Whether in the Ariake generation or from the perspective of the entire history of Chinese thought, Yang Ming is worth talking about, and it is generally not well written, so it is even more necessary to talk about it. If I want to write About Yang Ming, I want to write something that no one else has written. The problem is that the material I have in my hands makes me less able to use it. I come from a college, and I always have a bit of a well-trained training. The so-called examination evidence, that is, the science that is now said, is about evidence, and academically requires a point of evidence to say a point, and it cannot be expected to be literal, let alone fabricated facts. There are not few books on Yang Ming, whether in the history department, the collection department, or the modern people's monographs, but the materials available to me are very limited.
Portrait of Wang Yangming
I think it stems from a tradition that we Chinese compile collections. Ancient anthologies were rarely compiled by yourself, and when others helped you compile them, they all came up with grandiose reasons, always circling on several topics of self-cultivation, governance, and peace. In case I found that there was a bit of a controversial text, I played the psychology of "hiding for the sages" and deleted those things and discarded them. ......
Studying a person also requires some information in the "private" field, such as his life preferences, eating and living habits, and the details of interpersonal relationships or getting along with people, even if it is a disadvantage, it is also very important. With these materials, the biography can be regarded as a living biography, and the person recorded is a tall, fat, thin, thinking, and actionable person, not just a thin "paper man".
This is due to the inattention of the bookmakers, who lack multiple ideas. Some of the anthologies are also compiled by themselves, but they also have this problem. Those who compile their own anthologies may not have thought of putting gold on their faces, but they always hope to help themselves leave their own works of "flowing through the ages", and other things that they think are not elegant have been thrown into the waste paper basket. Like Xu Wenchang, he wrote his own "Malformations", exposing his own shortcomings and sarcastically saying that "several crooked houses in the east and west, a person with a southern cavity and a northern tone"; Or for example, Wang Chuanshan's self-inscription portrait, saying "The turtle follows the people after decay, and Mo Lang guesses when the dream is not complete", saying so decadent and true, it is a minority in the minority. A large number of works that I consider "unimportant" are deleted, which is the ancient habit of book compilation. You can't say that they are all wrong, it was not easy to carve books in the past, and it is necessary to remove the essence of wu, but what is wu and what is jing, you have to look at it from another perspective.
Xu Xi image
To study a person, you cannot rely on the side of him who only wants to show people. Although the information that was originally intended to show people is not necessarily credible, the positive information does not have much support for a person's ups and downs. A person's light often depends on the shadow behind him to set off, so the shadow is important. ...... So those materials that are not very positive, but rather the most important credentials for understanding a person.
Back to the protagonist of this book, Wang Yangming. Wang Yangming's greatest contribution is that he broke free from the shackles of "science" for hundreds of years and put forward the concept of "conscience". Conscience is personal, and in the words of today's people, conscience is my criterion of weighing the value of the world. Yang Ming also believes that conscience is innate to everyone, and it is not necessary to go to a university to read a bachelor's degree or doctorate, nor is it a big official or a big fortune. The standard of this conscience has long been deeply rooted in our hearts, and there is no need to ask for it from the outside, nor can we ask for it from the outside, but as long as we follow this existing conscience to do good and evil, everyone has the opportunity to complete themselves, and they can also become holy. Yang Ming's conscience science has put many people on the path of goodness and is full of confidence, which is Yang Ming's main contribution to scholarship and to the world.
Yang Ming's understanding of conscience unfolded in his state of "living in a difficult place". Behind the simple truth is full of controversy and conflict, including personal and environmental, which is inevitable. However, when we look at Yang Ming's anthology or the "Records of Transmission and Practice" compiled by his disciples, there are very few records about the background of controversy and conflict, and if there are any details, all the narratives are too superficial.
Commentary on the Transmission of The Book of Transmissions
Not only that, but the anthology and biography recorded in considerable detail the actions and conversations between Yang Ming and his disciples, and also recorded Yang Ming's external deeds in great detail, but rarely or even did not remember Yang Ming's family. For example, is Yang Ming's relationship with his father, Wang Hua, harmonious or tense?
Wang Hua was the head of the Chenghua dynasty, and Yang Ming was his eldest son, and his supervision of Yang Ming should be very strict. Yang Ming has had the pressure to take the exam since he was young, and this pressure may come from society, and from his father even more. Qian Dehong's "Annals of Mr. Yang Ming" (hereinafter referred to as the "Annals") once recorded a dialogue between Yang Ming and Shu Shi when he was eleven years old, Yang Ming once asked Shu Shi what was the first class thing, and Shu Shi knew that he only read Dengdi'er, and Yang Ming said disapprovingly: "Dengdi is probably not a first-class thing, or reading to learn the sage's ear." "Master Shu was invited by Wang Hua, and Master Shu's opinion is actually Wang Hua's opinion, Yang Ming doesn't think so, which shows that Yang Ming's heart is not so admired for Yuanlang's father on the surface, at least not in the matter of Yan Shi's lessons.
Wang Yangming's "Yuganzhou Shanghai Riweng Book" written to his father Wang Hua, in the collection of Yuyao Museum
Later, when Yang Ming was fifteen years old, because he was not accustomed to the chaos and ineffectiveness of the imperial court, he once wanted to write to the emperor, and he was once rebuked by Wang Hua as crazy, and the details were not very clear. Wang Hua's rebuke of his son may have been right, because Yang Ming was too young to be taken care of by him, but these things show that Yang Ming in his youth was incompatible with the authority represented by his father or father.
Yang Ming went to Nanchang at the age of seventeen to marry, only know that this lady's surname is Zhu, the next year When Yang Ming returned to Zhejiang, he took her to visit the great Confucian Lou Yu at that time, but since then, the "Annals" and other records have lacked the shadow of the wives, only in the first month of the fourth year of Jiajing, Yang Ming was fifty-four years old, and the "Annals" only recorded "Lady Zhu's pawns". The Zhu clan did not have children in his lifetime, and Yang Ming's eldest son Zhengxian was inherited by the "clan son". Yang Ming later remarried Zhang, and in November of the year after lady Zhu's death, Zhang gave birth to a son named Zhengyi for Yangming, and two years after Zhengyi was born, Yangming died.
Looking through all the information, Yang Ming's own family history, only sporadically appeared in these records, and the rest was gone. Yang Ming also writes poetry, which is the most emotional and "speech- and"poetic literature, but Yang Ming, like traditional poets, cares about travel, landscapes and friends, and friends are mostly adult men, and rarely write poems for family members.
[Ming] Dai Jin's "Landscape Map" (partial), collection of the Palace Museum
In addition, Yang Ming's physical condition should not be very good, and he only lived for fifty-seven years with the algorithm of Chinese, which was considered to have died early by the standards of that time. He has always had "phlegm disease" and often can't stop coughing. In the last year of his life, after quelling the rebellion in Guangxi Si and Tian, he wrote to the emperor, saying: "Since the previous years, he has been suffering from the disease of coughing and dysentery, and has grown more and more in the past years. After that, he retired to the forest and was a little medical, and the disease could not be stopped. Since last year, the heat and poison have benefited even more, and the force has been engaged in disease, and the completion of the matter has been completed, and Sui'er has not been able to revive. Of course, what he said was the truth, it can be seen that this disease existed when he first built the army Gong Pingnan and Gan rebellion, and soon after the book, Yang Ming died on the way home, and his life may end with a severe cough. Yang Ming may have lung cancer or contagious tuberculosis, but people did not know about the disease at the time. Unfortunately, whether it is Yang Ming's own collection of writings or the "Annals" compiled by his disciples, there are not many descriptions of this aspect, which makes us lack health evidence for Yang Ming's life.
Of course, both Yang Ming and his thoughts can be studied, but without these details, the effect of the research will be reduced. In the book, I have tried my best to use Yang Ming's background material, including the times and his own. He had many differences with Zhu Xue, who was popular at that time. The object of his philosophy is to turn man's concentration on external things back to the exploration of the heart.
Yang Ming, like Mencius, was a soft-hearted thinker with an "intolerable heart" everywhere, and he did not say that he was at odds with Zhu Xi, but that Zhu Xi's thinking in his later years had turned, and he wrote an article entitled "Zhu Zi's Conclusion in His Later Years", which caused great controversy. It was very interesting, and even he knew that the reason for zhu Xi's turn was not sufficient, but why did he do it? The real reason was that he did not want to "directly rebuke Zhu Xi".
Portrait of Zhu Xi
His soft heart is also reflected in his dissatisfaction with his father, but his words are still respectful and he has never acted disobediently. In addition, he led his troops to treat his subordinates and the enemy with compassion and kindness, and the number of people who could not be killed in war was not much, and after the soldiers were burned, he must try his best to calm the localities and constantly implement soft indoctrination of the localities, which was where he was extremely benevolent and careful.
But in the face of the government and bureaucrats who are higher than himself, he is often too strict, does not pretend, and occasionally has more arrogant behavior. For example, he was "caneed" for the Dai Milling case, and was later demoted to Guizhou Longchang; After the Rebellion of Pingchen Hao, he wrote to the emperor and asked Emperor Wuzong: "Strike off the patrol, establish the foundation of the country, and encourage the spirit of the arch, so as to inherit the Hong Xiu of the Sect Society, and to eliminate the covetousness of the adulterous male." "To put it bluntly and solemnly, this is what makes him very special. Although he contributed to the country, he did not receive much courtesy from the imperial court, and this is the reason.
Yangmingdong, Longchang, Guizhou
I have managed to point out these things in the book, but due to the fact that the records are too superficial, the details are often not easy to discuss, and I think such a yang is insufficient. As I said, my academic training does not allow me to "invent" a "new" Yang Ming without evidence. Although I try my best to pursue agility, I still feel that what I say and write is not wonderful enough, and this aspect has my personal problems, and it is also a fact that I am limited by the material, so that it is not easy for me to explore the "depth" of other people's personality.
Finally, I would like to talk about my overall feelings about Yang Ming as a person and Yang Mingxue.
Yang Ming as a whole is an "outlier" in traditional Chinese society. Since he was a child, he was not very constrained by rope and ink, did not like the Confucian set of four flat and stable, the teenager liked the tao of the art of war, at the age of fifteen, he ascended to Yongguan, he had the ambition of the four directions, and then liked Taoism and Buddhism, this unusual move can be seen by the Taoist temple on the day of marriage. A year after his marriage, he saw the great Confucian Lou Yu at that time, and only then did he "fold the knot" to start orthodox Confucian learning, but his Confucian learning was also full of conflicts, twists and turns, and it was not smooth sailing. These conflicts and twists and turns stem from his skepticism, his skepticism about any existing truth, and the climax is the story of his "lattice bamboo" with his equally young friends.
The story of "Ge Zhuzi" takes place when Yang Ming was twenty-one years old, and he said according to Zhu Xi's statement in the "Supplementary Biography of the University Ge Wu", "That is, all the things under the heavens are not benefited by their known reasons", he and his friends used this "grid" method to try to achieve the "grid things" in the scriptures, but the things were not qualified, they all fell ill, so he decided that Zhu Xi's grid things were problematic.
Notes on the Collected Collections of The Four Books, [Song] Zhu Xi
In fact, Zhu Xi did not ask anyone to use such a method to check things, it was Yang Ming who misunderstood, but this misunderstanding caused Yang Ming's great discovery, that is, the "grid object" mentioned in the "University", not the "grid object" in science, "grid thing" can not be said alone, but must be connected with the following "Zhi Zhi". Zhao Yangming later discovered that "Gewu Zhizhi" should be about "unity of knowledge and action" and "to conscience", and only by using this method can we connect the "sincerity" and "righteousness" behind it, and the "Eight Eyes of the University" is the so-called consistent learning.
"Ge Zhuzi" is a dilemma and setback for Yang Ming, and being degraded by the Dragon Field is another difficulty and setback for him, but the dragon field for three years allows him to perceive the meaning of "conscience", and conscience is combined with the purpose of the "University" Gewu Zhizhi found after the failure of his "Ge Zhuzi", and finally becomes the core of Yang Mingxue's "to conscience" and "unity of knowledge and action".
Because of curiosity and doubt, coupled with continuous thinking and exploration, Yang Ming discovered many truths, and the truths discovered by Yang Ming made positive contributions to the construction of morality and the completion of people. Confucian culture has been talking about contributing to what has been learned since Kong and Meng, and benefiting society, but in the light of reality, what can really be practiced and achieved is a minority and a minority, so Yang Ming's achievements are precious.
Yang Ming said in the Book of The Daluo Zhen'an Shaozai:
Husbands learn to gain the heart. Although his words come from Confucius, he does not dare to think that it is also true, and he who has not reached Confucius is not! Although its words are out of mediocrity, I dare not think that it is not true, but it is from Confucius!
This is really a stubborn and insightful word, which can fully express Yang Ming's spirit of doubt and exploration.
"Ten Lectures on Yang MingXue" is compiled from the speeches on the radio, because it is for ordinary people to listen, so it should be as simple and simple as possible. I think the best way is to say it directly, one sentence can be said without saying the second sentence, so as to avoid the book becoming an academic work that people "fear" and "fear", nor to make cumbersome annotations, and there is no bibliography attached to the back of the book. Of course, when talking about Yang Ming, it is still necessary to quote some historical materials, and I also try to be concise and smooth when citing materials, so as not to let it be too entangled. The characteristic of Yang Ming's philosophy is to turn cumbersomeness into simplicity and emphasize physical practice, and I think that the real Confucius and the real Confucianism should be like this. ......
Xin Ugly (Spring 2021) in the former residence of Yongchangli in Taipei
(The above article is excerpted from "Ten Lectures on YangMingxue and Self-Introduction", the title is prepared by the editor, and there are abridgements.) ）
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Ten Lectures on YangMingXue
By Zhou Zhiwen
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32 open Hardcover
978-7-101-15730-7
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Synopsis
"Ten Lectures on YangmingXue" is a new work compiled by the famous scholar Mr. Zhou Zhiwen based on the lecture draft. The author has a profound academic background, adhering to the attitude of "having a point of evidence to say a point", through the traceability of the history of Confucianism before Yang Mingxue, the background analysis of the emergence of YangMingxue, the exquisite exposition of Yangming's life and scholarship, the development of Wang men houxue and the far-reaching impact on future generations, so that readers can deeply feel Wang Yangming's morality, merits and articles in plain and powerful discourse.
About the Author
Zhou Zhiwen, whose ancestral home is Tiantai, Zhejiang, was born in 1942 in Chenxi, Hunan. Doctor of Literature, National Taiwan University, Professor of Chinese, National Taiwan University, now retired. Mainly engaged in the study of Ming and Qing dynasty academic history, Ming and Qing literature, modern literature, extensive knowledge, and rich writings, including academic works such as "Late Ming Academic and Intellectual Series", "Jiquan Room Treatise", "Analects of Discourse", etc., as well as essay collections "Classmates and Teenagers", "Reflections of Time", "Family Photos" and so on.
Contents
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