Finding your Heart with Mengzi
In April 2026, I turned to Mengzi for wisdom. He was a Chinese Confucian philosopher who believed that human nature is fundamentally good. Like all Confucians, he believed that the observance of ritual was necessary to develop virtues, but he distinguished himself by stating explicitly and encouragingly that the cultivation of virtue was the realization of our kind-hearted human nature. For this monthly experiment, I tried to find Ritual in my own life, and when it proved extremely difficult, I listened to the kind encouragement of Mengzi.
Hungry for a taste of a completely new philosophical culture (after trying christian mysticism last time) I went to read the Bryan W. Van Norden translation of Mengzi: the eponymous collection of sayings and dialogues of the second sage of Confucianism (second only to Confucius himself). I also discovered BryanW. Van Norden’s Youtube Channel, an amazing and fun resource to understand Chinese philosophy. It really scratched my itch for novelty, making it as accessible as can be.
The issue of Ritual
Central to Confucianism is the observance of sacred ritual, filial piety, and social propriety. Just as central is the idea that when you do those things, your personality is transformed for the better, as you essentially train yourself to become more virtuous. The importance of very conformist familial rituals is very difficult for me to swallow, though I am Confucius-curious. I have a deep-seated resistance to this kind of thing, in the exact same way that I have a deep-seated resistance to the idea of Christian sin, which hindered my foray into christian mysticism. I was brought up with no respect for tradition qua tradition, no training for this kind of social conformity, no special regard for my elders, and in fact, I was raised with a distaste for all of this. Iconoclasm, egalitarianism, those are the values I was raised on. So what we have here is the same situation as last time: I intensely crave new philosophical horizons, yet I feel like I am falling at the first hurdle because the new philosophical atmosphere is not congenial to my kind of spirituality at all. Initially, it feels stuffy with superstition. And yet I persevere. Because even if that big blockage never goes away, I can still find interesting things in this tradition, small opportunities to join in, to broaden my world-view in the most wonderful way.
During this monthly experiment, one of my grandmothers died. After childhood, I was not close to her at all; I never saw her. During childhood, we had a good time, but it was a very conventional time: hanging out because we were family, and no other reason, which is something I cannot help but feel is superficial. So after hearing the news, I stayed in my lane, and assumed “her side of the family” didn’t need to hear from me to handle the remembrance and funeral. It’s not that I did not feel grief, I did. But I felt incapable of connecting with a side of the family that I didn’t have anything in common with. To remember my grandmother, I took out a few toys that she had gifted me and that meant a lot to me, as a way to feel her presence again. Crafting my own personal ritual in this way feels way more intuitive than observing a ritual that was passed down through the generations. I am a pure product of modern atheistic France. Confucius would spin in his grave.
There are a few of my people who died recently and whom I am grieving these days. Because I think Confucius has a point (even if it’s difficult for me to join in), because the study of Philosophy as a Way of Life has made me discover the importance of tradition, I try to make an effort to honour my elders. When Ilsetraut Hadot died recently, I did my best to write a small tribute to remember her by, given that no one on Bluesky was talking about her. And I have another project like this in the works to honour the work of a philosopher friend who passed away. I try to see that these things have a spiritual dimension to them. By doing them we become more sensitive to virtuous feelings like admiration or compassion. I can feel that my emotional register is expanded by this effort, even if the result seems small. I’ll keep on trying. I have begun to come out of my shell, thanks to Mengzi’s encouragement.
Finding your heart
Being virtuous is awesome. It feels good and it sets your whole life on the right path. It really makes sense to get excited about virtues! Unfortunately, we get discouraged in a myriad of ways. We might feel unable to overcome the power of habit, or violent passions, or we might feel cynical and lose sight of the point of it all. Mengzi is here to help us deal with the difficulty. This is why he offers a way to not lose heart, to not feel discouraged.
A crucial philosophical exercise in the Mengzi is a method of reflecting on your abilities, to find that, contrary to what it may seem, you truly have it in you to be virtuous. I am indebted to Joseph Sta. Maria for their explanation of Mengzi through the lens of Philosophy as a Way of Life, and for pointing out that a certain leitmotiv in the text was indeed a dialogical philosophical exercise. It took me a while to recognize it, but I was eventually convinced.
In Joseph Sta. Maria’s words: “[Mengzi] proposes a practice that might be called “reflection and extension” in order to develop the natural moral potential of the human being.” (p.60)1 With the first stage of Reflection, we think back on our past behaviour and we realize that it was not so heartless as it seemed. The seeds of virtue were present there. The only problem was that they were unfocused, scattered, dissolute. In the second stage, Extension, we cultivate those seeds until they grow into full blown altruism, extending our moral circle way past anything we thought we were capable of.
We see this dialogical exercise clearly at play when Mengzi talks to King Xuan to convert him to the virtuous way of life (Book 1A). King Xuan is unsure that he is capable of virtue. More specifically, he is unsure that he can rule an entire country in accordance with virtue, when it seems that a more cynical way of doing it is also the more pragmatic and realistic way of doing it. Virtue sounds nice but it also sounds like a fiction born of the minds of philosophers who know nothing about the real world.
Mengzi then reminds the King of his past behaviour: the king saw an ox being led to ceremonial slaughter. The king took pity on the ox because of its “frightened appearance” and so he ordered that the animal should be spared and replaced by another (a sheep, for whom the king had less pity because it was out of sight at the time). Mengzi correctly guesses that empathy was the motivation of the king, whereas other people thought that the king was being stingy in swapping the two animals. The King confirms that this anecdote really happened and that Mengzi guessed correctly.
Upon hearing confirmation, Mengzi concludes “This heart is sufficient to become King.”, this heart is enough, if cultivated properly, to rule benevolently so that your ethical charisma may shine and that people may see your reign as legitimate and flock to you. Indeed, if King Xuan was capable of empathy for an ox, it means that he has the seed of virtue in his heart. Yes, in one sense, this empathic behaviour seems random and a bit selfish even, but it is only because this seed is not being watered and cared for properly. It is possible to channel this empathy so that it may reach other humans. First your own family, and then the family of others.
The king is converted:
“The king was pleased and said,
The Odes say, ‘Another person had the heart, I measured it.’
This describes you, Master. I was the one who did it. I examined myself and sought to find my heart but failed to understand it. But when you discussed it, my heart was moved.”
That is the power of a pep talk from Mengzi.
Do not injure your Qi
What captured my attention initially, while reading the Mengzi, was the mysterious notion of Qi. (It is mysterious only in the way that another culture is mysterious to the uninitiated, and that is exactly my standpoint). It fascinated me, and this is the main reason why, at first, I did not recognize the centrality of the “reflection and extension” exercise (what I prefer to call “finding your heart”) in spite of Maria exposing it in such a convincing way. I was too busy trying to vibe with qi.
What is Qi ? I will let Van Norden explain it, since it is still a bit mystifying to me (in Introduction to the Essential Mengzi):
“This is one of the most intriguing yet difficult-to understand aspects of Mengzi’s thought. Qi has been rendered various ways, including “ether,” “material force,” and “psychophysical stuff.” But there is really no adequate translation, since this is a concept that we do not have a precise analogue for. For Mengzi and his contemporaries, qi is a kind of fluid, found in the atmosphere and in the human body, closely connected to the kind and intensity of one’s emotional reactions. Qi therefore straddles the dualism between “mind” and “body” that has become a fixture of post-Cartesian philosophy in the West: qi is physically embodied emotion. Here are two examples to give an intuitive understanding of it.” Van Norden goes one with two examples: Example one: the atmosphere in the room becoming tense as someone says something offensive at a party. Example two: the reinvigorating effect of the crisp morning air.
Thus qi is a bit like the pneuma of the ancient Greeks: both “breath” and “spirit”. A good candidate for the “fundamental stuff” of the cosmos. But it is also the energy of emotion. The vibe in the room… I did my best to get into that frame of mind. It was extremely hard as a cultural-exchange exercise. Yet I did manage to pay attention to certain things thanks to that lens.
As part of the discussion surrounding qi, Mengzi insists on the fact that it is not surprising that people should have vicious inclinations if they “injure their qi” day in and day out, and do not allow themselves to replenish their energy. He compares them to a forest being exploited to the point that nothing grows there anymore. Thus, he mentions the fact that sleep is an important part of taking care of oneself. This may seem like trite advice, but I don’t think it is. During this monthly experiment I came to view the act of sleeping, napping, and taking regular breaks during work as actions I did to make sure that I could remain properly virtuous in other areas of my life. And it worked! It can’t be trite if everyone needs the reminder.
The lived experience of taking good care of yourself offers a great argument for Mengzi’s optimistic view of human nature. Mengzi’s idea that human nature is fundamentally good has to be understood in a pragmatic way. Human nature is said to be fundamentally good because if we keep saying it and aiming for it, it can be cultivated to be good. This is a strategic-pragmatic use of language2. Now, I bet that a lot of people, philosophers or not, would jump at the opportunity to fix this “bad reasoning”: they would say, if human nature can be cultivated to be good with some work, then human nature is actually neutral in the first place, not fundamentally good. But to practice self-care really makes the seed & plant metaphor salient as a response to this objection: how come I become virtuous every time I take good care of myself (given sufficient time to replenish), and vicious every time I neglect myself (given sufficient time to destroy myself)? By what strange coincidence does it always happen this way? No, it is no coincidence. Thus, it has to be said that human nature is fundamentally good because it can be made to be good, much like a sprout can be watered to become a plant. The strategic-pragmatic use of language is not arbitrary, it coincides with a deep truth about human beings.
There is something immensely encouraging about knowing that the only thing that might be standing between you and the virtuous life is a good nap or the revitalizing effect of the crisp morning air.
Measuring Another Person’s Heart
I practiced “finding my heart” in the privacy of my own mind, giving myself pep talks in the way that Mengzi showed me. I found that this way of encouraging myself was different from the Stoic way of encouraging myself, and I welcomed this addition to my tool belt.
Another funny thing happened at the end of that month. I came to use what I learned from Mengzi when I encouraged other people. One time, I did it spontaneously, without realizing that I was doing it, at first.
My friend and I were reacting to an online discussion that posed the question “do I want to make art or do I just want attention?”. My friend shared their worry that, if they truly introspect into their own motivations, perhaps the only reason they wanted to make art was to attract attention on themself. Perhaps their intention was impure and they did not truly want to do it for the sake of the art. Implicit in that was the idea that this potentially vicious intention might partially explained their current artistic block.
I knew my friend well enough to know that they were, in fact, truly artistic and creative; not a poseur with wrong intentions. The block was a mental block. So I challenged them on this diagnosis:
I said: “Well let me ask you this: why are you not fantasizing about getting external validation through being very good at math? Or making scientific discoveries?”
Thinking that they had a very good answer to my question, an answer that defeated my objection, they hastened to say: “Oh that… That’s only because I do not feel that Math is cool.”
On the contrary this played right into my hand. I pointed out that it proves what I already knew about them: they have a genuine love of art. If they only wanted fame, it would not matter where the fame came from (being good at math, being good at science), but they specifically wanted to be good at art. You can only see making art as a good source of external validation if you view art itself as cool, as admirable. It is because of this that you would think making art would reflect well on you. This undermines the false dichotomy between wanting to make art and merely wanting attention. By acknowledging that you view art as beautiful, you betray that you do not view it just as a means to an end.
My friend accepted this point, but was still doubtful and pessimistic. Like the King who grants that they felt empathy for the ox but doubts that this means they can feel empathy for commoners, my friend objected that, yes, they might have genuine admiration for art, but they are currently consuming it passively, and so they can hardly be called “creative” as a person. They thought it was doubtful that their admiration of art could truly blossom into making art. Like Mengzi, I objected that, in essence, by feeling genuine admiration, you already did the hardest part of the creative process (Mengzi insists on the fact that, for some people, feeling empathy for an ox is harder than to feel empathy for a human. So, in a way, the King already did the hardest part! Their proto-benevolence is scattered and unfocused, rather than non-virtuous). Some people want to create but have no inspiration. You, on the other hand, already connected with the true font of inspiration; you already did the hardest part! To prove my point I reminded them of all the times we watched art together and talked about what we would do differently to make it better, if we were in charge. In other words, my friend was already a creative participant in art, it is merely their pessimistic self-narrative that did not acknowledge these sprouts of creativity and their potential.
This philosophical pep talk helped my friend to see that they were reading too much into the fact that they were currently not producing anything. The narrative of self-loathing was completely optional! As Mengzi concludes: “Hence, Your Majesty fails to become King because you do not act, not because you are unable to act.” My friend admitted that I had made a compelling point, but they stressed that they felt there was still a gulf between granting that in the abstract (or granting other people this generous read of their intentions) and extending that generous read to oneself. So the method of “finding one’s heart” takes time. But it still is fruitful. All you have to do is believe in yourself a little more.
Conclusion
I will talk about it another day but… Misanthropy is a mistake. I am sure of it. And what I truly appreciated about Mengzi’s pragmatic approach, philosophical exercise, and general call to self-care, is that he is equipping us with the tools necessary to fight back against misanthropy. Whether misanthropy against others or against oneself: not many people see it, but we can be free from it. It is just a matter of not letting self-fulfilling defeatism win.
(PS: On this blog, we explore a new philosophical exercise every month. For example, we befriended Zhuangzi and cultivated intuitive action. Or to take another example, we befriended Jesus and memorized his Sermon on the Mount. Take a look around the blog for more exercises!
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(12/05/2026)
Pierrick Simon
my email: lemiroirtranquille@outlook.fr
(do not hesitate to reach out)
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NOTES:
1Joseph Emmanuel D. Sta. Maria, (2020), The Philosophy of Mencius as a Way of Life: A Rapport between Mencian Confucianism and Pierre Hadot’s Conception of Philosophy. Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture, 34, 43-72.
2Geisz, Steven F. 2008. “Mengzi, Strategic Language, and the Shaping of Be havior.” Philosophy East and West 58.2 (April): 190–222. https://doi.org/ 10.1353/pew.2008.0017.
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