The Spiritual World Of Wang Yang-ming's Later Life

Starting from the criticism to Cheng Zhu school, Yang-Ming school absorbed spiritual metaphysics of Buddhism and Daoism, attached great importance to "Lebenswelt" and "human existence" itself. In the process of Yang-Ming school's development, study shows two different opinions about the thought of Yang-Ming's later life: one consider that the teaching of "extension of innate knowledge" in Jiang-Xi period should be the natural conclusion of Yang-Ming school; others firmly believe that Wang's thought in his later life (Four-sentence Teaching) was the theoretical destination of Yang-Ming school. The difference clearly displayed in 《Yang-Ming 's Nian-Pu(Chronological biography)》 (阳明 年谱) and 《ChuanXi Lu》 (传习录) , and finally manifested by the rival between Qian De-Hong and Wang-Ji, which indicated the split of the post-Yang-Ming school.Yang-Ming's later life of "Ju-Yue (居越) period was an important step of his intellectual development. This article focus on the cross influence between politic and learning, divide it into three stages: (1) Put down the rebellion in Jiang-Xi province and the teaching of "innate knowledge"; (2) "Nan-Gong"(南宫) examination and the discussion about "unrestrained mind"; (3) The event of "great ceremony discussion", eventually Yang-Ming's thought separated from the influence of politic, and displayed an transcendental character."The conversation at the Tian-quan bridge" deepened Yang-Min's thought in his later life. This article analyzed eight historical materials about "the conversation at Tian-quan bridge", clarified the truth of the event, and discussed its profound implication; (1) "The state of having neither good nor evil" reveals the "existential construction" of one's original state of mind, thus finally laying the foundation of existential ontology for morality; (2) The thought of "neither good nor evil" display a thinking mode similar to Buddhism "BoRuo emptiness school", there is no such way to reach the original state of mind through language, thus the thinking mode of concept rationalism should be discarded if one is about to comprehend "Onto" directly; (3) The thought of "neither good nor evil" leads to the separation between theory and practice, scholars in the Ming and Qingdynasties made strict criticize at this point.This article focus on "the conversation at Tian-quan bridge", also pays attention to the complete development of Yang-Ming's thought in his later life. Yang-Ming's thought of his later life contains a number of inspiring idea about "human existence", even today it still worth our further thinking.