1. Introduction
Supposing: there is a “mountain” in front, the height of “mountain” is infinitely high (if compared to the survival years of dinosaurs, it is 160 million), the unit can be measured by “year”; the base of “mountain” is equivalent to a circle of about 6500 kilometers radius―in other word, it is earth. From the bottom to the top of the mountain is the blank. We all human-beings are climbing this mountain. When we climb the mountain, we will leave many traces of happiness and sorrow, good and bad, bitter and sweet, or failure and success, joys and sorrows; there are ups and downs as well as wax and wane, too; there was a shocking massacre, an inspiring revolution; there was a great depression, a great recession with people dying as hills and mountains. There is also a great prosperity and progress as the wealth eat bread and meat; in short, whatever people think, whatever they say, whatever homo do; all thing in the past, now and future will be engraved on this mountain.
Now back on today, 195 (this is a metaphor; it refers to approximate 195 countries on earth; this number originating from the members of United Nation; it also can be recorrected by 224 and other appropriately numbers which refer to the members of countries and district on earth) people can be seen crisscrossing each other. To be exact, most people are turning around in their own small enclosure, while only a few move quickly, learn from each other, and progress hand in hand. The latter, of course, also stands higher on the mountain leading to humanity, leaving more and deeper marks on this mountain. In addition, it is easy to see that half of them are far behind the pioneers, who live in misery and have a short life span. What’s more, they live almost the same thing, do almost the same thing, for almost the same thing―surviving―every year for 2500 years. There is no trace of progress, let alone great prosperity. On the contrary, there are some people who always walk on the top of the hillside. They have gone through a lot of hardships and unrelenting efforts to explore a bright and progressive path from a dark thorn. After hundreds of years, they have made a great breakthrough and success. Therefore, the correctness of some aspects has been verified, the imprint on the “mountain” has been increased several times, and the happiness index and living standard of people have been greatly improved. But they have a fatal drawback―being shortsighted; they are only content with what they have achieved, and complacent, enjoy its success. Although it has reached a high point, but maintained the status quo is their common trick. So it stagnated as Adam Smith called―“wealth is eventually replaced by stagnation.” Instead of pursuing greater contribution and progress, he could only walk on the be-given imprint of the mountain. Although he is higher than anyone else, the more poverty other is, the more delighted and complacent he is. Immersed in the existing marks of prosperity and he is difficult to extricate themselves.
Three laws can be seen from the impressions of the mountain. First, there are roughly three peaks in their thoughts. The first period appeared about 2500 years ago, which is the most fundamental one (McNeill, 2016) . Almost all the imprints after the first period are closely related to this period, even to the thoughts, viewpoints and theories of that period. The second period mainly occurred 600 years ago. It had to be admitted that this prosperity was for the revival of the prosperity 2500 years ago, and it did not make much contribution to us. Moreover, the aftermath of this prosperity has not been completely exhausted to this day. The point of view is still strong. The third period mainly occurred in the past 100 years. But rather than a new one, it is more like a replay of a hundred flowers and a hundred schools of thought before it flourished 2500 years ago. Second, from the view of their economic development, living standards, happiness, although up and down, good and bad, but generally speaking the situation is not optimistic. People will be in straits all the time, farm when the sun comes, sleep when the sun goes down, but only get a few harvest. Human nature is oppressed, freedom is restricted, and the people are foolish. Until the last few hundred years, the livelihood of people has been greatly improved, and before that, most people were in hungry, worrying about food. Particularly in China, with the change of dynasties for 2500 years, that is, the change of the history of rise and fall, the circulation of people’s living standards thousands of years as a day, and it lead to less prosperity, more wars, more oppressed people. Finally, from the point of the history of war, it is also a cyclical process of change, even in the most recent World War, World War II, the situation in the Arabian Peninsula, and the war in Syria.
In short, human history is a history of Circulation, a history of war, a history of misery. Of course, there are other examples of Circulation. Considering that the dinosaurs that lived on Earth for 160 million years were eventually extincted, whatever the cause, at least when the cause of their extinction came back to Earth once again, we all humans (all Earthlings) should at least do something about it. It only lived for 160 million years by his physical strength. And when the comet rushing to the earth, the tallest and strongest animal on Earth had to be resigned to fate and unwittingly powerless. But as a human being, although we do not have the stature and strength of a dinosaur, our wisdom and wit must be enough to change the situation of Circulation and to embark on the evolutionary path of human destiny. The beginning of a new positive path of human progress and evolution, we can escape from the apocalyptic claws when the signs of extinction of dinosaurs reappear.
So what is the right path for mankind? What does the mean in this era? How to show it in the future? And how can it be realized? This is a substantial question that should be carefully pondered. This paper is concerned with the question of what is a positive path from the perspective of evolution, philosophy and the difference between him and the “Noble Eightfold Path” originating from Buddhism.
2. Evolution: The Path of Human
2.1. The Problem This Paper Directed to
From an evolutionary perspective, the fundamental problem of the right path is thinking about why the same human being has a very different fate living a different life like heaven and hell simply because of geographical, gender, age, and so on? Why is it that both human beings, but only in different circumstances, cause human potential to be so abused? Is there the power and right of our people (no matter what class, nation) let a person, an organization, or a national in it, be in a state of misery in which the people will not live, and all things will not talk about life, and let only a very small number of people, including themselves, enjoy the paradise on earth and pass this privilege forever? Why on earth do we let our brothers kill each other all over the country? Finally, why can’t we join hands to jointly resist the “foreign enemies”, to devote to the safe and delightedly people, to the peaceful country, and to the progressing world forever? Is the dinosaur’s yesterday really our “human” tomorrow? Imagining: humans evolved from the original primordial creatures to apes, then to Homo sapiens, and finally to modern sapiens, but if humans do not develop and evolve along this path, where will they eventually go? (Darwin, 2009) . For example, it’s like a river, despite kinds of all branches, but the ultimately destination is merging into the sea along the main channel, such as the Yangtze River in which the fate of all kinds of branches (such as the JiaLing River) is only been suspended. The right way for Yangtze River is rushing into the sea along the main channel of it. The sea is to the river what the evolutionary road of human is to human. The evolutionary path is the road to the human light, progress and development, and finally realize the evolution of human being as a “species”.
2.2. The Value of This Paper from the Angle of History of Evolution
From modern Homo sapiens to now for thousands of years, from animal husbandry for thousands of years, even from ancient Greece, Confucius era has been 2500 years, but people are still in the cycle, again and again. Eventually this will only numb to humans, perhaps human will live for the length of 160 million years like dinosaurs, but its imprint is ephemerally just like a swarm of fossil of dinosaurs, and eventually only to die as they did.
From the view of evolutionary history, the right way of human beings is advocating people to seek the path of human progress and evolution. From 500 BC to 1300 AD, despite inventions and improved political systems of human, the living level of people had not improved significantly, but only after the Renaissance, the industrial revolution in western countries has made human civilization a remarkable development. The road of human being is also the one that urge people to innovate and meet the needs of human beings consistently. In the age of information, intelligence and humanization, we cannot wait and halt. The evolutionary road of human race will make people intelligent, information and humanized. It will prompt the human beings to step into the path of evolution as a community in return. The evolutionary road of human being is the direction of human travel and the light of human advance. It guides mankind as a kind of human being to unite and advance hand in hand. Men and women has been on the road to poverty, oppression, destruction, war, cycle for 2500 years, and in the final analysis, its road to extinction is too long to escape. The right way of mankind is the common goal of every individual, group, nation, country. The right way for mankind is the catalyst for human progress and evolution, the disenchantment of the devil and evil, the softener of human war.
2.3. The Evolutionary Road without an End Is the Common Goal of Everyone on Earth
Moreover, the evolution path of humanity is a “war” without an end. This is an imaginary enemy to a conceited, arrogant man and a nation, and it will never be defeated. The right way for mankind is a history of human evolution. Evolution has no end. But those who are short-sighted often look only at the successful side of human evolution and forget the necessity to move forward permanently, leave them in a state of stagnation. Because of his complacency and arrogance, he is good at transferring his influence to other people, nations and countries for no reason rather than establish a common prosperity community. But this oppressive, compulsory “handout” is often counterproductive. In fact, it is the small shrimp-rice set up by the mindset of drawing benefits, skillfully seeking and seizing resources. Most importantly, on the contrary, the “ambition” of the strong should be cared to promote progress, and make people develop and prosper. The evolutionary path is the common goal of everyone, every nation, every country. Indeed, it is really different between the need for mutual aid based on the idea of conscience and growth and the “handout” of a war-style co-prosperity mechanism. The aim of right road enables the strong to pursue greater progress and to make greater contributions to the progress, evolution for mankind. Therefore, we can use the resources―intelligence, wealth, power and so on to search the right way for whole human. On the other hand, the evolutionary road of human being is the road that man, nation and country must march on. For the weak, it makes them wonder: why are we all human beings, and our nation lags behind other nations? In other words, they are encouraged to explore their own path of development, rather than relying on the alms of others. Finally, walking on the right track of mankind, it facilitates to become the “real person” of Human. On the contrary, just as few indigenous people still exist, they are human beings also. But why have we come to the age of intelligence while they are still collecting? (John, 2009) . Are you, me, or other people willing to be “indigenous” in the years to come? When some people, such as Asians and Europeans, can move freely in the universe and even find new settlements in universe, they can travel freely between new homes and the earth, but other countries have to continue to hang on to the hollowed planet account of lack of technology, energy, and mental retardation, breathe and enjoy the funny but panic atmosphere of the dying earth?
To sum up, from the perspective of evolution, the right way of human beings first means that all man should act in the course of evolution, that is, to promote the progress, innovation and evolution of human beings. Secondly, as the common goal of human being, the evolutionary road of mankind can urge people to unite to common development, common progress, solve problems, co-evolve, avoid war and eliminate ignorance. Especially in the era of intelligence, advanced technology should be used to step into the evolutionary path of human beings, rather than other evil things. Finally, the evolutionary road of human being is the goal of each country, it can excavate the powerful and the weak from past misconduct; enable the strong to use people, money, and power on the right path of human evolution; and in the same way, enable the weak to get rid of the alms of the strong, exploitation and regulation, and thus seek the path of self-realization and their own development, integrate into the fate of mankind and not be enticed by a new era of “indigenous”.
But, the Slogan, whatever beautiful and graceful it is, whatever perfect and appropriate it is, without further thinking, without digest and grind, without some action to do, undoubtedly, it is the same as the rubbish and litter. From the Perspective of philosophy, we can understand and grasp the essence of the evolutionary path accurately. In a sense, it is a solution of how to step into the right, evolutionary road for all human being.
3. The Evolutionary Road: From the Perspective of Philosophy
In philosophy, the evolutionary road of human was the “thinking” road of Socrates’ thought that “An unexamined life is not worth living” (Sohio, 2014) , and it was the “perfect idea” in Plato’s eyes that everyone should know and follow. In Aristotle’s eyes, the evolutionary road of human being was the road to the “fundamental purpose” of promoting “good” and the ultimate destination. It also was the path of modesty and moderation in the eyes of the imperial philosopher Aurelius; it was a road of to qualitative pleasure in the eyes of the utilitarians. It is road to pursuit of efficiency, to seek a more humanity function, “practical” road for the people; in existentialist eyes, it was the road to self-existence, which makes people progress, evolves, self-actualize, and it also was the road of “openness and affection based on human-being” in the eyes of humanists, which is to carry forward their own values, to achieve themselves, to realize themselves, and to create their own road of “human being” which makes people progress and evolve. All in all, the aim is urging people to think, perfect, to avoid war, to unite the people and the other to develop and perfect together, and to realize his own national value as a human being―that is, evolution.
3.1. The Road of Thought and Perfect Idea
Socrates said that “life without thought is not worth living”, which refers to that we should think, reflect for the better and move forward. The former makes people wise and capable; the latter lets people know what “good” is, what the “perfect idea” is (Wu & Ren, 2002: pp. 160-208) , and applies wisdom and ability to achieve that perfect idea and to step into the evolutionary path. But what exactly is it that people are looking for? They pursuit the way to better, evolution and happier. In the heart of the river the sea is the best, the most perfect. The river deeply envies the vastness of the great ocean and it can hold more objects and allow more creatures to live in, and the ocean is the final destination of any river (unless the river is in virtually not flow). In this inaptly metaphor, all river have the power to think and have a consistent standard of what is good, then it will think and seek its path to the perfect idea. For example, the flow of the Yangtze or Yellow River, despite thousands of kilometers of trek, there are countless dead-end and obstacles. But finally, they got to the ideal place―the sea―along the right way. Similarly, the evolutionary road of human is urging people to think about their own shortcomings, to understand their own characteristics, to know the ultimate purpose, to know what is “good and perfect”, so as to constantly struggle to realize the right way―evolutionary way.
3.2. The Evolutionary Way: The Purpose of Mankind
The right and evolutionary path represents the direction in which the people move forward. Human history should be a progressive, inspiring, evolutionary history. For 2500 years, especially in some parts of Asia and Africa, but it has been difficult. (http://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/ch/number-extremely-poor-people-continues-rise-sub-saharan-africa). Despite some economical and ideological progress, it is hard to believe that humans are on the right track. Looking at the subtly developments of the previous 2000 years, coupled with the bloody scenes of wars, massacres and so on over the next 500 years, and you will see the wall already adorned with the iron will more consolidate for this idea (Brian, 2002) . Therefore, the evolutionary way for mankind should be the common pursuit of “all kind of human”. As mentioned earlier, a common purpose urges people hand in hand and twists them shoulder by shoulder to solve problems that obstruct human development and evolution, especially those that are enough to destroy people. If the compatriots are united, they will solve all problems. When the causes of the extinction of dinosaurs coming again, humans must unite to prepare for survival, because the wisdom of “man” is limitless. Who can deny that after a few years, people will not only fly freely in the universe, find a new earth, but even change the orbit of comets heading to Earth? Such a vast project can only be achieved by all nations and all mankind together. On the one hand, the evolutionary road of every country will make great efforts to develop themselves, to get rid of the state of ignorance, to upgrade the economic ability, to improve the living standards of people, to control the population, to make people happy, and to put them on the right track of modern civilized life. This is a fundamental plan for the real benefit of all mankind. On a smaller-personal level, it’s vital to say goodbye to the old cycle. In the past, people used to work when sun rise and sleep when sun set, and only get little food, day after day, year after year, 2500 years like a day, not changed. So is the father, son is almost the same as “do it again”. The father is a farmer, and then the offspring (even before he has grown up, when he is only a few years old) is still following his father to do farm work (Cheng, 2013) . Will it happen again to the grandchildren and in the future? It is hard to say. After all, the same thing has never been stopped for 2500 years. Although there has been some change today, it is only a matter of moving jobs from farmland to factories where they work fixed or non-fixed. Their salaries are only a little higher than their expenditure, particularly in the developing countries. Do our children really need to inherit it as you and I do once again? Should he really do repetitive work as we usually do in many years? But without the progressive, positive evolution and hard work of our forebears, who can prove that our descendants will not repeat it day to day, year to year, as our ancestors did? There is no doubt that the path of our forebears is the reason of what we can now experience and enjoy, and that our contribution to the evolutionary path will be the well-being of our children and offspring.
3.3. Individuals and Their Existence
As mentioned above, the path to the evolution requires personal thinking, learning, and human knowledge of what good is, which perfect is, and what is the real purpose. All mankind is composed of the people of all nations. Human beings are the common human-beings, and it should also contribute their own strength to the good, right, evolutionary path of human beings. Men and women is responsible for its rise and fall. When the last dinosaur died, though it did not leave the last drop of thought and grief tears. But as an emotional, thoughtful and intelligent species, man is unshirkably responsible for the survival of his own species. At least when the last one, facing the extinction, he has to reflect: as the highest intelligent creature, the most capable and the master of all things, why has such a tragic and grief ending? Therefore, every man should at least pour a bucket of water, shovel a handful of soil on the sapling of mankind’s evolutionary path, so that it will thrive, never die out, and last forever. For the “individual”, Progress and transcendence are the way to the evolutionary road of human beings (Kauf-mann, 1987: pp. 83-89) . First of all, its direction must be the direction leading to human progress and evolution, in other words, self-destruction measures liked Hitler and perishing measures liked Falun Gong can only enable people to rush into the arms of death more quickly. Secondly, the development for everyone is transcending themselves and others without harming others (Kauf-mann, 1987: pp. 110-111) . The transcendence mentioned here can be a little progress every day in a small step, or it can be put forward the ideas, concepts, theories, and opinions that is different from the predecessors. The emphasis on using new ideas, methods, etc. to solve problems, improve technology, enhance efficiency, and create new theories. In addition, the transcendence and self-realization of individual also can manifest the personal value, display the individual existence in a meaning way (Wu & Ren, 2002: pp. 136-147) . Of course, “individual” contains a positive individual, a completely commitment, a wholly devotion, and it will regards the personal development as a cause that truly wants to be accomplished (Kant, 2003) . That is, the personal sense of existence, presence, enthusiasm, initiative are reflected in the self-realization and transcendence. The career which you really want to achieve coupled with the personal own potential, interest, intelligence and so on, it will make a great contribution to the right direction of human being. To integrate a dream of “I want” into all aspects of learning, career, family, growth, and activities that make me manifest myself and help me realize myself.
3.4. Practical and Utilitarian
There is no end to the evolutionary path of men and women forever. The long road needs efficiency to speed up, also need pleasure, leisure to add luster to mankind. Utility and efficiency are important marks to measure whether one is on the evolutionary path or not. The history of human progress and evolution is the history of continuously enhancing the efficiency of human activities, the history of meeting the increasingly needs of people, in essence, it is the history of further improvement of the efficiency of serving the people. From the age of gathering and hunting to agriculture, to industrialization, information and intelligence (Conrad, 2012) . Even as people’s needs grow, more individuation, the more complex the problem is, the right way to be practiced is only meeting more people’s needs. If practicality and efficiency meets people’s external needs mainly from the point of material comfort, then individual existence and qualitative utilitarian produces internal satisfaction. This intrinsic pleasure and happiness plays an important role to the development way of mankind. But just in this respect, human beings has been shown that their evolutionary efficiency is relatively low. Fairness, justice, happiness and so on, although was talked thousands of years, but still a question. Therefore, the advent of the Internet, the age electronic and intelligent provides an important approach for the promotion of qualitative happiness, communication and international understanding. As a mankind, we should seize the last light of opportunity and step into the evolutionary road of humanity.
3.5. Experience, Learning and Research
The evolutionary road of human being can not achieved overnight. In the past 2500 years, many virtuous people have been sacrificed for the purpose of carrying out the road, such as Copernicus, Galileo, Socrates, Qu Yuan, Du Mu and so on. The road to the right path of mankind, not only need ideas, goals, efficiency, people and their self-existence, but also need each person to constantly experience, practice, learn, research (Wu & Ren, 2002: pp. 412-426) . The process of practice is the process of thinking, learning, research and creation, it is the testimonial of the right path to mankind also. Copernicus has studied the relationship between the sun and the earth in order to change the holy creationism and brought mankind into the palace of science. Humanists has liberated people from theological oppression and entered the worldly life that makes everyone happiness. They kept on practicing, learning, pondering, proving, innovating, and eventually pulling people into the right, evolutionary track. By the same token, we must constantly learn, experiment like they did and alienate from the wrong thinking, anachronistic practices. This is the only way to achieve ourselves, and the only way to the right rwoad of human. Shelving learning, experience, research, and innovation in search of other ways it will run counter to its own goals. Research is the most important one. Learning, experience is the basis of research, and innovation is the result of deeply research. Permeating the research into all experience and study in order to obtain better experience, study effectively, and then realize innovation, we will easily and smoothly get the essence of the evolutionary path.
3.6. Openness and Affection Based on Humanity
Based on humanism, Confucius’ love and the openness of the world is necessary to enter the evolutionary road of human being. The emphasis on Rational concept, experience learning or research, external and internal efficiency, without the love of humanity and the human feelings of the careful polishing, whatever they well do, it cannot bring obvious benefits of mankind also. its operation is the activity of rigidly machinery and absence of human beauty. Every change, innovation, and efficiency improvement alienated from human emotions can only be regarded as the growth and progress of robots and wooden, but not as human beings, contribute nothing for Spiritual sublimation and progress (Fromm, 2008) . Openness is the necessary factor to the growth of humanity and the development of human beings (Sartre, 2007: pp. 527-621) . An open mindset and surrounding are conducive to the mutual learning, appreciation, common progress of human beings, absorbing the essence of human civilization, sharing the concept of the right way of mankind, and truly realizing the destiny community of human beings by the evolutionary way. Affection based on Humanity is treat, respect, love, stimulate people as a whole person, as a member of the human race. Both the openness of people and nations contributes to the progress of human nature and the realization of human. The outdated impression and self-proclaimed fable is still in popular, but it will be beaten in the end. Communicating with different groups, learning from each other and integrating different ideas are the first step for all mankind to jointly build a community of human destiny―a community of human nature―and the first step for the long march of mankind to the evolutionary path.
In summary, the six factors can classify as two elements based on humanity (human emotion, love, care): individuals and their existence, openness and humanity; as two components based on rational (thinking, reason, idea): thinking and the concept of perfect idea, experience and Learning and research; finally as two goals: utility and effectiveness, human evolution, and progress. In other words, it is the combination of rationality and human nature that enhances human efficiency, meets human needs, and ultimately leads to the right, evolutionary path.
4. The Definition of “Evolutionary Ways” and the Difference between Them and “Noble Eight-Fold Path” Originating from Buddhism
As mentioned earlier, the road of the evolutionary path is based on the history of human cycle, war, history of suffering and other facts. It is the answer to following questions: why is there a world of unbridgeably difference between human beings simply because of geographical, gender, colour, age, etc.? Why are the descendants of the same ancestors often encroach on each other? It focuses on the road to development, progress, evolution and growth of human. Therefore, the right way of human beings should include, first of all, the path of “individual” as the most basic unit of human being, that is, the daily experience, study, research and progress of personal, so that he can act as a real human being, as the existence and realization of the full value of their personal meaning. Then, it is an evolutionary road to the growth development, progress, evolution for the organization, the country and other groups. Human beings are not only human beings, but also all community (such as family, races, countries). Only when every big groups (such as country) who constitutes all mankind returns to the right way of human being from the road of extinction can it realize the common development and evolution of mankind and avoid all the nations of mankind killing each other, resist development of each other . Therefore, depending on the combination of reason and human nature, we can attain the community, human progress and evolution, achieve fully development and step into the right way.
For understanding the concept of evolutionary road of human precisely, it is necessary to distinguish it from the Buddhist term--Noble Eight-fold Path. At first glance, the meaning of the word is so similar that it is easily confused. However, on the scientific path to the “evolutionary path of human”, no non-scientific factors (such as theology, religion, etc.) should be allowed. Neither the problem, attribution, solution, nor even the most fundamental--the attitude to human nature, when putting forward the idea of the evolutionary road of human being, there is a great difference between them with the Buddhism. This is not only the name of science, but also an indispensable part of the road to the realization of man’s right path.
4.1. Different Basic Issues Addressed
From the point of the basic issues, Buddhist focusing on the permanently suffering of the world (Li, 1992) . it believes that life consists of only a series of hardships: physical illness, psychological conflict, anxiety, torture and so on. But as mentioned above, the road to human progress is aimed at: why has there been no sign of evolution for 2500 years? Why do humans fight all year round? Why is it that both are human beings, but there are so big gap and gulf between American and African only because of some minor factors? A series of questions like that. It also deals with the question of whether human beings can avoid being destroyed liked dinosaurs, and whether human beings can develop, perfect and evolve forever. Although there are some painful thing along the evolutionary road of human being, most importantly, it should respect the humanity and happiness of people, improve the efficiency of human action. This is very different from Buddhism. And the person for this problem is not just the individual, but the institutions, organizations, countries, etc., which must be associated with the idea of evolutionary road to step into the right way of human.
4.2. Attribution: The Causes of the Problem Are Different
Buddhist believes that human beings are not satisfied with the existing situation, and self-centered, the pursuit of self-happiness resulting in the suffering of all people. The pursuit of happiness, greed, possessiveness and selfishness are the root of these problems. But the unrealized road of human being is only because of the efficiency of human production, the meet of human need, the absence of openness, thinking, learning, research, the pursuit of perfect ideas, etc. In the final analysis, it is the question of human understanding and application of reason, humanity, purpose.
4.3. Problem Solving: Different Ideas and Schemes
As the causes and explanations of the problems are different, the solutions too, even the opposite. Generally speaking, Buddhist emphasizes that everyone should stand in a fixed place and extinguish his desire. On the contrary, the idea of evolutionary path of human beings dedicates to the development of individual ability, the improvement of efficiency, the application of thinking, innovation and concept, the combination of emotion and love, and the realization of evolutionary road as a journey of personal, country and all mankind progress. Specifically, Buddhism puts forward the Noble Eight-fold Path: right view, rightly thinking, right words, right karma, right destiny, hard work, right mind, right fixed (Kuan, 1991) right view refers to that people should clearly and precisely learn and think the four essentials of Buddhism (suffering, collection, extinction, Tao, that is, the basic idea of problems, causes, and solutions). it evolved into the clear cognition of everything in the world. In short, Buddhist emphasizes the correctness of opinion and thought. But the most important thing in the evolution way of human is not right, but to create and solve problems, to improve human productivity, and to promote human happiness. Right words, right karma, right destiny also point to the correctness of human language, behavior, work, etc. But it is a sign of stiffy, inertia and foolish when it was mixed with its fundamental thought “extinction, fixed”. It is clear that this is opposite to the evolutionary path of mankind. Because in all the pursuit of correctness, certainty, stability, can we expect anything to promote human progress, evolution of the great creation, the emergence of great wisdom? Hard work is truth, but it is only associated with the mindfulness, right words, etc--in other words, when it is associated with the meditation, the prescribed thoughts, there is no doubt that the more you work hard on the wrong path, the farther off the evolutionary road of human race will be.
4.4. Substantial Differences: Different Attitudes towards Human Nature
From the cognition, explanation, attribution and solution of its problems, we can conclude that Buddhist think that it will achieve peace and happiness for human by suppressing the development of human nature, extinguishing the human needs; on the contrast, with the combination of reason, thinking, innovation, passion, interest, the road to the evolutionary path of mankind is the path to the development of human abilities and potential, to realize human’s progress and evolution. Former is the road to oppression, destruction, meditation; later is the road to development, progress, creation, humanity, evolution.
In summary, although there are some similarities between the idea of evolutionary way of human beings and the “Noble Eight-fold Path”. In the origin of the problem, the scope, depth, explanation of the problem, and the methods proposed are completely different from each other. As far as its essence is concerned, the former focuses on development and evolution, while the latter focuses on “extinction” and “fixed”. Only when we really understand the evolutionary road of human, can we realize the right goal of evolution of human.
5. Summary
Based on the question of why the history of human beings around the world for 2500 years is a cyclical process, why the persecution of the people is frequently, why the entire human race of the same lineage has a big gulf simply because of the region, the color of the skin, the different gender and so on, this article puts forward the thought of the evolutionary road of human being, and from the view of the history of evolution, we should regard the co-evolution of all mankind as the common goal of human being. In addition, based on philosophical point, it is clarifying the concept of evolutionary path of human, emphasizing that all human beings should improve their efficiency, qualitative happiness and achieve the goal of human evolution based on the individual’s own existence, emotion, openness, rational ideas, thinking, learning, research. Finally, in order to distinguish between “the evolutionary way of mankind” and “Noble Eight-fold Path”, this paper points out the difference from the view of the origin of the problem, attribution, solution and its attitude to human nature. All in all, the evolutionary road of human is incompatible with the conservative, oppressive thought advocated by Buddhism.