Wang Yangming's Doctrine Of The Mean

As an indispensably part, Zhongyong has played different roles during the course of the development of Confucianism. Scholars gave different annotations in different period. As a piece of thesis in Liji, zhongyong was later listed as one of The Four Books, which indicates the following changes of Confucianism's tendency: from the combination of top ethics and base line of ethics to only establishing the ultimate ,simplifying the idiographic ethics and ignoring the fixed standard to verify moral behaviors; from realizing the improvement of oneself and the management of a country to unilateral emphasis of individuals, which magnifies individual's ability and ignore the influences caused by outer factors. However, there is also something internal in common, for example,the thoughts about Zhongyong always focus on everybody's condition of existence and the style of life rather than transeunt systems; and it is individuals who start the moral practises, and the finality bourn is the syncretic condition of the nature and persons, which should be realized in daily life.Wang Yangming fully succeed to the basic instructions of Zhongyong made by ideologist in pre-Qin period and the development made by Zhang Zai, Cheng Yi and Cheng Hao, Zhu Xi, and Lu Jiuyuan in Song Dynasty. He also added some characteristic explanations which belong to Learning of Conscience. He used Zhongyong to run through most propositions such as heavenly way,the cultivation,mind-nature,the Rite System and oneness of heaven and man,which embodies the changes of Confucianism mentioned in above paragraghs and embodies the transmission of Confucianism's tradition and the inherent characteristics of Zhongyong. Therefore, I try revealing Confucianism's tendency in the middle of Ming Dynasty by the descrption of Wang Yangming's theory on Zhongyong. The article is divided into the following four parts:The first part is about the formation and development of Zhongyong. First, constract the content of Zhongyong in the historical view. It is set in everyday life, talking about real life and then extending to the advancement of ideal state and it is a way to communicate daily life and Metaphysical world. Then I'll explain one of Wang Yangming's article Xiudaoshuo to indicate that his thoughts of Zhongyong were from the book Zhongyong .He raised the status of this book among several classical books and founded his system on the basis of his developed zhongyong.The second part is about the inherent route of his zhongyong. His zhongyong started from oneness of heaven and man, which was illuminated with essence and use: from individuals to the community and universe, from intuitive knowledge, ethics to mentally ideal state. To narrate how Wang Yangming described the inherent mind and how he formed his Kongfu instruction. In The four sentences of Wang Yangming , the first one shows his essential meaning that the original and internal mind is of the State of Having neither Good nor Evil; the following three sentences shows his Kongfu instruction. There is close relations between the basic learning way,the ultimate state and zhongyong. The third part is to explain the characteristics of Wang Yangming's Zhongyong by comparing his viewpoints with Zhang Zai's, Cheng Yi's, Zhu Xi's and Lu Jiuyuan's. Wang Yangming's "accumulating one's knowledge" was included in "treasuring one's innate virtues", while Zhu Xi thought much of "accumulating one's knowledge", so Wang somewhat agreed to Lu's viewpoints. There is no difference between Cheng's and Wang's ultimate tendency, that is "mean"and"Regaining human nature" , but there are great differences between their ways of reaching their aims. Zhang also tended to use "mind" or "heart", and Wang's "Gewu" also went along Zhang's route from "to understand one's nature entirely" to "to understand knowledges fully", but their differences lie in the fact that they had given absolutely different explanations to their crucial notion "Li". Zhang's interpretation of "from sincerity to enlightenment" is the way that Lu and Wang followed and his interpretation of "from enlightenment to perfection" is the direction Zhu progressed in. These arguments could trace to different explanations of one sentence from Zhongyong, "Man of honour treasures one's innate virtues while accumulating one's knowledge", that is to achieve the moral ideal through practising "the study for oneself. The fourth part is to summarize the historical orientation and realistic significance of Wang's Zhongyong. He follows Mencius' path of establishing the ultimate first, meanwhile he left many theoretic dilemmas behind, including the appropriate scope of using "treasuring one's innate virtues " and the detailed content of "accumulating one's knowledge", the differences and unity between the ethics' upper limit and lower limit and the turning of the annotation for Confucian classics, among which there are some that directly lead to the abruption inside the Confucianism and the confusion of the understanding of classics.