答周道通书

The two students Wu and Zeng arrived and fully conveyed Daotong's earnest devotion to the Way — a great comfort. Such a one as Daotong may truly be called a believer who loves learning. Meeting amid my grief and illness I could not discuss things finely with them, but they have their own direction and are willing workers, visibly advanced at every meeting. In me, I have ill repaid their far coming; in them, they have scarcely failed its purpose. At parting they brought this booklet from Daotong asking for a few words. With my mind in a fog there is nothing to say; I only set brief turning-words to the several questions in Daotong's letter. Hasty and unparticular — the two will relay the rest by mouth.

Your letter says: 'My daily work is only setting the will. Of late, testing your teaching at every turn, it grows ever clearer. But with friends to study with, the will feels vigorous and broad, quick with life; five days without them and it weakens, falters at affairs, sometimes forgets. On days without friends I only sit quietly, read, or stroll; whatever meets eye or body I take to nurture this will, and feel fairly at ease. Yet it is never like gathering with friends, spirit flowing, life more abundant. What method is there for one who dwells apart from the flock?'

This passage well attests your daily attainment; the work is used just so — only keep it unbroken, and once ripened the feel of it changes of itself. The great head of our learning is setting the will. The sicknesses of faltering and forgetting are only the will insufficiently earnest. The lover of beauty never complains of faltering and forgetting — sheer earnestness. One's own itch one surely knows, and surely scratches; knowing the itch, one cannot but scratch. The Buddhists call it the expedient gate: each must adjust and weigh for himself; others can lend no strength, and no other device exists.

Your letter says: 'Shangcai once asked about the line what to think, what to worry. Cheng Yi answered: the principle is there, only it was voiced too early. For learners' work it is surely always having the task at hand and not forgetting; yet one must also know the weather of no-thought-no-worry, holding both as right. Not knowing it, one falls into forcing or aiding growth; knowing it and forgetting the task, one may sink into nothingness. One must neither stick in being nor fall into non-being. Is that so?'

You are not far off; only the grasp is incomplete. Shangcai's question and Cheng Yi's answer are their own sense, slightly off the original purport of Confucius in the Commentaries. There, what to think, what to worry means that all thinking and worry are one heavenly principle, with no other thought or worry — not that there is no thought or worry at all. Hence: same goal, different roads; one accord, a hundred deliberations. With roads and deliberations, how could there be no thinking? The mind's substance is heavenly principle, one alone — what is there to think out? Principle is of itself still and unmoving, of itself stirred and all-penetrating. The learner's thousand thoughts and myriad worries only seek to restore its original substance and function, not something schemed out by private intent — hence Cheng Hao: the noble person's learning is none better than vast impartiality, responding as things come. To scheme and ponder with private intent is wit in selfishness. No-thought-no-worry is itself the work: in the sage natural, in the learner striving. Cheng Yi took it as the fruit, hence 'voiced too early'; his later 'yet good for the work' shows he felt the shortfall. Zhou Dunyi's emphasis on stillness is the same sense. Your words show no little insight, yet you still make two things of it.

Your letter says: 'As soon as one knows how to work, one must first know the sage's aspect; taking it as the standard and working on solid ground, one goes astray no more — that is sage-making work. Is that right?'

'First know the sage's aspect' — men of old have said it; yet it too lacks the guiding head. The sage's aspect is the sage's own: from where do I recognize it? Without true recognition on one's own innate knowledge, it is weighing with a scaleless beam, mirroring beauty and ugliness with an unpolished glass — measuring the noble heart with a petty belly. How could the sage's aspect be recognized? One's own innate knowledge is originally as the sage's; recognize one's own innate knowledge clearly, and the sage's aspect is not in the sage but in me. Chengzi said: gaze at Yao and copy his doings — without his intelligence and wisdom, how match his every movement in accordance with ritual? And: the mind threading the Way, only then discerning true and false. Tell me: where does threading the Way lie, and whence issue intelligence and wisdom?

Your letter says: 'Tempering on affairs. Through the day, affairs or none, I single-mindedly nurture the root. When affairs come stirring, or my own feeling stirs, the mind aware — how call that no task? Only gathering the mind a moment on the affair, sensing broadly that the principle is thus, I handle it as if nothing were afoot, exhausting my mind's part. Yet handling is sometimes good, sometimes not — why? Or affairs crowd in, needing ordered dispatch, and my strength failing, I am bogged down; straining upright again, the spirit already wilts. Then I cannot but withdraw and restore — rather leave the affair undone than stint the nurturing. Is that right?'

The work you describe, on your level, is used just so — yet it wavers in and out. The learner's whole life is this one affair. From youth to age, dawn to dusk, affairs or none, doing this one thing — the always-having-the-task. To say rather leave affairs undone than stint nurturing is still to make two. The task at hand, neither forgetting nor forcing: as things come, meet them solely with the mind's innate knowledge exhausted — loyalty and reciprocity, and the Way not far. Every handling that turns out well or ill, every jam and disorder, comes of being dragged by praise and blame, gain and loss, failing to extend innate knowledge in earnest. Extend it in earnest, and you will find what you called good was often not good, and the not-good was precisely the dragging of praise and loss gnawing at your true knowing.

Your letter says: 'On extension of knowledge, receiving your teaching again this spring, I know how to apply strength and find it simpler than before. But for beginners, I think, one must still add the sense of investigating things, to show them where to begin. Extension and investigation are one dropping, yet beginners not knowing the entry should first be told investigation, and then they grasp extension.'

Investigating things is the work of extending knowledge: know extension and you already know investigation; not knowing investigation, the work of extension is not yet known either. I lately wrote a friend on this at length; I send a copy — study it and you will see.

Your letter says: 'The Zhu-Xi-versus-Lu-Jiuyuan quarrel still runs on. I often tell friends: the true learning has been dark so long — do not waste strength defending Zhu or Lu; just use your two words set the will to awaken people. One who truly makes out this will and resolves to know this learning is already largely clear; the Zhu-Lu case he will settle for himself. Again, when friends hear people carp at your words, they flare up. That the two masters left the world this wrangle shows their own work unripe — plainly the same flaring. Cheng Hao had none of it: see him discussing Wang Anshi's learning with Wu Sheli — convey it all to Jiefu for me: if it does not profit him, it will profit me. What composure! I have seen you cite this in letters, wishing all friends were thus. Is that right?'

Perfectly right — tell all our fellows: let each mind his own right and wrong, not Zhu's and Lu's. To slander with words is shallow slander; but failing to practice in one's own body, letting it run in the ear and out the mouth, clamoring the days away — that is slandering with one's very self, slander most deep. Whoever under heaven criticizes me, if I take it as good, it is all whetstone and grindstone to me; in me, all of it is ground for vigilance, self-repair and growth in virtue. The ancients said: who attacks my shortcomings is my teacher. Can one hate one's teacher?

Your letter says: 'Someone cites Chengzi: above man's birth-into-stillness nothing can be said; the moment you speak of nature it is already not nature. Why can nothing be said? Why is it no longer nature? Zhu Xi answered: nothing can be said because no nature is yet assertable; not nature because the admixture of stuff is already there. Both masters' words escape me; every time I read to this point I stumble. Please instruct.'

In life is what is called nature, life is but breath: breath itself is nature. Breath being nature, above birth-into-stillness nothing can be said: the moment one says breath-is-nature one has fallen to one side, no longer nature's source. Mencius's nature-good speaks from the source. Yet nature's goodness of sprouting shows only upon breath; without breath, nothing to see. Compassion, shame, deference, right-and-wrong are breath. Chengzi's treating nature without breath is incomplete; breath without nature, unclear — said only because learners each clung to one side. When one's own nature is seen in clarity, breath is nature, nature breath — originally no dividing them.