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.