薛侃录

Xue Kan asked: 'Holding fast the will is like a pain in the heart — the whole mind on the pain; where is leisure for idle talk and meddling?'

The Master said: 'For beginners such use is well enough; but they must know that it goes out and comes in without fixed time, none knowing its dwelling. The mind's numinous brightness being so, the work has somewhere to land. To hold it in a death-grip would only breed a new defect in the work.'

Xue Kan asked: 'If one attends only to nourishing the mind and neglects inquiry, may one not mistake desire for principle?'

The Master said: 'One must know what learning is. Inquiry itself is nourishing; to neglect it is only that the will to nourish is not earnest.'

'What is knowing learning?'

'Tell me: for what do you learn? What do you learn?'

'I once heard your teaching: learning is learning to preserve heavenly principle. The mind's substance is heavenly principle; to recognize it requires only that one's own mind be without private intent.'

'Then one need only remove private intent — why fear principle and desire unclear?'

'My fear is precisely that these private intents are not truly recognized.'

'It is always that the will is not earnest. With the will earnest, eye and ear are all upon it — how could it fail to be recognized? The sense of right and wrong all men have; it need not be sought outside. Inquiry too is only verifying what one's own mind sees — is there another seeing outside the mind?'

The Master asked the friends present: 'How goes the work of late?'

One described the mind's empty brightness.

The Master said: 'That is describing a passing glow.'

Another told of differences between past and present.

'That is describing results.'

Both looked lost and asked for the truth.

The Master said: 'Our work today needs only that the heart for good be earnest. With the heart earnest — moving to good the moment it is seen, correcting the moment fault appears — that is real work. So desire daily withers and principle daily brightens. To chase glows and talk results only feeds the disease of outward galloping; it is not the work.'

The friends, reading, often carped at Zhu Xi.

The Master said: 'To seek difference on purpose is wrong. Where my words sometimes differ from Hui'an, it is that the point of entry differs by a hair that becomes a thousand miles, and I cannot but discriminate. Yet my mind and Hui'an's mind were never at odds. Where his explanations of the text are clear and apt, how could one alter a single word?'

Xiyuan asked: 'The sage can be reached by learning — yet Bo Yi and Yi Yin finally differed from Confucius in talent; on what ground are all called sages?'

The Master said: 'The sage is a sage only through a mind pure in heavenly principle without any mixture of selfish desire — as refined gold is refined only by full fineness unalloyed with copper or lead. Man become pure in principle is sage; gold reaching full fineness is refined. Yet sages' talents differ in size, as gold differs in weight: Yao and Shun ten thousand yi, King Wen and Confucius nine thousand, Yu, Tang and King Wu seven or eight thousand, Bo Yi and Yi Yin four or five thousand. Talents differ; purity in heavenly principle is the same — all may be called sages; as weights differ yet fineness is one, all may be called refined gold. Set the five-thousand-yi gold among the ten-thousand and the fineness matches; set Yi and Yin between Yao and Confucius and their purity in principle matches. Gold is refined by fineness, not weight; the sage is sage by purity of principle, not by talent. So even an ordinary person, if he will learn and make this mind pure in heavenly principle, may become a sage — like one ounce of gold against ten thousand yi: the weight is worlds apart, yet at full fineness it need yield to none. Hence: everyone can become a Yao or a Shun. Learning to be a sage is nothing but removing human desire and preserving heavenly principle — refining gold to full fineness. Gold near-fine needs little smelting and is easily perfected; the baser the ore, the harder the smelting. Men's endowments are clear or turbid, pure or mixed — above the mean, below the mean; some know at birth and act with ease, some learn and act with advantage; the lowest must give a hundredfold where others give one, a thousandfold where others give ten — yet at success all are one. Later ages, not knowing the root of sagehood is purity in principle, sought sages in knowledge and ability, thinking: the sage knows all and can all, so I must item by item master the sage's knowledge and talents. So instead of working at principle, they exhaust themselves burrowing in books, hunting names and measures, comparing outward traces — knowledge ever wider and desire ever fatter, talents ever more and principle ever more veiled. It is like seeing a man's ten-thousand-yi refined gold and, instead of smelting for a fineness that shames not his purity, vainly dreaming of matching his weight, throwing in tin, lead, copper and iron pell-mell: the weight grows and the fineness falls, till at the end no gold remains.'

Xu Ai, at his side, said: 'This figure is enough to break the later scholars' maze of fragments — a great service to learners.'

The Master added: 'Our work asks only daily subtraction, never daily addition. Subtract one part of human desire and you recover one part of heavenly principle. How light and free! How simple!'

Shide asked: 'Your doctrine of investigating things is so clear and simple that everyone can see it. Master Zhu, brilliance beyond the age — how was he unclear here?'

The Master said: 'Zhu's spirit was vast: from his youth he set out to carry on the past and open the future, so all his effort went into research and writing. Had he first cultivated himself in earnest, he would have had no leisure for it. When his virtue was full he did grieve that the Way was dark — as Confucius, withdrawing, edited the six classics, cutting the overgrown to the simple for later students, also without much research. Zhu wrote many books early and repented late: the order was inverted.'

Shide said: 'His late regrets — the old definitive texts were mistaken; what gain was all that reading to my own task; this has nothing to do with guarding books and clinging to words — show that only then did he repent his error and turn to cultivate himself.'

The Master said: 'Yes. That is where Zhu is unmatched: his power was great, one repentance and he turned. A pity he died soon after, leaving many lifetime errors uncorrected.'

Xue Kan, weeding among the flowers, asked: 'Why under heaven is good so hard to nurture and evil so hard to weed out?'

The Master said: 'It is only that they are not nurtured and not weeded.' Then after a moment: 'To see good and evil thus is to start from the body's perspective, and there one goes wrong.'

Kan did not follow.

'The creative life of heaven and earth makes no distinction between flower and grass — when was there good and evil? Wishing to view flowers, you call the flower good and the grass evil; wanting grass, you call the grass good. Such good and evil spring from your mind's likes and dislikes — hence the error.'

'Then there is no good and no evil?'

'No good and no evil is principle at rest; good and evil are the stirrings of vital energy. Unmoved by energy, there is no good and no evil — this is called the highest good.'

'The Buddhists also say no good no evil — how do they differ?'

'The Buddhists fix upon no-good-no-evil and let everything go — they cannot govern the world. The sage's no good and no evil is only not deliberately approving, not deliberately disapproving, unmoved by energy; yet following the king's way and converging on due measure, he moves wholly by heavenly principle, with the work of regulating and assisting. As for grass: if it obstructs, what harm in removing it?'

'But that again is deliberate liking and disliking.'

'Not to do it deliberately is not to lack liking and disliking — that would be a thing without feeling. Not doing means only that liking and disliking wholly follow principle, with not one extra scrap of intention added — as if there had been no liking or disliking at all.'

'How is weeding grass following principle without added intention?'

'If the grass obstructs, by principle it should go: remove it and be done. If for the moment it is not removed, let it not burden the mind. Add one scrap of intention, and the mind-substance is encumbered and stirred.'

'Then good and evil are not in things at all?'

'Only in your mind: following principle is good, being stirred by energy is evil.'

'After all, things have no good and evil.'

'In the mind it is so; in things likewise. Common scholars, not knowing this, quit the mind and chase things, mistaking the study of investigating things, galloping outward all day, achieving only a righteousness snatched by surprise — lifelong acting without understanding, practicing without awareness.'

'Then what of loving a good sight as one loves beauty, hating a stench?'

'That is wholly following principle: heavenly principle is so of itself, with no private intention to like or dislike.'

'How can that not be intention?'

'It is sincere intention, not private intention. Sincere intention only follows heavenly principle — and even then not one scrap of intent may be added. Hence with anger or fondness clinging, the mind is not rectified; only vast impartiality is the mind's substance. Know this and you know the equilibrium before arousal.'

Bosheng said: 'You said: if the grass obstructs, by principle remove it — why did you call that starting from the body?'

'That you must examine in your own mind. When you weed the grass, what mind is it? And Zhou Maoshu leaving the grass before his window uncut — what mind was that?'

The Master told the learners: 'Learning must have a guiding head for the work to land anywhere; even if not yet unbroken, it is like a boat's rudder — one touch and you wake. Otherwise, though you study, you achieve only a righteousness snatched by surprise — acting without understanding, practicing without awareness — not the great root and reached Way.'

He added: 'Once truly seen, it is so said across or said lengthwise. If it opens here yet not there, it simply has not been seen.'

Someone said that for his parents' sake he could not escape the burden of examination study.

The Master said: 'If taking the examinations for one's parents burdens learning, does farming to feed one's parents burden it too? The earlier worthies said: only fear it usurps the will. The fear is only that the will to learn is not earnest.'

Chongyi asked: 'My thoughts are mostly in a bustle — busy with affairs, busy without affairs too. Why?'

The Master said: 'The breath of heaven and earth never pauses one instant, yet it has a master, so it is neither before nor after, neither hurried nor slack; though it changes ten thousand ways, the master stays fixed, and by this man lives. When the master is settled, one moves unresting as heaven itself; though engagements multiply, one stays composed and at ease — the lord of heaven serene, the hundred limbs obeying. Without a master, the energies only stampede — how not be busy?'

The Master said: 'The great disease of learning is love of fame.'

Xue Kan said: 'A year ago I thought this disease had eased; examining finely of late, I find it wholly unremoved. Must it show itself outwardly? To brighten at praise and darken at blame — is that not the disease breaking out?'

The Master said: 'Exactly. Fame pairs with substance: one part more heart for substance is one part less for fame; all heart for substance, and no room for fame remains. If the heart for substance were like hunger seeking food and thirst seeking drink, what leisure would be left for loving fame?'

He added: 'In grieving to die without a name that answers — read the word in the fourth tone — is also the sense of reputation outstripping reality, which the noble person shames. Where name outruns substance, while alive one may yet repair it; dead, it is too late. Not heard of at forty or fifty means not hearing the Way, not lacking repute. Confucius said: that is being heard of, not pervading. How would he wish that on anyone?'

Xue Kan was full of remorse.

The Master said: 'Remorse is the medicine that removes the disease, but what matters is changing. Let it fester in the heart, and the medicine itself breeds the illness.'

Dezhang said: 'Your figures — refined gold for the sage, weight for his measure, smelting for the learner's work — are most profound. Only that Yao and Shun are ten thousand yi and Confucius nine thousand still seems unsettling.'

The Master said: 'That again is starting from the body, haggling weight for the sages. Not starting from the body, Yao and Shun's ten thousand yi are not more, Confucius' nine thousand not less: Yao and Shun's ten thousand yi are Confucius'; Confucius' nine thousand are Yao and Shun's'; with originally no yours and mine — hence sage. Judge only refinement and unity, not more or less. Where this mind's purity in heavenly principle is one, all alike are called sage. As for power and spirit, how could they all be equal? Later scholars haggle over weight and so sink into utility. Remove the comparing mind; let each spend his own strength and spirit working only at this mind's purity in principle — then each has his own, each roundly complete: the great perfecting the great, the small the small, envying nothing outside, lacking nothing. That is the solid work of understanding goodness and making oneself sincere. Later scholars, not knowing the sagely learning, would not recognize and expand the innate knowledge and ability of their own minds, but sought to know what they did not know and do what they could not do, ever hankering after the high and great — not seeing that with the hearts of Jie and Zhou they set out to do the work of Yao and Shun: how could it be done? Drudging year upon year to old age and death, never knowing what they have made of themselves. Pitiable indeed.'

Xue Kan asked: 'Earlier scholars took the mind's stillness as substance and its movement as function. What of it?'

The Master said: 'The mind cannot have its substance and function assigned to stillness and movement — stillness and movement are times. Spoken of as substance, function is within substance; as function, substance is within function: substance and function are one source. To say that in stillness one may see its substance and in movement its function does no harm.'

Someone asked: 'Why can the highest wisdom and the lowest dullness not be changed?'

The Master said: 'Not cannot be changed — only will not be changed.'

Someone asked about the chapter on Zixia's disciples asking about friendship.

The Master said: 'Zixia spoke of friendship for the young, Zizhang of friendship for the grown. Used well, both are right.'

Ziren asked: 'On learning and timely practice — the earlier scholars took learning as imitating the conduct of the first awakened. How so?'

The Master said: 'Learning is learning to remove human desire and preserve heavenly principle. Engaged in that, one naturally turns to the first awakened for correction and the old teachings for verification, naturally putting in question, discernment, reflection, preservation, mastery — yet all only to remove this mind's desire and preserve its heavenly principle. To say imitate the awakened describes but one item of learning, and seems to seek wholly outside. Timely practice: sitting like a corpse in ritual stillness is not practicing sitting — it is practicing this mind while sitting; standing like one fasting is not practicing standing — it is practicing this mind while standing. The joy is the joy of principle delighting my mind: the mind originally delights in principle as the eye in beauty and the ear in sound; only veiled and burdened by desire does it fail to delight. As desire daily goes and principle daily suffuses, how not be joyful?'

Guoying asked: 'Zengzi's thrice-daily self-examination, earnest as it is, was surely before hearing of the one thread?'

The Master said: 'Confucius spoke of the one thread only because he saw Zengzi had not yet grasped the essential of effort. If learners truly work at loyalty and reciprocity, is that not the one thread? The one is the tree's root, the thread its branches and leaves: no root planted, whence the leaves? Substance and function are one source; before substance stands, whence function springs? To say Zengzi had already examined each affair finely and practiced it, only not yet knowing the unity of substance — that hardly does him justice.'

Huang Chengfu asked about the chapter 'You and Hui — who is better?'

The Master said: 'Zigong learned much and remembered, working on sight and hearing; Yan Hui worked on the ground of the mind — hence the sage's question to open him. Zigong's answer again lay only in knowledge and opinion, so the sage was sighing over him, not approving him.'

'That Yan Hui transferred anger to no one and repeated no fault — this too was possible only through the equilibrium before arousal.'

'To plant a tree one must bank the root; to plant virtue one must nourish the mind. Would the tree grow tall, prune the crowded branches at its first sprouting; would virtue flourish, cut off outer attachments at the start of study. Cling to poetry and letters, and the spirit daily leaks away into them — so with every outer attachment.'

He added: 'This way of mine in discussing learning is work out of nothing into being; you must trust it: it is only setting the will. The learner's one thought of good will is the tree's seed — neither forcing nor forgetting, just keep banking and watering, and it will grow day and night of itself, life daily fuller, branches daily denser. When the young tree crowds with branches, they too must be cut away for trunk and root to swell. So at the start of study: hence in setting the will, singleness is precious.'

It was said that among the Master's followers one worked at nourishing the mind, another at widening insight.

The Master said: 'He who works only at nourishing daily sees his lack; he who works only at insight daily sees his plenty. Who daily sees his lack, daily has more; who daily sees his plenty, daily has less.'

Liang Rifu asked: 'Reverent composure and exhausting principle are two things; you hold them one — how?'

The Master said: 'Under heaven and earth there is only this one thing — where are two? Count the differences: three hundred rites, three thousand rules — far more than two. Tell me, what is reverent composure? What is exhausting principle?'

'Composure is the work of preserving and nourishing; exhausting principle is exhausting the principles of things and affairs.'

'Preserving what?'

'Preserving this mind's heavenly principle.'

'Then that is already exhausting principle. And how does one exhaust the principles of things?'

'Serving parents, exhaust the principle of filial piety; serving a ruler, that of loyalty.'

'Is the principle of loyalty and filial piety on the ruler's and parents' bodies, or in your own mind? If in your own mind, then it is only exhausting this mind's principle. And what is reverence?'

'Only abiding in the one.'

'What is abiding in the one?'

'Reading, the whole mind on reading; handling affairs, the whole mind on them.'

'Then drinking, the whole mind on drinking; lusting, the whole mind on lust — chasing things: what composure is that?'

Rifu begged instruction.

The Master said: 'The one is heavenly principle; abiding in the one is the whole mind on heavenly principle. Know only abiding-in-one without knowing the one is principle, and amid affairs you chase things, without affairs you sit in vacancy. Because with affairs or without, the whole mind works at principle, reverent composure is exhausting principle. Spoken of as the single-pointedness of exhausting principle, it is called composure; as its fine-grained precision, it is called exhausting principle. It is not that after composure another mind exhausts principle, nor while exhausting principle another mind keeps composure: the names differ, the work is one thing. As the Changes says, reverence straightens the within, rightness squares the without: reverence is rightness without affairs; rightness is reverence amid affairs — two phrases, one matter. Confucius said cultivating oneself by reverence — no need to add rightness; Mencius said accumulating rightness — no need to add reverence. Grasp it, and said any way at all, the work is the same. Cleave to phrases without knowing the root, and it shatters into fragments with nowhere to land.'

'Why is exhausting principle fulfilling one's nature?'

'The mind's substance is nature; nature is principle. Exhaust the principle of humaneness until humaneness is utterly humane; of rightness until rightness is utterly right: humaneness and rightness are just my nature — so exhausting principle is fulfilling nature. As when Mencius speaks of expanding the compassionate heart till humaneness is inexhaustible — that is the work of exhausting principle.'

Rifu said: 'Earlier scholars said even each grass and tree has its principle and must be examined. What of that?'

The Master said: 'For me there is no such leisure. First attend to your own nature and feelings: only able to fulfill human nature can one fulfill the natures of things.' Rifu started into awakening.

Weiqian asked: 'How is knowledge the original substance of the mind?'

The Master said: 'Knowledge is principle's numinous point. As the commanding aspect, it is called the mind; as the endowed aspect, nature. The child in arms knows none better to love than its parents, none better to honor than its elders — it is this numinous brightness, unblocked by selfish desire, expanded to the full, that is complete; complete, it is its own substance, of one virtue with heaven and earth. Below the sage none are without blockage — hence the need to investigate things and so extend knowledge.'

Shouheng asked: 'The Great Learning's work is only sincerity of intention, and that work is only investigating things — one sincerity covers cultivating the self, ordering the family, governing the state, pacifying the world. Why then is there also rectifying the mind, with anger and fondness disqualifying it?'

The Master said: 'This you must think through yourself; know it and you know the equilibrium before arousal.'

Shouheng pressed repeatedly.

'The work of learning has shallow and deep. At first, without deliberate intent to love good and hate evil, how could one do good and remove evil? That deliberate intent is sincerity of intention. Yet if you do not know the mind's substance originally holds nothing, and forever deliberately love good and hate evil, you have added an extra layer of meaning — no longer vast impartiality. The Documents' not deliberately approving, not deliberately disapproving is the original substance. Hence: with anger or fondness clinging, the mind is not rectified. Rectifying the mind is, within the work of sincerity, attending to your own mind-substance, keeping it ever like the empty mirror and level balance — that is the equilibrium before arousal.'

Zhengzhi asked: 'What of the saying that vigilance belongs to what one does not yet know, and watching-over-oneself-alone to what one alone knows?'

The Master said: 'It is one work only. Without affairs it is certainly knowing-alone; with affairs it is also knowing-alone. If one does not apply strength at this place of knowing-alone, but only where all know — that is pretense, that is shrinking at the sight of the noble person. This place of knowing-alone is the sprout of sincerity: here, good thought or evil, there is no falsity — one right, a hundred right; one wrong, a hundred wrong. It is precisely the dividing line of true king and hegemon, rightness and profit, sincerity and pretense, good and evil. Stand firm here once and the root is set right, the source made clear: that is establishing sincerity. The ancients' many works of making the self sincere, their whole vital thread, rest entirely here — truly nothing more seen, nothing more manifest; no time, no place, no end, no beginning: only this one work. To split vigilance off to what one does not know makes the work fragmentary and broken. Since vigilance is knowing — if you did not know, who is vigilant? Such views slide into the extinction and trance of the Chanists.'

'Good thought or evil, no falsity — then at the place of knowing-alone is there never a moment without thought?'

'Vigilance too is a thought, and the thought of vigilance may never rest. Let it slacken ever so little, and one sinks either into stupor or into evil thought. From dawn to dusk, from youth to age, to want no thought is to be without knowing oneself — that only in coma, or as withered wood and cold ashes.'

Zhidao asked: 'Xunzi said nothing nourishes the mind better than sincerity — why did the earlier scholars censure it?'

The Master said: 'It cannot simply be called wrong. Sincerity can be spoken of as work: sincerity is the mind's substance, and seeking to restore that substance is the work of thinking-sincerity. Cheng Hao's preserving it with sincerity and reverence is the same sense, as is the Great Learning's wishing to rectify the mind, first make the intention sincere. Xunzi's words have many faults, but one must not pick at every hair. Generally, reading others' words with a ready-made opinion beforehand, one goes to excess. For the rich are not humane — Mencius took that saying from Yang Hu: herein see the great impartial heart of the sages.'

Xiao Hui asked: 'My selfish desires are hard to master — what to do?'

The Master said: 'Hand me your selfish desire and I will master it for you.' He added: 'One must have a heart for one's own self before one can master oneself; mastering oneself, one can perfect oneself.'

Xiao Hui said: 'I too have a heart for myself — why then can I not master myself?'

'Tell me what your heart for yourself is like.'

After a long while Hui said: 'I have single-mindedly wished to be a good person, so I supposed I had such a heart. Thinking on it now, it was only for the bodily self, never for the true self.'

'When did the true self ever leave the body? I fear you have not even served the bodily self. Is not what you call the bodily self just ears, eyes, mouth, nose and limbs?'

'Just so. For their sake the eye craves sights, the ear sounds, the palate flavors, the limbs ease — hence I cannot master myself.'

'The finest sights blind the eye, finest sounds deafen the ear, finest flavors spoil the palate, the chase maddens — all these harm your ears, eyes, mouth, nose and limbs: is that serving them? Truly to serve them, you would have to consider how the ear should hear, the eye see, the mouth speak, the limbs move; only by nothing improper seen, heard, said, moved do ears, eyes, mouth, nose and limbs become themselves — that alone serves them. You now gallop outward all day for fame and gain — serving things outside the body. If you would serve eye, ear, mouth, nose and limbs by shunning the improper — can the eye itself forbear to see, the ear to hear, the mouth to speak, the limbs to move? It must be through your mind. Seeing, hearing, speaking, moving are all your mind: the mind's seeing opens through the eye, its hearing through the ear, its speech through the mouth, its moving through the limbs. Without your mind there are no ears, eyes, mouth, nose. Nor is your mind merely that lump of flesh: the dead man's flesh remains, yet it neither sees, hears, speaks nor moves. Your mind is what can see, hear, speak and move — this is nature, this is heavenly principle. With this nature one lives. Its life-giving principle is called humaneness: issuing in the eye it sees, in the ear it hears, in the mouth it speaks, in the limbs it moves — all the outflowing of heavenly principle. Because it masters the whole body it is called the mind. The mind's substance is heavenly principle only, nothing improper in it — this is your true self, master of the body. Without the true self there is no body: with it, life; without it, death. If you truly serve the bodily self, you must employ this true self, ever preserving its substance, vigilant over the unseen, fearful over the unheard, dreading to chip it by a hair; the instant an improper thought stirs, it is knife-cut, needle-stab, past enduring — the knife must go, the needle be drawn. That is having a heart for one's self, that is power to master oneself. You are taking the thief for your son — and still you say you have a heart for yourself and cannot master yourself?'

A student had an eye ailment and grieved sorely over it.

The Master said: 'You prize the eye and cheapen the mind.'

Xiao Hui was fond of the immortals and the Buddhists.

The Master warned him: 'I too set my youthful will on those two schools and thought I had gains, deeming the Confucians not worth study. Then, banished three years among the Yi, I saw how simple, easy and vast the sages' learning is, and sighed in repentance over thirty years of misapplied strength. Broadly, those two schools at their most subtle stand a hair's breadth from the sage. What you study now is their husks and dung, and you presume so — an owl hugging a rotten rat.'

Hui asked after the subtleties of the two schools.

The Master said: 'I have just told you the sages' learning is simple and vast, and you do not ask what I awakened to — only what I repented.'

Hui shamefacedly apologized and asked after the sages' learning.

'You ask merely to be done with it. Bring me a heart truly resolved to become a sage, and then I will speak.'

Hui pressed again and again.

'It has already been said to you in one sentence — and still you do not take it in.'

Liu Guanshi asked: 'What is the equilibrium before arousal like?'

The Master said: 'Only be vigilant over the unseen and fearful over the unheard, nourishing this mind pure in heavenly principle, and you will see it of yourself.'

Guanshi asked for some hint of its aspect.

The Master said: 'A mute eating a bitter melon — it cannot be told you. To know the bitterness you must eat it yourself.'

Xu Ai, at his side, said: 'So true knowledge is itself action.'

All the friends present that day had an awakening.

Xiao Hui asked about the way of life and death.

The Master said: 'Know day and night, and you know life and death.'

He asked the way of day and night.

'Know day and you know night.'

'Day too can be unknown?'

The Master said: 'Do you know day? Muddle-headed you rise, dull you eat; acting without understanding, practicing without awareness, all day in a haze — a daytime dream. Only when each breath is nourished and each blink preserved, the mind wide awake and bright, heavenly principle unbroken for an instant, do you know day. That is Heaven's virtue — comprehending the way of day and night and knowing. What life and death remain?'

Ma Zishen asked: 'On cultivation-as-teaching, the old account says the sage gauges and orders what is native to our nature as a standard for the world — rites, music, punishments, government. What of it?'

The Master said: 'The Way is nature, is the Mandate — wholly complete, beyond increase or decrease, needing no adornment: why would it need the sage's gauging? That would make it something incomplete. Rites, music, punishments and government are means of ordering the world and may be called teaching, but they are not Zisi's intent. On the earlier reading, why would those who enter the Way through teaching abandon the sage's rites and statutes to speak instead of vigilance and fear? The sage's teaching would be set up for nothing.'

Zishen begged instruction.

'Zisi speaks of nature, Way and teaching all from the source. Heaven's Mandate conferred on man is called nature; following nature in action, nature is called the Way; cultivating the Way in learning, the Way is called teaching. Following nature is the affair of the sincere — from sincerity to illumination, called nature. Cultivating the Way is the affair of making-sincere — from illumination to sincerity, called teaching. The sage follows nature and acts: that is the Way. Below the sage, unable to follow nature, men err past or short of the Way — hence cultivation. With cultivation the worthy and wise cannot overshoot, the dull and unwilling cannot fall short; all must follow this Way — thus the Way is the teaching. This teaching is as in Heaven's Way is the utmost teaching, and wind, rain, frost and dew are all teaching; this cultivating is as in cultivate the Way through humaneness. Able to cultivate the Way, one no longer departs from it and restores nature's substance — which is the sage's way of following nature. The vigilance and fear that follow are the work of cultivation; equilibrium and harmony are the restoration of nature's substance — as the Changes says exhausting principle and fulfilling nature to arrive at the Mandate: equilibrium, harmony, positioning and nourishing are fulfilling nature and arriving at the Mandate.'

Huang Chengfu asked: 'Earlier scholars held that Confucius' answer to Yan Hui on governing set the way for all ages. How so?'

The Master said: 'Yan Hui had the sage's whole body; the great root and source of governance were already complete in him. The Master knew this well and needed say nothing of it, speaking only of institutions and forms — matters not to be slighted either, for only so is it wholly good. Yet one whose own foundation stands must not grow careless in defense: banish the airs of Zheng, keep far the flatterers. Yan Hui was one who mastered himself, turned within, intent on virtue; Confucius feared some outer detail might slip and supplied what lacked. For anyone else he would have had to say: governing lies in men, choosing men lies in one's self, cultivating the self by the Way, cultivating the Way by humaneness — with the reached Way, the nine standards, and making the self sincere: a whole body of work. Only that is the way for all ages. Otherwise — use the Xia calendar, ride the Yin carriage, wear the Zhou cap, dance to the Shao, and would the world thereby be governed? Later ages, seeing Yan Hui first of the school and asking about governance, made of it a matter of heaven's magnitude.'

Cai Xiyuan asked: 'Master Zhu's new text of the Great Learning puts investigation of things and extension of knowledge before sincerity of intention, matching the first chapter's sequence. On your old-text reading, sincerity comes first — I am not yet at ease.'

The Master said: 'The Great Learning's work is brightening bright virtue; brightening bright virtue is only sincerity of intention; and that work is only investigating things and extending knowledge. With sincerity as master and investigation and extension as the work applied, the work has its landing place, and every doing of good and removing of evil is the business of sincerity. The new text, first exhausting the principles of outward things, drifts boundless with nowhere to land: a reverence must be added to drag it back to body and mind — yet still without root. If reverence must be added, why did the school of Confucius drop the single most vital word, only for someone to patch it in a thousand years later? Precisely because sincerity as master needs no added reverence, sincerity alone is set out — this is the great guiding head of learning. Miss this and it is truly a hair's difference, a thousand miles of error. Broadly, the Doctrine of the Mean's work is only making the self sincere — at its utmost, utmost sincerity; the Great Learning's work is only sincerity of intention — at its utmost, the highest good. The work is all one. To patch a reverence here and a sincerity there is painting legs on the serpent.'