The internal and external dimensions of Liu Zongzhou’s self-cultivation theory

ABSTRACT

It is commonly argued that Liu Zongzhou was dissatisfied with the fact that some followers of Wang Yangming in the late Ming Dynasty paid insufficient attention to self-cultivation practices (gongfu工夫), so he deliberately emphasized the difficulty and importance of personal cultivation which is often misunderstood as some kind of strict inner spiritual cultivation. This essay will argue that with the gradual deepening in the studies on Liu Zongzhou’s thought as a whole, there are more dimensions to be recovered in our understanding of his self-cultivation theory. Liu Zongzhou’s holistic self-cultivation theory is based on the unity of body and heartmind, and theory and practice, where each person is a node of relations, and is an unbounded narrative in the world. On this basis, self-cultivation is not simply an inward vector that relates to inner spiritual practice, but has an important and often overlooked relational and social dimension.

KEYWORDS:

• Liu Zongzhou
• self-cultivation (gongfu工夫)
• a manual for human conduct (Renpu人谱)
• inner spiritual practice
• social dimension

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In this article I use ‘heartmind’ to translate the term xin心to avoid the familiar dichotomy between mind and body. The character xin is a stylized pictograph of the aorta, and as such can be translated as ‘heart’ in reference to the physical organ, and its affective and sensory functions. But the concept xin also connotes the cognitive functions of the mind. As Mencius observes, ‘The function of the human xin is thinking (xinzhiguanzesi心之官则思)’. In this sense, xin is also often translated as ‘mind’. The neologism ‘heartmind’ has been created to make the point that in the Confucian context, the mind cannot be divorced from the heart, and that the cognitive, sensory, and affective functions are mutually entailing.

2. The translation of ren (仁) as ‘benevolence’ and ‘humaneness’ is common in western works. Here we use ‘consummate person’ to translate ren, referring to Roger T. Ames’ translation in the book of Confucian Role Ethics to express and emphasize the significance of ren as an achievement that requires effort.

3. See Lin Yong-sheng, 2008, in ‘Research Status of the Theory of Confucian Self-Cultivation in Chinese Academia’, in Yang Rubin, and Zhu Pingci (ed.) Confucian Theory of Qi and Gongfu, p. 233.

4. This argument is recorded in The Complete Works of Liu Zongzhou vol.2, 2007, p. 507. 陶先生曰: ‘学者须识认本体, 识得本体, 则工夫在其中. 若不识本体, 说甚工夫?’ 先生曰: ‘ … 工夫愈精密, 则本体愈昭荧. 今谓既识后遂一无事事, 可以纵横自如, 六通无碍, 势必至猖狂纵恣, 流为无忌惮之归而后已’.