Wang Yangming's last words: "This heart is bright, and it is also true!" "

This sentence is both an attitude towards life and a life story. Mr. Yang Ming was a Ming Dynasty thinker, military scholar, and writer, a master of Lu Wangxinxue, and a rare chinese person who was virtuous, meritorious, and "immortal", but in the field of public opinion without direction in China, his life and reputation were also large-scale ups and downs, once reaching the tip of the tide, and also being placed in the mud and sand under the water.

This article by the Ming historian Hu Dan may help us understand Mr. Yang Ming and understand China.

In the seventh year of Jiajing (1528 AD), the 57-year-old Wang Yangming was in the military affairs of the viceroy of Liangguang, when the old disease of coughing and dysentery suddenly intensified. He had a very bad premonition, so after Shangshu "asked for a complaint" (requesting to leave), he did not wait for the "court report", he took his own initiative, and took a boat from Wuzhou to Guangdong Through Guangdong Shao and Xiongbei. He planned to wait for the approval of the imperial court while rushing home. When he left Guangdong, wang Dayong, a protégé, was afraid of changes on the road, so he specially prepared a coffin for the teacher and followed him behind the boat.

On November 25, the boat crossed Meiling to Nan'an, Jiangxi. Zhou Jiwen, the governor of the government, came to see him. Yang Ming sat up, coughing and panting, and said that he was "in a critical condition, undead, yuan qi ear". Due to the sudden illness, Yang Ming stopped in Nan'an for five days and could not move forward. By the twenty-ninth day, zhou had been summoned into the boat, and he could no longer speak. After a long time, he opened his eyes and said, "I will go." ”

He wept and asked, "What was your last words sir?" ”

Yang Ming whispered, "This heart is bright, and it is also true!" ”

In a flash, the eyes passed. (The Annals of Mr. Yang Ming)

The above passage is very moving. Yang Ming did not know it, summoned the doorman to see him, when he had an explanation, he did not expect the words to come to his mouth, but he could not help but laugh to himself ("micro-blah"), did not want to say a word, only with a bright and enlightened heart to leave.

The lecturer seems to be inappropriate. Ran Yangming was dying, why did he want to stop talking? What does "micro-whisper" mean? This scene in the last moments of his life is very crucial, but there have always been many interpreters who have not been able to grasp the point. This article also analyzes Yang Ming's last words from the situation of "words and unspoken places" in the second half of his life from the situation of drowning in the "land of unbelief".

One

Before dying, Yang Ming may have foreseen what would happen behind him. A slight sigh is actually a silent bitter smile.

Before it was revived in May last year (Jiajing's sixth year), Yang Ming had been idle at home for seven years.

Since "Imagami" ascended the throne, there have been courtiers who have recommended him, some who have recommended him to enter the cabinet, some who have recommended him to be the governor of the three sides and to take charge of the military department, but the emperor is not allowed. This time, he was ordered to go to western Guangdong, but he was also helpless. Gaiyinsien and Tian Zhou were rebelled by tuguans, and the imperial court mobilized officials and troops from four provinces to encircle and suppress them, but in the end, the division and the elder were useless. Only then did he get from the recommendation of the university scholars Zhang Xuan and Gui Caozhi to allow him to go out of the mountains and go to the southwest thousands of miles away to cook this tricky and troublesome thing.

Yang Ming knew that the emperor had prejudices against him, but he might not know what the crux of the prejudice was. He had never seen the young emperor in his early twenties once, so how could he have disgusted the supreme ruler in the Forbidden City?

In the past few years, the situation has been turbulent, and the issue of the title of the birth parents of the Jiajing Emperor, who was succeeded to the throne by the foreign clan, has been turned upside down. In this wave of political controversy called "Great Ceremony Discussion", Yang Tinghe, the former first assistant university scholar, stepped down, and the conservative cabinet members were either demoted or expelled, while the emperor's supporters, Zhang Xuan and Gui Xuan, known as the "new upstarts of the ceremony", entered the cabinet strongly, and the "Praise Faction" jumped to high positions.

The active people who participate in the big gift discussion are many Yang Ming's disciples and friends, and their attitude towards the big gift is not consistent. Such as his friends Xi Shu, Huo Tao and his doorman Fang Xianfu, Huang Xuan, Huang Zongming, etc., "fortunately with the ceremony". For this reason, Wang Si, the editor of the Hanlin Academy, openly declared that "he was ashamed to be with his fellow disciples"; Zou Shouyi, Wang Shike, and other disciples also participated in Jiajing's three-year famous Zuo Shunmen weeping incident, for which they suffered a court staff, and Wang Si was tortured but beaten to death!

When the courtiers were divided because of the ceremony, the "Wang Fuzi", who had opened a large lecture in Yuezhong and whose prestige was growing, adopted a deliberately evasive attitude--the ministers Huo Tao, Xi Shu, Huang Zongxian, Zong Ming, and so on "all asked questions with great gifts one after another, but did not answer."

At that time, the Praises were fiercely opposed, in a difficult situation, and in urgent need of theoretical support. Yang Ming did not say a word, they found a basis from Song Ru Ouyang Xiu. When the dust of the "great gift" settled, the Ouyang clan was carried into the Confucius Temple to accompany the sacrifice and received a huge reward from the world. Suppose, if Yang Ming took advantage of the time to make a public eulogy and support the emperor who was eager to be a filial piety, what would he get? On the other hand, thinking about it, what kind of impression would he leave on the emperor when he was so famous for his lectures, but when everyone was contentiously fighting for him, he didn't say a word?

After Yang Ming was ordered to rise up, in a letter to Huo Tao, in response to his question of "not speaking", he said: "In the past, you accepted that you had seen it in the article "Great Ceremony", and at that time, we were guarding the funeral, and although we agreed in our hearts, it was inconvenient to restore it. Even though the book also had a letter, the messenger had to get a reply before he could leave. I had no choice but to respond hastily, agreeing with him, but I only thought that at that time, the ceremony had been completed, and the parties (i.e., conservatives) might not be able to change it, and it would be better to talk about it in vain and argue with it, so it would be better to explain it to the following, and then slow down when there were more followers. ”

Huo and Xi are both praisegivers and yangming friends. It can be seen from Yang Ming's fushu that he has a sympathetic attitude toward the former. The reason for his silence was that, in addition to the fact that the ceremony had been completed and that there were no more disputes in vain, it was also because "the discussion was both exciting, and I was in a place of unbelief, and I did not dare to speak out in the DPRK."

Yang Ming stayed out of the matter and saw it more clearly than the people in the bureau: the two factions were fighting, which was clearly ethical and actually a right. His statement will not help "reason", will only help one faction to defeat the other, and in any case, some of his disciples and friends will be hurt. He hoped that the dispute over the great gifts would be "quibble and gradually seek restoration" without breaking down and causing great damage to the government.

In the struggle for power, it is reasonable to lose to the power, for which Yang Ming has personal pain, as a victim, he described himself as "in a place of disbelief".

Two

Yang Ming is not born to be an old and patient person, even in his prime, after three years of suffering from the "Dragon Field", he still does not lose his arrogance, there are words to say, there are condescending arguments, this is his nature.

In the "Letter of Mr. Hairi" written by his friend Lu Shen for his father Wang Hua, it is recorded that after Yang Ming offended the grand eunuch Liu Jin and was killed by the staff, Wang Hua was also ordered to give in to Liu Jin for refusing to submit to Liu Jin. At this time, some people made an article about Wang Hua's friend in the same year (the ancients called the person in the same branch the same year) and slandered him. People advised Wang Huashang to confess, but he did not: "This matter arose because of my year, and if I confess, I will be a friend." Can rumors defile me? "I didn't even defend myself. After Yang Ming returned to Beijing, he heard about this incident and was very upset with his father, so he wanted to have a debate. Wang Hua rushed to stop him and said, "Do you think that is the great shame of my life?" I am not ashamed, but you have attacked my friend's selfishness for no reason, but you have asked for a great shame for me. He also criticized his son, saying: "Others say that your wisdom is greater than mine, and I really don't believe it!" ”

The details of this matter are no longer known, but Yang Ming is eager to clarify for his father, which must be a major matter related to Wang Hua's reputation. However, because it involved a friend of the same year, Wang Hua did not want to humiliate others, so he adopted a calm attitude of a clean person.

At that time, Yang was not confused next year, and he was lecturing in Guizhou, and he had already revealed the purpose of "unity of knowledge and action" and began to receive great repercussions. But in this matter, it is still not as generous as his father Kaiji. If you know that your heart is uneven, you will make a sound, and if you don't know the truth, you will argue; if you don't know the truth, you will argue; and if you don't know it, you will do it. From his flourishing years to his deathbed indulging in thousands of wrongdoings, he did not say a word, but only enlightened future generations with light, and what connected these two ends was his entry into the world and cultivation for more than ten years. In this process, Yang Ming deeply felt the pain of "living in the land of unbelief".

Three

In the summer of the fourteenth year of Zhengde (1519 AD), Wang Yangming made a righteous banner to quell the rebellion of the king of Jiangxi Ning, and became a world famous name in one fell swoop.

Zhu Chenhao, the King of Ning, had long had the heart of disobedience, and two years ago Yang Ming was entrusted with the governor of Nangan, and according to the intention of King Qiong of Bingbu Shangshu, it was a sharp sword laid behind the King of Ning. Sure enough, when King Ning suddenly rebelled in Nanchang, Yang Ming sent troops from upstream, and it only took more than forty days to capture the rebel king and quell a major chaos in the middle of the Ming Dynasty.

However, after the chaos was put down, the reward for merit was not good, and those who made great contributions were "almost caught in the unpredictable". The eunuchs zhang zhong and the general Xu Tai sent by the imperial court framed Yang Ming in every possible way, and even framed him for "communicating" with the King of Ning (meaning collusion) first, and then taking advantage of the temporary change, weighing the two ends, and luckily succeeding.

In order to dig out the black material of Yang Ming's "Tonghao", they arrested Ji Yuanheng, a Yangming gateman, and tortured him severely. For a while, "slander and evil are instigated, and misfortunes are unpredictable" became the most thrilling period of Yang Ming's life.

It was not until April of the sixteenth year of Zhengde that the Jiajing Emperor succeeded to the throne and Quan was imprisoned for death, and Ji Yuanheng was released from prison, but he died of his injuries only five days after he escaped.

For more than a year, Yang Ming has suffered the stigma of "Tonghao", which is a hundred times more than the misunderstanding suffered by his father, but he has not even had the opportunity to defend himself. However, "grievance" became the biggest driving force for his academic refinement, and it was in this year that Yang Ming "began to reveal the teaching of conscience" in Nanchang. In this regard, he said with deep feeling: "Since the changes of (Zhu) Chenhao, (Zhang) Zhong, and (Xu) Tai, Yixin's conscience is really enough to forget the tribulations and be born and die... In the past, it was still doubtful, but now since the events of many things, only this conscience is sufficient. ”

In the dark age of Zhengde's later years, the adulterer was in charge, right and wrong, Yang Ming fell into the land of words and did not believe, had to endure in pain, did not dare to self-confess. Now that the new monarch has succeeded to the throne and the new policy has begun, Zhang, Xu and other people who have risked merit and indiscriminate rewards have been dealt with, Yang Ming's first merit of "Pingchen Hao's rebellion" has also been traced, and news has also come from Beijing that the new king intends to summon him to Beijing and will be of great use.

Although Yang Ming had a conscience to be ashamed of, at this time it was difficult for Him to "forget the suffering", he still couldn't help but "speak", so he wrote and sent the exposés to the Six Ministries and the Metropolitan Inspection Yuan to "justify" the grievances of the disciples who were victimized, and in the final analysis, he also defended his own heavenly injustice -- although he was knighted as "Xinxinbo", the imperial court had not officially rehabilitated him for the slander of "Tonghao".

However, due to the bad relations between the first assistant Yang Tinghe and Wang Qiong of Shangshu, and Yang Ming was a person who Wang Qiong used heavily, he was jealous of Yang for this; "the ministers were also jealous of his merits". In order to prevent Yang Ming from coming to Beijing, the Daoists, under the pretext that "the mourning of the country has not yet been completed, it is not appropriate to hold a banquet and a reward", only relegated him to the Title of Shangshu of the Nanjing Bingbu. However, the colleagues and ministers who accompanied Yang Ming's "uprising" were deposed for various reasons in the "Examination Ceremony" presided over by Yang Tinghe, and the former Great Loyalty Festival and its merits were all deleted and not asked.

Yang Ming was "heartbroken, and he could not help himself day and night", and he even went to a few places, hoping to "resign his knighthood and reward him with grace, so as to show the national code"; he even very "unwisely" substituted Wang Qiongzheng, a criminal minister who had already been stripped of his post for the people and assigned to Gansu. This was the last time in Yang Ming's life that he "made a big noise".

In doing so, he deeply offended the "people in charge" headed by Yang Tinghe, so that he still did not change the dilemma of "words and unbelief" in the new dynasty. His arguments were ignored. Yang Ming was disappointed and discouraged, so he borrowed his father's funeral (Wang Hua died of illness in February of the first year of Jiajing) and hung up the crown and returned to Yue. He was gone, and the earl's seal became a blank piece of paper, and neither the iron coupons nor the lumi that had been granted were given to him.

Four

Three years later, when Yang Ming's term of observance (the death of his parents) expired, he should be reinstated as an official, while Yang Tinghe had previously been deposed and deposed for disagreeing with the emperor in the Great Ceremonial Council. However, for the court's "submission of the rules of recommendation", the inner court still "did not report" (referring to the neglect of the recitation). Xi Shu, who had been promoted to the position of Rebbe Shangshu, said indignantly: "There are many ministers today, and they are not enough to calculate the affairs of the world. When chaos is settled, it is necessary to keep the benevolence", he asked the emperor to summon Yang Ming to the cabinet to assist the government, "no one is inhibited by the jealous"--the "jealous" as Xi Shu called "the jealous person" pointed directly to the first assistant Fei Hong, and his recommendation of Yang Ming actually implied the selfish intention of cutting off the difference. Soon, the old minister Fei Hong stumbled to his position under the severe attack of the Praise Sect.

In the following years, Yang Ming sat in the cool Yang Ming Cave to lecture, not frustrated by the inability to make a comeback. He saw the situation too clearly, and knew that the great victory of the Praises in the Great Ceremony Was not the beginning of a stable situation, it would lead to a greater power struggle, and the situation was not quiet.

"The masses of officials and hundreds of divisions are jealous of the party' comparison, and this is a calamity in the heart, which is a great worry." Yang Ming wrote in a letter to the disciple Huang Xuan in the sixth year of Jiajing, "Seeing the theory of the Second and Third Shifu recently, I first knew that the hearts of the princes had not yet been flattened, and they waited for the ear. The old man of the first and second parties has not seen the sincerity of the same Yin, and there are people who have heard the mouth to insult him, and he has withdrawn from his selfishness, and he is like a hater. At the end of the letter, he sighed and said, "The sick and the ruined, love and love, and steal for the public." ”

Although at this time he had been entrusted with the edict out of the mountain, he still had a tone of staying out of the matter, as if he had made up his mind to retire after the achievements were completed; in the letter, he also expressed his attitude of being grumpy about the unknown rewards for Jiangxi's merits, probably worried about this southern expedition, and I was afraid that he would inevitably repeat the same mistakes - I did not expect to be unfortunately spoken by him!

Yang Ming arrived in Gui at the end of that year, commanded the deployment, quickly calmed Si and Tian, and by subduing the crowd, took advantage of the situation to enter the army, and flattened the thief's nest and the Broken Vine Gorge for many years, and the success was only in a few months.

Although Yang Ming's performance is also remarkable, although because he is seriously ill and leaves his post without waiting for the report, this "willfulness" seems to be forgiven compared with his Xun Lao; not to mention that he died just after leaving Guangdong, which has proved that his description of his illness in the petition is not false, how can the imperial court also talk about human feelings?

However, when the news of Yang Ming's death reached Beijing, the Jiajing Emperor, instead of regretting it, "ordered the officials to discuss the sin of shouren gong of the new Bo wang shouren gong" -- saying that it was a meritorious crime, and judging from the emperor's attitude, what he wanted to discuss was mainly "sin", not merit.

According to the History of Ming, when the Jieshu of The Broken Vine Gorge arrived in Beijing, the Jiajing Emperor wrote an edict to Yang Yiqing, the first assistant, accusing Wang Yangming of exaggerating his achievements, and making a nearly completely negative evaluation of him in terms of his character and scholarship. Shi Yun "didn't know what to do with Yiqing". In fact, both Yang Yiqing and his predecessor Fei Hong opposed Yang Ming's "good ancient crown clothes and happy to talk about new learning" as an objection to summoning him to the cabinet to assist the government. The academic prejudice of the old-school ministers against Yang Ming was no different from that of the emperor, and among the new upstarts, there were also dignitaries who were jealous of him.

There is also an inside story in this matter, which is disclosed in detail in the "Letter of Mr. Yang Ming". He said that the main people who want to "harm" Yang Ming are the university scholar Gui Cao. When Yang Ming's obituary arrived in Beijing, Gui Cao deliberately held down the news of his death, but made a fuss about his "unauthorized resignation from service", accusing him of disposing of Guangxi Si, Tian, and Bazhai Enwei upside down, and at the same time re-mentioning the "old accounts", slandering Yang Ming's former military exploits and "begging for orders and multi-official meetings". (The "council," also known as the court council, was a form of collective deliberation in the Ming Dynasty, which involved Xun Qi, the cabinet, the ministers of the ministry, the temple, and the officials of the Ministry of Science and Road.) ）

At first, yang ming was recommended by the university scholar Zhang Xuan, and Gui Cao was forced to agree. After Liangguang Jieyin arrived in Beijing, Zhang Xuan "sighed with great praise" and said, "I know that the prince is out of reach today", and immediately recommended to the emperor that he should take Yang Ming as an "auxiliary" - that is, the meaning of entering the cabinet. The new upstart Gui Cao and the old minister Yang Yiqing were not happy, so they asked Jin Yiwei to command Nie Nengqian to play Yang Mingtuo Huang Xuan and give Zhang Xuan millions of gold and silver before he could make a comeback.

The internal situation of this matter is very complicated, and it also involves the dispute between Zhang Xuan and Yang Yiqing, so Huang Xuan's recollection has its limitations. Another account said that Nie Nengqian was not allowed to be promoted after the great ceremony, and he was unhappy, so he ordered people to be sloppy, "On the new Bo Wang Shouren's bribery of the Ministry of Etiquette Shangshu Xishu, it can be seen and used, and the words are even Zhan Shi Huang And the university scholar Zhang Xuan", Zhang Xuan suspected that Yang Yiqing was sheltering Nie Nengqian, so they attacked each other.

The court meeting on Yang Ming's "meritorious sin" was presided over by Gui Cai and held at the official's office. The "crimes" discussed include "party rebellion" of King Ning (this crime is worse than "traffic"), indulging non-commissioned officers in Jiangxi, slaughtering innocents, secretly hiding treasures from the Treasury of Nanchang Province, and the recent inversion of Enwei in Guangxi and improper measures. In the end, only lecturing became the only crime to be "sat down." The Jiajing Emperor immediately issued a decree to stop the title of Yang Ming (the new bo was awarded by military merit, which should be hereditary), and at the same time issued an order prohibiting learning, denouncing Wang Xue as a "pseudo-study" and prohibiting study and teaching.

Yang Ming is "silent", even if he makes meritorious contributions, he cannot avoid suffering from party disasters! He suffered a greater grievance behind him than before he was born. When he pointed to his heart and said, "This mind is bright, and what is it said," didn't he already foresee it?

In an era of power struggle and confusion between right and wrong, any justification is superfluous.

Five

Of course, in addition to the political traps, people's misunderstandings about Yang Ming are too many.

It is as if he put forward the "theory of conscience" in his later years, which became the root of his mental science, and the premise for realizing conscience was "CunJing", which in Yang Ming's words was "the heart is not moving". However, this master who admired the unmoving heart was regarded by many as a power strategist.

When Yang Ming was young, there was a famous story of "Owl Bird Ruling Stepmother". This story was obviously imagined by his "fans", and Yang Ming himself would never agree that this matter was "exemplary". Once, his friend Chu Wei (号柴墟) sent someone to send a copy of Liu Sheng's Epitaph and asked him to look at it. After Reading it, Yang Ming thought that this article was "meticulous", but proposed that "the sole narration is that the father's side room affair is quite hurt and loyal, and it is better to delete it without carving the stone.". The reason is that "the Son should not be more than a few when he has passed through the Father's life, and he should not be too radical; it is not possible to call the Son beautiful, but to send out the Father's selfishness." The troubled person who made up the story of "Zhi Stepmother" must not have read this "Reply to the Chai Ruins", so he created a "strange story" that was naturally calculated but was too far away from Yang Ming's original heart.

Unlike most theorists, Yang Ming not only has moral articles, he also has a lot of merit. Yang Ming was a famous warrior in the world, and people often said that "the god of the master's strain is really unpredictable." Those who are good at using soldiers must know about power changes, which naturally becomes an angle for people to understand Wang Xue.

The ancients said, "The wisdom of using soldiers is to have one heart", but the marching of soldiers must be deceitful, which seems to be a serious contradiction with the standards of pure Confucianism, and most of the accusations against Yang Ming's "pseudo-science" are also derived from this. Probably for this reason, Yang Ming rarely mentioned his "military affairs". According to Qian Dehong, a doorman, he "spent eight years as Mr. Shi, and everyone who asked about military affairs in the same door was silent and did not answer, so that the Nan, Gan, and Ning clans did not hear of each other."

Qian once asked: "Is there any skill in using soldiers?" Yang Ming denied that there was a technique, he said: "What is the technique of using soldiers?" But the knowledge is pure, and the heart that is cultivated is not moving, it is a shuer. "Yang Ming's intention is that he can lead the army without moving his heart?" The teacher explained in this way, and the students were naturally convinced, so some people were proud and thought that they could "work with the teacher". Yang Ming asked him why, and this life replied, "I can not move my heart." Yang Ming said, "If you don't move your heart, you can easily speak!" In this life, he said confidently: "I have a way not to make my heart move." Yang Ming smiled, "When this heart is against the enemy and needs to brake, who is worried about the conspiracy?" ”

That's it! In the end, Yang Ming still did not tell the truth of "using soldiers without skill", nor did he make a theoretical explanation of the relationship between "making plans and making worries" and "this mind does not move" in the use of soldiers. Incomplete words are a common phenomenon in YangMing's "quotations".

The situation of Yang Ming's use of troops is mostly seen in the omission of articles such as reporting victories, but there are many omissions, such as "all counter-plots are not mentioned." It is a common thing for soldiers to use fraud. Qian Dehong's understanding is that "to use tricks by designing tricks is not something that a gentleman has already done, and he does not want to show it explicitly." To this end, he personally went to Jiangxi to collect the "Relics of Zheng Chenhao's Rebellion" and recorded many cases of Yang Ming's use of the intermediary to deceive. In order to let people know the details of the teacher's "martial arts", Qian Dehong collected a large number of song shuwen shifts, checked the month and day, and compiled the order, "and then the five marches began and ended."

Due to the fact that yangmingology was to be played in the pulpit or discussed in private messages, he rarely wrote books and lectures, and he himself had more avoidance, which led to deviations in his own and academic understanding. At that time, some people accused Yang Ming of "academic misconduct and gathering crowds to cause trouble", and some people in later generations believed that Yang Mingxue was a kind of "rebellious philosophy", that is, it was rooted in this.

Yang Ming, as the destabilizer of the "Chenhao Rebellion", has always been unable to get rid of the accusation of "Tonghao Party rebellion", which is not enough to answer the word "jealousy".

Six

As the influence of Yuezhong's lectures grew, Wang Xue's reputation rose, and at the same time, criticism and criticism increased.

In October of the first year of Jiajing (1522), Li Ke said to Zhang Qiao, "Three generations or less, the right learning is like Zhu Xi, and there are recently those who are wise and intelligent enough to call on those in the world to advocate the theory of different learning, and those who are good at being famous and famous, jingran Zongzhi ... Begging the world is forbidden. ”

"Wisdom and wisdom are enough to appeal to those in the world", that is, wang Yangming, which is the first time that there are voices that refer to Wang Xue as a "different school" and demand that he be banned.

"In recent years, the scholar's habits have been strange, the literary work is difficult and dangerous, and the wounds and treatments are not shallow." In his reply, the Jiajing Emperor affirmed Zhang Qiao's views, and demanded, "From now on, teaching people to take soldiers, according to Cheng Zhu's words, it is not allowed to be a book that is deviant and undeserved, and to privately pass on the engraving in order to mislead the right." This is actually the precursor to Wang Xue's being designated as a "pseudoscience".

In the spring of the following year, the Beijing conference took the test, and the question was asked by the mind, which contained the meaning of "Mr. Yin Yi pei". After reading the question, xu shan, the doorman, sighed: "How can I be lucky with my conscience?" "Don't answer. However, several other fellow disciples, such as Ouyang De, Wang Chen, and Wei Liangbi, played the teacher's teaching intentions when answering, and had no scruples, and were actually admitted. In the public opinion environment at that time, "intellectuals" could only be understood as "going in and out of life." In fact, when the Holy Will made a criticism of Wang Xue's "erroneous and correct learning", the examination papers that exerted the intention of learning the mind could still "slip through the net", indicating that the imperial court ban could no longer prevent Wang Xue from spreading. The deeper Yang Ming's jealousy became, it was inseparable from the rapid spread of Wang Xue.

Qian Dehong participated in the test, and when he returned home, he complained to the teacher that he "deeply hates the obedience of current affairs." Yang Ming said happily, "Holy Learning from Zi Daming!" Dehong was puzzled and asked, "Current events are like this, why see Daming?" Yang Ming said, "Do I have to study all over the world to read people?" Although the "Trial Record of the Meeting" is now poor and deep in the valley, I have not learned, and there will be those who seek truth in the world. ”

When the imperial court denounced Wang Xue as "deviant", some of the disciples who were serving as officials in the court wanted to argue with each other, Yang Ming stopped them, saying: "There is no argument to stop slander, and I have tasted the teachings of the past." This "teaching of the past" must have also been taught by his father. From argument to non-argument, Yang Ming's attitude toward slander has undergone a great change. His reason for "unrepresentative defamation" was: "The four heroes and heroines, with the similarities and differences in teaching, have a lot of discussions, can we be victorious and debated?" ”

Compared with the debate, he pays more attention to "silently and unspoken faith". Therefore, he does not care about the accusation of "pseudo-science", but pays more attention to some doormen breaking the ice and ascending to the first place, because after they win the list, the examination paper will be included in the "Will Test Record", which will become a must-read for the world's scholars, and all readers will be baptized, which is "silent". According to his own experience, he realized that if a scholar is in a "place of unbelief", even if he says a thousand words, he is "more than eloquent today" and "can be argued"?

In his later years, Yang Ming became more and more inclined to work inwardly for "being slandered": instead of arguing with others and arguing without arguing, it was better to "seek oneself against oneself" and "be patient with one's heart and forge ahead", so that scholarship became more mellow and eventually reached the state of "unspoken faith".

One day, the doormen Zou Shouyi, Xue Kan, Huang Zongming, Ma Mingheng, Wang Geng, and other attendants talked about the recent slander of Ri Blaze, and Yang Ming said: "Please talk about the reason. "Some say that Mr. Li is in a prosperous position because he is jealous of slander; some say that Mr. Li is academic and bright, and if he argues for similarities and differences for Song Ru, he is slandered by scholarship; some say that the people in the world are all wandering, and the good and the bad are uneven, and they are slandered by their bodies." Finally, Yang Ming said, "There are all three kinds of situations that you said, but what I think in my heart, you haven't talked about it yet." Everyone was busy asking for advice, and Yang Ming said: "Before I was in Nanjing, there were still hometowns willing to think. In this day and age, only by believing that conscience is true or wrong, and there is no hiding to protect it, only then can it be a madman. Let the whole world say that I will not hide my words, and I will only act according to my conscience. ”

Yang Ming said that before Zhengde changed his official position to Nanjing in the sixteenth year, he still had a bit of a flattering mentality (that is, "hometown wishes"), afraid that others would not understand and would not be good to the world, but now he only believed in true conscience, acted according to conscience, and no longer cared about the slander of the world. Here, Yang Ming is actually referring to himself as a "madman".

"Conscience" is a bright heart; "walking only according to conscience" means keeping the light of the heart. When Yang Ming said this, he had both the meaning of helping the world and the embarrassment, and at the same time there was a sense of calmness and tranquility in his attitude, and he believed that his conscience and light could finally make people understand and obey.

However, the "madman" is self-sufficient and not moved by the boiling discussion of the world, but the madman is a teacher, how can he become a model for the world? Yang Ming still can't say it thoroughly.

Seven

Yang Ming, who was praised by posterity as the "True Three Immortals", had a rough road in his life, he did not have magical magic, nor did he have the magic of ascending to a high call and gathering all the people. On the contrary, on the road of exploring new learning, he encountered layers of resistance and suffered too much suspicion and grievances, just as Huo Tao said: "Fu is loyal as Shouren, meritorious as Shouren, one succumbs to Jiangxi, and then succumbs to two Guangdong!" "This is really rare among the Ming Dynasty scholars.

Sailing against the current, the wind and waves are uncertain, but Yang Ming found the ballast, which is Wang Xue's last slogan: "To conscience." ”

The last words left by Yang Ming in Nan'an Province, Jiangxi Province, can be found in the Annals compiled by his disciples. Huang Xuan's "Mr. Yang Ming's Behavior" also records his dying words, which is different from the former. Row-like cloud:

(November 7, Jiajing) From the 29th to Nankang County, it will belong to The (dying), and the family servant asks what he has asked. Gong Yue: "He has no thoughts, he has only seen a few points in his life's learning, and he has not been able to form a common form with our party, which is hateful!" "Passed away.

To the disciples, Yang Ming said, "This heart is bright, and what is said"; to the servants, he said that "he failed to become a common party (learning)" as hateful. These two last words do not contradict each other.

The foundation of YangMing Mind is conscience, but how to achieve conscience requires a complete and clear set of expositions and norms. However, reading the Complete Works of Wang Yangming, compiled by later generations, there are very few specific records on how to enter the profession, and many times, it is only a description of the ideal state - such as the aforementioned "mind is not moving". Yang Ming was a master of Ming Dynasty science and an iconic figure in the development of psychology, but to be fair, he mainly asked new questions and then gave answers, but between questions and answers, there was still a lack of a rigorous argumentative process (which is also a common disease of ancient Chinese thinkers).

For example, in his later years, he put forward the conscience theory that "it is really enough to forget suffering and be born and die", based on his personal feelings of "the difficulty of the world and the unpredictability of human feelings", which came from his perception of hardship and suffering, and had a strong personality, but how to turn "conscience" into a universal theoretical tool, there is no ready-made method. In the great ceremonial controversy, the division of the disciples and the inability of later scholars to be lawless and reduced to the so-called "last stream of Wang Xue" are all proofs. Yang Ming lamented that "only in his life can he see a few points of learning", which should be a feeling of the heart, and he regrets that he has not been able to build his academic edifice. Therefore, "unspoken" and "hateful" are complementary to each other, and both are indispensable, forming Yang Ming's last "academic image".

Many years ago, Yang Ming's father made an "unwise" evaluation of him because he was anxious to argue; for more than ten years, Yang Ming knew that he was "in a place of unbelief", but he had to argue urgently; in the last few years of his life, his heart suddenly became quiet, he did not move, and he began to take an open and undisputed attitude towards everything. This is the way he has personally cultivated it. However, throughout his life, Yang Ming was not able to stand firmly in the place of "words and beliefs", and he was even defiled by pseudoscience behind him...

Yang Ming's great ideal must be to use his heart candle to light the torch of the world, rather than to keep a spark (that is, he said "this heart is bright") in that small corner. However, at the time of his death, what he left to show was still only a piece of "light" that he guarded himself--this is exactly what he thought and hated! in Hu Dan