#ko hung

[electricsoul-rpg]

KO HUNG (高雄) / EDDY KO as Hua Yizheng, Head of Hua Family

in Blossoms in Adversity (惜花芷), 2024

[arosthorn]

Ge [Hong] embodies within himself several of the characteristic elements of late Han and Three Kingdoms philosophical and religious tradition. He did not identify himself as belonging exclusively to any one school of philosophy or religion. He was eclectic and practical, seeking to draw what he believed to be useful for his purposes from any tradition. He was Confucian in matters of public morality, Legalist in issues of law and power, and Daoist in terms of personal cultivation and private morality. He chopped logic with the later Mohists and drew upon examples from the School of Names to illustrate points. He showed sympathy for the lower economic classes and the oppressions that they must bear, yet at the same time argued for the necessity of executing them should they dare revolt. He pointed out that the basis of morality lay in observing Confucian ethics, yet at the same time proposed that if one wanted to become fully developed, more than only Confucian ethics had to be practiced. In other words, Ge was a multi-faceted and complex thinker, and to pin him down to one school or another would be both inaccurate and partial. In this characteristic Ge is very much in tune with the dominant intellectual currents of his day, when it was common for the scholar-official to draw from a variety of intellectual and religious traditions in carving out his own lifeway

Robert P. Steed, To Extend Love to All Creeping Things: Ethics in Ge Hong’s Baopuzi

[arosthorn]

Now the three rulers did not copy the same music and the five emperors did not perform the same rites. Despite this, they still changed customs, and in putting the ruler at ease and ruling the people well their accomplishments were the same. Sometimes there were changes, and sometimes they followed the past. Either way, they abolished the bad and increased the good. Why must one use a boat to climb a mountain or spur on a horse to ford a stream? ... If one says that the ways of the past should never be changed, then coffins should not have replaced burial in piles of straw and clothing is not so appropriate for people as nakedness

Ge Hong, Baopuzi. Translation by Robert P. Steed, To Extend Love to All Creeping Things: Ethics in Ge Hong's Baopuzi

[mandapandalau]

Contentment

The contented man can be happy with what appears to be useless. He can find worthwhile occupation in forests and mountains. He stays in a small cottage and associates with the simple. He would not exchange his worn clothes for the imperial robes, nor the load on his back for a four-horse carriage. He leaves the jade in the mountain and the pearls in the sea. Wherever he goes, whatever he does, he can be happy--he knows when to stop. He does not pick the brief-blossoming flower; he does not travel the dangerous road. To him, the ten thousand possessions are dust in the wind. He sings as he travels among the green mountains.

He finds sheltering branches more comforting than red-gated mansions, the plow in his hands more rewarding than the prestige of titles and banners, fresh mountain water more satisfying than the feasts of the wealthy. He acts in true freedom. What can competition for honors mean to him? What attraction can anxiety and greed possibly hold? Through simplicity he has Tao, and from Tao, everything. He sees the light in the "darkness," the clear in the "cloudy," the speed in the "slowness," the full in the "empty." The cook creating a meal with his own hands has as much honor in his eyes as a famous singer or high official. He has no profits to gain, no salary to lose; no applause, no criticism. When he looks up, it is not in envy. When he looks down, it is not with arrogance. Many look at him, but nobody sees him. Calm and detached, he is free from all danger, a dragon hidden among men.

[meditationsinwonderland]

He acts in true freedom. What can competition for honors mean to him? What attraction can anxiety and greed possibly hold? Through simplicity he has Tao, and from Tao, everything.

Ko Hung

[meditationsinwonderland]

He sings as he travels among the green mountains

-Ko Hung