Abstract: The Confucian notion of self-cultivation or cultivation of the person first appeared in the Five Classics. It had experienced two different eras with the shift from "moral cultivation" to "spiritual training", with the former aiming for the ideal personality of "Confucian gentleman" whereas the latter for "becoming a sage". Along with the collapse of the Qing dynasty, in the "transitional era" that witnessed the greatest transformation in the past three thousand years, the Confucian tradition of self-cultivation was transformed into spiritual resources for cultivating "new gentlemen"(nationals or citizens) and "new sages"("sages for revolution"). We are now confronted with another transitional era marked by the "distinction between human and machine", an updated version of the classical "distinction between human and animal". Inevitably, how to respond to such "acceleration" and "globalization" of our time has become a fundamental issue for human existence, and how to reactivate Confucian resources for personal cultivation is an issue that must be taken seriously in the current project of constructing "Chinese discourse" in philosophy.

Key words: Confucianism, self-cultivation, art of self-cultivation(gongfu)