A Study On The Doctrine Of LI By ZhangShi

The Song dynasty, an important historical period for ideology development of academic prosperous in our nation's history, produced generations of scholars with great talent. Great attention was paid to and honored Confucianist primitive spirit in response to the major challenges by Buddha. The effects of this historic period greatly influenced the development of the Neo-Confucianism theory covering a long period of seven dynasties from the Song Dynasty, affecting the development of economy, politics and culture of China. Neo-Confucianism took the source after the mid-Tang Dynasty, sprouted during the late stage of the North Song Ren Zong Dynasty (Jia You) and early stage of Shen Zong Dynasty, initiated from the period of Song Ren Zong's Qing Li, "three gentleman" of Song Dynasty's initial period (Hu Yuan, Sun Fu, Shi Jie), which continued throughout the period of Xi Ning to Yuan Feng, till the development of the so-called Northern Song Dynasty "Five Scholars" (Zhou, Chen, Zhang, Shao). This period established the foundation for the Neo-Confucianism ideological theory. This ideological theory developed further following the rulers of Song Dynasty enlarged its territory by crossing the Yellow River, and the Neo-Confucianism ideology finally achieved its authoritative status during Li Zong Dynasty, which formed the most influential, widely accepted ideology that affected and ruled Chinese history in culture and ideology development during the following millennium.Zhang Shi was a famous philosopher during the period between "Qian Dao" and "Chun Xi" of Southern Song Dynasty. Zhang Shi received solid education from his family, carried on the legitimate Neo-Confucianism ideology, aimed at "Ge Wu Qiong Li", following the rule of "sage inside and ruling outside". He thoroughly and systematically studied numerous issues faced by the Neo-Confucianism and established his unique school of thoughts. In the study of ontology, he combined the main body and intrinsic disposition interpenetration, made progress in the foundation establishment, and paid great attention to the combination and coordination between body and mind. Zhang Shi advocated that thought and body share the same origin, that Tai Ji, Dao, the nature, the principle, and heart are all interconnected in the universe. In the study of human nature, Zhang Shi changed the traditional Confucianism theory that "the nature" is strictly limited to person's natural disposition, and proposed that human and animal all have good nature, establishing the supremacy of good nature. In the study of Introspection, Zhang Shi used "respects to Human/Heaven communication" as the important means of the moral practice. Respects become Introspection theory for the connection between Wei Fa and Yi Fa, connecting the threads of conciseness with heart. Zhang Shi proposed the theory of first identifying source of conciseness before connecting them with heart at the same time, he established the introspection theory centered at respecting (Heaven and human connection). In his study of Zhi and Xing principles, Zhang Shi, discussed issues with Zhu Xi, and proposed the ideology of interdependency between Zhi and Xing, proposed that the inter-connection between Zhi and Xing (knowledge and practice) shall lead people to true knowledge. Zhang Shi distinguished justice from gaining benefit by action and/or non-action, and utilized the theory combining Tian Li (rule of god/heaven) and Ren yu (human desires) in the exploration of the theory regarding Justice and benefit gaining. Zhang Shi proposed a unique theory that rule of heaven (Tian Li) run parallel with human desires (Ren Yu).As a master of Neo-Confucianism, Zhang Shi followed the tradition of the Confucianism by treating it as his duty to advocate Kong and Meng (Confucianism). He combined Dao, Xue, Zhi (the other major Chinese traditional ideologies), morals with meritorious achievements, rule of "sage inside and ruling outside". In the local politics, he advocated "establishing solid foundation of the state", and anti-Jin and re-build own state, which resulted in the revival of Confucianism. In order to guard Confucian orthodoxy, Zhang Shi further followed the sprit of Ren, criticized Buddha's "heresy", advocated the greatness of Confucianism, its emphasize of practice, its correctness and fitness to all maters in the world. He advocated the theory of uniting the body with thought, human with heaven, which greatly influenced the development of Hu Xiang theory (Neo-Confucianism). Neo-Confucianism theory declined after Zhang Shi died at young age with the internal political contradictions left un-resolved. However his spirit of Li (Neo-Confucianism) in seeking and learning from the bests with an un-biased attitude toward theory development and attempting to universally applying Neo-Confucianism continued in history.