Zhu Xi’s Cosmology

David Hall and Roger Ames, writing as comparative philosophers interested in the dialogue between Chinese and Western philosophy, provide the following definition of a fairly standard Western understanding of philosophical cosmology: In the Western tradition, cosmology has carried two principal connotations. First, ontologia generalis, general ontology, which is concerned with the question of the be-ing of beings. The second sense is that associated with the term, scientia universalis, the science of principles. The first type of cosmology is well represented by the project of Martin Heidegger, who pursued the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing at all?” The second type of speculation address the question: “What kinds of things are there?” Whitehead represents this sort of philosophic activity (Hall and Ames 1987: 199).

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David Hall and Roger Ames, writing as comparative philosophers interested in the dialogue between Chinese and Western philosophy, provide the following definition of a fairly standard Western understanding of philosophical cosmology:

In the Western tradition, cosmology has carried two principal connotations. First, ontologia generalis, general ontology, which is concerned with the question of the be-ing of beings. The second sense is that associated with the term, scientia universalis, the science of principles. The first type of cosmology is well represented by the project of Martin Heidegger, who pursued the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing at all?” The second type of speculation address the question: “What kinds of things are there?” Whitehead represents this sort of philosophic activity. (Hall and Ames 1987: 199)

Hall and Ames submit that Master Kong was proposing neither a Western-style theory of general ontology nor a science of coherent principles in terms of a cosmological worldview. Rather, Master Kong’s “is an aesthetic understanding, an ars contextualis, in which the correlatively of ‘part’ and ‘whole’—of focus and field—permits the mutual interdependence of all things to be assessed in terms of particular contexts defined by social roles and functions” (Hall and Ames 1987: 248). Writing later they note: “Our focus/field model must be understood in terms of the general vision of ars contextualis. It is the ‘art of contextualization’ that is most characteristic of Chinese intellectual endeavors. The variety of specific contexts defined by particular family relations or socio-political orders constitute the ‘fields’ focused by individuals who are in turn shaped by the field of influences they focus” (Hall and Ames 1995: 273).

Zhu Xi 朱 熹 (1130–1200) inherited and expanded this classical cosmological sensibility as a form of ars contextualis, although he is eager to account for the coherent principles that inform the contextualization of the focus/field of the myriad things and events (wushi 物事) constituting the cosmos.¹ Zhu Xi’s ars contextualis is a particular kind of axiological cosmology, an ars contextualis that addresses the question of what kinds of things and events compose, are manifested in, and function together in the cosmos. Moreover, as we shall see below, Zhu’s “learning of the way” (daoxue 道學) closely resembles Julia Ching’s and Robert Neville’s notion of an architectonic axiological cosmology, a fundamental concern for moral and aesthetic values and intersubjective ethical self-cultivation and conduct.

In her profound meditation on the religious dimensions of Zhu Xi’s thought, Julia Ching (2000: viii) writes “I think that the best word to describe his system of thought is architectonic, since it contains many parts that are held together by certain main concepts.”² Zhu provides us with an architectonic of how the myriad things find their focus within the field of ever changing dao 道. Along with his daoxue disciples such as Chen Chun 陳淳 (1159–1223),³ Zhu presented his cosmological ars contextualis via clusters of architectonic terms. It is the coherent presentation of how Zhu Xi orders and connects his key cluster concepts that has always made him relatively unique among Song and post-Song philosophers. Some later thinkers such as Wang Fuzhi and Dai Zhen, and, of course, Xunzi among the classical Ruist thinkers, are similarly orderly. Furthermore, because of the vast scope of Zhu’s preserved corpus it is highly probable that there are a number of likely stories to be told about various plausible cosmological architectonics to be discovered in Zhu’s daoxue.

It is, however, critical to remember that an architectonic system for system’s sake is not what interests Zhu Xi. System is a heuristic device that allows for better thinking; and better thinking is a key to becoming a better person, a crucial aspect of the long process of self-cultivation of the person in service to the world that is the goal of the Confucian dao. So while Zhu is never shy about trying to be clear, this philosophical clarity is subject to the moral ambitions of a Confucian master. Like the finger pointing at the moon, if we become too fascinated by the system or forget its real function as one of the means for moral self-cultivation, then we have missed Zhu’s vision of the ultimately moral role a human person performs in the wider cosmos. As the classical tradition taught, the human person has a role to play, along with heaven and earth, in the completion of the cosmos.

An examination of Zhu’s architectonic of key cosmological themes, motifs, and concepts can be highly revealing of what Stephan Pepper called the root metaphor or metaphors any philosopher employs in framing a worldview. This can be understood as Zhu’s philosophical lexicon. Thus the interwoven mosaic of his cosmological architectonic reveals the deep pattern of Zhu’s complicated daoxue worldview. In some cases it deals with contested terms such as “coherent principle” (li 理).⁴ On the other hand, neither Zhu nor other members of the daoxue fellowship or its early critics argued very much about how to define the notion of qi 氣, a root metaphor for Song speculative philosophy. It appears that qi, even as a primordial constituent of Confucian cosmology was so omnipresent that no Song thinker, save for Zhang Zai 張載 (1020–1077) of course, felt the need to talk about it’s precise philosophical definition—even though later Yuan, Ming, Qing, Korean, and Japanese Confucians realized that they had to grapple much more carefully with understanding the cosmological role of qi. This lack of discussion implies that qi functioned as a metaphysical commonplace in Song daoxue philosophical lexicography. As Whitehead once observed, any real metaphysical concept is deemed so obvious that on occasion it is neglected because it is considered simply self-evident to any thinking person. What follows is one, I hope, plausible interpretation of the structure of Zhu’s rich cosmological architectonic.

Zhu Xi’s Cosmological Architectonic

Zhu Xi devoted a great deal of effort to explain how the various objects and events of the world emerge, flourish, decay, and ultimately fall apart as part of a relational and realistic cosmology. His favored term for this realistic pluralism is “events and objects” (shiwu 事物); in modern Chinese usage the compound means things, articles, or objects. It is an interesting combination of terms in the context of the development of daoxue discourse. Wu usually means some definite object, a concrete thing. For instance, when he was teaching, Zhu Xi would often use his fan as an example of a concrete object in need of analysis and explanation as to how it came to be and what its use was (Zhu 2002: 14:239–240).⁵ Shi often means something like an event, which Zhu Xi takes to be just as real as his fan. According to Zhu, a refined ethical ritual act is just as real as the fan. For Zhu, ethical conduct is as concrete as any event or physical object. He also used the term shi 實 to indicate the reality of these objects and events, the “ten thousand things” (wanwu 萬 物) that constitute the cosmos. Shi 實 means what is real and solid and Zhu understood it to indicate the difference between the pluralistic and realistic worldview of the Confucian tradition in contradistinction to Buddhist emptiness (kong 空) and Daoist void (xu 虛). The basic architectonic was organized around four major conceptual clusters which I call the condition or state of any thing or event (form, pattern, coherent principle) (ti 體), the functional process of the things and events (yong 用), unifying action (he 和), and moral goal (de 德) traits of cosmological actualization.⁶ For human beings this actualization comes about via self-cultivation of human nature (xing 性) as the coherent principle (li 理), state, condition, or rationale within the field of generative vital energy (qi 氣) manifested in the body (身 shen) as the emotions (情 qing) inscribed within the heart/mind (xin 心) of each person as they pursue the goal of achieving (cheng 誠) sagehood (although Zhu would settle for becoming a good and worthy person as a realistic aspiration for most students of the way).

The Architectonic of States/Conditions, Functions (Dynamics), Unification, and Moral Goal

The State or Condition (ti 體) of Coherent Principle ( li 理)

Formal states, conditions, or normative traits are those defining characteristics that serve to distinguish one object from another thing or event. For Zhu Xi everything has its own contextual marker, its own special relational coherent principle.⁷ In terms of the human person, li is called xing 性, which means the disposition or tendencies of the maturing person. It is, however, critical to remember that coherent principle is more than merely a logical description of the state, condition, pattern or order of the person, object, or event, although it is certainly that in a very strong sense. Li defines what a person ought to be, not just the natural character or disposition that derives from the natural allotment of generative vital energy (qi) provided by her parents at birth and shaped by the environment of the family, society, and culture.

For instance, when Chen Chun asked Zhu Xi about the various meanings of principle, Zhu replied that it is the normative or ethical meaning of coherent principle as “what ought to be” (dangran 當然) which informs all the other shades of meaning of principle (Zhu 2002: 23:2736). Zhu and Chen used this sort of language because it brings out clearly the ethical and normative dimension of li. But li can be further defined as the suoyiran 所以然 or the raison d'être of any person, object, or event. Zhu pointed out that it was the natural state or condition of a piece of bamboo to be both round and straight (Qian 1971: 1:252). Part of the bamboo li as coherence is defined by the qualities of roundness and straightness. Of course, the nature (xing) implies more than a description of its external physical qualities, especially when speaking of the human person, the most perfect creature of the cosmos, according to Zhu.

All things have boundaries that help us to define what they are as individuals, and these boundaries can be physical, ethical, or even cultural, in scope. When Zhu was asked about the li of a writing brush, he stoutly defended the proposition that the brush does have its own coherent principle but refused to define the brush in terms of human ethical dispositions (Zhu 2002: 14:189). Thus we can see that the li of a sentient human person is quite different from that of a writing brush, for a human has the potentiality for self-actualization and ethical action that the brush lacks, being itself a human artifact. Although all things have the urge to live in a technical sense of being part of the ceaseless fecundity of the way, it is only in human beings that li become a complete coherent principle of ethical fullness (Zhu 2002 14:325; 486). All things share this life principle even though it is obscured in what Zhu calls dry and withered things. It is, however, worth repeating that for Zhu these are heuristic distinctions. Once the coherent pattern is grasped, the vision is holistic and axiologically focused on human values and forms of civility.

Chen Chun provides a summary of li based on Zhu Xi’s cosmological architectonic:

The way (dao) and coherent principle (li) are generally one thing, but they are discriminated as two concepts because they ought to be so separated. When the way, in the sense of meeting no obstruction wherever one goes, is compared to principle, the way is comparatively general while the principle is comparatively “real” (shi 實). Li has the connotation of having solid, unchanging definition. Therefore what is eternally unimpeded is the way, and what is eternally unchanging is principle. Li is without shape, so how can it be seen? Li is the necessary norm of things and events. This necessary norm functions as a rule or standard. This norm connotes [things and events] being determined and unchanging [in terms of coherent principle]. It is the norm of things and events being harmoniously coordinated [qiahao 恰好] without any excess or deficiency….

When li and the nature are compared, li is the coherent principle in things while the nature is li in my person. In things it is the common coherent principle of the way of heaven, earth, humanity, and the things. In my person it is the li that makes me what I am.

When li and justice/rectitude (yi 義) are compared, li is the [fundamental] condition (ti) and justice/rectitude is the function. Li is the necessary criterion while justice/rectitude is the way these principles are [set forth in the world]. Therefore Master Cheng Yi said: “Inherent in things as li, ordering things as justice/rectitude.” (Zhang 2004: 288–289)⁸

What, then, do we make of Chen Chun’s claim that principle is “real”?⁹ The attribution of broadness or generality to the way is not surprising because the way is also construed as a road or pathway (Chen 1986: 105–108; Zhang 2004: 284–288). The way can mean a highway or public thoroughfare. Here again Chen is playing on the Confucian conceit that the Confucian doctrine of li is active and concerned with the real world, whereas Daoist and Buddhist teachings are not.

Chen succinctly notes that “obviously li is not something dead, just lying there. As the qi of the One Origin spreads out, it produces man and things. There are thus lines and veins, as it were. They are the way followed by man and things. This is what it is when one traces the source of the creative process” (Chen 1986: 106; Zhang 2004: 284–285). The normative state, condition or mandated quality of li is not something purely abstract or static: it is manifested in human ethical conduct, just communities, and the ceaseless fecundity of the cosmos. Li provides proper states, conditions, forms, or patterns of moral intentionality and cognitive awareness when a person responds in a completely appropriate fashion as a moral agent in any situation that demands moral and intellectual clarity of thought and action. Mere random motions, or immoral actions, are not what define the person from the daoxue perspective. If a coherent principle is in the person, creature, object or events which act, then activity is, at least, a subaltern factor in the definition of li.

Coherent principle serves as a norm for action in two ways: coordination of the unification of the conditional or normative traits with the functional (dynamic) trait and appropriateness or rightness as justice/rectitude (yi 義), with both traits pointing to the act of coming together, of becoming what a person, event, or object ought to become. Many of the key definitions of li are assembled in the first section (juan 卷) of the yulei 語類 dialogues and stress the theme of the states or conditions of coordination and definiteness (boundaries) in realized entities. Qian Mu has analyzed the precepts from this and the other major sources of Zhu’s massive corpus.¹⁰ “In the world there is never vital force without coherent principle and never coherent principle without vital force” (Qian 1971: 1:238). Moreover, li can never be separated from the entities of the world for a single instant and be said to exist in any fashion whatsoever (Qian 1971: 1:245). Although Zhu wants to use the language of vital force and coherent principle as separate philosophical categories, he never wearies in telling us that they cannot be separated in terms of actual entities or events.

Zhu constantly uses language illustrating the quality of individuation or distinctiveness: li is a boundary, a limit or section, as with a petal of a flower (tiaoban 條 瓣), and also that this boundary that is clearly defined or outlined in context (tiaoli 條理) as ordered pattern or what is clearly reasonable (Qian 1971: 1:252). For example, there is functional fitness in the fact that boats can travel on water whereas carts can travel on land and not the other way around (Zhu 2002: 14:236). Here again we see the proclivity to mix description and stipulation that is so common in Zhu’s exposition of daoxue.

One of clearest statements about principle comes in a pivotal passage in Zhu’s “Further Comments on the Daxue 大學 [Great Learning]”: “Coming to the things of the world, what is called li is that each one has reasons why it is what it is and the norm by which it ought to be” (Zhu 2002: 6:512). It is important to notice the context of the definition: it appears right after the point in the main text of the Great Learning where the eight steps to achieve the unity of the empire have been introduced. The crux of Zhu’s teaching is that the extension of knowledge resides in the investigation of events and objects as gewu 格 物: the exhaustion of the meaning of li in the total act of understanding the complex states, conditions, or patterns of any entity in its relation to its own internal constitution and in relationship to the rest of the cosmos.

Zhu discriminates between exhausting and knowing coherent principles. At one point, he defines zhi 知 as “to recognize” (Zhu 2002: 6:510). The notion of “to know” is not conjoined with the notion “to exhaust” (qiong 窮) at this point. To exhaust clearly implies something rather more expansive than a purely cognitive act of recognition, although it may include knowing as one of its traits. Qiong indicates an active appropriation of the real state or condition of the object of study such that a person will actualize the coherent principle. To know something is to realize its limits, the boundaries of what it is and to learn to cope with this knowledge in terms of appropriate action: “to comprehend it and reach its limit is what is going on when a person exhausts the coherent principles of a thing” (Zhu 2002: 6:512).

The key to Zhu’s epistemology is the following: “The myriad things each set forth one coherent principle and the myriad principles commonly emerge from one source. This is the reason we can extend from this and comprehend [everything]” (Zhu 2002: 6:525). Zhu contends that because all the myriad things have coherent principles they can be analogously comprehended in theory if not always in fact due to human finitude, ignorance, and error. This theoretical claim for cognitive analogy is tempered by practical concerns as well. Zhu concurs with Cheng Yi’s famous precept that the cultivation of the person consists in following reverence and extending knowledge. He says that the very foundation of the praxis of self-cultivation is the examination of things in order to extend the activity of empathetic knowing (Zhu 2002: 6:525). The state or condition, sound, shape, and texture of the myriad things are all given by heaven and earth, and are not the subjective creation of human beings alone, although humans do play a role in the creative process together with heaven and earth. Zhu often emphatically denies a subjectivist understanding of perception (Zhu 2002: 6:527). Each thing in the world has its necessary state, condition, or pattern as an independent entity, however slight this reality might seem from a distant or different perspective. Zhu is defending a kind of objective, albeit intersubjective and relational, view of reality that is pluralistic and does not reduce these entities to shadows in the heart/mind of the beholder even if we cannot empirically examine all the ten thousand things—such, as the Buddhists would say, as all the grains of sand on the banks of Ganges or the great Yangtze. He accepts the witness of the external phenomena as part of his verification of reality, although he does not hold that physical objects are all there is (Zhu 2002: 6:528).

The Functional (yong 用) Configuration of Active Qi 氣

The second critical trait or domain of Zhu’s cosmological lexicon is the ubiquitous vital force or energy (qi). What is qi? It is everything that was, is, or can be. This kind of vague definition, although accurate, does not help us very much in figuring out how qi functions. One reason is that generative or vital energy does not seem to have been a lexicographical term that perplexed the Song Confucians very much. Later in the Ming, Yuan, and Qing dynasties, as well as in Korea and Japan, many thinkers did become fascinated with the explanative power and scope of qi. Yet vital energy, as Zhang Dainian (2002) notes, has been a critical component of Chinese second-order reflection since very early in the formation of the classical tradition.¹¹

For Zhu’s daoxue, vital force is the configurational or functional energy of all that exists, or what he calls the things and events of the world “below form” (形 而 下). Vital energy is related to all phenomena because there is nothing to be experienced that is not a product of the modifications and manifestations of vital energy in one of its myriad phases. It is agential because qi shapes what changes and becomes. Nothing departs from it: there is no thing that is greater or more expansive than the vital energy that produced or shaped it. This primordial vital energy (yuanqi 元氣) is something like a cosmogonic force, without form but with the function of ceaseless manifestation and creation.

In Zhu’s theory about the relationship of li and qi, the most perplexing component is the various statements about the priority of vital energy or coherent principle. Zhu is very clear that he does not think that the priority issue is a good way to put the question of the relationship of the li-qi dyad. In response to a question about whether there is first li and then vital energy, he flatly states that this is not an acceptable formulation (Zhu 2002: 14: 115). He says that in speaking of coherent principle and vital energy, there is no simple “before and after” dichotomy. “You cannot say that today there is coherent principle and tomorrow there is vital energy. Following this distinction of before and after, it is really like the myriad mountains and rivers of the world flowing down. Finally, coherent principle is in this [process]” (Zhu 2002: 14:116). For Zhu, the flow of mountains and water does not differ from one point in the stream to any other point in the stream, for there is a continuity of coherent principles informing vital energy that is fundamental to all entities.

How can this explanation be squared with the common belief that Zhu considered li to exist prior to vital energy? “Question: Is there first li or is there first vital energy? Answer: Coherent principle can never be separated from qi. However, li is that which is above form (形而上) while vital energy is what is within form. From the perspective of what is above and what is within form, how can you not have a before and after? Li is without concrete form, while vital energy is coarse, having sediment” (Zhu 2002: 14:115). The implication is obvious: vital energy, having a specific state, condition, or form, must logically come after what is formless in any material sense, or in the sense of the recognition of any entity.

Someone asked: Must there be li and afterwards must there exist vital energy? Answer: This is fundamentally something that cannot be described in terms of before and after. However, if you wish to push on to their common origin, then it follows that first there is coherent principle. But li is never separated from being something, and always exists in the midst of vital energy. Without vital energy coherent principle would lack any place to be located. Vital energy is like metal, wood, water, and fire, whereas coherent principle is like humanity, rightness, ritual action, and knowledge. (Zhu 2002: 14:115)

Li is viewed as that component of a definite entity which makes it what it is: it is not all that an entity is, as we shall see, but it is a state or conditional form of definiteness, and thus in terms of cognitive pattern recognition, there is a sense in which it is prior to anything else—but only in terms of how we come to recognize the events and objects of the world by first noting their states or conditions of definiteness. For actual events or things, there is no before or after coherent principle and vital energy. Because li defines the constant interaction of yin and yang, coherent principle remains an unchanging norm, and this is what Zhu meant by claiming that li is constant (chang 常).

“Li is only a vast and empty realm, without form or traits, and cannot produce anything [on its own]. Vital energy can ferment, congeal, and produce things. But where there is vital energy then coherent principle is in its midst” (Zhu 2002: 14:116). Thus what preserves both vital energy and coherent principle from the unreality of emptiness is the fact that both architectonic traits are always involved with each other. As Chen Chun says, “This dual vital energy [referring to yin and yang] that prevails eternally, which produces without ceasing, cannot be this empty vital energy. It must have something that directs it, which is called li. Coherent principle is in its midst like a pivot. Therefore it grandly prevails and produces without ever ceasing” (Zhang 2004, 237; Chen 1986, 38). Yin and yang and the five phases (wuxing 五行) constantly interact and give rise of the myriad things through the primordial cosmological relationship of the li/qi dyad.¹²

The Unification (he 和) of Xin 心, Ming 命, and Taiji 太極

In daoxue moral anthropology and cosmology, the most primordial relational or unifying trait is represented by the heart/mind (xin 心) within the cultivated person. Zhu proposed that the heart/mind is the director of the nature and feelings, and the ruler of the person (Zhang 2004: 249; Chen 1986: 57). The shen 身 or body of the person refers to the entire psycho-physical person. The heart/mind is the agent controlling our thoughts and actions, appetites and perceptions. When our actions are not controlled by the heart/mind, we are in a master-less, directionless state of mind, and the master-less person is said to be empty or void, neither of which are terms of praise and indicate that a person is actually sick, that is, lacks a proper sense of balance so necessary in Chinese theories of health (Kohn 2005).

Chen Chun summarizes Zhu’s teaching about the unifying activities of xin as follows:

Heart/mind has [a fundamental] condition (ti) and function (yong). Setting forth all li is its condition; responding to the myriad affairs of the world is its function. Quiet and unmoving, this is its condition; stimulated and engaged, this is its function. Its condition is called nature (xing), and we refer to it in terms of quiescence. Its function is called feeling (qing), and we refer to it in terms of movement. (Zhang 2004: 250; Chen 1986: 57–58)

Chen deems that vital energy must have a director, and that this director functions in the midst of vital energy “as a pivot” (Zhang 2004, 237; Chen 1986, 38). Following Zhu Xi, Chen again employed the analogy of a pivot in discussing the Supreme Ultimate. Just like the decree (ming 命), taiji 太極 functions as a pivot in the midst of vital energy (Zhang 2004: 291–292; Chen 1986: 117). Ming and the Supreme Ultimate function in the cosmological architectonic as relational or unifying traits just as the heart/mind functions to fuse the nature and feelings in the moral anthropology of a person.

In terms of precepts about the heart/mind, Zhu thought that none surpassed Zhang Zai’s notion that the heart/mind controls the nature and feeling (心統性情). Zhu also quoted with approval Hu Hong’s definition which, in turn, provides a commentary on Zhang’s theory of the heart/mind: “the heart/mind controls the virtue of the nature and feeling/emotion” (心妙性情 之德) (Qian 1971: 2:35 for both precepts). Zhu glossed the word miao as “to control” (zhuzai 主宰), to use (yunyong 運用)—or to fuse the virtues inherent both in the nature and emotions. In one sense this tells us what the heart/mind does, but it does not explain what the heart/mind is in itself. To know what something does is not always the same as knowing what it is, although it can be. Zhu implies, for instance, that the heart/mind is not inert in the same sense that a pen or brush is a stable object. Xin always manifests as an active agent of the living, dynamic unification of the living moral person.

The heart/mind is more than just coherent principle: people receive an allotment of generative vital energy to form the heart/mind. As Chen says, “Generally speaking, a person obtains the coherent principle of heaven and earth as the nature and the vital energy of heaven and earth as the raw material, so that coherent principle and vital energy unite in such a way that they become this heart/mind” (Zhang 2004: 249; modified Chen 1986: 56). The special quality of heart/mind as vital energy is that it is conscious (jue 覺). “With the union of the nature and consciousness, we produce this heart/mind, and thus we have this name of the heart/mind” (Zhang 2004: 252; Chen 1986: 61).

The liveliness or responsiveness of the heart/mind comes from this functionally dynamic interaction of principle and vital energy. This is why Mengzi said that Kongzi held that the heart/mind could be held fast and also be lost (Zhang 2004: 250–251; Chen 1986: 58–59). The heart/mind’s activity in the world is not the locus of error per se; it is only when the heart/mind becomes unbalanced that it becomes prone to error. In its essential state the heart/mind is a well-balanced scale. Of course, this balance is only achieved via interaction with the world, so the process is one of constant exchange. When the heart/mind is properly balanced, and when there is contact with the world, the response of the balanced heart/mind is appropriate to or properly in balance with the situation, the focus of the field of the cosmos at that moment. The metaphor of a balance is interesting. As an aside, Zhu Xi did not have a completely ‘external’ view of the things in the world: things had, as it were, to be on the balanced scale to be responded to, that is, they had to be part of the focus of the field of the heart/mind. They had to be related to the heart/mind in order to be perceived, but they were not totally dependent on the heart/mind for their existence.¹³ For Zhu, the capacity of the heart/mind to respond to stimuli occurs because the heart/mind is balanced via cultivation by responding to the functions (dynamics) of the world and its myriad events and things. Although Chen points out that the heart/mind is not greater than an inch in size (clearly a rhetorical account of the size of the heart/mind), its capacity is unbounded (Zhang 2004: 251; Chen 1986: 59). There is no coherent principle it cannot appropriate or manifest nor any event or thing beyond its theoretical control. It does, however, require the effort of study (xue 學) to bring the heart/mind to completion. When the heart/mind is truly cultivated, there should be nothing left unrealized, no unbalanced response to the world. At this point, Zhu Xi’s rationalism passes over into a kind of religious faith, a quest for self-actualization and self-transformation via self-cultivation.

There is no better definition of the heart/mind’s unifying program and the anticipated results than Zhu Xi’s famous short essay “Interpretation of Fully Fathoming the Heart/Mind” (“Jinxin shuo” 盡心說):

“One who fully fathoms his heart/mind knows his nature. Knowing his nature then he knows heaven” [Mencius]. This says that in being able to know the heart/mind, a person knows his nature; and to know the nature enables a person to know heaven. This is because heaven is coherent principle as it is in itself (ziran 自然) and the source from which human beings are born. The nature (xing) is coherent principle in its undiminished state and that which a person receives to become a person. The heart/mind is that by which a human takes control of their person and so possess this principle. “Heaven is great and boundless” [a quotation from Zhang Zai (Wang 1974: 27)] and nature is fully endowed with it. Therefore the state of a person’s fundamental heart/mind is itself expansive and without limitation. Only when it is fettered by the selfishness of concrete things, hemmed in by seeing and hearing pettiness, does it become concealed and incomplete. A person can in each event and in each thing exhaustively examine their coherent principles until one day the person will penetratingly comprehend them all without anything being left out. Then a person can make whole the expansiveness of their fundamental heart/mind. That whereby I am my nature and heaven is heaven rests in nothing more than this; moreover they are interconnected as one. (Zhu 1711: 2:1239)¹⁴

In this short essay Zhu Xi provides a short explanation of the nature of the mind/heart as the unifying agent of the person, with the heart/mind functioning as the mediator that unifies the nature and heaven, manifesting the coherent principle of the person. Because the heart/mind can know or interpret the will of heaven, it can likewise know the coherent principles that are given to every person by tian; and here we need to remember that tian is an equivalent for the dao as the ultimate way of the cosmos. The state or condition of the person combines the feelings the person has when she “knows” or correctly interprets the things and events of the cosmos with an understanding by means of her own coherent principle, her true nature in accord with the comprehensive feeling of the right order of the her person in relation to the things of the world. Hence the person and tian come to manifest the same coherent principle, a true knowledge of heaven itself, the dao. However, Zhu points out that as fallible humans we are liable to be hemmed in by the pettiness of our disordered and excessive feelings; so although ultimately there is nothing wrong with the things and events of the world, they can mislead us into following the pettiness of inordinate self-concern to which all human beings are prone without sufficient self-cultivation and study of the dao.

Although it is partially true, as Angus Graham noted,¹⁵ that the Neo-Confucians did not over-“qualify” some of their concepts (Graham 1992: 40–41), from time to time Zhu and Chen did try to clarify both what and how an agent acts. This short essay on the fully fathoming the mind/heart is an example of how Master Zhu provided his students with an epigrammatic explanation of the nature, role, and function of the mind/heart. Having noted that the mind/heart is the unifying (he 和) agent of the triad of nature (coherent principle) and feeling (vital energy as the things and event known by the mind/heart), I will show below how Zhu attempted to elucidate a precise definition of the role and nature of the mind/heart.

Zhu Xi buttresses his basic argument about the nature and role of the heart/mind using a number of special observations. In the first place, he denies that we have any special a priori access to the principles we find in the heart/mind independent of the connection of the heart/mind to the world. “The heart/mind is a person’s consciousness zhijue 知覺 which controls the person and which responds to external objects” (Qian 1971: 2:116). For Zhu, the heart/mind is pure consciousness and the repository of external impressions of other objects. It is important to note that the events and things the heart/mind attends to are in the heart/mind and not external to it when it comes to making ethical choices. Again the Hall-Ames metaphor of the focus-field model is helpful. The person is a specific focus, to be sure, but a focus within the larger field of the dynamic functional vital energy of the cosmos.

In the second place, Zhu Xi’s well known aversion to the Buddhist concept of enlightenment (wu 悟) is related to this twofold definition. We judge on the basis of what is in the heart/mind, not by ridding the heart/mind of all its content. The heart/mind without its various impressions and activities would be like “a scale without markings” (Qian 1971: 2:179). The test of true profundity of the heart/mind is the depth and width of civilized experience and action. Zhu says that what we call the way is really common to everyday life, and not some sort of isolated spiritual awakening or recognition of some arcane moral principles (Qian 1971: 2:179). Putting the problem in terms of wei fa 未發 and yi fa 已發, Zhu states that they are really one effort aimed at the humanization of the person. “ ‘Before manifestation’ (wei fa) certainly is self-cultivation and ‘after manifestation’ (yi fa) is careful study” (Qian 1971: 2:187).

Ming

After our excursus on the relational and unifying role of the heart/mind, I now turn to ming 命 or decree. Chen Chun begins his extended discussion of the role and nature of ming stating that “ming is a command, like an order from a superior official” (Zhang 2004: 236–237; Chen 1986: 37).¹⁶ As vital energy becomes individuated, ming divides and gives all things their fundamental nature as the decree of heaven.

Chen explains that ming must be defined in terms of li 理 and qi 氣. He argues that we have one general meaning for decree as it manifests coherent principle and two additional explications in relation to vital energy. Since vital energy is basically undifferentiated, it must have some kind of director or li which functions like a pivot on a door. It was the directional decree that Kongzi in Analects 2.4 referred to when he said he knew the decree of heaven when he was fifty. In this mode, the decree is clearly the nature (xing). This also illuminates how the decree can be a form of “enlightenment,” for the true realization of the decree implies a complete comprehension and appropriation of heavenly principle. This realization is the perfected state in which sagely wisdom and action are unified in self-realization (Zhang 2004: 236–237; Chen 1986: 35–37).

Decree also carries two distinct meanings as it informs qi. The first is the common notion of fate. A person has an allotted lifespan which cannot be altered and this fate is the person’s decree. The second kind of decree is the relative lucidity or turbidity of the person’s psycho-physical endowment of vital energy. This is the reason some people are naturally intelligent whereas others are stupid; and why some things are coarse and others refined. But this second meaning of the decree does not imply a form of fatalism because it is only one of a number of implications of the term. The daoxue philosophers often recalled Mengzi’s example of a man foolishly standing under a damaged wall waiting for it to fall down on him as Chen notes in his discussion. Since the man knew that the wall was defective, he really could not claim that it was fate that finally caused the wall to fall on him. His own decision was the real cause of his potential death.

Zhu is actually quite clear on the issue of the role of qi. One of his students asked him why ming has a critical meaning informing both coherent principle and vital energy. Zhu answered by stating that it was true that the meanings of ming in each were not completely compatible, at least on the surface. However, he continued, if heaven was not itself at least partially qi-related, it could not command the person, and if the person was not in part constituted by vital energy, then the person could not receive the command of heaven (Zhu 2002: 14:207). Zhu was aware that there is a tension between the two senses, but he concludes that this is a necessary and fruitful tension. It does not thwart the relationship of human beings and heaven. On the contrary, Zhu thinks that it facilitates their mutual interaction.

What the sage knows as decree are the moral roots within each one of us (Zhu 2002: 14:209). And there is nothing determined about whether we will choose to nourish and cultivate or neglect these seeds of virtue. “It is like all people commonly looking at a stream. The ordinary people see only the water flowing by, while the sage knows the source of the stream” (Zhu 2002: 14:210). Zhu implies that it is not enough to know the physical facts of the world—one must also know the real origin of these facts, which are to be found in their true source, the moral creativity of the universe.

Chen also provides another shade of meaning for ming by linking it to coherent principle. Since qi begins in an undifferentiated state, it must have a director or master as noted above. It must have some mode of informing coherent principle. This director is decree, which is like a pivot of a door (shuniu 樞紐) or the axis (gendi 根柢) of creation (Chen 1986: 117; Zhang 2004: 291). This is highly suggestive of the heart/mind as well. The decree is the same ming that Kongzi referenced when he said he knew the decree of heaven he was fifty. In this mode, decree is clearly identified with human nature, which is the normative state or condition for the person in Chen’s daoxue. The function of ming can be thought of as a two-stage process: (1) in the first (axiological) stage it flows forth from heaven as a command, a coherent principle of what ought to be, a lure of the emergence of any thing or event, but (2) there is also an (epistemological/hermeneutical) element of conscious choice involved in the human reception of ming such that the person appropriates this command as the informing coherent principle of the allotment of vital energy in need of moral self-cultivation. Ming is the heavenly decree for each person as human nature, and the command trait is that each person must realize (cheng 誠) the heavenly command or decree to become a fully moral and responsible person. What initiates the process as tianming, the command of heaven, becomes something personal when a person realizes (cheng) the command as their true nature.

At one point in his exposition, Chen Chun links ming to a theory of creativity (zaohua 造化) based on the four originating principles of the Yijing (Chen 1986: 42, 37, 106; Zhang 2004: 200, 236, 239–240). These four origins or principles are taken to represent the four phases in the evolution of any process: (1) inception, (2) development, (3) maturation, and (4) fruition. Hence tianming 天命 is the very coherent principle of life and the actual process by which life is embodied in the creatures of the world. Decree is the relational trait that helps to unify coherent principle and vital energy as a state or function of creative action (dynamics).

Supreme Ultimate

In most respects whatever is said about the Supreme Ultimate (taiji 太極) will be a repetition of what is assumed about coherent principle. As Zhu states, taiji is a species, albeit a very special one, of coherent principle. Every person has a special, specific li that is unique in terms of the patterned state or condition within the field of the dao. This li as taiji resides within each person, and can also aid in the investigation and comprehension of the li of the myriad things of the world by means of the coherent analogy of being as a unity of state/condition, and function. But there is a distinct difference in the functionality of the two kinds of coherent principle. The li that are known through the investigation of things are the informing coherent principles of those things and not the principle of the knower as a person. This does not imply that the other li are passive in the internal constitution of those other things. Quite to the contrary, the self-creativity of any particular person is intimately connected with the person’s appropriation of the decree as manifested in the taiji for the person. In a sense a person’s decree is what the person is commanded to be, while the Supreme Ultimate is what the person ought to become because of the command if and only if the command is manifested properly and completely through proper self-cultivation. In this unique respect the Supreme Ultimate is to be discriminated from all other objective and subjective species of principle.¹⁷

Generally speaking, taiji has two main meanings for Zhu Xi’s daoxue. The first is the most important, and when it is contrasted with the second, part of the source of confusion about daoxue usage becomes clearer when we keep these two sets of meaning in mind. The first meaning is axiological: taiji is the highest normative synthesis of values to be found in any creature, object, or action whatsoever. It represents the perfected goal of each individual and also the perfection of the whole cosmos as dao. The second meaning defines the function of the Supreme Ultimate as the norm of perfection of the yin yang forces. It is the condition or state (ti 體) of this activity, whereas ming is the function (yong 用) of the actual operation. As Zhu states, “Coherent principle is the condition of heaven; ming is the function of principle” (Zhu 2002: 14:215).

This is the usage that has caused hermeneutical problems for later scholars. When Zhu talks about taiji in this mode, he often has recourse to such metaphors as a man riding a horse or the trigger of a crossbow. The first metaphor, the rider on a horse, caused some later Confucians to wonder if it might be the case of dead coherent principle riding a live vital energy, which would imply the contradiction of a directionless flow of energy in the universe, or at least a disconnect between principle and vital energy at some fundamental level. Both metaphors were discussed at by the great Yuan scholar Wu Cheng 吳澄 (1249–1333), and Wu pointed out how neither metaphor really helped solve the philosophical problem of the true nature and role of taiji.¹⁸

Zhu’s main point is missed if we continue discussing taiji’s function as “doing” something such as riding upon or triggering vital energy. In itself taiji does none of these things because it is a form, a pattern, a state or condition of coherence and not an agent like yin yang 陰陽 or wuxing 五行. The activity is symbolized by ming 命 in this case as the direction to be taken by qi as configured by yin/yang and the wuxing. In Zhu’s philosophy, to ask for the reasons for any kind of action is to ask about the kinds of things that act and not the terms, even the functional or action terms, with which these things are described. The Supreme Ultimate is a term for explaining how things act and not the action itself, except as this action is considered in abstraction from the creative act, which is plainly implausible for Zhu. Taiji is definitely something that can be stipulated, but this does not mean that it is something that exists or subsists in abstraction from the concrete reality of the world.

Someone asked about taiji. The Master said: The Supreme Ultimate is only the supreme good and perfected principle of the dao. Each person has a taiji and each thing has a taiji. Zhou Dunyi has said that the Supreme Ultimate is the most perfect and best manifested virtue of heaven, earth, man, and the myriad things. (Zhu 2002: 17:3122)

The most important characteristic of the Supreme Ultimate is that it is instantiated in every creature, object, or event and becomes complete by the process of the reception and cultivation of ming, although it only reaches its highest perfection in human self-actualization (cheng 誠).

Zhu, respecting the unity of the world based on the process of selection and evaluation choice, says “The Supreme Ultimate is the coherent principle of the myriad things of heaven and earth” (Qian 1971: 1:263). Then, how can he claim that taiji is both in each thing as its normative coherent principle and also be the generalized principle in the cosmos? Zhu says, “The Supreme Ultimate is the most exalted good and supremely perfect principle of the way” (Zhu 2002: 17:3122). For Zhu, , the fundamental state or condition of taiji is that it functions as a goal or lure for the decision of the person to be self-determined and fully actualized (cheng). The Supreme Polarity functions as a goal or lure that the emerging creature should seek to actualize in order to realize its maximum potential for completing its own nature. The goal is specific to each person and can be seen as a process of becoming fully moral, with all the twists and turns involved in the complexities and ambiguities of life. It is an end, a goal, but not an end that can be predetermined because the effort, the will, and resolve to become moral can transform even the vagaries of chance and fortune. The process of self cultivation is not blindly teleological or foreordained. By noting the perfection of the Supreme Ultimate as an ethical goal, Zhu is affirming a fundamental axiology, a creation of true values as a unifying trait in his cosmology.

A second meaning of taiji is developed from the first meaning because the myriad things manifest the Supreme Ultimate as a goal for perfecting the entire cosmos. Therefore, as Chen Chun notes by quoting the Yijing, change itself is the transformation of yin and yang such that “The principle of the transformation of yin and yang is the Supreme Ultimate… . That which is the pivot of the myriad transformations, the basis of the variety of things, explains the meaning of taiji ” (Zhang 2004: 290–291; Chen 1986: 115, 117). This kind of explanation of the Supreme Ultimate in no way contradicts the first meaning and shows the connection of taiji as a condition or state (ti) intimately connected to ming’s role as the function of the process of creativity. It simply takes the ethically perfecting nature of the Supreme Ultimate for granted, and pushes on to show how this nature becomes explicit in the cosmic process of generation with cessation.

In the final analysis, Zhu’s taiji is the telos of all thing collectively and of the individual things separately—and this kind of dialectically complex definition is no doubt the reason for so much debate about what Zhu actually meant by his theory of the Supreme Ultimate. According to Zhu:

Originally there is only one taiji; yet each of the myriad things manifests it, such that each in itself contains the Supreme Ultimate in its entirety. This is like the moon, of which there is one in the sky, and yet, scattering its reflection upon the rivers and lakes, it is seen to be everywhere. But one cannot say from this that the moon itself has been divided. (Li 1977: 49:10b–11a)

Zhu’s concept of taiji is a reflective and creative river, lake, or mirror manifesting all reality: the ethical unity of coherent principle as assembled in the dao of all that was, is now, or ever will be. The Supreme Ultimate has, as one of its definitions, the symbolic function of evoking the feeling that things ought to be the best they can become, or, in Zhu’s terms: “To speak of the supreme extension of the body of the dao, this is to talk about taiji” (Qian 1971: 1:279). Of course, this is just the kind of hopeful conflation of the ‘is’ and ‘ought’ that drives post-Hume Western philosophers wild. It is a kind of pansophy on a grand scale in speculative philosophy that has fallen completely out of favor in modern Western philosophical circles.

Furthermore, taiji has a normative or formal side: it is the goal of the events and things as they seek to manifest their own coherent principle in a particular state or condition, most importantly ethical norms, for human beings. Its instantiation in qi must also be considered. Even though taiji is not concrete per se, Zhu thought that any description of the actual world had to rely on taiji as a state or condition for ming’s ordering process. The Supreme Ultimate plays a vital role in the constitution of everything whatsoever. It is the normative goal for the configuration of the functionality of qi in the same way that the heart/mind manifests humaneness (ren 仁) as the unifying trait for human nature and feeling. Zhu’s depiction of taiji as the goal of tianming 天命, as the highest form of coherent principle, points to its relational and triadic structure in his daoxue discourse yet again.

Axiological Goals (de 德) of Cheng 誠, Zhong 中, and He 和

Above I have outlined the basic tripartite structure of Zhu’s cosmological architectonic based on the conceptual clusters of state or condition, function, unification, and goal. Yung Sik Kim (2000) has done a brilliant job of presenting how Zhu goes about discussing the order, emergence, and details of the natural world spinning forward and out from the ceaseless creativity (生生不息) of the yin yang and wuxing forces and energies generated by the fusion of coherent principle and vital energy. Yet there is another aspect of Zhu’s worldview that demands attention, namely his adamant assertion that all human thought, action, and passion must be governed by moral norms, the axiology of the dao. Zhu never strayed far from declaring that no aspect of the daoxue speculative cosmological architectonic was merely intellectual reflection; daoxue was a methodology with an aim, an ultimate goal that was always ethical in nature. In other places I have argued that Zhu’s worldview supports a realistic and pluralistic primordial axiology in the sense that Zhu’s consistent overriding concern was the flourishing of certain values within a relational cosmos of ceaseless creativity (Berthrong 1998, 2008). At a practical level these were the values of the five great virtues of humaneness, rectitude, civility, wisdom, and faithfulness. Moreover, although Zhu contested any notion of art for arts sake, he did believe that one of the outcomes of self-cultivation was the creation of siwen 斯文 “this culture of ours.”

Wen 文 is the ideal of a civilized society and one of the greatest of the early sages was the revered King Wen of the Zhou dynasty. Wen is the goal of harmony he 和. It is always salient to remember that any Confucian will be as concerned with the harmonious patterns of society as she or he would be about personal self-actualization. Every wen or civilized society must have harmony he. The famous political adage that the king without and the sage within is always upheld as representing the linked sides of the one coin of social life. Although Zhu Xi never played a major role at the Southern Song court, we know that he was vitally concerned about the politics of his day and believed that the true test of any society was that it would manifest the true marks of a civilized society (Yu 2003), a true siwen “this culture of ours.”

There are many ways to articulate what Zhu taught about the cosmology and axiology of values—these are both moral virtues but they can also manifest themselves as fine poetry, painting, and calligraphy as the aesthetic domain of a civilized society. I will briefly sketch a view of these human goals commensurate with the architectonic approach developed above. Although it would be more traditional to give a list of the critical Confucian virtues, what is important for a study of Zhu’s cosmology is to show how he placed these virtues within his worldview, especially via the use of self-actualization (cheng 誠) as the method by which the five constant virtues become manifested in human action and social organization. For instance, in the social realm between the individual and the state, Zhu was a passionate advocate of the family compact system designed to provide social welfare beyond the confines of the natal family to entire clans. The rationale for the cosmological goal of this method of harmonious self-actualization is to become centered (zhong 中) and harmonious (he 和) by means of the process of self-actualization (cheng 誠).

Zhu Xi recognized two major definitions of cheng: a historical exegesis and a daoxue extension into the realm of self-actualization. The historical meaning of cheng is the state or intention of being sincere chengque 誠 愨 (Zhu 2002: 14:240) and Zhu acknowledged that this is a perfectly adequate rendering in many cases. But he also wrote: “cheng is that which really has li,” and “cheng is real,” and finally “cheng is li” (Zhu 2002: 14:239–240). Zhu is indicating that in its most essential mode cheng provides us with a process for organizing the harmony and balance within the proper state or condition of anything that is. He is indicating that in its most essential mode cheng provides us with a process for organizing the harmony and balance in anything that is. As we shall see below, when we become conscious of cheng by means of self-examination, we become aware and conscious of the process wherein cheng is the real, the concrete, the actual—that which is in harmony and balance as Zhu would like to phrase it. Moreover, intention itself is a form of consciousness per se. For instance, when we intend to become reverent (jing 敬), we are conscious of our moral effort to become reverent in our mind/heart.¹⁹

Using the example of a fan (an example Zhu likes to use often), he explains that if nature xing is like the fan, then cheng can be compared to this fan being well formed, that is, harmonious and balanced when we cool ourselves with its use (Zhu 2002: 14:240). Cheng becomes symbolic of complete perfection without a flaw (Zhu 2002: 16: 2121). In discussing Cheng Yi’s notion that being firmly established is reverence (jing 敬), he adds “the unity itself is cheng” (Zhu 2002: 14:242). He explains:

Cheng is the way of heaven. Cheng is coherent principle which is self-determination without being falsely ordered. How to realize cheng is the way of humanity (ren 仁). It is to carry out this real li and therefore to make an effort to realize it. Mengzi said “All things are complete in us”—this is cheng. “[There is no greater delight] than to be conscious of cheng upon self-examination”—this is how to realize cheng. Self-examination is merely to seek (cheng) in oneself. Cheng refers to the fact that all things are complete without defect. (Zhu 2002: 16:2106–2107)

The architectonic of state/condition, function, and unification always linked to the goal of the manifestation of personal and social civility is here manifest again: there is the way of heaven, the way of humanity, and their mediation through the process of cheng ending in realized humaneness. If ren is the core of Zhu’s ethics, cheng is the actualizing process which provides proper active solidity and depth of meaning within an axiological cosmology.

Of course, Zhu extensively discussed moral anthropology and ethics. In this presentation of Zhu’s cosmological architectonic I have sought to delineate an outline of the deep architectonic structure of his worldview, the fundamental concepts, traits, and themes that have caused generations of Confucian scholars to recognize the highly organized nature of his philosophical worldview. The details are embedded in a highly structured and refined axiological architectonic, a cosmology of state or condition (ti 體), function (yong 用), unification (he 和), and ultimate goals (de 德). The axiological goals tie the architectonic inextricably to the moral vision that informs all of his discourse about the ten thousand things. Like all great Confucian philosophers Zhu asked not only what is but what ought to be and how the ought could become a living reality for human beings, and indeed the whole cosmos.