陈九川录

In the yihai year of Zhengde, I first met the Master at Longjiang. He was discussing the doctrine of investigating things with Master Ganquan, who held the old view. The Master said: 'That seeks it outside.' Ganquan said: 'To take the investigating of things' principles as outside is to belittle one's own mind.' I much approved the old view then. The Master next discussed the chapter on realizing the mind, and at one hearing my doubts were gone.

Later, at home, I wrote again about investigating things. He replied: 'Work on solid ground, and in time it will open of itself.' In the mountains I copied out the old text of the Great Learning and read it, finding Zhu Xi's doctrine of investigating things mistaken; yet I still doubted the Master's 'where intention lies is the thing' — the word thing was unclear.

In the jimao year, returning from the capital, I saw him again at Hongdu. Amid pressing military business he taught in the gaps. He first asked how my work had gone.

I said: 'Of late I have found the work of brightening bright virtue to be only sincerity of intention. Pushing step by step from brightening virtue through the world down to the root, at sincerity one can go no further — how then could there be a prior work of investigation and extension? Then again I found the sincerity or falseness of intention must be preceded by awareness; with Yan Hui's doing ill, he never failed to know it; knowing it, he never repeated it as proof, I seemed suddenly beyond doubt. But then investigation appeared once more; and I thought, my mind being so numinous, how could it not know intention's good and evil? Only thing-desire veils it: the desire must be corrected away, and then, like Yan Hui, one never fails to know. Again I suspected the work was inverted, no continuous piece with sincerity. I asked Xiyan; he said the Master calls investigation and extension the work of sincerity — excellent. How is it the work of sincerity? He bade me think again; I never woke to it, so I ask.'

The Master said: 'A pity! One word could wake you: Weijun's case of Yan Hui is it. Only know that body, mind, intention, knowledge and thing are one thing.'

I doubted: 'Things are outside — how one thing with body, mind, intention and knowledge?'

'Ear, eye, mouth, nose, limbs are the body; without mind, how see, hear, speak, move? And the mind willing to see, hear, speak and move, without ear, eye, mouth, nose and limbs, could not. No mind, no body; no body, no mind. Spoken of as the filling, it is called body; as the master, mind; as the mind's stirring, intention; as intention's bright awareness, knowledge; as intention's engagement, thing: one thing only. Intention is never suspended in vacancy; it must attach to affairs. So to make intention sincere, follow intention to its affair and correct there — strip human desire back to heavenly principle, and innate knowledge on that affair, unveiled, is extended. That is the work of sincerity.' At that my years of doubt broke clear.

I asked further: 'Ganquan of late also trusts the old text, taking ge wu as attaining the Way, and穷 as entering the lair in person — thus investigating things is recognizing heavenly principle wherever one is. It seems to near your doctrine.'

The Master said: 'Ganquan works; hence his turning. Once I told him qin min need not be changed, and he would not believe. His ge wu now draws near — only he need not swap thing for principle: give back the word thing.'

Later someone asked me why I no longer doubted the word thing. I said: the Mean's without sincerity no thing, Chengzi's things come, respond in kind, and phrases like each thing paid to its thing, no thing in the breast — all common ancient usage.

Another day the Master said the same.

I asked: 'Of late, weary of sprawling learning, I would sit still and stop thought altogether; far from succeeding, I grow the more restless. What to do?'

The Master said: 'How could thought be stopped? Only set it right.'

'Is there never a time of no-thought?'

'Verily, no time of no-thought.'

'Then how speak of stillness?'

'Stillness is never without movement, movement never without stillness. Vigilance and fear are themselves thought — what parting of moving and still?'

'Then why did Zhou say settle them with centrality, correctness, humaneness and rightness, abiding in stillness?'

'Desireless, hence still — the settled of settled in movement as in stillness: he spoke of the substance. The thought of vigilance is quick and alive; that is where heaven's mechanism never rests: august is heaven's mandate, ceaseless it goes. One rest is death. Thought not of the substance is private thought.'

I asked further: 'Gathering the mind in work, with sights and sounds before me, I hear and see as usual — not single-minded, I fear.'

The Master said: 'Why would you not hear and see? Only withered wood, cold ashes, the deaf and blind escape. Simply do not stream away with what is heard and seen.'

'Once a man sat in stillness while his son read in the next room, unknowing whether diligent or idle; Chengzi praised his reverence.'

'Yichuan, I fear, was mocking him.'

I asked further: 'Sitting still at the work, the mind seems gathered; meeting an affair, it snaps. A thought is raised to examine upon the affair; the affair past, I hunt up the old work — still an inner and an outer, never one piece.'

The Master said: 'The doctrine of investigating things is not yet through. When had the mind an inner and outer? See Weijun here lecturing — is there another mind inside keeping watch? The very attentiveness of listening is the mind of sitting still. The work is one thread — why raise fresh thoughts? One must be tempered on affairs; so the work profits. Loving only quiet, one is thrown into disorder at every affair, never advancing. And the quiet work itself is astray: seeming gathered, in truth sunk and drifting.'

Later at Hongdu, discussing inner and outer with Yuzhong and Guoshang, both held things to have inner and outer of themselves, only the work must be applied to both unbroken. I brought this to the Master.

He said: 'The work never leaves the substance, and the substance never had inner or outer; only later workers split them and lost the substance. What must be made clear now is work without inner or outer — that is the work of the substance.' That day all present woke somewhat.

I asked: 'What of Lu Xiangshan's learning?'

The Master said: 'After Lianxi and Mingdao, it is Xiangshan — only somewhat coarse.'

'His essays pierce to the marrow, every sentence needles the vitals — I see no coarseness.'

'He worked upon the mind, unlike the apers and glossers; yet look finely and the coarse places show. Work long, and you will see.'

In the gengchen year I saw the Master again at Qianzhou.

I asked: 'My work of late, though I faintly know the head of it, hardly finds a settled and joyful place.'

The Master said: 'You go hunting heavenly principle upon the mind — precisely the barrier of principle. Herein lies a key.'

'May I ask what?'

'Only extension of knowledge.'

'How extend?'

'That point of innate knowledge is your own measuring rod. Where your intention lights, it knows right as right, wrong as wrong — nothing can be hidden from it. Only do not cheat it: solidly, plainly do as it bids; good, preserve; evil, remove. How settled, how joyful there! This is the true key of investigating things, the solid work of extension. Not leaning on this true spring, how investigate things? I too only of late felt it out so plainly. At first I feared that trusting it alone might not suffice; looked at finely, it lacks nothing, however small.'

At Qianzhou, Yuzhong, Qianzhi and I attended the Master.

He said: 'In every breast there is a sage; only self-trust falls short, and men bury their own.' Then, turning to Yuzhong: 'Your breast holds a sage already.' Yuzhong rose, not daring to accept.

'It is your own possession — why push it away?'

'Still I dare not.'

'All men have it — you above all; why this modesty? Modesty will not serve either.' Yuzhong at last accepted, smiling.

He went on: 'Innate knowledge in man, do what you will, cannot be blotted out. Even a robber knows he ought not rob; call him thief, and he blushes.'

Yuzhong said: 'Only thing-desire veils it; the good mind within cannot be lost. As clouds veil the sun — when did the sun perish?'

The Master said: 'So quick as you are, Yuzhong — others do not see this.'

The Master said: 'See this one point through, and let the thousand words and ten thousand phrases come: right and wrong, sincere and false, are plain on arrival — what fits is so, what fits not is not. Like the Buddhists' mind-seal: a true touchstone and compass.'

The Master said: 'Know this key of innate knowledge, and let evil and twisted thoughts come never so many: one awakening here, and all melts of itself. Truly one grain of the elixir, turning iron into gold.'

Chongyi said: 'Your purport of extension has spoken the last subtlety — beyond this there is no going.'

The Master said: 'How lightly said! Work another half year and see; another year and see. The longer the work, the more it differs — past the reach of the mouth.'

The Master asked me: 'How goes your tasting of extension?'

I said: 'Different, I feel it. Formerly my grip never found the just point — this is the just point.'

He said: 'So tasting differs from hearing. When I first lectured you, I knew you took it lightly, without savor. Carry this subtlety deeper and deeper; daily it shows new — inexhaustible.' He added: 'These two words, extension of knowledge, are truly the secret handed down by sages a thousand ages. Seen to this point, wait a hundred generations for a sage, unconfused.'

I asked: 'When Cheng Yi reached substance and function one source, the manifest and subtle without seam, his disciples already cried betrayal of heaven's secret. Does your doctrine of extension not betray it too far?'

The Master said: 'The sages long since pointed it out to men; later hands only buried it — I but uncover it again: what betrayal? It is every man's own; wakened, it seems to count for nothing. Told to those who do no real work, alas the pity — gain for neither; pointed out to those who truly work yet miss the key, it floods in with strength.'

He also said: 'Known, there was never a knowing; awakened, never an awakening; yet not knowing, one drowns and is buried.'

The Master said: 'Among friends, admonition and fault-finding should be little, drawing-out and encouragement much — that is the way.' Later he charged me: 'In discussing learning with friends, be patient and humble, dwelling in breadth.'

Lying ill at Qianzhou, I heard the Master say: 'Sickness too is a hard thing to correct — how does it feel?'

'The work is very hard.'

'To keep always cheerful is the work.'

I asked: 'Examining my thoughts, some stray into the perverse, some scheme at ordering the world; carried to the utmost, ordered and savory, they cling and will not be screened away — waking early it is easy, late it is hard; forcing mastery only stiffens the block; merely turning the mind elsewhere, both are forgot. Such sweeping seems harmless enough.'

The Master said: 'Why all this? Work only upon innate knowledge.'

'Just at that moment innate knowledge does not know.'

'Innate knowledge has its own work — how should it be absent? Only your work broke off, and so knowledge was veiled. Broken off? Then simply take up the old work again — why all these devices?'

'It truly battles hard; knowing, I still cannot throw it off.'

'There must be courage; work long, and courage comes of itself — hence it is what accumulating rightness begets. Win easily, and you are a great worthy.'

I asked: 'The work is clear tasted on the mind; only the books will not open.'

The Master said: 'Only unbind the mind. The mind clear, the books fuse of themselves. With the mind shut, forcing the letter through only breeds opinions.'

A subordinate official, long in attendance at the lectures, said: 'This learning is fine indeed; only my ledgers and lawsuits are so tangled there is no room for learning.'

The Master heard and said: 'When did I teach you to quit ledgers and lawsuits and go lecturing in mid-air? Having the business of the courts, learn upon that very business — that is true investigation of things. In hearing a suit: do not flare in anger at insolent answers; do not warm at flattering speech; do not, loathing the man's backdoor pleas, punish the harder; do not, at his entreaty, bend to favor; do not, your own desk heaped, settle it carelessly; do not, at others' slanders and spun tales, dispose by another's will. All these are private stirrings, known to you alone: examine and master them finely, fearing the least lean of the heart, twisting right and wrong — that is investigating things and extending knowledge. Between ledger and lawsuit there is nothing that is not solid learning. Quit things to study, and you study vacancy.'

Leaving Qianzhou, I took a poem of farewell: 'What has innate knowledge to do with much hearing? Its wondrous accord was rooted from the first; good and evil following it is the sagely learning; nowhere to forestall or cling — that is heaven's spring.'

The Master said: 'Had you not come to this learning, who knows what good-and-evil-following would follow.'

Fuying, present, said: 'Truly so. I once read your preface to the old text of the Great Learning and understood nothing; only after long attendance do I faintly grasp the drift.'

Yuzhong, Guoshang and others shared the Master's table.

He said: 'Food and drink are to nourish the body — eaten, they must digest; merely hoarded in the belly they turn to lump: how would the flesh grow? Later scholars' broad hearsay and much remembering, lingering in the breast, is all the sickness of food undigested.'

The Master said: 'The sage too is learning-knowing; the crowd too is born-knowing.'

Asked how: 'This innate knowledge all possess. The sage simply keeps it whole without a film of veil, heedful and tireless, unresting of itself — that too is learning; only the born share is greater, hence born-knowing, acting-at-ease. All, from the child in arms, possess this knowledge entire; only the veils are many. Yet the substance's knowledge can hardly die out; even inquiry and mastery go by it; only the learned share is greater, hence learning-knowing, acting-with-advantage.'

Huang Yifang asked: 'On your doctrine, correcting things at each moment to extend knowledge, that knowledge is a section's knowledge, not the whole — how reach the breadth-like-heaven, spring-like-the-abyss stature?'

The Master said: 'The human mind is that heaven, that abyss. The mind's substance leaves nothing out — a heaven entire, lost only as private desire blocks it; the mind's principle is inexhaustible — an abyss entire, lost only as desire chokes it. Thought after thought extending innate knowledge, sweep block and choke away at once: the substance restored — that is heaven and abyss.' And he pointed to the sky: 'The bit of heaven before you is bright heaven; the heaven seen on every side is the same bright heaven. Only the walls and roofs shut out the whole; pull down walls and roofs, and it is one heaven. You may not say the heaven here is heaven and the heaven out there is not. Hence a section's knowledge is the whole's knowledge, the whole's a section's — one substance throughout.'

The Master said: 'Sages and worthies were not without deeds and unbending integrity; but they walked by heavenly principle, and that is the Way — they are not to be named by exploit and integrity.'

'So bent as to forget food — the sage's resolve is thus, truly never pausing; so joyful as to forget sorrow — the sage's way is thus, truly never grieving. No need, I think, to speak of attaining or not.'

The Master said: 'Our extension of knowledge goes only as far as each man's measure reaches. Today innate knowledge shows thus: extend today's knowing to the full; tomorrow brings new opening: extend tomorrow's to the full — that is refinement-unity. In discussing learning, likewise follow the man's measure. A tree with so much sprout: water it with just so much; as it grows, add more — from fist to embrace, the watering ever follows the measure. A tiny sprout with a full bucket poured over it is drowned and ruined.'

Someone asked about the unity of knowledge and action.

The Master said: 'You must know the intent of my words. Scholars today, splitting knowledge and action in two, let an evil thought stir — since not yet acted, they do not forbid it. My unity of knowledge and action is to make men know that the stirring of a thought is already action; find evil at the stirring, and topple it there — root and branch, letting no evil thought lie lurking in the breast. That is the intent of my words.'

'The sage knows all — that is, knows heavenly principle; can do all — that is, can heavenly principle. His substance clear, he knows principle in each affair and carries it out; it is not that, substance clear, he knows and can do everything under the sun. The world's things — names, measures, plants, birds, beasts — weary past counting: how should even the clear-souled sage know them all? What need not be known, he does not seek to know; what should be, he can ask — as entering the Grand Temple, asking at every thing. The earlier scholars' though knowing, still asking — reverence at its utmost does not parse. Of rites, music, names and things the sage need not know all; knowing the one heavenly principle, the proper forms and measures come forth of themselves. Not knowing and able to ask — that too is where principle's forms reside.'

Someone asked: 'You have said good and evil are one thing only. The two ends are ice to coal — how one thing?'

The Master said: 'The highest good is the mind's substance. The substance exceeded by a hair's breadth is already evil; there is not a good with an evil set over against it. Hence good and evil are one thing.'

I, Huang Zhi, hearing this, understood Chengzi's 'good is surely nature, yet evil too must be called nature' and 'both good and evil are heavenly principle: what is called evil was never evil in itself, only past or short of the original nature' — all beyond doubt now.

The Master once said: 'Were one to love good as one loves beauty and hate evil as one hates a stench, one would be a sage.' Hearing it first, it seemed easy; tasting it after, the work proved truly hard. A thought may know loving-good and hating-evil, yet unawares the mixture creeps in; once mixed, it is no longer the heart that loves good as beauty, hates evil as stench. Good loved solidly — no thought but good; evil hated solidly — no thought that touches evil: is that not a sage? Hence the sage's learning is one word — sincerity.

Someone asked: 'The Essay on Cultivating the Way assigns following nature-is-the-Way to the sage's share, cultivating the Way-is-teaching to the worthy's.'

The Master said: 'The crowd too follows nature — only in the sage the share is greater, hence following nature is the sage's affair; the sage too cultivates the Way — only in the worthy the share is greater, hence cultivating is the worthy's affair.' He added: 'The Doctrine of the Mean is broadly all about cultivating the Way. Its talk of the noble person, of Yan Hui, of Zilu — all who can cultivate; of the petty, the merely clever, the dull and unworthy, the common folk — all who cannot; its Shun, King Wen, the Duke of Zhou, Confucius, the utterly sincere and sage — sages who cultivated of themselves.'

Someone asked: 'At the third watch the Confucian sweeps the breast's thoughts away, empty and still — just the Buddhist stillness; with neither side at use, where lies the difference?'

The Master said: 'Movement and stillness are one. That midnight emptiness is simply preserving heavenly principle — the very mind now meeting affairs; and the mind meeting affairs, following the same principle, is that midnight-empty mind. Movement and stillness are one, past telling apart. Know their unity, and the Buddhists' hairspread error hides no longer.'

Among the disciples present, one was over-stiff in bearing.

The Master said: 'Too much stiffness breeds its own harm.'

'How is stiffness harmful?'

'A man has only so much spirit; spend it all on the surface, and the heart within goes largely unattended.'

Another was overly blunt and loose.

The Master said: 'Professing this learning yet wholly unchecked without — that again splits mind and affair in two.'

A disciple, composing a farewell piece, asked: 'Writing costs thought, and for a day or two after it hangs in the mind.'

The Master said: 'The thinking is harmless; but to keep it hanging is to be burdened by the piece — a thing lodged in the heart. That will not do.' Another composed a farewell poem; reading it, the Master said: 'Let writing follow your measure; overreach the mark, and it is no longer language setting forth sincerity.'

'Zhu's doctrine of investigating things lacks only the guiding head. His examine it in the subtlety of thought should not be lumped with seeking it in texts, testing it in affairs, searching it in discussion — so lumped, all weight is lost.'

Someone asked about the passage on clinging anger.

The Master said: 'Anger and the rest — how should the heart be without them? Only it must not cling. When anger is layered with a scrap of intent, rage overruns the mark, and the vast impartial substance is gone; hence with clinging anger the mind loses its rectitude. Toward all anger: things come, respond in kind, adding not a scrap — then the substance stays vast and impartial, rectified of itself. Seeing men brawl outside, one burns at the wrongdoer; yet burning, the heart stays wide, not a wisp of breath stirred. Even in anger at others, be thus — that is rectitude.'

'You once said: the Buddhists, clinging to no forms, in truth cling to forms; we Confucians, clinging to forms, in truth cling to none. Pray explain.'

He said: 'Fearing the entanglement of father and son, the Buddhist flees father and son; fearing ruler and minister, flees ruler and minister; fearing husband and wife, flees husband and wife: all from having fixed on the forms of ruler-minister, father-son, husband-wife — hence the flight. We Confucians, having father and son, render them humaneness; ruler and minister, rightness; husband and wife, due distinction: when did we ever fix upon their forms?'