by Livia Kohn
At the same time, all three also wish to maintain the close contact to outside things proposed by Zhu Xi, hoping to establish models for people to relate to the concrete, real phenomena of the world. In this respect they have much in common. Wang Dao’s thought is more consistent with Zhan Ruoshui’s when it comes to issues like the relationship between the ordinary mind and the transcendent mind, and the reliability of people’s innate powers of judgment. For Wang Yangming, as pointed out before, the innate knowledge of the good meant that the human power of judgment was inherent and complete from the beginning and could be fully relied upon. It manifested clearly in a moral conscience that all people shared and would only be minimally diminished by their attachment to outside things. As soon as one engaged in self-reflection, the clear radiance of one’s pure knowledge would come shining forth, bringing with it a pure power of judgment.
Following its guidance, people would inevitably come to do good and
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refrain from evil, and through this in turn the latent knowledge of the good would come forth even more brightly. This, for Wang Yangming, was the transcendence of the mind’s original substance. It manifested in the moral conscience of ordinary people and was a part everybody had to hold on to firmly and rely upon solidly.
Zhan Ruoshui approaches the issue of innate power of judgment rather differently. In his idea of “pursuing suitable embodiment to recognize heaven’s principle,” he emphasizes the notion of “cultivating reverence for things” originally taken from the Lunyu. This is the notion of a conscious effort at mental collectedness, a necessary awareness in dealing with all things. To reach mental collectedness, a conscious practice is necessary—and here Zhan is closer to Zhu Xi than to Wang Yangming, who was rather critical of Zhan’s notion of the pursuit of suitable embodiment, since he saw in it a pursuit of principle on the outside.
The issue of innate judgment is important for Wang Dao. As the Mingru xue’an points out, he doubts people’s power of judgment and believes that it can go wrong quite often, finding a strong reliance on personal intuition dangerous rather than uplifting. It is here that his position differs most fundamentally from that of Wang Yangming. For Wang Dao, it is insufficient to rely on one’s innate knowledge of the good, because it is already activated and reaches out to the concrete situations and things of the world. He thinks that there must be a level beyond and beneath this innate knowledge, on which the human mind is founded and which is its proper substance.
In many ways, this position is close to that of Zhan Ruoshui. Both share the notion that the original matter of the human mind is its original substance, and that this is the most basic goodness of human nature, where alone principle can be found and held on to. This original substance of the mind, however, does not manifest naturally among all human beings, whose mental power of judgment or inherent knowledge can easily go wrong. In a letter to Wang Yangming, Zhan Ruoshui insists that the pure knowledge and pure abilities spoken of by Mencius and then Wang Yangming require effort to access. For him, the mind of people in this world is “hidden by matter and habits”; they are covered by things, ignorant of the true principle within. If they try to rely on this covered-up mind in their judgments, they think themselves right and proper but have in fact fallen into falsehood and error. Here study and investigation are to be pursued assiduously, and reflection on the proper principles of external things has it place. To judge the idea of the pure knowledge of the good, then, Zhan sug-
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gests that it lies in the raw material of the mind deep within. He contrasts the Zhongyong’ s notion of the preemergent with that of the pure knowledge of the good. The former, he says, is what cannot be seen nor heard, while the latter has already unfolded its secrets ( Ganquan wenji 23). The pre-emergent is used as a metaphor for the level of the mind prior to the pure knowledge of the good.
Seen from this perspective, Wang Dao’s thought is indeed closer to Zhan Ruoshui’s than Wang Yangming’s. First, the notion of the basic substance of the mind, which is also the underlying nature of the world, is common to all, but the presence and activity of this mind in people of the world is evaluated differently. Instead of having people rely on their intuitions, as Wang Yangming would have it, Wang Dao and Zhan Ruoshui see a necessity to uncover and explore the inner mind before these intuitions can shine forth in everyday affairs. Zhan Ruoshui’s influence on Wang Dao is most obvious here. Also, both distance themselves equally from the thinking of Zhu Xi, who sees the most important method of understanding principle as being the study and investigation of outside things.
In contrast, Wang and Zhan’s focus is on the inner mind and its deeper workings, which may be activated but not found in outside affairs. Still, the inner mind must relate to external things, and its true workings can be best experienced by interacting and corresponding with external things. Thus Wang says that one should search the true way of being “not in the mind but in affairs, not in principle but in the mind,” that one should use “the original mind to go along with affairs, and so reach the point where one can use things to observe affairs.” This aspect of Wang Dao’s thought resembles Zhan’s goal of
“pursuing suitable embodiment to recognize heaven’s principle.” In this respect Zhan’s thought had an enormous influence on that of Wang Dao.11 He and Zhan differ in their attitude to the Laozi. Wang pays particular attention to Laozi and Buddhism and finds ways to integrate their teachings into his basically Confucian outlook, thus creating his own version of the harmony of the three teachings.
Influenced by the religious thinkers, he places a much stronger emphasis than Zhan on the need to transcend all in favor of the original substance of the world and the mind. Zhan Ruoshui, in contrast, has a section in which he criticizes Laozi ( Ganquan wenji 25), finding his philosophy lacking in benevolence and righteousness and causing harm as a result. This is significantly different from Wang Dao’s position and suggests the latter was the more integrative and religious thinker.
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Conclusion
The mid-Ming thinker Wang Dao, although trained in a thoroughly Confucian environment, held Laozi’s thought very dear and followed it substantially in his own conceptions. While basing some of his ideas strongly on the standard Neo-Confucian thought in the wake of Zhu Xi, and though influenced significantly by the Confucian thinkers Zhan Ruoshui and Wang Yangming, Wang Dao went directly back to the Laozi—the demand that people transcend their ordinary consciousness and attain the Dao, defined as the basic substance of the mind, without rejecting or ignoring the importance of concrete affairs and worldly phenomena. His position, developed under the influence of the Laozi, moreover, played an increasingly important role in later Ming thought. This can be seen, for example, in the thought of the late-Ming philosopher Liu Zongzhou, who similarly polarizes outward involvement and inner transcendence. To understand Wang Dao’s thought properly, one must, therefore, also evaluate and appreciate the thinkers that follow and not focus only on his masters and personal ideas.
Similarly, while Wang Dao is properly and officially a member of the Confucian tradition and his thought plays a most important role therein, his understanding and interpretation of the Laozi in his Laozi yi also makes him a relevant voice in the history of Daoist thought.
The text has received intepretations from all sorts of traditions, especially in the Song-Ming period, and the complexities of Wang Dao’s understanding cannot be overlooked when one tries to understand them properly (see Li 1997). This impact of Wang Dao on later thinkers and the appreciation of his problematizing of the Laozi is an important issue that will require further study.
Translated and edited by Mark Csikszentmihàlyi and Livia Kohn Notes
1. Daoism in this context indicates what the Ming thinkers themselves understood by the term. For example, for the early Ming philosopher Liang Qian, it was the tradition of “emptine
ss, nonbeing, serenity, and ease,” the basic substance of the “refinement of energy and the transformation of spirit,”
and a way to “summon the wind and the rain, order demons and spirits about, and pray for heat and cold” ( Po’anji 3, “Donghui guanji”). That is, to him, Daoism encompassed three distinct areas, which can be described in modern terms as the thought of Laozi and Zhuangzi, the practice of alchemy and
A Mid-Ming Reappraisal of the Laozi 145
longevity techniques, and various forms of interaction with the spirit world.
For more on the Ming thinkers’ understanding of Daoism, see Mabuchi 1998.
2. Among commentaries were notably the Daxue yi (Meaning of the Great Learning), Zhouyi yi (Meaning of the Book of Changes), Shuyi (Meaning of the Book of History), Shiyi (Meaning of the Book of Songs), and Chunqiu yi (Meaning of the Spring and Autumn Annals). Historical studies include the Dushi lunduan (Readings and Evaluations of History), Daxue yanyi lunduan (Readings and Evaluations Expanding on the Meaning of the Great Learning), Pidian liuzi shu (Critical Issues in the Writings of the Six Masters), as well as a certain number of shorter essays on the writings of Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan, Ouyang Xiu, and Su Shi.
3. In the passage here, Wang Dao refers to Laozi and Zhuangzi in the same breath, placing an equally high value on both. About the Liezi, on the other hand, he says that is was rather confused and not a good representative of the Dao, quite unlike the works of the other two early Daoist thinkers. See Wenlu 3, “Liezi.”
4. One key passage on Buddhism is the letter to Zhou Daotong in Wenlu 7.
In addition, he also criticizes the behavior and teaching methods of Mazu, as recorded in the “Transmission of the Lamp,” calling him a “sinner of a perfected” ( Wenlu 6, “Kanlin”). In contrast to this, he lauds Daoist immortality as a form of sagehood, and immortality methods as the way of the sages (3,
“Yangzi”) yet remains critical toward inner alchemical techniques, which he finds “full of delusion” (3, “Qiansui”). He also sees breathing exercises as a
“lesser method” (4, “Yanzhou”) and criticizes the obscure ways of using trigrams and alchemical ingredients to describe meditative processes as “no different from the magical ways of the world” (5, “Wuzhen”). Similar statements are also found in the commentary to chapter 10 in his Laozi yi.
5. Nonetheless, even the fallacy of the traditional Neo-Confucians, when seen from the perspective of the realized mind of the Dao, becomes but one
“limb on the body of the sage.” Ultimately, all ideas and methods “have their place, and none should be discarded” ( Wenlu 3, “Chuanxi lu”).
6. On the mind as the basic substance of the Dao in human beings, he also says: “The trigrams qian and kun may tumble, the world may end, but the deepest foundation of my pure, radiant enlightenment is bright forever and will alone survive” ( Wenlu 5, “Daxue”). Again, he says: “Buddhists also have a doctrine of the end of the kalpa, yet even they claim that one’s wonderful original enlightenment is there from the beginnings of all and will not end” ( Wenlu 3, “Liezi”). Saying this, Wang develops a vision of eternal life beyond time and space.
7. A similar position, expounded in relation to official duty, is also found in the works of the late-Ming thinker Li Zhi, who criticized officials for imposing their personal notions of right and wrong on the populace (see Mizokuchi 1981, ch. 2), as well as in those of the Qing scholar Dai Zhen, who thought Confucian thinkers should pay closer attention to the benefits of others instead of only looking at their own personal feelings (Mizokuchi 1981, chs. 3–4).
8. In this and similar passages (e.g., Wenlu 6), Wang Dao contrasts the meth-
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ods of Wang Yangming with the necessity to pursue the truth both within and without. However, as Mizuno (1980) has shown, Wang does not maintain this position firmly throughout his works.
9. In contrast to Zhu Xi’s position, which claims that humans and other beings all share the same inner nature, Wang finds them completely different and claims that only humans have inner natures similar to those of other humans (see Wenlu 1, “Xingshuo”; 4, “Xingli”). See also Mabuchi 1990.
10. He also follows Xue Hui, author of the Laozi jie (Interpretation of the Laozi). Not a direct student of Wang Yangming and Chen Xianzhang, he is a thinker like Wang Dao who pursued a similar direction. Wang says about him:
“Lord Xue’s explanation of the Laozi is excellent, there is nothing quite as clear as his” ( Wenlu 6, “Da Wei Zhuangqu”). See also Mabuchi 1998.
11. A different perspective is presented in Wenlu 6 (“Yangming”), where he criticizes Lu Jiuyuan, saying: “His teaching encourages empty, prideful, confused, and vain forms of learning; it does not have the beauty of leading back to what is central, proper, and peaceful.” The expression “central and proper”
also appears in the same chapter, section “Lun Xiangshan,” where it describes the traces of Zhan Ruoshui’s ideas.
Bibliography
Araki Kengo. 1972. Mindai shiso kenkyu. Tokyo: Sobunsha.
Ching, Julia, ed. 1987. The Records of Ming Scholars. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
Li Qing. 1997. “Mingdai de Laozi yanjiu.” Gongo bunka ronso 1:279–306.
Mabuchi Masaya. 1990. “Min-Shin jidai ni okeru jinseiron no tentaku to kyoko.”
Chugoku tetsugaku kenkyu 1:34–57.
———. 1994. “Mindai koki jugaku no dokyo sesshu no ichi yoso.” In Dokyo bunka e no tenbo, ed. by Yamada Toshiaki, 99–128. Tokyo: Hirakawa.
———. 1998. “Mindai goki jukyo shidaifu no dokyo shoyu.” In Dokyo no rekishi to bunka, ed. by Yamada Toshiaki and Tanaka Fumio, 275–296. Tokyo: Hirakawa.
Mizokuchi Yuso. 1981. Chugoku zenkindai shiso no kussetsu to tenkai. Tokyo: Yuzankaku.
Mizuno Minoru. 1979. “O Junkyo no Daigaku oku ni tsuite.” Firosofia 67:93–121.
———. 1980. “O Junkyo no kufu setsu.” Chugoku koten kenkyu 25:149–169.
Qiao Qingquan. 1993. Zhan Ruoshui zhexue sixian yanjiu. Beijing: Wenjin.
Sakai Tadao. 1980. Chugoku zensho no kenkyu. Tokyo: Kobundo.
Sano Koji. 1972. “Mindai zenhan ni okeru shiso doko.” Nihon Chugoku gakkai ho 26:112–126.
Part III
Lineages and Local Culture
7
Arms and the Dao, 2
The Xu Brothers in Tea Country
Edward L. Davis
Since the mid-1980s, many American and Japanese scholars of Daoism have begun to shift their attention from the period of Daoism’s formative development in the late Han, Three Kingdoms, and Six Dynasties to the period when it became the religion of the court in the Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties. This shift in focus has brought with it another change. The pioneers in the systematic study of the early Daoist scriptural traditions were burdened by a legacy of prejudice and ignorance about the religion itself, which for decades, if not centuries, had been viewed as either a degenerate form of what is misleadingly called “philosophical Daoism” or a jumble of magic and popular su-perstition. It was, therefore, both necessary and understandable that these pioneers would focus, sometimes obsessively, on questions of Daoist identity and self-definition—what, exactly, was the Daoist religion, and how did it distinguish itself from the Laozi and Zhuangzi, on the one hand, and from village cults and popular religion, on the other? Thanks to these pioneers and many of their students, now leaders in the field, these questions have largely been answered, and a younger generation of scholars is able to revisit the relation of the Daoist religion to classical texts and popular cults without fear of reviving old prejudices.
For historians of middle-period China, when Daoism became something of an imperial religion that was made to serve, on occasion, dynastic ambitions or nativist projects, understanding its complex relationship with local temple-cults is of central importance. The old problem of the identity and self-definition of the Daoist religion, mean-while, has been su
bsumed by a new set of questions. These concern the variety of identities and self-definitions of Daoist priests; their mul-149
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tiple functions in local and metropolitan society; their interaction with other religious practitioners, such as spirit-mediums, Buddhist monks, and Confucian literati; and the precise relation of their rituals to the festivals, processions, and theatrical performances of village and urban temple-cults.
This chapter examines some of these questions as part of my ongoing work on one such temple-cult that is often seen as existing within a Daoist framework. This is the cult to the Xu brothers in what we call Figure 7.1. The Lingji gong in Qingpu today: its location near the local market, its gate, and its main altar, dedicated to the Xu brothers.
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Minbei (Northern Fujian), but what the more localized consciousness of their contemporaries referred to as Minnan or Henan, that is, the southern portion of Min County across the river from the capital Fuzhou. The Xu brothers were two princes of the tenth-century kingdom of the Southern Tang who found themselves at the time of their deaths defending the rural population around Qingbu (modern Qingpu), a market-town twenty-three miles south of Fuzhou, where they are still actively venerated in their main temple, the Lingji gong (Palace of Spiritual Succor), today (see figure 7.1). For their efforts, Xu Zhizheng and Xu Zhi’e were worshiped in life as local heroes and in death as Daoist transcendents—the “Perfected Lords of Abundant Mercy and Spiritual Succor” (Hong’en lingji zhenjun). Temples were built for them on Aofeng (Turtle Peak), three miles to the east of Qingbu, and their cult flourished, especially in the Southern Song, Yuan, and early Ming dynasties, when the Yongle emperor had a replica of the Lingji gong built in the northwestern corner of the Forbidden City in his new capital of Beijing. Because of official and imperial patronage, thousands of pages of scripture, liturgies, and historical documents related to the cult received a prominent position in the Ming-dynasty Daoist canon. Among major historical compila-tions are the Xuxian hanzao (Elegant Writings of the Xu Immortals, HY 1456), the Xuxian zhenlu (True Record of the Xu Immortals, HY