of putting individual rights in a dominant position. This feature is obviously different from modern western culture, which takes individual rights as the standard and individuals as the starting point everywhere; At the same time, it is also different from the collectivists who appear in the new cultural trend of the world.
Therefore, China's traditional culture is precocious on the point of "person to person", and precocity means immaturity, which will hinder the development of culture, so the material civilization of modern China has fallen behind.
When it comes to "people's own life", Liang Shuming thinks that this is the characteristic of Indian culture, and its basis is that Buddhist culture, as the main body of Indian culture, holds a negative attitude towards people's life. The so-called being born, becoming a monk and being ignorant of the world is a concentrated expression. If we compare this feature with Confucianism, the main body of China traditional culture, on the contrary, Confucianism strongly advocates joining the WTO, attaches importance to family, ethics and social harmony, and advocates extending family ethics to the whole society, so that everyone can be kind and love each other, thus achieving the goal of social harmony. Buddhists see life as bitter, and the sea of suffering is boundless; Confucianism sees life as endless fun and endless. However, if compared with western culture, Indian culture and China culture have a common feature: precocity.
Facing the rapid development of China's reform and opening up, Liang Shuming believes that we should first understand the characteristics of China's traditional culture and realize that it not only has a long history, but also deeply affects all aspects of China society. Then we make a serious and scientific comparative study of China culture, western culture and Indian culture, and on this basis, we absorb and integrate the new cultures that have arisen in the world since modern times and create our own new culture. Regarding the construction of socialism with China characteristics, Liang Shuming thinks that "this idea is very wise and conforms to the cultural tradition of China".
Philosophers die, but thoughts live forever! The thoughts of Liang Shuming, a master, will surely live in people's memory with the endless traditional culture of China.