Wang Yangming

Wang Yangming (born 1472, Yuyao, Zhejiang province, China—died 1529, Nan’an, Jiangxi) was a Chinese scholar-official whose idealistic interpretation of neo-Confucianism influenced philosophical thinking in East Asia for centuries. Though his career in government was rather unstable, his suppression of rebellions brought a century of peace to his region. His philosophical doctrines, emphasizing understanding of the world from within the mind, were in direct conflict with the rationalism espoused by Zhu Xi, the outstanding and highly esteemed neo-Confucian philosopher of the 12th century, and Wang’s “false teaching” was for a time proscribed.

Early life and adventures

Wang was the son of a high government official. At 15 he visited a frontier pass and practiced archery. When he married, he was so absorbed in discussing “nourishing life” (yangsheng), the search for immortality, with a Daoist priest that he stayed at the Daoist temple throughout the wedding night. In 1492 he obtained the civil service degree “a recommended person.” Visiting his father in Beijing, he sat quietly in front of some bamboos trying to discern their principles as he thought was taught by Zhu Xi, only to fall ill after seven days.

Having failed in the metropolitan civil service examinations in 1493 and 1495, he shifted his interest to military arts and Daoist techniques for longevity. In 1499, however, Wang passed the “advanced scholar” (jinshi) examination and was appointed a Ministry of Works official. He recommended to the emperor eight measures for frontier defense, strategy, and administration, which earned him early recognition. In 1500 he was appointed a Ministry of Justice secretary and in 1501 was ordered to check prisoners’ records near Nanjing. He corrected injustices in many cases.

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His health declined, and he returned home to recuperate in the Yangming ravine, where he probably practiced Daoist techniques. In 1504 he returned to Beijing, supervised provincial examinations in Shandong, and then became a secretary in the Ministry of War. Beginning in 1505, scholars became his students. He lectured on making up one’s mind to become a Confucian sage and attacked the practice of reciting Classics and writing flowery compositions. Conservative scholars accused him of courting popularity. Zhan Roshui, a respected scholar-official, however, praised and befriended him.

A critical event occurred in 1506, when Wang defended a supervising censor who had been imprisoned for attacking a powerful, corrupt eunuch. For his actions Wang was beaten with 40 strokes, imprisoned for several months, and banished to remote Guizhou as head of a dispatch station, where he lived among aborigines and often fell sick. The hardship and solitude led him to realize, suddenly one night at the age of 36, that to investigate the principles (li) of things is not to seek for them in actual objects, as the rationalistic Zhu Xi had taught, but in one’s own mind. Thus he brought Idealist (xinxue) neo-Confucianism—as first taught by a 12th-century philosopher, Lu Xiangshan—to its highest expression.

Political and military career

A year later he pronounced another epoch-making theory: that knowledge and action are one (zhixing heyi). One knows filial piety (xiao), he argued, only when one acts upon it, and correct action requires correct knowledge. As a magistrate in Jiangxi in 1510, he carried out many reforms, including a novel “joint registration system” whereby 10 families shared responsibility for security. An imperial audience followed and then appointments as Ministry of Justice secretary, Ministry of Personnel director (1511), Imperial Studs vice minister (1512), State Ceremonials minister (1514), and assistant censor in chief and governor of southern Jiangxi and adjacent areas (1516).

Bandits and rebels had controlled Jiangxi for decades. In four military campaigns in 1517–18, Wang eliminated them. He carried out reconstruction, tax reform, joint registration, establishment of schools, and the “community compact” to improve community morals and solidarity.

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On his way to suppress a rebellion in Fujian in 1519, he learned that Zhu Chenhao, prince of Ning, had rebelled. He turned to surround the prince’s base, Nanjang. Four days later he joined battle with the prince and captured him. Because Wang had been in contact with the prince, jealous officials at the capital accused him of plotting rebellion and attacking the prince only because imperial armies were approaching. One of his pupils, whom he had sent to the prince for negotiation, was imprisoned. The crisis was soon over, however, and Wang was made governor of Jiangxi.

In 1521 the new emperor appointed him war minister and awarded him the title of earl of Xinjian. His father died in 1522, and he remained home to mourn his loss. For more than five years he stayed home and discussed doctrines with his followers, who came from various parts of China and numbered in the hundreds. These conversations and those earlier constitute his main work, Chuanxilu (“Instructions for Practical Living”). In 1521 he had enunciated his doctrine of complete realization of the innate knowledge of the good.

Posthumous reputation

In June 1527 Wang was called to suppress a rebellion in Guangxi. He succeeded in six months. His coughing, which had bothered him for years, then grew acute, and he became very ill. He died on his way back in Nan’an, Jiangxi, in 1529. Because a powerful minister hated him, his earldom and other hereditary privileges were revoked, disinheriting his two sons. Some who protested were dismissed or banished; his teachings were severely proscribed. Thirty-eight years later (1567), a new emperor honoured him with the title of marquis of Xinjian and the posthumous title of Wencheng (“Completion of Culture”). Beginning in 1584 he was offered sacrifice in the Confucian temple, the highest honour.

Wang’s philosophy spread all over China for 150 years and greatly influenced Japanese thought during that time. He is regarded as one of the greatest Chinese thinkers in the last 2,000 years.