Revised as of 20030107: Segments from the Zhu Zi Yu-lei (Classified conversations of Master Zhu)



Juan 1, Passage 18
GB:

道夫言∶向者先生教思量天地有心无心。近思之窃谓天地无心。 仁便是天地之心,若使其有心,必有思虑,有营为.天地曷 尝有思虑来。然其所以四时行,百物生者,盖以其合当如此, 便如此不待思,惟此所以为天地之道。曰∶如此则易所谓复其 见天地之心。正大而天地之情可见,又如何?如公所说只 说得他无心处尔。若果无心 则须牛生出马,桃树上发李花。 他又却自定。程子曰∶以主宰谓之帝,以性情谓之乾。他这名义 自定,心便是他个主宰处。所以谓天地之生物为心中间。钦夫 以为甚不合。如此说,某谓天地别无勾当,只是以生物为心。 一元之气,运转流通,略无停间,只是生出许多万物而已。 问∶程子谓天地无心而成化,圣人有心而无为。曰∶ 这是说天地无心处,且如四时行,百物生,天地和所容心? 至于圣人,则顺理而已。 复何为哉?所以明道云∶ 天地之常,以其心普万物而无心。圣人之常以其情顺万事而无 情。说得最好。问∶普万物,莫是以心周(彳扁=)遍而无私否? 曰∶天地以此心普及万物。人得之遂为人之心。物得之,遂 为物之心。草木禽兽接着遂为草木禽兽之心。只是一 个天地之心尔。今须要(知得)他有心处。又要见得他无心处。 只恁定说不得。

-- 道夫

big5:

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Dao-fu said: "In the past, Teacher instructed us to think about whether Heaven and Earth have a mind or not. I have been thinking about that lately and venture to say that Heaven and Earth have no mind. The "mind" of Heaven and Earth is benevolence. If we were to maintain that [Heaven and Earth] have a mind, then they must have thought and must have [corresponding] managing behaviors. When did Heaven and Earth ever come to have thought?!? Nevertheless, the reason that the four seasons take their place one after the other, the reason that the various kinds of living creatures are produced, is doubtless only because they ought to do so. Then things working this way does not depend on thought. Only on account of this can it be the Way of Heaven and Earth.

[Zhu Xi] responded: "That way of talking about it is like where the Yi [Jing] says: 'In [the hexagram] Fu (perpetuating the cycle of life and change) we see the heart/mind of Heaven and Earth.' If [Heaven and Earth] truly were without a heart/mind then it would have to come to pass that cattle gave birth to horses, and that plum blossoms appeared on peach trees. To the contrary, however, these things are naturally determined. Master Cheng says: 'On account of its ruling function we call it "Emperor," and on account of its nature and the unmodified feeling reactions [that flow from that nature] we call it Qian." He made this definition himself. A "heart" is a point [in some entity] that rules. Therefore, it is said that the production of creatures by Heaven and Earth is the center of their hearts (i.e., intentions). Qian-fu thought [that formulation] to be extremely inappropriate. To that I would say that Heaven and Earth have no undertakings other than to make the production of creatures their business. The primal qi moves around and flows everywhere without the slightest cessation, and all that it does is to produce the great multitude of creatures.

Note: Qian is the first hexagram in the Yi Jing and symbolically encodes the impulse to origination or creation of the Universe. -- PEM

[The original questioner] asked: "Master Cheng has stated that Heaven and Earth bring their transformations to completion without intention, and that the sages have intentions but do not strive to accomplish anything."

[Zhu Xi] said: "This is speaking of the point at which Heaven and Earth do not have intentions. For instance, in such cases as the progression of the four seasons and the production of the myriad creatures, how could Heaven and Earth possibly have [specific] intentions? With regard to the sages, they just follow li and that is all there is to it. What more could there be for them to do? Therefore, [Cheng] Ming-dao said: 'The constant aspect of Heaven and Earth is the fact that their heart extends to all of the myriad creatures and in this there are no [specific, individual] intentions. The constancy of the sage lies in the fact that his emotional reactions follow the myriad events and involve no [personal] emotional reactions.' That says it best."

[The original questioner] asked: "In regard to 'encompassing the myriad creatures', is that anything other than having the mind reach out without involving anything self-centered?"

[Zhu Xi] said: "Heaven and Earth use this mind reach out to and encompass the myriad creatures. When humans get it, it becomes the minds of [those] human beings. When [other] creatures get it, it then becomes the minds of [those] creatures. When grasses, trees, birds, and beasts link up with it, it then becomes the minds of [those individual creatures]. There is only the one mind of Heaven and Earth. Now we must acknowledge the places where there is mind (i.e., intention), and also the places where there is no mind (i.e., intention). It will not do to simply speak of it in the way [that you] have done.

Recorded by Dao-fu.


Commentary:

Much has been said about the teaching methods of Zhu Xi (especially about the stress he allegedly placed on meditation), but this passage contains what may be one of the very few passages to actually show the process of teaching. Zhu Xi has proceeded in the way that a good tutor in the West might follow. He has set his student a problem, and now we see what happens when master and student cross-examine each other.

The word "xin" means "heart," and in Chinese it is used much as it is used in English. It refers both to the heart we know from anatomy, the heart that pumps blood, and also to mind, and intentions. In English we sometimes say things like, "I have a good mind to give you a thrashing," and xin, as it is used in this section, frequently has this sense of the word in mind. However, part of the time it refers to the mind which forms these intentions.

In the first paragraph above, Dao-fu says that Heaven and Earth (we would say "the Universe") does not actively and arbitrarily decide each change that is to occur. The Universe does not decide that, e.g., following this autumn we shall have summer instead of the usual winter. It does not decide that these two sparrows shall mate and that the female shall lay fertile eggs, etc. Instead, there is a rule, a regular course for all things that unfolds without the need for supervision in much the same way that the sun rises and sets every day, the moon cycles through its phases, the planets follow their predictable paths across the night time sky, and so forth.

Zhu Xi objects, essentially, that if there is no intent, if there is no will of Heaven, then anything could happen. Since the Universe is not chaotic, there must be a rule maker somewhere. And, Zhu Xi maintains, it is clearly apparent that the primary concern of that rule maker is to produce creatures.

The student then appeals to the authority of Master Cheng, who has stressed the idea that the Universe does not exhibit partiality.

Zhu Xi now does what every good debater should do. He agrees with everything that he can agree to in his opponent's presentation, obviating himself from the perceived necessity to attack everything his opponent has said, relieving himself of the necessity of sneaking the good parts back into the total account of things in the end, and highlighting the points where there is actual disagreement. He gives a quotation from the older of the two Cheng brothers that says very clearly what the student has been trying to get across.

Next, the student attempts to clarify what is left of the seeming disagreement. He might have been quite frustrated, since Zhu Xi originally objected to his position and has now seeming accepted it almost completely. The crux of the issue would appear to be that while Zhu Xi has accepted the idea that there are situations in which the Universe acts without specific intention, there may be situations in which it does act with specific intention. So the student asks,, "Is [there] anything other than having the mind reach out without involving anything self-centered?"

At this point, Zhu Xi simultaneously carries the discussion to a deeper level, and also gives the student a way to see by analogy how one can be both "mindless" and "mindful." He asserts that there are no truly discrete minds. My mind is the mind of the Universe. The mind of an earthworm is the mind of the Universe. Somehow we all share this mind. The theoretical justification for this assertion is that every creature in the Universe is linked in the self-same organic structure, just as individual leaves on a mighty tree are all linked through twigs, branches, major limbs, two trunks, and a single tap root. Zhu Xi does not discuss that theory here. Its clearest expression is found in his Yi Xue Qi Meng. He either knows that he has taught his student that part of his philosophy before, or else he throws him into the middle of it with an assertion that the student will probably find familiar from even a casual experience with Buddhist ideas.

If humans actually share the mind of the Universe (or, as Zhu Xi refers to it, the mind of Heaven and Earth), then insight into one's own mind should give one some guidance in understanding the mind of Heaven and Earth. We all have the experience of tying our shoe laces with a bow knot without any clear idea of how we do it. We all breathe without supervising that process. So in some ways we are "mindless" when it pays to be mindless. (Martial artists cherish that "mindless" state because it is the state in which one's well-honed reactions are not slowed by discursive processes.) But we also regularly form intentions, and the usual circumstance under which we form intentions is that we have observed something that needs changing.

-- PEM


  • Modified:2002/06/13
  • Created: 2001/01/07