Chapter 129: Admiration

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When Zhang Yue and Liu Zuo returned to their dormitory together, they saw Xiang Qi and Huang Haoyi standing outside the door. Unable to contain their curiosity, Zhang Yue asked, “May we ask what happened?”

Huang Haoyi pointed inside. The two looked in and saw Cheng Yi kneeling upright on the bed with a book in his hands, facing the wall. His lips moved ceaselessly as he repeated the words, “The substance of the mind is neither good nor evil…”

Zhang Yue stood nearby, utterly dumbfounded. He thought to himself, It is over. It is over. I have led astray one of the greatest masters of Confucian philosophy the world has ever known.

An immense regret suddenly welled up within him. Why had he tried so hard to show off? Though he did not agree with the doctrines of the School of Principle, without that school, the history of Chinese thought would lack a brilliant and weighty chapter.

If, merely for the sake of showing off, he had smothered Cheng Yi’s ideas before they could take shape, would he not become a sinner?

For a moment, Zhang Yue had no idea what to do.

“Third Brother, what exactly did you say to Brother Zhizheng?”

“Only a verse.”

“Oh? Is Third Brother well versed in Buddhist teachings?”

Buddhist verses generally consisted of four lines.

“All conditioned things are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, and shadows; like dew and lightning—thus should they be regarded.” This was a verse from the Diamond Sutra.

There was also:

“Bodhi has no tree, nor is there a bright mirror stand. Since originally there is nothing, where could dust alight?”

That, too, was a verse.

Buddhist verses were usually made up of four lines. The four lines beginning with “The substance of the mind is neither good nor evil” were likewise known as the Four Maxims of the Mind. Wang Yangming later called them the guiding principle of everything he had learned in his life. For several centuries, countless people had racked their brains over them. How could Cheng Yi possibly comprehend them all at once?

After Zhang Yue recited the Four Maxims of the Mind, Liu Zuo was left with a completely bewildered expression.

“Brother Cheng has always been like this. Let us not disturb him.”

“I suppose that is all we can do. Let us go to the refectory for the afternoon meal.”

“Very well. I am hungry too.”

The four of them left together. Before going, Zhang Yue called into the room, “Brother Zhizheng, we are going to eat!”

Cheng Yi did not react at all. He had not heard a word Zhang Yue said.

With no other choice, the others went to eat first.

As they walked, Liu Zuo told Zhang Yue, “Whenever examinations are held on the third or eighth day of the month, the public kitchen prepares special dishes. In spring and autumn there are steamed cakes; in summer, chilled noodles; and in winter, steamed buns. Those winter buns are the most famous. Even we students at the Imperial Academy cannot bear to eat them ourselves—we save them to give to relatives and friends.”

Zhang Yue could not help recalling the Imperial Academy buns Cai Que had once invited him to eat. They truly had been delicious.

“What about ordinary days?” Zhang Yue asked.

Liu Zuo let out a long sigh. Xiang Qi added from the side, “We students at the Imperial Academy have a saying: ‘The tonsured ascetics have a monastery; the censors have no government office.’ The first half means that in our daily lives we suffer like ascetics, taking pride in our frugality and uprightness. We scholars at the academy even mock ourselves by saying that shadows are our wives and chairs our concubines.”

At this, everyone burst into loud laughter.

Zhang Yue secretly chuckled. Was it not really a matter of making the left hand serve as the right?

“As for the phrase about the censors having no government office, I need say no more.”

In recent years, the students of the Imperial Academy had become fond of commenting on current affairs. They even dared to say aloud what high ministers did not, and to scold people whom the censors themselves would not dare insult. Thus they were known as the “censors without an office.”

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The group soon reached the public kitchen. Since it was not an examination day, the food was indeed nothing special.

The Imperial Academy had originally held only two hundred students, but its numbers had recently expanded to more than seven hundred, leaving its funds inadequate. On ordinary days, the monthly food allowance for each student amounted to no more than three hundred copper coins—an average of ten coins a day.

Thus, instructors such as Hu Yuan paid out of their own salaries to provide the students with extra food on examination days falling on the third and eighth.

Unlike the separate meals served at prefectural and county schools, the Imperial Academy served communal meals. Each dormitory had one table, upon which stood a wooden bucket containing a little over two liters of rice—less than half a liter per person—along with some pickled vegetables.

Each student also received a clay pot filled with rice gruel. The remainder of the meal consisted of roughly half a liter of cooked rice. There was, however, one dish shared with the prefectural and county schools: steamed eggplant.

Several pale strips of steamed eggplant had been cut in half and covered with a sauce made from fermented vinegar. The flavor was surprisingly good.

Speaking of eggplant, one could not fail to mention the venerable Zhu Xi.

When Zhu Xi lectured in the Wuyi Mountains, he and his students usually ate husked-grain rice and eggplant. One day, a man named Hu Hong traveled a great distance to pay him a visit. Zhu Xi served him eggplant with husked-grain rice.

Hu Hong was furious. Wherever he went, he complained, “That is no way to treat a guest. Even in the mountains, you could have managed a chicken and a jug of wine!”

Even if there was nothing else in the mountains, he could at least have been entertained with a chicken and some wine. Who had ever heard of someone so lacking in human feeling?

Later, after Hu Hong entered officialdom, he impeached Zhu Xi as the chief criminal behind the false learning.

The austere life at the Imperial Academy reminded Zhang Yue of the saying from the prefectural and county schools: “Eat second- or third-grade food, and become a first- or second-grade man.”

Looking at the purple eggplant before him, Zhang Yue mocked himself and said, “Today I eat purple eggplant; tomorrow I shall wear purple robes!”

Everyone around him laughed.

After they had eaten, Liu Zuo placed the leftover rice in a clay pot, covered it with a bowl, and carried it back to the dormitory.

Cheng Yi was still there, clutching his head and sitting cross-legged on the bed as he stared at the wall, lost in deep thought. Liu Zuo held out the food.

“Brother Zhizheng, have a bite.”

Cheng Yi merely shook his head.

Helpless, Liu Zuo turned to Zhang Yue. “Third Brother, perhaps you should try persuading him.”

Zhang Yue was about to step forward, but then hesitated. Remembering the consequences of having led Cheng Yi astray, he wondered whether the School of Principle might disappear from history because of him.

In the Southern Song, Confucianism would eventually divide into three schools: Zhu Xi’s School of Principle, Lu Jiuyuan’s School of Mind, and Lü Zuqian’s School of Practical Achievement. The three would stand in balance.

The School of Principle would later be established by the Ming dynasty as the official doctrine—the intellectual foundation of its governance.

Every doctrine belonged to a particular age.

Where Zhang Yue surpassed Cheng Yi was not in intelligence, but in breadth of vision—the accumulated knowledge and insight of a thousand years.

Cheng Yi did not know Wang Yangming. He had never read the Instructions for Practical Living, nor did he understand Western philosophy or modern thought. No matter how brilliant or diligent a person might be, such things could not be surpassed through effort and reflection alone. That was the difference made by one’s horizon.

Zhang Yue sat down beside Cheng Yi and asked, “Brother Cheng, have you reached any understanding?”

Cheng Yi turned to him with bloodshot eyes. “Third Brother, I have thought about this all day and still cannot understand it. ‘The substance of the mind is neither good nor evil.’ If this means that the substance of the mind is without good or evil, then intention, knowledge, and things must likewise be without good or evil. Why, then, are they called existent? If one is nothing and the other three are existence, should there not be four nothingnesses? And if there are three existences, then there ought to be four. One cannot be nothing.”

Zhang Yue smiled when he heard this. If Cheng Yi had asked about anything else, Zhang Yue certainly would not have known how to answer. But on this point, he knew there was a ready-made answer in the books.

He immediately threw back his head and laughed. “I knew from the beginning that Brother Zhizheng would ask precisely this question!”

…

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When Cheng Yi heard this, he could not help regarding Zhang Yue with solemn respect. The others nearby pricked up their ears as well.

What an extraordinary level of insight Third Brother possessed! He had anticipated everything long ago.

Zhang Yue said, “In truth, the one nothingness and the three existences are the source. No matter where one begins one’s inquiry, one cannot be entirely wrong. But those who insist on the doctrine of four existences or four nothingnesses each cling to one side. If one carries a line of reasoning to its absolute extreme, errors will inevitably appear.”

“Master Hu of Anding once explained the meaning of ‘clarifying substance and realizing function.’ To clarify substance is to clarify the mind. Since the mind is neither good nor evil, that is nothingness. To realize function is to act through intention, knowledge, and effort. Those are existence.”

“The doctrine of four existences begins with function and proceeds toward substance. The doctrine of four nothingnesses begins with the mind and works from substance toward function.”

“What difference does that make?” Liu Zuo asked. “Sometimes one proceeds from function to substance, and sometimes from substance to function. We are all thoroughly confused.”

“People of the present age fall into two categories: those of sharp faculties and those of dull faculties. The doctrine of four nothingnesses is meant for people of the highest capacity. To penetrate substance completely—few could do so, perhaps not even Yan Hui. How could ordinary people be expected to manage it? The doctrine of four existences, however, leads people of duller faculties from function toward substance.”

“The defect of the doctrine of four nothingnesses is that it is insubstantial. The defect of the doctrine of four existences is that its clarification of substance remains incomplete.”

Xiang Qi, who had been listening nearby, said, “Third Brother’s explanation has made me understand somewhat. It resembles the saying, ‘To study without thought is bewildering; to think without study is perilous.’”

“Study is function: knowing the world and heaven,” Liu Zuo said. “Thought is substance: knowing oneself. As Laozi said, ‘To know others is easy; to know oneself is difficult.’”

Cheng Yi saw that Zhang Yue neither agreed nor disagreed. Although he knew that Liu Zuo and Xiang Qi had both misunderstood the matter, their words had nevertheless given him the sensation of clouds parting and daylight appearing.

“Third Brother, I understand now,” Cheng Yi said. “Before clarifying substance, one must seek the way to clarify it through function. That is the investigation of things and extension of knowledge. The sequence lies in reading the four lines backward. Once substance has been clarified, one proceeds from substance to function, and only then does one read the four lines forward.”

Zhang Yue was stunned.

That was exactly the point.

He himself had pondered the Four Teachings for a long time without understanding it, yet with merely a slight indication from him, Cheng Yi had grasped the principle.

Cheng Yi murmured to himself, “Indeed. The investigation of things in the fourth line, the extension of knowledge in the third, the sincerity of intention in the second, and the rectification of the mind in the first.”

“This is what is said in the Great Learning: ‘If one wishes to rectify the mind, one must first make one’s intentions sincere. If one wishes to make one’s intentions sincere, one must first extend one’s knowledge. The extension of knowledge lies in the investigation of things.’ This is the way of the four existences.

“Yet Brother Zhang has said that besides the four existences there are also four nothingnesses: first rectify the mind, then make the intention sincere, then extend knowledge, and finally investigate things. That is far too difficult. It is the introductory path of Buddhism—to first understand one’s nature and see one’s true nature. How many people could accomplish that?

“How could I, Cheng Yi, dare compare myself with Yan Hui? Thus, everything I have learned throughout my life remains founded upon the four existences. Yet without Third Brother’s brief guidance, I might never have understood this. Third Brother, you are truly my teacher in these four teachings!”

Zhang Yue’s face flushed crimson. It was now his turn not to understand.

But there was nothing he could do. Having started showing off, he had to finish the performance, even if it brought tears to his eyes.

With perfect composure, Zhang Yue said, “Just so, Brother Cheng. This is as far as I can help you.”

Deep down, Zhang Yue was relieved. From Cheng Yi’s words, he could tell that his ideas had not been altered by Zhang Yue; he had merely received a first-rate inspiration.

Indeed, the experience had deepened his learning. That was the advantage of possessing a broader horizon.

“No,” Cheng Yi said. “When I achieve something in my studies one day, I shall have to thank Third Brother for today’s guidance. Apart from Master Hu of Anding and the other teacher, Third Brother is the most learned man I have ever met. I shall often seek your advice in the future.”

“No, no, I would not dare,” Zhang Yue hurriedly replied. “When it comes to learning, you and I can simply sit together and discuss it. Among fellow residents of the same dormitory, there is no need for such formalities as seeking instruction.”

Cheng Yi glanced at Liu Zuo and the others.

“Very well. Since Third Brother puts it that way, I shall discuss these matters with you often in the future.”

Only then did Zhang Yue finally breathe a sigh of relief.

As for the people around them, Cheng Yi had never respected anyone since entering the Imperial Academy. Yet now he admired Zhang Yue.

It seemed that this Third Brother Zhang was truly a man of remarkable ability.

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