二

Your letter came, showing your learning's sudden advance — joy past words. Reading it over, here and there a point not yet crystal through: the work of extending innate knowledge not yet ripened; ripened, this will vanish of itself. Like driving: already on the broad highway, an occasional swerve or winding comes of the horses unbroken and the bits uneven — yet still on the highway, never lured into bypaths. Among inland fellows of late, few have reached this ground — joy past words; fortune of the Way! My old frame's cough and heat-shyness have flared again in the fevered south; the sovereign, discerning, has laid heavy charge, not lightly to be declined; districts and military affairs in heaps, I carry them on with sickness. Now, happily settled, I have memorialized to retire and nurse my health; a little cool under the trees may yet cure me. Your man returns; from my pillow, hastily, all regard unstated. A note for Weijun enclosed — please deliver it.

To your inquiries, a hasty word or two. Of late the mountain lecturers often say the work of neither-forgetting-nor-forcing is very hard. Asked, they say: attend to it and it is forcing; slacken and it is forgetting — hence very hard. I ask them: forgetting what? forcing what? They fall silent, then ask instruction. I tell them: here we say only always-having-the-task; we do not say neither-forgetting-nor-forcing. The task at hand is simply accumulating rightness every hour. If one works at it every hour and sometimes breaks off — that is forgetting: then one must not forget. If one works at it every hour and sometimes hastes for results — that is forcing: then one must not force. The work lies wholly in the having-the-task; not-forgetting-not-forcing only pinches one awake within it. If the work never breaks, no need to say not-forgetting; if one never hastes, no need to say not-forcing. How plain and simple a work! How free! Yet today men will not work at the task, but hang in mid-air keeping a neither-forgetting-nor-forcing — like boiling rice in a pot never soaked or filled with grain, heaping the firewood high: what, in the end, will it boil? I fear the pot cracks before the heat is ever tempered. That is exactly the disease of those who labor only at not-forgetting-not-forcing: all day making a not-forgetting in vacancy and a not-forcing in vacancy, drifting boundless, no solid place to lay hands; the work, at its end, achieves dead vacancy, a learned idiocy — the least affair arrives and they tangle and flounder, unable to order or master anything. These are men of resolve, worn and bound and shelved for life by a learning that misled them — pitiable indeed!

The task at hand is only accumulating rightness; accumulating rightness is only extending innate knowledge. Say accumulating rightness and the head of it is not at once seen; say extending innate knowledge and at once there is solid ground to work on. Hence I speak only of extension: extending innate knowledge in each affair as it comes is investigating things; doing it in earnest is sincerity of intention; doing it in earnest without a hair of opinion, presumption, rigidity or ego is rectifying the mind. In earnest there is no forgetting; without a hair of opinion or ego, no forcing. So, said as investigation-extension-sincerity-rectitude, no need to add forgetting-and-forcing. Mencius spoke of them as a prescription for Gaozi's sickness: Gaozi forced his mind — the forcing sickness — hence Mencius dwelt on the harm of aiding growth. Gaozi's forcing, too, came of holding rightness external, not knowing to accumulate rightness upon his own mind and work at the task at hand. Work at it hour upon hour on one's own mind, and innate knowledge's substance stands clear: right and wrong, not a thread escapes — where then the faults of failing-in-words-yet-not-seeking-in-the-mind, failing-in-mind-yet-not-seeking-in-the-energies? Mencius's accumulating rightness and nourishing the energies greatly served later learners; yet it too was a prescription by sickness, broadly stated — not so fine, single and simple as the Great Learning's investigation, extension, sincerity, rectitude: running from top to bottom, faultless for ten thousand ages.

The sages and worthies discussed learning each to its hour and affair: the words differ, the head of the work tallies like the two halves of a tally. For within heaven and earth there are only this nature, this principle, this innate knowledge, this one affair. Hence, taking the ancients' discussions of learning as stating the work, one need not blend and tack pieces together — all accords and threads of itself; the moment blending and tacking seem needed, one's own work is not yet clear. Of late someone says the work of accumulating rightness must be tacked onto extending innate knowledge to be complete — that is accumulating rightness not yet thorough; unthorough, it can only weigh upon extension. Another says extension must be tacked onto neither-forgetting-nor-forcing to be clear — that is extension not yet thorough; unthorough, it only weighs upon the not-forgetting-not-forcing. All such is glossing and forced fitting upon the letter, seeking a stirred blend never tasted in one's own real work — the finer argued, the farther it strays.

Your discussion, Wenwei, on the great root and reached Way already sweeps on without doubt; on extension, exhausting principle, and forgetting-forcing there is still some tacking — the swerve in the highway I spoke of; once the work ripens, it will ease of itself.

Your finding the doctrine of extension within serving parents and elders, giving you something to hold and follow, best shows your recent true and solid work. For your own practice, unobjectionable, and strength-giving; as a fixed doctrine to teach others, it risks the sickness bred by the medicine — and this too must be spoken.

Innate knowledge is simply where heavenly principle's natural bright awareness shows forth — simply one true sincerity and compassion: that is its substance. So extending this sincere compassion of innate knowledge to serve parents is filial piety; to serve an elder brother, respect; to serve a ruler, loyalty — one innate knowledge, one sincere compassion. If the innate knowledge serving the elder brother fails of its sincere compassion, that of serving the parents has failed too; if that serving the ruler fails, that serving the brother has failed. So extending the innate knowledge that serves the ruler is extending that which serves the brother; extending the brother's is extending the parents'. It is not that the ruler-serving knowledge cannot be extended and must be built up by spreading outward from the parents-serving — that again quits the root and lodges in the branches. Innate knowledge is one: wherever it shows and flows, complete on the spot, no coming or going, nothing borrowed. Yet in its showing and flowing there are weight and thickness of its own, past adding or shaving by a hair — the mean naturally its own. Weight and thickness unaddable by a hair, yet the thickness is one alone; one alone, yet its weights and thicknesses cannot be shifted by a hair. Were they shiftable, borrowable, it would no longer be the substance of that sincere compassion. Hence innate knowledge's wondrous working is without place or form, without exhaust — said large, the world cannot bear it; said small, the world cannot break it.

Mencius's 'the way of Yao and Shun is simply filial and brotherly devotion' points men to where innate knowledge shows most true and thick, past all veiling. In serving the ruler, keeping friends, loving the people, cherishing things, through all movement, rest, speech and silence — only extend that one thought of parents-serving, brother-serving, sincerely compassionate innate knowledge, and nothing is not the Way. The world's affairs, myriad in change past reckoning, met with this one sincerely compassionate thought of innate knowledge, leave no gap or leak — just because there is only this one innate knowledge. Beyond that one thought there is no other innate knowledge to extend. Hence: the way of Yao and Shun is simply filial and brotherly devotion. This is the learning of refinement and unity: set out over the four seas, all exact; applied to after ages, without morning or evening.

Your wish, Wenwei, to seek the learning of innate knowledge between serving parents and elders — said from where your own work has borne strength, well enough; as also 'extend innate knowledge's sincere compassion to fulfill the way of serving parents and elders.' Cheng Hao said: practicing humaneness begins with filial and brotherly devotion; devotion is one item of humaneness — call it the beginning of practicing humaneness, not the root of humaneness itself. Well said.

On surmising, doubting and awareness beforehand, your 'with sincerity, even devious courses and crooked defenses are innate knowledge's use' — very good! The stray tacking in it was touched on before. Weijun's words too are not wrong: you must take something from Weijun to be complete, and Weijun from you to be clear — else each leans to his own bent. Shun examined near words and asked the grass-cutters — not deeming near words worthy of examination and cutters worth asking, and therefore doing so; it was innate knowledge showing and flowing, bright, round and crystal, with nothing hanging or screening — that is why it is called great knowing; the least clinging or presuming, and the knowing shrinks. In lectures there is choosing and judging, but for work laid truly on the ground of the mind, it must be thus.

On the three passages of realizing the mind, my born-knowing, learning-knowing, hardship-knowing account is plain enough, beyond doubt. He who realizes the mind, knows nature, knows Heaven, need not speak of preserving the mind, nourishing nature, serving Heaven, nor of undivided-by-lifespan, cultivating-and-awaiting — that work is already inside. He who preserves and serves, though not yet at the height of realizing and knowing, is already working toward it, and need not speak of undivided-and-awaiting — it is inside already. Like walking: realizing and knowing Heaven is the man in full strength coursing hundreds and thousands of miles; preserving and serving is the child at play learning to step and pace within the courtyard; undivided-and-awaiting is the infant in swaddling, just learning to stand against wall and sill and shift a step. One who courses thousands of miles need not be set to stepping in the courtyard — the courtyard is nothing to him; one who paces the courtyard need not be set to standing against walls — standing and stepping come of themselves. Yet learning to stand and step is the beginning of pacing the courtyard, and pacing the courtyard the foundation of coursing a thousand miles: never two affairs — only the ease and difficulty stand worlds apart. Mind, nature, Heaven: one. Hence in knowing and completion one; but the three stand in grades of capacity and strength — none may leap the stages.

Reading your discussion closely, Wenwei, you fear the mind-realizing, Heaven-knowing might drop the work of preserving and cultivating, and so injure their own realizing and knowing — anxiety for the sages' work possibly breaking, where the anxiety owed is that one's own work is not yet true. Our work must be single-minded on undivided-by-lifespan and cultivating-and-awaiting: that very thing is the beginning of the work of realizing the mind and knowing Heaven — as learning to stand and step is the beginning of coursing a thousand miles. I am anxious enough that I cannot yet stand and step — shall I be anxious I cannot course a thousand miles? Still less be anxious, on behalf of the thousand-mile courser, lest he forget his standing practice! Your insight naturally soars; yet your discussion bears the old habit of glossing texts — splitting and pairing the three passages for a synthesis, wrapping yourself in a tangle of opinions till the work loses its singleness. Those who of late do not-forgetting-not-forcing in mid-air carry just this disease of opinion; it delays men most and must be scoured out.

On honoring the moral nature while pursuing inquiry: at the utmost it returns to one, beyond doubt — words you can say only having truly worked. The truth is no strange, hidden doctrine; that men differ over it means a film still lurks in innate knowledge; strip the film, and all is open.

Written and sealed, I moved to lie under the eaves; finding idle moments, I have answered yet this. Your learning having grasped the great, these points will ease and resolve of themselves in time — no need of such petty untangling; but held by your deep kindness, your man come a thousand miles questioning so earnestly, to send him empty away I could not bring myself to do. Blunt and wearisome beyond measure — leaning on trust and love, I trust not faulted. To Weijun, and to Qianzhi and Chongyi, please have a copy each sent — sharing the kindness as one body.

(The above recorded by Nan Daji.)