Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 2332 Fengshan (Twenty-nine) The Problem of Mind Studies

Let us take a look at what this imperial edict actually said - both literally and subtly.

The emperor mentioned that his ancestors (predecessors) respected the teachings of Confucius when establishing the education system; they promoted the Neo-Confucianism of the Song Dynasty when selecting officials.

Recently, scholars have not only slandered the Confucian scholars of the Song Dynasty, but have also gradually slandered Confucius, swept away right and wrong, and abandoned simple and effective moral norms. How can we cultivate loyal, filial, chaste and righteous people for the court? The emperor criticized that some scholars now not only slandered the Confucian scholars of the Song Dynasty, but also began to slander Confucius, confused right and wrong, and abandoned simple and effective moral norms. He also asked how to cultivate loyal, filial, chaste and righteous people for the court in the long run.

The emperor believed that the examiner (chief examiner) had a preference for talent and was curious about new ideas, which led to this situation.

The emperor pointed out that for new scholars who are not yet mature, they should be properly guided and wait for their thoughts to mature, rather than rushing to admit them, so as not to mislead the world!

After reading your memorials, I find that they are profoundly beneficial to the education of the world. --The emperor believes that the memorials of the ministers (Fang Congzhe and other ministers who responded to Fang Congzhe's memorials) are beneficial to the education of the world.

The emperor also asked his ministers to formulate specific clauses and ensure that they were implemented.

Immortals and Buddhas are originally strange arts, and should be practiced alone in the mountains and forests. ——The emperor believed that Buddhism and Taoism were different from Confucianism in their practice methods, and should be practiced alone in the mountains and forests, and should not be used as a guide for court policy.

For those who like Buddhism or Taoism, the emperor allows them to resign from their official positions and practice on their own, but does not allow these practices to be mixed with Confucianism, so as not to confuse people's minds.

The literal interpretation is just that. It seems that the emperor only opposed the introduction of Buddhist and Taoist ideas into the court administrative system, and did not mention anything else. But the fact that such a matter had to be addressed by the emperor had already shown how serious the problem was. It was not a Buddhist or Taoist problem, but something was wrong within Confucianism, and Buddhism had begun to become old.

How could Confucianism, as a clear worldly ideology, become Buddhist? Undoubtedly, as we have just discussed, it was the School of Mind that showed a Buddhist tendency, which then led to the Buddhist tendency of many court officials and scholars who were based on the School of Mind, and eventually affected the entire administrative system of the court.

Therefore, the emperor's edict did not disparage the School of Mind in a single word, but each word pointed directly to the School of Mind; and did not praise practical learning in a single word, but each word praised practical learning.

This frightened many officials of the School of Mind. However, the problems of the School of Mind were indeed getting bigger and bigger, and had already reached the edge of danger. This was actually not criticized by officials of the School of Practicalism and the traditional School of Principle, and they themselves knew it.

Gao Youshi himself actually knew very well that the School of Mind would inevitably decline, but his problem now was that he could not wait for the School of Mind to decline naturally, but he had to consider it from the perspective of the court and accelerate the speed of its decline.

Why? Just look at the development and decline of the School of Mind in history. In the Ming Dynasty, the School of Mind was transformed from the School of Mind of Jiangmen to the School of Mind of Yaojiang, and finally pushed to the extreme by the followers of Yangming. Because the purpose of the School of Mind of Jiangmen was inconsistent, the followers of Jiangmen declined due to the influx of the School of Mind of Yaojiang.

Due to the internal divisions within the School of Mind, its failure to adhere to its teacher's teachings, and its superficiality, the School of Mind was suppressed by the government and criticized by the School of Principle. In addition, due to factors such as the change of dynasties, the School of Mind was eventually replaced by the School of Practical Learning.

After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the School of Mind flourished and became a prominent school of thought that competed with Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism. From the perspective of later generations, Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, as an official school of thought, had a great impact on people's personalities and thoughts at that time. The emergence of the School of Mind, especially Yangming's School of Mind, changed the social atmosphere.

Under the catalytic effect of the School of Mind, people's thoughts were liberated, and they gradually moved from being conservative to pursuing individual independence. The development of Yangming's School of Mind and its followers brought great vitality to the thoughts, academics, literature and art, and social life of the Ming Dynasty, which is its positive side.

But at the same time, the School of Mind also created a trend of escaping from Zen and talking about nothing, which made people superficial and lack of practicality. This became an important target for the Ming loyalists to reflect on the reasons for the fall of the Ming Dynasty. The views and thoughts of Ming Dynasty School of Mind, especially those of Wang's followers, were not unified, and they questioned each other. When various crises broke out in the late Ming Dynasty, the decline of Yaojiang School of Mind was inevitable. The reasons can be divided into two aspects: internal and external factors.

From the internal perspective, there are several major problems with Xinxue:

The first is internal division. After Yangming's death, the sect was roughly divided into seven factions, with different ideological themes and many attacks on each other. Before being impacted by external forces, the sect split internally.

Since the seven schools divided by Huang Zongxi were based on geographical divisions, different figures in the seven schools had different views. For example, Wang Ji and Qian Dehong in the Zhejiang Middle School had a major disagreement on the four haves and four have-nots of Wang Yangming's "Four Sentences".

The two argued endlessly about this issue during Yangming's lifetime, and Wang Ji and Wang Gen's ideas tended towards Zen, so they were naturally criticized by people like Zou Shouyi who adhered to Wang's school of thought.

The second is that they violated the teacher's teachings. Except for the "respect-oriented school" represented by Zou Shouyi, which adhered more strictly to Wang Yangming's principles, other schools of thought almost all gave their own interpretations to Wang Yangming's concepts such as "reaching the conscience" and "investigating things", so there were differences such as "nihilism school", "daily use school", "tranquility school" and "matters school".

Among them, the most influential were the "nihilistic school" and the "daily use school". Huang Zongxi made a special criticism of these two schools: "Mr. Yangming's teachings became popular all over the world because of Taizhou and Longxi, but also gradually lost their tradition because of Taizhou and Longxi. Taizhou and Longxi were often dissatisfied with their teacher's teachings, and they became more and more aware of Gautama's secrets and returned to their teacher, and they became like Yangming and became Zen."

It can be said that the popularity of Yangming's doctrine was largely due to the ideas of the "Nihilism School" and the "Daily Use School". However, due to its excessive transformation and incarnation into Zen, the original appearance of the School of Mind was obscured.

  Speaking of which, Wang Yangming himself had specifically criticized some overly false statements in Buddhist and Taoist doctrines. I wonder if he would be angry about the misinterpretation of his original theories by his later disciples if he knew about this?

The third is that it is empty. In the late Ming Dynasty, the society was in crisis, the economy was in recession, wars were frequent, and the building was about to collapse. What the society called for was a practical person who could reform bad policies, fight the enemy, and rectify the society. However, most of Wang's followers were empty lip service.

This is also very touching, because Wang Yangming had a premonition of this when he was alive. He said: "My theory of conscience was obtained through a thousand deaths and thousands of difficulties. It is not easy to see this. This is the ultimate topic for scholars, but unfortunately this principle has been buried for a long time. Scholars suffer from the obstruction of hearing and seeing, and have no way to get started. I have no choice but to tell you everything. But I am afraid that scholars will only play with it and let this knowledge down."

It's really unfortunate that what the gentleman said turned out to be true.

Unfortunately, Wang Xue's fate came true as predicted by him. After his death, Wang Xue gradually became empty and no longer worked on his cultivation. He just "imagined" and forgot his master's heroic feat of the Siping Rebellion.

Gu Yanwu fiercely criticized the empty style of Wang's school of thought: "There have been cases in ancient times where one person changed the world and the trend lasted for more than a hundred years. The pure talk of Wang Yifu and the new theory of Wang Jiefu are the result of Wang Bo'an's conscience in the present."

He compared Wang Yangming to Wang Dao of the Jin Dynasty and Wang Anshi of the Song Dynasty, and believed that the demise of the Ming Dynasty was fundamentally caused by the "new theory" initiated by Wang Yangming.

Of course, it is simplistic and arbitrary to attribute the country's demise to a certain person more than a hundred years ago, but it also indirectly shows that the malpractices of Yangming's philosophy of mind have far-reaching consequences.

  Yangming's Philosophy of Mind is essentially a practical philosophy of "unity of knowledge and action". As Mou Zhongjian said, "Yangming's Philosophy of Mind is not a study philosophy, nor is it simply a product of logical deduction. It is also the product of his deep understanding of the painful experiences of society and life. Wang's philosophy is a philosophy of life and practice, which is very necessary for accurately grasping the inner spirit of Wang's philosophy." Now you all know that "come from the masses and go to the masses" is such a great judgment and guiding light, right?

Back to the study of the mind, from the external perspective, the study of the mind also faces several major problems:

The first is official suppression. As a new school of thought, Yaojiang School of Mind challenged the official Zhu Xi School and posed a potential threat to the stability of the court, so it was naturally suppressed.

Earlier, Emperor Jiajing had denounced Yangming's doctrine as a "heretical book" and issued a special decree "from now on, people should follow the teachings of Cheng and Zhu when selecting scholars" to consolidate the status of orthodox official learning.

The "inner sage" learning promoted by Yangming's philosophy of mind of "attaining the conscience" liberated individuals from the constraints of ethics and made people pay more attention to individual experience. As a result, it was retaliated by opposition forces in the court and was labeled as "heresy", "rebellion", "heterodox learning" and "heresy".

Although Wang's school of thought was recognized by the upper echelons of the imperial court in the first year of Longqing, as mentioned in the previous chapter of this book, there were a large number of Xinxue disciples in the cabinet from Xu Jie onwards, who, if not in control of the government, at least had a strong influence on it. However, many of the Xinxue disciples were retaliated and suppressed by their political enemies, resulting in a large number of Wang's school of thought followers who were officials being demoted or imprisoned.

For example, Qian Dehong of the Zhejiang School was impeached and imprisoned. He never held an official position for thirty years from his release until his death. Wang Ji was denounced as a "pseudo-learning villain", which led him to resign and live in seclusion for forty years. Peng Jishan was demoted for the second time and returned home. Luo Nian'an was demoted to a commoner for his direct criticism, etc. Under such suppression, the influence of Wang's school gradually weakened.

  [Note: The suppression here was mainly done by the court headed by Zhang Juzheng. Gao Gong did less because he was in power for a shorter period of time. However, from the perspective of the court, whether it is Gao Gong or Zhang Juzheng, there is nothing wrong with doing so.]

The second is the criticism of the Neo-Confucianists. Gu Xiancheng criticized Wang Yangming's "no good and no evil" for taking good as evil and evil as good, "which is a hidden destruction of the real teachings in our Confucianism", and a corruption of the rituals and laws; he also denied the universal significance of "the heart is the reason", believing that only saints can achieve "the heart is the reason", and ordinary people who use it "will inevitably become self-centered and self-serving, relying on their intelligence, despising the ancient saints, and commenting on the Six Classics without any scruples."

As the descendant of Ouyang De, Gu Xiancheng criticized Wang Yangming as the leader of the Donglin Party, which was a great blow to the School of Mind. Gao Panlong, another leader of the Donglin Party, and Gu Xiancheng criticized Wang Yangming's school of thought, believing that "the body of the heart without good or evil" destroyed the orthodox teachings and was "the way to great chaos". They also criticized Wang Yangming's "enlightenment in Longchang", saying that what he realized was the purpose of Buddhism and Taoism, not the purpose of Confucianism, which fundamentally denied Wang Yangming's school of thought.

Gu and Gao's criticism of Wang Yangming became the initiator of the criticism, liquidation and attack on Wang's school of thought by scholars in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Later, a group of successors including Zhang Yangyuan, Lu Jiashu, Zhang Wucheng, Huang Zongxi, Lu Futing, Gu Yanwu, Zhang Boxing and Wang Fuzhi criticized and reflected on Wang's school of thought to varying degrees.

In the early Qing Dynasty, Yan Yuan even put forward the astonishing statement of "killing the world with academic knowledge" to criticize Wang's school of thought. This was tantamount to cutting off the fuel supply for Wang's school of thought, which was "killing it as soon as possible".

The third is the rise of the trend of practical learning. If the rise of Yangming's philosophy of mind was to cure the shortcomings of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, which was fragmented and lifeless, then the rise of "practical learning" was to cure the shortcomings of Yangming's philosophy of mind, which was empty and nihilistic.

Facing internal and external troubles, the late Ming Dynasty's political crisis of "losing the country" forced a group of scholars to call for practical application. Not to mention those in the court, the representative figures in the literati were Huang Zongxi, Gu Yanwu, Fang Yizhi, Wang Fuzhi, etc.

They emphasized "learning for practical use", opposed empty talk about the mind, criticized the spirit of "keeping books without reading, and talking without basis", and advocated the spirit of "being pragmatic". Although it was a revision of Wang's school of thought, it also accelerated the decline of Wang's school of thought in disguise.

The fourth is the change of dynasties. The Qing Dynasty believed that the feudal ethics system represented by the principle of heaven constructed by Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism could better maintain its rule, so it vigorously promoted and praised Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism like the Ming court.

For example, Kangxi praised Zhu Xi generously: "Zhu Xi, a Confucian scholar in the Song Dynasty, annotated various classics and expounded on principles. All the books he wrote and compiled are clear and accurate, and they are all in the right direction. For 500 years, no scholar has dared to criticize them. I think that among those who have contributed to literature since Confucius and Mencius, Zhu Xi has made the greatest contribution."

The "Essence of Nature and Principle" compiled under his personal guidance and the reprinted "Complete Collection of Nature and Principle" became "tools to control people's thoughts."

In fact, if that was all they did, it would be understandable, but the problem is that the Qing dynasty did more than that. These "small clans bullying big clans" ruling class also launched literary inquisitions, eliminated individuality, and destroyed the soil for the survival of the mind, making the land of China dead in terms of thought.

In contrast, Yangming's philosophy of mind was brought to Japan by Zen Master An Keigo, where it was fully disseminated and developed and became the ideological foundation of the Meiji Restoration.

Why do I have to say so much about the topic of Xinxue? Because without saying this, I cannot explain Gao Youshi’s position:

The School of Mind could not enter the imperial court system, but it must be allowed to spread among the people.

  If they enter the imperial court and affect the administration, the operation of the imperial court will be in chaos. Once all or most officials start to become Buddhists and sit back and only talk about their character, who will do anything? If the imperial court does nothing, there will be no chaos in the world!

However, it is necessary for the philosophy of mind to spread among the people, because the people cannot become stagnant. We must adhere to the social mechanism of "why the water is so clear? Because it comes from a source of living water", so that people can give play to their imagination, enrich their spiritual world, and ultimately produce more innovative talents among the people through the emancipation of their minds.

Some people may say, that's not right, aren't most of the current innovations coming from the Jinghua system, the vanguard of the practical school? Why should we encourage the spread of Xinxue among the people?

This topic is a bit too Chi - yin and yang are indispensable.

Jinghua, the pioneer of the practical learning school, did make many inventions, but the premise was that Gao Youshi was providing direction. However, Gao Youshi would die one day, and it was hard to say whether Jinghua could continue to play such a role after his death.

After all, Gao Youshi himself is now very wary of Jinghua's monopoly model. He believes that it cannot last long and cannot be allowed to last long. Sooner or later, he will have to split up Jinghua with his own hands, otherwise it will become a problem.

Since Gao Yousi believed that the Jinghua system was too monopolistic, not conducive to competition, and even not conducive to ideological liberation, the liberation of thought and personality could only be done by the School of Mind, which had a somewhat liberal tendency.

In summary, Gao Yousi believes that the ideal state of Chinese civilization should be: Xinxue is responsible for hypothesis, and Shixue is responsible for verification; Xinxue is responsible for prospection, and Shixue is responsible for implementation.

In short, Gao Youshi did not expect or want to "kill Xinxue". He only hoped that Xinxue would not interfere with administration, because governing a country always requires real practical work.

The outbreak of the Confucius Temple edict announcement today was originally supposed to be delayed a little in Gao Youshi's scheduled plan, and should have occurred after the Fengshan Ceremony, but the emperor did it earlier for some reason, so Gao Youshi was a little surprised.

Fortunately, the problem was not serious. The decree of the Fengshan Ceremony stated that this matter was announced to the world, while the decree of the Confucius Temple was announced to the scholars. It can only be said that Gao Youshi believed that this was a major event concerning the people of the world, while the emperor was more traditional and believed that this was only a major event for scholars.

  There was some impact, but it was within controllable range. That was why Gao Youshi did not dissuade or stop him, and let the emperor do it. That was all.
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PS: I have completed the game Black Monkey, so you don't need to be so obsessed with the second round. I will start writing about the Fengshan Ceremony in the next chapter. Detailed information on the Fengshan rituals is still difficult to find, so I may not be able to write it in such detail and in a reasonable way. I apologize in advance, and I hope everyone will forgive me.