by Ying-shih Yü
heart ( xin, also “mind”), however, the search for the realm beyond must of ne-
cessity begin by turning inward. This is beautifully expressed by D. C. Lau in
the introduction to his translation of the Mencius:
14 b e t w e e n t h e h e av e n l y a nd t h e h u m a n
Acting in accordance with Heaven’s Decree is something one can do joy-
fully by looking inwards and fi nding the roots of morality within one’s
own spiritual make-up. In this way, Mencius broke down the barrier be-
tween Heaven and Man and between Decree and human nature. There is
a secret passage leading from the innermost part of a man’s person to
Heaven, and what pertains to Heaven, instead of being external to man,
turns out to pertain to his truest nature.18
This is a perfect example of what I mean by “inward transcendence.”
Understood in this sense, the notion of tianren heyi must not be misread as a
“theory” with specifi c contents of thought. Instead, it is only a mode of thinking
manifesting itself in practically all aspects of Chinese culture such as art, lit er-
a ture, philosophy, religion, po liti cal thought, social relations, and so on, which
cannot be pursued here. This also explains why “inward transcendence” has
become a defi ning feature of Chinese mentality since the time of Confucius. In
what follows, I outline, in a highly sketchy manner, some of its expressions in the
post- Axial Chinese mentality.
I would like to begin with the negative side as a contrast to the external tran-
scendence of the West. The Chinese transcendental world is not systematically
externalized, formalized, or objectivized, especially when compared to its West-
ern counterpart. After the Axial breakthrough, Chinese thinkers tended not to
apply their imaginative powers to the nature, shape, characteristics, and so on
of the world beyond, whether Heaven or Dao, even though they apparently had
deep feelings about it. As best expressed by Zhuangzi, “As to what lies beyond
the universe, the sage admits its existence but does not theorize” (44). This
Chinese attitude contrasts sharply with the Western predilection to imagine,
often vividly and profusely, about the world beyond with the aid of speculative
reason.
As a matter of fact, the absence of theology in the Chinese tradition is some-
thing that no intellectual historian can possibly fail to notice. Chinese specula-
tions on heaven or the cosmos from the third century b.c.e. on led only to the
rise of the yin- yang cosmology, not theology. Buddhism introduced to China not
only a host of ever- compassionate deities in the form of bodhisattvas but also a
hierarchy of heavens and hells. In imitation, religious Daoists brought forth
a class of transcendent beings called tianzun (
, venerable celestial deities).
These imported beliefs, though appealing to popu lar imagination, were never
taken seriously by the thinking elite. Zhu Xi
(1130–1200), for example,
dismissed the Daoist tianzun as thoughtless imitations. Unlike for Plato or
Kant, neither the regular movement of heavenly bodies nor moral princi ples in
the mind/heart could convince Zhu Xi of the existence of God.
By contrast, theology as a systematic knowledge of God began in the West
with Plato’s metaphysics and continued with Aristotle as one of the three “theo-
retical sciences.” In medieval Eu rope, Christian theology prevailed over Greek
b e t w e e n t h e h e av e n l y a nd t h e h u m a n 15
thought. As Jaroslav Pelikan points out, however, “the victory of orthodox Chris-
tian doctrine over classical thought was, to some extent a Pyrrhic victory, for
the theology that triumphed over Greek philosophy has continued to be shaped
ever since by the language and the thought of classical metaphysics.”19 Thus,
the absence of theology in the Chinese tradition on the one hand and its full
fl owering in the West on the other may well be taken as an illustrative example
of the contrast between inward transcendence and external transcendence.
Hegel once criticized the sharp separation between the clergy and the laity in
medieval Chris tian ity as follows: “ Here arises ipso facto a separation between
those who possess this blessing and
those who have to receive it from
others— between the Clergy and the Laity. The laity as such are alien to the
Divine. This is the absolute schism in which the Church in the Middle Ages
was involved; it arose from the recognition of the Holy as something exter-
nal.”20 Thus, Hegel has confi rmed my point about the externalization of
Western transcendence in no uncertain terms.
Note further what the great Chan (Zen) Master Huineng
(or
) had
to say about the very same prob lem in the Liuzu Tanjing (Platform Sutra of the
Sixth Patriarch) (section 36):
Good friends, if you wish to practice, it is all right to do so as
laymen; you don’t have to be in a temple.
Again,
From the outset the Dharma has been in the world;
Being in the world, it transcends the world.
Hence do not seek the transcendental world outside,
By discarding the pres ent world itself. 21
Clearly, the two worlds, actual and transcendental, are linked together by the
purifi ed mind/heart in a way that is “neither identical nor separate.” In this
Chinese version of Buddhism, we fi nd a quin tes sen tial expression of inward
transcendence.
Turning to the positive side, I would like to point out emphatically that the
overwhelming concentration on the nature and function of the “mind/ heart”
( xin
) in Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist discourses has given rise to the
unique Chinese “Learning of the Mind and Heart” ( xinxue
), which can be
equated neither with “psy chol ogy” nor with philosophy of mind in the West.
Thus, we fi nd in Mencius, “penetrating one’s own mind and knowing one’s
own nature in order to know Heaven”; in Zhuangzi, “fasting of the heart” for
attainment of oneness with Dao; and in Chan Buddhism, “point directly, to the
human mind” and “see one’s nature and become a Buddha.” The greatest con-
tribution to the Learning of the Mind and Heart comes, needless to say, from
Neo- Confucianism. In spite of the central importance of “princi ple” ( li
) in
his philosophical system, Zhu Xi nevertheless held that “princi ples,” though
16 b e t w e e n t h e h e av e n l y a nd t h e h u m a n
obtained from Heaven, are ultimately embodied in the mind. In his own words,
“Without the mind, princi ples would have nothing in which to inhere.”22 But,
after all, it was Wang Yangming who developed the xinxue to its full maturity.
The following conversation between Wang and his friend will serve our purpose
well. The friend pointed to fl owering trees on a cliff and said:
“You say there is nothing under heaven external to the mind. These
fl owering trees on the high mountain blossom and drop their blossoms
of themselves. What have they to do with my mind?”
Wang replied:
“Before you look at the
se fl owers, they and your mind are in a state of silent
vacancy. As you come to look at them, their colors at once show up
clearly. From this you can know that these fl owers are not external to
your mind.”23
What Wang is saying is not that the “fl owers” as a thing do not exist in the ex-
ternal world, but that what makes a fl ower a “fl ower” to a human observer is
the contribution of the mind. These include all its qualities, relations to other
things, and the very fact that it is called a “fl ower.” He identifi ed this mind as
liangzhi
, “innate knowledge.” Obviously, here Wang is talking about the
sources and structure of values and meanings, not the external world and our
objective knowledge of it. According to his way of thinking, we may say that
values and meanings are provided by the mind or innate knowledge, which,
being a unity of the Heavenly and the human, radiates a legislative power much
broader than does Kant’s practical reason. It may not be too much of an exag-
geration to suggest that in Wang Yangming’s philosophy, the spirit of inward
transcendence has found its fullest and highest expression.
To sum up, I have tried to establish the uniqueness of Chinese religious and
philosophical imagination in a comparativist perspective by taking three in-
terpretive steps. First, I used the idea of “inward transcendence” as an overall
characterization of the Chinese mentality. Historically, it fi rst took shape dur-
ing the Axial breakthrough, and then over the centuries, has become deeply
entrenched in Chinese spirituality, as shown in the three major traditions of
Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. Second, I further discussed inward tran-
scendence in terms of the relationship between the transcendental and actual
worlds, and suggested that it may best be described as “neither identical nor sepa-
rate.” Third, the recognition of the sacred as something internal led necessarily
to a great deal of imagination about the wondrous function of the mind, in whose
mediation alone lies the hope of a harmonious union of the Heavenly and the
human.
In conclusion, I would like to mention one specifi c point, namely, the pos si ble
relevance of inward transcendence to our modern world. In her penetrating
analy sis of the human condition in the modern age, Hannah Arendt made an
b e t w e e n t h e h e av e n l y a nd t h e h u m a n 17
impor tant point about the reversal of the hierarchical order between the vita
contemplativa and the vita activa. As a result, action has dominated our modern
life while contemplation has been reduced to nonexistence. According to Arendt,
however, modern people did not gain this world when they lost the other
world.24 More recently, Charles Taylor has also strug gled with the same prob-
lem but from a diff er ent perspective and in diff er ent terms. As he sees it, the
modern identity of the West consists very largely in what he calls the affi
rma-
tion of ordinary life. Still, not unlike Arendt, who is concerned about the
“thoughtlessness” of modern persons, Taylor also shows considerable anxiety
about a tendency in Western culture “to stifl e the spirit.” In the end, he only
sees “a hope implicit in Judeo- Christian theism and in its central promise of a
divine affi
rmation of the human.”25 As far as I can see, this is a spiritual crisis
rooted in the external transcendence of Western culture.
It is in ter est ing to note that we fi nd a central ele ment in the Chinese imag-
ination that seems to be speaking precisely to this kind of crisis. There was
a common saying among Chinese Chan Buddhists: “In carry ing water and
chopping fi rewood: therein lies the wonderful Dao.”26 Wang Yangming once
described the Dao in this way: “It is not divorced from daily ordinary activities,
yet it goes straight to what antedated Heaven.”27 What both statements seem to
suggest is that there is a possibility that contemplation and action or ordinary
life and spiritual edifi cation may be united without either being wholly aban-
doned. Above, I used the words “speaking to” advisedly because I am not at all
sure whether this line of Chinese thinking can really “provide solutions” to
the modern crisis. Nevertheless, since the Chinese spiritual tradition has been
centrally concerned with the question of how to live a life combining this-
worldliness with other- worldliness, we have reason to believe that it may con-
tain ideas worthy of reexamination. After all, this line of thinking is not wholly
alien to the West. As is generally known, the idea of combining practical sense
and cool utilitarianism with an otherworldly aim was developed by Calvinism
long ago.
not e s
1.
Yueh- lin Chin, “Chinese Philosophy,” Social Sciences in China 1, no. 1 (March 1980):
83–93.
2. Fung
Yu-
lan,
A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (New York: Macmillan, 1948),
339–340.
3.
See Derk Bodde, “Myths of Ancient China,” in his Essays on Chinese Civilization (Prince-
ton: Prince ton University Press, 1981), 65–70. On wu- shamans, see K. C. Chang, “Shang
Shamans,” in The Power of Culture: Studies in Chinese Cultural History, ed. Willard J.
Peterson, Andrew H. Plaks, and Ying- shih Yü (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press,
1994), 10–36.
18 b e t w e e n t h e h e av e n l y a nd t h e h u m a n
4. “The ‘art of the Way ( daoshu
)’ in time came to be rent and torn apart by the world.”
Burton Watson, trans., The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 1968), 364. I have translated the Chinese character lie as “breakup” instead
of following Watson’s “to be rent and torn apart.” Further quotations to the Zhuangzi
are noted by Watson’s page numbers in parentheses.
5. Karl Jaspers, “The Axial Period,” in The Origin and Goal of History, trans. Michael Bull-
ock (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), 1–21.
6. Benjamin I. Schwartz, “The Age of Transcendence,” Daedalus 104, no. 2 (Spring
1975): 3.
7. Talcott Parsons, “ ‘The Intellectual’: A Social Role Category,” in On Intellectuals, ed.
Philip Rieff (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor, 1970), 7.
8. Benjamin I. Schwartz, “Transcendence in Ancient China,” Daedalus 104, no. 2 (Spring
1975): 60.
9. “Zhongyong,” chap. 13.
10. I am following the text of the Huainanzi, where the transcending pro cess begins with
“rites and music.” SBCK, chap. 12, p. 88. The textual prob lem is too technical to be dis-
cussed here.
11. Max Weber, Economy and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978),
502–503.
12. D. C. Lau, trans., Confucius: The Analects (Harmonds worth, UK: Penguin, 1979), 20.
13. Onozawa Seiichi
, Mitsuji Fukunaga
, and Yû Yamanoi
, eds.,
Ki no shisô
(Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1978).
14. Here I have changed Watson’s “inwardly direct” to “inwardly straight.” The original
; term is neizhi
. In this instance, Zhuangzi is playing with the character de
(vir-
tue), which in his time was composed of two parts: “heart” ( xin ) and “straight” ( zhi ).
“Straight” seems closer to the meaning of zhi. For the written form of de, see the most
recently discovered texts in Guodian Chumu zhujian
(Beijing: Wenwu,
1998).
15. D. C. Lau, trans., Mencius (Harmonds worth, UK: Penguin, 1970), 184.
16.
Fu Sinian
, “Xingming guxun bianzheng”
, in Fu, Sinian quanji
(Taipei: Lianjing, 1980), 2:279–292.
17. Zeng Yunqian
, Shangshu zhengdu
(Beijing: Zhonghua, 1964), 35–36.
18.
Lau, Mencius, 15.
19.
Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 1,
The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100– 600) (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1971), 44.
20. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (New York:
Dover, 1956), 378.
21.
Philip B. Yampolsky, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (the Text of the Tun-
Huang Manuscript with Translation, Introduction, and Notes) (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1967), 159, 161.
22. Translated in Wm. Theodore De Bary and Irene Bloom, eds., Sources of the Chinese Tra-
dition, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 1:708.
b e t w e e n t h e h e av e n l y a nd t h e h u m a n 19
23. Wang Yangming
, Chuanxi lu xia
(Taipei: Shangwu, 1967), 234. Trans-
lation from Wang Yang- ming, Instructions for Practical Living and Other Neo- Confucian
Writings, trans. Wing- tsit Chan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), 222.
24. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958).
25. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1989), 521.
26. Chuandeng lu
8.263, CBETA, vol. 51, no. 2076; Fung Yu- lan, A History of Chinese
Philosophy, trans. Derk Bodde (Prince ton: Prince ton University Press, 1953), 2:403.
27. See Wang Yangming’s poem entitled “Bie zhu sheng
” (Departing from My Stu-
dents), in Wang Yangming quanji
(Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1992), 1279.
