by Livia Kohn
Wimsatt, Genevieve B. 1936. Selling Wilted Peonies. New York: Columbia University Press.
Yokoyama Eisan. 1968. “Go Genki ni tsuite.” Chugoku ronsetsu shiryo 10:218–
225.
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A Mid-Ming Reappraisal of the Laozi
The Case of Wang Dao
Mabuchi Masaya
In current scholarship on Chinese thought, the early Ming is seen as a time when Neo-Confucianism predominated, especially the study of principle ( lixue) in the wake of the teachings of Zhu Xi (1130–1200).
Hardly anyone proposes differently (Sano 1972). When it comes to the mid-Ming, a new line of Neo-Confucianism began with Wang Shouren (Yangming, 1472–1528), and different strands of the teaching arose, leading to a multiplicity of views and various debates in the late Ming (Araki 1972). Among scholars, the consensus is that the tendency to unify the three teachings dominated the latter half of the Ming dynasty (Sakai 1960, ch. 3), and within this framework, scholar-officials variously paid attention to ancient Daoist texts, notably the Laozi.1
To understand the reception and interpretation of Laozi better and pay more attention to alternative and new trends in Ming thought, in the following pages I present the life and work of Wang Dao (1487–
1547), a disciple of Wang Yangming who developed his own take on both Daoist and Confucian thought. A proponent of the unity of the three teachings, Wang Dao placed particularly high value on the Laozi and wrote a commentary on it, the Laozi yi (Meaning of the Laozi). To understand his thought and its role in Ming thinking better, I would like to ask three questions: What was the motivation underlying Wang’s high esteem of the Laozi? What new philosophical ideas did he express through his interpretation of the text? And how is his thought related to the dominant philosophical tendencies in the later Ming? I begin with an introduction of Wang and his life.
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Wang Dao’s Life and Work
Wang Dao came from Wucheng in Shandong province. His agnomen was Chunfu, his sobriquet Shunqu. As described in his biography in Yan Song’s Wanggong shendao bei (Stele on the Spiritual Path of Lord Wang), he passed the advanced scholar ( jinshi ) examination in 1511
and began a career as an official, becoming one of the elite scholar-officials of his time. He began at the Hanlin Academy, then moved to the prefectural school at Yingtian. He later became an administrative aide and served in a variety of official positions before retiring on grounds of illness. After spending thirteen years in semi-seclusion, he took another post, becoming an assistant to the Nanjing Chamberlain for Ceremonies in 1546 and advancing as far as the Ministry of Rites, which he joined shortly before his death.
As for his person, the biography relates that he was “elegant and pure,” “of rotund looks and a warm disposition, learned and of great foresight,” a man who “never acted for personal profit.” Despite spending a long time in office, he remained “simple and pure in lifestyle” and, in his oratory, “did not bend to conform to that of his contemporaries.” Huang Zongxi in his Mingru xue’an (Records of Ming Scholars; Ching 1987) says:
When [Wang] argued about how to evaluate people of today and people of antiquity, he did not follow what previous Confucians had already developed. His high degree of understanding is illustrated by this fact.
(42.1038)
The text also praises his extensive learning, explaining that he deeply involved himself in all areas of study, including yin-yang and calen-drical science, medicine and divination, agriculture and sericulture, law, geography, and many others. He also tried to write poetry at the outset of his career but found it a “rather useless” exercise and so moved on to the study of principle, or philosophy, of standard Neo-Confucianism in the wake of Zhu Xi’s teachings. He read the Lunyu (Analects) with enjoyment and found himself awakened to the “beauty and simplicity of the way of the sages.” After this, he faulted contemporary proponents of the study of principle for their promotion of exclusive schools, contending that there had also been excellent people in the Han and pre-Han periods. In addition, he developed an interest in Buddhism and Daoism, not remaining ignorant of any of China’s major traditions.
Wang Dao’s name has been the focus of very few studies in Ming intellectual history (e.g., Mizuno 1979; 1980). But experts on Wang
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Yangming know his name because he was Wang Dao’s teacher in his youth, and several letters have survived, dating from 1511 to 1514. Even as early as 1512, however, a split between the two became apparent, leading to Wang Dao’s separation from his first teacher. Wang Yangming says:
In your earlier letter, you say: “To study to awaken to goodness and become sincere is sound. But I am not sure what is meant by goodness, where it originally comes from, where it is now, how to perceive it, how to encounter it, whether it should be put before sincerity or after, and when sincerity is true sincerity. All these may be points of detail and seem minute, but I really wish to delve into them, gradually resolving my doubts. I hope you can help me do so.” . . .
Now, your tendencies seem to show that you have not yet examined the original teachings of the sages and are still confused by the explanations of later generations. In every single object and every single being, there is utmost goodness, and it must be from every single object and every single being that one must begin to seek utmost goodness.
Only then may one reach the stage of “clear understanding” and that is why earlier I spoke of “where it originally comes from, and where it is now.” ( Wang Wencheng gong quanshu 4, Second letter to Wang Chunfu) Wang Dao thus harbored doubts about Wang Yangming’s notion that goodness could be found by searching for it in one’s mind. These were points to which he would return again and again in his later works (see also Mingru xue’an 42.1038).
After separating from Wang Yangming, Wang Dao turned to Zhan Ruoshui (1466–1560). Wang Dao describes Zhan, in a 1525 letter to Wei Xiao, as having a strong influence on his thought, but eventually Wang developed a position of his own that went beyond the teachings of all his masters. Still, he is classified as a member of the school of Zhan Ruoshui ( Mingru xue’an 42.1039).
Wang Dao wrote many and varied works, including a number of commentaries and historical studies, the most important of which was the Laozi yi. 2 His essays are contained in his collected works, the anonymously edited Shunqu xiansheng wenlu (Record of Works of Master Shunqu, 12 juan, abbr. Wenlu, ed. 1932).
Wang Dao’s Adoption of the Laozi
Replying to Wei Xiao, Wang Dao writes, “From middle age on, I have been especially fond of reading the writings of Laozi” ( Wenlu 4), showing when his liking for the Laozi began. In a letter to Hua Zhushi, he
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also expresses the high value he places on the thought of the text and of its author, the ancient sage Laozi, by speaking of “Laozi, the great sage of old” ( Wenlu 4), while in an essay on Han Fei he notes, “The way of Laozi, above joining [the mythical sage-emperors] Fu Xi, Yao, and Shun, below linked with the [historical sages] Yu and Confucius, is unparalled in its brightness” ( Wenlu 4). In these instances, he puts Laozi and his work on a par with the Confucian tradition.
Nevertheless, on closer inspection, there is a gulf between the way he speaks of Confucius and the way he speaks of Laozi. This can be seen in the following passages:
The words of Laozi are the ultimate in simulaneously grasping the ancient while controlling the modern. The learning of the disciples of Confucius is the constant warp of nurturing and adjusting the age. Although they are different, these two approaches truly emerged together.
Later Confucians did not grasp the full scope of the ancients, and rashly drew distinctions. Their division of the Dao is a late phenomenon. . . .
Laozi concentrated on clarifying the Dao, and so depended on the ultimate, while Confucius from time to time used a lower level of doctrine, gearing his teachings to
each individual. This may be compared to the notion that Sakyamuni and Laozi specialized entirely in pursuing the highest vehicle, while Confucius was not shy to speak with the simple and basic. ( Wenlu 3, Laozi yi, ch. 38) Thus as opposed to Confucius, who was willing to bring the vocabulary of his teachings down a notch in the interest of education, Laozi used only the highest language to speak of the Dao. In the end, their difference lay merely in the way they spoke about the very same Dao.
At the time of the ancient sages, Wang says, people of the world had forgotten the root of the Dao and its virtue, instead engaging in the minor points of benevolence and righteousness, ritual and music, thereby falling into a false sense of goodness. He criticizes this and calls for a return to the root of morality, at the level of the Way and its virtue. Thus individual and personal goodness, the concrete goodness of ordinary life, to him was the same as the benevolence and righteousness of the Confucians. But deeper than this was yet another level, at the deepest roots of morality, the true source of goodness in the Dao. As a result, Wang Dao actively valued the ideas of the Laozi—to him, they advocated the return from individual and concrete goodness to original morality, to the Way and its virtue at the source of everything ( Wenlu 3, “On Robber Zhi”). This is the prime reason why Wang values the Laozi, and his commentary in the Laozi yi explicates the text from this point of view.
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Wang’s emphasis on the Dao as a source of a deeper goodness is clear in his exposition of chapter two of the Laozi in the Laozi yi: Among all the beings that come forth from the Dao, there is none that is not beautiful, yet their beauty was present in the Dao even before they began—this is the sense in which it is eternally beautiful. Among all the things that proceed from the Dao, there is none that is not good, yet their goodness was present in the Dao even before they began—
this is the sense in which it is eternally good. It is only when the names
“beauty” and “goodness” appear that the human mind grows more contentious every day. Then style defeats substance, and falsehood corrupts truth. It is in this way that “the beautiful is ugly and the good is no good.”
( Laozi yi 2)
In such passages from the Laozi yi, besides the high value obviously placed on the Laozi and the Zhuangzi, there is also a great esteem for Buddhism.3 This is expressed in Wang Dao’s statement that $akyamuni, just as Laozi, was striving for the attainment of the highest vehicle to salvation. Wang saw both as pursuing the absolute and explicitly states that all the major thinkers, including Zhuangzi and Confucius, were describing different paths that, nevertheless, ultimately led to the same goal ( Wenlu 3, “Zhuangzi”). He says:
Life after life is an ongoing transformation. Whether one lives long or is beyond all life, the main characteristic of both states is still the ongoing transformation of everything. Thus, if one can attain a state beyond life, one will live long; and if one can attain a state of long life, one can attain mastery of life after life. In this, the teachings of the sages of all three traditions converge, even if the explanations they offer to the world differ. Superficial students will never quite grasp this. ( Wenlu 5, “A Hundred Streams Meet at the Sea of Learning”)4
What he means by “superficial students” are people attached to an individual and concrete notion of goodness, which he sees as similar to benevolence and righteousness in being nothing but counterfeit goodness. As he says:
When people do not see the Dao, even if they choose to walk in goodness, they will end up going in some direction, and once there a direction, attachments will follow. This is why their movements cannot escape others’ traces, and their theories cannot escape others’ fabrications. ( Laozi yi 27)
Here the basic structure of Wang Dao’s thinking becomes clear. He inherits the major philosophy of his time, the standard Neo-Confu-
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cianism of Zhu Xi, then goes off in a different direction and uses the Laozi’ s criticism of the goodness of ordinary people to criticize it.
He is also critical of its practice, and here follows Wang Yangming, who says in his Chuanxi lu (Instructions for Practical Living): The Master [Mencius, 7A26] said: The center is nothing but Heaven’s principle, nothing but change. Changing along with the times, how can one hold on to anything? When trying to make the best response to changing times, it is difficult to set up a set of rules ahead of time. Later Confucian thinkers established the notion of the principle of the Dao, moving along in change yet in unity. Once they set this up as a rigid model, they were doing exactly this “holding to one extreme.” (1, sect. 52)
Here Wang Yangming criticizes the standard Confucian notion that one should examine things one by one to reach their specific principle and then act in accordance with it. The kind of goodness thus achieved is characterized as a false goodness, a formalism that posits a danger to true inner nature. His criticism, however, seems to be limited to Zhu Xi’s followers’ self-cultivation practices rather than their ideas.
Wang Dao is more radical than that. For him, once Neo-Confucians undertake the specific examination of phenomena and follow a set of rules and patterns, they become enmeshed in particularism and lose their philosophical strength: they embrace a counterfeit goodness instead of the real thing. Wang Dao recognizes this as a fallacy and overcomes it by returning to the deepest roots of morality in the Dao. Here his positive reading of the Laozi enters his thought.5
He begins by stating that the Dao, the nameless, is the unchanging substance of the universe and also the Eternal Nonbeing or the Nonultimate. It is, furthermore, the source of virtue, the named, which is also called the Great One or the Great Ultimate ( Laozi yi 42). From this level, heaven and earth, yin and yang, and the world of myriad beings arise. Virtue, therefore, stands between the eternally unvarying substantial level of the Dao, the Eternal Nonbeing, and the ever-changing phenomenal world of myriad beings—maintaining a creative and productive relationship among them. Therefore, Wang Dao’s cos-mogonic theory says: “Dao [through virtue] is in the human mind just as it is in heaven and earth” ( Laozi yi 1). In this way, he shifts the entire pattern of the discussion toward the nature of the mind. His prem-ise here becomes the structure: Dao—virtue —myriad beings, the lat-
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ter with their counterfeit virtues of benevolence and righteousness.
He says:
Dao and virtue were originally one thing, but the Dao was nameless, while virtue was named. The Dao could not be spoken of [ dao], but virtue could be attained [ de]. Thus, by descending one level from the Dao, then one enters into virtue. Benevolence and righteousness are the answering traces of virtue. Righteousness is a means to repair that which benevolence does not fully reach. Thus, by descending one level from virtue, then one enters into benevolence. By descending one level from benevolence, then one enters into righteousness. ( Laozi yi 38) Dao and virtue are the fundamental substance of the human mind, and the myriad things are its function. The goal of cultivation practice, then, has to be the attainment of this level of finding “the wonders of Dao and virtue as represented by the sages” ( Laozi yi 1). Again, Wang Dao says:
Dao is in the human mind just as it is in heaven and earth. If one is without desires, then one will be true and pure, with mental states absolutely serene, as clear as the bright sky without a single cloud, as brilliant as a bright mirror without a single speck of dust. This state is the basic substance of the mind. If, on the other hand, once there is a desire, one just follows impulses and moves along in perfect response to other beings, then one will be as radiant as a clearly patterned starry constellation, as clear as a river flowing along without pause. This state is the great function of the mind. ( Laozi yi 1) Here the activity of the mind is described as the background for a Dao-based cosmogony in which virtue creates the myriad beings.6 Key points are the equation of individual and concrete goodness with benevolence and righteousness at the le
vel of the subtle traces of the mind in its function, and the equation of the Dao and virtue with the mind in its substance. This indicates the basic direction of his thinking, modified further by several other notions. In one respect, he follows Zhu Xi and promotes the idea that one should overcome the level of concrete action, of benevolence and righteousness as the mere traces of a higher purity. He, too, wishes to go beyond the dimension of concrete things and affairs and immerse himself in the formless world of the Dao, which at the same time he must deny. He says: As people of the world hold on to being, they see only outer things and do not immerse themselves in the Dao, follow other beings but are unable to undergo proper transformations. Cultivating themselves in this
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way, they become lascivious and greedy and by their wasteful desires squander their life. Pursuing outer rewards, they do things that will bring them fame and lose their true self. . . .
Even if one wishes to transform oneself and the world using the ideas of Laozi, one has yet [to confront the fact that] people wallow in vanity and persist in shallowness, are immersed in phenomena and destroyed by them. They are devastated by rites and rules, submerged in darkness by benevolence and righteousness. They lose themselves and bring destruction upon the state. With ordinary people like this, how could they ever be helped with the teachings of Laozi? ( Laozi yi 11)
Wang Dao, therefore, wishes to go beyond the level of concrete goodness and operate on the profound depth of the mind, with the goal of grasping the root of the Dao and suffusing the mind with it.
At the same time, he acknowledges that he cannot just create a different universe for himself, in which to live in peace and quiet, but has to remain in the real world of people, rulers, and states. Finding a way to maintain true, inner goodness even in the real world, then, must be understood as the prime motivation of his thought. He expresses this in the words “Return from phenomena to nonbeing, then use nonbeing to act upon phenomena” ( Laozi yi 40). He explains further with an allusion to the concepts of the “mind of the Dao” and