The Spirit of Wang Yangming's Philosophy: The Realms of Being and Non-Being

By Chen Lai

The book provides a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of Wang’s philosophy at different stages throughout its maturation so as to sketch the essential character and grand picture of Wang’s philosophy. As a systematic study of Wang’s philosophy, this monograph boasts a broad perspective, profound analysis and substantial historical data. It is a perfect manifestation of the author’s academic accomplishment and presents the readers with a panorama of Wang’s thought. Although the book is focused primarily on Wang, its scope and methodology carry great implications for the study of Song and Ming Confucianism and even ancient Chinese philosophy as a whole.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bridge 21 Publications
• Release date: Jul 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781626430662

Chen Lai

Chen Lai is Professor and Supervisor of PHD students at the Philosophy Department of Tsinghua University and Dean of Academy of Chinese Learning [Guoxue] at Tsinghua University. Known as one of the masters in philosophy in China, Chen has made important contributions to research in Confucian philosophy, especially Song-Ming Ru (Confucian) thought. Chen is an honorary professor at eleven universities and is a member of the editorial boards of sixteen academic journals.

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Wang Yangming (courtesy name Bo’an) was born Wang Shouren in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province in the eighth year of the Chenghua Period under the Xianzong Reign (1472). He died in the seventh year of the Jiajing Period during the Shizong Reign of the Ming Dynasty (1529), receiving the posthumous name of Wencheng. In his youth, his father moved their family to Shanyin (Yuecheng), and he later built a hut in the Yangming Cave near Yuecheng before acquiring the stylized name of Yangmingzi. The scholars called him Master Yangming because he was the most influential philosopher of his time and also the representative figure of the School of Mind in the Ming Dynasty.

At the age of twenty-eight, Wang Yangming earned the presented scholar degree and was appointed Zhushi (主事, executive assistant) in the Ministry of Justice, though he later moved on to the Ministry of War. Later in life, he served as the Magistrate of Luling County and successively held the posts of Zhushi, Yuanwailang (员外郎, low level official), and Langzhong (郎中, supervisory official) in the Ministry of Civil Officials, as well as Shaoqing (少卿, vice director) of Nanjing Taipusi (太仆寺, emperor’s office) and Qing (卿, director) of Nanjing Honglusi (鸿胪寺, Department of Rites). At the end of the Zhengde Reign, he patrolled the southern Jiangxi Province as the Vice Censorate of the Court of Censor and suppressed a massive peasant revolt there. Afterward, he quelled the revolt by the prince and served concurrently as the Governor of Jiangxi Province. Finally, he was promoted to Minister of the Ministry of War and knighted the Earl of Xinjian. In his later years, under court order, he also acted as the Censorate of the Court of Censor and, concurrently, as the Commander-in-Chief of the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi in order to put down the ethnic minority revolt in Guangxi Province. Returning home due to an illness, he died in Nan’an, Jiangxi Province.

In the midst his successful career, many other important events occurred in Wang Yangming’s life. In the summer of Zhengde’s fourteenth year (1519), the Prince of Ning, Zhu Chenhao, launched a revolt in Jiangxi after years of planning. He organized a hundred thousand troops, all the way east downward to Nanjing, which produced a great panic in the court. Though acting in haste, Wang Yangming captured Zhu Chenhao alive and completely suppressed the revolt within thirty-five days through his tactful strategies and superior courage, accomplishing victory for a remarkable cause. His contemporaries thus considered him talented within both the civil and military arenas, describing him as possessing great wisdom and courage. Indeed, his performance and achievements were not only peerless among the ancient and modern Confucians, but also outstanding in comparison to all of the ministers and generals of the whole Ming Dynasty.

Even in his youth, Wang Yangming displayed his versatility. He showed himself to be good at riding and shooting, proficient in the art of war, and well-regarded in the literary circle for his poems and articles. During this time, as was the case for many other Neo-Confucians of the Song and Ming dynasties, Wang Yangming experienced an ideological transition from Buddhism and Daoism to Confucianism and Mencianism. Upon becoming an official, he stepped onto a bumpy political road.

At the age of thirty-four, amidst this grim political environment, he risked his life in remonstrating against the eunuch Liu Jin’s manipulation of court affairs. As a result, he was punished by the court—beaten, jailed, and then banished to the remote town of Longchang in Guizhou Province—and demoted to the station of a local posthouse official. In the ensuing distress, he sat still both day and night, exercising his mind, remaining patient, and meditating on what the saints had done in such circumstances.

Finally, one night as he sat in thought, he was suddenly enlightened, jumping with joy and surprising those with him. After that, he established a philosophy which was completely different from the Cheng-Zhu School and would be called Longchang Enlightenment by later generations. After this defining moment, although he had made great contributions to the Ming Dynasty, he suffered from repeated vilifications.

In the tough political crisis of his time, he insisted on following his conscience and displaying great courage. He enlisted many disciples and taught them in accordance with their aptitude, encouraging them to spread his ideas whether they were resting at home or engaged in warfare. Though suppressed, his ideas made a great impact upon his contemporaries and shrouded the ideological development of the whole period, from the middle to the late Ming Dynasty.

Regarding its direct significance in his time, Wang Yangming’s philosophy was a response to Zhu Xi’s philosophy. In circumstances where the feudal rule was extremely corrupt and Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism (程朱理学, Cheng-Zhu Li Xue) had become stereotyped in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the School of Mind Yangming advocated emerged as an ideological movement and attained epochal significance. It had resulted from a long process of sublating Buddhism and Daoism, which had been ongoing since the Northern Song Dynasty, and it thus had an important role in the whole of the development of Neo-Confucianism.

With his initiative and enterprising spirit, Wang Yangming completely freed his philosophy from the scholasticism of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism and endowed it with courage and vitality. Like Zen masters, he could enlighten others with amazing advice, and his ideas were full of life wisdom, thus retaining a very strong appeal for later generations.

Wang Yangming’s personality was somewhat close to that of heroes in ancient times, as his disciples regarded him as a great talent and a hero or prominent figure among the contemporaries. According to the historical record, he was bold and unruly in his teenage years and often led his companions to play military games. At the age of thirteen, he lost his mother. Then, because his stepmother often mistreated him, he bribed a witch to play a trick on her and finally won her good treatment.¹ This situation might well remind us of Cao making fun of his uncle in his own teenage years.

Feng Menglong said: While young, his skill in playing politics was already unfathomable.² The modern scholars marvel at him, with some confusion, as this was almost unimaginable for other Daoists.³ He was never conventional or bothered by the trifles, and from a very young age he had been a mounted archer and fascinated by the art of war. Later, in a joust in Jiangxi Province, his excellent performance of having nine shots all hit their exact target shocked and awed the court officials. And this was only the beginning.

The amazing military strategies and superb political tactics he displayed in the perilous political crisis that occurred after he had suppressed the peasant riots in southern Jiangxi Province and the rebellion by the Prince of Ning, the great achievements he made through these heroic deeds, and the charismatic impact he left on modern politicians can only be fully understood in the sense of his being a hero. And yet, on the other hand, he also displayed a romanticism and mysticism in his spirit and personality. At several critical turning points in his life, Buddhist monks, Daoists, and alchemists emerged as his mentors. He had always been attracted by the natural taste of Daoism and had a special love for Daoism, to the extent that his innermost being was colored by mysticism. Heroism and romanticism are two factors that cannot be ignored if we wish to understand Wang Yangming, his achievements, and his spirit.

1. The Being of Ego and the Non-Being of Ego

A core pursuit involved in studying Chinese culture is to understand the wisdom and the realm (境界, jingjie) of being (有, you) and non-being (无, wu) in classical Chinese philosophy. As Feng Youlan points out, by speaking of identifying with non-being, the metaphysicists (玄学家, xuanxuejia) did not intend to suggest an ontological understanding, but a kind of spiritual realm—a realm of inaction (无为, wuwei). He thought Guo Xiang’s significance lay not in abolishing the physical non-being, but in acknowledging the non-being element of such a realm.⁴

Mou Zhongsan also points out that the metaphysics of Daoist non-being is a kind of metaphysical realm, which aims at extracting the wisdom of non-being in order to reach a spiritual realm,⁵ and the non-being in practice in this sense cannot be avoided in any great master’s or sage’s life. Mou further explains:

The saying that essence of mind lies in non-good and non-evil by Yangming and the saying about four non-beings by Wang Longxi are all close to the realm of the non-being of mind making Dao, a realm of non-being in the subjective sense.⁶

It is a pity that later scholars never mentioned this conclusion and continued to interpret non-good and non-evil as being based on the perfect good while taking the commonness of non-being as a taboo. One of the aims of this book is precisely to understand how Wang Yangming dealt with the opposition between and the relevance of the realm of being and the wisdom of non-being—so as to reveal the inner clue and the task of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism as well as the position and contribution of Wang Yangming and his philosophy.

On first look, the title being and non-being seems only fit for those speculative philosophers like Hegel in constructing an ontological system. But, in fact, what Sartre discusses in his Being and Nothingness is not the classical ontological problem in the history of Western philosophy while Heidegger’s Being and Time is even more unconventional. They shifted from traditional ontology and concentrated on the problem of a human being’s existence or survival. The ensuing discussion on being and non-being in the form of a realm in Chinese philosophy, in this sense, is just a demonstration of a survival wisdom in humanity’s existence.

The basic definitions of Chinese philosophy are polysemantic, like non-being (无, wu), which has different functions and meanings in ontology, practice, and realm. In the broad sense, being and non-being (有与无, you and wu) in the Chinese language can include and refer to all phrases incorporating you and wu as their prefix—like youxin wuxin (有 心无心, being and non-being of mind), youwo wuwo (有我无我, being and non-being of ego), youwei wuwei (有为无为, action and inaction), and youqing wuqing (有情无情, mercy and mercilessness). The famous debate on four beings and four non-beings (with the discussion on the being of good and evil and the non-being of good and evil as the core) in Wang Yangming’s philosophy and the school of his thought clearly embodies the rich implications of the two definitions of being and non-being, which is the fundamental reason why this book takes them as the basis for its discussion. Thus, this work does not aim to discuss the ontological problem about being and non-being, but to study the problem of being and non-being in relation to the realm and practice.

Taking the oriental philosophy as a philosophy of non-being has become a very popular view in studies of comparative culture, which clearly emphasize Buddhist and Daoist philosophies. In Chinese culture, Confucianism is generally regarded as a philosophy of being, as compared to Buddhism valuing non-being. In terms of the realm rather than ontology, this view is not unreasonable for early Confucians. When it comes to Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, which has lasted nearly eight hundred years, it is not that simple. The response to the challenge of Buddhism by Neo-Confucianism not only stems from its ontological argument on being (such as the qi-based argument, and the li-based argument), but also its absorption of the non-being of the life-realm and self-cultivation practice, the latter being the main theme running through Neo-Confucianism.

Wang Guowei writes in his Comment on the Lyrics and Poetry of the Human World (《人间词话》, Renjian Cihua):

There exist the realm of being of ego and the realm of non-being of ego. Tearful eyes ask the flowers, but the flowers are in silence letting the faded petals fly over the swing; May the remote inn keep the spring cold away when the sun sets with cuckoos sounding in the dusk; this is the realm of being of ego. When picking up the chrysanthemums beside the east fence, see the hills in the south leisurely; The cold water waves up lightly while the white birds fly down leisurely; this is the realm of non-being of ego. In the realm of being of ego, the objects watched from my view are rendered with my color while, in the realm of non-being of ego, the objects are watched from the view of objects, so no one knows who I am and what the objects are.

Placed within the broad context of Chinese culture, the realm of being of ego and the realm of non-being as the definitions by which to understand the spiritual realm of culture have significance far beyond the limited scope of poetry aesthetics. Taking Wang Guowei’s expressions as references in order to describe the various orientations of the state of being of culture, we can find the realm of being in all the things ready for me (Mencius), and view nothing under heaven as not belonging to me (Zhang Zai). Moreover, the benevolent take all the things under heaven as a whole and integrated with themselves (Cheng Hao); and the realm of non-being in the sages’ emotion is in response to the objects, but should not be burdened by them (Wang Bi). Also, don’t be too much obsessed and your mind can be released (Diamond Sutra), and the sage often lets his emotion follow the things but never harbors emotion on them (Cheng Hao).

Chinese culture is traditionally composed of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, among which Daoism and Buddhism differ greatly from each other in their ontologies. But in terms of life attitude and the spiritual realm, Chinese culture and philosophy are just two basic forms: one state of being emphasizing social concern and moral obligation represented by Confucianism, the other valuing inner peace and self-transcendence represented by Buddhism and Daoism. In this sense, if their distinction is depicted through traditional language, Confucianism focuses on the realm of being while Buddhism and Daoism focus on the realm of non-being, or the former is the realm of being of ego while the latter equates to the realm of non-being of ego.

Indeed, the ego I am talking about here is not the private ego suggested in Tearful eyes ask the flowers, but the big ego seen in becoming one with objects. In terms of personality patterns, Confucius, Mencius, and Du Fu embody the realm of being of ego while Zhuang Zi, Hui Neng, and Dao Yuanming embody the realm of non-being of ego. In the whole Chinese culture and over the course of its development, the two realms have exhibited tension between them, yet also complemented each other. It must be admitted that the two realms have never reached harmonious unification to a perfect degree, and that the debate about them negating each other has filled the history of culture.

Kierkegaard divided the spiritual realm into three progressive stages in turn: the aesthetic realm, the moral realm, and the religious realm. The aesthetic realm refers to a sensual realm, which takes emotional need as the center; the moral realm is a rational realm, which takes obligations and responsibilities as its center; and the religious realm is a realm that sacrifices the self for one’s belief, which is characterized by suffering.

From a Christian perspective, the distinction made by Kierkegaard is understandable. The spiritual realm refers to the overall level and state of a person’s worldview. Here, the so-called worldview is not the cognition of the material and natural outer world, but an understanding of and attitude toward the significance of the whole universe, society, life, and ego. A realm is a category marking spiritual perfection of human beings and a category of the full understanding of the universe and life, including at the moral level. In Chinese culture and philosophy, the three traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism have all seen the sensibility realm as being unacceptable and not affirmed by the outer and transcendental religious stage.

Every culture represents the spiritual realm it has advocated. Classical Confucianism has an affirmable moral realm of universal love and self-restraint. But the realm of non-being of the mind in Buddhism and Daoism is not included in Kierkegaard’s three stages. The realm of non-being of the mind or the realm of non-being of the ego in Daoism does not refer to self-restraint in an ethical sense, but takes it as a transcendental attitude toward life. In terms of self-transcendence, the Daoist realm is a kind of transcendence, but in Western culture transcendence seems to delineate religious persons, and the inner transcendence in Buddhism also has its own unique characterization.

Li Zehou calls it the teleological spiritual realm of quasi-aesthetics but super-aesthetics, or simply the aesthetic realm.⁷ Every spiritual realm can induce specific aesthetic images and produce an impact on the actual development of art. These aesthetic images—including Wang Guowei’s realm of being and non-being—are only a development in some special aspects of the whole cultural realm. For instance, watch objects from my view and watch objects from the view of objects—as used by Wang Guowei to define the realm of being and non-being—are actually derived from Song Dynasty Confucianist Shao Yong’s discussion on the spiritual realm.

Feng Youlan defines realm as a kind of significance of universe and life to humanity in Chapter 3 of his book, The New Original Person (《新原人》, xin yuanren). In his opinion, according to the idea of ego of being and non-being: the person in the natural realm is unaware of the being of ego or unconscious of the self; the person in the utilitarian realm is self-conscious of the self; and the persons in the moral realm and world realm are selfless.⁸ So, in this level, ego refers to private. Feng points out again that the being of ego not only means one’s private being, but also means the other, like Lu Xiangshan’s saying that the universal matters are also the self’s matters, in which self means domination—and in this sense, the persons in the moral realm and world realm are not the non-being of ego but the real being of ego or true being (真我, zhenwo). So, the non-being of the persons in the moral realm and world realm is a private being rather than a true being.

A person’s true being can only be developed in the moral realm and be accomplished in the world realm, so the person in the world realm has at first a big non-being of ego and then moves on to being of big ego.⁹ These profound ideas by Master Feng show an expression of true being, which is completely consistent with Wang Yangming’s zhenwu (真吾). The realm of being or the realm of being of ego to be discussed in this book does not refer to the realm with the selfishness of a small ego, but the realm of being of big ego. The realm of non-being of ego in this book is not only limited to the selflessness in the moral realm, but more refers to a realm of freedom without any domination.

However, Master Feng did not analyze non-being of ego as he did being of ego, so the non-being of ego focused on within this book was not offered positioning in his The New Original Person. As Zen had suggested, being of big ego is still different from non-being of ego. According to Zen, people occupy three realms. The realm of the small ego is a purely self-centered and private realm. The realm of the big ego enlarges the view of the small ego to the greater time and space, the small ego being dissolved into the universe and combined with the universe. If watched from this realm, the inner mind is infinitely profound and the outer world is infinitely vast.

A person’s physical and mental world does not exist, as only the infinitely far and vast universe exists. A person is not only the component part of the universe, but also the whole of the universe. In this realm, the contradiction between a person and his surroundings does not exist, so a psychology of dissatisfaction, resentment, love, desire, and rejection of surroundings disappears, and he feels full and meaningful, loving others and objects just like his small ego. This is the realm of big ego.¹⁰

Furthermore, in Zen’s terms, the realm of big ego is not the highest realm, as the highest realm is the realm of non-being of ego, in which all differences and conflicts have disappeared and a person can thus really shuffle off the mortal coil.¹¹ According to Buddhism, the universal realm, the union of God and man in Christianity, and the oneness of Brahman and Atma in Hinduism by Master Feng still belong to the second realm—the realm of the big ego. That Master Feng identified the highest realm in Buddhism with the universal realm is not accepted by the Buddhists. Of course, it is unnecessary for us to affirm that the realm of non-being of ego must be higher than the realm of the big ego in the stance of Buddhism, but apparently the realm of non-being of ego and the realm of the big ego belong to different realms. In Master Feng’s view of realm, the realm of non-being of ego was not given an explicit position.

In the broader sense, being and non-being of ego are still the regulated being and non-being. Being of ego is only a form of the realm of being, and so is non-being of ego. Even though the moral realm does not have the sense of the real being of ego, it is apparently a realm of being. Integrity exists in the world and is expressed in various concrete forms, and this is the realm of being. Surfing in the big change, a person feels neither happy nor frightened—this is the realm of non-being. The Confucian ethical code (名教, mingjiao) is being while naturalness is non-being. Reverence is being while freedom and ease are non-being. No preference and bias, Nothing to think and worry about, and Ode to the moon and flowers all belong to the realm of non-being. Various things wait for you to finish; A person should have something to be cautious, careful, and fearful of; and Introspect, then overcome and cure your faults all belong to the realm of being. The interaction between being and non-being is a characteristic feature of Chinese culture. The fusion of the realm of being and the realm of non-being is the spiritual core of Neo-Confucianism.

In the times of Wang Yangming, the ontological problem about being and non-being had gone beyond the rational times. Yangming’s importance not only rested in his uplifting moral ontology, pushing the realm of being, which is innate in Confucianism, to the highest point through thoughts like no reason exists outside the mind, completely extending the innate knowledge, and the benevolent are combined with the objects. His importance also lay in his fully absorbing the survival wisdom of Buddhism and Daoism to combine the realms of being and non-being from the standpoint of Confucianism and in his fulfilling the attempt of Confucianism to both stick to the secular value of rationality and to absorb the spiritual realm and spiritual cultivation from Buddhism and Daoism since the Northern Song Dynasty with his own life experience.

2. Seriousness and Easefulness

After Zhu Xi, what was the trend of development for Neo-Confucianism? Many scholars have held that the mainstream trend was to combine Zhu Xi’s and Lu Jiuyuan’s thoughts after the Southern Song Dynasty. As far as the academic studies of the Yuan Dynasty are concerned, this view seems to hold water.¹² But, in the broader historical perspective, it is clear that a combination of Zhu and Lu cannot really cover the later developmental trend of Neo-Confucianism. Much of the discussion about Yangming’s philosophy inherited Zhu Xi’s philosophy intrinsically, but it is completely improper to take Yangming as the integrator of Zhu and Lu.

No matter how Yangming confessed that his opposition to Zhu Xi came not from his heart in The Settled Conclusion of Zhu Xi at His Age and in his books in reply to Luo Qinshun (Luo Zhengan), his strong and even excessive antipathy toward the intellectual orientation of Zhu Xi’s philosophy can be found everywhere in his works if they are carefully read. It is often baffling that his attack on seeking principle (Li) from things was so bitter. This trait must be associated with the attack on him by the scholars of Zhu Xi’s philosophy or in the name of Zhu Xi. Regardless, in the whole of Yangming’s philosophy is a reaction to, and not a reconciliation with, Zhu Xi’s philosophy.

Wu Yubi abandons his official career of examinations, refuses social communication, stays at a solitary pavilion playing with Confucian Analects of the Four Books and Five Classics with body and heart, and has not been downstairs for two years. He sighs at the uselessness of careful notes and commentary on the classics.¹³ His style, learning, and position in the Neo-Confucianism of the Ming Dynasty are very close to that of Cheng Mingdao (Cheng Hao) in the Song Dynasty, so it is reasonable for The Confucian Scholar Cases in the Ming Dynasty to list him as the top Confucian scholar in the development of the School of Mind over the whole Ming Dynasty. Kangzhai (Wu Yubi’s style name) focused on the personality of harmony and peace as well as the realm of a relaxed body and calm mind rather than learning and reason.

In his daily life, once he met troubles and could not dissipate the worries in his heart, he kept working on them and finally achieved enlightenment. The mind is originally the great void, so all the emotions have no place; Carefully examine the principle, and you will feel easy and free in mind; and If the regulations don’t work, you will feel hard and bitter, but if you follow the principles, all will go smooth.¹⁴ These are the same as Yangming comparing the great void to the non-being of good and evil, seeking peace and tranquility by following principles. His stress on the idea that body and mind must have a settled place is indeed the starting point of Neo-Confucianism moving from rationalism to existentialism.

It can be said that the development of Neo-Confucianism in the Ming Dynasty centered on the debate about Yangming’s precaution and care versus peace and happiness or reverence versus ease. Xie Shangcai recorded Cheng Mingdao’s words, once you gain, you should be relaxed, in which gains suggests the principle one has recognized and relaxation refers to the mind and realm. But Zhu Xi opposed this idea, in that he thought after you gain, your mind will be naturally relaxed, and if the relaxation is on purpose, your mind will have pain instead.

Zhu Xi’s opposition to purposeful relaxation is certainly a rationale, but the view of natural relaxation is the method Zhu Xi adopts to correct Zeng Dian’s style, with the idea of reverence. If the mind can really relax naturally, there will be no problem with relaxation. Hu Juren, an early scholar of Zhu Xi’s philosophy in the Ming Dynasty, pointed out: The contemporaries have already relaxed before gaining, Seek Yan Zi’s happiness before overcoming yourself and finding benevolence, and It all belongs to heterodoxy to relax and seek happiness too early.¹⁵

Xia Dongyang also wrote: On reading a chapter by Zeng Dian, I think my mind is free and easy and I am in Yao and Shun’s style; but not until I recently finished two books and three volumes of classics did I know that hard work is Yao and Shun’s style.¹⁶ This idea is actually a continuation in the direction of Cheng Yi’s and Zhu Xi’s stress on reverence, which was the cause for natural harmony and happiness. The tension between reverence and happiness had emerged since Su Dongpo of the Northern Song Dynasty had tried to destroy Cheng Yichuan’s (Cheng Yi) idea on reverence. For Cheng and Zhu, reverence refers not only to effort but also to realm.

But after Kangzhai, Baisha (Chen Xianzhang) opened a path through which the elder Cheng (Cheng Hao) and Shao Kangjie (Shao Yong) became the models. Baisha said to himself, I have nothing to teach, but let the learners read a chapter by Zeng Dian.¹⁷ So, for the orthodox school, Baisha adopted an interpretation that Buddhism and Daoism were popular among the people in the Song Dynasty, and then Zhu Xi stressed reverence for salvation, but the contemporaries only indulged themselves in wealth and position, and could not attain detachment. Hence, the idea of Zeng Dian had to be advocated. Once he met Kangzhai, Baisha abandoned his intention for imperial examinations and built a study named Spring Balcony, in which he remained without leaving for years. Huang Zongxi described him as taking the balance between consciousness and unconsciousness as a principle for experience, as done by Zeng Dian in ancient time and Yaofu (Shao Yong) in recent time. All these observations indicate that he represented a pursuit for the realm of harmony and happiness and ease and freedom, which would naturally cause him to abandon reciting classical books, replace complexity with simplicity, and focus on innate experience.

Baisha became a pioneer of mystic experience in the Ming Dynasty by advocating that people should experience in silence [so] the clues will emerge. He said: As a scholar, he should first understand the style, that is, the style of Zeng Dian, for himself. From this style, he benefited both physically and mentally, so he could say:

If you believe in the nature of all, why bother to work your hands and feet? Bathing in the wind through Wuyu Altar with two or three friends, Zeng Dian was just in the state between consciousness and unconsciousness. Zeng Dian’s acting in this style is just as natural as birds flying and fish jumping if summarized by Mencius!

Although Baisha took Mencius’ practicing efforts as the foundation of his own practice, he was still biased toward Zeng Dian.

In Baisha’s opinion, such practicing efforts on non-being would not mean hard work, but Zhu Xi had said, Yan Zi’s pleasure lies in plainness while Zeng Dian’s lies in hard work. He thought self-discipline and reverence for God were the reason for Confucius’ and Yan Zi’s happiness. But there is no doubt that the reverence is natural and happy, so Chen Baisha said, This idea existed in the Confucianism of the Song Dynasty, but I think it is too rigid.¹⁸ And just as Xia Dongyan had pointed out, the debate about reverence and ease had already become an innate discussion in Daoism since Dongpo asked Yichuan to break through the limit of reverence.

It has always been an important research field, to achieve a realm of carefree and self-contented subjects by breaking through the limit of the reverence realm in Kantian style. The tension between reverence and ease is shown in the following way. If it is too revered, the soul cannot enjoy the leisure of contentment; without moral cultivation, the subject’s pleasure and carefree nature would be merely in Daoist style.

Wang Yangming presented a poem to Xia Dongyan - [when asked about his ambition by Confucius,] Zeng Dian abruptly stopped playing Chinese zither in the spring breeze. He was so carefree that I really admired him - in which Yangming actually expressed his yearning for Zeng Dian’s carefree style in his inner heart.

However, Xia Dongyan wrote a tit-for-tat poem in reply: Confucius’ disciples were enjoying themselves on the Yi River in the spring, but they still continued the reverence from the Yao court.

Additionally, somebody in his time wrote a poem - even though you act as Zeng Dian in Yao and Shun’s practical style, you will still be suspected of inheriting Lao Zi’s and Zhuang Zi’s Daoism (Zhan Fuzhai) - which shows these are really two completely different routes of reverence and ease.

As Baisha’s disciple, Ganquan (Zhan Ruoshui) especially advocated studying self-contentment when he was young, with which Yangming agreed very much. Yangming probably stressed self-contentment because he had combined Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism into one philosophy. Therefore, he always sided with those who enjoyed self-contentment. Later, Ganquan began to advocate for the idea to appreciate the natural principles implied in what you are practicing and experiencing, and thus formed a gap with his teacher.

However, in Yangming’s poem, the line everyone feels shameful to act as Zheng Kangcheng for his fragmented learning inherited the direction of Baisha’s idea that the real Confucianist is not Zheng Kangcheng, which can be partially seen from Xia Dongyang’s comment that all Yangming’s learning was derived from Baisha. According to Huang Zongxi, another disciple, Zhang Dongsuo (廷实, Tingshi) gained much of Baisha’s learning, and Tingshi’s words that it is just its nature for the mind to dwell nowhere fit well with Yangming’s idea.

So, based upon the above points, Lizhou (Huang Zongxi’s style name) thought the academic studies in the Ming Dynasty became subtle after Baisha and became stronger after Wencheng (Wang Yangming’s posthumous name), and he finally formed a school.

From Chen Baisha to Wang Yangming, emphasis on the self-contentment aspect of spiritual life presented a clear difference with the scholars of Zhu Xi’s philosophy. For example, Xue Xuan said: Whether in a humble status or place, a person should also be careful and reverential in mind, just as he cannot move and think freely when he goes to sleep. This practice is not only in sleeping, but also in everything and at every time.¹⁹

Wenqing (Xue Xuan’s disciple) and Duan Kejiu even took as this tenet that people should be cautious of your words when in a group and aware of your mind when alone. It is indeed not easy to be so cautious, careful, and reverential, and the moral personality developed in such practice is also without doubt, but if a person practices in this way throughout his life, it will not be a contented and perfect realm for him.

So, in this sense, it is reasonable for Baisha to say it does no harm to practice cautiousness, carefulness, and reverence in leisure time,²⁰ and the ideas about caution, carefulness, and reverence should not be followed extremely, but the later Confucians are unaware of them and have made some critical mistakes.²¹ But, after Wang Yangming’s philosophy was passed on to his first disciples, the disciples later began to have different ideas from each other and thus lost their teacher’s tenet. Most of them just took enlightenment as the principle and were lost in the imaginary world. They did not do any practical investigations, so they entered the realm of non-being but lost the realm of being. As such, Lü Jingye’s disciple, Yang Tianyou, pointed out:

The contemporary scholars’ trouble lies in not learning from Yan Zi, so they are poor at the starting point when they want to learn the madness of Zeng Dian. You don’t even know how to discipline yourself, let alone make the whole world into benevolence; you don’t even know how to cater to your parents and brothers, let alone dance for joy; you don’t even know how to deal with husband-wife relations, let alone fly like a bird and jump like a fish; you don’t even know anything about clothes, let alone live without sound and smell; you even don’t know how to learn the natural law in the daily life, so how can you think heaven knows you? Isn’t it a disaster to take reckless indulgence as the universal law and to take sensual pleasure as the real taste?²²

In terms of Wang Yangming himself, he did not have the younger generation’s bias and was also different from Baisha. So Wang Longxi also said, Baisha belonged to the tradition in Mountain Baiyuan and was only an unorthodox Confucian, which means that Baisha was biased toward Shao Yong’s happiness and ease. He was unable to combine being and non-being, reverence and ease. We must keep in mind that Yangming had true experience in the realm of ease, contentment, and freedom, and he had always insisted on taking being as the base and non-being for application, seeking ease and freedom from reverence.

Superficially, the basic problem of Neo-Confucianism in the Ming Dynasty is noumenon and practice, in which noumenon refers to the natural state of the mind (or disposition) and practice signifies the concrete methods for spiritual practice. Essentially, the implication of the debate between noumenon and practice is the debate between reverence and ease, which is the innate clue to be taken in order for us to grasp the Neo-Confucianism of the Ming Dynasty.

3. Rationalism and Existentialism

From the perspective of traditional comparative philosophy, the German idealism before Hegel in the history of Western philosophy is comparable to the School of Mind. Kant, as the most important philosopher of Idealism in this period, provides a series of philosophical categories: moral subject, moral principle, moral emotions, autonomy and heteronomy, and freedom and necessity, which are all important to interpreting the state of mind philosophy.

The idea that will itself ordains moral law,²³ which takes a moral subject as the origin of moral law, especially allows us to understand the self-discipline character of the School of Mind. Because there are already detailed demonstrations and discussions on how to use Kant’s philosophical categories to interpret and understand the problems of Yangming’s philosophy in Part 3 of Chapter 2 in this book, I will not take the time to talk about it here. But what should be stressed is that even if the School of Mind has been confirmed as a form of autonomy, this does not mean that the School of Mind is completely consistent with Kant’s ethics in their basic orientation because whether the School of Mind is autonomic and whether the School of Mind is similar to Kant’s ethics are two different problems. In fact, practice and realm, as claimed and discussed by Yangming, are far from Kant’s understandings. Additionally, even if we confirm Yangming’s philosophy as one of autonomy, it will not simply follow that we necessarily take Zhu Xi’s philosophy as heteronomy and therefore treat heteronomy negatively and passively.

In terms of the ideological character, Fichte is possibly closer to Yangming. Although Fichte was also influenced by Descartes, his pure ego as the basis (before individual ego) in logic is both the universal rationality beyond the individual and the ego of individual ontology. Once ego returns to itself and is aware of its activities in the self’s consciousness, the nature of reality will come to be known.

This thought has a lot in common with the School of Mind from Mencius on to Lu Xiangshan. Especially according to Fichte, morality not only entails good wishes, but also has to be expressed in practice. His idea of morality with stress on practice is very close to Yangming’s thoughts on the unity of knowledge and action. He believed that the conscience is the touchstone of all truth, and asked people to obey the order of the conscience so as to be freed from the slavery of rationality, which is consistent with Yangming’s theory of intuitive knowledge as the universal law.

Fichte denied the things-in-themselves beyond the mind and held that people’s attainment of their own moral aim is actually the achievement of the meaning of the universe, which is comparable to the School of Mind and Yangming’s philosophy. The ethical idealism Frank Thilly used to describe Fichte’s philosophy is fit for Yangming’s philosophy. Fichte even thought there is a realm of uppermost happiness, higher than the moral realm, and that this realm discards the expectation for outer results but turns to people themselves for psychological satisfaction and identification with human nature.²⁴

So, this kind of a leisurely realm of satisfaction with religious features is also similar to Yangming’s realm of self-contented non-being. But Fichte did not explore the deep structure of human existence and the richness of all human spiritual experience. In this regard, existentialism or existential philosophy stressing subjectivity after Hegel provides us with another perspective for understanding Yangming’s philosophy and its significance.

Even if not in a very strict sense, it can be said that the development of Neo-Confucianism (xin rujia) and Daoism (daoxue) from the Southern Song Dynasty to the middle of the Ming Dynasty experienced a philosophical transition—from School of Principle (Lixue) to School of Mind. This is certainly not to say that there was no glimmer of School of Mind in the Song Dynasty or no extension of Neo-Confucianism in the Ming Dynasty, but this transition focused on the change of mainstream philosophy. So, what are the features of this transition?

The rise of new idealism represented by Yangming’s philosophy is characterized by its strong dissatisfaction with the construction of Zhu Xi’s rationalism, which is different from Kant, Fichte and Yangming. Yangming’s new idealism determines that the result of Zhu Xi’s philosophy had enlarged the detachment between principle and mind, and demands that philosophy should completely center around mind, starting from mind and not laying stress on the definition of disposition (性, xing).

It does not take truth as the ontology of Taiji, but stresses the significance of subjective truth. It is different from Neo-Confucianism in that it is biased for constructing ontology, laying more stress on the efforts of practice. It disagrees with the separation of subject and object, mind and things, advocating instead for the identity of mind and things. It does not stress knowledge definitions, but inner experience and even mystical experience, taking the spiritual life above acts of knowing. It lays stress on participation rather than observation. It attaches importance to being yourself—namely, the existence of individuals, rather than seeking the ultimate reality—namely, the absolute truth. It makes less use of ontological categories, focusing more on the categories of emotion and mood. The nature of emotion is given more importance, and the realm of non-being of ego for human emotion and mood is given an outstanding position.

In short, the rise of the new idealism is a transition from the standpoint of objectivity, necessity, universality, and extroversion to that of subjectivity, internality, subjectiveness, and inner experience.

In this sense, the transition from the School of Principle to the School of Mind is somehow similar to that from rationalism to existentialism in the history of Western philosophy after Hegel. Dissatisfied with the inability of Hegel’s philosophy to account for both mind and body, Kierkegaard, the pioneer of existentialism, turned to human existence. His idea that the truth is just subjectivity coincides with Yangming’s mind is principle.

From Kierkegaard, the ontological what has been replaced by the practical how. Is not the rise of existentialism a rebellion against rationalism for its detachment of rationality from existence? In existential philosophy, the principle of subjectivity replaces that of objectivity, the opposition between mind and things is deconstructed, and the emotional noumenon surpasses the knowledge noumenon. The philosophers of existentialism are very different from each other, but the general features of this ideology are expressed in Yangming’s School of Mind different degrees.

Yangming’s explicit definition of Confucianism as the learning for self in fact means that philosophy should not be a series of qi (气, matter) and li (理, principle) topics and systems, nor a series of classical text-and sentence-level exegesis, but a way of life existing in nature, which is certainly a viewpoint of existentialism. Because of his emphasis on this point, Yangming advocated for unity of knowledge and action and extension of knowledge, which means seeking the truth true for me instead of the knowledge taken for granted in Kierkegaard’s words.

That is to say, a moral principle will not be true for you if you do not practice it,²⁵ so Yangming emphasized real knowledge and action. From the perspective of the unity of knowledge and action, truth must be a way of practice and an attitude to existence that is closely connected with our selves. The real subject noted by Kierkegaard, which is not the cognitive subject of Descartes but the practical and ethically existing subject,²⁶ is consistent with Yangming’s stance. Kierkegaard’s concern was how to become a Christian, so he considered it meaningless to accumulate knowledge and denied the truth as defined by rationalism. Similarly, Yangming’s concern was with how to become a sage, so his disdain for epistemology and his inclination to return to the subject meant he shared common ground with the philosophers of existentialism.²⁷

However, in some ways, Yangming’s philosophy is quite different from existential philosophy or existentialism. For example, the individual’s self-selection has been one of the features of existential ethics since Kierkegaard, and similarly, Yangming showed disdain for classics, customs, and stereotypical views. He asked people to follow their own innate knowledge to choose their way of acting and the meaning of life.

In a sense, Yangming’s thought has something in common with the idea of self-selection as one of the value sources. But, the theist’s idea of self-selection is often greatly different from the atheist’s in existentialism, whose more radical views transition into moral relativism and solipsism, which is far from the standpoint of Yangming’s philosophy as a Confucian moral philosophy in Chinese feudal society.²⁸

Therefore, if the comparability of Kant’s philosophy with Yangming’s philosophy mainly lies in its ethical aspects rather than in general philosophical features, then the comparability of existential philosophy with Yangming’s philosophy does not lie in ethics, but in its general features and main philosophical tendency as movement in thought.

Therefore, as mentioned above, the School of Mind is in many ways close to the idea of existentialism. This means the two systems of thought have some common features. It specifically means that the human being as the moral subject in Yangming’s philosophy has a close connection with the existential subject and thus makes it possible for the School of Mind and existentialism to make sense of each other. The most salient connection is their common concern for the subjective mood and emotional experience.

As Lao Sze-Kwang has pointed out, the subject of existentialism puts stress on an aesthetic self.²⁹ According to Sartre, the general consciousness is a kind of positional consciousness, which presupposes the subject’s binary cognition of an object while psychology, emotion, and mood as original consciousness do not take the self as an object of cognition because self-experience is not positional.

Sartre viewed intention, happiness, and suffering as a kind of direct consciousness, taking them as the only way of existence to make the awareness of something possible.³⁰ He viewed the emotional things as the only way of existence to make cognition possible. In order to object to the dominance of epistemology, Sartre stressed the primordiality of emotional experience and thus established the definition for pre-reflective cogito. Pre-reflective cogito is not the noumenon of mind in the sense of epistemology, but in the subject of emotion and mood, so the emotional experience reveals the existential structure of a human being more deeply than cogito.

Heidegger also thought that mood is ontilogically most familiar, noting that we must see this phenomenon [mood] as a fundamental existential,³¹ and that the possibilities of disclosure of moods belonging to cognition fall far short of the primordial disclosure of moods in which Dasein is brought before its being as the ‘there.’³² He viewed mood as the attunement (Befindlichkit) of Dasein: in attunement, Dasein is always already brought before itself. It has always already found itself, not as perceiving oneself to be there, but as one finds one’s self in attunement.³³ All of these observations indicate that mood is the most fundamental existential part of Dasein.

Additionally, Heidegger pointed out: "Factually Dasein can, should, and must, through knowledge and will, become master of its moods; in certain possible ways of existing, this may signify a priority of volition and cognition. Only we must not be misled by this into denying that ontologically mood is a primordial kind of being for Dasein, in which Dasein is disclosed to itself prior to all cognition and volition, and beyond their range of disclosure."³⁴ All these observations are meant to emphasize that the aesthetic self and not the cognitive self is the noumenon of mind in the primordial sense and the existential way to which Dasein, the being of human, feels closest.

As implied by saying that neither good nor evil is the noumenon of mind in the famous Four-Sentence Instruction by Wang Yangming in his later years, the mind noumenon as a primordial noumenon and state is neither ethical nor epistemological, but rather the primordial noumenon of mood and emotion like Sartre’s pre-reflective cogito or Heidegger’s authentic existential state of fundamental attunement.

The realm of non-being of ego, which Yangming wanted to take in, is based on an ego in mood and emotion, who tries to make a person go beyond all of the negative and passive moods and emotions in order to reach a peaceful, tranquil, and contented realm. The significance of the mind noumenon is to return to a human being’s authentic state of mood.

Yangming’s great concern for the mood of a human being’s existence as he strengthened the Confucian ethical standpoint gives his philosophy the character of existentialism. We can learn the traits of the Ming Dynasty is Neo-Confucianism under the influence of Wang Yangming from the Neo-Confucians’ accounts about existential experience in the book, The Confucian Scholar Cases in the Ming Dynasty (《明儒学案》, Mingru Xue’an).

Although we hope to make use of a Western philosophical expression—from rationalism to existentialism—as one of the clues to understanding Yangming’s philosophy and grasping the general character of the Ming Dynasty School of Mind in opposition to Neo-Confucianism, it does not indicate that Yangming’s philosophy is completely the same as existential philosophy. Different ways or methods can be used to understand the same objects, as with the ideas of traditionally named objective idealism and subjective idealism, which can continue displaying their usefulness through multifold interpretations. But, for us, the focus has always been on the fact that Chinese philosophy is not Greek philosophy, so classical Western rationalism cannot fully interpret the value and wisdom of Chinese philosophy, and only from life experience, the spiritual realm, and humanity’s existential situation (as discussed by existentialism) can we fully understand the significance of Chinese culture and Chinese philosophy.

One of the obvious differences between Chinese and Western philosophy is that practicing moral cultivation takes up a very important place in Chinese philosophy. Because it discusses the concrete method of practice for improving the spiritual realm, Chinese philosophy shows its distinct character with an emphasis on spiritual life and the realm of soul. As Feng Youlan has pointed out, in comparison with Western philosophy, Chinese philosophy pays more attention to the sage’s mind and the way of cultivating a sage’s mind—that is, the practice of learning and cultivation described by ancient people; but in Western philosophy, discussions of the cultivation of mind are not always considered to be philosophy.³⁵

Yet, as Julia Jing pointed out, this part of the content in Chinese philosophy can be found in the Western tradition, especially in the religious tradition—for instance, in the aspect of so-called spirituality in the Christian tradition. The word spirituality refers to the dimensions of human spiritual life including self-discipline (askesis) and occultism, and also refers to the spiritual cultivation in non-Western religious traditions according to the modern usage of this word.³⁶

In Western tradition, the transcendental moral realm is just the religious realm, so spirituality is embodied in the inner life of religion; but in Chinese culture, the Confucian tradition itself has included this dimension. Should a man continue to pursue a realm of transcendental morality—the peaceful, stable, and tranquil realm of non-being of ego—when he has already reached the moral realm? In what way can he attain the spiritual realm as such? What significance do the spiritual life and self-cultivation have when it comes to man’s full development and the evolution of civilization? These questions are always vital topics for research.

In the era of cultural communication between East and West, in the era when various religious traditions are facing challenges from science in the face of the existential demand for calming mind and life, it may prove helpful to reflect on the philosophical reasons provided by Confucianism. Our aim herein is to display the cultural and philosophical significance of the Confucian tradition and its spiritual meaning through concrete and historical studies.

CHAPTER 2

The Content of the Doctrine: Mind Is Principle

1. The Initiation of the Doctrine: Mind Is Principle

Throughout the entirety Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming dynasties, the relationship between mind and principle is one of the fundamental problems in philosophy. The importance of this problem lies in the fact that a scholar called Neo-Confucian does not necessarily talk about the problems of way and concrete things (dao qi, 道器), human nature and fate (xing ming, 性命), or even the problem of principle and matters (li qi, 理气), but cannot avoid the problem of mind and principle. The solution to the problem of mind and principle is the underlying foundation for the whole system of Neo-Confucianism with noumenon-practice as the basic structure, and the basic access to the spiritual life for the Neo-Confucian intellectuals, as well. In terms of the tradition of the School of Mind, the mind-principle relationship is the core of the whole system. Without exaggeration, mind is principle or there is no principle outside of mind is the first principle of Yangming’s ethics, which epitomizes ethical philosophy since Mencius.

Zhu Xi said: People’s study is nothing but for mind and principle. Although mind dominates the whole body, its abstract wisdom is in charge of the principles in the world. Although principles are scattered over all the things, the delicate use of these principles is determined by a person’s mind (Some Inquires into the Great Learning. Vol. 1). According to the Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming dynasties, the ultimate aim and ideal realm of life and cultivation is the combination of mind and principle. For example, Zhu Xi thought that principle exists as human nature in mind although mind contains all the principles. Mind here is a category with the sense of experiencing awareness. Because people’s consciousness is influenced by inner temperament and outer surroundings, it cannot be combined with moral law into one. Therefore, in terms of theory on the nature of mind in ethics, principle is inherent in the subject; but because principle is only the transcendental essence structure for human mind rather than the existing conscious fact, the origin of moral principle is the universal law itself. Thus, in terms of ontology, this means that consciousness has to be made a kind of self-consciousness for the principle as a moral law, and the moral law has to take on or enter the human being’s whole consciousness and motivation structure. In this way, the principle as the essence structure in the system has to be converted into the principle of the cognitive object; this cognitive process, in Zhu Xi’s thought, is the way and method for exploring principle by investigating objects. In the process of cognition, it is necessary to sincerely practice and seriously develop self-cultivation in order to get rid of the interference of all kinds of sensual lusts. According to the stance above, Zhu Xi’s philosophy is situated in the debate over mind and human nature, which only admits nature is principle, but does not admit mind is principle as the universal and effective proposition. On the other hand, Lu Jiuyuan, who was a contemporary of Zhu Xi but opposed to Zhu Xi’s philosophy, developed Mencius’ thought about the original mind (benxin, 本心) and further stated the proposition mind is principle for the purpose of digging and enlightening one’s mind. In Lu Jiuyuan’s philosophy, the mind in mind is principle actually refers to the transcendental mind and the conscience embodied in mind. So, Jiuyuan’s philosophy does not think that all conscious activities accord with Confucian principles. And Lu and Zhu did not have any actual debate on the problem about mind and principle; neither of them had carefully questioned, reflected upon, and examined his own standpoint so as to clarify their disagreements at the same level and same category. From the view of the School of Mind, the classical basis of Zhu Xi’s philosophy is on The Great Learning while Lu Jiuyuan’s philosophy rests on Mencius. Although Mencius’ thought is clear, his idea of mind is not so delicate as the practicing principles of the three cardinal guides and eight items in The Great Learning. Lu Jiuyuan not only failed in questioning Zhu Xi’s philosophy in the aspect of the innate logic of The Great Learning from the standpoint of the School of Mencius, but also failed in getting rid of Zhu Xi’s impact in understanding the ideas of exploring knowledge by investigating objects and extending knowledge and putting [it] into action. So, it is destined that Lu’s criticism on Zhu Xi’s philosophy cannot fully display the whole concept of the School of Mencius (the School of Mind).

In this sense, it is Wang Yangming who inherited Lu Jiuyuan’s ideological orientation and continued the dialogue between the School of Mind and the School of Principle with Zhu Xi. But at that time Zhu Xi had been dead for more than 300 years, and Yangming did not inherit Lu’s self-consciousness at the beginning. The happening and result of the story of Yangming exploring principle by investigating bamboo indicates that he was then too young to understand all the connotations of the idea investigating objects in Zhu Xi’s philosophy. Such a case was unique in the history of Neo-Confucianism for hundreds of years, which indicates that Yangming and all of the other scholars did not correctly understand Zhu Xi’s intention; thus, his understanding of Zhu Xi’s philosophy and his criticism of Zhu Xi’s philosophy based on this understanding cannot avoid being biased. But the questions he raised from this case are indeed significant. When recalling the development of his early ideas, Yangming had said that not until the Longchang Enlightenment did he know the sage’s way and human being’s nature of self-enlightenment, and the mistake in seeking principle from the objects outside mind (The Chronicle, see the item wuchen).¹ This shows that young Yangming’s journey of mind had been puzzled by the problem of mind and principle since learning the theory of investigating objects from Lou Liang in the second year of the Hongzhi Reign (the year of jiyou) on through the Longchang Enlightenment in the third year of the Zhengde Reign (the year of wuchen). He had tried hard to seek principle from the objects and matters according to the orders of the Confucianism in Song Dynasty but failed. The overnight solution in Longchang to the problem which had long puzzled him, though in the form of mysterious experience, led him to draw an essential conclusion: principle is not from the objects outside of but completely intrinsic to our mind (nature). For Yangming, this is just like finding a razor, which not only flatly cuts the problem of outer objects and the principle in the outer objects off from philosophy, but also undoubtedly has a kind of revolutionary significance for the philosophical standing of the past.

As seen from the development of thought, the Longchang Enlightenment is not only the result of Yangming’s years of efforts in penetrating into mind, objects, and principle, but also related with the development of his thought since his friendship with Zhan Ganquan was established in the year of yichou of the Hongzhi Reign (at age 34). Yangming says explicitly in Preface to Farewell to Zhan Ganquan in the year of Renshen: "I didn’t care about