On CHENG Hao's Yi-ology from the vision of the unity of benevolence and heavenly principle

Living in a time when the Confucian Classics studies was turning to the Song-Ming (960-1644) neo-Confucianism. CHENG Hao (1032-1085) creatively interpreted and transformed the Yi-ological heaven-human philosophy and established a new heaven-earth philosophy within which ren (benevolence) and tian li (heavenly principle) are integrated, setting forth his own system of principle. His Yi-ology at first revealed a living organic cosmic panorama and then exposed the ultimate foundation, i. e. the heavenly principle, from which the cosmic organism was produced. He pointed out that the heavenly principle is an ultimate principle making things produce and grow. This is to say, the heavenly principle is the highest absolute goodness per se, hence the heavenly principle is benevolence-itself. In this way, the heavenly principle and benevolence are integrated into one and we may call it heavenly principle-benevolence-itself. This heavenly principle-benevolence-itself forms an inseparable one, which makes the myriad of things conceive and exhibit fullness of vigor. Endowed with this principle, human possess the ultimate cosmic foundation, sufficient basis and resources of value, and therefore human should treasure his/her intrinsic value and resource so as to make it fully unfolded and realized. Moreover, human should treasure others' intrinsic value and resource and regard all in the holistic organic universe as an organic part of my life and expect their value fully unfolded and realized, so as to attain a cosmic one, the highest realm of life within which heavenly principle-benevolence-itself permeates everywhere, i. e. a heaven-earth realm. To attain to this realm, one needs to spend time to perceive benevolence and stabilize his/ her nature.