The Seed And The Light

The concepts of Xin心and Zhi知are two of the most important ones in Wang Yangming's philosophy of Xin. "Xin", according to Wang, is not "material", rather it plays a functional role, while the concept of "zhi", another functional concept overlapping with "xin" derives from two different schools of thought: the concept of liangzhi良知from Mencius with an emphasis on intuition, emotion and the concept of lingzhi灵知of Zongmi宗密with an emphasis on mysticism, transcendence, etc.During his lifetime, Wang's philosophy has undergone some changes in system of theory. In the beginning, his understanding of "xin" is far from being clear; later with his deepened understanding of "zhi",he proposes "Zhi liang zhi致良知".It is only after this that both his system of thinking and effort theory are established around the core concept of "liangzhi". From this perspective, we can detect that Wang's philosophy of xin internally follows the rational and intellectual thought of Chu His朱熹.In Wang's system of concepts, "xin", as the,,seed" and,,letter", gives rise to other clusters of concepts. However, in his understanding of "xin", Wang is greatly limited by traditional metaphors of "xin", such as "tuzang土藏"und the,,seed","huozang火藏"und the light (sun), "quan泉"(spring), "jing | jian镜/鉴"(mirror) and doesn't make distinguished contribution in this field. His innovation lies in the fact that he bases both the concept of "lingzhi" and "liangzhi" on the "lingming灵明"function of xin and it is only in this way that the "xin"is as luminous as the "seed of light".Compared to Westen Christian doctrines in which God is the only source of light, Wang's philosophy puts "xin" as the origin where light comes from. Also the proposition that everyone can be enlightened, obviously, is based upon this conception of "xin".However in Wang's philosophy of xin, there lurks some internal problem. The metaphor of "seed", as a preferred image of Confucianists, identifies perfectly with Confucianists' emphasis on "chongshi充实"(fulfillment), "guanghui光辉"(brightness), ,,ren仁" and "siduan"四端(four moral principals); while the metaphors of "j ing"(镜,mirror) and "jingshui"(静水,still water), which are often used by Taoists, speak to the Chuang Tzu's ideals of "xujing虚静","shengzhi圣知"and "zuowang坐忘".Also in Six Dynasties, some classic metaphors in Buddhism came to merge into these two branches as mentioned above. As a result, a metaphor-based analysis of Wang's philosophy of xin will give us a glimpse of traditional culture family tree. However the problem is in the combination of chongshide充实的(substantial) "seed" metaphor and kongxude空虚的(empty) "mirror" metaphor to explain the funtions of "xin" or "zhi, these two different systems of metaphors, unavoidably, create some internal inconsistancy in Wang's theory; morover, this leads to the inadequacy of its effort practice——the problem of "guangjing光景"(illusion).