Chapter 118: The First Test of the Little Sanyuan Palace (Part 1)
Twenty-eight years ago, a sage was buried in the Kuaiji Mountains west of Shaoxing City, sharing the green pines with ancient pines and immortality with green mountains... He is Yangming, the saint of the ages, and a super legend who cultivated himself and managed his family and governed the country and pacified the world when he died, and his thoughts shone through the ages.
Yangming Gong’s theory is called the study of 'conscience'. What is conscience? Conscience is the original heart, so Wangxue is also called the study of mind. In the eyes of Mr. Yangming, the heart is the origin, the heart is everything, and everything in the world is the thing in the heart, and everything must be dominated by the heart. According to the Record of the Book of Chuanxi, a friend of the teacher visited Nanzhen and pointed to the flower tree in the rock and asked: "There is no thing outside the heart in the world. Such a flower tree blooms and falls in the deep mountains, what is related to my heart?" The teacher said: "When you have not seen this flower, this flower will be silent with your heart. When you see this flower, the color of this flower will be understood for a moment. You will know that this flower is not outside your heart."
His thoughts are indeed as bright as the starry sky on a summer night, but they are by no means showing off or mysterious. Because he has enjoyed the glory and wealth of the world, and has ended up with all the tortures of his body and mind, he can understand the various aspects of the world, understand the warmth and coldness of life, and be able to get rid of all impetuousness and temptations in the world, and be as calm as water, break it before it can stand, and finally understand the world and obtain the ultimate truth.
If it were only for this, he could only be considered a great scholar like Zhu Xi and Cheng Yi, but he was definitely not a sage. The reason why Gong Yangming was called a sage is because he knew that just understanding philosophy and talking nonsense all day long was useless except for killing time!
He found that he needed something that could transform his highest wisdom into a true action of "cultivating oneself, managing the family, governing the country and pacifying the world". In this way, learning is not empty talk, and his theory is truly useful!
In order to achieve this goal, Yangming Gong resolutely entered the world after his great enlightenment, and worked hard to practice and verify it in the temple, in the battlefield, in the academy, and in the world. Finally, he found such a magic weapon a few years later!
When Wang Yangming mastered and used it skillfully, no one in the world could compete with it! With such a magical weapon, he was in the world and had no disadvantages. He used his own strength to ensure the safety of half of the Ming Dynasty, eliminated tens of thousands of troops while chatting and laughing, achieved brilliant martial arts, and was admired by future generations!
It was also with this magic weapon that he surpassed countless senior scholars and entered the realm of sages. And the only one who could reach this realm was Yangming!
The name of this magic weapon is "Unification of Knowledge and Action".
"Knowing" means understanding the truth, and "action" means taking action. For thousands of years, some people have thought that it is easy to know and practice, while others think that it is difficult to do it. In short, there are many different opinions and no consensus. For example, Zhu Xi, the "saint" of Neo-Confucianists, believes that it is the most difficult to understand the truth, and it is very simple to put it into action. So scholars have been studying the scriptures all over the world and do nothing except enlightenment... Their reasons are also very sufficient. Saint Zhu said that it is easy to know and practice. After we realize the truth, it is a piece of cake to do what we don't do?
But Wang Yangming said: "No! Knowledge and action are one, and both are important." So the Sanskrit sound was sung, the goddess scattered flowers, and Yangming became a saint in public!
His meaning is that conscience and behavior are equally important. We must let conscience command behavior and let behavior prove conscience. If we know that this is right, we must do it like this. If we know that this is wrong, we cannot do it. We originally thought it was right, but later we found that it was wrong, we must stop correcting it immediately. We must not let conscience and behavior violate it, but we must always be united by knowledge and action.
The teacher once wrote about the "Four Decisions of Heart Learning", which fully conveyed the essence of Wang Xue's true meaning, and said:
"The body without good or evil is not bad, and there is good or evil. Knowing good and evil is conscience, and doing good and eliminating evil is investigating things."
It means that everything in the world is caused by the mind. When the mind is in the world, it is present. If the mind is not present, everything is gone. Everyone is born with a childlike heart. At first, there is no thought of good or evil. When this childlike heart enters the world, he is disturbed by the world and has good and evil thoughts. Being able to distinguish what is good and evil, what is right and what is wrong is conscience; being able to always adhere to conscience in action is the truth and the way of sages.
This straightforward and lively, truth-practical Yangming Mind Studies is like a ray of warm sunshine, illuminating this society that is vivid day by day but shrouded in the haze of Neo-Confucianism, making people excited, and countless elite scholars abandoned the hypocritical and outdated Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, fell under his disciples, and was willing to accept the baptism of Mind Studies again.
For a time, all Tianxia Academy were proud to teach Yangming's heart learning. The most famous ones were Jishan Academy founded by Yangming Gong, and Bailudong Academy, which are among the four major academies, which also became the forums for preaching the heart learning.
Seeing the trend of learning mind gradually emerged, the official and authoritative Neo-Confucianists of Cheng and Zhu finally could not tolerate it. In their opinion, Wang Shouren's "hereticism" was like a flood, which would cleanse all norms and order, and sweep their pride and status into the toilet.
So in the early years of Jiajing, the Grand Secretary Yang Yiqing, Gui E and others who held national power began to attack Wang Yangming. Unexpectedly, the news that Yangming Gong died in Nan'an just as soon as he told the emperor. It is said that the two should have calmed down, right?
That was impossible, because the study of mind was still there, and the disciples of Wang Xue were still listed in the court, surrounding His Majesty, and not getting rid of them, the Neo-Confucian school could not sleep or eat... Gui E said: "Even if he dies, I will participate in his resignation and Jiangxi's military achievements are arbitrary." He wanted to completely deny Yangming's military achievements.
Yang Yiqing wanted to completely deny Yangming's spiritual learning from his thoughts. He said: "Even if he dies, I will persuade the emperor to ban his new learning. If he does not ban, the Ming Dynasty must be destroyed due to these heresy." They proposed to hold a meeting and cleanse it.
The disciples of Wang Xue naturally had to rise up and resist, but their theory was not as happy as those of Cheng and Zhu Neo-Confucianism. So after watching repeatedly, Emperor Jiajing finally chose Neo-Confucianism, which was beneficial to his Zhu family's rule. So Wang Xuezi stepped down one after another, and the scholars of Neo-Confucianism achieved the first victory. In the 16th year of Jiajing, the emperor ordered the ban on destroying the world's private academies with the "Academies advocate evil studies".
In the 17th year of Jiajing, Yan Song, the Minister of Rites at that time, pondered the emperor's intentions and opposed free lectures. He used the excuse that the academy was consuming money and disturbing the people and destroyed the whole world's academy again.
However, today is different from the past. With the development of the times, the Ming Dynasty is no longer just the official government of the court, but also the civilian market. Those scholars in the opposition also have considerable influence. Since Wang Xue was overwhelmed for a while, we will give lectures in private and secretly accumulate strength. When the time is ripe, we will compete with you Neo-Confucianism.
Chapter completed!