Record of Teaching and Practice
Reply to Gu Dongqiao · Continued
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132 · Knowing and Acting Advance Together
Your letter says: “You explain that knowing and acting advance together and should not be divided into what comes first and what comes later. This is the work described in the Doctrine of the Mean as ‘honoring one's moral nature and following the path of inquiry and learning’: they nourish each other and call each other forth, and a single thread runs through inner and outer, root and branches. Yet the stages of practical work cannot be without a difference of before and after. One knows food before eating it, knows a drink before drinking it, knows clothing before putting it on, and knows the road before walking it. There has never been such an activity before its object was encountered. This priority may occupy only the slightest, fleeting interval. I do not mean that the two are separated into distinct stages, so that one knows something today and acts on it only tomorrow.”
Since you have already said that they “nourish each other and call each other forth, and a single thread runs through inner and outer, root and branches,” there should be no further doubt about knowing and acting advancing together. Yet you also say that “the stages of practical work cannot be without a difference of before and after.” Are you not contradicting yourself?
Your examples about knowing food before eating it are especially clear and easy to see through. It is only because recently received teachings obstruct you that you have not examined them for yourself. A person must first have the desire to eat, and only then know food. This desire to eat is intention; it is already the beginning of acting. As for knowing whether the food tastes good or bad, one must wait until it enters the mouth. Can anyone know its good or bad taste before it has entered the mouth?
A person must have the desire to travel before knowing a road. The desire to travel is intention; it is already the beginning of acting. As for knowing whether the road's turns and branches are dangerous or easy, one must personally walk them and experience them. Can anyone know their danger or ease without personally traveling them? Apply this reasoning to “knowing a drink before drinking it” and “knowing clothing before putting it on,” and nothing doubtful remains. The situation in your comparison would itself amount to the very thing you deny: having the activity before encountering its object.
You add that “this priority may occupy only the slightest, fleeting interval; I do not mean that the two are separated into distinct stages, so that one knows something today and acts on it only tomorrow.” Here, too, your examination is not yet sufficiently exact. Even on your own account, however, there can certainly be no doubt that knowing and acting are one and advance together.
Reading note: In the reply's repetition of the sentence about before and after, the current source has an extra negative, 不能不无, unlike the wording in the incoming letter. The English follows the objection as first stated; the Chinese source is unchanged.
133 · Mind and Principle Are One
Your letter says: “‘Genuine knowing is itself the means of acting; without acting, it does not deserve the name of knowing.’ This is acceptable as an urgent teaching addressed to students, so that they devote themselves to personal practice. But if you really mean that acting itself is knowing, I fear that exclusive pursuit of the original mind will lead to neglect of the principles of things, leaving obscure points that cannot be understood. Could this be the established teaching of the sages' school, in which knowing and acting advance together?”
Where knowing is genuine, earnest, substantial, and firm, it is acting. Where acting is lucidly aware and exact in its examination, it is knowing. The work of knowing and acting cannot originally be separated. It is only because later students divided their effort into two sections and lost the original constitution of knowing and acting that I have spoken of their being one and advancing together. “Genuine knowing is itself the means of acting; without acting, it does not deserve the name of knowing”: this can be seen even in your own examples about knowing food before eating it, which I discussed briefly above. Although I speak urgently to remedy an abuse, knowing and acting are originally constituted in this way. I am not arbitrarily raising one and lowering the other, provisionally making an argument in the hope of securing a momentary result.
As for “exclusively pursuing the original mind and thereby neglecting the principles of things,” that would mean having lost one's original mind. The principles of things do not lie outside my mind. If I seek the principles of things apart from my mind, there are no principles of things to be found; if I neglect the principles of things in seeking my mind, what sort of mind would that be? The constitution of the mind is nature, and nature is principle. Thus, where there is a mind devoted to serving one's parents with filial devotion, there is the principle of filial devotion. Without that mind, there is no such principle. Where there is a mind devoted to serving one's ruler loyally, there is the principle of loyalty. Without that mind, there is no such principle. How could principle lie outside my mind?
Hui'an says: “What people have to learn amounts to mind and principle. Although mind governs a single person, it actually encompasses the principles of all under Heaven. Although principle is dispersed among the myriad affairs, it actually does not lie outside a single person's mind.” Yet in separating and then joining them in this way, he has already opened the way for students to make mind and principle into two things. Later students' danger of “exclusively pursuing the original mind and thereby neglecting the principles of things” comes precisely from their failure to know that mind is principle.
It is seeking the principles of things outside the mind that creates obscure points one cannot understand. This is Gaozi's doctrine that rightness is external, for which Mencius said that he did not understand rightness. There is only the one mind. Speaking of its whole being as compassionate concern, we call it benevolence. Speaking of its appropriateness, we call it rightness. Speaking of its coherent order, we call it principle. If one cannot seek benevolence outside the mind, and cannot seek rightness outside the mind, could principle alone be sought outside it? Seeking principle outside the mind is what makes knowing and acting into two things. Seeking principle in my own mind is the sages' teaching that knowing and acting are one. What further doubt can you have?
134 · Realizing, Preserving, and Establishing
Your letter says: “In interpreting the old text of the Great Learning, you speak of extending the knowing of its original constitution. This is indeed the purport of Mencius's ‘fully realizing the mind.’ Master Zhu, too, takes empty, responsive awareness as the capacity of this mind. Yet ‘fully realizing the mind’ proceeds from ‘knowing nature,’ and ‘extending knowledge’ lies in ‘investigating things.’”
“Fully realizing the mind proceeds from knowing nature, and extending knowledge lies in investigating things”: these words are right. But when I trace what you intend by them, I find that the grounds on which you say this are not yet clear. Master Zhu identifies “fully realizing the mind, knowing nature, and knowing Heaven” with “things investigated and knowledge extended”; “preserving the mind, nourishing nature, and serving Heaven” with “making intention sincere, rectifying the mind, and cultivating the person”; and “not being of two minds about a short or long life, cultivating oneself and awaiting what comes” with “knowledge consummated and benevolence fully realized, the work of the sage.” My own view is precisely the reverse.
“Fully realizing the mind, knowing nature, and knowing Heaven” belong to knowing from birth and acting at ease: the work of the sage. “Preserving the mind, nourishing nature, and serving Heaven” belong to knowing through learning and acting with a ready sense of its benefit: the work of the worthy. “Not being of two minds about a short or long life, cultivating oneself and awaiting what comes” belong to knowing through difficulty and acting through effort: the work of the student. How can “fully realizing the mind and knowing nature” be assigned exclusively to knowing, and “preserving the mind and nourishing nature” exclusively to acting? Hearing this suddenly, you will no doubt again find it startling. Yet there is really nothing doubtful about it. Let me explain each part.
The constitution of the mind is nature; the source of nature is Heaven. Being able fully to realize one's mind is being able fully to realize one's nature. The Doctrine of the Mean says: “Only the utmost sincerity under Heaven can fully realize its nature.” It also says: “Knowing the transforming and nourishing work of Heaven and Earth, and submitting it to the spirits without doubt: this is knowing Heaven.” Only a sage can be like this. Thus I say: this is knowing from birth and acting at ease, the work of the sage.
Someone who preserves the mind has not yet fully realized it, and must therefore add the work of preservation. Only when the mind has been preserved for a long time, so that it is always preserved without having to depend on a deliberate act of preserving, can one go further and speak of full realization. The word “knowing” in “knowing Heaven” is like the same word in “administering a prefecture” or “administering a county.” For one who administers a prefecture, the prefecture's affairs are all one's own affairs; for one who administers a county, the county's affairs are all one's own affairs. This is being one with Heaven. “Serving Heaven,” by contrast, is like a son serving his father or a minister serving his ruler: one still stands as two with Heaven. What Heaven has bestowed upon me is mind and nature. I simply preserve it without daring to lose it, nourish it without daring to injure it, just as “parents bring one forth whole, and the child returns oneself to them whole.” Thus I say: this is knowing through learning and acting with a ready sense of its benefit, the work of the worthy.
“Not being of two minds about a short or long life” is another stage removed from preserving the mind. Although someone who preserves the mind has not fully realized it, that person is already single-minded in doing good. When preservation lapses, one simply preserves it again. But to tell someone now “not to be of two minds about a short or long life” means that short or long life still divides that person's mind. If short or long life still divides the mind, the mind directed toward goodness is not yet one. Even preservation is not yet secure: how could one speak of full realization?
For the present one is told not to let a short or long life divide the mind directed toward goodness. It is as though one says: “Death and life, a short life and a long one, all have their allotted decree. I will simply be single-minded in doing good, cultivate myself, and await Heaven's decree.” This means that in ordinary life one has not yet known the existence of Heaven's decree. Although “serving Heaven” still means standing as two with Heaven, one already genuinely knows where Heaven's decree lies, and has only to receive and serve it reverently. To speak of “awaiting it,” however, means that one does not yet genuinely know where Heaven's decree lies and still has something to await. Hence the expression “the means of establishing one's decree.”
“Establishing” here is the establishing of creating something, as in establishing virtue, establishing words, establishing achievement, or establishing a name. Whenever we speak of establishing, we mean that something which did not previously exist is now first set up. This is what Confucius means by “Without knowing the decree, one has no means of becoming a gentleman.” Thus I say: this is knowing through difficulty and acting through effort, the work of the student.
Now, if “fully realizing the mind, knowing nature, and knowing Heaven” are treated as “investigating things and extending knowledge,” beginners whose minds are still divided are suddenly charged with the sage's knowing from birth and acting at ease. It is like catching the wind or grasping a shadow. Bewildered, they do not know where to place their minds. How long before this amounts to “leading the whole world down that road”? The abuses of today's teaching about extending knowledge and investigating things are already plainly visible. Is not what you call “attending to the outer and neglecting the inner, extensive yet deficient in essentials” also this very fault?
This is the most crucial point in learning. An error here will make for error wherever one goes. This is why I have faced the world's condemnation and ridicule, forgotten the danger of punishment and death to myself, and kept speaking insistently, unable to stop.
Reading note: The final quotation has the uncertain wording 率天下而路 in the current source. “Leading the whole world down that road” retains its road image and the surrounding warning without silently substituting a different Chinese quotation. The source's attribution of the earlier words to the Doctrine of the Mean is also retained.
135 · Extending Innate Moral Knowing into Affairs
Your letter says: “I hear that, when speaking to students, you even call ‘approaching things and exhausting their principles’ an absorption in things that loses one's purpose. You also select several sayings about ‘tiring of complexity and seeking simplicity’ and ‘nourishing the original source,’ display them to students, and identify them as the settled conclusions of Master Zhu's later years. I fear this, too, is incorrect.”
What Master Zhu calls “investigating things” lies in “approaching things and exhausting their principles.” Approaching things and exhausting principle means seeking what is called a fixed principle in each and every affair and thing. It means using my mind to seek principle within those affairs and things, thereby splitting mind and principle into two.
Seeking principle in each affair and thing would be like seeking the principle of filial devotion in one's parents. If one seeks the principle of filial devotion in one's parents, does that principle actually lie in my mind, or does it lie in my parents' persons? Suppose it really lies in my parents' persons: after my parents die, would my mind then have no principle of filial devotion?
On seeing a child about to fall into a well, there must be a principle of compassion. Does that principle actually lie in the child's person, or in my mind's innate moral knowing? Perhaps I must not follow the child into the well; perhaps I can reach out a hand and rescue the child. These are all what we call principle. Do they actually lie in the child's person, or do they issue from my mind's innate moral knowing? Apply this example to everything else, and the principles of the myriad affairs and things are all like this. From it we can know the error of splitting mind and principle into two.
Splitting mind and principle into two is Gaozi's doctrine that rightness is external, which Mencius so deeply rejected. You have already recognized “attending to the outer and neglecting the inner, extensive yet deficient in essentials.” What, in fact, does that description mean? Would you still object to calling it absorption in things that loses one's purpose?
What I call “extending knowledge and investigating things” means extending my mind's innate moral knowing into each and every affair and thing. My mind's innate moral knowing is precisely what is called Heaven's principle. When I extend the Heaven's principle of my mind's innate moral knowing into each and every affair and thing, each affair and thing gains its proper principle. Extending my mind's innate moral knowing is extending knowledge. Each affair and thing gaining its proper principle is investigating things. This is joining mind and principle as one. Once mind and principle are joined as one, everything I have said above, together with Master Zhu's discussions in his later years, can be understood without further explanation.
136 · Learning Is Already Practice
Your letter says: “The constitution of the human mind is originally clear in every respect, but it is constrained by qi and obscured by things, so that few minds remain unclouded. Unless one uses learning, inquiry, reflection, and discrimination to clarify the principles of all under Heaven, one cannot become aware for oneself of the beginnings of good and evil or the distinction between the genuine and the false. The harm of indulging feelings and giving intention free rein is beyond expression.”
In broad outline this passage appears right but is not. It inherits an abuse of received teaching, and must be examined. Inquiry, reflection, discrimination, and acting are all means of learning. There has never been learning without acting. To speak of learning filial devotion means undertaking work and providing care, personally practicing the filial way; only then do we call it learning. Could merely talking about it, suspended in the empty space between mouth and ear, be called learning filial devotion?
To learn archery one must draw a bow, take up arrows, pull to full stretch, and hit the target. To learn writing one must spread out paper, hold a brush, take up the writing materials, and put ink to them. Of all the learning in the world, none can be called learning without acting. The beginning of learning is therefore already acting. “Earnest” means substantial, firm, and deeply committed. One is already acting, and makes that acting more earnest without letting the work cease: that is all it means.
Learning cannot be free of doubt, and so there is inquiry. Inquiry is learning and is acting. Doubt may still remain, and so there is reflection. Reflection is learning and is acting. Doubt may still remain, and so there is discrimination. Discrimination is learning and is acting. When discrimination has become clear, reflection careful, inquiry thorough, and learning capable, one continues without ceasing one's effort: this is what is called earnest practice. It does not mean beginning to put things into action only after learning, inquiry, reflection, and discrimination are over.
Thus, speaking of seeking the ability to do something, we call it learning; of seeking to resolve its doubts, inquiry; of seeking to understand its account, reflection; of seeking exactness in its examination, discrimination; and of seeking to carry out its reality, acting. Distinguished by their work, they are five; joined as an undertaking, they are only one. This is precisely where my account of mind and principle as one, and of knowing and acting advancing together, differs from later teachings.
You now single out learning, inquiry, reflection, and discrimination as the means of exhausting the principles of all under Heaven, without mentioning earnest practice. You are thus assigning learning, inquiry, reflection, and discrimination exclusively to knowing, and saying that exhausting principle contains no acting. Is there any learning in the world without acting? Can anything be called exhausting principle without acting?
Mingdao says: “Simply exhaust principle, and you fully realize nature and reach the decree.” Therefore, only by carrying benevolence to the utmost in being benevolent can one be said to exhaust the principle of benevolence; only by carrying rightness to the utmost in being right can one be said to exhaust the principle of rightness. Carrying benevolence to its utmost fully realizes the nature of benevolence; carrying rightness to its utmost fully realizes the nature of rightness. Learning that reaches the exhaustion of principle has reached its utmost. Could there be such a thing in the world that has still not been put into action? Knowing that one cannot learn without acting is therefore knowing that one cannot exhaust principle without acting. Knowing that one cannot exhaust principle without acting is knowing that knowing and acting are one and advance together, and cannot be divided into two separate undertakings.
The principles of the myriad affairs and things do not lie outside my mind. To insist instead on “exhausting the principles of all under Heaven” seems to take my mind's innate moral knowing as insufficient, so that I must seek broadly throughout the world to supplement and increase it. This is still splitting mind and principle into two.
The work of learning, inquiry, reflection, discrimination, and earnest practice may involve such difficulty and effort that where others do something once, I do it a hundred times. Yet even when its expansion reaches the utmost of fully realizing nature and knowing Heaven, it amounts only to extending my mind's innate moral knowing. What slightest addition could there be beyond innate moral knowing? If you insist on exhausting the principles of all under Heaven without knowing to turn back and seek in your own mind, then apart from my mind's innate moral knowing, where could you direct your attentive examination of the beginnings of good and evil or the distinctions between the genuine and the false?
What you call constraint by qi and obscuration by things are constraint and obscuration of this very knowing. If you now want to remove its obscuration but do not know to apply effort here, and instead wish to seek outside, it is like someone with dim eyes who neglects medicine and proper treatment for the eyes, and vainly wanders about seeking clarity outside them. Can clarity be obtained from outside? The harm of indulging feelings and giving intention free rein also comes only from failing to examine Heaven's principle precisely in this mind's innate moral knowing. This truly is an error in which the slightest difference becomes a divergence of a thousand miles. It cannot be left without discrimination. Please do not regard my discussion as excessively severe.
137 · Rectifying Things and Exhausting Principle
Your letter says: “If you teach people to extend knowledge and make bright virtue manifest, yet warn them against approaching things and exhausting principle, can you really enable dull and benighted people, dwelling in seclusion and sitting upright without hearing instruction, to attain extended knowledge and manifest virtue? Even if they have some awareness in stillness and gain a little awakening to their original nature, this is still an insight into concentration and wisdom that has no practical use. Could they really understand past and present, comprehend changing events, and have something substantial to apply to the world and the state? You say: ‘Knowing is the substance of intention; things are the function of intention; and the ge of investigating things is the ge of correcting what is wrong in the ruler's mind.’ Although these words show extraordinary insight, arrive at an understanding of your own, and do not merely tread in received views, I fear they do not fit the Way.”
My account of extending knowledge and investigating things is precisely a means of exhausting principle. I have never warned people against exhausting principle, telling them to dwell in seclusion, sit upright, and do nothing at all. I object only if “approaching things and exhausting principle” means, as explained above, attending to the outer and neglecting the inner.
If dull and benighted people can, in response to every affair and thing, precisely examine the Heaven's principle of this mind and extend their original innate moral knowing, then however foolish they are, they must become clear; however weak, they must become strong. The great root will be established and the common Way will be put into practice. The nine guiding rules and everything belonging to them can be threaded together as one, with nothing left out. What need is there to worry that they have nothing substantial to apply?
Those who cling to empty quietude fail precisely to examine this mind's Heaven's principle in response to every affair and thing and to extend their original innate moral knowing. They discard human relationships and take extinction and emptiness as their constant abode. That is why, in the end, they cannot govern family, state, and world. Who says the sages' learning of exhausting principle and fully realizing nature suffers from the same defect?
The mind is the master of the person. Its empty responsiveness and lucid awareness are what we call original innate moral knowing. When this empty, responsive, lucidly aware innate moral knowing moves in response to what affects it, we call that intention. There is intention only after there is knowing; without knowing, there is no intention. Is knowing not the substance of intention?
Wherever intention functions, it must have its thing; “thing” means an affair. If intention functions in serving parents, serving parents is a thing. If intention functions in governing the people, governing the people is a thing. If intention functions in reading books, reading books is a thing. If intention functions in hearing lawsuits, hearing lawsuits is a thing. There is no functioning of intention without a thing. With this intention there is this thing; without this intention there is no such thing. Are things not the function of intention?
Among the explanations of the word ge is “arriving,” as in “he arrived at the temple of the accomplished ancestor” and “the Miao came and arrived.” In these, ge is explained as arriving. Yet “arriving at the temple of the accomplished ancestor” requires pure filial devotion, sincerity, and reverence, so that throughout the hidden and visible realms nothing fails to gain its principle: only then is it called arriving. The obstinate Miao, too, arrived only after civil virtue had been spread far and wide. Thus the meaning of rectifying is also included; “arriving” alone cannot exhaust it.
In expressions such as “rectifying his wrong mind” and “a great minister rectifies what is wrong in the ruler's mind,” the meaning is entirely that of rectifying what is not right and returning it to rightness. They cannot be explained by “arriving.” Moreover, how do we know that the ge of “investigating things” in the Great Learning is not to be explained as “rectifying,” and must mean “arriving”? If one takes it as arriving, one has to say “exhaustively arriving at the principles of affairs and things” before the explanation makes sense. The essential point of applying effort then lies entirely in the added word “exhaustively,” and the place where effort is applied lies entirely in the added word “principles.” Remove “exhaustively” from the beginning and “principles” from the end, and simply say “extending knowledge lies in arriving at things”: does that make sense?
“Exhausting principle and fully realizing nature” is an established teaching of the sages, found in the Appended Statements. If “investigating things” really meant precisely “exhausting principle,” why did the sages not simply say “extending knowledge lies in exhausting principle”? Why insist on such a roundabout and incomplete expression, opening the way to later abuses?
Although the Great Learning's “investigating things” and the Appended Statements' “exhausting principle” have the same general purport, there is a slight distinction. “Exhausting principle” includes investigating things, extending knowledge, making intention sincere, and rectifying the mind as its work. Thus, when exhausting principle is mentioned, all four kinds of work are contained in it. But when investigating things is mentioned, extending knowledge, making intention sincere, and rectifying the mind must also be named before the work is complete and closely integrated.
To single out “investigating things” and identify it with “exhausting principle” is therefore to assign exhausting principle exclusively to knowing, and to say that investigating things never contains acting. This loses not only the meaning of investigating things but also the meaning of exhausting principle. Here is the actual beginning of later learning's division of knowing and acting into two sections, one earlier and one later. Day by day the teaching becomes more fragmented and torn apart, and the learning of the sages becomes more damaged and obscure. You, too, have perhaps not escaped inherited habits. Given those habits, it is understandable that you should think my account “does not fit the Way.”
Reading note: The source's 昏訚 is read through its opening description of benighted students; 繄辞 is treated as the title Appended Statements. The attribution of “exhausting principle and fully realizing nature” is retained as written, although the received Changes places that phrase in Explaining the Trigrams. The stray less-than sign before the Miao clause has no translated content. No Chinese text is altered.
138 · Intention, Knowing, and the Affair Itself
Your letter says: “You seem to say that the work of extending knowledge—considering how to warm and cool one's parents and how to provide for them—is itself ‘making intention sincere,’ with no separate ‘investigating things.’ I fear this, too, is incorrect.”
This is an account you have made by using your own ideas to conjecture what I mean. It is not what I told you. If it really were as you describe, how could it make sense?
My view is that intending to warm and cool one's parents and intending to provide for them is what we call intention. It cannot yet be called making intention sincere. Only when one actually carries out the intention to warm and cool them and provide for them, seeking to be satisfied within oneself without self-deception, can it be called making intention sincere.
Knowing how to observe the proper measures in warming and cooling them, and knowing how to provide for them appropriately, is what we call knowing. It cannot yet be called extending knowledge. One must fully extend the knowing that knows the proper measures of warming and cooling, and actually warm and cool them by it; fully extend the knowing that knows the appropriate way to provide for them, and actually provide for them by it. Only then is it called extending knowledge.
The affair of warming and cooling them, and the affair of providing for them, are what we call things. They cannot yet be called things investigated. In warming and cooling them, one must act exactly as one's innate moral knowing knows the proper measures require, leaving not the slightest part unfulfilled. In providing for them, one must act exactly as one's innate moral knowing knows the appropriate care requires, leaving not the slightest part unfulfilled. Only then is it called investigating things.
Only after the thing involved in warming and cooling is rectified is the innate moral knowing that knows warming and cooling fully extended. Only after the thing involved in providing care is rectified is the innate moral knowing that knows providing care fully extended. Hence: “Only after things are investigated is knowledge extended.” Only after extending the innate moral knowing that knows warming and cooling does the intention to warm and cool become sincere. Only after extending the innate moral knowing that knows providing care does the intention to provide care become sincere. Hence: “Only after knowledge is extended is intention sincere.”
This, then, is my account of making intention sincere, extending knowledge, and investigating things. Think it over more fully, and I believe you will find nothing further to doubt.
139 · A Living Standard for Changing Circumstances
Your letter says: “The main outlines of the Way are easy to understand. They are what is meant by ‘innate moral knowing and innate ability, which even ordinary, unlearned men and women can attain.’ But as for the details of particular measures and changing circumstances, where a hair's breadth of error leads a thousand miles astray, one must learn before one can know. If filial devotion is described as warming and cooling one's parents and attending them at night and morning, who does not know it? Yet there are also such matters as Shun's marrying without informing his parents, King Wu's raising an army before burying his father, nourishing a parent's aspirations or merely nourishing the mouth, enduring a small stick or withdrawing from a large one, cutting flesh from one's thigh, and dwelling beside a parent's grave. In dealing with ordinary or exceptional circumstances, and distinguishing excess from insufficiency, one must discuss what is right and wrong and make that the basis of handling affairs. Only then can the mind's constitution be unobscured and one meet affairs without error.”
“The main outlines of the Way are easy to understand”: this is indeed true. But later students neglect what is easy to understand and fail to follow it, while seeking out what is difficult to understand and making that their learning. This is why “the Way lies near, yet they seek it far away; the affair lies in what is easy, yet they seek it in what is difficult.” Mencius says: “The Way is like a broad road. Is it difficult to know? People's trouble is simply that they do not follow it.”
In innate moral knowing and innate ability, ordinary, unlearned men and women are the same as sages. Only, the sage can extend this innate moral knowing, while ordinary men and women cannot. Here lies the distinction between sage and fool. Does the sage not know the particular measures and changing circumstances? Certainly; but the sage does not make these alone the object of learning. What the sage calls learning is precisely extending innate moral knowing in order to examine this mind's Heaven's principle with exact care. This differs from later learning. You have not yet taken time genuinely to know the extension of knowing, and already you are urgently worried about these other matters. This is precisely the obstruction of seeking what is difficult to understand and making it one's learning.
Innate moral knowing stands in relation to particular measures and changing circumstances as compass and square stand to circles and squares, and measuring instruments stand to length. Particular measures and changing circumstances cannot all be fixed beforehand, just as circles, squares, and lengths cannot all be exhausted. Once compass and square are truly established, one cannot be deceived about circularity and squareness, and the circles and squares of the world can be dealt with without end. Once the measuring standard is truly laid out, one cannot be deceived about long and short, and the world's lengths can be dealt with without end. Once innate moral knowing is truly extended, one cannot be deceived by particular measures and changing circumstances, and the world's particular measures and changing circumstances can be answered without end.
If one does not examine the hair's breadth that leads a thousand miles astray in the subtlety of a single thought of one's own mind's innate moral knowing, where else is one's learning to be applied? This would be trying to determine all the world's circles and squares without compass and square, or to exhaust all its lengths without a measuring standard. I see only distortion and contradiction, daily toil without accomplishment.
You say: “If filial devotion is described as warming and cooling one's parents and attending them at night and morning, who does not know it?” Yet few can extend that knowing. If a rough acquaintance with the forms of warming and cooling and attending at night and morning counts as extending one's knowing, then everyone who knows that a ruler should be benevolent can be said to have extended the knowing of benevolence; everyone who knows that a minister should be loyal can be said to have extended the knowing of loyalty. Who in the world would not have extended knowledge? From this it is clear that extending knowledge must lie in acting, and that without acting there can be no extending knowledge. Does the oneness of knowing and acting not become still more apparent?
When Shun married without informing his parents, had someone before Shun already married without informing his parents and established a rule, which Shun could therefore investigate in some canon or ask some person about before doing this? Or did he rather seek the genuine knowing in a single thought of his own mind, weigh what was appropriate in its relative importance, and do this because there was no other course? When King Wu raised an army before burying his father, had someone before him already done so and established a rule, which he could investigate in some canon or ask some person about before doing this? Or did he rather seek the innate moral knowing in a single thought of his own mind, weigh what was appropriate in its relative importance, and do this because there was no other course?
If Shun's mind had not been sincere in its concern about leaving no descendants, and King Wu's mind had not been sincere in its concern to rescue the people, then marrying without informing his parents and raising an army before burying his father would have been enormous acts of unfilial conduct and disloyalty. Yet later people do not devote themselves to extending their innate moral knowing so as precisely to examine rightness and principle in this mind's responses and exchanges. Instead they wish to discuss such departures from ordinary conduct in the abstract, take hold of them as the basis for handling affairs, and thereby seek to meet affairs without error. How far away this is! The other examples you raise can all be inferred by analogy. From this, too, the ancients' learning of extending knowledge can be understood.
140 · Hearing, Seeing, and the Single Thread
Your letter says: “To say that the Great Learning's ‘investigating things’ means exclusively seeking the original mind could perhaps be made to fit by a forced interpretation. But the Six Classics and Four Books also speak of ‘hearing much and seeing much,’ ‘earlier words and former conduct,’ ‘loving antiquity and being diligent in seeking,’ ‘learning broadly and inquiring carefully,’ ‘reviewing the old and knowing the new,’ ‘learning broadly and explaining in detail,’ and ‘loving to ask and loving to examine.’ All these plainly seek understanding amid actual affairs and draw help from discussion. The particular stages of applying effort surely cannot be confused.”
The meaning of investigating things has already been explained in detail. I imagine your doubt about “forced interpretation” no longer needs another explanation.
As for “hearing much and seeing much,” Confucius spoke in response to Zizhang's pursuit of externals and love of lofty attainments. Zizhang merely wanted to make hearing much and seeing much his learning. He could not seek within his own mind and set aside what was doubtful or precarious. That was why his words and conduct could not escape blame and regret. His so-called seeing and hearing merely supplied his pursuit of externals and love of lofty attainments. The words were therefore a remedy for Zizhang's disease of hearing much and seeing much, rather than instruction to make these his learning.
The Master once said: “There may be people who act without knowing. I do not do this.” This is like Mencius's meaning in “Everyone has the mind that distinguishes right and wrong.” These words precisely show that the innate moral knowing of one's moral nature does not come from hearing and seeing. To say “Hear much, choose what is good and follow it; see much and remember it” is to seek exclusively in the secondary branches of hearing and seeing. One has already fallen into a second rank. Hence he says: “This is the next best kind of knowing.” If knowledge acquired through hearing and seeing is secondary, what, then, does the highest knowing refer to? Here one can glimpse where the sages' school applies its effort in extending knowledge.
The Master said to Zigong: “Si, do you take me to be someone who learns much and remembers it? No. I thread it together with one.” If the truth really lay in “learning much and remembering it,” why would the Master make such a false statement to deceive Zigong? What could “threading it together with one” be, if not extending his innate moral knowing?
The Changes says: “The gentleman becomes widely acquainted with earlier words and former conduct, in order to accumulate virtue.” If accumulating virtue is one's intention, then what acquaintance with earlier words and former conduct is not an affair of accumulating virtue? This is precisely the work in which knowing and acting are one.
“Loving antiquity and being diligent in seeking” means loving the ancients' learning and diligently seeking this mind's principle. Mind is principle. Learning means learning this mind; seeking means seeking this mind. Mencius says: “The way of learning is nothing else: simply seek the mind that has been let go.” It does not mean, as in later times, extensively memorizing and reciting the ancients' words and expressions and calling that love of antiquity, while urgently seeking outside for instruments of achievement, fame, profit, and advancement.
“Learning broadly and inquiring carefully” has already been fully discussed. As for “reviewing the old and knowing the new,” Master Zhu himself assigns reviewing the old to honoring one's moral nature. Can moral nature be sought outside? Precisely because knowing the new must proceed from reviewing the old, and reviewing the old is the means of knowing the new, this also verifies that knowing and acting are not two separate stages.
“Learning broadly and explaining in detail” is done “in order to return and explain it in simplicity.” Without this return to simplicity, what undertaking would broad learning and detailed explanation be? Shun's “loving to ask and loving to examine” was simply a matter of applying the center and bringing refinement and oneness to the mind of the Way. The mind of the Way means innate moral knowing.
When has a gentleman's learning ever departed from actual affairs and abolished discussion? But all engagement with affairs and discussion must be work in which knowing and acting are one, precisely the means of extending the innate moral knowing of one's original mind. It is unlike the world's mere traffic in oral and aural talk taken as knowing, which divides knowing and acting into two affairs and then really has separate stages and a before and after to speak of.
Reading note: The current source writes 如之次也 in the quotation about secondary knowing. The English follows the immediately surrounding comparison of kinds of knowing; it does not replace the Chinese wording.
141 · Moral Knowing and Specialized Arts
Your letter says: “There are Yang and Mo practicing benevolence and rightness, village worthies confusing loyalty and trustworthiness, Yao, Shun, and Zizhi yielding the throne, Tang, King Wu, and Xiang of Chu banishing or overthrowing rulers, and the Duke of Zhou, Wang Mang, and Cao Cao serving as regents and assistants. Without verification, how can one know whom to follow? Moreover, if one has never investigated and learned about the changing events of past and present, rites and music, and the names and classifications of things, then if the state wishes to raise a Hall of Light, establish a Biyong academy, regulate the calendar and pitch standards, or draft the ceremonies of the feng and shan sacrifices, what could one put to use? Thus the explanation of ‘knowing from birth’ in the Analects refers only to rightness and principle. As for rites and music, the names and classifications of things, and changing events past and present, one must also learn them before being able to test their reality in actual conduct. This may be taken as a settled conclusion.”
The distinctions you raise concerning Yang, Mo, the village worthies, Yao, Shun, Zizhi, Tang, King Wu, Xiang of Chu, the Duke of Zhou, Wang Mang, and Cao Cao can in general be inferred by analogy from the earlier discussion of Shun and King Wu. As for doubts about changing events past and present, the comparison of innate moral knowing to compass, square, and measuring standards has already been given; there should be no need for much repetition. But the Hall of Light, Biyong, and such matters seem to require a few more words. The full discussion would be very long. For now, let us examine your own words and take their measure by them. Your perplexity may then be somewhat relieved.
The institutions of the Hall of Light and Biyong first appear in the Monthly Ordinances associated with Master Lü and in the explanations and commentaries of Han scholars. They are never described in detail in the Six Classics or Four Books. Was the knowledge of Master Lü and the Han scholars superior to that of the worthies and sages of the Three Dynasties?
In the time of King Xuan of Qi, a Hall of Light still stood undemolished. Thus in the ages of Kings You and Li, the Zhou Hall of Light must have remained intact. Under Yao and Shun there were thatched roofs and earthen steps; the full institution of the Hall of Light was not necessarily present, yet this did not prevent good government. The Hall of Light under You and Li was still the old one of Wen, Wu, Cheng, and Kang, yet it did nothing to save them from disorder. Why? Is it that, if one can “carry out government that cannot bear others' suffering, with a mind that cannot bear others' suffering,” even thatched roofs and earthen steps are truly a Hall of Light? But if one uses the minds of You and Li to carry out the government of You and Li, even a Hall of Light is a place from which oppressive government issues? Emperor Wu began discussing its construction under the Han, and Empress Wu made much of building it under the Tang. How did their government stand in regard to order and disorder?
The Son of Heaven's school is called Biyong; a feudal lord's school is called Pangong. These are only names modeled on the shapes of their sites. The essential purpose of the schools of the Three Dynasties, however, was to illuminate human relationships. It did not depend for its importance on whether a school had the complete surrounding water of the bi form or the partial water of the pan form.
Confucius says: “If a person is not benevolent, what can that person have to do with rites? If a person is not benevolent, what can that person have to do with music?” To institute rites and make music, one must possess the virtue of center and harmony, with one's voice serving as a pitch standard and one's person as a measure. Only then can one speak of this undertaking. As for the lesser details of instruments and numerical arrangements, these are the musician's business and the charge of invocators and scribes. Hence Zengzi says: “There are three things the gentleman values in the Way. As for the arrangements of ritual vessels, there are the responsible officers.”
When Yao ordered Xi and He to “reverently follow vast Heaven and calculate and represent the sun, moon, stars, and constellations,” the weight lay in “reverently delivering the people's seasons.” When Shun “examined the jeweled rotating instrument and jade sighting tube,” the weight lay in “bringing the seven governing bodies into accord.” These were all urgent applications of a mind benevolent toward the people to the government that nourished them. Here, certainly, lies the root of regulating the calendar and making the seasons clear.
Gao and Xie did not necessarily possess Xi and He's learning in calendrical calculation. Yu and Ji did not necessarily possess it. Even Yao and Shun, whose knowing did not cover every thing, did not necessarily possess it. Yet down to the present, people follow Xi and He's methods and refine them from generation to generation. Even someone of narrow knowledge and small cleverness, an astronomical practitioner of shallow attainments, can calculate the movements and observe the signs without error. Does that make later people of narrow knowledge and small cleverness superior to Yu, Ji, Yao, and Shun?
The doctrine of the feng and shan sacrifices is particularly without canonical foundation. It is a device by which flatterers and sycophants of later times sought to please their superiors, promoting extravagance to unsettle the ruler's mind and squander the state's resources. It is an enormous, shameless deception of Heaven and delusion of people, of which a gentleman will not speak. This is why Sima Xiangru has been criticized by the world and later generations. You now take it as something Confucian scholars ought to learn. Have you perhaps not thought it through?
The sage is a sage because of knowing from birth. Yet interpreters of the Analects say: “‘Knowing from birth’ refers only to rightness and principle. As for rites and music, the names and classifications of things, and changing events past and present, one must also learn them before being able to test their reality in actual conduct.” If rites and music, the names and classifications of things, and the like really concern the work of becoming a sage, and a sage must learn before being able to know them, then the sage cannot be said to know from birth. If knowing from birth refers exclusively to rightness and principle and excludes rites, music, names, and classifications, then these latter things do not concern the work of becoming a sage.
If what makes a sage one who knows from birth is exclusively rightness and principle rather than rites, music, names, and classifications, then those who “know through learning” should likewise learn to know this rightness and principle alone. Those who “know through difficulty” should likewise come through difficulty to know this rightness and principle alone. Students now seek to learn to be sages. Yet before they have learned to know what sages can know, they urgently pursue as their learning things even sages may not know. Have they not lost the way of aspiring to sagehood?
All these explanations merely take up your particular perplexities and distinguish them somewhat. They have not yet reached the discussion that pulls up the root and stops the source.
142 · One Body with Heaven, Earth, and All Things
Unless the discussion that pulls up the root and stops the source is made clear to the world, the learning of those who seek to become sages will grow more complex and more difficult by the day. People will sink to the condition of birds and beasts and alien peoples, while still taking this to be the learning of the sages. Even if my account becomes clear for a time, the thaw in the west will end in ice thickening in the east; fog will clear in front only for clouds to mass behind. I will speak insistently, live in danger and hardship, and die, yet in the end do nothing to help the world in the slightest.
The sage's mind takes Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things as one body. Looking upon the world's people, it makes no division of outer and inner, distant and near. All who have blood and breath are as close as siblings and infant children. There are none whom it does not wish to make safe, educate, and nourish, so as to fulfill its thought of one body with all things.
The minds of the world's people were originally no different from the sage's. It is only that the selfishness of having a separate self intrudes and the obscuration of material desires divides them. What was great becomes small; what was open becomes blocked. Each person has a separate mind, until some even look upon fathers, sons, and brothers as enemies. The sage is troubled by this, and therefore extends the benevolence of one body with Heaven, Earth, and all things in teaching the world, so that everyone may overcome selfishness, remove obscuration, and restore what is alike in the original constitution of their minds.
The main outline of that teaching is what Yao, Shun, and Yu handed down to one another: “The mind of the Way is subtle; be refined and be one; sincerely hold to the center.” Its particular provisions are the five things in Shun's charge to Xie: “Affection between father and son, rightness between ruler and minister, distinction between husband and wife, order between elder and younger, and trust between friends.” In the ages of Tang, Yu, and the Three Dynasties, teachers taught only this, and students learned only this.
At that time people had no divergent views and households no divergent practices. Those at ease in this were called sages; those who made efforts in it were called worthies. Those who turned their backs on it, even if as quick and intelligent as Zhu, were called unworthy. Down to the humble people of lanes, wells, and fields, farmers, artisans, merchants, and traders, everyone had this learning and made the completion of moral conduct their sole concern. Why? There was no miscellaneous burden of things heard and seen, no troublesome mass of memorized recitation, no extravagant overflow of literary composition, and no chase after achievement and profit. People were simply led to be filial to parents, respectful to elders, and trustworthy with friends, thereby restoring what was alike in the constitution of their minds. Since this is inherent in one's natural endowment and does not depend on anything borrowed from outside, who could be unable to do it?
Within the schools, completing virtue was the sole undertaking. Where abilities differed—some excelling in rites and music, some in government and education, some in water, soil, and planting—people's virtue was first brought to completion, and on that basis they were enabled to refine their abilities further within the schools. When virtue was recognized and appointments made, each person was allowed to remain in that office for life without being moved.
Those employing them knew only to unite in one mind and one virtue so as together to bring security to the world's people. They looked at whether a person's ability suited a task, without taking high or low status as the measure of importance, or ease and toil as the measure of desirability. Those serving likewise knew only to unite in one mind and one virtue so as together to bring security to the world's people. If a task suited their ability, they could spend their whole lives amid its complexities without regarding it as toil, and remain content with a lowly, minute responsibility without regarding it as degrading.
At that time the world's people were cheerful and expansive, regarding one another as members of one family. Those of lesser capacities were at ease in their allotted work as farmers, artisans, merchants, and traders. Each diligently pursued a livelihood, sustaining and nourishing one another, with no mind to hanker after what was lofty or look outside one's own work. Those of exceptional ability, such as Gao, Kui, Ji, and Xie, came forward and each put their ability to use.
It was like the work of one household: some provide clothing and food, some move supplies from where they are available to where they are lacking, some prepare utensils. They pool their plans and join their strength, seeking to fulfill their wish to serve those above and nurture those below. Their only fear is that whoever has charge of some task may slacken and so add to their own burden. Thus Ji diligently tended the crops without being ashamed that he did not know education: he regarded Xie's excellence in teaching as his own excellence in teaching. Kui directed music without being ashamed that he did not understand rites: he regarded Yi's mastery of rites as his own mastery of rites.
Because their learning of the mind was pure and clear, they could keep whole their benevolence of one body with all things. Their vital spirit flowed throughout, their intention and qi communicated freely, and there was no division between other and self, no barrier between things and oneself. It was like one person's body: the eyes see, the ears hear, the hands hold, and the feet walk, together fulfilling the uses of the whole body. The eyes are not ashamed of lacking hearing; wherever the ears reach, the eyes attend. The feet are not ashamed of lacking a grasp; wherever the hands reach out, the feet go forward. Since the original qi fills the whole and blood and vessels flow freely, itching, pain, and breathing, sensation and responsive awareness, have a wonderful mutual understanding that needs no words.
This is why the sages' learning was utterly easy and simple, easy to know and follow, easy to learn to perform, and conducive to the ready completion of ability. Its main outline lay precisely in restoring what is alike in the constitution of the mind. Accumulated knowledge and technical skills were not what determined this.
143 · Removing the Root of Profit-Seeking Learning
When the Three Dynasties declined, the kingly Way went out and the arts of hegemony blazed up. After Confucius and Mencius died, the sages' learning grew obscure and perverse doctrines spread unchecked. Teachers no longer taught this teaching, and students no longer learned this learning. Followers of the hegemons stole from the former kings whatever resembled their own aims, borrowing its outward form to serve their private desires within. The world bent before them and took them as its masters, and the sages' Way became overgrown and blocked.
People imitated one another, daily seeking doctrines for wealth and strength, schemes of deception, plans of attack and conquest, and every technique that deceives Heaven and deludes people, wins a momentary gain, and hunts down reputation and profit. Those in the line of Guan, Shang, Su, and Zhang became too numerous to name. Over time, the calamities of fighting, coercion, and plunder became unbearable. People sank to the condition of birds and beasts and alien peoples, and even the arts of hegemony ceased to work.
The world's Confucian scholars grieved deeply at this. They searched out the canons, rules, laws, and institutions of the former sage kings, gathering and patching together what remained among the ashes. Their intention was surely to bring back the Way of the former kings. But the sages' learning had become remote, and the transmission of the arts of hegemony had soaked in deeply over time. Even the worthy and the wise could not escape its influence. What they elucidated and embellished in the hope of spreading and restoring it in the world was enough only to enlarge the enclosing fences of the hegemons. The very gate and walls of the sages' learning could no longer be seen.
Thus arose a learning of glosses and textual explanations, transmitted as a source of renown; a learning of memorization and recitation, advertised as breadth; and a learning of literary composition, glorified as beauty. Such schools rose in noisy confusion, standing in rivalry throughout the world: who knows how many there were? There were ten thousand paths and a thousand tracks, with no knowing which to follow.
The world's students were like people entering an arena of assorted performances. Clamor, jesting, leaps, and capers; displays of marvels and contests of cleverness; efforts to win smiles and compete in charm—all burst forth from every side. Looking forward and glancing back, spectators had no time to respond to it all. Their ears and eyes were dazzled, their spirits bewildered. Day and night they wandered and lingered among it, like people stricken with madness who had lost their minds, no longer knowing where their own household and livelihood belonged. The rulers of the age were likewise confused and turned upside down by these doctrines, spending their whole lives on useless, empty ornament without knowing what their so-called undertaking meant.
Occasionally someone recognized the emptiness and error, fragmentation and entanglement, and rose above them through personal resolve, wishing to show results in actual affairs. But the furthest such people reached was still no more than wealth, strength, achievement, and profit: the business of the Five Hegemons. The sages' learning grew more remote and obscure by the day, while the habit of pursuing achievement and profit sank lower and lower.
Although people were at times dazzled and misled by Buddhism and Laozi, the doctrines of Buddhism and Laozi ultimately could not overcome their minds set on achievement and profit. Although they also tried at times to adjudicate among the Confucian scholars, those scholars' arguments ultimately could not break their outlook of achievement and profit. Down to the present, the poison of achievement and profit has seeped into the very marrow of people's minds, and repeated practice has almost become nature over these thousands of years.
People boast against one another in knowledge, press one another with power, contend for profit, rank themselves by technical abilities, and win one another over through reputation. When they enter office, the person managing money and grain wants also to control military affairs and punishments; the person in charge of rites and music wants also to take part in appointments and personnel. Serving in a prefecture or county, they long for the higher provincial offices; sitting among censors and remonstrants, they look toward the crucial posts of chief minister and executive councilor. Thus, unless they can do an office's work, they cannot hold that office as well; unless they understand a doctrine, they cannot claim its reputation. Extensive memorization only feeds their arrogance; abundant knowledge only enables their wrongdoing; broad hearing and seeing only give free rein to their disputation; rich literary expression only decorates their falsehood.
Affairs that even Gao, Kui, Ji, and Xie could not jointly master in each single person are now things every beginning student wants to discuss comprehensively and master in technique. They assume grand names and usurp titles, always saying, “I want to help bring the world's affairs to completion.” But where their actual sincerity and real intention lie is the belief that, without doing this, they cannot serve their private interests and satisfy their desires.
Alas! With such accumulated influence, such minds and purposes, and then such teachings and techniques set before them, it is natural that on hearing our sages' teaching they regard it as a useless growth or an ill-fitting peg and socket. That they should take innate moral knowing as insufficient and call the sages' learning useless is also an inevitable outcome of this situation.
Alas! Born into such an age, how can a scholar still seek the learning of the sages? How can one still discuss it? For a scholar born into such an age who wants to learn, is it not toilsome, bitter, complex, and difficult? Is it not constricted, obstructed, perilous, and hard? Alas, how sorrowful!
Fortunately, Heaven's principle in people's minds can never finally be extinguished, and the brightness of innate moral knowing is the same throughout ten thousand ages. On hearing my discussion that pulls up the root and stops the source, there must be those who are moved to sorrow, pierced with pain, and stirred to rise—surging like a river breaking through its banks, beyond the power of anything to hold back. If not the outstanding people who rise without waiting for another to summon them, whom can I hope for?
The source appends this editorial note: “Starting from the eighth paragraph, ‘Unless the discussion that pulls up the root and stops the source is made clear to the world,’ Chen Longzheng once selected this passage for separate printing and labeled it ‘Discussion That Pulls Up the Root and Stops the Source.’ It is one of Wang Shouren's most famous writings and represents his ethical thought.”
Reading note: The editorial reference to an ‘eighth paragraph’ is preserved from the supplied source; it is not a count of the paragraphs or reading chapters in this English edition.
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