Comparative Study Of Cheng Yi’s And Su Shi’s Yi-ology Thoughts

In the early Northern Song Dynasty,facing the domestic turmoil and foreign aggression,and the ideological challenge from Buddhism and Taoism,intellectuals made efforts to restore and rebuild the traditional Confucianism,thus forming a number of schools of thought.The philosophy contained in Zhouyi,involving everything in nature and society,has its own unique systematization and theory,which provides a strong support for elucidating the ideal of political life,and the principle of saint inside and king outside.Confucians annotated and interpreted it in order to construct their own academic ideological system.Cheng Yi compiled Commentaries on Yi of Yichuan,and Su Shi compiled Commentaries on Yi of Dongpo,both of whom made outstanding contributions to the interpretation of Confucian classics and the construction of ontology,and it is of great significance to the history of ancient Chinese Yi-ology studies.Although they lived in the same era,their academic thoughts were quite different.Through the analysis of the party dispute in Luo Shu,part of their academic divides can be found.In the case of their different academic thoughts,there are also differences in their Yi-ology,which mainly stem from their different ideological origins.Both Cheng Yi and Su Shi inherited most of the contents of Wang Bi’s Yi-ology,belonging to the same school of Yi-ology.However,Cheng Yi was deeply influenced by Hu Yuan and other Confucian masters.In essence,his thought is pure Confucianism,and he mainly interprets Confucianism when he elaborates Yi-ology.Su Shi’s Yi-ology has its origins,which is based on Confucianism and compatible with Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism.When expatiating Yi,he tends to absorb Chuang Tzu’s thoughts and take Chuang Tzu’s thoughts as the blueprint for interpreting Yi-ology.On this basis,they studied Yi in depth,and after several years,they finally respectively composed Commentaries on Yi of Yichuan and Commentaries on Yi of Dongpo,which were the crystallization of their lifetime thinking.From the viewpoint of Yi-ology,although Cheng Yi and Su Shi both regarded the book as a classic to elucidate the sage’s way of learning,they had many differences in their Yi-ology thoughts.Cheng Yi believed that the Zhouyi was based on the principle of life and understood the reason of light and brightness,so he opposed using Zhouyi for divination directly.Su Shi held that Zhouyi was a book to represent the changes of the world,although it is a book for divination originally,but he opposed using it only for divination.Based on the understanding of the nature of Zhouyi,Cheng Yi attached great importance to the Meaning-patterny,and believed that the Image-numerology in Zhouyi was only a tool to elucidate the Meaning-pattern.He affirm River Maps and Luo Book.Su Shi also paid attention to Meaning-pattern,but he studied more Image-numerology than Cheng Yi,and applied more in the process of interpreting Zhouyi.He deny River Maps and Luo Book.From the perspective of the principles and methods of interpretation of Zhouyi,both of Cheng Yi and Su Shi paid attention to the disrelation of the meaning of the text of Zhouyi,and the style of interpretation of Zhouyi developed on the basis of the critical inheritance of Wang Bi’s interpretation of Zhouyi.Cheng Yi’s interpretation of Yi-ology pays attention to "time" on the basis of "taking meaning" and adopts the principle and method of "taking meaning at suitable time".Su Shi paid attention to the relationship between the whole and the parts in his interpretation of Yi-ology,and proposed the principle and method of combining hexagrams with lines.Cheng Yi and Su Shi gradually built up their respective systems of theories by annotating Zhouyi.In Cheng Yi’s theory system,"Li" is exists as the highest category,"Yi" is the Manifestation of Understanding "Li".Su Shi believed that "Tao" is its highest philosophical category,"Yi" is the Medium of Understanding "Tao".Cheng Yi believed "nature is Li",nature is also good,and emotion is evil;Su Shi believed that good and evil is not the nature itself,temperament is no good or evil.The two philosophers propose different cultivation methods:"sincere" and "respect" and"mindlessness".Only through one’s own cultivation methods can one reach the realm of the stage.In general,under the academic background of the impact of Buddhism and Taoism on Confucianism in the Northern Song Dynasty,Cheng Yi and Su Shi took the interpretation of the Taoism of sages and the promotion of personal realm as the final destination of the governance of Yi-ology,which maintained the Confucian ethical order,promoted the return of values,and had a positive impact on the development of Yi-ology and Confucianism in the Song Dynasty.Although Su Shi’s Yi-ology thoughts were not as detailed and broad as Cheng Yi’s in terms of theoretical system,his theory,"nature is not good or evil",had a deep influence and made positive contributions to the interpretation of Zhouyi and the construction of Confucianism system.By contrast,Cheng Yi constructed the Neo-Confucianism system with "Li" as the core,and advocated the Confucian theory of moral nature,which had a profound impact on the later academic circles of the Song and Ming dynasties and even the later generations.