Some people say that Guangdong is a "cultural desert", is this really the case? In fact, there is no shortage of great thinkers and writers in the history of Guangdong. From the Zen masters Liuzu Huineng and zhang Jiuling, to the modern Sun Yat-sen, Liang Qichao, Kang Youwei and so on.
There was also a thinker in Guangdong who was not well known to the public, who, along with Wang Yangming, was a pioneer of mind science in the Ming Dynasty, named Chen Baisha.
Chen Baisha, whose real name was Chen Xianzhang ,Chinese: 陈本章; pinyin: Shěại, Guangdong, was a native of Xinhui County, Guangzhou Province, Guangdong Province (present-day Xinhui District, Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province), so he was also known as Mr. Baisha. He was erudite and a thinker, educator, calligrapher, poet, and guqin. He was the only Great Confucian from the Temple of Confucius in Guangdong, and was later known as the "True Confucian of the Holy Age" and "Confucianism of Lingxue", and his doctrine was called "Baisha Theory" or "Jiangmen School".
Xinhui Baisha Village, evergreen in all seasons, beautiful scenery, maolin bamboo, swaying with the wind. The small river at the head of the village is babbling, the sand by the river is white and immaculate, and a group of children are frolicking on the beach.
In the third year of Emperor Xuande of Ming Dynasty (1428), in this small village with beautiful scenery, Chen Baisha was born.
He was a widowed son raised by his mother, Lin Shi. He was brilliant at a young age and never forgot to read. When the young Chen Baisha read that Mencius "had those who were subjects of Anshe Ji and those who were pleased with An Sheji; those who were able to do what they could do in the world and then those who walked; those who were adults, those who were right in their own right and those who were righteous in things", he was determined to be what Mencius called "heavenly people and adults"; and when he read about the history of the ancestors who martyred the country with their bodies when the Southern Song Dynasty fell, he often hid his face and drooled.
Chen Baisha was frail and sick in his early years and often needed to recuperate, which also gave him a lot of time to think. His father left a considerable family business that allowed him to study quietly. In this way, entering the imperial family and honoring the ancestors of the Guangzong Dynasty naturally became chen Baisha's only choice.
When he was 16 years old, the teacher read the article he made and said: "Chen Sheng is very human, and the world network is not enough to restrain him." ”
Chen Baisha, the eagle that was about to spread its wings and soar, was destined not to stick to the big net of the world.
At the age of 20, Chen Baisha passed the Xiucai examination, and in the autumn of the same year, he took the township examination and ranked 9th in the province, which undoubtedly showed his outstanding talent. He hoped to be a high school student, but in the second year's examination, he unexpectedly failed, only to enter the deputy list, and was selected to study in the Guozijian. As a young man full of ambition, Chen Baisha naturally did not want to give up. However, in the second year of Jingtai (1451), he fell again. He was discouraged by successive defeats, so he had to return to his hometown.
The successive defeats of the science field made Chen Baisha's mood very depressed, and at the same time, the land of southern Guangdong experienced the catastrophe of the Huang Xiaoyang Rebellion. In the midst of wandering and suffering, Chen Baisha began a new life, he hoped that he could become a scholar, but he was also suffering from learning the Law.
In the fifth year of Jingtai (1454), the 27-year-old Chen Baisha went north alone, crossed yuling, crossed Meiguan, went to Ganzhou, and finally came to Chongren County, where he studied under Wu Youbi, the great Confucian at that time, and studied the "Book of Ancient Sages and Teachings" to solve the bitterness of "learning from the unfinished".
Wu Youbi (吴與弼), courtesy name Fu (傅), was the son of Kangzhai (康斋), and his father Pu was an instructor of the Guozi Supervisory Board. He gave up his career and immersed himself in learning.
After several twists and turns, Chen Baisha finally found Mr. Wu youbi, who had abandoned his official duties and was lecturing at home. Wu Youbi is known for his rigorous academic discipline, and he requires that students must be attentive and consistent in their attitudes, concentrate their thinking, cultivate quietly, and examine when they move.
Wu and Bi mainly followed the Zhuzi doctrine, advocating "cultivating this heart", "daily work", and paying attention to physical practice.
He never talked to beginners, but first let them engage in farming, so that they could understand the "truth" in practice. When Chen Baisha first came, once in the morning, when Wu Youbi saw that Baisha had not yet gotten up, he loudly rebuked: "On its day, why did it go to the gate of Yichuan, and why did it go to the door of Mencius!" (The Case of Ming Confucianism)
Wu Youbi's rigorous and pragmatic attitude toward study gave Chen Baisha a great shock. Although he had only been under his disciples for half a year, Chen Baisha had been completely reborn, and he was determined to forge a path in learning to repay this teacher.
After bidding farewell to Wu and Bi, Chen Baisha thanked the guests and returned to Baisha Village. In the south of the foothills of Xiaolu Mountain, he built a bookstore and named it "Spring Balcony". Here, he concentrated on reading, reading all kinds of ancient and modern classics, sometimes even staying up all night, and when he was sleepy, he washed his feet with cold water.
In order to reduce the interference with him, the family dug a hole in the wall, eating and drinking clothes, and proceeded from this hole.
Cold and summer, autumn to spring, unconsciously, spent ten years.
As a poem says: "Wild birds fly quietly, spring returns to butterflies unknown; cicadas chirp into the summer, and the winter sun and moon shadow slant." ”
At first, he seemed to feel that his learning had not progressed. Later, Chen Baisha tried to find a way out through "meditation", and finally one day, he realized that "the body of my mind is hiddenly revealed", found the combination point between the classics and "this heart", and established the "self-gaining learning" with self-domination.
Mountains and rivers are doubtful and there is no way, and the willows are dark and the flowers are bright and another village.
The establishment of Baisha's "self-sufficiency" marked the birth of the Jiangmen School. This marks a major change in the methodology of science since the Northern Song Dynasty, with the study of classics as the mainstream, and ushered in the germ of "mind science" represented by Wang Yangming.
Ten years of bench cold, the final harvest of fruit.
In the spring of the first year of Ming Chenghua (1465), the 38-year-old Chen Baisha decided to set up a museum to teach on the spring terrace. After the news spread, the near countryside, the far neighbors, the students flocked to the city, and suddenly the family was full of doors.
The Jasper Building is the place where Chen Baisha taught, where he personally inscribed a poem.
The soles of the feet are open, and the small building occupies this is a natural cut. Light flow South Pole window in front of the ground, spring full of East Coast palm jade cup. Jasper has seen it again for a long time, and the white cloud has returned to the twilight. The plum blossom sunset newspaper Luo floated, and the moon on the Jiangmen carried a shadow back.
Having a heart for the society and using learning to influence the world has always been Chen Baisha's unchangeable belief.
In the second year of Chenghua (1466), Chen Baisha received a letter from Qian Pu of Shunde County, advising him to take advantage of the new emperor's restoration of ceremonies and teachings to rectify the imperial program. Therefore, he decided to revisit the capital Taixue. The official in charge of the Guozijian was Xing Rang, who intended to test Chen Baisha's knowledge and asked him to compose a poem titled "He Yang Guishan No Longer Rhymes on This Day". Chen Baisha meditated intently and quickly wrote a poem. He proposed that scholars should not pay too much attention to the words, but should follow the ancient sages' distinction of righteousness and profit, and focus on the proposition of cultivating virtue, and Xing Rang praised this greatly, praising it as the "comeback of true Confucianism", and the scholars of the court who aspired to learn were also amazed and rushed to recite it.
His reputation was thus greatly shaken by the Capital Division, and the official He Qin, a Liaodong man in the affair, regarded him as a life mentor, resigned from the official and bowed to this Confucian from Southern Guangdong.
However, the officialdom is far from being as simple as the academic field.
Xing Rang recommended Chen Baisha to the official Shangshu Wei Ao to become an official in the ministry. Later, Chen Baisha found that the so-called secretary was just a small official in charge of handling documents. Chen Baisha, who was upright, was often secretly calculated because he disdained the powerful people of the dynasty. In the fifth year of Chenghua (1469), he participated in the second examination, and because of the power of the traitorous courtiers, he was still lost to Sun Shan, so he decided to abandon his career and return to his hometown to concentrate on his studies.
When Chen Baisha returned to his hometown again, he was already a scholar all over the world. While caring for his elderly mother, he recruited disciples and spread doctrine.
A large number of students from near and far came to Baisha Village to worship him as a teacher. Even Ding Ji of Xinhuizhi County came under his door and asked him for advice on the county's administrative policies.
In the nineteenth year of Chenghua (1483), the 55-year-old Chen Baisha contributed to the imperial court under the recommendation of Zhu Ying, the governor of Guangdong, and Peng Shao, the envoy of the government.
However, he was ostracized by the officialdom everywhere. Seeing the chaotic court, he immediately wrote a copy of "Begging for Ends" to Emperor Xianzong on the grounds that his mother was old, and asked for permission to return home. The emperor was touched by this article and felt that Chen Baisha was not only good at learning, but also had good character, so he gave him an official title of "Review of the Hanlin Academy".
Since then, Baisha has never left his hometown. He completely cut off the idea of becoming a career and devoted himself to talent training. BaiSha's most trusted students in his later years were Zhang Xu and Zhan Ruoshui, who inherited his mantle and created a new pattern of science.
In the thirteenth year of Hongzhi (1500), Chen Baisha died.
On the day of his death, the top of the mountain was shrouded in mist and mist, like a fairyland.
Chen Baisha's theory exalts the subjective self-worth of "the universe in me" and highlights the significance of the individual in all things in heaven and earth, just like a fresh air in the academic circles of the Ming Dynasty, which has a profound impact on the spiritual orientation of the entire Ming Dynasty literati.
In addition to philosophy, Chen Baisha's greatest contribution is the cause of education.
Chen Baisha attaches great importance to the role of education, and he has written many academic records for the counties, repeatedly stressing the need to set up wide schools for the national education of talents, and proposing that "those who have had a state since ancient times have not always taken the task of promoting learning and educating talents."
First of all, he insisted on both cultivation and education. Neither study nor farming should be abandoned. He has lived in the countryside for decades, and his family has two acres of land, entrusting students to cultivate on their behalf, and he only takes 30% of his harvest.
As he wrote in a poem "Yongjiang Men Ping": "On the second day of 258, Jiangmen Fiber bought both hoes and books, and the fields could be cultivated and readable, and half farmers and half Confucians were Confucians." ”
Secondly, he created a unique teaching method. He proposed:
1. Sit quietly first, then read a book; 2. More self-study, less indoctrination; 3. Think diligently and take the essence; 4. Heavy questions, seeking truth and knowledge; 5. Poetry introduction, philosophy into poetry.
Third, he attaches great importance to the cultivation of students' personality.
In view of the fact that some students are greedy for alcohol and cannot concentrate on studying, Chen Baisha himself has written several poems such as "Song of Quitting Color", "Song of Quitting Drama", "Abstinence from Laziness" and other poems for students to recite, so that they can quit these bad habits.
For example, his "Song of The Ring" says:
In the world, flower wine always comes first, and flower wine is originally wasted money. Drunk and rampant, he still wakes up, and the flowers are confused and do not know the sky. The fish swallowed the bait and threw themselves on the riverbank, and the butterflies went to the wild rivers in search of flowers. Send a message to the disciples of Jiangmen, don't be greedy for flowers and wine to mislead young people.
Due to the diligent efforts of Baisha and his disciples, Lingnan's academic thinking has been refreshing.
Chen Baisha's life is full of peach and plum, thanks to his personality charm and unique teaching methods. It can be said that his contribution to the cause of education is the most valuable wealth left to the world.
Chen Baisha, who created the "Lingnan School" in the field of Chinese philosophy, opened the precedent of the Ming Dynasty's psychology, inherited the influence of Song Confucianism, and opened up confucianism, and in the history of the development of Chinese philosophy, it has the status of inheriting the past and the future, and has become a key figure in the history of science.
Zhang Taiyan, a master of traditional Chinese studies, said: "Ming Dynasty scholars and Song Confucians were independent and self-contained, starting from Chen Baisha. ”
Chen Baisha, at the same time, is also a sower. Throughout his life, he was indifferent to fame and fortune, sowing the seeds of thought and love on the land of China, and producing countless fruitful fruits, and his deeds will always be remembered by the world.