Confucianism emphasizes the conception of ceaselessly generating life, and the ideal temporal experience described by it has the existential structure of " past-present-future" , which is difficult distinguish from non-ideal temporal experience in ontology. This is challenge faced by the Confucian theory of gongfu. In Zhu Xi's theory enlightening one's enlightened virtue, non-ideal temporal experience has an easily recognizable layer named by " surface " , as well as a less identifiable layer named by " interior " , which overlaps and mixes with ideal temporal experience. In order to turn to ideal temporal experience, the surface of non-ideal temporal experience must be broken off straightly through reverential attention, otherwise the gongfu to deal with the interior will be hindered. However, since the interior is impossible break, it is necessary to recognize the emergence of enlightened virtue, and then maintain enlightening it continuously. Compared with Wang Yangming's assertion that the continuation of ideal temporal experience is produced from cutting off non-ideal temporal experience, Zhu Xi's " breaking-recognizing-continuing" model of dealing with temporal experience is more alert to the inveteracy of non-ideal temporal experience; both modes represent two important approaches of Confucian theory of gongfu in the dimension of time.
