Sixth Century BCE to Seventeenth Century

by Ying-shih Yü

  only give a brief report of my fi ndings about his “enlightenment” as specifi cally

  related to Ming despotism.

  For a whole de cade (1499–1508) in government ser vice, Wang Yangming, as

  shown above, had been working hard toward resuscitating the Confucian proj-

  ect of dejun xingdao. Now, banished to Longchang, his faith in the proj ect was

  totally shattered. With an irresponsible despot like Wuzong on the throne, he

  fi nally realized that “the support of the emperor” ( dejun) as the precondition of

  “bringing Dao to the world” ( xingdao) was a mere illusion. Thus, in an essay

  written after the “enlightenment,” he questioned whether as a genuine Confu-

  cian, he should continue to remain in government ser vice since he was no

  longer able to bring Dao to the world.28 According to his biographers, the

  “enlightenment” suddenly took place just as he was pondering the following

  question: “What would a sage do in my situation?”29 Putting the two questions

  together, we are fully justifi ed to believe that Wang Yangming must have found

  the way out of his deep crisis in the “enlightenment,” which showed him ex-

  actly “what a sage would do” in his situation. The greatest breakthrough in the

  “enlightenment” was his fundamental revision of the Confucian proj ect, which

  consisted of a negative as well as a positive aspect.

  r e or i e n tat ion of c on f uc i a n so c i a l t hou gh t 283

  On the negative side, he completely abandoned the traditional view assigning

  to the throne the pivotal role in making Dao fully actualized in the world. More

  impor tant, keenly aware of the destructive power of the despotic system, he

  deci ded to avoid direct confrontation with it. Immediately after the “enlighten-

  ment,” he showed every intention to retire from public ser vice. However, cir-

  cumstances did not permit him to do so without further adversely aff ecting his

  father, who had already been, on his account, dismissed from the offi

  ce of vice-

  minister of rites and transferred to Nanjing.30 From this time on, as we shall

  see later, there was a marked change in his attitude toward the throne and the

  imperial court.

  On the positive side, he discovered that there was another way of “bringing

  Dao to the world,” namely, by awakening the innate moral sense of every indi-

  vidual member of society. For many years he had been struggling with Zhu

  Xi’s theory of gewu zhizhi (

  , “the investigation of things and extension

  of knowledge”), which, according to his understanding, assumes that “princi-

  ples” ( li ) are in “ things” and therefore external to the “mind/heart” ( xin ). He

  was always uncomfortable with this theory and somehow felt that “princi ples”

  and “mind/heart” must be one and the same. In his Longchang “enlightenment,”

  it was suddenly revealed to him that indeed he had been right all along. The truth

  is, as he stated it, that “the way to sagehood lies within one’s own nature.”

  It is not diffi

  cult to see how admirably well this new theory fi ts in with his

  revised Confucian proj ect. When “moral princi ples” ( li) are identifi ed with the

  “mind/heart” ( xin) or “the way to sagehood lies within one’s nature,” then Dao

  must of necessity be accessible to every individual person, including the illiter-

  ate. By contrast, Zhu Xi’s emphasis on “the investigation of things and the ex-

  tension of knowledge” as the prerequisite for the quest of “moral princi ples”

  does place the well- educated elite, from shi scholars up to the emperor, in a

  specially privileged position as far as access to Dao is concerned. This perhaps

  explains to a large extent why the Cheng- Zhu Confucianism readily lends sup-

  port to the proj ect of dejun xingdao, whose successful implementation requires

  the collaboration between shi on the one hand and the emperor on the other.

  Now, Wang Yangming believed that every human being is capable of seeing the

  light of Dao by relying solely on the guidance of one’s innate moral sense

  (which he later identifi ed with the Mencian term liangzhi

  , or “innate

  knowledge”). Armed with this new faith, he deci ded to turn to people of all

  walks of life for support in his endeavor to establish a public order according to

  Dao. Thus, he revised the traditional Confucian proj ect in a fundamental way

  and thereby ushered in a new era of social and po liti cal thinking in the history

  of Confucianism.

  So much for the Longchang “enlightenment.” Let us now pursue a little fur-

  ther Wang Yangming’s post- “enlightenment” po liti cal actions and ideas in rela-

  tion to Ming despotism.

  284 r e or i e n tat ion of c on f uc i a n so c i a l t hou gh t

  When Wang Yangming was called back to government ser vice, his mental-

  ity was radically diff er ent from the pre- “enlightenment” period. Though still a

  conscientious and dutiful offi

  cial just as before, he now deliberately avoided

  criticizing the throne or the imperial court at the policy level. Allow me to il-

  lustrate my point by citing a few in ter est ing examples.

  In 1515, Emperor Wuzong deci ded to sponsor an extravagant Tibetan- style

  Buddhist festival in the capital. Many ranking offi

  cials in the court memorial-

  ized against it to no avail. To show solidarity and support, Wang Yangming also

  drafted a long memorial stating in no uncertain terms his opposition to the

  scheduled event on Confucian grounds. What is particularly signifi cant about

  this memorial, however, is that he fi nally deci ded not to submit it to the throne.31

  How are we to understand this inconsistency on his part? I think it makes

  sense only if we take into account his Longchang “enlightenment.” What really

  happened was prob ably something as follows: When he fi rst drafted the memo-

  rial, he was merely following the established practice of many Confucian offi

  cials

  in the court who felt duty- bound to protest against an irrational action taken by

  the emperor, such as the promotion of a costly Buddhist festival. After he had

  fi nished writing it, however, he must have come to the realization that it was con-

  trary to his decision during the Longchang “enlightenment” never again to get

  entangled with the despotic system. Hence, his last- minute change of mind.

  The above case alone, however, is insuffi

  cient to establish my point. Now I

  would like to bring your attention to my next and more in ter est ing evidence. In

  1520, Wang Gen

  (1483–1541) met Wang Yangming for the fi rst time, but

  their conversation is more fully recorded in the chronological biography of the

  former than in that of the latter. According to the fuller version, Wang Gen

  turned the conversation into “an unrestrained discussion on current aff airs of

  the world” meaning, of course, po liti cal criticisms. Wang Yangming immediately

  stopped him by quoting a saying in the Yijing

  (Classic of Changes; in the

  section of hexagram 52, Gen ): “The superior man does not permit his thoughts

  to go beyond his assigned place.” But Wang Gen continued
to argue that even

  though he was a mere “common fellow” ( pifu

  ), never for a single day had his

  mind strayed from the idea that the emperor ought to govern his people like

  Yao and Shun. Then Wang Yangming remarked, “Sage Shun preferred to live

  in a deep mountain intermingling with deer, pigs, trees, and rocks. He was

  thoroughly contented with his happy life and forgot about the world completely.”

  Still, Wang Gen refused to give in and retorted, “It was because at that time,

  Yao happened to be the emperor.” It is quite obvious that Wang Gen still pinned

  his hope for social improvement on the sageliness of the emperor. For his part,

  however, Wang Yangming was keenly aware not only of the utter futility of this

  traditional approach but also its disastrous consequences. Based on his own ex-

  perience, he knew only too well what would happen to a mere “common fellow”

  should he be so audacious as to beard the lion of despotism exercised through

  eunuch power.

  r e or i e n tat ion of c on f uc i a n so c i a l t hou gh t 285

  In light of this conversation, we fi nally also understand why it was neces-

  sary for Wang Yangming to change his new disciple’s personal name from Yin

  (

  “Silver”) to Gen and, in addition, give him the complementary courtesy

  name Ruzhi

  , both taken from the text of the same hexagram in the Classic

  of Changes: it was to serve as a constant reminder that Wang Gen must stop

  thinking beyond his position. “Ruzhi” simply means “you stop.”32

  To establish my interpretation beyond a reasonable doubt, allow me to sub-

  mit as evidence his letter of 1525 to another disciple named Tong Kegang

  .

  Tong, a private scholar, drafted an eight- point memorial advocating basic govern-

  mental changes. Twice he showed it to Wang Yangming for critical sugges-

  tions, with every intention to pres ent it to the imperial court. Wang Yangming

  tried to dissuade him from doing it, once without success. The second time, he

  simply committed the draft memorial to fl ame without the author’s prior con-

  sent. In the letter, he again quoted the same saying from the text of hexagram

  Gen warning the author not to allow his thoughts to go beyond his social role.

  In this case, however, Wang Yangming was quite explicit in expressing his fear

  that taking such an unwise course of action would inevitably get the author into

  deep po liti cal trou ble.33

  We have no information concerning Tong’s response, but Wang Gen did get

  his teacher’s message eventually. Later, after several of his like- minded friends

  in government ser vice had been either killed because of remonstrations or ban-

  ished to far- away places on po liti cal grounds, he wrote the famous essay “Ming-

  zhe baoshen lun”

  (Clear Wisdom and Self- Preservation), dated

  1526.34 His conception of shen (self), as rightly observed by Wm. Theodore de

  Bary, refers mainly to the “bodily self or person.”35 By then, he must have fully

  embraced his teacher’s “fear” and therefore came to see politics ( zheng

  ) as a

  “dangerous ground” ( weidi

  ).36

  It is now time to turn to Wang Yangming’s central teaching, especially the

  doctrine of innate knowledge ( liangzhi), to see exactly how it was related to his

  revision of the Confucian proj ect. As indicated earlier, the doctrine had its be-

  ginnings in his “enlightenment” at Longchang in 1508. It is a well- established

  fact, however, that this doctrine did not reach its fi nal, defi nitive formulation

  until as late as 1521. On the other hand, his new ideas about the Confucian proj-

  ect, also traceable in origin to the “enlightenment,” became crystallized, too, in

  the same period, the last stage of his thought. This symbiotic growth clearly

  suggests that the two aspects of his thinking, liangzhi and the Confucian proj-

  ect, are inseparably interrelated and must therefore be appreciated in the spirit

  of what he calls “the unity of knowing and acting.”

  To illustrate my point, let me briefl y examine his most famous essay “Baben

  saiyuan”

  (Pulling Up the Root and Stopping Up the Source). Written

  in 1525, it has since been held as a major breakthrough in Confucian social

  thought in late imperial China.37 To the best of my judgment, the essay is a

  succinct statement of his revised proj ect. It not only describes vividly the ideal

  286 r e or i e n tat ion of c on f uc i a n so c i a l t hou gh t

  Confucian order of human relations his new proj ect is aiming at, but more

  impor tant, also proposes a completely diff er ent course of action through which

  the proj ect may be successfully carried out. Due to space limitations, I shall

  make two observations, as follows.

  First, in “Pulling Up the Root and Stopping Up the Source,” Wang Yang-

  ming did not assign any role to the throne, the imperial court, or the state as a

  whole in his revised proj ect. Describing his idealized antiquity he, indeed, did

  pay tribute to the legendary sage- kings such as Yao, Shun, and Yu and their

  wise ministers for their great contributions to the establishment of a perfectly

  harmonious public order. Nevertheless, he spoke of all of them only as “teach-

  ers” and “transmitters” of Dao, not wielders of po liti cal power. This contrasts

  sharply to the original proj ect of dejun xingdao, explained above in the fi rst

  section.

  Turning his eyes away from the throne, the imperial court, and the state,

  Wang Yangming looked to all individual members of society to make the Dao

  prevail in the world. Furthermore, unlike his Song pre de ces sors, including

  Wang Anshi and Zhu Xi, who appealed exclusively to the educated elite ( shi) for

  a joint and concerted eff ort to carry out the Confucian proj ect, he made an

  unpre ce dented bold move to include farmers, artisans, and merchants in his

  revised proj ect on a par with the educated elite.38 This move, however, must be

  understood as logically implied in his revision of the proj ect, which consists

  primarily in turning a top- to- bottom state- centered reform movement into a

  bottom- to- top individual- based social movement. To launch a full- scale grass-

  roots movement aiming at the building of a social order based on the Confu-

  cian Dao, it was absolutely essential that his teaching of liangzhi directly reach

  people of all walks of life. This is precisely why he chose the awakening of every

  individual’s liangzhi as the starting point of his proj ect. As he explic itly stated

  in “Pulling Up the Root and Stopping Up the Source”: “The reason why the

  learning can easily be achieved and the ability easily perfected is because the

  fundamentals of the doctrine consist only in recovering that which is common

  to our original minds, and are not concerned with any specifi c knowledge or

  skill.”39 Here he is actually talking about his own doctrine of liangzhi. Particu-

  larly noteworthy is his unwavering faith in the “recovery” of liangzhi being

  achievable by every individual irrespective of social and/or cultural status. No

  less impor tant is the downgrading of “specifi c knowledge and skill” in his li-<
br />
  angzhi system. By “knowledge and skill,” he was obviously referring to what the

  educated elite of his day was all about. Since he was convinced that “knowledge

  and skill,” the distinguishing characteristics of the educated elite are irrelevant

  to the awakening of liangzhi, he therefore accorded the shi no greater function

  than any other social groups in his revised proj ect. Thus, as individual members

  of society, scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants would all become, he be-

  lieved, active agents of the proj ect on equal footing once their “innate knowl-

  edge” became suffi

  ciently activated.

  r e or i e n tat ion of c on f uc i a n so c i a l t hou gh t 287

  In his fi nal formulation of the doctrine of liangzhi, there is also a subtle

  point deserving notice. A disciple once asked him: “Innate knowledge is one . . .

  why did each [sage] view princi ple ( li

  ) diff erently?” In reply he said: “How

  could these sages be confi ned to a rigid pattern? So long as they all sincerely

  proceed from innate knowledge, what harm is there in each one’s explaining in

  his own way? . . . You people should just go ahead and cultivate innate knowl-

  edge. If all have the same innate knowledge, there is no harm in their being

  diff er ent here and there.” 40 This emphasis on the individual diff erences of li-

  angzhi from person to person is closely related to his revised proj ect, which, as

  pointed out above, is individual based. In his later years, he made vari ous

  eff orts to put his proj ect in practice by spreading his teaching of liangzhi to

  individuals of diverse backgrounds ranging from the well- educated to the

  illiterate.

  We have reason to believe that the highly diversifi ed responses he obtained

  during these personal communications must have contributed to his emphasis

  on the individual diff erences of liangzhi. Here again the interconnectedness

  between the doctrine of liangzhi and his revised Confucian proj ect is clearly

  revealed.

  Second, in a letter to Nie Bao

  (1487–1563) dated 1526, he said: “Thanks

  to divine guidance I happen to entertain certain views on innate knowledge,

  believing that only through it can order be brought to the world ( tianxia zhi

  ). Therefore whenever I think of people’s degeneration and diffi

  culties