Good Confucianism book (pdf) - Department of Physics

174 Neo-Confucianismas their intuitive knowledge justified it. The crux of the problem in Wang ’ sthought is that it is subjective, so there is no outside standard by whichbehavior can be judged. If your intuitive knowledge says there is nothingwrong in killing me, I can hardly argue that your intuitive knowledge isnot saying that. I can only argue that your intuitive knowledge is wrong,and, according to Wang Yangming, how can I say that?Wang Yangming was a great example of someone who was both aConfucian scholar and active in government. His challenge to the Zhu XiSchool of Principle was a serious one, and by responding to it the Schoolof Principle had to bring its emphasis back to action.SummaryZhu Xi ’ s School of Principle and Wang Yangming ’ s school of mind/heartagree about the existence of the Supreme Ultimate, principle, qi , moralcultivation ’ s relation to political action, and so on. They both agree thatall human beings are related to the Supreme Ultimate. They disagree onhow we should go about finding and expressing the principle within us.Zhu Xi ’ s School of Principle remained the dominant approach. As onemight expect, by setting up an orthodox interpretation, one used in theexamination system, Neo - Confucianism began to fossilize. It resulted, onceagain, in men who simply memorized Zhu Xi ’ s commentaries and ignoredtheir real meaning. However, while most literati were not very interestedin practicing the Confucianism they had read, there were always those,like Han Yu and Wang Yangming, who tried to act on Confucian values.They were courageous enough to “ speak truth to power, ” and many weredemoted, or even executed, for doing so.For example, Wei Zheng (580 – 643) was a famous minister to the evenmore famous Taizong emperor of the Tang dynasty. Wei Zheng did nothesitate to criticize his emperor and, in a letter in 637, warned the emperorthat when he began his reign he had used rightness as his guide, but as timehad gone on, the emperor had become careless and arrogant, and lived inluxury. Unlike most of the dynastic rulers of China, the Taizong emperoraccepted the criticism. When Wei Zheng died, the emperor said that he usedthree mirrors: one was to straighten his cap, a second mirror was the historyof the past that showed him his errors, and his third mirror was Wei Zheng.Now that Wei Zheng was dead, he said, “ I have lost the most importantmirror of all. ” Su Shi (1037 – 1101) was a well - known writer, poet, andstatesman. He was appointed to the government of the city of Hangzhou.When he arrived, he found that drought and famine had devastated the city,and set up soup kitchens to feed the hungry. He sold rice though the governmentgranary at a reduced rate and had the local government provide rice,