Yan Hui and Zhuangzi: the way of spiritual healing in the twin peaks of Confucianism and Daoism

This article argues that the Confucian Analects and the Daoist Zhuangzi, often seen as opposing traditions, actually address a shared problem: how to reorient the heart-mind under conditions of suffering and attachment. Through close textual analysis, it shows that Confucian materials associated with Yan Hui address this by giving desire and conduct an ethical form through ritual discipline and moral commitment, while the Daoist Zhuangzi loosens evaluative fixation through stillness and release from rigid concepts. The article proposes an integrative dual-path model where Confucian moral anchoring and Daoist cognitive release are complementary responses to a common human difficulty, offering insights for psychological adjustment and self-cultivation.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Yan Hui and Zhuangzi have often been read as representing two contrasting traditions of self-cultivation in early Chinese philosophy. Against the background of contemporary concern with psychological distress, this article argues that the Analects and the Zhuangzi illuminate a shared problem: how the heart-mind may be reoriented under conditions of suffering, instability, and attachment. Through close textual analysis, the article shows that the Confucian materials associated with Yan Hui address this problem by giving desire, conduct, and affect an ethical form through ritual discipline, moral commitment, and reflective self-cultivation, whereas the Daoist materials in the Zhuangzi address it by loosening evaluative fixation through stillness, receptivity, and release from rigid conceptual insistence. What emerges is neither a simple juxtaposition of two traditions nor their reduction to a single synthesis, but a more precise theoretical relation: two distinct yet complementary pathways of psychological self-transformation organized around the same pressure on the heart-mind. On this basis, the article proposes an integrative dual-path model in which Confucian moral anchoring and Daoist cognitive release become intelligible as different responses to a shared human difficulty. By reconstructing these pathways from within early Chinese thought itself, the study offers a more explicit account of heart-mind transformation that speaks both to classical Chinese philosophy and to broader theoretical discussions of psychological adjustment and self-cultivation.