Record of Teaching and Practice
Recorded by the Disciple Chen Jiuchuan
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
201 · The Doubt about Things Resolved
In the yihai year of Zhengde, Jiuchuan first met the Master at Longjiang. The Master was discussing investigating things with Master Ganquan. Ganquan held to the received explanation. The Master said: “That is seeking it outside.” Ganquan said: “If you take investigating the principles of things as external, you are making your own mind small.” Jiuchuan was delighted that the received explanation was right. The Master then discussed the passage on fully realizing the mind. As soon as Jiuchuan heard it, he had no further doubt.
Later, while living at home, he again sent a question about investigating things. The Master replied: “Simply be able to apply effort on solid ground. In time it should resolve itself.” In the mountains Jiuchuan copied out the old text of the Great Learning and read it, and came to feel that Master Zhu's explanation of investigating things was not right. Yet he also doubted the Master's taking “where intention is directed” as things. The word things remained unclear.
In the jimao year, returning from the capital, he again met the Master at Hongdu. The Master was pressed by military affairs and taught whenever there was a spare moment. His first question was: “How has your practical work been in recent years?”
Jiuchuan said: “Through my experience in recent years, I have found that the work of making bright virtue manifest is simply making intention sincere. From ‘making bright virtue manifest throughout the world,’ I traced inward step by step toward its root and source. On reaching making intention sincere, I could go no further. Why, then, are investigating things and extending knowledge placed before it?
“Later I tested it again and felt that whether intention is sincere or false must first be known and perceived. Taking Master Yan's ‘whenever there was something not good, he never failed to know it; once he knew it, he never acted on it again’ as evidence, I felt a sudden opening and seemed free of doubt. Yet investigating things was still an extra piece of work.
“Then I thought: with the responsiveness of my mind, how could there be failure to know whether intention is good or bad? It is only obscured by material desires. One must work away material desires before one can, like Master Yan, never fail to know. But then I doubted whether this reversed the work, leaving it disconnected from making intention sincere.
“Later I asked Xiyan. He said: ‘The Master's saying that investigating things and extending knowledge are the work of making intention sincere is excellent.’ I asked: ‘How are they the work of making intention sincere?’ Xiyan told me to think and test it again. I have never understood, and ask for instruction.”
The Master said: “What a pity! This can be understood in a single statement. The example of Master Yan that you have just given, Weijun, is precisely it. You need only know that person, mind, intention, knowing, and things are one undertaking.”
Jiuchuan doubted this: “Things are outside. How can they be one undertaking with person, mind, intention, and knowing?”
The Master said: “Ears, eyes, mouth, nose, and limbs are the person. Without the mind, how could they see, hear, speak, and move? If the mind wishes to see, hear, speak, and move, it cannot do so without ears, eyes, mouth, nose, and limbs either. Thus without mind there is no person, and without person there is no mind.
“We simply point to its filling and extending throughout and call it person; point to its governing mastery and call it mind; point to the mind's issuing movement and call it intention; point to intention's responsive clarity and call it knowing; point to what intention engages and attaches to and call it things. It is only one undertaking. Intention never hangs in empty space: it must engage affairs and things.
“Therefore, if one wishes to make intention sincere, one must investigate and rectify the particular affair wherever intention is directed, removing human desires and returning to Heaven's principle. Then the innate moral knowing present in that affair will be unobscured and able to be extended. This is precisely the work of making intention sincere.”
Jiuchuan was then relieved, and the doubt of several years was broken.
He further asked: “Ganquan has recently also accepted and used the old text of the Great Learning. He says investigating things is like saying ‘reaching the Way.’ He also says that exhausting is like going right into a lair: reaching it in person. Thus investigating things, too, is simply apprehending Heaven's principle wherever one is. This seems gradually to approach your explanation.”
The Master said: “Ganquan applies effort, and so he can turn toward it. At the time I told him the word ‘loving’ in ‘loving the people’ did not need to be changed, and he did not believe that either. His present discussion of investigating things is close too. But there is no need to replace the word things with principle. Simply return the single word things to its own place.”
Later someone asked Jiuchuan: “Why do you no longer doubt the word things?” He said: “The Doctrine of the Mean says, ‘Without sincerity there are no things.’ Master Cheng says, ‘When things come, respond fittingly.’ There are also expressions such as ‘leave each thing to itself’ and ‘have no thing in the breast.’ These are all ordinary uses of the word by the ancients.” On another day the Master also said the same.
202 · Thoughts Must Be Right, Not Extinguished
Jiuchuan asked: “In recent years, because I grew tired of diffuse learning, I have often wanted to sit quietly and still my thoughts and deliberations. Not only have I failed; I feel more disturbed than ever. What should I do?”
The Master said: “How could thoughts be extinguished? They simply need to be right.”
“Should there not naturally be times with no thoughts?”
“There really is no time without thoughts.”
“Then how can we speak of stillness?”
“Stillness is never without movement; movement is never without stillness. Caution and apprehension are themselves thought. Why divide movement and stillness?”
“Why does Master Zhou say, ‘Settle it through the center, correctness, benevolence, and rightness, taking stillness as master’?”
“Without desire, there is stillness. This is the settledness in ‘settled in stillness, settled in movement’: taking the original constitution as master. The thought of caution and apprehension is vividly alive. Here is where Heaven's working never ceases. It is what is meant by ‘Heaven's decree—ah, how profound and unceasing!’ One cessation would be death. Thought that is not of the original constitution is private thought.”
203 · Seeing and Hearing without Being Carried Away
He also asked: “When applying effort to gather the mind, if sounds and sights are before me and I hear and see them as usual, I fear this is not concentration and oneness.”
The Master said: “Why would you want not to hear and see? Only by becoming withered wood and dead ashes, deaf in the ears and blind in the eyes, could that happen. Simply hear and see without being carried away: that is enough.”
“Long ago someone sat quietly while his son read beyond the wall, yet did not know whether the boy was diligent or idle. Master Cheng praised his great reverence. What do you think?”
“I fear Yichuan may actually have been criticizing him.”
204 · There Is No Inner Mind beside the Affair
He also asked: “When applying effort in quiet sitting, I feel this mind quite gathered. But on meeting an affair, it is interrupted again. I immediately raise a thought and go to examine myself in the affair. Once the affair has passed, I seek my previous work again. I still feel there is an inner and an outer and cannot make them one whole.”
The Master said: “You have not penetrated the teaching of investigating things. When has the mind ever had an inner and an outer? For example, as you discuss matters here now, Weijun, is there another mind inside watching over you? Concentration and reverence while listening and speaking are precisely the mind of quiet sitting. Practical work runs through as one. Why raise a further thought?
“People must refine themselves amid affairs for their practical work to benefit them. If you only love stillness, you become disordered on meeting affairs and never make progress. The work in that stillness is mistaken too: it seems to gather the mind, but actually lets it go and sink away.”
Later, at Hongdu, Jiuchuan again discussed inner and outer with Yuzhong and Guoshang. They both said that things naturally have an inner and an outer, and that one need only apply effort to both together without interruption. He asked the Master about this.
The Master said: “Practical work does not depart from the original constitution, and the original constitution originally has no inner and outer. It is only that later practitioners divided inner and outer and lost the original constitution. Now we must precisely make clear that practical work should have no inner and outer. Only this is the practical work of the original constitution.” That day all had an awakening.
205 · Master Lu’s Learning
He also asked: “How is Master Lu's learning?”
The Master said: “After Lianxi and Mingdao, it is still Xiangshan. Only, he is somewhat coarse.”
Jiuchuan said: “Reading his discussions of learning, every piece brings out the marrow and every sentence seems a needle reaching a deeply lodged illness. I do not see his coarseness.”
The Master said: “Yes, he applied effort in his mind. This naturally differs from conjecture, imitation, and seeking through verbal meanings. But look closely and there are coarse places. After applying effort for a long time, you should see them.”
206 · The Standard Already Present in Oneself
In the gengchen year, Jiuchuan went to Qianzhou and again met the Master. He asked: “In my recent practical work, although I seem to know the guiding point a little, I find it hard to reach a secure and joyful place.”
The Master said: “You are instead seeking a Heaven's principle in the mind. This is precisely what is called an obstruction by principle. There is a key here.”
“May I ask what it is?”
“Simply extending knowledge.”
“How does one extend it?”
“That small point of innate moral knowing is your own standard. Wherever your intention and thoughts engage, it knows right as right and wrong as wrong. You cannot conceal the slightest thing from it. Simply do not deceive it. Follow it firmly and really in what you do. Where there is good, preserve it; where there is evil, remove it. How secure and joyful that place is!
“This is the true key to investigating things, the actual work of extending knowledge. Without relying on this genuine working, how could you investigate things? I too have only in recent years personally apprehended it so clearly. At first I still doubted whether relying on it alone might be insufficient. Examining it precisely, I find not the slightest deficiency.”
207 · The Sage in Everyone’s Breast
At Qianzhou, Jiuchuan attended the Master together with Yuzhong and Qianzhi. The Master said: “Everyone has a sage in the breast. It is only that people do not trust themselves enough and bury it themselves.” Looking at Yuzhong, he said: “In your breast there originally is a sage.”
Yuzhong rose and would not accept this. The Master said: “It is something you yourself possess. Why push it away?” Yuzhong again said: “I dare not.” The Master said: “Everyone possesses it. How much more you, Yuzhong! Why become modest about it? Even modesty will not do here.” Yuzhong then smiled and accepted it.
The Master also said: “Innate moral knowing in a person cannot be extinguished, however one behaves. Even a thief knows that one should not steal. Call him a thief, and he is still embarrassed.”
Yuzhong said: “It is only obscured by material desires. The good mind within naturally cannot be lost. It is like clouds obscuring the sun: when has the sun ever been lost?”
The Master said: “Yuzhong is so perceptive. Others' understanding does not reach this.”
208 · A Touchstone and Compass
The Master said: “If you see this little point thoroughly, then no matter how many thousands of words arrive, their right and wrong, sincerity and falsity become clear at once. What accords is right; what does not accord is wrong. It is like what the Buddhists call the mind-seal. It truly is a touchstone and a compass.”
209 · One Pellet Turning Iron to Gold
The Master said: “If someone knows this key of innate moral knowing, then however many perverse thoughts and crooked intentions there may be, one awareness here makes them all dissolve of themselves. It truly is a single pellet of the marvelous elixir, touching iron and turning it to gold.”
210 · Do Not Declare the Work Exhausted
Chongyi said: “Your meaning of extending knowledge brings out all its refined depths. It seems there is no further place to go here.”
The Master said: “How easily you speak! Apply effort for another half year and see how it is. Apply effort for another year and see how it is. The longer the work continues, the more different it feels. This is difficult to express in words.”
211 · Experience Differs from Hearing an Explanation
The Master asked Jiuchuan: “How have you tested the teaching of extending knowledge in your own experience?”
Jiuchuan said: “I feel the difference myself. Formerly, in holding and maintaining the mind, I could never obtain a point that was exactly right. This is the point that is exactly right.”
The Master said: “You can see how personal experience differs from listening to an explanation. When I first explained it to you, I knew you merely took it lightly and had not tasted it. Take this same essential point and experience it more deeply. Each day it will appear different. There is no end to it.”
He also said: “These two characters ‘extend knowledge’ truly are the secret of the sages' transmission through the ages. Seeing this, one can ‘await a sage a hundred generations hence without doubt.’”
212 · Not a Secret Stolen from Heaven
Jiuchuan asked: “When Yichuan spoke of substance and function having one source and no interval between manifest and subtle, his disciples already called it revealing Heaven's secret. Does your account of extending knowledge not reveal Heaven's secret still more excessively?”
The Master said: “The sages already pointed it out and showed it to people. It is only that later people covered and hid it. I bring it to light: why call that revealing a secret? This is something everyone possesses. Once awakened to it, one feels it is as ordinary as can be.
“Yet to speak of it to people who do not do actual practical work also makes them take it lightly, which is regrettable and benefits neither side. Point it out and awaken people who really apply effort but have not obtained the essential point, and it gives them abundant strength.”
213 · Knowing without an Added Knowing
He also said: “On coming to know, there is originally no knowing; on awakening, there is originally no awakening. Yet without knowing, one sinks into burial.”
214 · Encourage Friends with Humility
The Master said: “With friends, there should generally be less admonishing and pointing out faults, and more guidance, support, encouragement, and urging onward. Only then is it right.”
Later he also admonished Jiuchuan: “In discussing learning with friends, be accommodating, modest, and lowly. ‘Dwell in it with spaciousness.’”
215 · Practical Work in Illness
Jiuchuan lay ill at Qianzhou. The Master said: “The thing called illness is difficult to investigate and rectify too. How do you find it?”
He replied: “The practical work is very difficult.”
The Master said: “Constant joyfulness is itself the practical work.”
216 · Continue the Work Rather than Divert the Mind
Jiuchuan asked: “Examining my thoughts, I find that sometimes they involve perversity and delusion, and sometimes arranging the world's affairs in advance. When I think them through to the utmost, they feel orderly and interesting, and I become attached and find it hard to dismiss them. If I notice early it is easy; if I notice late it is difficult. Apply force in overcoming and treating them, and I feel increasing resistance. But if I shift my thoughts a little to another affair, both are then forgotten. Clearing things away in this manner seems harmless.”
The Master said: “Why do this? Simply apply effort to innate moral knowing.”
Jiuchuan said: “Precisely at that moment I do not know.”
The Master said: “If practical work is present here, how could that thought get in? It is only because your work has been interrupted that your knowing is obscured. Once it has been interrupted, continue the previous work: that is enough. Why do this?”
Jiuchuan said: “It truly is hard to fight. Even when I know, I cannot cast it away.”
The Master said: “You must be courageous. Apply effort for a long time and courage will naturally be present. Hence the saying, ‘It is born from accumulating rightness.’ To overcome it easily would be to be a great worthy.”
217 · Understand the Mind
Jiuchuan asked: “In this work I have attained clear experience in my mind, but I still cannot make the books' explanations fit.”
The Master said: “Simply understand the mind. When the mind is clear, the books naturally come together in understanding. If the mind is not understood and one only wants the verbal meanings in books to fit, one instead generates opinions of one's own.”
218 · Investigating Things in Official Business
A subordinate official who had listened to explanations of the Master's learning for a long time said: “This learning is excellent. It is only that accounts, documents, lawsuits, and criminal cases are so complex and difficult that I cannot pursue it.”
The Master heard this and said: “When have I ever told you to leave accounts, documents, lawsuits, and criminal cases behind and discuss learning suspended in empty space? Since you have official affairs, learn through those official affairs. Only this is truly investigating things.
“For example, in hearing a lawsuit: do not become angry because someone's answers are ill-mannered. Do not become pleased because someone's speech is smooth. Do not detest someone's attempts to use connections and then make a special point of punishing that person. Do not bend your intention and yield because of someone's requests. Do not decide carelessly and however you please because your own business is burdensome. Do not dispose of the matter according to another person's wishes because that person slanders and fabricates charges.
“All these intentions are private. Only you yourself know them. You must examine, overcome, and treat them with exact care, fearing lest the slightest partiality in this mind obstruct people's right and wrong. This is investigating things and extending knowledge. Amid accounts, documents, lawsuits, and criminal cases, nothing is other than actual learning. If you leave affairs and things behind in order to learn, you attach yourself to emptiness.”
219 · A Farewell Poem
When about to leave Qianzhou and return, Jiuchuan presented a poem bidding the Master farewell:
Why should innate moral knowing depend on hearing much?
In wondrous accord, the root was planted at that moment.
Follow it in likes and dislikes: this is the sages' learning.
Where no contrivance remains is Qian's primal source.
The Master said: “Had you not come to discuss this learning, you would not know what the ‘it’ is that one follows in ‘follow it in likes and dislikes.’”
Fuying, who was present, said: “Indeed. I once read your Preface to the Old Text of the Great Learning and did not know what you were discussing. Only after coming and listening to your teaching for some time did I begin to know the general meaning.”
220 · Learning Must Be Digested
Yuzhong, Guoshang, and others were attending the Master at a meal. The Master said: “Eating and drinking are simply to nourish the person. What one eats must be digested. If it merely accumulates in the belly, it becomes a blockage. How could flesh and skin grow from it?
“Later students hear broadly and know many things, but leave them lodged in the breast. They all suffer from the disease of undigested food.”
221 · Sages Learn and Ordinary People Know from Birth
The Master said: “Sages, too, know through learning; ordinary people, too, know from birth.”
Someone asked: “How is this?”
He said: “Everyone possesses this innate moral knowing. Sages simply keep it whole without the slightest obstruction, being cautious, diligent, tirelessly devoted, and reverent, naturally without ceasing. This too is learning. It is only that the share of what is inborn is greater, and therefore we call it knowing from birth and acting at ease.
“Ordinary people all possess this knowing completely from infancy. It is only that their obstructions are many. Yet the knowing of the original constitution is naturally difficult to extinguish. Even in inquiry, learning, overcoming, and treatment, they rely only on it. It is only that the share of learning is greater, and therefore we call it knowing through learning and acting with a ready sense of its benefit.”
222 · The Particular Knowing Is the Whole Knowing
Huang Yifang asked: “In your teaching of investigating things and extending knowledge, one investigates things as circumstances arise in order to extend knowing. Then the knowing is the knowing of one particular section, not the knowing of the whole constitution. How can one reach the position of being ‘vast and broad as Heaven, a deep wellspring like an abyss’?”
The Master said: “The human mind is Heaven and an abyss. The original constitution of the mind includes everything. It is originally one Heaven. Only because private desires obstruct it is that original constitution of Heaven lost. The mind's principle has no limit or end. It is originally one abyss. Only because private desires block it is that original constitution of the abyss lost.
“Now, in every thought extend innate moral knowing, completely removing these obstructions and blockages together. The original constitution is then restored: it is Heaven and abyss.”
He pointed to the sky and showed it: “For example, the sky seen before your face is the bright sky. The sky seen in every surrounding direction is also only the bright sky. It is just that many houses and walls screen it off, so one does not see the whole sky. Remove the houses and walls, and it is altogether one sky. You cannot say the sky before you is bright sky but the sky outside is not bright sky.
“Here one sees that the knowing of one particular section is the knowing of the whole constitution, and the knowing of the whole constitution is the knowing of one particular section. It is altogether one original constitution.”
223 · Achievement and Integrity within the Way
The Master said: “Sages and worthies are not without achievements or steadfast integrity. But when they follow this Heaven's principle, it is simply the Way. It cannot be named merely as achievement in affairs or steadfast integrity.”
224 · Resolve and Joy without Interruption
“‘So stirred to effort that one forgets to eat’ describes the sage's resolve: there truly is no time when it stops. ‘So joyful that one forgets worry’ describes the sage's Way: there truly is no time of distress. I do not think one needs to speak of having attained or not attained.”
225 · Water the Shoot According to Its Growth
The Master said: “In extending knowledge, each of us simply follows as far as one's present capacity reaches. Today innate moral knowing appears in this way: simply expand what you know today to its utmost. Tomorrow innate moral knowing has a further awakening: then expand what you know tomorrow to its utmost. Only this is the work of refinement and oneness.
“In discussing learning with others, too, one must follow as far as their capacity reaches. It is like a tree with just so much new growth: give it just so much water. When the new growth increases, add more water. From a small tree one can grip in the hands to a trunk one encircles with the arms, the work of watering always follows its degree of growth. If a tiny shoot stands there and you have a whole bucket of water and insist on pouring all of it over it, you will soak and ruin it.”
226 · The First Movement of Thought Is Already Acting
Someone asked about knowing and acting being one. The Master said: “Here you must recognize my purpose in establishing this statement. Nowadays, because people divide knowing and acting into two things in their learning, when a thought begins to move, even if it is not good, they say they have not yet acted and therefore do not restrain it.
“In speaking now of knowing and acting being one, I precisely want people to understand that the point where a thought begins to move is already acting. If there is something not good in that first movement, overcome that not-good thought there. One must get to the very root and bottom, not allowing that single not-good thought to lie hidden in the breast. This is my purpose in establishing the statement.”
227 · What the Sage Does and Does Not Know
“That the sage knows everything means only knowing Heaven's principle. That the sage can do everything means only being capable in Heaven's principle. The sage's original constitution is clear, and therefore in each affair the sage knows where Heaven's principle lies and goes on fully to fulfill it. It does not mean that, once the original constitution is clear, the sage at once knows and can perform every affair and thing in the world.
“The world's affairs and things—names, classifications, measurements, numbers, plants, birds, beasts, and the like—are too numerous to exhaust. Even when the sage's original constitution is clear, how could the sage know them all? Whatever need not be known, the sage naturally has no need to seek to know. Whatever ought to be known, the sage can naturally ask others about, as in ‘When the Master entered the Grand Ancestral Temple, he asked about every affair.’
“Earlier scholars say, ‘Even though he knew, he asked: this was the utmost reverence and care.’ That explanation cannot make sense. The sage does not have to know all rites, music, names, and classifications. Yet in knowing the one Heaven's principle, many particular forms, measures, and numbers naturally emerge. Not knowing and being able to ask is itself where the particular forms of Heaven's principle lie.”
228 · Good and Evil Are Not Two Independent Things
Someone asked: “You once said that good and evil are only one thing. Good and evil are two ends, opposed like ice and burning charcoal. How can you say they are only one thing?”
The Master said: “The utmost good is the original constitution of the mind. The slightest excess beyond what is fitting in that original constitution is already evil. It is not that there is one good and then another evil comes to stand opposite it. Thus good and evil are only one thing.”
On hearing the Master's explanation, Zhi understood Master Cheng's saying: “Good is certainly nature, but evil, too, cannot be denied the name of nature.” There are also the words: “Good and evil are both Heaven's principle. What is called evil was not originally evil; it is only excess or insufficiency in relation to original nature.” None of these accounts was any longer doubtful.
Reading note: This reflection is attributed to Zhi in the current source, although it occurs within the chapter headed as Jiuchuan's records. That attribution is preserved.
229 · Sincerity in Loving Good and Hating Evil
The Master once said: “If a person can love goodness as one loves beautiful appearance, and hate evil as one hates a bad smell, that person is a sage.”
When Zhi first heard this, it seemed very easy. Later, testing it in experience, he found this work truly difficult. For example, even though a thought knows to love goodness and hate evil, admixture slips in again without one's noticing. Once there is admixture, it is not the mind that loves goodness as beautiful appearance and hates evil as a bad smell.
If one can really and truly love goodness, there is no thought that is not good. If one can really and truly hate evil, there is no thought that turns toward evil. How could this not be sagehood? Thus the learning of the sages is only sincerity.
230 · Following Nature and Cultivating the Way
Someone asked: “In the Discussion of Cultivating the Way, ‘following nature is called the Way’ is assigned to the sage, and ‘cultivating the Way is called teaching’ to the worthy.”
The Master said: “Ordinary people, too, follow nature. It is only that following nature is more prevalent in sages, and therefore ‘following nature is called the Way’ is assigned to the sage. Sages, too, cultivate the Way. It is only that cultivating the Way is more prevalent in worthies, and therefore ‘cultivating the Way is called teaching’ is assigned to the worthy.”
He also said: “The Doctrine of the Mean, as a whole, mostly discusses cultivating the Way. Thus whenever it later speaks of the gentleman, Yan Yuan, or Zilu, these are people able to cultivate the Way. When it speaks of petty people, the worthy and wise, the foolish and unworthy, or ordinary people, these are people unable to cultivate the Way. Its other discussions of Shun, Wen, the Duke of Zhou, and Zhongni as utterly sincere and utterly sagely concern sages who are naturally able to cultivate the Way.”
231 · The Mind in the Third Watch and in Affairs
Someone asked: “When a Confucian scholar, in the third watch of the night, clears thoughts and deliberations from the breast and is empty and still, this is just like the Buddhists' stillness. Neither is being put to use then. Where is the distinction at that time?”
The Master said: “Movement and stillness are only one. The emptiness and stillness in the third watch are simply preserving Heaven's principle. This is precisely the mind now responding to affairs and meeting things. The mind now responding to affairs and meeting things also follows this Heaven's principle, and is precisely the empty, still mind of the third watch. Thus movement and stillness are only one and cannot be separated. Know the oneness of movement and stillness, and the Buddhists' slightest divergence cannot naturally remain concealed either.”
232 · Neither Stiff Appearance nor Outward Neglect
Among the disciples seated there was someone exceedingly restrained in every movement and pause. The Master said: “If someone is too stiffly self-controlled, there must finally be a fault.”
The disciple asked: “How can too much restraint have a fault?”
“A person has only so much vital spirit. If effort is concentrated on outward appearance, there will be many things within the mind one fails to watch over.”
There was also someone too unrestrained. The Master said: “Now you discuss this learning, yet entirely fail to exercise restraint outwardly. You have again divided mind and affairs into two.”
233 · Writing without Carrying the Writing Around
A disciple composed a piece to send a friend on a journey and asked the Master: “Writing cannot avoid spending thought. After finishing, I also keep remembering it for another day or two.”
He said: “Thinking in order to write does no harm. But constantly keeping it in mind after finishing means being burdened by the writing: there is a thing in the mind. This will not do.”
The disciple also wrote a poem to send someone off. After reading it, the Master said: “In all writing, follow as far as your capacity reaches. If your words go beyond it, this is not refining expression to establish sincerity.”
234 · The Guiding Point in Investigating Things
“Duke Wen's account of investigating things simply lacks the guiding point. For example, ‘examine it in the subtlety of thoughts and deliberations’ is a statement that should not be mixed into one undifferentiated class with ‘seek it among written words, verify it in manifest affairs, and search for it in discussion.’ That leaves no distinction of weight.”
235 · Anger without a Private Addition
Someone asked about the passage on “having resentment and anger.”
The Master said: “How could the human mind be without resentment, anger, and those other things? It is only that one must not ‘have’ them. Ordinarily, when people become resentful and angry, adding a single portion of private intention makes the anger exceed what is fitting, and it is no longer the constitution of openness and utter impartiality. Thus, having resentment and anger, one fails to obtain rectitude.
“Now, with resentment, anger, and the rest, simply respond fittingly when the thing comes, without adding a single portion of private intention. Then the mind's constitution is open and utterly impartial, and one obtains the rectitude of its original constitution.
“For example, you go outside and see people fighting. My mind too becomes angry at the one in the wrong. Yet although angry, this mind remains open, without the slightest agitation of qi. In becoming angry with people now, one must also be like this. Only then is it right.”
236 · Relations and Attachment to Appearances
“You once said: ‘The Buddhists do not attach to appearances, yet in fact they do attach to appearances. We Confucians attach to appearances, yet in fact we do not attach to appearances.’ May I ask what this means?”
The Master said: “The Buddhists fear being burdened by father and son, and therefore flee father and son. They fear being burdened by ruler and minister, and therefore flee ruler and minister. They fear being burdened by husband and wife, and therefore flee husband and wife. In all this, they have attached to the appearances of ruler and minister, father and son, and husband and wife, and therefore have to escape them.
“We Confucians have father and son and return to them benevolence; have ruler and minister and return to them rightness; have husband and wife and return to them distinction. When have we ever attached to the appearances of father and son, ruler and minister, or husband and wife?”
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