Chen Baisha and the Psychology Public Case He Triggered

Author: Chen Chang

Chen Baisha (陈献章, also known as Mr. Baisha) was a thinker who, together with Wang Yangming, was known as the two representative figures of ming dynasty psychology. Academics are accustomed to positioning Chen Baisha as the beginning of the Ming Dynasty's psychology, and the master of mind science between Lu Jiuyuan and Wang Yangming inherits the past and the future. This positioning is largely true, but some of its ambiguities need to be clarified. For example, the most different thing about mind science from other currents of thought in Song Mingxue is that it is a pluralistic and complex system of thought, and there are still many differences within it. Words such as "beginning" and "inheriting the past and starting the future" often erase the differences in thought, so the above customary views need to be clarified: Is there a difference between Baisha and Yangming? If so, what type of psychology do they belong to? In fact, there is already a conclusive conclusion within the Ming Dynasty's psychology, and the "jargon" of the study of the heart nature of Wang Tangnan, the right king of Jiangsu, concludes: "The study of Yang Ming, the understanding of the qi is also the one who is the one who resists the qi." The study of white sand, nourishing qi to the sex also. "The big vernacular is that Baisha is the mind of the Lord Jing, and Yang Ming is the active mind.

Huang Zongxi once questioned: "The study of enlightenment begins to be subtle in the white sand... To the yang ming and then big. The two gentlemen's studies are the most similar, I don't know if Yang Ming never talked about it later, why is it? Before the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Zixue ruled the world, yangming and Baisha belonged to the same weak camp of psychology, and it was difficult to understand "never talking" in terms of reason; Yang Ming and Baisha's proud protégé Zhan Ganquan was a close friend of his own, and in terms of affection, Yang Ming's "never talking" was even more suspicious. Judging from the existing Yangming literature, Yangming is not completely "not talking" about baisha. Professor Li Yeming of the Department of Philosophy of Shenzhen University, through meticulous literature, convincingly pointed out that Yang Ming's reluctance to mention Baisha was fifteen years after Zhengde — previously, Yang Ming and Zhanganquan had a friendly relationship, repeatedly mentioning and agreeing with Baisha; after that, Yangming and Zhanganquan had a disagreement on academic purposes and debated fiercely, unwilling to praise or criticize Baisha. This state of "wanting to talk and rest" was not until the first generation of Yang Ming disciples got rid of the shackles of human feelings among the scholars of the previous generation and were able to return to academic thought itself and face its differences.

After Yang Ming's death, his disciples had sharp disagreements over how to evaluate Baisha and Yang Ming. Yang's proud disciple Wang Qi said, "The study of baisha takes nature as its religion... Where the previous master realized, there is still no distance. Wang Qi believes that there is an essential difference between Yangming Scholarship and Baisha Scholarship, and criticizes Baisha Scholarship accordingly. Nie Bao, the main force of the Jiangyou Wangmen, said: "After Zhou Cheng, Baisha will get its essence, and Yang Ming will get its greatness. "Fine" is specialized and precise, and "big" is broad and grand. Nie Bao actually believes that Baisha Academia is higher than Yang Ming Academic. This tit-for-tat disagreement is related to the conflict between the different directions of development of conscience after Yang Ming's death. In other words, the different evaluations of Baisha by Wang Qi and Nie Bao involve two different development directions of mental thought, and these two different directions actually constitute the internal tension of the development of psychology in the middle and late Ming Dynasties.

According to the Yangming Mind Science "Mind is Reason" proposition, Tianli is not the cognitive object of the mind body, but the heavenly principle of the mind body; the mind body is self-mastering, and everything in the heavens and the earth is revealed through the judgment of the conscience of the mind body. In other words, in the Yangming mind system, the order of all things is based on the "my conscience and spirit" in the mind-matter induction mechanism, and "my conscience and spirit" shoulder all responsibilities. This is the theoretical root of Yang Mingxin's courage to take responsibility, full of moral passion, and positive and enterprising madman's chest. For example, Luo Rufang, a master of the Yangming Houxue and Taizhou Schools, is known for being eager for justice and righteousness, and even pays bribes or offers rewards on behalf of people in order to save people. Huang Zongxi said in the "Case of Ming Confucianism" that Mr. Yang Ming's learning was popular in Taizhou and Longxi. The characteristics of the taizhou school scholars are many who can fight dragons and snakes with their bare hands -- the courage to break free from the shackles of famous religions, the unruliness, and the ability to plot. In modern times, Kang Youwei said that "scholars of speech and heart will be able to do things", which is based on this characteristic. However, herein lies the problem. Because conscience arises at the level of the individual mind, the unrestrained individual mind may not present itself with conscience, it may be lustful, or it may be an illusory value that is detached from the basis of reality. This cannot avoid not imposing one's will on all things.

Unlike Yang Ming, who based the order of all things on the basis of conscience and wisdom, Baisha returned the power to regulate the ethical order to nature. "The human heart is originally decent, as long as it is cultivated quietly, it will open up", Baisha advocates that the natural order is the most perfect order, in which all things remain alive and grow freely in a "free" way, without the interference of external forces. Baisha's "nurturing and quiet" absorbs the Taoist wisdom of letting go of the "unborn life", laying down all intellectual fabrications in front of nature, and allowing all things to present themselves in their own way. Silence is not inaction, but to maintain the unity and diversity of the world with natural principles; to regulate the operation of the human social system with a natural and spontaneous order, and to avoid the loss of low-level and inefficient. Nie Bao, the right king of Jiangsu, raised the status of Baisha scholarship above Yangming, which is a measure to try to correct the evils of Yangming's conscience with the Baisha idea.

In the middle and late Ming Dynasties, the study of Yangming conscience was popular in the world, because it advocated scholars to actively devote themselves to the social practice of eliminating evil for good, and the main quiet learning of Baisha could not meet the requirements of the yangming school of believers to actively transform society. For the yangming school of believers, the way to solve the evils of conscience science is still to rely on tempering the abundant and keen power of conscience, rather than dissolving moral enthusiasm through "main silence". Because the ideal society depends on people's active struggle in the process of social practice, truth and its effect are the result of people's positive thinking in the process of learning. Based on this, Wang Qi clearly criticized Baisha as only a Confucian sect, and its main study of tranquility was only a power law to solve the problem of the world's spirit spilling and seeking outwards.

This controversy, which lasted for nearly a hundred years, was not resolved until the late Ming Dynasty. The "Records of the Emperor's Ming Dao" written by the master of psychology Liu Zongzhou has a lot of derogatory remarks about Chen Baisha, who "pushed the world as a great Confucian", and even denounced it as "Zen studies". Interestingly, Liu Zongzhou repeatedly studied the study of Baisha in his later years, lamenting that the study of Baisha was not as simple as he thought in the "Records of the Emperor's Ming Dao": "Cultivating the beginning in silence is today to see the white sand noodles." The background of the change in evaluation from derogatory to positive is that Liu Zongzhou actively studied a new academic that cured the abuses of Yangming studies to save the world based on his deep reflection on the scholarship and politics of the late Ming Dynasty. Liu Zongzhou's ideological insights in his later years, elaborated by his disciple Huang Zongxi, were presented in the form of a comprehensive critical summary of Ming Dynasty thought and politics. This is a reasonable summary of the confrontation between the mind science of the Ming Dynasty And the active mind of Yang Ming, and it is also a projection of the interaction between the development of the mind of the Ming Dynasty and the realpolitik.

The essence of traditional Chinese culture is the essence of mind science. To understand the study of mind, reading The White Sands is one of the best ways. The Complete Works of Chen Xianzhang, edited and proofread by Li Yeming, is the most complete collection of Chen Baisha literature and the most detailed examination at present.