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8221585
Schulz, Larry James
LAI CHIH-TE, (1525-1604) AND THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE
"CLASSIC OF CHANGE" (I CHING)
Ph.D. 1982
Princeton University
University
Microfilms
international
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Copyright 1982
by
Schulz, Larry James
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LAI CHIH-TE
, 1525-1604) AND THE PHENOMENOLOGY
OF THE CLASSIC OF CHANGE (I CHING | q
)
Larry James Schulz
A DISSERTATION
1
PRESENTED TO THE
FACULTY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
!
IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE
OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
RECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCE BY THE
DEPARTMENT OF
EAST ASIAN STUDIES
i
June, 1982
t-P
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Table of Contents
Chapter I Outlines of the Commentary Tradition
Chapter II The Life and Intellectual Development of
Lai Chih-te
48
Chapter III The Imagistic Structure of the Classic
of Change
127
Appendix A Textual Notes
251
Appendix B The Hexagrams of the Classic of Change
259
Notes
261
Chinese Texts
311
Selected Bibliography
342
Abstract
355
II.
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Chapter I
Outlines of the Commentary Tradition
Speaking of Confucius' method of instruction, the disciple Yen Hui
$ |5)said, "He broadens me with the transcriptions of culture [wen j c ] and
restrains me with ritual
[lijrf ]."a
As Confucianism developed histori
cally, the meaning of the first of these educational objectives was defined
especially with reference to "Five Classics (wu-ching2,U )": the Classic
of Change (I-ching-^
I
Kffl
History (Shu-ching
or Chou Change (Chou-i
^
); the Classic or
); the Classic of Odes (Shih-ching
Record of Ritual (Li-chi
); the
; and the Spring and Autumn Annals (Ch'un-
ch'iu^ ^ X ). Although there has been some debate about the place of the
Classic of Change in Confucius' own curriculum, the Master himself made
frequent allusion to the History and Odes, and Mencius followed him in
these, referring, too, to the Spring and Autumn Annals, supposed to have
issued from Confucius' hand.
Yen Hui's comment indicates the importance of "ritual" as a concept,
though the Record of Ritual later given classical status was not the sub
ject of his remark. Rather, "ritual" here appears to have the connota
■H
tion of personal action circumscribed by some specific guidelines, but re
■■
■$
quiring in general continuous judgement as to how one might properly be-
■•33
|
have in particular situations.
|
I
1
:3
|
[chlin-tzu
k
Thus, "The Master said, "The lordly man
•§* ] does not look for satiation in his eating or ease in
M s dwelling; he is diligent in his affairs and cautious in speaking.
Where the tao [fii is made evident, he corrects himself accordingly.
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b3
Such an one may be said to love learning'.1"
Here "learning (hstieh*-^)11
refers to the translation of ritual precepts into action which reflects
outwardly the internal discipline of the aspirant to Confucian training.
So important was this experiential type of learning that it was given pri
ority over that derived solely from books: "The Master said, 'The disciple
is filial in [his home] and fraternal outside [the home]; he is guarded
|
and faithful, broadly loves the masses and is intimate with the humane [jen
]. If after the prosecution [of these duties] he has extra energy, let
C 4
him apply it to the transcriptions of culture.1"
One of the primary functions of the transcriptions of culture was to
provide models of ritual behavior that would help one to evaluate his im
mediate responses in a given situation before expressing them overtly in
L. ^
action. Yu-tzu ^ y , another disciple, giving his perception of Confucius1
teaching said, "Of the uses of ritual, harmony [hojjpl] is the most valu
able."^ ^ This "harmony" would seem to refer to the balance achieved be
tween the individual and the environment to which social order requires
him to adjust. Ssu-ma CVien 0
^
^
» 1457-9C' B.C.) described
the intangibility of the condition thus: "Ritual restricts that which is
not yet actuated before [it can happen]; . . .it is difficult to understand
0 0
the manner in which ritual accomplishes this restriction."
Despite the
difficulty one might experience in pinning ritual down, however, Ssu-ma
pointed to the Spring and Autumn Annals with its carefully worded comments
on the behavior of historical figures as a particularly apt source from
7
which to absorb the quality.
"Learning" in this sense implies familiarity with cultural records
and the practical aspects of human behavior reported and critiqued therein
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coupled with a style of mental discipline whereby a more abstract quality
discovered to resonate throughout the body of literature is incorporated
into one's own mind. Originally this '’learning" must have been transmit
ted from master to disciple in a more or less direct line, but as the line
stretched, it became the task of exegesis to evoke from the Classics consis
tent strains of ritually correct behavior and make them intelligible in
writing.
Once committed to writing, these ideas became public property,
available to the literate for acceptance or revision, and whatever unified
sense of "ritual" may once have existed was irrevocably fragmented into an
array of personal commentaries.
The bulk of commentary material on the Classic of Change produced over
the course of Chinese history is impressive, The table of contents to the
Ching :i k'ao .i£
. ,
a. comprehensive survey of material from the Han
Dynasty through the seventeenth century, lists some two thousand and fifty
Q
titles on the Change, fully a fourth of all works included. More selec
tive, the Ssu-k'u ch'tian-shu )S
editors reprinted 167 commenta
ries for the imperial library and prepared bibliographical notices on 318
9
more. No other work has occasioned such a response from scholars, and
the Classic of Change thus provides as complete a record of the Confucian
mind in confrontation with a "transcription of culture" as anything avail
able to research.
Examining the commentary record, it is possible to discern from the
interpretive strategies of classical scholars distinctive modes of exegesis
peculiar to specific periods of history. Looking back over the development
of classical studies from his vantage in the waning years of the Ch’ing
a
fl
fl
1
Dynasty, P’i Hsi-jui saw such trends as patterns which he correlated with
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the cycles of dynastic polity: MFrom of old there have been in the for
tunes of the state flourishings and declines; in classical studies there
have also been flourishings and declines. In the cohesion of the state
there have been divisions and unifications; in classical studies there
have also been divisions and unifications. All of history bears testi-
mony. „f 10
With reference to the Classic of Change, P'i Iisi-jui's periodic flux
of commentary activity produced a variety of theoretical schools which may
be identified each according to its time of dominance over the general
field of exegesis. The editors of the Ssu-k'u Chftian-shu perceived six
"stages" in the aggregate contours of classical exegesis from the time
of the founding of the Han to the early Ch’ing: "First among these was
the direct line of transmission, handed down through a succession of teach
ers, and not only was exegesis passed on with no one daring to differ, but
in such formal literary matters as the characters and [punctuation of]
lines they scrupulously preserved what they had learned. Their study was
faithful and solid, cautious and rigorous; and this led to their failing
of being restrictedly literal.
,rWang Pi X
k a ^ , 226-249] and Wang Su£. j|§l ( ^
» fl* ca.
250 A.D.) began to maintain slightly differing interpretations, a practice
which, fanned by the winds of fashion, raised the possibility of believing
some parts [of the traditional explanations] and doubting others. From
K’ung Ying-ta31
» 574-648), Chia Kung-yenl|>£ ^
(fl. ca. 650 A.D,), Tan Chu0^
yzfe %
(
,
.
,
fl. ca. 755 A.D.), and Chao K'uan
Tan Chu's disciple) and on down to Sun F u ( g j l j
fl. ca. 990 A.D.) and Liu Ch'ang^jj^C
^
f
» fl* ca* 1°50 A.D.) and
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their peers of the Northern Sung, each of whom proclaimed his own theory,
none was in unity with another. This led to their fsd ,
!.i\^ of CluSSlCal
studies being excessively disparate.
,TWhen Ch‘eng I
, 1033-1107) and Chu HsiJ^
^
,
1130-1200) arose one after the other, Neo-Confucianism [tao-hstieh jj-l
]
swelled to prosperity. Cast aside were [the studies] of Han and T'ang—
the only matter that was researched was Moral Principle [i-li
All
the old theories of the teachers of the Classics were discarded on the
grounds that they were not worth believing. The aim of their [i.e., Ch'eng
and Chu's] study was to discriminate right from wrong, leading to their
failing of contentiousness.
"Factions of scholarship,branching and splitting, intertwined to grow
daily more numerous.
Scholars pushed aside everything that disagreed with
their own views in the desire to be established as the one most honored.
From the end of Sung through the beginning of Ming their studies were such
that even perceiving a discrepancy they would not change. This led to
their failing, which was partisanship.
"Advocating great excesses and with tendencies toward prejudice, hav
ing a capacity for discrimination and intelligence but inclined to be agita
ted and to overflow chaotically, the studies [of scholars] from the Chengte (1506-1521) and Chia-ching (1522-1566) reigns on each gave expression to
what was acquired from his own mind. Their failing was recklessness.
"Where there are empty discussions and arbitrary judgements, investiga
tion of evidence must be neglected. This being the case, Confucians with
breadth and refinement drew upon ancient meanings to attack the cracks [in
the reckless theories]. The studies of the several scholars at the begin-
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ning of the present [Ch'ing] dynasty were verified with facts and not fal
lacious, and their failing was being bogged down in trifles."g ^
The Ssu-k'u ch'tlan-shu editors perceived that after the "direct line
of transmission" m s interrupted, an accumulating trend toward personal li
cense set in-and that the tendency had culminated in the sixteenth century,
when scholars had squandered their "discriminating intelligence" on intui
tional recklessness.
Only at the beginning of their own Ch'ing Dynasty,
when there had arisen an exegetical mode which sought by rigorous compar
ative analysis to provide concrete evidence for every assertion, did the
editors believe that the chaos had been resolved and the classical tradi12
tion been restored to excellence, if slightly blemished by pettiness.
It is clear that in the opinion of the Ssu-k'u ch'tlan-shu editors the
impetus for shifts in exegetical modes sprang in each case from changes in
the personal views of Confucians regarding the meaning of texts, yet two
of the periods are delimited as mil by political events of far-reaching
consequence. Though the latter are not cited as primary factors, they re
place names of individual scholars as periodic determinants. Thus it is
asserted that "partisanship" is characteristic of exegesis from the "end
of Sung," opening to speculation the effect Mongol domination in the Ytian
Dynasty exerted upon thinkers living under its shadow rather than alluding
to the persuasiveness of a seminal thinker like Wang Pi, Ch'eng I, or Chu
Hsi. Likewise, the final demarcation comes at the 'beginning of the present
3
II
i!
dynasty" in 1644, suggesting for patriotic or expedient reasons that the
restoration of valid classical scholarship coincided with the Manchu take
over.
No comparable political upheaval occurred at the fifth watershed, how
s
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ever, nor did a particular figure emerge to reshape exegesis. The "later
adherents of Wang Shou-jen ^
( 4$
» 1472-1528) who all used ’mad
Zen [k’uang-ch'an m
]’to explain the Classics"*1 are referred to in a
13
footnote to the above passage as exemplars of the period's excesses, but
Wang and his followers tended to avoid exegesis in favor of immediate mental
discipline. The philosophy of Wang Shou-jen, hereafter referred to by his
better known hao, Yang-ming, emphasized that the individual's mind has the
innate capacity to structure his actions correctly. The behavioral goals
of Confucianism could be achieved in Wang’s system by opening the channels
of communication with the "innate knowledge of the good (liang-chih
possessed equally by every man. This being the case, the need for classical
structure in personal training was effectively diminished. Wang pointed
out that the Sages Csheng
), the self-perfected individuals of antiquity
who were responsible for the Classics, had not had written models to follow,
but had relied upon their innate knowledge exclusively.
15
Thus, "If words
are examined in the Mind and found to be wrong, although they have come
from the mouth of Confucius, I dare not accept them as correct. How much
less from people inferior to Confucius!"*^
Wang himself took recourse to the Classics for verification of his
theories; for example, he resurrected the "old text" of the Ta-hsOeh
17
as part of his challenge to the ideas of Sung Neo-Confucianism. ’ Among
his followers later dubbed "mad Zennists," however, the tendency to concen
trate on knowledge that was innate rather than acquired from Confucian
'■•3
a
m
A
texts became dominant. Of Wang Yang-ming's disciple, Wang Ken
I & Git Jt ,
1483-1541), it has been said, "He considered it unnecessary in seeking the
Way to read books, to exert oneself to seek principle, or to improve oneself
IJ3
I
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18
through association with learned friends."
Wang Ken said, "One should use
the Classics to prove one’s own enlightenment, and use one’s own enlighten19
ment to interpret the Classics."
Thus while he may have contributed to
an atmosphere conducive to exegetical change, Wang Yang-ming did not him
self initiate the new "stage" in the direct fashion of his forerunners
cited by the Ssu-k’u ch'iian-shu editors.
The present study is set in the sixteenth century, that time charac
terized by "reckless" ideas in classicism in general, according to the Ssuk’u ch'tian-shu editors, It involves the Classic of Change exegesis of Lai
Chih-te^jft2
, 1525-1604), whose understanding of the Change was
formed over thirty years of single-minded concentration upon it. Though
such intensive scholarship would seem far from "reckless," Lai’s work was
individualistic; having worked those many years in seclusion, he published
in 1599 a commentary based on what he believed to have been discoveries of
facts about the structure of the Change that had remained shrouded in mystery
since the death of Confucius. Thus he did not escape the Ssu-k’u ch’tianshu editors' indictment of sixteenth century exegetes. Faulting what they
discerned as arrogance growing out of lack of familiarity with the entire
span of written commentary tradition and of a proper teacher, they summar
ized, "When one takes his own mind as teacher and happens to some attainment,
•
he quickly exhibits the self-importance of Yeh-lang,"1
A A
Yeh-lang
being the small state whose king asked a Han Dynasty envoy whether the
Han empire or his own domain were larger.
The field of Change exegesis in general, let alone in the sixteenth
century, remains all but untouched by modem scholarship. 21 If we are to
assess the validity of the Ssu-k’u ch’tian-shu editors' outline of classical
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scholarship, then, we must begin to piece together a picture of the field.
The commentary of Lai Chih-te recommends itself as an object for research
because, as chapters II and III below will demonstrate, it helps to clarify
the issues in Change exegesis through Lai's critiques of his predecessors'
ideas. Moreover, it is unique among Classic of Change studies in its contin
ued popularity, as evidenced by its record of republication through the Ch'ing
Dynasty and the Republican era.
22
No work on the Change besides those that
have been at one time or another required reading for the civil service exam
inations— i.e., the commentaries of Wang Pi, Ch'eng I, and Chu Hsi— has been
so consistently supported by the reading public. Thus the book appealed to
literate Chinese on some level even if the Ssu-k'u ch'iian-shu editors dis
approved of Lai's methods.
The question of the commentary's popularity per se is outside the scope
of this paper. The ultimate reasons why a classical work, or any phenomena,
for that matter, becomes "popular" are complex at best and in this case
would involve analysis of its readers', rather than its author's perceptions.
By addressing the formation of Lai Chih-te's theory of the Classic of Change,
however, we shall see how his struggle with the text impressed upon him the
need for a simplified explanation in which the major themes could be delin
eated from the beginning. What acceptance his work enjoyed, then, may be
attributed in no small measure to his success in elucidating the Classic of
Change as a "transcription of culture." In addition, we shall see that Lai
confirmed with reference to the Classic of Change a formula for personal
discipline that exhibited integration of the ideas on "ritual" behavior ex
pressed throughout the Confucian canon. His was a work that was read not
Pi
i
as an aid in preparing for the examinations but as a guide toward
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understanding how the Classics say that life should be lived.
In this re
spect, it yields to historical analysis a perspective on the major text of
Confucianism functioning as a soteriological guide for a continually renewed
audience over the last four centuries.
The Varieties of Change Exegesis
The Ssu-k'u ch'tian-shu editors listed six types of Classic of Change
study, once again seen as representing "stages” in a continuous developmental
pattern. After noting that the unique purpose of the Change among the Five
Classics was to reveal the Sages' teachings through divination, the editors
say: "The several instances of divination recorded in the Tso-chuan
appear to be remnants of the art of the Grand Diviner [t'ai-p'u
Confucians’ discussions of Image and Number [hsiang-shu
far removed from antiquity.
^
if*
)v ]. Han
were not
In one shift this formed the work of Ching Fang
> d. ca. 80 B.C.) and Chiao Yen-skou^
^
, Ching
Fang's teacher), who entered upon the study of omens. With another shift
this formed the work of Ch'en T'uan
Yungtff
$
, d. 989 A.D.) and Shao
, 1011-1077), who undertook to plumb to the limits the
process of coming into being and transformation. Their Change studies were
thus not suited for the use of all people.
"Wang Pi thoroughly rejected Image and Number theory and discussed [the
Change ] in terms of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu.
work of Hu YUant5$2j£.
^
In one shift this formed the
, 993-1059) and Master Ch'eng I, who first elu
cidated the Confucian idea of Principle. A second shift formed the work of
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
11
Li Kuang^ TLi ( M H
, c.s. 1106) and Yang Wan-lr^ ^ ^
, £1.
ca. 1225), who further added the evidence of historical occurrences to
their commentaries. Day by day the Change was used to expand these lines
•
of thought. These are the two schools, each with three sets of teachings."•*
M M
The six types of exegesis were seen to fall into two schools on the
basis of their bias toward "Image and Number” or "Moral Principle" theories.
Both schools featured three sub-schools, or "lines," the former's including
pre-Han mantic practice, Han Dynasty omenology, and Sung Dynasty mathematical
speculation, while the latter's included the so-called Neo-Taoism of Wang
Pi, the Neo-Confucianism of Northern Sung, and the historicism of Li Kuang
and Yang Wan-li.
The Image and Number school is said to have sprung from involvement
with the divination aspects of the Classic of Change and the extension of
the original techniques to accommodate the omenological interests that appear
to have dominated classical studies from the reign of Han Wu-ti
(r.
140-87) through the Latter Han Dynasty (23-219 A.D.). As we shall see, one
offshoot ux "tTlJLs type of Change study treated the linear constructs usually
called "hexagrams" separately from the written texts, discovering and ana
lyzing symmetries therein and associating the hexagrams with yin
and yang
$i) , the Five Phases (wu-hsing % %5" ), and other ideas seemingly external
to the Classic. Once these structural symmetries were extracted, the infor
mation could be applied to explanation of the Change's verbal expressions,
which thereby took on a certain numerical significance.
Shao Yung's Change study bears little resemblance to Ching Fang’s or
Chiao Yen-shou's, but participates in their consideration of the trigrams
and hexagrams independent from the Classic's verbal texts. His purpose was
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12
to employ the linear figures and a mathematic evolved from them in an onto
logical vision characteristic of the emerging Sung Neo-Confucianism. True
to the direction of the Image and Number school, Shao sought avenues where
by the Change could be connected to naturally occurring phenomena as some
how descriptive of the functioning of those phenomena. Thus as divination
is an effort to render the direction of events intelligible to consciousness,
Image and Number Change study insisted that a work specializing in such mantic
explanation must contain in its structure and the method of its application
correspondences to the world it claimed to interpret.
Wang Pi, in undertaking to expurgate the Han emphasis, on Image and
Number from the Change, initiated the Moral Principle school, the objective
of which was to unveil the implications of hexagram and line texts for the
achievement of ethical behavior.
Followers of this approach therefore had
only passing interest in the relationship between the linear structures and
their words. Whereas the Image and Number school produced a profusion of
diverse techniques, Moral Principle interpretation is fairly homogenous,
' il'3
a
ii
shifting in emphasis from the Wei period Neo-Taoism of Wang Pi to the NeoConfucian interests of Ch'eng I without sacrificing continuity. Even Lai
Chih-te, who was attempting to reinvest Change exegesis with the Image
and Number concerns rejected by Wang Pi, professed at the same time a Moral
Principle reading derived from Ch'eng I and ultimately, then, from Wang Pi,
idiom he otherwise severely criticized.
In between the time of Ch'eng I and Lai Chih-te, however, Chu Hsi had
endeavored to wed the Change theories of Shao Yung to Ch'eng I's in a man
ner that forced some areas of exegesis into apparent contradiction. Before
u
3
■53
•0
fl
considering Lai's Change, then, it would be well to explore in more detail
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13
issues in the field of Change exegesis that we shall find emerging in his
work, either as distant resonances of the Image and Number school or, in the
case of certain Moral Principle theories, as the object of Lai’s attack
against what he counted Merroneous,, scholarship.
Issues in Change Exegesis from Han to Sung
On the basis of scant evidence— virtually nothing of Han Dynasty
Change scholarship survives intact— P'i Hsi-jui postulated two modes of
interpretation for the early imperial period.
and Han-shu
Following the Shih-chi
, he believed that the true line of exegesis beginning
with Confucius flourished on into the early years of the Han. Afterwards
the strain declined somewhat, but, preserved in the work of Fei Chih ^ jit
, fl. ca, 30 B.C.), remained an active force in the eventual over
throw of the Image and Number school.2^ The second variety, omenology,
being a tool for indirect remonstration with testy monarchs, came to dom
inate Former Han thinking when the official chairs for the Classics were
established at court. Among the four Change Erudites (po-shihi
pointed in 138 B.C. was Meng Hsij^x
f*
) ap
»fl« ca. 140 B.C.), whom Ch'U
Wan-li places at the beginning of the Image and Number tradition for his
'Hexagram ch’i (kua-ch'i
)" scheme. The ".hexagram ch’i" theory now
exists as a chart which assigns the sixty-four hexagrams of the Change to
25
the seasons, months, and days of the year.
In this system the hexagrams 14L SINKING (hex. 29),2^ == ACTION (hex.
51), ee DEPENDENCE (hex. 30), and =%■ STOPPING (hex. 52) were assigned re-
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14
spectively to the winter solstice, vernal equinox, summer solstice, and
autumnal equinox. Hie remaining sixty hexagrams are equally distributed
among the 365.25 days of the year, each thereby being assigned to a "hex27
agram ch'i" period of 6.0875 days— six days, two hours, and six minutes.
From Meng Hsi's effort to correlate hexagrams and natural phenomena it
is said that Ching Fang developed the concept of "twelve accumulation and
dispersion hexagrams (shih-erh hsiao-hsi kua + —
M S ' )>" ^ ich as"
signed that number of hexagrams to the twelve months and became stock-in28
trade for exegetes thenceforward.
Beginning with the hexagram RETURN (hex.
24) at approximately the winter solstice, the twelve accumulation and dis
persion hexagrams present a graphic illustration of the ascent of yang ch'i
over the first six months and its displacement by yin ch'i during the remainIn Meng Hsi's original scheme, the other hexagrams are ordered in a way
that follows no immediately apparent structural constants other than gradient
distribution of broken and solid lines according to the annual cycle con
ceived as seasonal displacement of yin and yang. That is, analyzing the
component lines of the winter hexagrams, we find 51 bipartite, yin, lines
and 38 solid, yang, reflecting the ascribed predominance of yin over winter.
Spring shows 51 yang and 39 yin; summer, 54 yang, 36 yin; and fall, 53 yin
29
and 37 yang.
Otherwise, the hexagrams are seemingly located by an abstract
consideration of the implications of their names. This may be inferred from
the brief notes attached to each hexagram in the "Hexagram ch'i Graph (kua-
)J|j )."
For example, the hexagram INCREASE (hex. 42), with
k 30
the legend. "Yang ch'i daily increases,"
occurs near the beginning of
ch'i t'u
spring.
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15
Chiao Yen-shou's Forest of Change Cl-lift a #
) utilizes this same
seasonal distribution of hexagrams in determining when one of its 4,096
30a
auguries applies in an instance of divination.
In the Forest of Change,
poetic verses— generally four-character lines rhymed on even lines— describe
the hexagrams in diction often drawing upon the assigned season’s weather.
In this text the hexagrams appear in the same order as in the Classic of
Change, though a key at the front indicates their seasonal placement accord- ing to Meng Hsi's system. Following the verses for each hexagram there are
sixty-three more verses--one for each remaining hexagram. These secondary
verses, too, are arranged in the Classic of Change order. One is supposed
to employ the Forest of Change by finding the hexagram he has gotten in divi
nation under the set of the hexagram that is assigned to the current 6.0875
day period and apply the information in its verse to the solution of his
question.
If, for example, on January sixteenth, during the period of AT
||
ODDS (hex. 38), one divines the hexagram MEETING (hex. 44), he would consult
I
the AT ODDS set of verses and read the verse under MEETING:
I
1
Two people share the house;
Younger and elder brother eat together.
Harmony and happiness lie in their mutual affection;
Each gets his due respect.m ^
|
In light of the fact that the Ching Fang I-chuan
is now sus-
pected to be a Sung Dynasty compilation, L leaving little by which to under
stand how Ching Fang used the Change, we shall assume for the purposes of
the present discussion that his divination technique resembled Chiao's and
Meng's to the extent that temporal placement of the act of divination played
'71
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16
an important role. Ching Fang's is the name associated with the earliest
appearance of numerous other explanatory and integrative devices, among
them the systematic application of a hexagram's "nuclear trigrams (hu-t'i
or chung-yao <jz
)"— lines two through four and three through five
33
separately considered— to expound the hexagram's verbal properties; the
"eight palaces (pa-kung J \ % )" system of arranging hexagrams about which
more id.ll be said below;^ and incorporation of the Five Phases, the "heaven
ly stems (t'ien-kan
)," and the "earthly branches (ti-chih JdLi
designations to amplify the Change's linear figures in what is called the
"na-chla £$
" theory.
In the current Ching Fang I-chuan these tropes
are applied to explanations of specific Change wording in ways that may or
may not reflect Ching's actual system. Nonetheless, it is apparent that
his speculations expanded exegetical boundaries in a direction strikingly
different from the standard commentary material contained in the "Ten Wings
(shlh-i \ ^
reputedly from the hand of Confucius and normally printed
36
in tandem with the Classic of Change.
The Image and Number school continued to attract inventive scholars
through the Latter Han and into the Three Kingdoms period (220-265 A.D.).
HsUn Shuang'S) £
C*
> a. ca. 150 A.D.), whose additions to the "Dis
cussion of Trigrams (shuo-kua
37
)" commentary were later adopted by Chu
Hsi, wasthe prominent Latter Han representative. Hslin anthologized the
current beliefs of the school in the work entitled Nine Scholars * Change
Study (Chiu-chia I
), itself now preserved only in excerpts. 38
The last important figure working in the Han style was YU Fan,
who lived during the Three Kingdoms.
It was YU who evolved the
prototype "Hexagram Modulation (kua-pien^^ )" theory and who is also
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17
credited with having interpreted the texts of the Change with reference to
the inverted or upside-down (fan-tui
jjftjf ) form of a hexagram and its
line-for-line opposite (p*ang-t'ung ^ ijf?, ).^
In chapter three we shall
see that Lai Chih-te*s rediscovery of these last two possibilities and his
rejection of the Hexagram Modulation theory formed the unique identity of
his exegetical method.
Tai ChUn-jen has suggested that Han Dynasty Image and Number study be
subdivided into two types: "Cne category is the numerology of portents. This
is consistent with other classical study in the Former and Latter Han and
has something of the flavor of governmental study as well. The other cate
gory can be called the numerology of Hexagram Modulation. This extracts from
the hexagrams and lines numerous forms of transformation and applies them
[to interpretation]. One can say this latter is a basic approach to the
study of the Classics. The former represents the Change study of Western
[i.e., Former] Han; the latter represents the Change study of Eastern [i.e.,
Latter] Han. The former is related to the calendar; the latter reli.es mostly
upon Images."11 ^
Comparing what we can know of the techniques of the two periods bears
out Tai's judgement, Meng*s, Chiao's, and Ching*s style of exegesis seeks
the relationship between hexagrams and annual and lunar cycles of time
I
through assignment of the figures directly to temporal periods or via "hea
venly stem" and "earthly branch" associations. YU Fan, representing the
last bloom of the Han tradition, appears to have focused more on internal
relationships among the hexagrams and lines. This constitutes a **basic
t‘;a
fl
approach to classical scholarship because it turned attention to the con
tents of the book and away from the omenological tendency to absorb disparate
a
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elements into exegesis. YU Fan's book-bound orientation coincides with a
development in the Moral Principle school that determined the dominant view
of Change study would be focused on the material of the Classic and its Ten
Wings until the Northern Sung.
According to P'i Hsi-jui's reconstruction, sometime in the period 30B.C.1 A.D., during the reigns of Chfeng-ti and Ai-ti, Fei Chih made the decisive
gesture of interspersing the "Materia (T'uan j^Q," the "Greater Image (Tahsiang 7v
)>" and the "Lesser Image (Hsiao-hsiang^ JL )" Wings with the
Change texts each commentary was intended to illuminate. Although the ori
gins of Fei’s work are not clear, P’i concluded that Fei Chih’s Change was
"in general similar to the exegesis of General Ting [i.e., Ting K'uan J
, fl. ca. 150 B.C.)] ,'^thus relating Fei to the end of the accepted
41
Confucian transmission as set forth in the Han Shu.
The Fei Chih format
was subsequently employed by Hsiin Shuang, Cheng HsUan^f ^
, 127-
200), and Wang Pi. Cheng, Latter Han's most durable classicist, is said as
42
well to have evoked the "ritual" aspects of the Change in his commentary,
which until the T’ang Dynasty remained the standard work. Despite his move
ment toward understanding the Classic of Change in terms of the Ten Wings,
however, Cheng remained true to Tai ChUn-jen's assessment of Latter Han
exegesis, advancing along with his emphasis on ritual a system for relating
certain lines to the twelve earthly branches.^
Wang Pi, YU Fan's contemporary, adopted the Fei Chih recension as part
of his attack on the extravagances of Han Image and Number theories. Al
though his own commentary is not entirely free of the tendency,^ he cleaned
up the sites of Image and Number contamination so thoroughly that the term
"sao-hsiang jf f j ^(swept away the Images)" became an idiomatic binomial refer-
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19
ence to him.44<t Wang stated his reasoning in his "Outline Principles of the
Chou Change (Chou-i ltfeh-li
^
)"• "The Image is that which evokes
the idea; words elucidate the Image. . . . Words are bom of the Image;
thus one can go to the words to visualize the Image. The Image is bom of
the idea; thus one can go to the Image to visualize the idea. The idea is
fulfilled in the Image; the Image is expressed by words. Therefore, words
being that which elucidates the Image, when one gets the Image, he forgets
the words. The Image being that which preserves the idea, when one gets the
o 45
idea, he forgets the Image.
Here Wang was attempting to place the concept of Image in perspective
as a means to the end of apprehending significance rather than the end in
itself which he perceived it to have become. He continued with an allusion
to Chuang-tzu that suggests the Neo-Taoist roots of his viewpoint at the
same time it describes the temporizing function of words and Images in
getting across the idea, the true objective of understanding: "It is
like the snare, whose purpose is the rabbit— one gets the rabbit and forgets
about the snare. Or the fish trap, whose purpose is the fish--one gets the
fish and forgets about the trap. Granting this, words are the 'snare'
for the Image; the Image is the 'fishtrap'for the idea."^ ^
Wang's inference is that the vehicles of understanding are obstacles
when they become objects of attention in themselves: "One who holds to the
words fails to get the Image; one who holds to the Image fails to get the
r 47
idea."
Words attended to for their own sake do not fulfill their func
tion of conveying the Image, thence the idea. The Image transcends words,
despite the fact that it is expressed verbally.
;1
■3
Since words only express
and do not constitute the Image, they must be "forgotten," as is any tool
when its application is finished.
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20
The same applies to the Change's non-verbal Images— the lines, trigrams,
and hexagrams; their purpose is to fulfill the quality of the temporal
moment they reflect. Earlier in his dissertation, Wang had defined the
hexagrams as "time (shih
)"and the lines (yao Jt ) as "that which fols 48
lows the changes in time."
Once their task of "following the changes
in time" has been performed, they, too, can be forgotten. The Image of a
trigram is embedded in the whole range of its categorized associates in
the "Discussion of Trigrams" Wing, ch. 11. No individual associate fully
defines the trigram, however, but the overall significance of the trigram is
the essential quality communicated: "If the meaning is 'vigor [i.e., the
trigram ch'ien ^
== ],' what necessity is there for 'horse'? If the cate
gory is 'following [i.e., the trigram khm
],' what necessity is
t 49
there for 'cow'?"
The only reason for listing associates like "horse"
for ch'ien is to help establish its aggregate "meaning," which is the qua
lity of "vigor." The catalogues in the "Discussion of Trigrams" Wing, ch.
11, are seen to project a trigram's meaning through a shared quality in the
midst of their diversity. That they do not represent a property of the
trigram is proven in cases where, say, "horse" appears in the words of a
hexagram lacking the trigram ch'ien, or where "cow" appears in a hexagram
lacking the trigram k'un.^
It was in such cases that Han Dynasty scholars, missing the point that
"horse" could exist independent of ch'ien, insisted upon finding a way to
wring the presence by proxy of ch'ien from the existing structure through
one or another of the Image and Number devices, thereby betraying their
confusion of true "meaning" with the expendable-verbal and visual Images:
"If one insists that 'horse' belongs to ch'ien, he will [falsely] impute
LSJ
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things to a hexagram on the basis of its language. Where there is ’horse’
and no ch'ien such false theories proliferate, so that it is difficult to
write them all down.
If the 'nuclear trigrams' aren't sufficient [to find
a ch'ien], they try Hexagram Modulation.
If Hexagram Modulation still is not
51
sufficient, they move on to the Five Phases."
Wang Pi's re-evaluation of the Change was explicitly a reaction against
the exegetical style dominant in the Han Dynasty, featuring what he perceived
as ad hoc invention of routes to pre-determined origins for any Image oc
curring in the hexagrams' wording. He substituted a sparse commentary point
ing to the "Materia" and the two "Images" Wings as the legitimate interpreta
if
I
[■23
1
1
r«
i
i
tion of the texts. Thus despite his Taoist leanings, he established a
Confucian exegesis which so thoroughly displaced the Han Image and Number
approach that all works in the latter field fell into disuse and disrepair.
When T'ang T'ai-tsungj^f ^
^
(r. 627-649) ordered K’ung Ying-ta and others
to assemble the Correct Meaning of the Five Classics (Wu-ching cheng-i
)k j|' ), a project finally completed in 654 A.D., Wang Pi's commentary was
selected for the Change, thereby making it the standard text for T'ang and
52
Sung examination purposes.
Had Li Ting-tso\Hfc
(fl. ca. 750 A.D.) not put together his antho
logy of Han commentators, the Collected Explanations of the Chou Change (Choui chi-chieh
^
), the Han Image and Number school would likely have
passed into oblivion. As it is, it is difficult to discern from its remnants
for exactly what purposes the calendrical and numerological associations
were intended. There is, however, a type of Change intexpretation which is
still extant that employs many of the major devices attributed to Han scholars,
and to it we shall turn for possible assistance.
a
3
tTM
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22
The first section, of a book called A Hundred Days to Mastering the Arts
of Divination, Astrology, and Physiognomy (Fu hsing hsiang shu pai-jih t'ung
) is an outline description of Change divination as
53
practiced at the popular level.
The most striking aspect of the book’s
presentation of the Change is the complete absence of verbal texts for the
hexagrams and lines. Analysis of propitiousness (chi ^ ) or adversity (hsiung
})(j ) proceeds on the basis of heavenly stem and earthly branch associates
for the lines. The lines themselves are not marked by the familiar broken
and solid lines but by a dot for a non-modulating yang, a circle for a modu
I
lating yang, the character ga/Nfor a non-modulating yin, and X
for a mod
ulating yin.5^ Stan and branch associates employed in this system are iden
tical to the ones used by Ching Fang.55 The hexagrams are not presented in
the Classic of Change order but in the same "eight palaces" groupings found
in the Ching Fang remnants. These groupings, which extend the Five Phase
associates of each group’s "head (shou ^ )" hexagram to every member of
the set, provide the "generation (shih-ufc)" and "resonant (ying
j" lines,
the primary foci for analysis.
Thus if we translate into broken and solid lines, the "palace" of the
hexagram ch’ien contains the eight hexagrams:§■ fi fl.
s. fi || =L •^
Ch’ien*s
phase associate is "metal (chin Jh )," and the remaining hexagrams are like
wise "metal." The top line of ch’ien is its "generation" line, and the
third, its "resonant." In the hexagram == , the bottom line is the "genera
tion" line, and the fourth is the "resonant" line, while in
the second
line is the "generation," and the fifth is the "resonant." The two assign
ments move in order following Ching Fang’s arrangement for ch’ien1s palace:
f a s r \
I
H
, 5-^ while the order in the Hundred Days is based on
#
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the earthly branch associates for the first line of each hexagram.
Cffice the hexagram has been constructed— strictly by the coin method
of divination— its general Five Phase associate is compared with the Five
Phase associate of each of its lines, this association derived from the
earthly stem assigned to the line, and one of "six relationships (liu-ch’in
* W u )" is indicated. The type of effect these six have upon a Mself (shen
)" line, whether "producing (sheng
),” ’’inhibiting (k’e &£ ),’’ or
otherwise, establishes the quality of the divinee's situation.
If the reso
nant line inhibits the generation line, for example, the tendency of the
time is said to be adverse.
58
The reading is modified by numerous factors—
the modulation of lines, the month and day of divination, the type of ques
tion; but in general, Five Phase theory forms the basis of all operations.
Some evidence for continuity between Han period Change techniques and
the Hundred Days system is provided by Huang Tsung-hsi when he differenti
ates between the occultists and other exegetes of Han by saying that the
former used the ’’self line” and the "six relationships," while the others,
including Cning Fang, did not.^ We might possess in the Hundred Days method,
then, a remnant of a hexagram divination system already in use when the
first "shift" in Change exegesis was occurring.
An intriguing possibility for placing this "occultist" Change in the
context of Confucian exegetical history is raised by P'i Hsi-jui’s formula
tion of the Classic's origin. Departing from the long-standing theoiy that
the hexagram and line texts were the work of King Wen X. 5- and the Duke
of Chou Ji)
■J
P’i decided that there were no words accompanying the hex
agrams prior to the time of Confucius: "At that time it was merely a book of
divination.
Only when Confucius elucidated its Moral Principles and made
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it compatible with human endeavors, then was the tao of the Change set
forth. ,,v 61 From this point of view, Confucius created a philosophical
work based upon a pre-existing divinatory text by appending words to its
figures.
We must also consider the persistent tradition that there once existed
two other types of Change texts, the Lien-shan $ vl/ and the Kuei-tsang
If
, both believed to have comprised sixty-four hexagrams but in dif62
ferent orders from the present Classic of Change.
P'i Hsi-jui concluded
£7
that these, too, were books of divination with no verbal texts.
Thus we
are confronted with the possibility of at least three different arrangements
of hexagrams employed for mantic purposes in a manner unlike the system
used in the Classic of Change after the verbalization of its Images.
If
we postulate that these alternatives had no texts, and the absence of a
IsfS
single recorded citation from the Lien-shan or Kuei-tsang tends to support
that contention, it is possible that the Hundred Days system and "occultist"
Change theoiy in general are descendants of one of the pre-verbal Change
systems.
It is significant that the Hundred Days system reflects major elements
of Ching Fang's Change study yet retains none of the devices attributed
1
eg
specifically to other Han Image and Number scholiasts. "Nuclear trigrams,"
for example, which figure in the Classic of Change tradition from as early
as the Tso-chuan divination references,64 play no role in the Hundred Days.
There is no Hexagram Modulation theory or anything resembling YU Fan's
"upside-down" and linear opposite relationships between hexagrams.
Rather
than these kinds of attempts to discover internal consistencies in the
linear structures or to relate the Change to abstract conceptual schemes,
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25
we find in the Hundred Days system that temporal location is the overriding
concern, all elements within the system being aimed at establishing and ana| lyzing the moment of divination*
|
We have discussed the interest in temporal placement in the mantic
I
| system of Chiao Yen-shou, which must bear some resemblance to Ching Fang's
! Change in light of the master-disciple relationship said to have existed
I between the two. Comparison of the Hundred Days system with Ching Fang
I
— — ——
remnants suggests that what occurred in the early Han, perhaps at the insti
gation of Ching Fang, was a merger of two discreet Change traditions, in
which the diviners' non-verbal hexagram methodology was applied to the witten texts transmitted by scholars now identified with the Confucian Classic
, of Change. The oracular words of the latter were perhaps tested against
the devices of the former, and points of coincidence led to the formation of
a new school of exegesis.
In the resulting explanatory mode, commentary
phrasing inplied, as Wang Pi's refutation of ad hoc explanations suggests,
that the diction of Change texts are effects caused by the conjunction of
divinatory elements. Whether or not Wang's criticism accurately reflects
the state of Change scholarship in the Former Han cannot be ascertained from
surviving documents, but we shall see that the belief that texts may have
been "caused" by abstract relationships like Hexagram Modulation once more
became an issue in Chu Hsi's thinking and is by way of refutation a mark by
which we may distinguish Lai Chih-te's Image study from other representa
tives of Image and Number exegetes in the post-Shao Yung era.
In the Former Han, before the Fei Chih recension asserting the author
ity of the Confucian "Wings*was generally accepted, the methodology of non
verbal hexagram divination as well as related arts of the almanac makers
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were forced into a fragile alliance with the Classic of Change. Concepts
like the "eight palaces," which in the Hundred Days system involves an al
ternate ordering for the hexagrams, enjoyed a brief popularity as exegetical. devices because of that union, but, being incompatible with the"Ten
Wings,"were ultimately discarded.
In like manner, the "hexagram chti" con
cept dropped from usage, leaving only the twelve monthly hexagrams as a
permanent contribution to Change exegesis. Heavenly stem and earthly branch
calculation, the heart of the Hundred Days system, failed to retain its impor
tance after the decline of the Han Dynasty Image and Number school, at least
insofar as Confucian scholars were concerned.
If such borrowings from the diviners and calendricists proved lack
ing in value when used in conjunction with the"Wings," the experiments of
Ching Fang nonetheless drew attention to the linear constructs as phenomena
with structures of their own. This direction of inquiry may have inspired
the quest in Latter Han for manifestations of interrelationships at the
pre-verbal level which could be validated in the Confucian commentary materi
al. What Tai Chiin-jen identifies as Latter Han Image study, in contrast
to Former Han calendrical study, is concerned with linear and hexagrammatic
relationships emerging from the ordering of hexagrams inherent to the Classic
of Change as we now know it. YU Fan’s "upside-down" and linear opposite
relationships are relevant only in the context of that arrangement and
have nothing to do with the order of the"eight palaces," for example. Thus
although YU Fan1s Change study preserved intact specific devices of Former
Han Image and Number--"na-chia11 theory and the "twelve accumulation and
dispersion hexagrams" are examples-the ideas that appear to have origi
nated with him reflect a narrowing of concern to the Classic and the "Ten
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Wings" and maintain only the inherited spirit of treating the linear conIstructs as separate phenomena. His contemporary, Wang Pi, exhibits an
j
Ieven more stringent narrowing, to. the point of denying the possibility
i
|that legitimate discoveries may have emerged from Han efforts to unite
different uses of hexagram analysis into a consistent interpretation of
the Change.
Except for Li Ting-tso's anthology in the T'ang, evidence of interest
|among Confucian scholars in the non-verbal aspects of the Classic of Change
does not reappear until the Northern Sung, when Chou Tun-ijH^j^
1017-1073), Chang Tsaif^.^* {% J*-
,
, 1020-1077), and Shao Yung initiated
a second influx of non-Confucian material into the exegetical tradition.
This
time the appeal was to Taoist yogic practices rather than to practical divi
nation. Among the pioneers of Sung Neo-Confucianism the practice of yogic
discipline was an adjunct to classical studies.
It is reported that Shao
Yung would sit in meditation late into the night and developed a reputation
for prophecy.^ Huang Tsung-yen pointed out that Chou Tun-i's "Graph of the
Great Ultimate (T'ai-chi t'u
)" had its origins in a Taoist yogic
technique which led the practitioner on a charted course from the multipli
city of phenomenal existence back toward integration with the primal, undiff\l
ferentiated tao.
Master Chou reversed the direction of movement and
taught that the "Graph" depicted the evolution of diversity out of unity,
from the "Great Ultimate" to the "Two Types (liang-i gfe/Jfc ) and thence
through the Five Phases to arrive at the differentiated state of existence.
Shao Yung was likewise interested in describing graphically the ontolo
gy of observable phenomena as individuations of the unified "Great Ulti
mate and used the hexagrams to show the process, basing his model on the
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28
"Attached Verbalizations (Hsi-tz'u
AJf Ah
fiQ
)" Wing of the Change, 1:11 :
"The Great Ultimate produces the Two Types; the Two Types produce the Four
Images (ssu-hsiang 123
); the Four Images produce the Eight Trigrams."w
70
By carrying this mitotic division through the sixth extraction, Shao Yung
apparently became the first to discover the symmetrical progression of sixtyfour hexagrams that hecalled the "Prior Heaven (hsien-t1ien
^ )" order,
thus providing a step-by-step demonstration that the hexagrams of the Change
were individuations of the’Great Ultimate." This discovery had a great im
pact on subsequent Change study, for it provided a new link between the
"Attached Verbalizations" ontology and the linear hexagrEims.
Upon this appreciation Chu Hsi constructed the Image and Number side
of his hermeneutics. Matching Chou Tun-i's Confucian ontology of the myriad
things to Master Shao's generation of the hexagrams from the "Great Ulti
mate," Chu found in the Change a complete model of phenomenal existence. A
passage from Chu's introduction to his own commentary, the. Fundamental Mean
ing of the Chou Change (Chou-i pen-i j
Great ultimate.
f
]
), reads: "There is the
This produces the Two Types. The Great Ultimate is tao;
the Two Types are yin and yang. Yin and Yang are one tao; they are the
Great Ultimate and theAbsolute Nil (wu-chij g ) . " x ^
"Absolute Nil" is a term which in the Confucian tradition points only
to Chou Tun-i’s "Explanation of the Graph of the Great Ultimate (T'ai-chi
t’u shuo
." Like Shao Yung, however, Chu Hsi here chose not
to pursue the course of development through the Five Phases, but shifted to
the "Attached Verbalizations" 11:1 notion that movement (tung^) ) creates
7?
the conditions described in divination as propitiousness and adversity:'
"Thus the Change is the tao of yin and yang. The hexagrams are phenomenal
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29
manifestations of yin and yang things. The lines are movements of yin and
yang."^
The hexagrams and lines are then made to correspond to other
phenomena: "Whether as far away as outside the six directions or near as
the inside of one's body, brief as the wink of an eye or imperceptible as
is
II
movement and repose, there is nothing that does not have the Image of a
■
z 74
hexagram, nothing that does not have the meaning of a line."
It is because of the ontological identity of the hexagrams and the
myriad things that one needs achieve an'understanding of the "form (hsing
ty') )"of the hexagram— its linear shape— as well as the words of the
7C
text.
In Chu Hsi's view, Ch'eng I's commentary had gone further than any
other toward communicating the moral implications of the Change, but Cheng's
glosses were not total exegesis. Chu wrote: "It seems the Ch'eng Commentary
only considers Principle and does not investigate the drawn lines of the
hexagrams or the words of the Classic. Thus his ideas are profound, all
having their useful aspects; indeed, they are directly applicable to one’s
daily discipline. However, if one tests [the Ch'eng Comment
the linear hexagrams and the words of the Classic, it is •.
he will have some doubts.
j against
hlable that
I have sought to resolve these doubts with the
words of Shao K'ang-chieh [i.e., Shao Yung], and when I grasped his progres
sive order for the drawing of hexagrams, I only then understood that the
Sages had merely observed the images of yin and yang's natural producing
1f\
and producing and sketched it. From the first there was never any con
scious act of arranging involved."aa 77
Chu Hsi believed that the verbal Images followed the discovery of
this "natural" progression. Thus, for example, "It was only after [the
Sages] had completed drawing [the trigrams] that they noticed they had the
image of the Three Agents (san-ts'ai ^ ) (
, i.e., Heaven, Earth, and man).
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30
It is not that the Sages observed the Three Agents and then in accord with
their own thoughts drew three lines together to image them."3*3
For Chu
Hsi the lines prefigured the Change texts, and Shao Yung's scheme for
generation of the hexagrams from the "Great Ultimate" became at once an
ontological model applied to the hexagrams' structures and an epistemology
for the words of the Classic. We shall see in chapter three that Lai Chihte, for one, was not persuaded that Chu Hsi had accomplished his objec
tive of integrating the two aspects of the Change, although in respect to
the natural spontaneity of the Classic's elements, Lai took his cue from
this line of thought as he, like Chu Hsi, attempted to find the points of
convergence between Image and Number and Moral Principle theories of the
Change.
Confident of having grasped the essential fact of the Change's evolu
tion from linear figures to discursive language, Chu Hsi suggested a meth
od for studying the hexagram and line texts keyed to what he regarded as
another theretofore misunderstood aspect of the Classic. One should read
the text "as if it had been gotten in divination. Empty the mind in order
to seek what is intended by the words' meanings and how they arrive at
their decisions of propitiousness or<;adversity, possibility or impossi
bility. Thereafter, inquire into why the Image is as it is and seek why
op 79
its Principle is as it is. Thereafter, apply it to situations."
Be
cause it was originally a book of divination, the primary level of meaning
in the Change goes back to "admonishments based on the diviners' judge=
ments of propitiousness and adversity.
It was only with the writing of
i
the 'Materia,' 'Images,' and 'Comment on the Words (Wen-yen
a )' that
because of the ideas behind the admonishments associated with propitious-
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I
ness and adversity their Moral Principles were advanced in order to eluci-
H
»
. ..ad 80
date them.”
1
|
j
I
|name he called his commentary, was the meaning of the words in the context
I
|his glosses of phrases like, "If one gets this hexagram in milfoil divina-
|
Ition, and none of the six lines modulate, it says that by the oracle one
1
jought to receive great accessibility and must profit in the correct and the
|
j
j
3
Chu Hsi's sense of the "fundamental meaning" of the Change, by which
jof divination, an orientation reflected by the sporadic appearance in
solid.,,ae 81 His sense of divination was influenced, however, by the contem!plative interests of his Neo-Confucian forerunners rather than the numerological precision of actual divination practice as seen in the Hundred Days
system. One is first to "empty the mind* and allow the Images unimpeded
1
expression of their content. Only when this is achieved does he analyze the
I
structure of the Image.
I
j
The subjective nature of this enterprise leaves the potential for arriving at a correct evaluation of the Change»s message to one’s ability to
effect "emptiness" of mind.
It is clear, however, that Chu Hsi ultimately
found the connection between divination texts and linear structures in
j
j
Shao Yung’s mathematics. That his contemplation was thus prefigured is
evident in the order of presentation in the gloss to THE VIGOROUS (hex. 1):
!
first the generation of the all-yang hexagram is detailed, then the inherent
|
qualities of the hexagram based on the association of yan£ and Heaven, and
|
only thereafter an analysis of discursive meaning in the light of divina-
I
1
!
|
tion is presented.
32
Inspection of Chu Hsi’s glosses shews that except for the inclusion of
Hexagram Modulation theory his involvement with the Image and Number notions
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did not carry him much beyond Ch’eng I's limited interest in the subject.
83
In the following excerpts from the two Sung masters' explanations for AT ODDS
(hex. 38) 9/6— "At odds alone. See a pig carrying mid on its back or a cartaf
ful of ghosts11 — Chu Hsi's commentary appears to be a condensed outline of
I
iCh'eng I's. Ch'eng's reads: "The top line occupies the teiminus of AT ODDS.
IThe firm yang occupies the top— firmness is at its peak.
i
It is at the top
of the trigram li— the peak of the use of brightness. Being at the peak
Iof AT ODDS, the line is perverse and finds difficulty uniting. Being at
the peak of firmness, it is rash, cruel, and not careful. Being at the
i
peak of brightness, it is overly observant and has many doubts. Top nine
84
has the 'correct resonance' of third six. It is not actually alone, but
Iits character and1inherent nature are such that it makes itself at odds and
alone.
It is like a man who, although he has those with whom he is close,
still has many self-doubts which are bora of delusion and which cause him
to turn away from [his fellows]. Although in the midst of those with whom
he is close, he often feels alone. Although the top and the third lines
are 'correct resonants,' nevertheless this line situateu at the peak of
AT ODDS has nothing of which it is not suspicious. When it sees the third
line as if it were a dirty pig and also carrying mud on its back, it sees
[the third] as most despicable.
[The third] being most despicable, suspi
cion has made its evil equivalent to a cart filled with ghosts. Ghosts
have no form, and to say it sees a cart carrying ghosts is to say that
[top nine] takes to be real that which is not. This is the extreme of
I
delusion."a® ^
Chu Hsi's gloss of the same line reads: '"At odds alone1 refers to
third six, which is controlled by two yang [i.e., 9/2 and 9/4] while top
I
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nine itself is a firm line situated at the peak of brightness and the peak
of AT ODDS.
It also has self-doubts and has turned away.
rying mud on its back' means to see something dirty.
'See a pig car
'Cartful of ghosts'
means one takes to be real that which is not."3*1
Both men draw attention to the line's position at the top of the hexa'
87
gram and its native trigram, li, one of whose attributes is "brightness,"
to explain why the line should feel "alone." Both employ the so-called
"correct resonant (cheng-yirtg j£ jjt> )," a line separated by two other lines
from the line in question, in this case the third, which is "correct" if it
is opposite, yin to yang, to the original line, and also use basic trigram
qualities to bolster their analysis. Neither explain why a pig, of all aniimals, should be mistaken for a cartful of ghosts but approach these latter
two concepts from a psychological standpoint, seeing the environment of the
top line as imposing limitations on clear reasoning. Thus they do not treat
these two Images per se but address their implications.
This tendency to interpret rather than to trace verbal Images through
relationships with other hexagrams or extra-textual devices like those dis
I
cussed earlier is one of the distinguishing marks of Moral Principle com
mentary. The "moral principle" discussed in this example is the delusion
suffered in the top line when its inherent qualities prevent *t from deriv
ing benefit from potentially helpful conuarades. Wang Pi's remarks on the
same line read: "[The line] is situated at the peak of AT ODDS. The tao of
AT ODDS is not accessible. Thus it says, 'At odds alone.*
It occupies the
peak of brilliance, and the third line is the flourishing of the 'marsh' [i.
e., the lower trigram, tui]. These are the extremes of AT ODDS.
[Top nine]
being the peak of glorious brightness and seeing a most filthy thing, it
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is greatly at odds with it. There is nothing more filthy than a pig, and
one carrying mud on its back at that. That which is most at odds will join;
that which is most estranged will unite. The grotesque and deceptively
strange will in the tao be made one and not reach the point of diffusion.
ft
First [top nine] sees something estranged and wierd, thus, 'see a pig car
15
rying mud on its back.1 It is most repulsive. When it sees the ghosts fill-
H
r.lS
ing a cart, it is bizarre, wierd."
i 'S
cii 88
The position of the line and its resonant are as far as Wang Pi was will
ing to trace this Image, preferring instead to expand upon the implications
of the situation. We may note again the Taoist tone of Wang's commentary
in the line, "The grotesque and deceptively strange will in the tao be made
one. ..."
From this brief comparison it can be seen that despite Chu Hsi's
claim of having added other dimensions to the existing interpretations of
Change imagery, he remained well within the bounds of the Moral Principle
mode defined by Wang Pi and Ch'eng I. When we turn to his application of
Hexagram Modulation theory, his best-known contribution to the Image and
Number cause, we find that in the nineteen cases in which it is invoked,
only once, in ASCENT (hex. 46), is that theory the sole explanation of a
hexagram's text.
RQ
In three instances--FOLLOWING (hex. 17), ORNAMENTATION
(hes. 22), and NO GUILE (hex. 25)--allusion is made to Hexagram Modulation
with support from trigram analysis, a standard tool among all exegetes.
In twelve cases Hexagram Modulation theory plays only a supporting role,
secondary or tertiary to trigram analysis or divination associations.
In
most of the latter, conjunctions meaning "also (yu JZ. )".or "moreover fch'ieh
jS- )" make the afterthought quality of the appeal clear.
In three cases--
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AROUSAL (hex. 31, CONSTANCY (hex. 32), and EASING AHEAD (hex. 53)-Chu used
| the theory to elucidate the "Materia" Wing and did not mention it in refer| ence to the hexagram’s text itself.
It would seem, then, that even with
I respect to Hexagram Modulation Chu Hsi was tentative.
In chapter three we
| shall see other examples of inconsistent application of the devices belong-
i
; ing to Image and Number exegesis in the commentary of Chu Hsi, as he attempt
ed to unite the diverse strands of Change speculation then current in Neo: Confucianism.
The Image and Number School
from Chu Hsi to Lai Chih-te
Chu Hsi’s synthetic gesture did not dose the books on Image and
Number study, which was, after all, a school that had entertained consid
erable diversity from the days of its earliest proponents. Ting I-tung
"j
O X t ’
ca‘
A.D.) made a systematic study of the his
torical options in Change exegesis and discerned twelve separate varieties.
In this outline, he divided "Images" and "Numbers" into two individual
strains, the latter being represented by Shao Yung and the former being
90
Ting’s personal orientation.
Dissatisfied with extant explanations of
the Images, he embarked upon an exploration of the subject, finally set
tling upon twelve possible avenues of verbal text formation based on the
linear hexagrams. 91 None of his suggestions were unprecedented; indeed,
all but Chu Hsi’s Hexagram Modulation theory had direct antecedents in Han
Dynasty theories discussed above. Their application in Ting I-tung's par-
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ticular combination was distinctive, however, because Ting's intention was
|to "elucidate the Images for the sake of Principle."a-* 9^ In this respect
Iand in his acceptance of Hexagram Modulation from Chu Hsi as a bona fide
!Image determinant, he remained within the fold of the Ch'eng-Chu approach
Iwhile extending into new areas the search for relationships between Image
|and Number theory and Moral Principle exegesis.
j
YU Yen^*&- (.£ %
, 12537-1314?), like Ting I-tung, was bom and
Ieducated in late Southern Sung and declined.office after the Mongols came
;to power. His thirty or forty years of research in retirement "yielded
discoveries that his forerunners had not found,
93 among them the asser
tion that the Change terms which Chu Hsi had invented Hexagram Modulation
! theory to explain were better understood with reference to the "pairs of
upside-down hexagrams (liang kua fan-tui p&i
).
It is interesting that Lai Chih-te does not seem to have been aware
of the work of either Ting I-tung of YU Yen, particularly in light of the
fact that YU Yen seems to mark the first appearance of the theme which Lai
would sound and which afterwards Huang Tsung-hsi would use in finally
overthrowing the Hexagram Modulation theory.95 In his discussion of Lai's
work, Toda Toyosaburo credits YU Yen with the discovery of the relation
ship between hexagram pairs and the language of the Classic of Change, but
Toda also believed that Lai had arrived at his own conclusion independent
ly and had likely not seen YU’s book.96 Whether awareness of other research
in the genre would have affected Lai's final product is open to specula
tion, but,as YU Yen's declaration of unparalleled discoveries suggests and
Lai's own belief that his was the first correct explication since Confucius'
seconds,97 scholars working with this rather esoteric side of the Change
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
37
tended to be individualistic and perhaps a bit defensive of their unique
ness.
The Ylian Dynasty scholar Huang Tse^t ' f
, 1259-1346), who devo98
ted forty years to the Images of the Classic of Change
and who invested
|the "Procession of Hexagrams (Hstl-kua w
jportance,
99
)" Wing with unprecedented im-
also saw himself as the first since Confucius to have grasped
ithe subtleties of the Change.101^ Since Huang was in all these respects a
kindred spirit, it seems that Lai would have mentioned his ideas, if only
to dissent where the two differed. Again as with Ting I-tung and YU Yen, how
ever, there is no evidence that Lai was aware of Huang Tse's work.
Lai did make reference to Wu C h ' e n g - ^ (ty) ;|j , 1284-1333), whom
Huang Tsung-hsi considered Huang Tse's master.Significantly, Lai's
allusions are not to Wu's work on Images, which was all but lost after a
102
brief period of notoriety,
but to his textual analysis, for which Wu
103
was better known and in which regard he was a Ch'eng-Chu stalwart.
Elsewhere in the field of YUan Image and Number study there appeared
signs of awareness that the Sung synthesis was not without deficiencies.
The Ssu-k'u ch'llan-shu editors singled out Ch'en Ying-jun
(fl.
ca. 1346) as the first to break the hold upon Change exegesis exerted by
the graphs and charts incorporated into Confucianism by Shao Yung and Chou
Tun-i.104 Chu. Sheng^L^f
, 1299-1370), who lived into the early
Ming, left several new graphs, one of which revamped Chu Hsi's Hexagram
Modulation graph,^ and thereby indicates what seems to be the first sign
of dissatisfaction with the original theory.
Such attacks on elements of the dominant Sung interpretations of the
Change were not to coalesce immediately into a thorough re-evaluation of
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38
the Ch'eng-Chu interpretation, however. Under the new Ming Dynasty, the
Change was confined within the Moral Principle mainstream established under
the Ylian in 1313, when the two Sung masters' commentaries were chosen
for the text used in examination preparation. The Great Compendium of
Chou Change (Chou-i ta-ch'Uan j|j ^
£
), published in 1415, used in
their entirety only the Ch'eng Commentary (Ch'eng chuanMtfk ) and Chu Hsi's
Fundamental Meaning, while selecting supportive material from other likeminded Neo-Confucians. This textbook, edited by Hu Kuang
1370-1418) and his staff, was based upon the Thorough Explication of the
Fundamental Meaning of Chou Change (Chou-i pen-i t'ung-shih
a considerably more expansive work by Hu Ping-wen$l;$ ^
1320),^ and the Change study of Hu I-kuei$?
Ping-wen's father.
)»
, fl. ca.
(Jl^jj .• fl* ca. 1280),^
In discussing Hu I-kuei's work, the Ssu-k'u ch'Uan-shu editors re
peated the charge of factionalism by which they had epitomized the state
of classicism after the fourth stage of scholarship began, saying, "It
seems that at the end of Sung and the beginning of Ming lineages in the
schools of instruction were most rigid.,,am ^
In so saying, they referred
to Hu's lack of interest in anything not issuing from the Chu Hsi line. The
Great Compendium was likewise seen by the Ssu-k'u editors to suffer from
narrowness, though with respect to the tradition of Moral Principle inter109
pretation, it was considered fairly complete.
The narrowing of focus did
not end with the Great Compendium, however, and Ku Yen-wu wrote that "later
students, disliking the length of the Ch'eng Commentary, excluded it from
their reading and used the Fundamental Meaning exclusively.',an ^
This tendency is evident in the commentary of Ts'ai Ch’ing^;Jj (-j\ jk. ,
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1453-1508), the most influential personal Change study of the fifteenth
century, being the only work from that period besides the Great Compen
dium reprinted in the Ssu-k’u ch'Uan-shu collection.
Called A Guide out
of. Confusions Regarding the Classic of Change (I- c h in g meng yin
%-
),
the book is an explication of Chu Hsi’s Fundamental Meaning, which Ts'ai
"esteemed ;second only to the Classic."30 ^
Those few scholars of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries who
pursued Image and Number studies exhibited the Chu Hsi bias by restricting
themselves to Shao Yung's mathematics. Wang Ching J ^
and Fang Hsien-fu^jfJl 7^
()ۥ>
, c.s. 1433)
, .d. 1544) both drew upon Master Shao in
preparing what the Ssu-k'u ch'Uan-shu editors considered minor works on
Image and Number.^
With the sixteenth century came a general reawakening of interest in
the Classics, as seen in the dramatic increase in titles from the handsoof
writers active in that period. The table of contents to the Ching-i k’ao
lists works on the Change by seventy-eight authors who received chin-shih
'A . *
i
) degrees (or, in those cases where authors were not degree holders,
were pegged to a hypothetical chin-shih date based on what may be deduced
113
about the dates of his life)
between the founding of the dynasty in 1368
and 1498, and three hundred and twenty authors placed by the same criteria
between 1501 and 1585. Within this climate of revitalized classicism, there
■
arose a new interest in Image and Number theory that carried scholars be
yond the restrictions of the Sung Neo-Confucian vision.
Sixteenth cen
tury entries in the Ssu-k'u ch'Uan-shu collection display a distinct procli
vity toward that line of exegesis.
Of the eleven works selected for re
printing, five may be thus classified.^ By contrast, only one work re-
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I
40
tains the fifteenth century fascination with Chu Hsi, Lin Hsi-ylian's
(|| ^
ts'un-i
, c.s. 1517) Unanswered Questions in the Classic of Change Cl-ching
ff
).115
Han Pang-dii^|f %
(>"$
, 1479-1555) undertook to elucidate Chu
Hsi's Dispelling Confusion in the Study of the Change (I-hsUeh ch'i-meng
a work discussing Chu’s ideas on various aspects of the
Change including number theory and divination, in his Views on the Dispel
ling Confusion in the Study of the Change (I-hsUeh ch'i-meng i-chien 0 )
). In the process, Han evolved a divination method which traced
all permutations of each hexagram into the remaining sixty-three hexagrams.
Despite the conceptual similarity between this and the Forest of Change of
Chiao Yen-shou, however, "his purpose lay in the Change of Sung Confucians;
it was not the Change of the Han Confucians."3^ ^
Like Han Pang-clii. Ksiung Kuo~~ $
( fa fc
, c.s. 1519) was an early
admirer of Chu Hsi, and he was initially attracted to Ts'ai Ch'ing's exegetical style. Suspecting that Ts'ai's neglect of Image analysis made his
work insubstantial, he published A Decisive Account of the Objectives of
Images in the Chou Change (Chou-i hsiang chih chlieh-lu
117
in 1551.
His attempt to shore up Image study was constructed upon
exhaustive evidential comparisons,
118
which led him past Sung to Han models,
Nonetheless, he concluded that in the history of Change Image study, exegetical history being a subject in respect to which he showed more awareness
than did Lai Chih-te,
HQ
l ?f )
only Shao Yung had truly "penetrated" the Change.
Thus the hold of Sung Dynasty number theory was still unbroken despite an
interest in the broader options of the early Image and Number school.
Not until Lai Chih-te's generation of scholars was the Sung formula-
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
tion of Change’s Image and Number aspects seriously challenged.
Shih-yllan’s
Ch'en
c.s. 1544) Investigating and Explaining
the Images of the Change (I_ hsiang kou-chieh
is an attempt
to reconstruct Ching Fang's Image and Number techniques with reference
to what Ch’en supposed to have been the Former Han divination method. Com
mentaries not grounded in an understanding of the Images tended toward
"empty and mysterious doctrines (hsU-yUan chih chih /jjj)
ju & ),"1Z1 he
felt. Although faulty sources made his divination research too specula122
tive for the tastes of the Ssu-k’u ch’Uan-shu editors,
Ch’en believed
that he had discovered the lost mantic arts of the Grand Diviners.
It is
unlikely that he succeeded, considering that only an inkling of the matter
may be garnered from the Tso-chuan and other reputable evidence, but the
effort is indicative of the independence from Sung Dynasty intellectual modes
that seems to have t.
possible and increasingly attractive in the second
half of the sixteenth century.
An expansion of interest in graphs and charts reaching beyond the col
lection in Chu Hsi’s Dispelling Confusion, whose illustrations also became
part of the Great Compendium, also marks the sixteenth century’s accelera
tion of exegetical activity.
It will be remembered that the first and third
"stages" in Change exegesis as set forth by the Ssu-k’u ch’Uan-shu editors
were accompanied by the construction or appropriation of charts relating
hexagrams to natural phenomena or to mathematical speculations and ontolo
gical theories. The fifth "stage," beginning in the sixteenth century, wit
nessed a similar movement, one which began in deference to the Sung masters
but was before long characterized by innovation.
Change Graphs (I t’u
jjij), originally published in 1554 by T’ien
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I-hengSllsL
) > presented a graphic cosmogony based on Chou Tun-
( !r
i's "Explanation of the Graph of the Great Ultimate." Yeh Liang-p'ei jfL
('S ji
f
, c.s. 1513) appended graphics from Han through Sung to his Col
lection of Material on the Meaning of the Chou Change (Chou-i i_ ts'ung jfl 0 ]
%i. 2^) 3 a book which is otherwise a derivative of Chu Hsi’s ideas. Hu
Pin^
, 1506-1557) and W u W e i ^ ^ included a "Complete Collec
tion of Classic of Change Graphs (I-ching t'u ch'tlan-chi
)"
as the first chlian of their Five Classics Graphs (Wu-ching t’u
),
which anticipated in its breadth the massive compendia of the dynasty's
last century.
Among Lai Chih-te's contemporaries, Chang Huangjp j ’f?
;j| , 1527-
1608) completed in 1585 his Anthology of Graphs and Charts (T'u shu pien
), which in 127 chUan attempted to sort out the true Confucian
123
illustrative material from those of Taoist and Buddhist provenance.
An
other work from this period, one which features Shao Yung's ideas but also
encompasses the full range of Change-related graphics, is Wang Ch'i's :£ wf
(
,
c.s. 1565) Assembled Graphs of the Three Agents (San-ts'ai t'u-hui
Xil f ).
In sixty-four weighty volumes, the Complete Book of Chou Change, Ancient
and Modem Texts (Chou-i ku-chiii-wen ch'llan-shu jfjJjjp £?
Yang Shih-ch'iao
(Ift^ , 1531-1609)
) by
containsa complete col
lection of pre-existing and newly minted graphs. Yang himself was a strict
^ A
Ch'eng-Chu adherent,
I
but that inclination did not deter him from invent
ing his own illustrations to aid in explaining philosophical points.
Inde
pendently of one another, Yang Shih-ch'iao and Lai Chih-te both decided
that previously drawn circular graphs displaying various arrangements of the
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I
43
trigrams and hexagrams lacked visual representation of li, the "Principle11
at the heart of Sung Neo-Confucianism, and moved to remedy the situation.
Yang’s "Graph of the River Graph's Central Five as a Central Unity (Ho-t'u
chung-wu chung-yang-i t'u ;*J
}f|j )"12S is similar to Lai’s
"Circle Graph (YUan-t’u jf] j^j )"126 insofar as both display a central
circle embraced by a black swirl representing yin and a white swirl repre
senting yang. For both Lai and Yang the central circle represented Li, which
both termed the "Governor (chu-tsai
% )." Yang Shih-ch’iao, however,
127
added a vertical line to depict the "Great Ultimate."
That vertical
line became the signature of his work, recurring in all his circular forms.
When the Lai Chih-te text became corrupt, a process that began with
128
its fourth edition,
Yang's vertical line was added to Lai’s graphs. In
subsequent editions, a hodge-podge of the graphics contained in Chang Huang's
and Yang Shih-ch'iao's collections were appended to Lai's commentary, giv
ing the impression that the drawings originated with Lai himself. This
confusion attests to Lai's reputation as a graph maker, which stemmed, no
doubt, from the series of visual representations with which his book opens.
The culminating work in this series of sixteenth century illustrative
texts, one based on the contributions of the authors cited to this point,
is the Complete Book of Change Study (I-hslieh ch'Uan-shu
Cho Erh-k' a a g f f f a jjf i
, 1570-1644).
) by
It is both an anthology of
Change commentary and a collection of graphics which includes selections from
Lai's work in both sections.
Kl'ff
Cho's "Transmission of the Change (I-chuan
identified what he counted as correct works on the Classic up
to his time. Among those named there appears to be a fairly equal repre
sentation of classicists in the Moral Principle and the Image and Number
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44
schools, an indication of the latter persuasion’s revival in the sixteenth
century from the moribund state to which it had been dispatched by the nar
row interests of the Great Compendium of Chou Change.
. .a book for these Ming times"
It was this increase of attention toward Image and Number theory that
inspired Huang Tsung-hsi to write his Discussion of Image and Number in
Change Study (I-hsUeh hsiang-shu lun
)• Therein Huang per
formed upon post-Sung Dynasty Change exegesis the same kind of surgery
that Wang Pi had visited upon Han commentary. Huang was moved to this, he
said, because "contemporary Confucians overmuch emphasize Image and Number
theory, holding it to be the 'ultimate study. ”,ac* ^
It is intriguing that Huang used the phrase "ultimate study (chtiehhsUeh jfcfc,4^)" in this regard, because it recalls the Ssu-k'u ch'Uan-shu
editors' mixed review of Lai Chih-te's work. They praised his diligence,
saying, "In explicating first the significance of the Images and words, then
the significance of the 'inverse' and 'antipode' pairs, and thereafter expounding each hexagram's and line's correct meaning, his commentaryAthe
ar 131
essentials [of these aspects] through profound mental effort."
As
we shall see, investigation of the "inverse (tsung
(:ts'o
)" and "antipode
)" relationships between hexagrams--what had been called the
"upside-down" and linear opposite hexagram pairs in YU Fan's theory--con
stituted the foundation of Lai's Image study, and the editors recognized
the originality of his application of the two terms. But, they continued,
!
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while Lai had been able to blend his findings into a unique theory, the
people of the time were not justified in calling his ideas the "ultimate
study." They noted this popular assessment in the light of the book’s repu
tation, saying that "in the past hundred or so years those who have believed
his theories have been quite numerous, and those who have attacked them
as 132
have been also not a few."
For their own part, the editors insisted
that Lai had said nothing that his predecessors in the Han Dynasty Image
and Number school had not said and had only been more thorough in applying
an old approach.
133
Huang Tsung-hsi may not have had Lai in mind when he made this allusion
to the "ultimate study," but from the suggestion of popular notice reflected
in the notes to the Ssu-k'u ch’Uan-shu catalogue and from the record of
the commentary’s republication traced in the textual notes of Appendix A
below, it is fair to aay the book attained a quick and lasting acceptance
among those interested in the Change. Ch’ien Chi-po, writing several hun
dred years later, attested to the continued presence of the book in "mar
ket editions (fang-pen
cheap copies printed and sold for profit.
Ch'ien attributed this popular success to Lai's awareness of readers’ poten
tial difficulties: "Careful and thorough, his only fear was his readers'
misunderstanding."at ^
As the following chapters will show, Lai Chih-te’s presentation was
indeed simple and straightforward, featuring decisive statements and graph
ic representations to explain issues that existing commentaries apparently
failed to clarify for their readers.
It is apparent from our sketch of
Change scholarship that sixteenth century Confucians experienced a reawaken
ing of interest in confronting the linguistic and linear structures of the
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46
Classic and that the Ch'eng-Chu interpretation did not fully satisfy that
need. We have noted that interest in this exegetical school crested in two
periods when attention was focused outward from the Change itself toward
understanding the dynamics of actual occurrences, whether by the vehicle
of divination in the Han Dynasty or via numerical theory, as in the work
of Shao Yung. Appreciation of Change *s Image and Number aspects, then, pro
vided channels whereby that Classic could be integrated with the phenomenal
world and verified as an accurate description of that world and a useful
tool for adapting oneself to it.
By the late Ming Dynasty, neither Han nor Sung models could fulfill the
latter objectives, Han theories because they did not tally with the NeoConfucian reading of the ''Ten Wings" and Sung ideas due to Chu Hsi's flawed
amalgamation of incompatible systems. Yet in the Ming Image and Number style
exegetes reviewed up to the time of Lai Chih-te, we have been able to identi
fy signs of predisposition toward the mechanisms characteristic of either
the Han or Sung scholiasts. By contrast, Ch'ien Chi-po's stu’y classifies
Lai's work as the only Ming Confucian commentary that is "neither Han nor
Sung."au ^
Lai's independence, achieved at the cost of years of isolated
concentration, and his uncomplicated vision of the structural and moral im
plications of the Change allowed his Image study to evolve in a way sug
gested by elements present in the theories of earlier expositors but domi
nated by none of them.
Lai Chih-te was aware of the singularity of his work and considered
it peculiarly appropriate to the Ming context, calling it "a book specifical
ly for these Ming times."av ^
That he correctly appraised the potential
for acceptance of a new approach to the Change at the end of the sixteenth
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47
is borne out by the popular success his ideas seem to have enjoyed, as he
made an impression on the Confucian consciousness that outlived his own Ming
tines and exerted a continuing influence upon later generations.
In the
following chapters we shall demonstrate that the unique quality of Lai's
Change study was its phenomenological orientation. Lai evolved the separate
consideration of the linear complexes and the texts appended to them, the
conceptual framework common to all branches of the Image and Number school,
into an investigation of the structures of both the pre-verbal and verbal
strata of Change imagery as natural phenomena.
In this way, he asserted
again the equivalence of the Classic to nature in general, a belief which
it had been the intention of Han and Sung exegetes to explore through extend
ing the mathematics of divination toward apprehending the meaning of time.
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Chapter II
The Life and Intellectual Development
of Lai Chih-te
A dominant image in the life of Lai Chih-te is the mountains of east
ern Szechwan. He was bom at Mt. Fu^El \if in Sha-ho Market -^/ $ $ $
shan District
[if
, Liang-
, where his forebears had dwelt since the end of the
YUan Dynasty. His biographer, Kao Hslleh-chUn t§? ^
or^
,
fl. ca. 1674),^ wrote that because Lai "delighted in the stark, craggy
gi •.
a 2
scenic beauties of Ch'U-t'ang £ jff gorge, he took the name as his hao."
In his youth he suffered from a recurrent psychological disorder charac
terized by seizures in which he must have babbled nonsensically. Kao re
lates that Lai's mother, sumamed Ting "f , dreamed while pregnant that a man
clad in blue rode a crane to atop the eves of the house. The crane was
about to cry out when the man patted its head and said, "No, no, no (gu pu
EH. T T T )•" Later in life, Lai was called "Pu-pu-tzu ^ 'f
," a
nickname that apparently stuck because of sounds he made when the fits
came upon him. Kao calls the disorder tien-chi jfjf.-]% , a non-specific desig
nation meaning something like "crazy,:;ibut which perhaps refers to epilep
sy. He was cured after dreaming he stood alone on a peak of Mt. Wu-^. ll/ ,
and subsequently he took "Twelve Peaks (shih-erh feng -f* z 4^) as a Tao3
ist hao.
Despite the abnormality of his childhood, Lai was precocious in
mastering the skills required of examination candidates. His great-grand
father, Lai Chaoyj^ $0 , served as a subprefectural magistrate in I-lang
^
, Yunnan.^ It is not clear whether Chih-te's grandfather, Lai Shang-
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49
lienitft M . , or father, Lai Ch’ao^. $$ , participated in the examina
tions, but Lai Chih-te's own performance in the local competition and his
refusal later to accept money customarily solicited among local business
people for the support of native sons in the higher level examinations
caused the censor Wu Kao-yU^;^
to remark, "This fellow Lai isas rare
as a phoenix feather or a unicorn horn.
If he does not turn
•u r
out tobe a
famous official, he will be a famous Worthy."
In 1552 Lai placed fifth overall in the Szechwan provincial examination
and first in the Ritual specialty. During his intensive preparation for
this examination and the metropolitan exam to follow, he apparently con
centrated to an unusual degree upon the content of the required Classics,
living in seclusion at a Buddhist temple. An acquaintance, Yang YU-chou
✓'/f! > said, of Lai at this period in his life, "Ch’U-t’ang does not go
visiting those in office, and he speaks loftily of Humanity ( j e n ) and
Morality (i Jfc )• It is Mencius reborn."0 ^
His aversion to the practice of currying fa. .r among the powerful while
awaiting the examination is illustrated in an anecdote from the Liang-shan
County Gazeteer. At the time he was residing in the capital, Lai refused
a request by Ch’en I-ch’in
YU-pi J ff
Ti
if)
> 1511-1586) to tutor his son, Ch’en
> 1545-1596) in Ritual. During that time the elder
Ch’en was rising from Hanlin Reader-in-Waiting to Vice-Minister of the Board
7
of Rites, and later he was appointed to the Board of Public Works and the
O
Supervisorate of Imperial Instruction. Lai wrote of this event, "A great
man always establishes himself. How can he run to the Prime Minister's
d 9
gate?"
The story attests both to Lai's scholarly reputation and to his
uncompromising self-image.
The Ch'ens, also from Szechwan, would have been
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influential allies.
Despite his seeming potential for success, Lai failed to place in the
metropolitan examination of 1553 or 1556. Upon returning home after his
second failure, he immersed himself in the philosophical aspects of the
Classics and had to be ordered by his father back to Peking for another
attempt. He failed again in 1559.
In 1562, his dream of standing on Mt.
Wu's peak recurred. Where earlier it had signalled the end of his child
hood malady, now it meant to him that he would not succeed in the examina
tions. He said, "The peaks of Mt. Wu are the place to which the rivers
and streams converge in return. The peaks are many, as if they were ele
gantly and extraordinarily [written lines of calligraphy]. The proof [of
. one's skill] in writing essays is no proof that one will have wealth and
high estate."e ^
When he indeed failed and then received word that his parents were ill
he resolved not to participate further in the exams. To the horror of his
close friends, he burned the student visa which allowed him freedom to
travel, and taking a scarf,he inscribed upon it the characters, "I intend
to emulate Confucius (yUan hsUeh K'ung-tzu
|L h )
and tied it to
his arm. This act, which elicited derisive laughter in the capital and
amongst scholars in his hometown, was inspired by a sentence on the burned
identification papers: "This permits study with [Confucius] of the Eastern
Sea.„f 11
A poem that he wrote at the time, "Burning My Visa (Fen lu-yin
makes it clear that concern over his parents was his strongest motivating
factor:
The sojourner loiows that he cannot quit the "scarlet dust,"
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12
Yet courteously taking leave, in the night he writes a poem.
13
Two rows of black spots would hasten me toward old age,
14
But one length of black on silk makes people feel I’m a fool.
15
Why speak of a roc-like myriad-mile flight,
When my two parents’ crane-white hair is already abundant?
On this [visa] lies the true rofld on which to seek Yao and Shun:
g 16
"This permits study with Hslian-ni of the Eastern Sea."
Aside from the filial concern voiced in the poem, however, Lai took
issue with the examination system itself. He believed there was a funda
mental contradiction in submitting knowledge of the Classics to a test
that had become more a measure of literary adeptness than of philosophi
cal wisdom. The proper purpose of the Classics was to lay open "the true
road on which to seek Yao and Shun," that is, the path to Sagehood in the
image of those ancient Sage rulers and of Confucius. The state-sponsored
examinations did not, in Lai’s opinion, encourage this type of learning;
in fact, he felt that it was not even functioning adequately as a de-vice
i
for government recruitment, that the country would be better served by re
turning to a system of recommendations modeled after the one that pre
vailed in the Han Dynasty. This could be effected, he believed, by elimi
nating the triennial testing md evolving the "tribute student (kung-sheng
f| it )" concept originated during the reign of the Ming founding emperor,
17
T'ai-tsu.
The tribute students selected at the local level and then exa
mined by the chancellor of the National University to verify that they
were of good character and ability could be placed on a roll for future em
ployment. Appointment to office would be made solely on the basis of one’s
capacity in governmental matters, "and thus everyone would know that a
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52
piece of writing could not decide the wealth and high position one could
li 18
attain in his entire lifetime."
Lai objected to the current system because so much rode on the chance
of a single day's success,19 and success in writing irrelevant literary
compositions at that. The system also had the defect of placing in posi
tions of responsibility men too young to function maturely. The tributestudent system would tend to raise the age of beginning officials to around
forty— an age at which Confucius and Mencius, for exanple, had felt secure
with themselves.29 Not only would his alternative provide better officials
but he predicted that over a ten-year period tens of thousands in silver
, 2 1
would be saved in emoluments and provisions alone.
As for himself, Lai was now confident that only one direction was
tenable. When his friend Chou Eh’injfi ijL begged him in tears to recon
sider, saying, "This dynasty places great weight on the examination systemr
If you bum your visa, there will be no other road for you to take," Lai
replied, "There is the one road of the Sage and Worthy. To be a Sage or
Worthy need not be a matter of destiny— rich and eminent, poor and lowly,
all can accomplish it. Cutting off the examinations, that length of intes
tine, is something the Sages and Worthies are doing through me."3 22
Home again in 1562, Lai won the approval of his parents and reprieve
from pressure to participate further in the examinations. He appears to
have divided his time between attending upon his elders and self-cultiva
tion in "quiet-sitting'.' for another two years. During this period, he
meditated upon Chou Tun-i's "Graph of the Great Ultimate" and achieved
23
a new understanding of it.
Kao Hslieh-chlin says that at that time Lai wrote a "Mind Song (Hsin to
......................
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53
to urge himself onward. None of the poems in Lai's works bears
that title, though one of the untitled ancient-styleQcu-shih £ th ) poems
whose content suggests an early date of composition begins:
Where did Confucius study?
He only sought in his own Mind.
How does one study in his own Mind?
k 24
By casting out the Mind's anxieties.
In Lai's mature philosophy the term "anxieties (yu JL)" TOuld ^ simi:Lar con‘
texts be replaced by "desires (yU&X)," but we find Lai in this phase strug
gling to exercise conscious control over "this Mind, which all the day
£1 nm 25
; thinks with never a stop m its rlow.
Whether or not this is the "Mind Song" mentioned,it clearly indicates
Lai's continuing effort to discover in the model of Confucius a solution
to the psychological conflict that had precipitated his withdrawal from
public life. The same poem ends:
Cast out the hundred kinds of anxiety,
And a bright mirror will shine flawless.
Take this mirror, look at yourself,
- •
n 26
And see Conxucius within.
The progress toward Sagehood passed at this juncture through a moment of
mysticism that Lai later described as "Zennish," a hint of which is seen
in the imagery of the Mind's mirror of the preceeding passage.
Some time around 1568,28 Lai journeyed to the Soochow region. Kao
2£r
29
HsUeh-chUn traced Lai's ancestry to Hsiao-shanII & > Chekiang, and since
of the eight men sumamed Lai in the Ming-jen chuan-chi tsu-liao so-yin
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A
54
$
t
ft ,
hailed £rom Hsiao-shan,30 suggesting that the
area was a clan stronghold, it seems likely that the purpose of the trip
was to look up relatives. He also made pilgrimages to famous mountains,
leaving descriptions of visits to Hsieh-shan^l d f
and Lu-shan %>. d f in
Kiangsu. 31
Shortly afteT he returned home, his father died, and Lai performed to
the letter the prescribed mourning observations by living in a grave
side cottage and tasting neither meat nor wine nor enjoying music for the
required period. The paternal rites had barely come to term when his mother
passed away. Thus for four and one half years (ca. 1568-1572), he led the
m in im a l
existence v/hich Confucian tradition set forth as ritual expression
of filial mourning. Lai later wrote an essay on funeral customs in which
he detailed a personal campaign to retrieve local practices from what he
identified as the traces of Mongol influence acquired during the YUan Dynas
ty. Szechwan's tardiness in recovering the true Chinese practices could
be seen, he felt, in incorrect costuming, funeral-goers' partaking in
32
meat and wine, and the type of music used.
It was during his mourning period that Lai began to form his unique
interpretation of k e - w $
which the Ta-hsileh ^ ^
the .pivotal term in the chain of steps
sets forth as the process of self-cultivation.
In the Ch'eng I and Chu Hsi commentary for the Ta-hslleh, the version used
for examination preparation, ke-wu was understood to mean "investigation of
things."33 But in his period of deprivation, Lai came to see the term
calling for the expulsion from consciousness of egoistic desires spring
ing from the attraction of material objects. Kao wrote that in mourning,
"He first became aware that only when material desires are once negated
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55
does the Pattern (lifl ) of ’curbing material desires (ke-wu)' arise from
Sincerity (ch’engine )."°
!
t
Lai’s re-evaluation had decisive implications. It marked his incipi-
! ent philosophical divergence from the Sung School of Principle (li-hsUeh
i
as adherents of the Ch’eng-Chu line were known, and the School
; of Mind (hsin-hsUeh
), which was then enjoying a resurgence under
I Wang Yang-ming’s followers.
j
In the years to come, Lai’s interpretation
of ke-wu would form the basis of the moral implications of his Change study
; as well as of his method of mental discipline.
While in mourning, he seems to have begun serious study of the Images
in the Classic of Change. In 1570 he built a house on nearby Mt. Fu, and
after the mourning period was completed, he sequestered himself there to
confront the perplexities he found in the Classic.
Even before the passing of his parents Lai evidenced little interest
in social intercourse.
Seldom venturing into town, he was content to
entertain his parents while himself living in a single room, evolving
■ his self-discipline. Now his filial obligations came to be focused upon
his elder brother, whom he attended with great respect into old age.
It
is said that he would not attend a banquet to which his elder brother had
35
: not also been invited.''
At some point Lai married a wife of the NitfjL clan by whom he had
two sons, Shih-min flljand Shih-sheng flf
.
It is not clear how he supported himself in his studies. He instruc
ted the males of his clan in ritually proper modes of dress, eating, and
decorum, and may have accepted some income for this and other teaching.
37
He was not averse to physical labor; he chopped pine and bamboo for a '
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56
"Moon-purchase Pavillion (mai-yUeh t'ing
^
)>" built to commemo
rate a dream in which he "bought the moon and illuminated his inner
being.^
Later, when he moved to Wan District!^ > it is maintained
39
that he worked the fields himself.
In his study method, he included as
part of each day's plan a turn in the garden, or, if one were poor, a time
for work in the fields. He compared himself to Confucius' disciples "Tzulu, who carried rice on his back, and Tseng-tzu, who tilled."** ^
It is also said that he was a skilled geomancer, not at all impos
sible given the continuity between his Change Image study and the tech
niques of geomancy. Passages in his collected works are saturated with
41
the terminology of geomantic physical description still current in Taiwan."
In addition, a story has been passed down in the Tu-^ family of Wan-District
that after Lai Chih-te had selected a gravesight for the family patriarch,
a vein of silver was discovered under the stable adjacent to the family
I
mill. This bit of good luck, which established the Tu family fortune, was
thereafter attributed to Lai Chih-te's having found the right place to in
ter old Mr. Tu.^
In any event, six years at Fu-shan yielded no insight into the elusive
L*
'<(>
language of the Change, and Lai removed to Ch'iu-hsizK/^ (also called
), deep in the mountains of Wan District. There he labored another
fifteen years before realizing any success. He wrote in a letter to Wang
Kuei-shih
, "It was only after fifteen years' distant s o j o : at
Ch'iu-hsi in Wan District that 1' understood Confucius' idea of "v
■ ( i — )s'
that I understood Confucius' idea of 'curbing material desires (ke-wu)' and
'manifesting Virtue (ming-te
Thus 1585 marks the point when
Lai's philosophical work became identifiably his own.
I
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57
Individuation of Philosophy
As Lai's discoveries of the "true" meanings of the key phrases "unity,"
"ke-wu," and "ming-te" preceded the maturation of his study of the Change
and continued to underlay his life’s work, those words call for careful
scrutiny. By "Confucius' idea of 'unity'" Lai alluded to three of the
Master's statements. Lai wrote: "Confucius said, 'My tao has unity threading
through it,'44 and 'That by which they are put into practice is unity,'45 and
again 'The movement of all under Heaven is in Rightness madeunified. ",4^ In
the three sentences the 'unity' is the same word. After Confucius passed
away, later Confucians did not understand the meaning of the word 'unity'-only Chou Tun-i understood it. Thus I could not but write my 'Meaning of
Words in the Discipline of Entering into Sagehood (Ju sheng kung-fu tzu-i
$ } £ . % &
)."’s 47
In the latter named work Lai defined "unity" as "having no desire,"
which means having no egoistic purposes ulterior to one's behavior: "Hav-
t 48
ing no desires, this body of mine is thus one circle of Heaven's Pattern."
"Pattern" is the term LL 5-% , which to this point in our discussion has
been translated as "Principle," following the generally accepted rendering
for philosophical contexts. As we shall see in chapter III, however,
Lai Chih-te held that li_ refers to a pattern of behavior discemable in
the individual and collective histories of phenomena, inanimate and ani
mate, and that all discrete patterns conform to one archetypal Pattern.
Herein, then, we shall distinguish Lai's use of the term by translating
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58
li as "Pattern," where for other thinkers the word "Principle"' will be re
tained.
In saying that Chou Tun-i understood the word "unity," Lai refers to
IChou's own note to his "Explanation of the Graph of the Great Ultimate" line,
I
u 49
I"One takes quiescence Cching
) as master in establishing his Ultimate.
!Chou glossed, "Having no desire, thus there is quiescence."v 50 The refer;ence to Chou Tun-i reminds us that Lai’s early intellectual departure
1was occasioned by meditation upon the "Graph of the Great Ultimate." AdaptIing a Taoist yogic diagram to serve Neo-Confucian ontological needs, Chou
demonstrated in the "Graph" and its "Explanation" that phenomenal existence
is contingent upon the two possibilities of movement (tmg.^3) and repose,
,or "quiescence." These two are respectively yang and yin, and together
:t'iey completely describe the "Great Ultimate."51 As Lai understood the
"Graph," the Great intimate itself had no form (hsing
), and it was he-
cause "Master Chou feared people would take the Great Ultimate to be a
thing with form"™ that he employed the term "Absolute Nil (wu-chi
)"
*. 52
as a corrective.
In Chou's "Explanation," movement and repose are further expressed as
the Five Phases: Wood (mu
(shui 7jt), and Earth
), Fire (huo
), Metal (chin
), Water
These Phases are also termed ch^ ^
,a
vrord having a range of meanings that will be explored in chapter III, but
which in Lai’s reading of the following context would approximate "state
of energy." Chou's "Explanation" continues, "The five ch'i are compliantly
x 53'
distributed, and the four seasons pass in phase.
The first concrete metaphor for the Great Ultimate, then, is the yearly
round, and this association maintained its primacy in Lai’s thinking also.
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Lai came to view the Circle by which Master Chou represented the Great Ulj timate as an image of the Pattern running a course that was cyclical lilce
the year's. The same model is valid for any and all phenomena, man inclu| ded, and thus it forms the foundation of behavioral adaptation. That is,
as in our example the year passes through seasons expressive of its Pattern
i
with no evidence of egoism, so man should enact his personal Pattern with
! no "desires" that reflect egoism.
Lai took it for granted that man has to work for the natural conformi
ty to the Pattern that less conscious beings exhibit, and this work--kungfu
°r X A — that is, discipline, is a matter to be learned and
taught.
It was his conviction that the Five Classics and the Four Books
(ssu-shu © -J ), the Great Learning (Ta-hsUeh
the Mean fChung-yung ^
), the Doctrine of
) , the Analects of Confucius (Lm-^U
), and
the Mencius (M e n g - t z u defined the process of education, while the
images of men like King Wen, the Duke of Chou, Confucius, and Confucius'
disciple Yen Hui were examples of such education in actual practice.
Lai perceived application of Confucian discipline in Yen Hui's content
ment in spite of straitened personal circumstances.54 Chou Tun-i had also
seen in that favorite disciple the reflection of a correct assessment, of the
human condition and the mental resources to deal with it. Chou wrote,
"He perceived the great and forgot about the small. As he perceived the
great, his mind was at peace; his mind being at peace, nothing seemed in
sufficient. As nothing seemed insufficient, wealth and high estate, poverty
and low estate were taken as one. Taking all as one, he was able to go
through transformations with equanimity. Thus Master Yen was a Second
Sage."y 55 Lai did not cite the foregoing, but translating it as we have
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60
in the light of Lai's ideas, taking "one" as referring back to "the great"
with reference to the whole of existence, and with "taking all as one" as
descriptive of Yen Hui's equanimity,55 we can see the similarity which Lai
felt to exist between himself and Chou Tun-i in their appreciation of Yen
Hui.
Identification of the Pattern structuring the external reality of
which his own life was one part caused Lai to seek for himself the "equani
mity" of Yen Hui. The process of identification, begun seme twenty years
earlier in meditation upon the "Graph of the Great Ultimate" now in 1585
combined with his sense of righteous discipline tested in the privations
of mourning and the enforced poverty of his estate. The precipitate was
what he called his "central idea (ta t'ou-nao
)>" the idea that
unity with the Pattern is equivalent to the lack of egoistic desires. From
this "central idea" all his later ideas would proceed by deduction.
In common with other Confucians whose curriculum of study singled out
the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean for special attention, Lai
focused on the term ke-wu as an encapsulation of methodology for personal
discipline. We have already noted that Lai diverged from the Ch'eng-Chu
interpretation of ke-wu, but the term had long been one with shifting va
lences in Chinese intellectual history; its interpretations followed the
contour traced by changes over the decades in the philosophical evaluation
of external phenomena. 57
The earliest surviving gloss, and the one that was predominant until
the Great Learning was removed from the Record of Ritual and treated as
a separate work by Chu Hsi, is Cheng Hslian's: "Ke means 'to come (laijjt)'; wu
is like 'occurrence (shih
).' When one's understanding is steeped in
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the good, one thereby causes good occurrences to come. When his understand
ing is steeped in evil, one thereby causes evil occurrences to come.
That
z 58
| is to say, occurrences are contingent upon what people want to have come."
This interpretation, wherein "understand (chih
)" means "to understand
in what good and evil, propitiousness and adversity have their beginnings
qq
and endings,"
CQ
suggests that after attaining a correct understanding of
| the external situation, one could influence the moral character of the occur]
! rences that came his way.
If he knew what was "good," he would identify with
| it and ensure continued auspiciousness. Such a proposal is directed at
|
! man's mental ability to improve his material environment.
Chu Hsi. also took the "knowledge" of "extension of knowledge (chih-chih
i
) to refer to understanding, but for him it was the abstract knowledge of what was essential to each occurrence and thing. The essential
in everything constituted Principle. The distinction between Chu's sense
of Principle and Lai Chih-te’s Pattern is here worth noting, for although
both interpretations identify li with the structure of phenomenal being,
Chu Hsi believed knowledge of that structure was obtained by each aspirant
through a process of comparison and consolidation, with successively closer
comparisons based on already accumulated knowledge until a singular break
through took place. Chu wrote: "In regard to all things under Heaven,
there is none but that on the basis of its already understood Principle
cannot be even further exhausted in order to seek so far as its Ultimate.
This goes on until one has thus expended himself for a long while, and one
morning when there is a clearing-up he puts it all together. Thus there
is no aspect of the numerous things--inside and outside, fine and gross-that is not attainable, and none of the great uses of my mind's entire sub-
■
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stance is not illuminated."a^
The promise of the last sentence is com
plete intellectual understanding, including its potential for application
in one’s life. Here wu encompasses "occurrences and things (shih wu ^ M ) )
|and ke is the process of exhausting (ch’iung ^ ) their dynamic processes
and inherent structures until a consistent theme is discovered,
i
i
"Occurrences and things" oriented Chu Hsi toward material phenomena as
!the objects of investigation, but when his beliefs concerning Principle as
;he communicated them to his disciples are examined, we find an incipient ten
|dency to isolate Principle as something transcendent, wholly other. This
may be seen in the metaphysics of the relationship between Principle and
ch'i, where, try as he would to resist labeling the fonner as a priori and
!the latter as a posteriori, he consented to a certain "first-cause" quality
for Principle.
His belief that Humanity constituted a metaphysical
ground approachable in quiet-sitting
further supports the appearance that
Principle was for Chu Hsi a thing existing on a separate plane from tan
gible phenomena.
Because of its abstract nature, Chu Hsi nowhere attempted
a description of Principle, leaving that to experiential verification in
individual praxis.
In contrast, Lai Chih-te’s description of Pattern is
set forth at the beginning of his methodology, as will be seen. Attainment
of "understanding" of the Pattern forms the basis of his teaching rather
than the culminating enlightenment. Therefore, ke-wu as "curbing material
desires" became the discipline that one undertook in the light of his under
standing of the Pattern and not a program for attaining such understanding.
W. T. Chan notes a slight shift in emphasis from the Ch’eng I and Chu
Hsi use of ke-wu in the thought of Hslieh Hsllanje^
, 1389-1464),
a scholar important for his influence on Ming Confucianism in general and
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on Lai Chih-te in particular.
Lai had picked up the Notes on Reading (Tu-
shu l u i f f l f c ) by Hslleh Hslian during Lai's first year in the capital.
Chou Wen j$ j J(. , a friend whcse brief note an Lai is contained in the Col- lected Works of Lai Ch'U-t'ang (Lai Ch'U-t'ang hsien-sheng chi
%.
), suggests that Lai's decision to leave Peking for the final time
was related to Hslieh's ideas.^ Huang Ju-heng^7^[ ^
^
> 1588-1626)
also states that upon reading Hslieh's recorded sayings Lai experienced an
opening of his understanding.^
Lai's actions--his literal enactment of the words, "I wish to emulate
Confucius," and his precise fulfillment of the mourning requirements, for
example--and his emphasis on paring away material desires suggest the af
finity between himself and Hsiieh Hslian. Hslleh was celebrated for the Confucian fastidiousness that brought him into conflict with the eunuch Wang
Chen ;£
^
a quality reflected in the sober morality of his Notes on
Reading, where the primary message is unflagging vigilance against the aris
ing of perverse thoughts.
Although in the matter of ke-wu Hslleh echoed the Ch'eng-Chu sense of
what "things" were proper subjects for "investigation," i.e., books, the
handling of human affairs, particular phenomena like trees and blades of
grass, Chan feels that in Hslieh's thinking, "the intellectual element has
become subordinate" to moral practice, reversing the emphasis in Chu Hsi's
reading of the Great Learning.
Likewise, Jung Chao-tsu distinguishes
Hsiieh from the earlier Ming Confucians by showing him to have narrowed
the field of concern from "broad study (po-hslleh "f^
)" to "personal
application (kung-hsing
)" of the canon which had been definitively
69
interpreted by Ch'eng I and Chu Hsi.
Jung Chao-tsu
held that the
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64
Ch'eng-Chu line had maintained its original char''_^er through the early
Ming, as demonstrated in the writings of Sung Lien^ - '/% ( %
1381) and Wang I £ 1$ ( ? t u
, 1321-1373).
, 1310-
In the thinking of those
two gentlemen, ’’broad study” remained, as it had been for their spiritual
ancestors in the Sung and Yllan Dynasties, the basis of personal develop| ment.69a "Broad study’ for Sung Lien and Wang I meant extensive investi! gation of natural phenomena and human actions along with the Classics and
I other books, and it was therefore a methodology in the spirit of ke-wu as
Chu Hsi had defined it. Hslleh Hslian, on the other hand, was known for his
implementation of the moral implications of Principle in conformity with
the guidelines found in the Great Compendium of the Nature and Principle
(Hsing U ta-ch’lian
)» a compilation of Sung Dynasty School of
Principle quotations required for the examinations. Hslleh hand-copied
that volume in its entirety,70 an act symbolic of his obedience to the
Sung Masters and of the focus upon discipline in the philosophical system
he inherited from them.
Chan continues his analysis of Hslleh Hslian with a second "slight shift":
"It is no longer just the intelligent mind going out to discover principles
but the principles embodied in the mind going out to form a union with
the principles in things.”71 This concept proceeds logically from the iden
tification by Ch’eng I and Chu Hsi of the personal Nature (hsing
) with
Principle, which led Hsiieh to state, "Under Heaven there is no thing that
is outside the Nature, and there is nowhere that the Nature is not pre
sent."ac 7^ The Nature, equivalent with Principle in all things, thus forms
a connection between the self and other things so that one can, in the final
analysis, know the essence of those other things by extension of his self-
■
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65
knowledge. To Hslleh an example of this fact lay in the conduct of human
relationships. The passage just cited continues: "Lord and official,
father and son, husband and wife, elder and younger, and friends are all
things; the Principle of human interrelations is immediate to the Nature."
Whereas in the thinking of Hsiieh Hslian the externality of "things
(wu)" remained the same as in the philosophy of Chu Hsi, in Wang Yang-ming's
interpretation of ke-wu both of the fine discriminations attributed to Hslleh
by W. T. Chan, which discriminations, while made within the context of
Ch'eng-Chu methodology, tended to shift the arena of action toward internal,
personal thought processes, became dominant. With Wang the wu of te-wu
lost any external referent. Wang’s was a School of Mind in which "the Mind
is Principle. Thus in his explanations of diih-chih and ke-wu he could not
but say they meant ’extend Heaven's Principle that is in my Mind to each
occurrence and each thing.’ If [with Cnu Hsi] one reads 'conscious know
ledge (chih-shih
jfe )’ for 'knowledge (duh&* m chih-duh ^
)» he
will [in Wang's opinion] float lightly and be insubstantial. Thus one must
take vigorous application as his discipline.
3.6 74
Wang Yang-ming feared that there was in the Ch’eng-Chu concept of
Principle a tendency to separate the internal from the external, as if
the Mind and Principle were somehow two different things. This criticism
no doubt springs from Wang’s own inability to master the Ch’eng-Chu formula
I
for "investigation of things," at least.as it was transmitted in his day.
1
Wang’s absurd effort to investigate the Principle of bamboo over seven ex-
I
hausting days7^ bears witness to his failure in respect to the Sung School
I
of Principle methodology and also suggests that his earliest conception of
I
Principle, based on the same system, made it a transcendent yet somehow
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tangible property of the bamboo. Thereafter, he turned the search away
from external objects and years later was suddenly enlightened as to the
unity of Mind and Principle, with the implication that Mind is complete in
itself and capable of spontaneously structuring personal behavior in the
proper manner when it is not impeded by selfishness.
7f\
In Chu Hsi's ke-wu, one located Principle in the structure of exter
nal events and objects; in Wang's sense, Principle was identified with the
Mind due to the fact that the Mind contained an "innate knowledge of the
good (liang-chih)," which knew immediately the correct course of respon
sive action. Wang's corollary stipulated that unless manifest in action,
whereby judgement of unity with Principle might be made, one's thoughts
were of no consequence. Thus "the word 'extend ( c h i h )* in 'extend
[the Mind's Principle] to occurrences and things (chih-chih yU shih wu
^ )1 is the same as the word 'enact (hsing^ ). ",a^ 77 Right
behavior here is coextensive with proper behavior--abstract thought served
no practical purpose.
In this way the possibility of anything "wholly other" was removed
along with metaphysics in general, but the same lack of external referent
made Wang's system vulnerable to abuse. The' fixed parameters of behavior
which the Sung philosophers had abstracted from nature at large were abolished
in the transformation of Principle, and Wang's followers became divided
in their understanding of his teachings even before he died. Wang's per
sonal passage beyond Sung metaphysics could not erase the vestiges of the
"wholly other" in Principle, as that quality was ingested from the com
mentaries of Chu Hsi, from the minds of Wang's followers, however. This was
illustrated in the "Debate at T'ien-ch'lian Bridge" between Wang Chi ;£
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1
I
|
i
;■($ ^
67
, 1498-1583) and Ch'ien Te-hung4|
fA’^ (;£^ , 1436-1574), which
1
jrevealed a split between those disciples over the issue of whether the
I
joriginal substance of Mind was beyond good and evil.
I
i
I
i
|contentions that begged metaphysical direction. Without clear definition
I
Iin such matters, later adherents tended to split Wang's sense of unity
I
j
y o
In this, a school lacking metaphysical apparatus became embroiled in
|into two applications of the same methodology bom of the reinterpretation
|of ke-wu, leaning either toward "action," as in the case of Ho Hsin-yin^^
(
i
.
( i . e . ^
e
.
,
g
» 1517-1579),79 or "knowledge," as with Li Chih^^f
, 1527-1602).80
It was in this context of a developing metaphysical and methodologi
cal plurality that Lai Chih-te formed his interpretation of the Great Learn
:
ing. While Lai, like Chu Hsi, sought the consistent structural theme of
phenomenal existence, Lai's discovery was that the period of any and all
phenomena could be described on one circular template. Thus where Chu
Hsi's sense of Principle remained beyond the possibility of verbalization,
Lai was able to chart his own understanding of Id visually and discuss it
in words as well, as he did in the collection of graphics entitled "Work
ing with the Round (Nung-yUan jf. Igj )."8^ As suggested earlier, replacing
the indefinable quality of li with a description of a unified Pattern under
lying the behavior of all phenomena allowed concentration upon the impli
cations of recognition of that Pattern for human behavior in particular.
In keeping with his intention to divert attention from elusive abstractions
to a concrete methodology for integrating one's own conduct and the Pattern,
Lai shifted the directive of ke-wu from the purpose of establishing the
existence of li that it seemed to carry in the Ch'eng-Chu approach to a
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mode of discipline that already assumed its existence and understood what
its existence required of man.
In the Ming ju hsUeh-an
, Huang Tsung-hsi wrote of Lai:
"The gentleman’s thought differed from that of Master Ch'eng and of Wang Yangming in two fundamental respects. He maintained that the wu of ke-wu was the
wu in ’material desires (wu-yti
' He took these three sentences to
be as one sentence: ’After material desires are curbed (ke-wu), knowledge
82
83
comes,'
’The vanquishing of self through return to Ritual is Humanity,'
and 'In nourishing the Mind there is nothing better than making few the
84
desires.'
Why did he do so? [Because he took] 'material,' 'self,' and
'desires' all to mean egoistic selfishness, and 'curbing,' 'vanquishing,'
and 'making few' as all referring to getting rid of egoistic selfish„ag
ness."
6 85
Lai's sense of 'material desires' is the same as that in Chu Hsi's
gloss of Mencius 13:21, a passage that was important in forming Lai's image
of human perfection.
There Chu Hsi wrote that the ideal state was one
in which "the allotment of ch'i is pure and bright without any involvement
in material desires.
^
An antecedent for interpreting the Great Learn
ing's wu as "material desires" may be found in Ssu-ma Kuang's «J ^
( ^ § * , 1019-1086) reading of ke-wu: "'Ke' is like 'resist (h a n )' or
'guard against (yUi|T).' If one can guard himself against exterior things,
o*? QO
thereafter he can extend his knowledge to the tao."
Lai Chih-te nowhere alludes to Ssu-ma Kuang as an influence upon his
own ideas, but, as Huang Tsung-hsi points out, interest in the relation
ship between "things" and "desires" was not unprecedented elsewhere in Chi
nese thought. Such a distinction had been drawn in the Doctrine of the
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69
Mean and by Confucius and was later expressed by Han Ylif^
(jj^ ^
,
768-824) and Chou Tun-i, "But whereas Confucius was concerned with the
temptations posed by external things, [Lai] was concerned with egoistic
desires. Although there is a slight difference, there are no egoistic de-
ai 89
sires which do not follow from the temptations posed by external things." J
Lai, of course, believed that he was in full agreement with Confu
cius, the Doctrine of the Mean, and, at least on this point, with Chou
Tun-i. As Huang Tsung-hsi's analysis suggests, however, there is a slight
difference in emphasis located in Lai's focus upon tendencies internal to
the mind, a difference that Huang's assertion that all egoistic desires
follow from temptations of external origin does not entirely cancel. With
Lai, external objects indeed set up the internal state of desire, but as
|
will be seen in his discussion of the "three great desires (san ta yU JcL
A ffis)," the overt object of desire in any particular instance is of less
consequence than the fact of desire itself. Depending upon his degree of
education, one's desires will direct him toward various objects, but in
fact the latent condition of desire impels to three generalized categories:
sex (se (&, ), possessions (huo ^
), and power (yung ^ ).^ These de
sires are powerful as a distracting force whether the stimulus is to pos
sess, say, one ounce of gold or a thousand. Thus it is the generalized
tendency of desire which must be isolated and confronted in Lai's process
of discipline.
The "slight difference" becomes more significant when it is under
stood that Lai's program of discipline aimed directly at this latent con
dition of desire rather than dealing with desires as but one aspect of an
other philosophical issue. Chou Tun-i, for example, made Sincerity (ch'eng
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70
the foundation concept. Lai's reference to lack of desires as charac
terizing "quiescence" forms part of Master Chou's approach to Sincerity,
but Chou otherwise stressed clear thinking and correct action— i.e., the
ability to discriminate between good and evil and practice accordingly--as
91
the major component of discipline.
Lai, on the other hand, believed that his direct attack upon desires,
rather than an approach somehow detoured through achieving first a state like
Sincerity, constituted the original intent of the Great Learning.
Interven
ing interpretations had strayed into abstract philosophizing, offering no
guidance to the novice: "If one only lectures on Reverence (chingffiC ),
speaks of 'knowing the substance of Humanity (shih jen-t'if ^ Jf- %%),' or
speaks of 'extending the innate knowledge of the good (chih liang-chih),'
this, I fear, is merely making explanations of some words which have never
been tested by struggles of the Mind and application of strength. After
ak 92
all, one cannot begin with this."
Instead, Lai felt that his proposed discipline of curbing the material
desires offered immediate entry: "In studying the Sages' discipline, it
is necessary to begin. The reason that no one sees fire and enters it is
that he knows fire's potential to bum.
The reason that he sees water and
does not enter it is that he knows water's potential to drown. The reason
that he sees rice, noodles, and food and must eat them is that he knows
they can nourish him. When the student studies the Sage, he must perceive
evil in the same manner as he perceives fire and water and good in the same
manner as rice, noodles, and food.
If he can do this, then Heaven's Pat
tern and human desires will be clearly discriminated. Then he can study
being a Sage.!,am ^
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This type of straightforward simplicity in Lai's approach led Huang
Tsung-hsi to criticize his methodology as "crude (ts'u^jj.)."94 Lai him
self considered "crudeness" a positive aspect of his methodology: "The
way I now teach discipline is the same way Mencius taught. Others teach
what is lofty and deep; I only teach the lowly and shallow. Others teach
the essential and the minute; I only teach the crude and the large. Others
must 'know the substance of Humanity1; I only curb the material desires of
qc
form and ch'i."
He personally and other students had been caused to
sn.
"enter late (wan chin jjf
)"96 into a correct understanding, and conse
quently into a valid adjustment to the requirements of their individual po
sitions within the whole Pattern, because of the unnecessary complexities
of existing methodologies.
Significantly, Lai's first publication, in 1586, was "Several Graphs for
Curbing Material Desires (Ke-wu chu t'u $ K$) ^ |j§) )
which offers a
step-by-step discussion of the Pattern as it structures external and in
ternal reality. This scheme, the concrete foundation upon which discipline
may begin, displays the "unity" threading through all phenomena and with
which one seeks to attain, accord.
It is tangible, in contrast to the ab
stract Principle of Sung metaphysics, and rooted in the material (ch'i j|j[,),
in contrast to Wang Yang-ming's idealism, yet it may be understood in terms
of elements of both those approaches. Maintaining the interests of the
Sung School of Principle, Lai's theory assumes a Pattern discovered in
external reality, although the act of discovery is no longer a task for
each individual, as it had been in Chu Hsi's concept.
Since the template
of the Pattern had been revealed by Lai, applied practice remained the only
important concern. To the extent that practice played a dominant role,
I
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72
Lai's methodology followed in the direction of Wang Yang-ming. Thus, as
Huang Tsing-hsi pointed out, Lai's ke-wu effectively combined the two pre
dominant interpretations: "Chu Hsi had taken the first of the steps in
this discipline; Wang Yang-ming later had taken the other step in this discipline.,,a0 98
Once "curbing material desires" has been defined as the goal of cul
tivation, the only problem that remains is sorting out the contents of
consciousness into material desires on the one hand and wholesome mental
states on the other. Generally speaking, Lai drew this as a distinction
between Morality (i ^ ) and Profit (li £•] ). The former directs action
toward the commonweal (kung
), while the latter is the egoistic tendency
to insulate the self from the whole (yu-wo-chih-szu ^ jjjt
). Moral
ity need not have a specific object--any intent not inspired by Profit
is, in this broad sense, Moral. Making a finer discrimination, Lai agreed
with the "Sung Confucians, who said, 'Every act performed with a purpose
is Profit.'. . . If acts are performed without a purpose, there is no
intention toward the selfishness that insists on 'me,' and one is a
Sage."ap 99
Acting without intentionality assumes that behavior is structured
by the understanding of the Pattern. One is moved toward Morality by
tensions in his Mind.
In the words of the Analects 7:37, "The Lordly
Man is in all expansive; the small man has many anxieties."aC* Lai told
his disciple Yang Ch'eng ^?|j
, "What makes one anxious is material
o r 100
desires."
Material desires upset one's equilibrium, as, for example,
when one's mental state may be disturbed by seeing a beautiful woman. The
desire for satisfaction creates the discomfort of anxiety. But anxiety
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is not necessary— one can become expansive if he can "get rid of that
which makes him anxious. Thus one does not seek expansiveness and is naac ini
I turally expansive."
Profit, then, is forced, an erroneous position
taken by the self in its efforts to secure what appears to satisfy its
I
material interests.
In practice, all material desires are of the three types spelled out
; in the second chapter of Mencius, where King Hslian of Ch'i (Ch'i Hsuan-wang
|^
*£ ) admits as three personal faults the love of power (yung ^
I of possessions (huo ^ ), and of sex (se_ ^ M e n c i u s responded to
each confession that each tendency in itself was shared by the Worthies of
the past as seen in certain of the Odes, but that the tendencies must be
| kept within respectable bounds. Mencius concludes all three of his demon
strations of respectable bounds with the words,
. .so long as you share
this fondness with the people, how can it interfere with your becoming a
true king?""^
The same three desires are the subject of the Analects 16:7: "Confu
cius said, 'There are three matters in which the Lordly Man exercises cau
tion: in his youth, when his blood and ch'i^ are not yet fixed, he is
cautious in regard to sex; comimg into maturity, when the blood and ch'i
are just firm, he is cautious in regard to combat (toufjfl ); coming into
old age, when his blood and ch'i have become weak, he is cautious in re
gard to acquisition (te^f ).'"at
Lai catalogued numerous types of undisciplined thoughts likely to
present themselves to consciousness, and then in summary said, "A myriad
[thoughts] arise, a myriad disappear. Though they are different one
from another, what in fact one in this manner thinks about are only love
of power, love of possessions, and love of sex--these three and no more.
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Thus the three desires--power, possessions, and sex, are the pivots of the
thousand and myriad desires, the roots of the thousand and myriad dissi
pations.
Chop the root and cut the knot. Only then can one study being
a Sage.f,au 106
As Huang Tsung-hsi established, all three of Lai's material desires
take external things as their objects.
Still, the onus of "curbing" these
desires rests within the Mind; one does not, as does the Buddhist, for
example, physically distance oneself from things, and thereby from the temp
tations they pose, by withdrawing to the monastery. Rather, he applies
discipline to resolving the distorted relationship to external objects
bom of the impulse to manipulate reality for Profit.
Lai again cites Yen
Hui as an example of the ability to curb desires in this manner.
Confucius
said of Yen, "He did not transfer his anger; he did not make the same mis
take twice."av ^
pline, the
To Lai, these two qualities formed the crux of disci
first representing the correct identification of the source of
error as lying within and the consequent non-transferrence of one's own
internal condition toan external object— another person, and the second
stating the essence of education. Lai believed that Confucius' praise for
Yen Hui, the only disciple honored as "one who loved learning (hau hslleh
reflected the fact that "Yen Hui's diligence was only for vanquishing self
(k'e chi
One's
2 *) and no other course of action."aw
sense of Ritual is
thetouchstone by which judgement
between
Morality and Profit is made. On this point Lai frequentlyappealed to
Analects 12:*]: "If it is not in accord with Ritual, do not look; if it is
not in accord with Ritual, do not listen; if it is not in accord with
Ritual, do not speak; if it is not in accord with Ritual, do not act."
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These lines, spoken to Yen Hui as an expansion of the earlier mentioned
dictum, "The vanquishing of self through return to Ritual is Humanity," point
to an objective measure by which to judge and act upon thoughts that
arise to consciousness. Developing this Ritual-oriented capacity for
judgement seems to be left more or less to the initiative of the student, how
ever. For Lai himself the process involved formulating from the Five Clas
sics and Four Books images of Confucius, Yen Hui, and others who were contri
butory to his decision to quit the examinations and withdraw to a life
of personal cultivation.
It is clear from his background as a specialist in
the field of Ritual for the examinations that Lai had a well-developed
concept of Ritual. However, the matter is not addressed specifically in
his writings, but is distributed throughout his works in critiques of
historical examples of behavior, allusions to the Classics, and the like.
109
More important to his explicit instructions was his determination of
the direction of discipline, the point of Confucius1 statement to Yen Hui
being that Humanity is the ultimate goal. Lai defined Humanity as "others
(jen J \ )
citing the twentieth chapter of the "Doctrine of the Mean,"
which makes the same equation in saying, "Humanity means 'others' (jen che
jen yeh /jc.
J\ ttL )
jen yeh^ i f L - ^ ' J \
and Mencius 14:16, which is the same (jen yeh che
this Lai disputed as a "reductionist state
ment (hsiao-tao yj^ $ _ )" ^ e generalizing tendency implicit in one of
Ch'eng I’s pronouncements on Humanity, where Ch'eng defined the term as
meaning "what is had in common (kung J/X
This statement appears in Master Ch'eng's Change Commentary in the
"Lesser Image" for RETURN (hex. 24) 6/2: "Humanity is what is had in com
mon under Heaven, the root of the good."a^
It reflects Ch'eng I's be-
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lief that Humanity and the innate Nature (hsing ffy. ) were the same thing..
|
The personal Nature being equivalent to Principle in Ch'eng's system, the
I association of Humanity and "what is had in common" follows logically if
i
Humanity is equal to the Nature.
112
To Lai, Humanity expressed instead the
! lack of egoistic desires in relation to others.
If any of the three classes
; of material desires figured in one's conscious attitude toward another,
Humanity disappeared.
In this latter sense, Humanity is the bridge be
tween the internal discipline of curbing material desires and effective ac: tion in the external world.
Effective action encompasses the second of Huang Tsung-hsi's differen
tiations in "two fundamental respects" between Lai, Ch'eng I, and Wang Yangming, their differences in interpreting the term "ming-te i3$
," also
from the opening chapter of the Great Learning. Huang wrote: "Lai said
that Bright-Virtue (ming-te) was the 'Five-fold Universal tao (wu ta tao
) •1 That from which one originates in common with others is called
tao. That which one actually has himself is called Virtue (te). In that
it is accessible to all under Heaven, it is said to be manifest (ta i^_).
In that it is evident to all under Heaven, it is said to be bright
(ming)."az 113
The term "Five-fold Universal tao" comes from the twentieth chapter of
the Doctrine of the Mean, which reads, "There are five universal tao under
bci
Heaven."
The five are enumerated as the relationship between ruler and
official, father and son, husband and wife, brothers, and friends, and the
passage ends with one of Lai's three Confucian statements on "unity": "That
by which they are put into practice is unity." That "unity," which is tao ,
in Lai's understanding, is expressed through the individual in his behavior
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when one of these five relationships is properly in operation. Lai cites
the norms for each of the types stated in the Great Learning's third, ninth,
and tenth commentary chapters and goes on to say, MThe entire Great Learn
ing is wound about these two words [ming-te]. It does not say tao, but
Virtue (te) because only when one has it in himself does he seek it in
others.,,bb 114
Lai understood his interpretation to differ from Chu Hsi's in propor
tion to the scope of Virtue. Chu Hsi’s commentary on the locus classicus
of ming-te reflects Ch’eng I’s equation of Virtue and the innate Nature in
saying: "Bright Virtue (ming-te) is what one has from Heaven and which is
vacuous, spiritual, and is not darkened.
It is that by which a whole is
made of the manifold Principles and by which one is [allowed to] respond to
the myriad occurrences. However, it is restricted by [the quality of] one’s
endowment of ch’i and obscured by human desires. Thus it is at times con
fused.
In its original substance it is bright, and thus never comes to
rest. Thus learning must proceed [on the basis of] that to which Bright
Virtue gives rise, thereafter making that which has arisen ’manifest (ming
rl
be 115
)' in order to return to the condition it had from the first."
Lai objected to this interpretation on the grounds that "if one takes
'that which one has from Heaven and which is vacuous, spiritual, and is not
darkened’ to be the Bright Virtue, then it is something not yet displayed
in actual practice.
In what way does one 'manifest5 this 'Bright virtue'
to all under Heaven?"^
The term "Bright Virtue" should refer to acts
performed rather than, as Chu Hsi seemed to have it, to the potential to
perform them; it is the result of discipline rather than something beyond
the reach of one's conscious activity.
Indeed, Lai denied that positing
I
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such an internal a priori condition was of any use in the effort to achieve
discipline. While agreeing that in man inhered the same Pattern that under
laid the rest of phenomenal existence, he believed that Pattern to be an
intangible description of the fact of cyclical regularity and not the tran
scendent object which it appeared to be in Chu Hsi's thought.
If it were,
in fact, intangible, what discipline could be performed upon it? The only
matters that could be affected by discipline were the thoughts which pre
sented themselves to consciousness; they could either be realized in action
or "curbed." Lai taught that this act of judgement performed in mindful
ness of the correct norms had its own efficacy for the performer, for it
ultimately yielded the anxiety-free Mind of the Sage.
I
Therefore he believed that Sung and previous Ming methodologies erred
in aiming discipline at an illusory object: "If it is suggested that one
should on the basis of 'knowing the substance of Humanity' or 'extension
of the innate knowledge of the good' perform daily discipline, it is not
at all intelligible."^6 ^
The "substance of Humanity (jen-t'i^ jfH )"
refers to the object of discipline first expressed by Ch'eng Hao
|[|l
, 1032-1085) and absorbed into the tenets of the School of Princi
ple. Following Chang Tsai's "Western Inscription (Hsi-ming
)," Ch'eng
Hao viewed Humanity as the absence of distinction between the self and
other phenomena. The "substance of Humanity," then, was lodged in that
lack of distinction. The "Western Inscription" makes its point by estab
lishing familial relationships between self and other: "Ch'ien^ , I
,
118
call father; k ' u n , I call mother.
And I, this trifle, am mixed
[with the rest] in the midst [of Heaven and Earth]. M l things that fill
Heaven and Earth, I am their substance (t'i); that which commands Heaven
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i
79
i and Earth, I am its Nature (hsing'flfc
Ch'eng Hao, who said that Chang Tsai had in this piece displayed the
"substance of Humanity," evolved Chang's system of relationships into an
intellectual exercise that made "knowing (shihj^ )" this Humanity the first
! step of study. The impression one gets from Ch'eng's essay "Knowing Humani
ty CShih jen p'ien
)" is that concentration upon the concept
of unity between self and other things constitutes discipline: "Attaining
knowledge of this principle, all that remains is preservation of it through
Sincerity (ching$%.) and Seriousness (c h ' e n g )--it is not necessary to
be on guard or restrictive; it is not necessary to exhaust and investi
gate."^
We have seen that Ch'eng I, carrying thisjn step farther* made
Humanity and the Nature equivalent.
Chu Hsi in two essays, "Treatise on Observing the Mind (Kuan hsin shuo
- % U ) " and "Treatise on Humanity (Jen shuo
)/'backed off some
what from Ch'eng I's stance and equated the Mind with Humanity, demonstra
ting the logical sequence of the Mind's cultivation as proceeding from "in
vestigation of things" to "exhausting" their Principles.
By this method one
attains to the common demoninator which brings the Principles of indivi
dual things together and "has the means by which to maximize the Principle
complete in [his] own Mind."^
Here it is by observing the Principles
in other things that the Principle equally present in one's own Mind is
discovered. One who accomplishes this "can know his Nature and know Heaven
because [the Mind's] substance is not obscured.
^2
In "Treatise on Humanity" Chu states, "Therefore with reference to
the character of Mind, although it embraces and penetrates all and leaves
nothing unfulfilled, nevertheless one word will cover all of it, namely
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I
80
| Humanity. "**•*
In this Chu Hsi preserved the exhaustive investigative
activity from his reading of the Great Learning, granting to the Mind
the quality of universality but insisting that some work beyond constant
awareness of Humanity was required.
In the late fifteenth century and throughout the sixteenth century, cer
tain scholars ignored Chu Hsi's warning of the need for investigating things
and exhausting Principles as the way to shore 15) the perception of unity
between self and Heaven and Earth and turned instead to something resembling
Ch'eng Hao's notion that laiowledge of Principle obviated the necessity for
study and personal vigilance.
Ch'en Hsien-chang
(£ &
, 1428-
1500) elevated Mind even beyond Principle, regarding Mind as "the active
master of the whole universe,and made quiet-sitting for mental deve
lopment the central feature of personal cultivation. The latter was intend
ed to create in the Mind a condition of "emptiness (hsll jj| )" by which
it would be prepared for action. With Ch'en, the goal of action was once
125
more stated in terms of union with the universe.
Later, Wang Yang-ming's "Inquiry on the Great Learning" would begin,
•a
"The great man regards Heaven and Earth and the myriad things as one body,"
and go on to expound his theory of "extension of the innate knowledge of
the good." The "clear character (ming-te 0^
w
$
•J
■I
)" is equivalent to Humani
ty as a property of the Mind rather than the expression of man's Nature,
as Ch'eng I and Chu Hsi had maintained. Wang said, "The clear character
127
is the character of the mind; it is humanity."
For Wang, Principle is
also contained by the Mind: "In things it is Principle; in dealing with
things it is Morality; in the Nature it is the good--because of their refer
ents, these are variously named.
In actuality they are all my Mind.
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Outside the Mind there are no things; outside the Mind there are no occur
rences; outside the Mind there is no Principle; outside the Mind there is
bk 128
no Morality; outside the Mind there is no good."
In Wang's system the discovery of Principles in things does not lead
to the recognition of the same Principle within oneself, as does the pro
cess of "investigation of things" in Chu Hsi's thought. Rather, the Mind
is regarded as the initial object of discipline, which thereafter entails
unimpeded expression of Mind's inherent ability to act correctly: "Now
the original substance of the mind is man's nature. Human nature being
universally good, the original substance of the mind is correct. . . . The
sense of right and wrong requires no deliberation to know, nor does it de
pend on learning to function. This is why it is called innate knowledge.
It is my nature endowed by Heaven, the original substance of my mind, natur129
ally intelligent, shining, clear, and understanding."
The innate knowledge of the good, when assented to, as by reflex de
cides upon the good or evil quality of thoughts that arise. Whether the
innate knowledge is allowed to be manifest in action is a function of one's
"intent (1 j§,
A "sincere (ch'engj$o)" intent has the wherewithall to
actuate the good; a "small man (hsiao-jen
of this inner resource.
/v )" remains "small" for lack
Sincerity is thus the precondition for personal
cultivation, if a precondition can be said to exist in Wang's system,
130
for it represents the intention to come to an understanding of the func
tioning of innate knowledge in actual situations.
The potential difficulties of this methodology raised by the lack of
an external referent to substantiate whether the content of Mind at any mo
ment indeed reflects the supposed innate knowledge of the good is proven
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!by the rift that developed among his disciples while Wang was yet alive.
‘The situation was further confused by the fact that in the early phases of
his teaching Wang counseled quiet-sitting for discipline of the Mind and
later switched to his mature concept of the "unity of knowledge and action
Cchih hsing ho-i
^ ■fe — )." This latter methodology set no require
ments upon the environment of discipline: "If one's innate knowledge is
clear, it will be all right either to try to obtain truth through personal
realization in a quiet place of'to discover it through training and polish
ing in the actual affairs of life."^a
It was Lai's observation that followers of Wang's theories, no less
than contemporary Ch'eng-Chu adherents, passed much of their time in what
he felt to be useless quiet-sitting, either in pursuit of the "substance
of Humanity" or to "extend their innate knowledge of the good." To Lai, this
problem of misplaced focus was a result of Buddhist elements superimposed
upon the teaching of the Confucian Sages. Lai attributed this infiltration
to Chu Hsi and ultimately to Ch'eng I. He felt that Chu had misconstrued
Chou Tun-i's central concept of "Quiescence (ching
Ch'eng I's idea of "Seriousness (ching^
)" and tied it to
)."
In this Lai was referring to Chu Hsi's sentence, "In holding to SeriousV\m
ness, have Quiescence as the master."
1
Ch'eng I's definition of Seri
ousness reads, "Having unity (i — ‘ ) as the master is called Seriousness;
. . .not [letting the Mind] go anywhere is called 'unity.'. . . At unity,
Txn 1 79
one is therefore not at two or three."
Seriousness, then, meant con
centration, the state in which the Mind was not divided— "at two or three"—
in its purpose, not going after a second thing when occupied with one
(•
thing. This state Ch'eng further described as "emptiness (hsll m
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"Emptiness means perversion cannot enter."*50
Expressly to discrimi
nate it from Buddhist-style quiescence, Ch'eng made Seriousness the pro
duct of "orderliness and gravity (cheng-ch'i yen-su
)>" insist
ing that a Confucian must be involved with actual events where a Buddhist
avoided actuality. Despite protestations that "empty Quiescence (hsli-ching)"
alone was not interchangeable with Seriousness, however, he approved of
1 *7 A
quiet-sitting as a method for cultivating Seriousness."
One had to begin
his study in Quiescence and therein perceive unity before he could proceed. 135
Lai took Ch'eng I to task on all points.
Seriousness was a function of the
In the first place, to Lai,
RitualNature (li-hsing),one of five
subdivisions he attributed tothe innate Nature as we shall see shortly.
Therefore, Seriousness was a behavioral mode that spontaneously arises at
the necessary moment: "[Neither Ch'eng I or Chu Hsi] understood in the least
that Seriousness is Heaven's Pattern, the Ritual [function] of my Nature
which on occasion arises and has not one shred of the egoism of human desires."bP 136
Because Seriousness is a spontaneous product of the Nature, it cannot
be developed in quiet-sitting. Quiet-sitting, the enforced composure of
the Mind in which one's thoughts are constrained from activity--"have no
movement (wu shih ^ jyfl )" or"do not go east, do not go west (pu chih tung
pu chih hsi f
jL
)," in the terminology of the School of Jrin137
ciple-- was inadequate because the Mind's proper application is in the an
alysis of situations and the determination of the correct course of action.
Thus Ch'eng I had been more Buddhist than Confucian in his understanding
of Seriousness and in his method of attaining Seriousness through Quies
I
cence. Lai quotes Ch'eng I as having said, "The Buddhists make them-
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selves Serious by straightening up what is inside; thus they have it
[right]
138
Lai protested that Seriousness was not a mental state found in moments
of inaction, not "sitting all day in meditation doing nothing and instead
Ivy*
1 *ZQ
seeking after some vacuous [quality of e x i s t e n c e ] R a t h e r than at
testing to identify the non-substantiality of existence— the Buddhist
"vacuousness (k'ung^E )" or sunyata: "The Seriousness of us Confucians
is to seek the substantiality of each matter one by one. As, for exanple,
when one enters the ancestral temple* he is not Serious just for the occasion
but is inherently Serious. This is a Seriousness toward spirits, not a
vacuous Seriousness. Or, for example, when one sees a great man or a ruler,
he is not Serious just for the occasion but is inherently Serious. This is
Seriousness toward the great man or ruler, not a vacuous Seriousness.
Seri
ousness in the time of quiet is the fear that the present thought has the
I
slightest selfishness of human desire.
It is not vacuous Seriousness.
Seriousness in the time of action is fearing the present activity has the
slightest selfishness of human desire.
It is not a vacuous Seriousness.
This is what is meant by saying 'the substantiality of each matter one by
one."ks
To Lai, then, a Confucian could only develop the response of
Seriousness in the context of concrete situations, and "the time of quiet"
was but one of the range of activities calling forth such a response.
Chu Hsi had carried Ch'eng I's errors a s' o further when he linked
Seriousness to Quiescence. Alluding to Chu Hsi's statement, 'The Mind is
the master of the body; it is one thing and not two.
It is the master and
not a guest; it commands things and is not commanded by things,"
Lai
wrote that Chu Hsi in so saying "wanted people to fix their Minds in Qui-
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;escence so that [the Mind] would spontaneously become the Governor (chu-tsai
| £ ii f ).
i
[In this] he misunderstood Master Chou’s term ’Quiescence.’ He
had seen Master Ch'eng saying, 'When one is Serious, he spontaneously ex
periences empty Quiescence, though one cannot exchange the words "empty
Quiescence" for Seriousness.' Because there was this saying, [Chu Hsi] had
entirely failed to understand that Master Chou's original gloss on his ['Ex
planation of the Graph of the Great Ultimate'] line, 'One takes Quiescence
as master in establishing his ultimate,' consisted of the words, 'Having no
desires, therefore there is Quiescence. "'^11 ^
It seemed to Lai that Chu Hsi had been drawn back to the "emptiness" in
Ch'eng I's sense of Seriousness, which quality coincided with the "emptiness"
he posited for the internal condition in his gloss of ming-te. He had ig
nored Chou Tun-i's clear statement that "having no desires" constituted
Quiescence. The latter, of course, is consistent with Lai's own theory of
"curbing material desires," and calls to mind the passage cited earlier in
which Lai says that only Chou Tun-i had understood Confucius' "unity." As
Lai read Chou's "Explanation," that unity of Mind which Chu Hsi hoped to
achieve through Quiescence, Chou Tun-i would have one establish through
direct confrontation with the desires.
In their semantics both Ch'eng I and Chu Hsi set up Quiescence as a
state apart from other activities, a condition of vacuousness in which one
was illogically, it seemed to Lai, required to perform the specific task
of concentration in line with Ch'eng I's caveat regarding the necessity
of perceiving "unity." Lai believed that there is literally nothing to
be perceived in emptiness, and that Quiescence was not separate from action
V*.
but a condition of diminished action in which one performed the same disci-
.'jf
|$8
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!pline as he performed when overtly active, that is, guarding against the
:encroachment of human desires upon the Mind’s field of consciousness. Thus
i
quiet-sitting in Lai’s methodology had only the adjunct role of rest when
. . 143
tired.
For these reasons, Lai believed the correct definition of Seriousness
to be the "caution and apprehension (chieh-shen
and k'tmg-chU^ff
)
of the Doctrine of the Mean’s opening chapter:. "The Lordly man is cautious
j
* -u
tibv 144
over what he does not see and apprehensive over what he does not hear.
Lai wrote,. "At bottom the word 'Seriousness' is the discipline of caution
and apprehension."bw 145 In this way the two aspects of Seriousness, "the
Mind's wary, constant conscious awareness and vigilance"bx and "the Mind's
respectful orderliness and gravity,"by are combined: "Both are forms of
I d z 146
eliminating human desires and preserving Heaven's Pattern.'
If the effort to "know the substance of Humanity" in the School of
Principle posited an illusory object, "extension of the innate knowledge of
the good," as championed by Wang Yang-ming, dwelt exclusively in illusion.
Lai attacked the fallacy in Wang's approach by returning to the locus classicus of the term liang-chih&jg: "Mencius said, 'That which people know
without conscious thought is innate knowledge of the good.’147 Since he
said it is known without conscious thought, then the 'ignorant husband and
wife (fu-fu chih yU
^ t ^ O '148 can 'know' by virtue of [the innate
knowledge of the good] and without conscious thought-the ordinary fellow,
too, and by no conscious thought; the Worthy, too, and by no conscious
thought; the Sage, too, and by no conscious thought. Today when [Wang Yangming] says to 'extend' the innate knowledge of the good, in the word 'extend'
there is discipline, and thus knowing, by means of conscious thought.
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87
"Innate knowledge of the good is something that I certainly have in
my original constitution— it is only because material desires obscure and
constrain it that the innate knowledge of the good cannot emerge to sensi
bility. Thus the Sages first taught people to curb material desires.
If
one curbs and casts out the material desires, the innate knowledge of the
c 3.149
good will spontaneously emerge to sensibility."
The contradiction in Wang Yang-ming fs approach of applying conscious
discipline to something that is by definition unconscious and beyond effort
is analogous to the futile quest for the "substance of Humanity." The two
enterprises are also alike in that they commence at a level of abstraction
leaving the would-be practitioner with no place to begin his practice.
Description of the Mind
To clarify the goals of his own methodology, Lai evolved a descrip
tion of the Mind and its components. Because of the confusion he perceived
surrounding the innate Nature, he placed great emphasis on its structure and
functions. Though intangible and not an object for discipline, the Nature
nevertheless provided the basis for discipline.
In his "Several Graphs for
Curbing Material Desires" of 1586 Lai conceived of the Nature as a general
term for the unconscious realm of the Mind, which manifests itself to con
sciousness in five distinct forms. These he termed the Five Natures (wuhsing ^
) and detailed them as Humanity (jen/jc. ), Morality (i
Ritual (lirf'fi ), Wisdom (chih % ), and Faith (hsin^j. ) . ^
),
At any parti
cular time or in response to any particular stimulus, one of these five
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!
I
! would be dominant.
88
Indeed, they are "seasons" of the Mind, corresponding
in Lai*s graphic depiction of the Great Ultimate to the Five Phases of chli:
"The Five Natures have their root in the Five Phases. Man is the Mind of
Heaven and Earth, the conjunction of yin and yang., the intersection of ghost
and spirit.^
Thus the Natures of the Five Phases all inhere within the
., c
,,cb 152
human body’s material form.
The correspondence between the Natures and the Phases imparts to the Na
tures all the metaphorical associates belonging to the Five Phases.
In the
case of Humanity, for example, although explicitly cautioned by Lai that
the separation of the five into discrete members must be regarded as an in
tellectual abstraction having no possibility in fact, nevertheless
can
say for instruction’s sake that "Humanity is of the type Wood. Wood is be
gotten (sheng/jL )153 “ spring. Wood is its form; spring is its ch^;
|
S
Humanity is its Spirit (shen^ V ,CC 154 Likewise, the remaining Natures
155
are each the "Spirit" of its corresponding Phase.
1
Lai's sense of the Nature as a five-fold entity no doubt derives from
1
Chou Tun-i's "Explanation of the Graph of the Great Ultimate," where in
the chain of being yang and yin are seen to produce masculine and feminine,
1
1
if
which thence stimulate one another to beget the myriad things: "The myriad
I
haustible. Only man receives in this the best part and is the most sensi-
J
tive. His form having been begotten, Spirit gives rise to intelligence,
ij
The Five Natures respond to stimuli, and good and evil are discrdmina-
|
ted."cd 156 Commenting on the foregoing, Wu K’ang said, "’Five Natures’
things beget and beget, and modulations and transfoimations are them mex-
seems to refer to the Five Constants (wu-ch’ang ^ % )— Humanity, Morali!\
ty, Ritual, Wisdom, and Faith, that to which the "Li-yto. (ft3 1 » chapter
1I
nine of the Record of Ritual)" referred as 'the best part of the ch|_i of
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i the Five Phases.,,,ce ^
\
That connotation informed the sense of the innate Nature found in Chu
jHsi’s gloss of the term h s i n ^ i n the first passage of the Doctime of the
Mean: "In the lives of men and things, because each receives the Principle
it is given, that by which they activate and comply with the Virtues (te^t)
of the Five Constants is that which is called the Nature.
The Five
Constants refer in Chu Hsi's usage to the same Five Natures employed by
Lai. In general, however, Chu Hsi tended to speak of the Nature as four
fold: "Nature is the general designation for Principle. Humanity, Morality,
Ritual, and Wisdom are each designations for one Principle within': the Na,.cg 159
ture.’1 6
Faith, whose addition completes the Five Constants, Chu explained as
the force mitigating active realization of the other four, a synonym for
Sincerity, and not a separate distinction within the Nature.160 He, too,
described his four in terms of temporal rounds, thereby drawing attention
■as
to the fact that they were four phases of one ch’i period rather than four
separate t:
sjs. He drew upon the analogy with the seasons of the year,
where Humanity is spring, summer is Ritual, fall is Morality, and winter is
Wisdom.161 He also
-tructed a metaphor comparing the four with the di
urnal cycle: "They are like the space of a day: the morning period when
Heaven’s ch^ is clear and bright is Humanity; noontime, the time when it
is hottest, is Ritual; the evening, when it gradually cools, is Morality;
and midnight, the time when all is gathered in and there is no trace of
these concrete forms, is Wisdom."ch 162 Chu noted that Wisdom, unlike the
other three, had no overt applied use, being only that which has cognizance
of the others’ applied uses.
163
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T
90
Lai's idea that the various Natures are the Spirits of the Five
Phases likely issues from Cheng HsUan's commentary on the Record of Rites
test of the Doctrine of the Mean. Cheng there glosses "What Heaven ordains
is called the Nature"01 with: "'Heaven ordains' denotes that which Heaven
ordains in the begetting of man— this is called the Nature and what is or
dained. The Spirit }f Wood is thus Humanity; the Spirit of Metal is thus
Morality; the Spirit of Fire is thus Ritual; the Spirit of Water is thus
Faith; the Spirit of Earth is thus Wisdom."0^ ^
We have seen how Lai
adopted this Spirit-Phase relationship in the case of Humanity. Like Cheng
he associated Ritual with Fire and Morality with Metal.^
However, he
chose to allign himself with Chu Hsi in regard to Wisdom, which he made the
Spirit of Water instead of Cheng's Spirit of Earth.
Lai, too, preferred the
metaphorical qualities of winter for Wisdom--winter's in-gathered non
activity as descriptive of Wisdom's pure knowing in contrast to the dis
tinct activities associated with the other seasons. This "knowing" made
Wisdom equivalent to the innate knowledge of the good: "It is that which,
when arisen [to consciousness] is the Mind [that discriminates] right from
wrong.„ck 166
Placing Wisdom in winter, associated with the yin tendency of ch'i,
suited Lai's perception of this aspect of the Mind, a perception formed in
the context of School of Principle theories and in reaction against Wang
Yang-ming's elevation of innate knowledge of the good to primacy.
By
showing Wisdom to be but one of the several functions of the Mind, Lai
suggested a more balanced perspective and allowed for the classically difined checks of Morality and Ritual to restrain the possibilities of liber
tinism which grew out of Wang's concept of innate knowledge.
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I
Although he reversed the locations of Wisdom and Faith from Cheng
i
!Hsllan's arrangement, however, Lai maintained Cheng's implication of five dis
tinct Spirits within the Nature.
Faith is one of the five and may be
idescribed in the same manner as the others: "Faith is of the type Earth.
:Earth threads through the midst of the [other] four.'|Cm ^
Earth is the
center and forms the setting, as it were, for the other four Phases, but
it is itself a Phase. Faith "arises" when external conditions call for
it, typically in the relationship between friends.
•j
Chu Hsi had associ
ated Faith with Sincerity and made it descriptive of the entelechy of the
others: "Faith is that which Sincerely realizes these four."011
For
Lai, Faith performs in man the same direct actualization of the Pattern
that Sincerity performs in the world at large, actualization characterized
as being pure, undiluted by any deviation.
Faith is not Sincerity per se,
but a particular instance of Sincerity.
Lai's "Several Graphs" contains a circular form with Faith in the cen
ter, Humanity at the point corresponding to the east, Ritual in the 'outh,
Morality in the west, and Wisdom in the north.
Like the Five Phases in the
cosmography that would inform his later Change study, the Five Natures are
all the one Pattern: "The Five Natures are in the human body thoroughly
blended in one Pattern."00
They are equivalent to the Pattern, and
the Mind partakes of both the unconscious Natures and the emotions (ch'ing
^
), which are the sensible expressions of the Natures.
Because of its
emotional content, "The Mind of man has [the possibility of] going out and
coming in, being preserved and being lost. The Nature has no going out and
coming in, no being preserved and lost."0*3 ^
To emphasize that he was speaking of internal realities and not meta
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92
physical abstractions, Lai couched his explanation in medical terminology,
jLooking again at the example of Humanity, we find Lai wrote: "Humanity
i
is my Nature.
In their Natures, the myriad things are of one origin.
Thus Humanity mites the myriad things into one body. Since they are one
;body, the physicians say that when one's body is paralyzed it is ’not Hu
mane (pu-jen 7^ If- ).»"ccl
In this same vein, the Mind must be construed
as a medical as well as a psychological reality. The following passage exam
ines the relationship between the Mind and the physiological heart, two
denotations of the same character, hsinVG': "The Mind is Governor of the
173
body. In terms of ch'i, the Mind is of the type Fire.
Its circulatory
vessels permeate the five organs and the hundred bones, thus making it
the body's master.
Because it belongs to Fire and Fire is an incendiary
thing, it therefore goes out and comes in without regularity, and one cancr 174
not know its native.location."
Despite its lack of a specific residence, the Mind exhibits the three
constituents of all material phenomena--form (hsing
"The Mind has form, has ch'i, has Spirit.
), ch'i, and Spirit:
Its form is the Mind's [or heart's]
[physiological] substance; its ch'i is the inhalation and exhalation of the
breath; its Spirit is the Nature, adhering to the Mind's Pattern of Humanr<; 1 7 ^
ity, Morality, Ritual, Wisdom, and Faith."
In this format, desires are functions of form and ch'i.176 They are
expressions of tendencies in the Nature which could be in harmony with the
Pattern of Heaven, as indeed they are in the Sage quite automatically, were
they not fouled and transformed to evil by undisciplined form and ch'i. Sex
ual arousal, for example, is a feeling as common to the Sage as to other
men. Sexual energies channeled by the ritual of marriage can be in con-
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! formity with the Pattern, but the rampaging sexual drive that sends one
| "leaping over the wall of the neighbor family to the east"ct is typical of
177
debauched desires.
As Lai implies in his essay "Meaning of Words in the Discipline of
Entering Sagehood," what separates the Sage and the common man is the will
(chih % ) to curb the desires which are manifest to consciousness with un
wholesome identities. The ease or difficulty with which this is accomplished
is he admits, a matter of one's composition: "Because people's ch^ compo„ ..cii 178
nents are different, the direction of the wills are not the same.
Some are oriented toward tao and Virtue (te #.), some toward achievement
and fame, and there are some who cannot'"establish their wills (li-chih
£
at all.179
This difference set up readily distinguishable types of men on a con
tinuum from beasts and fowl, with whom man as one of the myriad things
shared the "three desires," to the Sage.
In beasts and fowl can be observed
the direct, unconscious realization of the three desires. The family
rooster, for example, when it sees food tries to eat it, when its spring
time passion (ch'un-ch'ing & ^
)" is aroused, it mates, and when it
comes across another rooster, it fights. Barbarians, who look like Chinese
but lack the benefits of books and learning, are much like animals in their
behavior, as are criminals. The common man and scholars differ in degree
of enslavement to the desires, but the latter still hire prostitutes to
vent their sexual energies, struggle for fame in response to their desire
for power, and so forth. The Worthy, like the average scholar, feels the
various urges arise but has become master of his equilibrium. Persisting in
the will that carried him thus far, the Worthy attains Sagehood.
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180
94
In the Sage the "three great desires" are entirely disciplined—
"the dregs have been thoroughly transformed.,,cv
!
Lai believed that
pursuit of the discipline he proposed led to a thoroughly integrated condition in which the Mind was no longer at odds with itself, in which the
;conscious Mind no longer assented to the misguided egoistic tendencies
i
'against which other men must constantly be on guard. Yet the Sage remains
|a man, different from other men only in his self-clarification: "How could
it be that the Sage has not the Mind of a man? It is only that the Sage’s
Morality is refined and his Humanity is ripe. Although he has the Mind of
■a man, he can 'follow what the Mind desires without overstepping the right.'
The Mind of a man is [in the Sage] the Mind of tao.',cw ^
182
In the case of
the common man, the Nature— his personal Pattern— is dominated by his form,
184
but in the Sage, Pattern is dominant.
Lai made a special note of Sakyamuni Buddha as a "Western Saw; (hsifang sheng-jen tS
«
J.*]£ "Sfe l
i*fjl
^
n
A
)," a "Sage of another order (i-tuan sheng-jen
perceiving in Gautama the fulfillment of self-conquest.
ioc
Buddhist self-conquest, however, failed to make any discrimination between
mental contents that were wholesome and natural and those unwholesome
desires that led to dissipation, cutting off all alike and destroying
the possibility of positive action. While they hoped to identify themselves
with emptiness, if the Buddhists achieved anything at all in performing
their meditations, it was restricted to the physical benefits derived
from their sitting posture.
In this their discipline could be classed with
that of the Taoists, whose actual intention was physical benefit.
Buddhist
and Taoist discipline was performed only upon the ch'i: "Discipline per
formed upon the ch'i is the quest to become an immortal and the desire for
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long life, the quest for Buddhahood and the desire for neither life nor
annihilation.,,cx
This attempt Lai perceived as being as illusory as "grasping the moon
in the water (shui-chung cho-yiteh 7 ^ ^
3." 311(1 the n0tl0n that
one could achieve either goal flew in the face of physical reality. His
study of the cyclical nature of phenomenal existence had convinced him that
"long life is something that is definitely not possible.
By the same
token, the Buddhist concept of emptiness ignored the fact that "non-being
does not end in non-being but must proceed to being. Being does not end
, . „cz 188
in being but must proceed to non-being.
The cycles of existence precluded transmigration as well: "I know the
theory of reincamtion to be untrue. Ch'eng I was absolutely right in saying
that ch’i which has already contracted cannot return to become extended
ch'i."da d®9 From Lai's understanding of physical structure, ch'i is but
one thing passing eternally through the same general phases, and it is
always newly composed when taking form as the various phenomena. When a
thing decomposes, its chli returns to the unformed condition characterized
as "non-being," and the original object has lost its distinguishing char
acteristics. Thus Lai found no support for the notion that a new thing
should inherit by reincarnation any characteristic from a previous form.
If Buddhists and Taoists were oriented toward ch'i in their pursuits,
the common man was lost in the vagaries of form, caring only for material
well-being and attempting to structure his physical surroundings to maxi
mize his pleasure. This is "discipline performed upon form (hsin^-snan^
yung kung-fu
J
b
.J^JsOAh" 311(1 s
h
e
e
rf
o
lly
>
£
o
r”
w
h
a
tb
l
o
s
s
o
m
s
mt
h
e
morning falls in the evening."db 190 Again, cyclical necessity made a
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96
mockery of any attempt to circumvent the reality of perishability.
By contrast, correct Confucian discipline is "discipline performed upon
Spirit (shen-shang yung kung-fu ^ 7
V)1^
>" upon the third component
of the Mind. Once one has denied the existence of a transcendent internal
plane, such as the "substance of Humanity," the Neo-Confucian discipline as
practiced in Lai's day was, like Buddhist and Taoist yoga, subject to the
■
criticism that it could only benefit the ch'i regardless of its stated pur
pose. Lai's methodology began with an explanation of the internal condition
intuited from the Pattern of his cosmography. The Five Natures were assumed
to have existence because man, one of the myriad phenomena, could be ob
jectified and cognized in terms of what he had in common with other phenome
na. From the Five Phases observable in external processes, Lai had inferred
that the human infrastructure was likewise pentanumerous, and he verified
this inference through his reading of the Classics. Being an expression of
Pattern himself, man could neither directly perceive nor affect the Pattern
within. As they are thoroughly blended in one Pattern, no "original sub
stance (pen-t’i
)" of the Five Natures can be identified. One can
only know their functions, and thus one can only perform his discipline
upon their functions.
Realizing the functions of the five-fold Nature is the task of the
Spirit component of the Mind. Conscious of the Nature's functions, the Spi
rit
can choose to act harmoniously with those functions, in which case
one’s overt deeds embody the spontaneously correct directives of the Five
Natures, or to act contrary to them and fall into perversion.
In fact,
however, the latter possibility is only hypothetical, since the abdication
of the Mind’s Spirit to the desires of form and ch'i binds it to fate with-
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out the benefit of consciousness. Discipline performed on the Spirit has
as its intention the clarification of the Spirit's function, and its proper
function is to fulfill without resistance the archetypal essence of each
of the Five Natures as they are activated in response to the situations
one encounters. Form and ch'i respond to external stimuli in the moods
which they create for consciousness, thereby establishing an environment
conducive to the appearance of four types of mental states: "That to which
form and ch'i give rise to the outside [i.e., to the perception of the Spir
it] are no more than joy (hsi || ), anger (nuj^ ), grief (ai ^ ), and
happiness
3."^C
These are the four mental states treated by the Doctrine of the Mean
in its opening chapter: "[The state of mind in which] joy, anger, grief,
and happiness have not yet arisen is called centered (chung
); [the state
in which] they arise and are all restrained by the center is called har
mony (ho -^Q )
Controlled by these moods, the common man tends to allow
the material desires free reign and thereby remains for the most part uncon
scious. The Sage objectifies the same tendencies that result in desires in
the common man and channels his actions through the Five Constants, which
are the Five Natures in actual practice. Thus that role of Governor which
can make the Spirit in man equivalent to the Pattern is fulfilled.
A thing's form is the shape its component ch'i takes in accord with
its particular Pattern. Form, then, is the figure (hsiang %_) o f ch'i, or
ch'i figure (ch'i hsiang
). Because of its regularity, the relation
ship of ch'i and Pattern may be described numerically. To man, as to all
things, form and ch'i are givens: "Having this form and ch'i, there is this
figure and number. There being this figure and number, even Heaven and
1
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Earth cannot escape it. How much more, then, man? From the moment of his
birth, man already has this form and ch'i and has as a fixed number his
death and life, whatever wealth, and high estate, poverty and low estate
are his, his progress or stoppage, his drinking and eating--ali are his
de 192
fixed number.'-'
The figure of form and the numerical regularity of
ch'i fulfill the Decree of Heaven (t'ien-ming
193
not be disobeyed.
^
)> a command that can-
A crucial fact to be noted here is that Pattern and ch'i cannot be
separated.
In this regard, Lai differentiated his own physical description
from that implicit in the writings of the Sung Neo-Confucians, and herein
also lies the essence of his methodology. He wrote, "The Nature cannot be
, separated from form and ch'i."^
When the Sage enacts the Governor
role upon thoughts which arise from the unconscious realm of form and ch'i,
he behaves in exactly the same manner as the Pattern behaves in relation
ship to form and ch'i in each particular instance and in general. Pat
tern is not superior to formal structures, nor is it subject to them.
Rather, the two depend 15)on one another for the establishment and con
tinuity of existence. Pattern is Governor insofar as it controls itself
|
from having any egoism, and this allows the whole process of existence to
be "governed" along the route of development that is its tao. If Pattern
had any personal material desires, the whole of existence would be pervert-
J-3
s
p
195
ed.‘
Knowing his Spirit to be the Heaven-decreed Pattern, the Sage con
sents to the course of events that envelops him and steers his personal
|f
course in compliance with his particular numerical necessity. Never drawn
by material desires into rebellion against the tao, he is unified with Heaven
1
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and Earth and at peace. This is the -’discipline of contentment with Hea
ven fle-t'ien kung-fu
K 3*A
)" to which Lai felt Confucius had re
ferred in saying, "What thought, what concern [need there be] under Hea
ven?"^® ^
The condition of the internal mental situation is like that of
the external context. The former is intangible, beyond man’s sensory ap
paratus; the latter is too complex, too expansive to be controlled by human
designs. Thus all of man’s concerns are for naught— one’s number determines
his context, add he is Sage who finds satisfaction in his lot. This is
what Lai called "satisfaction with one's number (an shuffijf^
and he
wrote that whether in wealth or poverty, placed among barbarians or in difi ,,dh.197
ficulties, "I can only be satisfied with the number, nothing else. •
Lai alludes here to the Doctrine of the Mean, chapter fourteen, where
the Lordly man (chttn-tzu) is seen to function correctly in whatever of the
aforementioned four contexts he is placed. The same chapter shows the Lord
ly man "residing in ease to await the Decree; the small man undertakes ad
ventures in quest of luck."dl Lai incorporated this idea into his descrip
tion of the Sage: "The Sage, because of the Pattern which Heaven decrees
to me [and all things], is complete in his life and complete in his return;
thus he fulfills the Mind. He uses understanding of his own Nature to
understand Heaven, preserves his Mind and nourishes his Nature to serve
Heaven. And in regard to my form and ch'i, [this means] only 'not trans
ferring anger,
whether life is long or short, but cultivating self in
di 199
order to await [Heaven's decree]."
Lai estimated that only one person in a hundred was able to attain,
through "knowledge gained of agony and forced practice (k'm-chih mien-hsin^
12 k a M ’ fa ) , ” 200 the Worthy's ability to sort out the pure from the im-
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I
100
I
| pure contents of the Mind. Even fewer reach the Sage's condition, in which
!
i
201
"the dregs are completely transformed"
and one calmly awaits the unfold
ing of his fate. Lai conceived of the approach to Sagehood as a threestep process, beginning with awakening of ambition toward the goal and fol: lowed by a period of "broad study and investigative questions (po-hsUeh fanwen
^ fof )" coupled with praxis. "Joy (le ^
)" is the third step
and entails the coalescence of knowledge and experience.
202
Progress toward joy is quick in the case of someone who is, in the words
of the Doctrine of the Mean cited by Lai, "bom with knowledge and who puts
203
[his knowledge] into practice easily;
with a teacher to instruct him
three to five years, he can be led to understanding."^ 20^ For the Mean's
other type, he whose learning comes only with agony and who is forced in
his practice, "He must accumulate [learning] over the days and months for
twenty or thirty years. Having grasped it for a long while, one morning
it congeals and he knows this joy.',dm 288 Joy, then, is "the completion
of study, where the hands dance and the feet leap, and without being con
scious of it, all is tao. . . . Tao is I, and I am tao.ndn 28d Thus one
indicator of Sagehood is this sense of "joy": "If one has not reached the
point of joy, he is still separated from the study of the Sage by a
space."do 207
Another indicator of the advent of Sagehood is one's demeanor, as
stated in a paraphrase of Mencius 13:21: "Through the discipline performed
upon the Spirit, that which is the Lordly man's Nature is rooted in the
Mind, comes forth in his appearance, shines in his face, exudes from his
back, extends through the four limbs. The four limbs do not speak, yet
display their meaning. Yao, Shun, the Duke of Chou, Confucius, and Mencius
were such."dp 208
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Lai had sequestered himself at Ch'iu-hsi to study the Change, but in
the foregoing we have found that the first fruits of his work were out
growths of the Four Books. Lai's 1585 conclusions concerning "unity,"
ke-wu, and ming-te evidence elaborate cross-reference amongst the Four
Books, cataloguing instances of usage for terms like Humanity, for which
209
he details six shades of meaning discernible in the four basic works,
and
thereby marshaling an evidentially-supported argument for countering the
abstract interiority of current Neo-Confucianism in favor of the simple
praxis he believed Confucius and Mencius to have advocated. From the Great
Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean he extracted a concrete discipline
tested against the terminology of both.
In summary, the "curbing" of "mate
rial desires" in the ke-wu of the former was the "caution and apprehension"
of the Mean. Thus "The central discipline of the Great Learning teaches us
ke-wu. Ke-wu means to curb and rid ourselves of material desires and there
by seek this unity. The central discipline of the Doctrine of the Mean
teaches us to be cautious and apprehensive in order to guard against mate
rial desires and thereby seek this unity.
^
"Unity," the unified Pattern which describes both the internal and the
external condition, was discovered by Lai in the various pronouncements
of Confucius filtered through a physics bom of Chou Tun-i's Neo-Confucian
cosmology. The five-fold Nature, the Pattern of man's constitution, when
undiluted by material desires confers the potential to behave in precise har
mony with one's "number," his fate. The Spirit, or Governor, performs the
task of keeping behavior on course. Measuring the images arising to con
sciousness against its own sense of Ritual lodged in the Nature, the Spirit
can curb any material desires it finds present and then enact the image in
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102
a proper form. This is what the Great Learning calls "manifesting the Bright
Virtue (ming ming-te t2$)
!{0O," for example in the Five Relationships by
!
! which one locates his actions in society.
It is because both levels of five, the internal Natures and the external
|
! Relationships, are analogues of the Five Phases perceptible in the flow
of ch'i through phenomenal forms that this discipline was outlined in the
Classics. The parallels prove that the unified Pattern is operative in man
and that man's course may be expected to follow the Pattern's predictable
phases. The Spirit maintains organization according to the Pattern be
cause it is in man analogous to the Spirit components that structure all
non-conscious phenomena, each according to its individual course, and the
continuum of the whole according to its grand course of development.
It is apparent that man's unique consciousness must be surrendered to
Spirit if egoism is to be averted. Therefore, one begins his discipline by
attending to the Spirit and curbing the other tendencies of consciousness-those desires for sex, possessions, and power which are misreadings, attri
butable to lack of training, of the messages provided consciousness from
the Nature.
It is not necessary to grasp at that time the intricacies
of Nature and Pattern, but to concentrate on the imagery of Ritual embedded
in all the Classics in order to prepare the ground for the promised frui
tion of joy.
Absorption in the Change
The coalescence of Lai's "central idea" in 1585 led to the publication
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in 1586 of his ’’Several Graphs for Curbing Material Desires” and formed
the background for his work with the Classic of Change. He was attracted
to the Images of the Change as concrete artifacts, phenomena which he be
lieved must, like other phenomena, reveal the five-fold Pattern in their
composition. Yet he found no guidance toward so analyzing the Images in
the existing commentaries, particularly those of Ch'eng I and Chu Hsi that
had been established as the texts for use in the examinations. Lai’s dis
ciple Yang Ch'eng wrote: ”He worked on annotating the Change at Ch'iu-hsi
for ten years. Master Chu's Recorded Conversations (YU-lu f%%$l ) stated
that the Images in the Classic of Change had lost the transmission [of ex
planation] , and therefore in annotating the Change he had only commented
on the meaning of each hexagram and had not attempted to deal with the Images.
Because of this, [Lai] said, 'The Change cannot be taken as a definitive
outline (tien-yao ^
If in the Change Images had not been set up,
it would have been better not to write the Change. If in commenting on
the Change one does not know the Images, it would have been better not to
comment on the Change.' Thereafter in quiet-sitting at Mt. Hua he came to
realize the Pattern in the Images. Fallen ill, he returned to Ch'iu-hsi and
for several tens of nights did not sleep until his understanding of the
Images emerged.”
In the matter of the Images of the Change, then, Lai found a problem
that paralleled the methodological confusion he discerned surrounding kewu and ming-te. This time, however, the matter in question was not confined
to the intangibles of mental processes, but revolved around written material
with commentaries from the hand of Confucius in the "Ten Wings." From
Yang's description it would seem that Lai threw all his mental and physical
I
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resources into unraveling the problems posed by the Images, problems which
I Chu Hsi had abandoned to obscurity. By his own admission, Chu Hsi had
| turned his attention to the concepts that could be abstracted from the Images
i
I rather than to the Images themselves. After great mental ferment and, in| terestingly, application of the quiet-sitting technique that he would even-
|
| tually discourage, he emerged in 1587 with an understanding of the Pattern
expressed in the Change that confirmed his conclusions of the preceeding
two years regarding the relationship between internal and external reality:
"After seventeen years
[from 1570, the beginning of hisconcentrated study],
I apprehended the four.
Sages’ [Fu-hsi, King Wen, the Duke of Chou, and Confu
cius] Images in the Classic of Change.,|C*S
; sequent illuminations on the Inverse (tsung
That realization and the sub) and Antipode (ts'o^it )
hexagrams and then upon the fallacy of Chu Hsi's Hexagram Modulation theory,
214
each of which followed its predecessor after a space of"several years,"
form the main subject of our study and are discussed atlength below.
In the context of Lai’s intellectual development, these later phases
of his work may be seen as outgrowths of his conviction that the Pattern in
man, as in Heaven arid Earth, operates autonomously, presenting to conscious
ness the correct mode of behavior in response to each external stimulus.
The verbal Images of the Change, the words Lai supposed that King Wen had
appended to the hexagrams and the Duke of Chou to each line, are likewise
conceived as autonomous products of the two Sage Minds, arising in response
to the stimuli of the visual linear complexes. Because the sixty-four hex
agrams are a numerical whole, exhausting all possible permutations of solid
and broken lines, they form a complete image of all phenomenal possibili
ties.
In the words of the ninth chapter of the "Attached Verbalizations"
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Wing, "All possible occurrences under Heaven are completed,"^ when the
eight trigrams are combined into sixty-four hexagrams.
To Lai this meant that implicit within the lines and hexagrams lay the
; Pattern of correct behavioral adaptation to the realities of propitiousness
215
and adversity stated in their texts.
King Wen had studied the hexagrams,
! and his Mind had reacted to them to form in each case verbal Images des; criptive of the "possible occurrence” latent therein.
This process, which
the Duke of Chou had extended to each line, was entirely spontaneous, based
; on appearance and mental response, as was King Wen's act of placing the
: hexagrams in their present order. Lai emphasizes repeatedly that there was
no conscious design involved in this process, and, as Lai stated in his
i
theory of mental discipline, such spontaneity is characteristic of the Sage.
After he decided that the Images of Change represented the autonomous
products of the Sages' Minds, Lai regarded the Classic as a laboratory for
testing his mathematical theory of the unified Pattern as well as his theories
C
of discipline forged from the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean.
He believed that due to the character of the Images' descriptive task, re
quiring flexibility to adapt to the spatial and temporal locations of all
"possible occurrences," the Images were made abstract— none of them can be
7 1 f\
thought of as having a concrete referent.
Nevertheless, when they are
gotten in divination, each becomes relevant to concrete situations, and their
qualitative and metaphorical judgements become accurate reflections of the
moment of divination.
The series of sixty-four hexagrams delineates the complete cycle of
Pattern, still visualized by Lai primarily as a circle, after Chou Tun-i's
model. Each individual hexagram, then, is a phase of the Pattern, a finer
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106
distinction in the fashion of the five-fold distinctions applied to phe: nomenal existence and the innate Nature. The hexagrams and lines represent
a middle ground between mental processes and external reality, the reaction
| of the Sage Mind, direct and unimpeded by material desires, to each possible
! type of occurrence. The words of Wen and Chou, then, display adaptive
thought processes which may be translated into successful action. Their
I guidelines indicate action always unified with the Pattern, and to Lai such
unity entailed the sacrifice of ego to the good of the commonweal.
Such was the implication of the first several words of the text of
the Classic of Change: "THE VIGOROUS. Greatly accessible; advantage in
Rightness.,,du This is the text attributed to King Wen for the first hex; agram, ch’ienf e , W > composed of six firm (kangIjaQl) , i.e., unbroken or
yang) lines. In the Lai gloss, "greatly accessible
)" re
fers to "the basis of Heaven’s tao, which is number"-dvthe assunption of
a mathematically regular, recurring Pattern. "Advantage in Rightness (li
chen£‘)I)" refers to "what is appropriate in human conduct, which is the
|
Pattern."dw 2^2 One can act successfully in this phase of THE VIGOROUS,
|
where the numerical structure shows no impediments against progress, if
]
he negotiates specific concrete occurrences with Rightness.
|
Right, Lai says, "if even slightly he entertains the egoism of human desires,
I
that which is appropriate in human activity is abandoned. How, then, can
I
,
]
j
....... .n,,dx 218
he enjoy ’great accessibility'?"
|
j
If one is not
Here Lai’s concept of discipline appears for him at the outset of the
Change, where he believed King Wen in four words "taught us the importance
of 'turning to oneself (fan-shen&
.
for 'self-cultivation and self-
criticism (hsiu-hsing^t $ ). ",dy 220 We are reminded immediately of Yen
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Hui, who "never transferred his anger" but practiced "curbing self and
return to Ritual." Too, we are instructed that the Change does not intend
to point out ways in which one can manipulate external situations to his
own advantage but in which to transform the direction of one’s action into
behavior unified with the patterned structure of reality. Fault never lies
in the environment but in oneself, where material desires distort his per
ceptions. By learning to conceive of external situations in King Wen's
terms, one’s conscious state is brought to a perception of that Pattern,
which otherwise remains unconscious and unapproachable.
Unity in the Change vocabulary is concentrated in the term Rightness
(chen
). The last of Lai's three referents for "Confucius' word ’unity’"
was, it will be remembered, the "Attached Verbalizations" comment, "Propitic-usness and adversity are in Rightness conquered. The tao of Heaven
and Earth is in Rightness made perceivable. The tao of sun and moon are
in Rightness illumined. The movement of all under Heaven and Earth is in
Rightness made unified."^2 ^
ness (cheng
Lai wrote: "'Rightness' means 'correct
).’ That everywhere in the Sages’ Classic of Change there
is advantage in correctness is the correlation made between tao and Morali
ty on the one hand and disaster a i blessing (huo fu^ ^ j ) on the other.
That is why it is a Sage book. The occultists (shu-chia Jfffi *^.) speak only
of disaster and blessing and do not correlate them to tao and Morality.
222
From their viewpoint, 'using underhanded methods to bag game’
is called
223
propitiousness, while 'attaining to what is correct though dying*
is
called adversity.
Ching Fang and Kuo P'uffVjjl.
> d. ca. 320 A.D.)
were of this persuasion.
"'Victory' is the 'victory' of ’victory and defeat.’ This says that
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only in Rightness is there victory, regardless of propitiousness or adverI sity. For example, wealth and high estate may be called propitious, but
!
i 'if one does not deserve them'224 and is not cautious in his wealth and
Ihigh estate, then propitiousness becomes adversity. Poverty and low es! tate may be called adverse, but 'if one does not deserve them* and is able
I to be content in poverty and low estate, then adversity becomes propi„ea 225
tiousness."
Lai follows with examples from the Analects, with Yang Huo22^^^repre
senting the man who knew not how to deal with wealth, and Yen Hui and Tzussu \ &
as men who were content in poverty.
"All these," Lai continues,
"'allowing oneself to be killed to fulfill Humanity,'22^ 'sacrificing life
22 R
in favor of Morality,’
over one’s head,'
22Q
and 'wading out excessively far and getting in
have the meaning 'Rightness conquers.'
'Perceivable'
means 'the Images [of Heaven, i.e., celestial phenomena] are hung out in
I™
order to be perceivable to men,'
'Tao' is the correct Pattern of Heaven
and Earth, sun and moon; it is the Great Ultimate,
no desires.'
’Unity' means 'having
When one has no desires, he is correct. When Confucius fol
lowed in the line of Yao and Shun, he followed in the line of their con
centrated unity (ching- i ^ — )."eD 2"^
In Lai's understanding, Rightness unites man's behavior with the pat
terned tao visible in the regularity of the heavenly bodies, metonyms for
natural processes in general. "Propitiousness and adversity," the mantic
judgements which King Wen and the Duke of Chou pronounced for hexagrams and
lines, refer to the fluctuations of Pattern as they are perceived in human
affairs. These fluctuations are as predictable as the fluctuations in the
yearly course of the sun and the lunar phases and must be negotiated with
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I
109
the fact of their numerical necessity in mind. The person who. is "Right,"
because he lacks egoism, will do the best thing with respect to the whole
in any given situation. Knowing the numerical nature of Pattern, one can
wait out adverse trends in the cycle confident of an eventual upswing. And
|even if the anticipated positive turn fails to materialize in his lifetime,
Ihe can at least be sure that he, like Yen Hui and Tzu-ssu, negotiated an
|entirely adverse time in Sagely style, that he has thus "conquered." The
!joy of the Sage is undiminished by adverse external conditions.
The Change teaches this disciplined consciousness in one of its most
frequent admonitions: "Advantage in Rightness." Lai’s gloss for Rightness
is "without desires," which may be taken to mean "unified with the Pattern,"
here as in the previously cited discussion of Chou Tun-i's use of the term
with reference to "Quiescence." The passage's concluding allusion to the
Classic of History describes this unity in terms of Shun's instructions
to YU, where the abdicating ruler compares the "Mind of tao (t^-hsm^Ar)"
I
|
I
with the "Mind of man (jen-hsin K J^ " )"■ "The Mind of man is only pre_
ec
cipitous; the Mind of tao is only subtle, only essential, only unified."
232
The "Mind of man," according to Chu Hsi's gloss of the passage, indi-
!
cates the contents of Mind "which arise from form and ch^,,"e while the
j
"Mind of tao" is "that which arises from Morality and Principle."
Both of these "Minds" present their contents to consciousness, but the former
]
is "easily egoistic and oriented toward the commonweal with difficulty,
j
and thus [it is called] 'precipitous,",e£ where the "Mind of tao" is "dif-
1
ficult to manifest and easily obscured, thus [it is called] 'subtle.'
\
one can only 'concentrate5 in order to observe [the Mind of tao] and not
8
|
3
^
tfS© 233
If
allow himself to become distracted by the egoism of form and ch^L, if he can
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be unified with it in order to hold to it and be pure in respect to the
correctness of Morality and Principle, then the Mind of tao will always
I
eg ?34
be master, and the Mind of man will heed its decrees.'* 6
i
Based on Chu Hsi's description of the Mind recounted earlier, it would
appear that this connotation of "concentrated unity" is precisely the one
| that Lai intended in making his allusion to the Classic of History. It
summarizes the difference between the moral, Confucian Change and the
Change usage of the "occultists," who in Lai's thinking applied their learn
ing only for Profit. While the occultists understood something of the struc
ture of the Change's imagery and its application to temporal occurrences,
they were not inclined to adhere to Change's moral directives but to seize
upon apparently advantageous situations heedless of potentially dangerous
implications.
Kuo P'u ultimately lost his life when a prognostication of
adversity angered Wang Tun
fic.
» d. ca. 322 A.D.), illustrating
the precariousness of this style of Change usage.
When, on the other hand, one concentrates on the unity implicit in
Wen's and Chou's construction of Images, when the ramifications of any situ
ation are understood with reference to that unity, then the long-range mean
ing of propitiousness and adversity are communicated to the Mind and deci
sions are made with a total perspective intelligible to conscious and uncon
scious processes at once. What the Classic of History calls the "Mind of
tao," then, is equivalent to the Spirit in Lai's description of the Mind,
since both have the capacity to constrain form and ch'i. Again it is when
this "Governor" function is in control of mental activity that one is a
Sage.
It was Confucius, himself a Sage, who first analyzed King Wen's and the
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Duke of Chou’s spontaneous verbalizations of the linear constructs and ex
tracted structural principles lying within their work. The ’’Ten Wings,”
i which Lai counted anew as 1) the "Materia (T’uan
)" for THE VIGOROUS (hex.
1) and THE COMPLIANT (hex. 2); 2) the "materia” for the remaining hexagrams;
3) the "Greater Image (Ta hsiang £
& )" commentary; 4) the "Lesser Image
commentary; 5) "Comment on the Words (Wen yen ^ % )>
6) the "Former Commentary on the Attached Verbalizations (Shang hsi-tz'u
chuan Ji
)"> 7) the "Latter Commentary on the Attached Verbaliza
tions (Hsia hsi-tz'u chuan
(Shuo-kua
{§ )"; 8) "Discussion of the Trigrams
9) "Procession of the Hexagrams (HsU kua
10) the "Scrambled Hexagrams (Tsa kua^4J* )»"
£]- )"; and
discussed the meaning of
the texts' diction to be sure, but they also revealed organizational pat
terns of which even King Wen and the Duke of Chou had not been conscious
while in the process of putting the Classic together. As the "Materia" Wing
and the two "Images" Wings suggested, each word of every passage had a
rationale linked to the linear complex, its internal structure and its re
lationship with other hexagrams. Outstanding among such interrelationships
were Inversion (tsungi^ ), by which all but eight hexagrams were placed in
pairs, and Antipodalism (ts'o^sa )» or linear opposition, by which those
eight non-inverse hexagrams were paired.
Confucius had communicated the
discovery of Inversion and Antipodalism, Lai believed, in the ninth and
tenth "Wings."
The emergence in Lai’s thought of the Inverse and Antipodal relation
ships as fundamental structural principles in the arrangement of the Change
came several years after the initial understanding of the Images,236 pre
sumably in or around 1590.
It marks the maturation of his physics as well
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I
112
as a turning point in his Change study. As we shall see in chapter III,
Antipodalism and Inversion in the Change had their respective analogues
in the concepts of displacement .by opposition (tui-tai
through phases (liu-hsing
) and flow
) that Lai made the inseparable elements
of phenomenal existence. The former is the impetus for continuity--that
attraction seen in the sexual feelings of male and female which, when con
summated, extends the chain of begetting. "Flow through phases" describes
the patterned continuum of existence, flowing through its recurrent sea
sons or phases. The sexual analogy may be traced to. Chou Tun-i's "Expla
nation of the Graph of the Great Ultimate," where "The tao of ch'ieng1^, forms
the masculine; the tao of k'un
forms the feminine. The two ch’i stimu
late one another and beget by transformation (hua-sheng
things."
u
*7 7 7
) the myriad
When Lai discovered that the texts of the Change reflected
the formative influence of the Inverse and Antipode relationships, thereby
verifying that the relationships were more than just a way of arranging the
hexagrams and were rather facets of the integrated typology of the Classic,
the significance of sexual attraction as a motivating force crystallized into
a Change exegesis that was at the same time a description of physical re
ality.
To anticipate briefly the discussion of it which ensues in chapter III,
Lai's discovery was that each pair of hexagrams in the Change1s fixed order
constitutes a sub-cycle of ch'i information.
Because in series the hex238
agrams describe the Pattern of ch'i from a macrocosmic perspective,
the
total effect is a complete model of that Pattern.
The model provided by
the linear complexes and their order is verified by the diction of the hex
agram and line texts.
I
Consistent motifs in the latter point to structural
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113
origins in the pairs of hexagrams related by Inversion or Antipodalism.
These two relationships, however, represent only one level of interre
lationship, and consolidation of his discovery opened to Lai other lines
0f affinity, trigram analysis and line modulation being the most frequently
cited. "Trigram analysis" deals with the implications of any hexagram’s
uppeT and lower trigrams as units of meaning, and "line modulation" addresses
the new situation presented by the change of any individual line to its
opposite. Lai finally schematized the entire range of his Image findings
in his "Dispelling Confusion in the Study of the Change's Sixty-four Hex
agrams (I-hsUeh liu-shih-ssu kua ch’i-men^
® & & ifc )»" f m ~
ished in 15972^ and published with all editions of his commentary. This
work, devoted solely to the linear complexes, depicts each hexagram, its
Antipode, Inverse, nuclear trigrams, upper and lower trigrams, and the hex
agrams to which the original hexagram changes when any one line modulates.
Some of the preceding distinctions are again applied to the products of
linear modulation, indicating the Inverse, Antipode and nuclear trigrams
in the new situation. Other categories draw attention to similarity, if
applicable, between the overall shape of a hexagram and one of the trigrams,
and to the number of dominant lines.
240
241
The aim of Lai’s "Dispelling Confusion" is to focus first on these as
pects of the linear complexes before proceeding to discussion of the texts.
With this background, discussion of the texts could be founded upon correct
assumptions.
In his preface to "Dispelling Confusions" Lai wrote that the
Change had perished after Confucius died "because its Images lost the trans
mission [of explanation]. Thus I place [explanation of non-verbal] Images
first."ei 242 Recalling Chu Hsi's admission of inability to understand the
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■Images that had inspired Lai's own long retreat of more than twenty years,
SLai felt that he had solved the problem through study of the "Ten Wings"
j
and now could present the data in outline form as a prepatory device. Again,
;as in his methodology for self-cultivation, he sought to lay bare at the
!outset the seemingly esoteric aspects of the Change, dispelling the confuision bom of ignorance that led in the case of the Change to misinterpreta
tion as it gave rise in discipline to bewildering abstractions.
With his own concept of the Change clarified, Lai turned jto a cri
tique of other commentary work, especially of Chu Hsi's ideas, prevalent as
they were by being part of the examination syllabus.
In general, Chu Hsi's
hesitant Image glosses were piecemeal and ad hoc, in Lai's opinion.
Chu was
thoroughly mistaken, however, in the notion that certain hexagrams were re
lated to others by modulation in the system fabricated by the third century
scholar YU Fan and resurrected in the Sung by Li Chih-ts'ai^
h
Z. ,
Shao Yung's teacher) before being modified and incorporated into Master Chu's
commentary. The refutation of Hexagram Modulation theory, a subject examined
in chapter III of the present study, was the last of Lai's illuminations
regarding the Change and became the symbol for his break with past commen
tary systems.
It came at the expense of several more years of struggle,
243
perhaps in 1594.
This means that only in his seventies did Lai free
himself from the mental shackles imposed by Chu Hsi and finally consolidate
his personal interpretation.
The symbolism of his attack on Chu Hsi redounds in Lai's selection of
titles for his culminating works. Master Chu had expanded his own theories
of Image and Number in a collection entitled Dispelling Confusion in the
Study of the Change (I-hsUeh ch'i-meng
.1
.J
N
). Lai adopted the word
ing of Chu's title for bis 1597 schematization, seemingly to underscore
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115
i
the difference between their two approaches. Lai’s demonstration of a sys-
!tematic approach promising to elicit from his readers the capacity to see
|for themselves the subtle infrastructure underlying the Change’s verbal
i
IImages is in sharp contrast to Chu Hsi’s work. The latter is written in
the characteristic question-and-answer style which simulates a dialogue be
tween teacher and student.
It is a desultory mode permitting attention to
specific matters without requiring that strict logical connections exist be
tween topics. Ranging over Shao Yung's number theory, Hexagram Modulation
concepts, and divination practice, Chu added details to issues raised in
his commentary proper, but came no nearer than in his commentary to achiev
ing a unified understanding of the function of these aspects that could offer
consistent explanations for the choice of diction in Change texts. We can
surmise that Lai appropriated the title to imply that the confusions he
found everywhere in Chu Hsi's Change study were now finally "dispelled."
In 1599 Lai completed his Chou Change: Compiled Commentaries (Chou-i
chi-chu jo[ so.#-
), once more taking a title that alluded to Chu Hsi.
Chu's Change commentary had been titled Fundamental Meaning of Chou Change,
but other of his commentaries, those on the Four Books, the Classic of Odes,
and the Classic of History, went under the name "Compiled Commentaries (chichu%-Vt or;£ ) . ^
By thus titling his own work, Lai was in effect placing
a definitive Change commentary in the gap left by Chu's imperfect Fundamen
tal Meaning.
Lai was undoubtedly conscious of this ambiguity in nomenclature, but
explained his choice thus: "If [in the commentaries of the hundreds of Confucians on the Change] there was anything among their discourses on Princi
ple that did not offend the Classic, although it was but a word or half a
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116
a
-; 245
sentence, I felt compelled to select and compile it."WJ
His purpose,
he said, had been to rework the Great Compendium of Chou Change used for the
examinations, "selecting and casting out things therein and supplementing
this with my several years' discoveries on Image and Number in order to
make a book specifically for these Ming times."e^ ^
The Great Compendium , which Lai claimed to be re-editing, was also a
compilation, but one whose process of selection was guided by a narrow in
terest in Moral Principle as expounded by Ch'eng I and Chu Hsi.
/j
£||
f 'j a
"Memorial Declining Office (Tz'u kuan shuffif g
»
In Lai's
)•" he amplified upon
his desire to improve the required text.: ". . .day and night I chanted and
read the Great Compendium of the Nature and Principle in the Five Classics
(Wu-ching hsing li ta-ch'Uan 3 .
'fit
^
)> edited by our Dynasty.
But coming to the Change, I perceived that the several Confucians all failed
to discuss Images because 'Images had lost their transmission [of explana
tion]' and only discussed its Principles. . . .
I could only think that
the Change stands at the head of the Five Classics. If its Images had in
deed lost their transmission [of meaning], then after Confucius' "Ten
Wings" the intricate words and subtle directives of the four Sages had been
cut off for over two thousand years.
"If one does not exhaustively study its Images, then he will transmit
fallacies on top of fallacies.
In what manner can he be said to understand
the Classics? If the Classics are not understood, how can one be a public
servant? The tao passed down through the generations cannot be taken lightly<..em 247
There is reason to believe that Lai's access to books was limited,
248
perhaps making the Great Compendium his main resource during the years of
impoverished seclusion. His knowledge of that text shows through in occa-
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!sional borrowings from Ch’eng I and Chu Hsi, whose depth in matters of
Iethics he admired. That part of his Change commentary addressed to Moral
Principle includes wholesale incorpration of Ch’eng's and Chu’s glosses.
However, references to the Sung masters are newly placed in a setting of
:Image concerns. Separated from the Image commentary in print by a circle
!and always following after,^ the analysis of discursive meaning in which
the Ch'eng I and Chu Hsi remarks sometimes appeared was transformed by Lai's
rethinking of the Images and by his physical and psychological theories.
Thus the entire commentary reflects Lai’s insistence that confrontation
with the Images be the first order of study.
In the final analysis, Lai's book bears little resemblence to the Change
of the Great Compendium. There is superficial similarity in the layout
of the texts, the first parts of each being devoted to graphic illustra
tions. Lai's illustrations are all his own, however, and even though he
called his work a compilation of commentaries, in fact he made only sparing
reference to former theories, citing as many to refute them as for the bene
fit of their insight.
The seventh chapter of HsU Ch'in-t’ing's thesis on Lai,
250
Hsli believes to have been influences on Lai's Change theories.
traces what
It is not
obvious, however, that many of the "influences" HsU suggests reflect any
awareness by Lai of a previous work.
In his Image comments, for example,
there are numerous instances where Lai's explanation resembles the glosses
of Ching Fang, Meng Hsi, YU Fan, and other Image and Number proponents, but
it is more likely that his reconstruction of Confucius' exegesis in the "Ten
Wings" coincided at those points with observations of the previous scholars
than that Lai's thought "originated" with theirs in the sense that he de
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118
rived it from their writings.
Several of the similarities cited by Ksll be
tween Lai and Ching Fang were stock-in-trade for all students of Change and
251
issue from the "Materia" and "Greater and Lesser Image" Wings.
A notable exception is Lai's acceptance of Hslln Hsuang's addenda to
the "Discussion of Trigrams" Wing. These had already been incorporated by
Chu Hsi and the Great Compendium editors, however, and do not necessarily
indicate a borrowing from Hslin per se. Had Lai indeed been influenced in
the ways Hsli suggests, we should expect to see more consistent application
of the exegetical tropes listed among Lai's sources. As will be shown in
chapter III, Lai's use of such devices was an outgrowth of his own system;
unless he were unconsciously or secretly plagiarizing, resemblance to other
a
of the Image and Number genre commentaries is incidental.
After expending much effort to establish upon circumstantial evidence
links between Lai and eminent annotators.of the past, HsU failed to dis
cuss Lai's specific allusions to a handful of Neo-Confucian scholars, aside
:4
from Chu Hsi, whose views are generally referred to as the "old commentary
(chiu-chu^
g£ ),252 and to Ch'eng I. For example, Chi YUan^ ;)fj( ('/if)jpf )
is cited with reference to corrections he made in the "Scrambled Hex
agrams" Wing.253 Wang An-shih
('ft $1 , 1021-1086) is noted for
having said that the "to make use of nine (yung chiu )4|
passage fol
lowing THE VIGOROUS (hex. 1) 9/6 should be read as an extension of the
top line's text.25^ Wu Ch'eng is applauded for his interpretation of the
character hang
J-
755
as "neck" in the top line of THE VIGOROUS
and chastized
for what Lai felt to be a misinterpretation of the "Materia" Wing for MEM
BERS OF THE FAMILY (hex. 37).256
The paucity of such references does little to further our search for
I
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possible sources in Lai's hermeneutics. Again, as in our discussion of
the history of Change commentary, we are drawn back to his claims of inde
pendent discovery. His direct appeal to Confucius' "Ten Wings" rather
than to the intervening commentary
of the Sung masters was an act ofself-
reliance questioned by some of his peers and denounced in later evaluations
|of the Chou Change: Compiled Commentaries, as we have seen in the criticism
:of the Ssu-k'u ch'Uan-shu editors. Yet Lai remained confident of the aptiness of his approach and of the right to re-evaluate as fundamental to the
Confucian persuasion. He wrote: "Yesterday a friend's letter arrived saying,
'Ch'eng and Chu completely explicated the Moral Principle of everything
under Heaven. Wang Yang-ming ought not to have debated their ideas. To
again debate the commentaries of Ch'eng and Chu after they have been selec’ted for the examinations is not the way a Confucian scholar should apply
his mind.' These words were meant for me, not Yang-ming.
[My friend] fails
entirely to understand that the Pattern is the general Pattern of all under
Heaven. Anyone can discuss it.
If one does not mull it over and debate
it, how can he be called a Confucian?"en ^
Lai owned that Ch'eng, Chu, arid Wang were towering figures, saying,
"All are my teachers."e0 ^
Nonetheless, their ideas were subject to cri
ticism: "If later people dared notagain discuss what earlier people said,
then. . .as for commentaries therewould be those of Tso Ch'iu-ming
J31
Cheng Hslian, Wang Pi, and K'ung A n - k u o !§ (£ ^
, fl. ca.
130 B.C.)?^Ch'eng and Chu could not have expressed a single word."e^
In spite of criticism from some quarters, others seized upon Lai's
Change commentary as the "ultimate study,"
making it at once a subject
of controversy and a respected popular work.
Finding merit in the book,
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120
the Supreme Commander Ctsung-tu
yjj ) Wang Hsiang-ch'ien X
Ic.s. 1571) and the Grand Coordinator (hsUn-fu
ioM £
(% $
Jjfeg,) Kuo Tzu-chang
,
^
, 1542-1618) in a joint memorial recommended Lai to the Court in
11602. Kuo had already shown a personal interest in Lai's work by publish
ing the second edition of Lai's Compiled Commentaries in 1601. From his
introduction, it is plain that he was attracted to Lai's commentary by
its straightforward approach to a subject that had previously been beyond
his understanding.
Comparing Lai with earlier exponents of Image and Number
such as Yang Hsiung5^ ^ - o f the Han Dynasty, author of the Classic of
Great Mystery (T'ai-hstlan ching
), and Shao Yung of the Sung, Kuo
believed that Lai had unearthed the undiscovered facts of the Change's
meaning while remaining free of Yang's abstruseness and Shao's unorthodox
*
j
• 263
tendencies.
The joint memorial submitted by Wang and Kuo made note of Lai's per
sonal virtues as well as the importance of his Change study. Noting his
pure, eremitic life style, the memorial said, "When he was over seventy
years of age he used no fan in summer and in winter wore no padded clothing.
so 264
To see him, he was as majestic as a god or an immortal." n
As a result
of being recommended, Lai was appointed an Attendant (tai-chao ^
) at
the Hanlin Academy.^
When Lai received word of the appointment, however, he took it in stride,
not counting it an achievement.
In the spring of the following year [1603],
he submitted a memorial declining the office. 266 In the memorial he stated
that his life of study in retirement constituted an alternate form of ser
vice. Linking his curtailed efforts in the examinations to the pressure
of supporting his family, Lai wrote: "Since I could not turn my back on
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121
jmy parents and follow an official career, did I turn my back on this time
of enlightened rule and become a hermit? I dared not. Thus I was reminded
of the saying of earlier folk, which goes, ‘If you do not attain to a rank
and have no means by which to accomplish things, then expound and clarify
the lessons of the Sages and make their teaching even more clear; though
[official rank and teaching] come out of different places, in reaching out
from oneself to the minds of others, they are one.'
„er 267
saying."
I went along with this
If rendering the Change intelligible, and thus clarifying an important
I
text used for the examinations were to be understood as Lai’s service to
the dynasty, the implication of criticism of the dynasty’s policy remains
sharp. His criticism in the same memorial of the "several Confucians" who
"failed to discuss Images" and thus "transmitted fallacies on top of fal
lacies," his stock charge against Moral Principle commentaries, was direct
ed at Sung Neo-Confucians whose views were "established" by the Ming govern
ment.
Clearly the court was not offended, however.
It was insisted that
he at least accept a monthly emolument of "three stone of rice," and his
268
attempt to refuse even that was overruled.
Lai died the next year, 1604, and though he rejected the court’s be
lated recognition of his talent, he must have been satisfied that his in
tegrity had yielded precisely the kind of recommendation he had championed
as a replacement for the examination competition. He was conscious of him
self primarily as a researcher, however, of his task to shed light on and
explain the lost tradition of Change Images, and at the end of his life, he
received the first public notice for his toil with the Classic. His book
did not replace the Great Compendium text, but men who were moved to edit
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and publish Lai's Compiled Commentaries, Kuo Tzu-chang, Huang Ju-hengl^
f
|
» 1558-1626)
and Kao Hslleh-chUn,^ voice the identical sentiI
Iment that Lai's Image study had opened to their understanding a previously
Iobscure area of the Change and thus allowed them full access to the Classic.
Nine Joys
In his sixtieth year, Lai summarized the things that pleased him about
his life in a brief note called "Record of the Bed of Nine Joys (Chiu hsi
t'a chi
The title, he prefaced, recalls how in his years
(of concentration upon the Images of the Change each time he lay down to
sleep his mind was "objective (k'uo-jan
1
)," like a mirror or water.
He attributed that uncluttered, reflective capacity to nine "joys," which
he enumerated:
The first joy is that I was bom in China.
The second joy is that I have lived in a time of great peace.
271
The third joy is that I am a Confucian and have 'heard the tao.'
The fourth joy is that my father, mother, and elder brother all
lived to an advanced age.
The fifth joy is that my marriage was concluded early.
The sixth joy is having no concubines.
The seventh joy is that my age is already beyond sixty.
The eighth joy is that the personality I was given is bland,
broad, and leisurely.
The ninth joy'is that I suffer no serious debility.
es 272
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123
Falling into three groups of three, these "joys" outline the priori|ties underlying the activities of a lifetime. Although filial piety
|was the catalyst in his decision to abandon the normal route to govern|ment service, here familial satisfactions are given second place to patriot;ism. From the distinctions we earlier saw him draw between Chinese and
barbarians, there can be no doubt that he held China to be the seat of civil
ization, thanks to the tao laid down by the Sages.
From his study of tempo
ral cycles, he knew that peace in Chinese history had been interrupted
on occasion by the chaos of war, and thus he counted it a privilege to
have enjoyed one of the positive moments. There are no residual anxieties
over his inability to enter officialdom— he had long since ceased to regard
serving in the bureaucracy as the only way to acquit one's patriotic duties,
and he was a Confucian on the strength of his commitment to ethical prac
tice and excellence in the classical tradition. His first level of psycho
logical orientation, then, was fixed upon the largest physical and temporal
contexts in which he existed and to the philosophical system upon which
rested the integration of the state.
His devotion to his parents and brother recommended him abroad, being
mentioned in his favor by the committee that reviewed and denied his request
273
that the emolument offered by the court be reconsidered.
On the other
hand, he seems not to have required the company of his immediate family after
the function of child-rearing had been fulfilled. There is nothing to indi
cate that he took his family with him when he sojourned in the mountains of
Wan District.
It appears that he wanted solitude for the pursuit of his
investigations and that living in his native place did not permit enough
isolation. As he was already in his mid- to late forties when he decided
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124
Ito move, his sons were no doubt grown and married themselves. Thus the
:obligations attendant upon marriage were "concluded early," and he had not
had to take a concubine for the sake of a son.
Finally, he makes a few objective comments on his own personality.
The "blandness (tan '$> )" he found in his own character should be under
stood in the sense of p1ing-tan
in Chinese theories of painting— re274
serve, subtlety, plainness that masks penetrating insights.
He seems
not to have been a man given to physical passions.
Certainly in his ma
ture philosophy control of passions occupies the central place, but perhaps
he was not much subject to domination by desires even in his youth.
It is
recalled of him that while in the capital for the examinations he was once
drunk--his poems suggest that wine was not among the material desires he
cared to curb— and mistook a brothel for a hotel. He awoke around midnight,
realized where he was, and hurried home to his lodgings, but not before
arousing the interest of the lady of the house. She pursued him with amorous
275
letters, all of which he burned with a slight smile.
He was a man content with elementary conforts: "I am a child of bush
lands; in my whole life I have had no experience with wealth and plenty but
have become thoroughly accustomed to satisfaction in poverty."et ^
His
ability to accomodate what others would consider hardship is the "breadth"
which he called his eighth "joy."
The "leisureliness" of which he speaks is discernible in his study
I
method: "For reading of books there is a method. One must be able to read
at ease and not feel labored. For each day, one ought to have a curricu
lum."eu ^
One should plan what he intends to read, recite, and copy on
a given day and proceed in order until he begins to tire of the task at
hand, moving thence to a fresh occupation. When the eyes, mouth, and writ-
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125
|ing hand have all been in this manner exercised, "switch to the feet— go
jout to view the fields and gardens, or go to a place where people gather,
Ior receive guests and friends.I,ev
If one’s family is poor, he should
Iincorporate work in the fields into his plans, as Lai probably did himself.
;The outline continues with attention to literary compositions, long walks
279
to scenic spots, and, in the right spirit, quiet-sitting.
The belief that one could take his time and allow wisdom to unfold spon
taneously, unfettered by time limits, points to the element in his mind that
rebelled against the pressing demands of the examination system and con
vinced him he did not fit in that system. The chief failing of the examina
tions in his estimation was that it relied on one day's auspiciousness and
pushed young men into positions for which they were not sufficiently mature,
in both cases demonstrating human abuse of the realities of temporal cy
cles.
Lai's mind was attracted to Confucius' patient and unfulfilled wait for
the right situation in which to apply his talents and his nonetheless suc
cessful, by moral and historical standards, career outside of politics as
a teacher of the tao. The truth in the content of the Classics, mocked
by formal application in the examinations, was that time, not men, fixed
the terms of human action.
Convinced that he could not function in so arti
ficial a framework as the contemporary bureaucracy and seeing that all he
would miss by removing himself from it was material benefit, he returned
to the rustic hill country to enact his Confucian vision.
Isolation intensified the original elements in that vision.
It had
been formed via the standard presentation of the Classics and in the intel
lectual climate of the 1540's and 1550's, but after his retreat his sense of
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126
the meaning of Confucianism had incubated in an environment distant from
the centers where scholars gathered and exchanged views. Yet when it
matured and was suddenly revealed to the literate world, it inspired enough
interest to suggest its timeliness as a presentation of a significant as
pect of Confucianism which addressed the psychological and philosophical
needs of a large number of late Ming readers. Having examined the facts of
Lai Chih-te’s life, then, and determined the "unity" which he distilled
from the Classics into a personal vision, we shall proceed to reconstruct
his vision as it appears in the theory of the structure of the Classic of
Change.
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127
The Imagistic Structure of the
Classic of Change
Lai Chih-te believed that he alone in the history of Confucian Change
scholarship had come to a valid understanding of the Classic. He was cor
rect where others had failed because his appreciation of the Changed preverbal and verbal Images encompassed both their phenomenology and their
discursive significance.
In Lai's understanding of the "Attached Verbali
zations" Wing, 1:2, the term "Image (hsiang & )" referred primarily to
the linear complexes--the hexagrams and their component linear structures-and secondarily to the verbal texts annexed to the hexagrams by King Wen
and to the lines by the Duke of Chou. Lai wrote, "Images are the likenesses
of things. Altogether there is the Image of one hexagram; breaking this
down, there are the Images of each single line.
of Chou] observed uheSe
ilfUigeS
[King Wen and the Duke
8.LLd.Ciieu. c.0 cxieiu V0i"ua.xiZ8.L iu iis xii u iu e i
to make clear each hexagram1s and each line’s propitiousness or adversity."a 1 In saying the Images had "lost their transmission [of meaning],"
Chu Hsi had admitted inability to reconstruct the process by which the two
Sages had extracted verbal Images from the hexagrammatic forms, establish
ing what Lai perceived to be the incomplete state of the field of Change
exegesis.
Thirty years" analysis of the internal structure of the whole Classic
had led Lai to the discovery of routes to verbal expression in the visual
symbolism of the hexagrams and their orderly presentation. When Chu Hsi
and the others had abandoned the effort to find these preconditions, they
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had of necessity confined themselves to the meaning of the Change's words.
But this presented insuperable logistical problems to exegesis owing to the
nature of the Classic's texts. Unlike any others in the written tradition,
the texts of the Change are purely abstract, having no concrete referents.
Lai wrote: "For example, when the YU-mo
f$v , the third section of the
first chapter in the Classic of History,) says, 'To favor the right way is
propitious; to go contrary to it is adverse. This is only as natural as
making a shadow or an echo,' there indeed is such a principle. Or when the
T'ai-shih
, the first section of the fourth chapter of the Classic
of History,) says, 'In spring of the thirteenth year there was a great
meeting at Nfeng Ford,there was indeed such an occurrence. However, in
the Change there are no such occurrence<•, no such principles; there are
b 5
only such Images."
This dissimilarity between the Change and the other Classics is the re
sult of the fundamental difference between the didactic purpose of the
History, in this example, and the divination function of the Change, mak
ing it necessary that: 'The Change is unlike the other Classics in that it
cannot be taken as a definitive outline."0 ^ When a certain line is got
ten in divination, its words take on significance with reference to the
specific situation of each divinee; were the texts intended as a "defini
tive outline" of moral action, only one specific situation could be compre
hended by the words, and flexibility would be lost.
If one doesn't under
stand this aspect of the Images, "One line is only one occurrence, thus
the three hundred eighty-four lines would account for only three hundred
eighty-four occurrences. How, then, could [the Change] 'be the one and all
of Heaven and Earth? "4 ^
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129
The difference in linguistic intent among the Five Classics entails
that one could not apply the standard tools of exegesis to Change in the
isame maimer they were applied to the others. Assumptions based on corres
pondence of words to facts that were true for the History, for example, did
j
hot hold for the Change. On the strength of certain otherwise respectiable scholars, notably Wang Pi, Ch'eng I, and Chu Hsi, and by force of the
i
examination requirements, which enshrined the Ch'eng-Chu commentary as the
authoritative interpretation, just such a literal interpretation had be
come the standard appreciation. Only the implications of the text's words
for "Moral Principle" had been expounded, leaving the Images, and with them
the key to full understanding of the Change, languishing in a "long night of
6 8
more than two thousand years."
To correct this error, Lai evolved what he believed to be a balanced
hermeneutic, one that gave primacy to the pre-verbal level of Change Images
and only with this intelligence addressed itself to discursive meaning.
The verbal Images, perceived in the hexagrams' lines by Wen and Chou, are
"the close likenesses of occurrences and principles, similes that can be
conceptualized."f 9 What is conceptualized through the Images is the direct
communication of perceived dynamics within the linear hexagrams, the quali
ties of those relationships expressed in terms apprehensible to the con
scious faculty, even if an Image thus communicated has no concrete cor
relative .
As illustrations, Lai took the Images "golden cart (chin ch’e ^ ^
"jade pothook (yll hstlan
"treading a tiger's tail (ltl:hu wei )Jj%_
j & J t ),"12 and "entering the left abdomen (ju yll tso fu X ?
"If we speak [strictly] of occurrences, how can gold be made into a cart
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i
or jade into a pothook?
If we speak [strictly] of principles, how can a
! tiger's tail be trod or the left abdomen entered? It is in this that the
; Change and the rest of the Classics differ.”® ^
Though a non-referential
statement of the "golden cart” or "jade pothook” type can only be said to
have affective significance and not rational meaning, it is nonetheless a
statement applicable to real situations when brought to bear upon them
through divination. Nor is that type exceptional among the Images of the
Change; rather, all Images partake of the same non-referential nature the
cart and pothook exemplify.
Even in the several cases of mention in the Change of historical persons
this protean linguistic quality remains in force. Thus when INJURY TO THE
-
, LIGHT (hex. 36) 6/5 mentions Chi-tzu^t \
, an uncle of the last Shang
ruler, Chou,f/^ , who feigned madness to escape the latter*s tyranny, the
text is drawing upon the allusive resonance of Chi-tzu's name rather than
relating an historical incident.
In his gloss of the line in question, Lai
explains the dynamics of linear interrelationship which originally evoked
the Image and states that the Duke of Chou had used the two words "Chitzu" to illustrate those dynamics as he had used the words "mount to Heaven
(teng yU t'ien
J ^
)" in the following line, 6/6, of the same hexa-
gram--each happens to be the most precise expression of the linear struc
ture. Lai concludes, "That the Change cannot be taken as a definitive out
line lies in this."*1
rsr^ssi
Eecause the verbal Images express what the Sages observed in the lines
of the hexagrams, then, the verbal Images may be said to reside potentially
in the linear constructs: "The texts were attached because of the Images.
The Sages had faithfully recorded what they had seen, even when the Image
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seemed to contradict reality. A persistent theme in Lai!s writing is the
: lack of artifice in this transformation of visual to verbal Image. The
Classic of Change was to Lai an imitation of the natural order because it
had been produced as spontaneously as any of the phenomena of the physical
world— the Images of Heaven, i.e., the sun and moon, or the forms of Earth,
i.e., mountains and streams— cited in the introductory chapter of the "At
tached Verbalizations" Wing.17 In this context Lai wrote, "The Change of
the Sages is no more than an imitation of the Images and Numbers [of Heaven
i 18
and Earth]. They did not apply their minds to set it forth.'0
Thus
the Sages had allowed free expression in writing of the verbal forms evoked
by suggestion of the. linear structures.
This relationship between the hexagrams and their words can be proven
by an analysis of the Images in the Change, according to Lai, treating
them as phenomena like the naturally occurring "Images" mentioned in "At
tached Verbalizations"1:1 and discovering the consistent principles of their
structure as one may note unvarying regularities in the behavior of such
bodies as the sun and the moon. As in the natural order processes can be
seen to exist on the multiple levels of Heaven and Earth, so in the Change
there are several strata of Images, each of which can be identified and
studied. The most inclusive stratum— the order in which the hexagrams ap
pear— is also the first which must be comprehended, for, as we shall see,
Lai understood the construction of this order to have preceeded the other
meditative work of the Sages. Like the evolution of the verbal Images, this
act was one of Sage intuition rather than of rational organization: "King
Wen fixed [the order] on the basis of [the hexagrams'] spontaneous linear
formations; he didn't arrange them according to [some conscious plan in] his
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|
132
| own mind/'k
|
The arrangement of the Classic, then, displayed to Lai the first clues
; that the verbal Images of individual hexagrams and lines derive from inter
relationships within the fixed order. The facts were self-evident in the
structure of the hexagrammatic order, but later scholars, lacking a sense
of the Images1 significance, had failed to understand the structure of the
Classic. Confucius had anticipated the difficulty others might have in
seeing how the Change had been set up and had set forth in his 'Ten Wings"
the general principles of King Wen's work, particularly in the "Wings" en20
titled "Procession of the Hexagrams" and "Scrambled Hexagrams."
The "Procession of the Hexagrams" Wing states, in Lai's reading, that
the hexagrams follow one another in a sequential continuum, each becoming
in turn the resolution of the condition stated in its antecedent and the con
dition resolved in its successor.
For example, of the sequence from THE OPEN
(hex. 11) to THE CLOSED (hex. 12) the "Procession" says: "THE OPEN is acces
sible. Things cannot go on forever accessible, thus [this hexagram] is
succeeded by THE CLOSED."m ^
Here the Image of the second hexagram sup
plants that of the first due to the latter's fundamental instability, its
tendency to change from one condition to another. Lai's gloss of the pas
sage follows the emergence of THE OPEN, with its implication of "peace (an
)" derived from its own origin in TREADING (hex. 10), a hexagram with
the connotation of human activity that is ritually ordered: "Men have Ritual
and are thus at peace; lacking Ritual, they are in danger.
So [TREADING]
is succeeded by THE OPEN. Order and chaos follow upon one another like an
endless circle. There is no such thing as lasting accessibility and open
ness, thus [this hexagram] is succeeded by THE CLOSED."11 ^
I
The rationale
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for instability given by the "Procession'1 Wing varies with the hexagram
under discussion, but always instability in the order of the hexagrams is
a dialectical necessity as it is with phenomena in nature at large.
t
|
From this point of view, the pre-verbal resonances of the linear com
plexes which gave rise in the Sages1 consciousnesses to specific verbalized
|expressions is in part a function of a hexagram’s position within an order
I
that is neither random nor purely rational but reflective of the Pattern
i
|operating within their Minds. Considered each in its place, hexagrams have
i
the implicit Images that King Wen and the Duke of Chou had "seen" and record
ed. Beyond this, however, the pre-verbal processional order exhibits two
consistent symmetries that further contribute to verbal Image formation.
From at least the third century A.D., when YU Fan championed the ex
ploration of hexagram pairs that are "upside-down (fan-tui %L
)" and
another's linear structure
opposite
Change scholars had incorporated into their exegesis the observation that
fifty-six of the hexagrams were arranged into pairs, each member of which
stood in inverse relationship to its partner. That is, the fourth hexagram,
CONFUSION
, is the third hexagram, TRIALS UL , upended; the fifth, WAIT
ING =5. , is the sixth, DISPUTE ~
, upended, and so forth. The eight hexa
grams which remain the same whether viewed bottom to top or top to bottom
are paired each with its opposite, as the first two hexagrams, THE VIGOROUS
~
and THE COMPLIANT
, illustrate.
These two relationships, which Lai called "Inverse (tsung ftjjf.)" and "Antipode Cts*o/£$jj )" after an obscure phrase in "Attached Verbalizations" 1:10,
became the hallmark of his Change study. Summarizing Lai’s approach, the
Ssu-k’u ch'Uan-shu tsung-mu t’i-yao says, "In constructing his exegesis, he
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j
especially selected [the phrase] from the 'Attached Verbalizations' Wing,
| 'Ts'o and tsung are their numbers,' to explicate the Change's Images, find'
o 23
I ing proof in the 'Scrambled Hexagrams' Wing."
i
At the "Attached Verbalizations" locus classicus for the two terms, Chu
Hsi had taken them to refer to "the practice of finding a hexagram by mani-
: pulation of yarrow stalks."*3 2^ He read the term "ts'o" as descriptive of
the appearance of the stalks on the table divided into piles, one separated
from the other and lying adjacent on the "left and right."** "Tsung" refer
red to the stalks held between one's fingers in contrast to those on the
r
table, "the one being lower and the other, raised."
25
Making the separa
tions thus pictured by Chu Hsi was the process by which one arrived at a
number identifying any particular line in divination.
Lai marshalled Chu Hsi's phrasing to his own purpose in saying, ""Antipode'is the name for opposition: where yang is on the left, yin is on the
right; where yin is on the left, yang is on the right. 'Inverse' is the name
for top-side and bottom-side reversal, as [of the two sides of a fabric] in
weaving: where yang is above, yin is below; where yin is above, yang is
below."s ^
Lai clearly found Master Chu's gloss suggestive despite the
fact that he ultimately reconstructed the meaning of the entire passage.
The last of the Confucian "Ten Wings," the "Scrambled Hexagrams," pre
sents the hexagrams in an order, presumably random, different from the "Pro
cession of Hexagrams," preserving only the two types of pairings.
In terse
modifying words, like "THE VIGOROUS, firm; THE COMPLIANT, pliant,"c 27 and
"SUPPORT (hex. 8), joy; THE ARMY ( hex. 7), worry,"u Confucius had said,
according to Lai, that verbal meaning inheres in the isolated pairs as it
does in the sequence of the whole. The hexagrammatic order provided the
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general tenor of the Images in its "unified Pattern (i-tuan chih li —
t t i ),"2^ But that order is not to be taken as a rigid construct—
within its structure, members of constituent pairs are related to one another
in a manner unrestricted by their respective places in the procession:
"That which came before now comes later; that which came after now comes be
fore.'^ 29
In an Inverse pair, the linear components are identical for both—
SUPPORT (hex. 8) =1 and THE ARMY" (hex. 7) R
are both composed of one yang
and five yin lines, and they may therefore be considered as one hexagram
30
seen from two directions, as Lai points out.
But inversion alters the
fundamental interior relationships of lines, giving voice to differing
verbal Images bom of that alteration. The effect is marked primarily in
the trigrams which constitute the hexagrams. Four of them— ch'ien =. , kfun
is , li zs. > and k'an
— are not in themselves changed by Inversion, while
it may be seen that to the remaining four, Inversion constitutes transform
r»n
a u x u i i *
Pli ■ o n
v jix
v x i
» *
Ko/»nmA<?
i a
/ v w iib ^ * ;
V a n
x w
h
~
^
orv/4
u i x u
V c l Vr>
i w
u x i
~
'
u
u u
w
j i i v j
■Hi A
l. u
x
~ T.
- - ~
«
In the example of THE ARMY and SUPPORT, Lai believed Confucius' "Scram
bled Hexagrams" metaphors alluded to the change wrought in the lower three
lines by Inversion. SUPPORT'S lower, or "inner," trigram is k'un, whose
31
character is "compliance."
In THE ARMY, k'un forms the upper trigram,
32
while the inner is now k'an, whose character is "danger'."
Therefore,
"Compliance within, thus there is 'joy'; danger within, thus there is
'worry. ",w
The two trigrams are still the same, but their different rela
tive positions suggest two different moods. The power of the "Scrambled
Hexagrams" Wing’s presentation is that an Image is not shown to be contin
gent solely upon the original order of hexagrams.
In this case, SUPPORT
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I
Iis named before THE ARMY although in the Classic they are found in reverse
|order. Even taken out of the standard order and turned around, the kinds
;of verbal expressions to which the linear constructs are seen to give rise
Iremain consistent.
In the "Procession of Hexagrams" Wing, THE ARMY, whose Image is said to
succeed that of DISPUTE (hex. 6) of necessity, is indeed a troubled state.
However, Lai notes, "THE ARMY means a mass of people, and in a mass of people
x 34
there must be personal assistance. Thus it is succeeded by SUPPORT."
The "support," then, is relief in difficulty and a "joy," as the "Scrambled
Hexagrams" Wing puts it. The verbal Images'of the two hexagrams are expres
sions of both their processional places and Inverse relationship at once,
and the ideas in the last two "Wings" are made to work in concert to demon
strate two factors which, we are told, affected the thought processes of
the Sages when they evolved Images for the hexagrams in question.
The Antipodal relationship affected original Image formation in like
I
manner. For Lai. the idea of "firm (kang lalll )" ascribed to THE VIGOROUS (hex.
I
1) by the "Scrambled Hexagrams" Wing, where it is paired with its Antipode,
I
underlies the hexagram's verbal Image as much as its association with
I
Heaven in the "Procession of Hexagrams." Given thus by Confucius a role
■
equal to that played by Inversion and the order of the hexagrams in the Clas-
U
sic, the mechanism of polar opposition had the important implication of es-
■
tablishing yet a third influence that could be said to have affected the
■
Sages in their spontaneous invention of the verbal Images. This was true
S
for the fifty-six invertable hexagrams no less than in the strictly Antipo-
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I
dal eight: "None of the sixty-four hexagrams is outside the scope of this
I
137
In the same way that the metaphors in the ’’Scrambled Hexagrams" Wing
released the Inverse pairs from sole dependence upon the fixed order of the
Classic for Image formation, recognition of the Antipodal function threw
open the possibility of influences upon Image formation reaching across the
procession. THE ARMY (hex. 7) 9/2, for example, has the phrase, "The king
thrice rewards by decree."2 Lai saw this Image as having been entirely se
lected in reference to THE ARMY'S Antipode: "This hexagram is Antipodal to
TOGETHER WITH OTHERS (hex. 13 HI ), in which the trigram ch'ien is at the
top--the Image of ’king'--and li is at the bottom— the Image of ’thrice’; and
in which the lower nuclear trigram is hslln— the Image of 'reward by de
aa 36
cree. ’"
Lai recognized that he was alone among Confucian Change commentators
in drawing this connection between the seventh and thirteenth hexagrams but
attributed the fact of their association to "the marvellous subtlety of the
Images, which later Confucians had a difficult time understanding."
_r
ww
That "marvellous subtlety" lay in the possibility of Imagistic interchange
amongst the linear figures on the basis of the special relationship of
Antipodalism, a kind of affective resonance that carried the formation of
Images beyond any mechanical limitations of placement.
To Lai, the trigrams and hexagrams behaved after the fashion of
living things, and their Antipodal opposition was best imagined on the
model of sexual attraction: "The Antipodes are the mutual opposition of
yin and yang. . . , The Pattern of existence in Heaven and Earth [entails
that] if there were only yin or only yang, there would be no ability to
beget and complete. Thus where there is a firm [line], there must be a
38
pliant; where there is male, there must be female."
By inference
n p
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138
from the observable facts of existence, each thing necessarily implies an
! opposite, and its opposite conditions its own behavior, allowing it to
| fulfill its typical role, to "beget and complete." Such conditioning is
i
i
■ seen to be active in the
Changeby the appearance of properties of the Anti-
; pode in a hexagram's texts, as illustrated by therelationship postulated
j
for THE ARMY and TOGETHER WITH OTHERS.
Antipodal influence is not often as directly apparent as some examples
of the Inverse partner'seffect upon a hexagram's Images. DECREASE (hex. 41)
£-r° 6/5 is, when the hexagram is inverted, the second line of INCREASE (hex.
42) H - . Both lines read, "Unexpectedly, there is increase of ten pairs of
3cL
turtles. It cannot be avoided."
The phrasing is exact, and the rela39
tionship is unmistakable, as is also the case with the line, "The but
tocks have no skin,"ae shared by CLEARING AWAY (hex. 4 3 ) 9 / 4 and MEETING
(hex. 44)
9/3.^ By contrast, the assertion of Antipodal influence af
fecting the Image of THE ARMY 9/2 cited above is based upon a considerably
less obvious relationship, one characterized as "subtle," which is Lai's
sense of the Antipode and its workings in general.
Of the two mechanisms, Inversion is the one whose presence is most
prominent in the Classic of Change, according to Lai. There are four hexa
gram pairs that are at once Inverse and Antipodal,^ "but King Wen treated
them all as Inverse pairs."a
p
j r\
The primacy of Inversion is illustrated
by the hexagram texts of THE OPEN (hex. 11) =
and THE CLOSED (hex. 12)T1 ,
where King Wen's texts pointedly contrast the internal structural reallignment occasioned in the two hexagrams by Inversion. THE OPEN reads, "The
small goes and the great comes";a® THE CLOSED says, ". . .the great goes
rill
and the small comes."
Glossing THE OPEN, Lai said, "’The small' refers
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to yin; ’the great' refers to yang. 'Go' and 'come' are said with reference
to the inner and outer trigrams. Movement from the inner to the outer
trigram is called 'going'; movement fromvthe outer to the inner trigram is
called 'coming.' The two hexagrams, THE OPEN and THE CLOSED, have the same
substance (t'ift^ , i.e., linear components in terms of yin and yang). King
Wen grouped them as Inverse, in fact only one hexagram. Thus the 'Scram
bled Hexagrams' says, 'THE CLOSED and THE OPEN are the same thing upsidedown.' 'The small goes and the great comes' states that THE CLOSED1s in
ner trigram's yin goes to occupy the outer trigram of THE OPEN, while its
outer trigram's yang comes to occupy the inner trigram of THE OPEN."3'*' ^
In this passage, Lai draws upon the "Scrambled Hexagrams" Wing for evidence
that Confucius himself had pioneered the recognition of Inversion at work
in the formation of the texts for THE OPEN and THE CLOSED.
By way of comparison within the commentary tradition, Ch'eng I, with
whom Lai agreed on the referents of "small" as yin and "great" as yang,
-fVinncr'h'h n*F
■W
f’Vio
••r r n in r r ^
v *
iiW
anrl
^ rVW
nm
in n ^
II4^44g
oc
V
ktaf
i» **£>
fVv
WtlV
eom K l
r\-f
WJ.
m
rvi m _
JUVV V
ment within the hexagram itself. To Ch'eng, the text of THE OPEN expressed
the linear configuration thus: "'Go' means go to the outside; 'come' means
come to occupy the inside. The yang ch'i descends; the yin ch'i rises to
interchange with it."3-* ^
Lai clearly borrowed Ch'eng's wording but adapt
ed it to his own conceptual scheme of interrelationship between the two
neighboring hexagrams.
Chu Hsi followed Ch'eng's explanation and further
appealed to his own theory of Hexagram Modulation: "[This hexagram] comes
from MARRIAGE OF THE YOUNGEST DAUGHTER (hex. 54). Thus the six (i.e., THE
OPEN 6/4) goes to occupy the fourth place [of MARRIAGE OF THE YOUNGEST
DAUGHTER], and the nine (i.e., MARRIAGE OF THE YOUNGEST DAUGHTER 9/3) comes
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140
to occupy the third place [of THE OPEN].,,a^ ^
Of Lai's distaste for this
approach we shall have more to say below.
Lai notes elsewhere that in the "Materia" Wing explanations of hexaj
Igram texts, the Inverse of any hexagram is singled out as one of four pos|
Isible sources for the hexagram's name, but the Antipode is not.
A_f%
Inversion
is thus given primacy in the Classic as a determiner of the hexagram's
name, the Image upon which all other Images in the hexagram's wording depend.
‘On the other hand, Antipodal influence is noted in the hexagram and line
texts and is in Lai's usage a more frequent contributor to explanation of
Image formation than is Inversion in those strata. The role of Inversion
tends to be expressed in primary determination of hexagram Images, then,
while Antipodal influence is witnessed in fin e r definition of the Image there
by determined. The order of hexagrams as described by Confucius' "Proces
sion of the Hexagrams" and the Inverse relationship within it are active,
moving, with one hexagram "succeeded by" its neighbor in both. The Anti
podal relationship is implicit, affecting the choice of words in the hexagram
and line texts not by virtue of overt activity but by intangible influences
that transcend the orderly procession.
Inversion is subject to the laws of earthboundphysics — what goes up
must come down. The upward movement through the lines of one member of
a pair peaks at the sixth line and is bound to repeat line-by-line in re
verse order the first half of its motion.
By the Antipodal relationship,
Images are shown to be subject to influences of a psychological type, as
to the emotional responses to sexual opposites that condition animal be
havior.
In no wise are the two mechanisms to be thought of as separate,
however. They represent the two preconditions of every Image in the Change:
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141
interchange of opposites and modulation through phases.
[
This "opposition (tui-tai'jjjj^ )" and "flow through phases (liu-hsing
|Ifiu
)" are the fundaments of Lai's Change study. He wrote: "The book is
!named Change because the meaning of the word carries the connotations 'inter
change Cchiao-ijc|q )' and 'modulation (pien-i'“g ‘ ^ )•'
'Interchange'
bespeaks opposition, as, for example, Heaven's ch'i descends to interchange
with Earth's, and Earth’s ch'i rises to interchange with Heaven's.
'Modu
lation' bespeaks flow through phases, as, for example, yang peaks and modu
lates to yin, and yin peaks and modulates to yang. In the Pattern of yin
and yang, that which is not in interchange is in modulation, and so it is
named Change."3111 47 Once again the imprint of Ch'eng I is unmistakable in
the notion of interchange of ch'i, seen earlier in Ch'eng's gloss of THE
OPEN, yet the understanding of this interchange has been recast into the
terminology of Lai Chih-te's own analysis of the dynamics of phenomenal
existence.
The Physics of Opposition and
Flow through Phases
Here we have reached a point of convergence between Lai's Change
theory and his general beliefs about the physical world where the latter
can assist us in understanding the former.
If, as Lai believed, "The Change
is equivalent to Heaven and Earth,"311 48 the interchangeability of nature
at large and the Classic, which is seen to operate according to the same
principles evident in the natural world, is essential to his system.
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142
As a Confucian scholar of the Ming Dynasty, Lai was heir to the Northern
| Sung metaphysical revolution signaled by Chou Tun-i, Chang Tsai, and Shao
iYung. He accepted that phenomenal existence is an expression of a single
basic material, ch’i^fjt > which takes shape as phenomena according to li$f,
;the term usually translated as "Principle" in the context of School of
Principle philosophy but for which we use
term "Pattern" for Lai:
*s sys
tem. Chfi is spoken of as having two basic tendencies: yang, which Chou
Tun-i had described as "movement (tung&i
and yin, Chou’s "quiescence
( c h i n g )."49
Already with regard to these basic concepts, however, we find Lai
consciously at odds with certain interpretive tendencies in the Neo-Confu
cian field. He was especially critical of Chu Hsi for imputing precedence
to Principle over ch’i: "Master Chu said, ’Before there was Heaven and
Earth, before their ultimate beginning, there was this Principle (li)'. ’ This
statement is wrongly put. There being phenomena, only then is there the
Pattern (li). Master Ch’eng said, ’In things there is Principle (li).*
This is correctly said."a0
Chu Hsi’s opinions on this matter occupy a prominent place in the dis
cussion of physical being in the Great Compendium of the Nature and Princi
ple published by the Ming court for use in examination preparations. Aside
from the passage cited by Lai, there is: "Principle is never separate from
ch’i, yet Principle 'exists before physical form [and is therefore with
out it (hsing erh shang che
tyj vfa Jl 4* )] >' whereas ch'i
rial form [and is therefore with it (hsing erh hsia che $
’exists after mate
TK
)].'^
Since we speak of them from the point of view of before and after physi313 5 2
cal form, how can there not be the distinction of prior and latter?"
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143
rhn Hsi appears to have been hesitant to discuss this point and careful to
mark his responses to questions as conjecture which could not be thoroughly
j
j substantiated, but when pressed for an answer, he admitted, ’’One must say
; that first there was this Principle."a<* ^
And again, ’’Before there was
;Heaven and Earth, ultimately there was this Principle; there being this PrinciT* 54
j ciple, then there were Heaven and Earth."
However Chu Hsi might have intended these pronouncements as replies to
the probings of his disciples, committed to writing in the examination text,
they had an authoritative persuasiveness that inspired Lai to challenge their
authenticity. Lai saw in the postulation of two separate states of being,
li on the one hand and ch'i on the other, an aberration from the "unity1
that he held to be the principle theme of Confucius’ teaching.
Chu Hsi's
Principle seemed to be something wholly other than concrete forms, distinct
from them and somehow supernatural.
Lai believed that Pattern exists only
it is
with reference to physicalforms;
a misuse of language to say it could exist alone. Hisgloss on "At
tached Verbalizations" 1:12, which reads according to Lai’s interpretation,
"That which is superformal (hsing erh shang $9 tfQ h .) is called tao; that
which
is informed (hsing erh hsia
j is called an object (ch i
^ "as states: "Tao and objects are not
separate from one another.Where
OQ ’---------- -there are Heaven and Earth, there is for certain the Pattern of the Great
Ultimate within them; where there is a human body, there is for certain the
Pattern of the Five Natures contained within the corporeal substance. This
is why Confucius in discriminating between ’superformal’ and ’informed’ did
not depart from the word ’form’. . . .
Yin and yang figures are all form.
That which is superformal transcends formal objects, is soundless and odor-
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144
less; thus it is the Pattern.
For this reason it is called ’tao.’ That
which is informed is confined to formal objects, has color, has a figure.
at 55
It is only in forms and is therefore called 'object. "'
The Pattern, referred to in the foregoing as "the Pattern of the Great
Ultimate," and tao are two aspects of the "superformal," the level 15)on
which all individual things are seen to be "united." Lai makes a distinc
tion between the Pattern and tao in a gloss to "Discussion of the Trigrams"
1: "The Pattern discussed in the Change is only one. Speaking of its uni
fied origin, it is called tao. . . . Speaking of its invariable dissemina
tion, it is called the Pattern."au ^
That is, "tao" describes the whole
of existence as a phenomenon; ’iPattem" describes the way the whole behaves.
This sense of tao is applied to explaining the "Greater Image" commentary
on THE OPEN (hex. 11), which speaks of "the tao of Heaven and Earth (t'ien-ti
chih tao
)." There Lai Wrote, "Tao is said with reference to
the spontaneity of their substance [i.e., Heaven and Earth's]. . . . Be57
cause their whole substance is 'cut to order,'
they are made not to transCQ
gress [their proper places]."
The whole, because it is thus delimited,
is ordered.
Where "tao" is the fact of patterned unity and "Pattern".is the orderly,
universally consistent sequence of phenomenal behavior, which posits the same
sequential development in the macrocosm and in each of its members, the
"Great Ultimate" seems to bridge the composite and the individual.
Glossing
"Attachedf verbalizations" I;11, the locus classicus of the term, Lai says,
"Great Ultimate means the most ultimate Pattern. Pattern inheres in the
Images and Numbers and is difficult to describe. Thus it is called 'Great
Ultimate. ",aw 59
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The Great Ultimate is the Pattern of the macrocosm, but it is also
the Pattern followed by each individual phenomenon. "Pattern'* and "tao" may
also be applied in this dual descriptive manner, but Lai chose "Great Ulti
mate" in such contexts as: "Take trees, for example. There is the Great
| Ultimate of one tree, there is the Great Ultimate of one branch's leaves,
i there is the Great Ultimate of one flower, one fruit. There is the Great
; Ultimate of trees that flower in spring; there is the Great Ultimate of
trees that flower in summer."^
i
Tree behavior is consistent and pre
dictable; a flower has its standard shape and its regular time for blooming.
These local Great Ultimates are images of the general Pattern of Heaven and
Earth, analogous to the one moon's reflections in all bodies of water.^
The interrelated definitions of "Pattern," "tao," and "Great Ultimate,"
which together cover the fact of order in the universe and a developmental
description of that fact, entail that the "superformal" cannot be conceived
outside of informed objects— the three rely for meaning on the observable
behavior of phenomena. Thus the superformal, although it "transcends" indi
vidual objects in its universality, is not supernatural or wholly other, as
Chu Hsi seemed to imply.
It is something that may be readily observed in
changes taking place in any and all informed objects over the course of time.
The Pattern is continually demonstrated in the behavior of those bodies
by which time is marked and by the seasons that result from their regular
cycles: "There is the Great Ultimate of one year and the Great Ultimate
of one day and night."a^ ^
These cycles can be measured into recurring
segments: "One year may be divided into four seasons; a season may be divi
ded into three months; a month may be divided into thirty days; a day may
be divided into twelve hours."az 63 All of these cycles share the common
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I feature of two distinct periods of qualitative opposition, the day being
l
| the mutual displacement of daylight and darkness, and the year, the mutual
| displacement of heat and cold.*’4 The moon offers a continually visible dis!play of this mutual displacement in its periodic phases and of another
! shared feature of all temporal cycles in its unending repetition of those
foci 65
!phases: "The moon originally may never stop--it is only full or empty."
Lai accepted Chou Tun-i’s premise in the "Graph of the Great Ultimate"
that a circle is an apt model for these repeating temporal Patterns. Accord
ingly, he constructed his own circular graph, which encompassed in one the
several circles of Chou's and thereby gave simultaneous visual representation to Pattern and ch'i in the latter's periods of yin and yang:
His explanation of this figure says, "The white is the yang type; the
black is the yin type. These two tracks, black and white, [show that] when
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!
j
147
Iyang reaches its peak, it begets yin; when yin reaches its peak, it begets
I—
kk 07
|yang. The motivation of these [tendencies of] ch'i never ceases.
IThe white, yang, and the black, ym , tracks depict the tendencies of ch^i,
j showing how ch'i comes to the peak of one tendency--the points on the cir
cumference intersected by the vertical axis— and there enters upon its op:posing tendency, which accumulates toward its own maximum. Yin and yang.
are not, therefore, two separate things but one ch'i in two distinct phases
be 68
of its cyclical flow: "Although it is divided in two,/ It is still one."
The natural analogue for this circuit of ch'i, the cycle in which the
one moon is seen to pass through its light and dark phases, is the first
in a series of temporal rounds overlaid upon the circle and portrayed in
Lai's piece called "Working with the Round CNung-yllan fj. )j|j )."
In his
explanation, Lai follows the phases of the moon through accumulation (hsi
j§,) and dispersal (hsiao
) of total visible light. The circumference
of the circle is marked off into thirty segments, one for each day, and the
course of the moon’s "flow through phases" is thereby described precisely
in numerical terms: midnight of the fifteenth day— the time of the full
moon-and of the thirtieth day, the new moon, mark respectively the bottom
and top vertical axis.'
i
30
V,
if
!<•
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148
Lai explained, "The first day at the first hour (tzu •?- , 11 p.m.-l
a.m.) is the beginning of accumulation. Accumulation culminates at the fif
teenth day, and [the moon] is full. The sixteenth day at the first hour
is the beginning of dispersal. Dispersal culminates at the thirtieth day
Ivf 71
and [the moon] is empty."
Lai goes on to note that days that corres
pond across an arc of the circle--1 and 29, 2 and 28, . . .14 and 16— are
alike in their allotment of moonlight but different in terms of their cycli72
cal tendency toward fullness or emptiness.
The axial peaks of the yin and yang tendencies of ch'i and the cycle of
accumulation and dispersion in general are transferable to the yearly
round: "The four seasons are quite the same [in their cycle as the moon];
only it is at that month of winter where cold is at its most intense that
within ch'i is begotten the trace of expansive warmth's arising. This is
what is called accumulation. Expansive warmth gradually increases to the
fourth month, when its dissemination is complete. This is what is called
fullness. Fullness again disperses. At the fifth month heat is at its
peak, and within ch'i is then begotten the trace of congealing cool’s arisal.
This is what is called dispersal.
Congealing cool gradually increases to
the tenth month, when its impaction is complete. This is what is called
its fullness.
be 73
Fullness again disperses."
The graph of the yearly circuit (reproduced on the following page) has
the summer solstice at the top of the vertical axis, corresponding to the
position of the thirtieth day, the "emptying" of the lunar cycle, in the
previous graph. The waxing of the moon shows increase to fullness of the
yin tendency of ch'i since the moon is a yin object. Thus the graph of its
cycle has a "black track" corresponding to the accumulation of yin around
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149
the full moon.
In the yearly graph, the increase to maximum sunlight at
the summer solstice (at twelve o'clock on the following graph) is the apex
of the yang solar cycle.
74
We shall have more to say about Lai's beliefs regarding the yin and yang,
qualities of the moon and sun below; for the moment it is worthy of note
that the lunar graph-reads counter-clockwise whereas the solar graph reads
clockwise, another difference aimed at establishing a qualitative distinc
tion between the two tendencies of yin and yang while maintaining consist
ent application of Lai’s circular description.
The lunar graph is unique among the entire collection in that it de
picts yin as accumulating in its own right rather than as the "dispersal
of yang. That this may be displayed on the same circular form as the solar
cycle with the same coordinates for maximum yang--in the lunar graph the
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thirtieth day, which falls at the top of the vertical axis as does the
summer solstice in
the solar graph— and for maximum yin, 180° across the
circle in both,
a proof for the circular form'suniversality. Reversing
is
the sequential order of development is a statement of Lai's principle of
"opposition": the lunar and solar graphs are mirror images of one another
and match at every point when laid face-to-face. Thus the circle is conver
tible to describe either tendency, yin or yang, each from a discrete point
of view. Aside from the lunar graph, however, the accumulation and disper
sal of the yang tendency is the reference for the various circular forms and
the cycles they portray.
Lai named the annual graph, marked off into the twenty-four "nodes of
ch'i (ch'i-chiehjj|(jtfji )" of traditional calendric practice, ’The ch'i Image
of One Year (i_nien ch'i hsiang — «^
translated here as
)«"75
"Ch'i-hsiang," the term
"ch'i image," is defined in theEncyclopedic Dictionary
of the Chinese Language, 17434.96, as: 1) phenomena of all changes in the
atmosphere, i.e., meteorological phenomena, the term's contemporary appli
cation; and 2) ch'i-chih^f,^
perament or disposition.
, which refers to the quality of one's tem
It is in the latter sense of a quality of the
mind manifested in behavior that Chu Hsi used the term "ch'i-hsiang" in
glossing Mencius 3:2, where Mencius compares Confucius' disciples Tsengtzu’
lf J
and Tzu-hsia 3 j|_ to the military men Meng Shih-she
and Po-kung Yu
% %$\ respectively. Master Chu noted that in terms of
personal principles (lun
), Meng and Po-kung were no match for the dis
ciples, "but with reference to their manifest temperaments (ch'i-hsiang),
LiT
they each had similarities."
J
A survey of the Ming ju hsUeh-an shows Lai’s predecessors and contem-
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isi
;poraries likewise applying the term primarily to behavior which indicates
certain internal dispositions, such as ’’the manifest temperament of one who
has not the tao (fei-yu-tao ch'i-hsiang
disposition (an-shu chih ch'i-hsiang
^
and "an easy
^ JlO
^
Lai, too, applied
this usage, as in saying, "One must also constantly observe the disposition
of ’bathing in the River I and [catching the breeze at] the Rain-dance
79
Altar!; then his body and Mind will not reach the point of constricted,,b5
g 80
ness."
However, Lai's understanding of "ch'i-hsiang" was considerably enriched
by the implications of ch'i in his physics met with the concept of Image
from his Change study, giving the term a connotation that bridges both the
meanings supplied by the dictionary. To him, "ch'i Image" meant the form
taken by ch'i at any point in its cyclical course.
In the solar graph it
is related to the "nodes of ch'i," which in binomes like "white frost (pailu^ H
i
)," "lesser cold (hsiao-han /J'- 0
)," and "great snow (ta-hsUeh
Tv % )" are descriptive of typical phenomena at the time of year they
mark.
In terms of the graph "The ch'i Image of One Year," each of the
twenty-four nodes may be described as a ratio of yin and yang visualized
as the relative proportions of black and white that fall on a radius from
the circular graph’s center to the particular point on the circumference
assigned to any "node of ch'i." By extension, the seasonal phenomenon as
signed to a node might be seen as an archetype of its unique ratio of the
mutually displacing tendencies of ch'i.
Returning for a moment to the illustration of a tree's Great Ultimate,
we find Lai extending the simile from the order perceptible in the tree's
physical characteristics--its distinctive leaves and blossoms--to the order
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152
jof its life cycle: "A thing must begin with the emerging of its bud. Havi
jing thus come to life, it grows. When its growth is complete, it decays.
i
IThis turn also completed, it drops--it returns to the root, goes back to
Ithe beginning. . . . Thus a tree's spring, summer, autumn, and winter all
have the Great Ultimate."*5*1 ^
The tree’s life is located in the seasonal
round and equated to the Great Ultimate in this passage. That each phase
in its cycle is itself a patterned expression of ch'i is shown in a similar
Tit
figure, this one based on TEARING (hex. 23) 9/6, "Big fruit isn’t eaten."
Lai commented, "When a fruit's growth has not reached ’big,’ it still has
ch'i. When its growth has been nurtured to the point of becoming 'big,'
its period of ch’i is already complete and it rots. When its external ch'i
is exhausted, in its inside is begotten the kernel of its stone. One can
see that ch'i never s t o p s . ^
"Period of ch'i (ch'i-hou kz
)" refers in traditional usage to
the subdivision of the twenty-four "nodes of ch'i" into seventy-two periods.
Lai here applies the term to the span of time a given phenomenon, in this
case a fruit, exists as a discrete ch'i Image. At the precise point, where
the period culminates, the seed of ch'i continuity "is begotten," closing
one circuit and beginning another. A tree's Great Ultimate, then, is the
same as a year's: it may be described as a circle marked into distinct
periods of ch'i, each with its discreet ch'i Image. Lai mentions the ch'i
Images bud, flower, fruit, and falling to earth for the tree, and these
are matched to spring, summer, autumn, and winter respectively. Again,
the entire cycle of the tree1s ch'i period exhibits the archetypal Pattern
“TT7
of accumulation and dispersion.
By a process of comparison in which this circular Pattern was tested
P
i
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83
153
against various life cycles, Lai arrived at the circle as the quintessential
Image of the Pattern, the design followed by any and all cycles of ch'i in
formation. As that circle was overlaid with various individual Patterns,
Lai noted points of correspondence. The early phase of a tree's Great Ulti
mate corresponds, as we have seen, to the year's springtime. The implica
tion is that with 0° as the base of the vertical axis, the coordinate of
the winter solstice (tung-chih-fe
), the arc from 45° to 135° might be
84
said to represent the tree's "budding."
Those two points are respective
ly the first of spring (li-ch'un
) and the first of summer (li-hsia
, ■£
52. JL ),
period which in the abstract terms of Lai's graph witnesses
the greatest acceleration of the yang to yin ratio as Lai depicts it with
black and white "tracks." Their ch'i ratios being the same, "springtime"
and "budding" become valid analogues, and they may be used to describe one
another or any other phase of development for anything that falls on the
same arc.
A tree's Pattern of fruition tends to be closely related to the annual
cycle, rendering this analogy somewhat transparent.
Consider, however, the
example of the "big fruit," which, although occupying the autumnal node on
the graph of the tree's yearly round, exhibits a complete cycle in its own
development. "Reaching the point of 'big,'" in Lai's words, it is still
counted a function of ch'i in its accumulating yang tendency, after which
its ch'i begins to disperse, carrying it into its yin tendency, ultimately
to rottenness. Having been "begotten" after the "flower" phase, correspond
ing to summer, was exhausted, the fruit's entire cycle occurs over one
phase of the tree's larger ch'i cycle.
In this manner, Lai asserts that
there are epicycles within cycles, where each epicycle, too, describes a
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154
! circle.
Extending the archetypal cycle to the development of human history,
Lai perceived the metaphorical correspondences still in force: "The affairs
of men from the remote past are the ch'i Image of one year. In spring there
is planting, in summer, growth; in autumn there is gathering, in winter,
storing up--88a year is nothing beyond this. From P'an-ku to Yao and Shun,
cultural institutions and human affairs gradually grew. This was 'spring
planting' and 'summer growth.' After the time of Yao and Shun, cultural
institutions and human affairs gradually declined. This has been 'autumn
gathering' and 'winter storing.' This is called one major epoch (ta hunt'un
)• Comparing this to the human body's blood and ch'i, from
P'an-ku to Yao and Shun is like the time from birth to age forty. After
Yao and Shun is like ages forty to one hundred."bk 86
The life cycle of one man and of all men in aggregate may be freely
Interchanged with the archetypal yearly round, and the "major epoch" can
be imagined just as well on the circular graph of a single day: "The remote
past's beginning and [the epoch's] end are the ch'i Image of a single day.
One day has daylight, has night, has light and darkness. Heaven and Earth
from the remote past are precisely, like day and night."bm 8^ And like day
and night, even the greatest cycle of all continues to repeat its course
without interruption: "Heaven and Earth have no beginning and no end; they
K?
have only a period of light and a period of darkness. Light then dark;
dark and again light— this is what I mean by saying that [time going back]
j , , ,. T
ttbn 88
into the remote past is one day's ch'i Image.
Any and all cycles of ch'i information may be reduced to the seasonal
round and again to the Pattern of one day. Such reduction brings into focus
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three primary characteristics of cycles: their unending succession, the
universal consistency of their bipolar yin and yang tendencies, and the
analogous nature of corresponding ch.*i periods on all circuits. The cru
cial feature of these characteristics in Lai's system is that they estab
lish the descriptive function of number in defining periodicity.
Commenting
on the "Attached Verbalizations" 11:5 passage that calls the phases of the
annual and diurnal cycles "mutually impelled intension and extension (ch'U
shen hsiang kan
>j| M
4^ )»" La* said, "One day and one night displace
one another, and light is begotten; one span of cold and one span of heat
displace one another, and the year is completed. . . .
One going and the
other coming, one intending and the other extending, going round without
end is called mutual impelling. . . .
To go in response to the time is
to go spontaneously; to come in response to the time is to come spontaneous
il
ly. This being so, the mutually impelled coming and going of existence
is a fixed mathematic--it is merely a function of the self-movement of
|
ch’i."bo 89 The self-movement of ch'i is "fixed" by the compensatory reac-
I
tion that necessarily follows any action; thereafter, a second reaction be-
|
Iif
gins a new cycle. The mathematics of the circle described by action and
.
.
.
.
.
reaction are consistent regardless of its duration in time— the same ratio
i'|
of yin and yang informs the ch'i Image falling at a specific degree of arc
|j
whether that degree is a point on the cycle of the "major epoch" or on that
|
of a single day.
We have seen that in the graph of the lunar cycle, naturally marked
off into thirty segments, and of the year with its four seasons and twentyfour nodes each point on the circumference denotes such a ratio. Using, as
did Lai, the twelve "earthly branches" as counters, the base of the verti-
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cal axis is 1, tzu
, which we will call 0°, and its ratio is entirely
yin with the first traces of newly begotten yang barely perceptible. 4,
mao jjp , is 90° clockwise with a ratio approaching 1:1 as yin is gradually
displaced by yang. At the top of the vertical axis is 7, wu ^
, where
yang is in fullness and }dn is beginning its growth; while at 10, ^u j£j ,
90
the ratio is the inverse of that at 4.
Just as in "The ch’i Image of One Year" the ratio of yin and yang is
expressed for twenty-four points in the binomial solar terms, any point on
the circle is a "node of ch'i" with a potential Image.
In the abstract
circle, those potential Images are purely mathematical; as actualized infor
mations of ch'i, the potential Images become the concrete phases of develop
ment which are their correlatives. Mathematical ratios, then, are the basis
of analogy among phenomena in their particular phases. As the spring of
the year, of the tree, of human history, and of one man's life are justi
fiable similes for one another, so any form or event occurring at the same
mm
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Imathematical point in any cycle is a valid simile for any other form or
j
event located there.
In terms of the Pattern, they are in the same phase
of the displacing interaction of yin and yang.
Once it has been abstracted, the basic circle may be correlated with
any other circle, as long as their axial coordinates are properly alligned.
In this manner, the vocabulary of correlatives was enriched by the incor
poration of spatial coordinates when the circle of the compass was overlaid
upon it. This association was a standard feature of Chinese cosmogony from
at least as early as the synthesis of Five Phase and yin-yang theory, which
was completed in the early Former Han Dynasty.^ There was, then, ample
precedent for Lai's act of alligning the axes of his temporal and spatial
circular graphs.
Indeed, it is the Five Phases as archetypal categories
that provide the fundamental abstract for both those circles and the model
for understanding cyclical dynamics as well. Wu K'ang summarized traditional
Five Phase correlatives thus: "Wood, Fire, Metal, and Water are placed in
I
the east, south, west, and north and are spring, summer, autumn, and winfoe 92
ter; Earth occupies the center and. is the last month of summer."
With the potential Images of the abstract circle understood in terms of
the Five Phases, associations between time and space are rendered abso- _
lutely fluid. The circle has become a cosmograph.
The points of the compass thereupon become phases in flow in their own
right, and Lai took this geographical instability quite literally. The
following explanation of what happens to water after it has flowed from
the rivers of China into the sea suggests how Lai perceived the effect
of ch'i displacement in a concrete instance. Addressing the question of
why the sea never rises in level despite the constant influx of the Yangtze,
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158
Wei, Yellow, and Han Rivers, he wrote: ’’Because [their water] is trans
formed and becomes steam [ch’i ^
). All the water under Heaven flows
toward the southeast. The southeast is the direction of [water’s] disper
sion, so I say it is transformed and becomes steam. How do I know it is
transformed and becomes steam? Each of the Five Phases has an Image: be
getting is Wood's Image; growth is Fire’s Image; gathering is Metal’s
Image; storing up is Water's Image. For this reason, it is said that [the
93
trigram] k’an means ’sinking.’
"In the winter months, the time of the strength of the Water Phase,
the Yangtze, Wei, Yellow, and Han Rivers have only this Water Phase, this
original Image. Arriving at spring-coming toward the east, the Water Phase
departs, giving birth to Wood. Superjacent to this Wood, all is Water—
Water Phase ch’i has gradually risen to float above and is decomposing.
In
turn, [the river water] comes to the south--the fifth and sixth months,
a time of heavy rains. By now the Water Phase ch’i which floated above
Tnpe Koan an+irolv ovlipnc+Q^
"Ch’i is the mother of the Water Phase; Water is the offspring of ch’i.
[At the time its] ch’i congeals, the Water Phase is young; [at the time its]
ch’i decomposes, the Water Phase is old. The Water Phase in youth is the
Water Phase in strength; the Water Phase when old is the Water Phase in
decay. Thus the southeast is the place of the dispersal of the Water Phase,
while the northeast is the place of the growth of the Water Phase.
[At
the place] where water's overflow is mature, [referring here to river water
in the southeast where it enters the sea,] Water Phase ch'i is already dis
persed.
"In all cases of rainfall, when clouds are going east, it never rains;
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I when clouds go west, rain must be heavy because that is [water's] place of
: birth. Thus it is said that in their movement the Five Phases successive
ly exhaust one another. Wood exhausts Water; Fire exhausts Wood. This can
be tested. Take a bowl of water and sprinkle it on a tile. Take wood and
ignite it with fire [and, presumably, place it under the tile].
In a while,
[the water] will transform and become steam; [the tile] will be dry. That
water when it reaches its point of dispersal transforms and becomes steam
bq 94
may be known experientially from this."
In Lai's understanding of Chinese geography, rivers generally have their
sources in a northwesterly direction vis-a-vis the point of their ultimate
enptying into the sea. On the cosmograph, where south is at the top and
north at the bottom of the vertical axis, the northwest corresponds to the
node "winter begins (li-tung
)'•” By the classic Five Phase associa
tions, which Lai in the preceding passage enunciates in terms of the agri
cultural activities begetting, growth, gathering, and storing up as metonyms
for spring, summer, autumn, and winter, the Water Phase of ch'i circulation
is dominant in winter. All things partake of the Phase of the season; thus
physical water is in winter and in the northwest entirely the information
of Water Phase ch'i. But as water flows eastward, which is at the same
time toward the springtime coordinates of the cosmograph, Water Phase ch'i
is replaced in the constitution of physical water by Wood Phase ch'i. The
Water Phase ch'i, now losing its coherence, has rarified and floated up
ward, gradually giving way to displacement by its successor.
Two things have happened to the river water: it has moved both in
space and in time from the place of its birth.
In both ways, it is farther
along the cyclical course it must follow as an information of ch'i. It
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j
160
;grows older, closer to its peak, which it reaches at the time of its ar!rival in the south. By then, physical water partakes of Fire Phase ch'i
insofar as its substance is concerned. The Water Phase ch'i, "floating
above" and continuing to decompose, becomes finally exhausted, entirely dis
persed. This is the place and time where river water, however, is at its
strongest, being analogous to the heavy rains of summer. This point is the
climax after which diminishment is predictable, and soon afterwards it enters
the sea to lose its identity as river water and ultimately to become steam.
Through all this the water has "aged." Its progress to the sea is its life
course, the period wherein its component ch'i has taken the form of river
water and passed through its phases of accumulation and dispersion.
Lai proposed this argument to refute Chu Hsi's hypothesis that the earth
95
is supported by water.
In so saying, Chu indicated to Lai that he "did
not understand the meaning of 'water. '"^r ^
Water is not a permanent sub
stance but like other phenomena is a peimutation of ch'i in its phased cyclig
cal flow. The whole earth is of such constitution: not permanent in any
Bi
one condition, but "like the rice in a rice-cooker. [The earth's] bellowslike97 ch'i is like the steam in the cooker. This is what is meant when
98
the Classic says, 'Mountain and Marsh are the same ch'i' and '[The yin ch'i
bs 99
of Earth] has apertures in mountains and streams.'"
The concluding allusions are meant to provide evidence from the Classics
for the unified ch'i theory. Although the trigrams denoted in the passage
by "Mountain and Marsh," the trigrams ken
and tui =£ respectively, are
opposites, they are, in Lai's reading of "Discussion of the Trigrams" 3,
equally composed of the same stuff.
So, too, are physical mountains and
streams informations of-Earth's yin ch'i. Chu Hsi also held that ch'i is a
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I
!single entity,100 but Lai felt that Chu's cosmology, in its erroneous asIsumptions regarding the outer limits of physical reality, did not reflect
,a correct understanding of the functioning of ch'i. Water does not support
the Earth as a permanent substratum.
Instead, the Earth at its center, the
area occupied by men and other things, contains more stable forms of ch'i,
but as the limits of the Earth are approached, forms become increasingly rarified until they lose the distinct characteristics of their temporary iden
tities and return to free ch'i. Such free ch'i will take shape again when
i
its cycle so requires, when, for example, a quantum of ch'i in the north-
\
west "congeals" to yield water.
j
The description of river water is especially useful for understanding
|
Lai's theories in its juxtaposition of physical water and Water Phase ch'i,
I
a comparison that is amplified by dual application of the word "ch'i" for
1
"steam" and for free and informed ch'i. Lai's experimental test of his
I
theory shows he intended "steam" for the character in the opening hypothesis
\
|
that river water is, upon reaching the sea, "transformed and becomes steam."
I
As the rice-cooker's steam is analogous to free ch'i surrounding the solid
I
Earth, in a more literal sense the transformation of river water to steam
I
at its point of dispersion may bear, witness to the evolution of informed
I
ch'i back to
|
of a type that has some time earlier occurred to the Water Phase of river
ij
water's cycle and then to its Wood Phase. As a phenomenon ages, its initial
jj
i
i
|j
,1
----
its free state. This is not, however, a sudden change, but one
complement of ch'i is continually displaced by that of later Phases. When
early Phases
give way, they float upward and lose coherence. River water's
evaporation exemplifies, then, the last Phase of any ch'i information, in
which it is impelled by internal dynamics to lose formal definition and re-
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I
162
|
'join the pool o£ free ch'i.
Phenomena of this rice-cooker Earth are all shaped by the Patterned
movement of steam-like ch'i. Their substance gradually transforms as from
raw to cooked, from physical water to steam as ch'i flows round. These chan
ges may be noted in the appearances of phenomena, in the bud, flower, fruit,
and falling to earth of a tree's bearing season, for instance.
In their
different forms, all things consistently describe the same Five Phases of
ch'i maturation and decomposition.
Just as there is neither beginning nor end to its duration, there is
no edge to the physical Earth, as Lai conceived of it. There is only trans
formation to free ch'i at coordinates of dispersion and return to earthen
1forms at coordinates of accumulation.
In this light, Lai believed that the
Earth constantly grows, "It is only that men do not perceive it."**
Pointing out signs of erosion on Mount O-mei, he was informed by a monk that
in recent years the rain had washed away soil to a depth of as much as six
~S3
14
meters in places. Lai calculated that "if in one year one centimeter eroded,
in ten years a decimeter would erode;102 in a hundred years a meter would e-
rode; . . .in a hundred million years a thousand kilometers would erode, and
this mountain would be transformed to level ground. How is it that from the
remote past there is still this mountain? That the Earth is constantly grow
ing and men do not realize it can be known from this. The growth of the sea
is also of this nature."*111
I
Mountains are ch'i Images different from water in form but behaving in
the same general manner. Their soil is eroded by water, but because they
continue to grow, they still stand in the places they have occupied forever
with little appreciable- change. They are permanent fixtures of the geogra-
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163
!phical Pattern, but they maintain, as does the sea, their fixed proportions
!
;by a constant process of growth and displacement.
Earthbound forms are more or ‘‘ss viscous congealings of ch'i, always
being cut to size, as it were, to f:.t the Pattern that assigns them their
spatial placements. The sky in this physical description is composed of
rarer stuff than the gross ch'i of Earth, and Lai did not understand celes
tial phenomena to be corporeal like terrestrial objects: "The sun and moon
are essences projected by this Earth's yang and yin."^v ^
Although Lai
nowhere cites it as a source for his belief, the same passage from the "LiyUn^ff iC- " chapter of the Record of Ritual quoted to document the unity
of ch'i in mountains and streams in an earlier context continues: "[The
,yin ch'i of Earth] disseminates the Five Phases through the four seasons.
After there is harmony in this, the moon is b e g o t t e n . ^
Cheng Hsllan's
gloss states that the yin ch'i which emerges from the apertures in the
mountains and streams "extends the Five Phases over the four seasons. When
this ch'i is in harmony, then later the moon is begotten and ascends to be
a mate for the sun."^x
Clearly Lai's notion that the moon is a product of the Earth's substance
had a precedent in Cheng HsUan's idea. Lai evolved this into his projection
theory via two observations. One was a theoretical approach to the apparent
paradox of the sun's speed versus the corporeality generally ascribed to it.
Nothing in Lai's experience could explain how if the sun were a corporeal
object it could move with such velocity. The fastest terrestrial thing--a
horse that could run a thousand li %. , three hundred miles or so, in a day-was an inadequate comparison. At that speed, "How could [the sun] circle
Heaven? Supposing it went the thousand li per every two hours: in one day
there are twelve two-hour periods--could it be that the Earth's surface is
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is only 120,000 U across?,,by 107
Rejecting as absurd the corporeality of the sun, Lai suggested that
the limitations of terrestrial velocity do not affect the sun because it
is not moving independently of the Earth as does a horse, but is being
beamed upward as the focal reflection of Earth's yang ch'i and behaves,
therefore, like light. He proposed a demonstration: "Take a candle, and
place it in a bamboo cylinder; then set it on a table in a room. Where the
candle light in the room hits the [ceiling] tiles, there is a circular light
This is analogous to the sun. Now with your hand tilt the tube. With a
slight tilt [the light] will traverse the room in the twinkling of an eye.
This is the meaning of the sun's circling Heaven."bz ^
But is there any way to verify this, he asks. A second observation
confirmed the projection theory to Lai's satisfaction.
In the environs of
Mount O-mei there was a phenomenon that occasionally occurred known to the
monks who lived in temples there as a "Buddha light (fo-kuang $
Lai
went to see it and had to wait a month until the atmospheric conditions were
right. A monk told him that the "Buddha light" was preceeded by a wind in
the night, enough of a wind to shake the building.
The next morning when
the rain cleared off and the shadow cast by the sun reached a certain point
on the building, the Buddha light would appear at a certain spot. All this
finally occurred, and Lai saw that "where the sun hit the glossy rocks of
the mountain's face there was fog rising like threads.
It spread over
twenty or thirty li. The monks call this a 'silver-colored world,' and they
109
believe it really is a 'silver-colored world.'
All at once there were
two white beams, and standing out from the fog there was a light like a rain
bow, red and green interspersed.
It was round like the moon and between
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eighteen and twenty-five meters across. In this we can experience an es
sence of the Earth, it being one mountain's essence. As for the sun and
moon, they are the essence of the Nine Provinces p..e., China] and the myriad
countries."ca 11
Lai added that the Buddhists called this a Buddha light and thereby
attributed to it a supernatural quality of which a lay person could not but
be skeptical.111 To him it was a projection of the mountain's essence, oc
curring at a specific time and under specific conditions.
Its occurrence
was predictable in a mathematical sense: when the sun's light reached a cer
tain gnomic point (Lai cites Chu Hsi's understanding that this was regularly at the fifth hour, 9-11 a.m.)
112
the phenomenon was seen.
The sun and moon, whose projector isthe entire Earth, display the
concentrated essences of all yang and yin therein.Their cycles are Images
of the bipolar alternation of ch'i through its annual circuit and its month
ly and daily epicycles, each of which is mathematically predictable as was
the "Buddha light" on a smaller scale. The exact regularity of the sun and
moon is due to the generalized nature of their source: they represent the
mean of all concurrent local ch'i Images, each of which is following its
own epicycle within the whole. Thus they trace statistical averages, as
it were, of the cyclical progress of yin and yang, hence of ch'i, through
time.
It follows that the sun and moon were conceived by Lai to be entirely
discrete phenomena: "The sun is of itselfthe sun; the moon is of itself the
moon."cl> 113 Lai discounted Sung Dynasty theoriesthat the moon depends upon
the sun for illumination or plays a role in solar eclipses, maintaining in
stead that changes in the quantity of the light issuing from either body
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reflected the polarizations of cyclic flow. Certain variations had occurred
over the course of the "major epoch," as could be seen in the historical
chronicles. For example, there had appeared ten suns in the time of Yao,
as related in the story of the archer Hou-ijji
, who was commissioned
to shoot the surplus suns down,"^ because the time of Yao was one of max
imum yang. Ten suns were projected then "because in the time of Yao the
sixth yang was at its peak; the projection of yang essence reached its
peak."cc 115
In this context, "sixth yang" refers to the cosmograph subdivided into
twelve arcs marked by the "earthly branches." "Peaking at six" thus means
to reach its maximum, as does the yang tendency in the course of the sixth
arc, that section of the circumference between szutiand wu
on the graph
reproduced on page 156 above. As we shall see, the idea of "peaking at six"
will hold important implications in. Lai’s analysis of the order of hexagrams
presented in the Classic of Change as well. From the instance of the ten
suns, "We can know that when we see the time of Heaven and Earth’s sixth
yin at its peak, it will be murky, dark."cc* ^
i
Lai envisioned the waning
of the current "major epoch" as in his own day approaching that dismal
time, signalled by,among other things,the decline in institutions from the
standards set in the time of Yao and Shun to the degenerate government
based on the examination system.
In the same manner, Lai explains other seeming anomalies reported in
history--the sun's coming out at night in 139 B.C.; two suns appearing si
multaneously in 879 A.D.--and oddities in lunar behavior: "Sometimes two
moons come out simultaneously; sometimes in the southwest two moons rise one
after another; sometimes on the first day of the month the moon is still
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visible in the west; sometimes it will have tooth[-like markings]. The
ce 117
indisputable records are full of such odd changes."
These sorts of
things along with sunspots, abnormal rains of earth, grass, sand, or gold,
and other oddities,'1'18 Lai attributed to inequalities in the distribution
of ch1i occurring necessarily in the course of its Patterned progress:
"Heaven and Earth have these inequalities of yang and yin, and it is precise
1
ly this fact that gives rise to the plethora of different occurrences. Thus
there being propitiousness, there must be adversity; there being fullness,
there must be emptiness; there being decrease, there must be growth; there
I
being good, there must be evil; there being constancy, there must be change.
. cf iig
This is the necessary Pattern, the necessary mathematic."
The necessary mathematic of Pattern is what Lai called the "prime funda
I
mental of existence (tsao-hua ta t'ou nao
.n1^
This idea
posits that every occurrence is a compensation for a specific ch'i Image
I
I
3J
m
which has taken form at another point in the general cycle. The two points,
occurrence and compensatory occurrence, were conceived as opposing poles
in the great epochal cycle--the time of Yao and Shun versus the imminent mo
ment when yin will reach its peak— and in each epicycle, as, for example,
midnight versus noon or the vernal versus the autumnal equinox. As a corollary, every point on the cycle is "polar" to the extent that each has its
qualitative opposite.
From this standpoint, abnormal occurrences are in no way supernatural;
they are simply rare compensatory forms. The best documented of such rari
ties were solar and lunar eclipses, often regarded with superstitious awe
by scholar and commoner alike. Lai wrote on the meaning of eclipses at some
>}!!
$
length, noting at the outset that the non-occurrence of an eclipse at the
Ian
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predicted time was due to mathematical error on the part of the predictor,
not to a break in the Pattern indicating abnormality.
121
Nor could eclipses
be taken as ill omens regarding the quality of an imperial reign. For one
thing, eclipses had occurred in times of good rulers like Han Wu-ti and Sung
c *j22
Jen-tsung. For another, "The sun and moon are not sentient things";cg
man cannot mollify them as if they were supernatural beings.
It was impos
sible for Lai to believe, as had Chu Hsi, that "if [the ruler] cultivates
his Virtue, there will be no eclipse."ch 123 The sun will be eclipsed at
its regular time regardless of the ruler: "The sun is the ancestor among
all yang; it has the Image of the ruler. When the tao of Heaven modulates
above, the affairs of men respond below. The ruler of men at the time of a
solar eclipse must needs live cautiously and cultivate his Virtue in order to
negotiate the modulation in Heaven, but it is not true that if he cultivates
ci 124
his Virtue there will be no eclipse."
Eclipses are not supernatural omens but indicators of place in time
around the general cycle of Heaven and Earth. They have no cause-and-effect
relationship with the affairs of men but a synchronistic one; that is, their
occurrences mark nodes in the Patterned round and express the temporal con
text in which all contemporaneous events transpire. Their import is to
suggest precautions one might take in order to prepare for the peculiarities
of the moment.
Cosmographic Physics and Mathematics
Operative in the Change
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169
We can now summarize Lai's beliefs regarding the physical composition
and behavior of phenomena. All phenomena are Images of ch'i, discrete in
themselves but sharing in common a single Pattern of development. The Pat
tern is a cyclical course running toward fullness of life and then turning
toward decay and decomposition. The former tendency is yang, the latter, yin,
and it is the dynamic interplay of the two, ever displacing one another, that
Insures cyclical continuity.
The Pattern may be abstracted as a circle, the degrees of which are
mathematical points in the phased flow of phenomenal existence. Any point
is a potential Image of the ratio of yin to yang on a radius drawn to that
point. All phenomena falling at this point in their cycles express formally
the same ratio of yin and yang as all others, and being mathematical equi
valents, they are correctly similes for one another. The circle may be corellated with other circles, and in this manner spatial coordinates for the
Pattern are obtained. All correlative points have a synchronistic relation
ship to one another: it is correspondence of any temporal point in their
cycles that lend phenomena their moments of similitude, and even spatial
coordinates may be discussed in temporal terms.
It is the last that leads us to the practical application of Lai's
physics. If every cycle is mathematically fixed, then its future course is
predictable once its present coordinates are determined.
Conparing an event
to the cosmograph and drawing upon the comprehensive range of similes, the
necessary next phase of development might be understood.
It must be remem
bered, however, that the cosmograph is drawn in the first instance from
the generalized ch'i Images of ths sun and moon. The seasonal round, Lai s
|
favorite simile, is based upon the solar cycle, and the sun he believed to
I
I
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170
project the mean of all concurrent ch'i ratios. At the sublunary level,
individual epicycles are subject to the "inequalities of ch'i" from which
the mean is taken.
While their norm is expressed in the regularity of the solar and
lunar cycles, then, microcosmic epicyclical interaction is complex and ex
hibits irregularities of a kind that are usually averaged out in the courses
of the two great hearenly "projections." As over the "major epoch" there are
eclipses and other oddities in the behavior of sun and moon, individual
phenomena respond to the structure of a moment in ways that affect their nor
mality. Thus while the tree ideally has its four seasons of growth, in fact
it may be nipped in the bud by a late frost and have its cycle altered.
Examples of this type of irregularity could be seen in human history:
"If we speak in terms of accumulation and dispersion, in the midst of a ma
jor dispersion there are also minor periods of accumulation.
In the midst
of a major accumulation, there are also minor dispersions. Minor accumula
tions also have minor dispersions; minor dispersions, too, have minor accumu
lations. Thus we speak of major and minor epochs. How can it be that with
in a major dispersion there is also a minor accumulation? We can discuss
this in terms of the birth of Sages. Since Yao and Shun, there has been
major disper'sion, yet at the end of the Chou, Confucius was bom— this was
a minor accumulation. Thus his official position, his fame and longevity
were nothing like Yao's and Shun1s."c^
That the end of the Chou Dynasty
witnessed the life of Confucius indicates that it was an epicycle of yang
accumulation during a general trend of dispersion. The positive surge of
that epicycle was conditioned by its location in time and space, however,
and Confucius thus suffered difficulty in comparison to Yao and Shun. All
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|
171
i
three were Sages, but the two rulers enjoyed the peak moment of the ’’major
epoch" and its material benefits.
Lai observed that despite these inequities of distribution, cyclical
regularity could still be assumed over the long tem.
In the divinatory
mathematics of the Change, he believed, lay the key to defining one’s pre
sent point in the complex of cycles affecting his life. The numerical
configurations obtained in divination--the linear constructs of the hexagrams—
are the potential ch’i Images of sixty-four nodes on an abstract cycle, dis
playing in their firm and pliant lines the ratio of yin to yan£ that shapes
the moment of divination. King Wen had actualized those Images verbally
and demonstrated their cyclical Pattern schematically in placing the hexa
grams in order.
It is not difficult to see why Lai, approaching the Change from this
angle, disparaged attempts to explicate the Classic’s verbal meaning without
first understanding its pre-verbal structure. Lacking a sense of the mathe
matical context of each potential Image, earlier commentators had had no
basis upon which to construct their exegesis, in his opinion, and were thus
forced to form ad hoc theories that only betrayed their inability to inte
grate the whole Classic.
Lai wrotp: "In the Classic of Change, Pattern and Number are never sepa
rate."^
His concept of the Classic’s numerical evolution was based on
his reading of "Attached Verbalizations" 11:2, which was generally in agree
ment with the standard interpretation set forth by Chu Hsi. Thus Lai accept
ed that when the Sage Fu-hsi had first fashioned the eight trigrams, he was
expressing the results of his natural observations. Lai’s gloss reads: "When
Fu-hsi was king of all under Heaven, he gazed upward [at the celestial forms]
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172
and looked down [at the terrestrial patterns], conparing the tracks of
177
birds and animals with the order of Earth
and what he could abstract
close at hand from his own body and at a distance from the various things.
He observed that in Heaven and Earth each thing has its opposite; that what
was arrayed in their midst is no more than these: yin and yang. And when
one comes, the other goes, so that the flow through phases taking place
between [Heaven and Earth] is no more than these: yin and yang. Because of
this he drew an odd (ch'i ^
, a solid line) to Image yang and an even (ou
nm
'fifii , a bipartite line) to Image yin."
19ft
The fundamental fact of opposition and the flow through phases which
opposition impels is simply schematized in the solid and bipartite linear
|
types used in construction of the figures in the Change. From these "two
types (liang-i
(ssu-hsiang
)"*29 wgj-g generated by permutation the "four Images
major yang (t’ai-yang ^ ^
* - « L ) r - , minor yang (shao-yang Ay
) =. , minor yin (shao-yin
) m . , and major yin (t'ai-yin
j^,)-- . This order, based on "Attached Verbalizations" 1:11, is achieved
by alternately adding the two types atop themselves in a progression that
reflects the odd-even distinctions of the "two types." Yang, which is "odd,"
has first an "odd" and then an "even" added above. The operation is repeat
ed for the yin, and the outcome is a yang Image in the first and third
places and a yin Image in the second and fourth.
I
Taking the operation one step further, the eight trigrams were genera
ted in the order: 1) ch'ien =. , 2) tui
|
hsUn =i , 6) k'an
, 7) ken rr , 8) k»un
, 3) li "
» 4) ch'en ^2., 5)
. The odd and even places ac
cord with the traditional assignment of trigrams to either yang or yin on
the basis of "Attached Verbalizations" 11:4: "Yang trigrams have more yin
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CTi
[lines]; yin trigrams have more yang."
The geometric progression of trigram growth thus described is called
"increase by a factor (chia i pei Q — ‘* ^ 4 ) and seems to have been incor
porated into mainstream Change study by Shao Yung, who based his "Prior Hea
ven (hsien t'ien
)" speculations upon it. ^
Lai took it to be a self-
evident truth, however, and extended the same validity to the eight numerical
designations for the trigrams achieved by this device as to the trigram as
sociates catalogued in the "Discussion of the Trigrams" Wing.
In an example
cited earlier, we saw that Lai understood the word "thrice" of "The king
thrice rewards by decree" to point to the trigram li, the third in Shao
Yung's order.
l31
These numerical assignments were crucial to the explication of a passage
Lai cited as proof in support of his theory of the Antipode. The first para
graph of "Discussion of the Trigrams" 3 reads: "Heaven and Earth are fixed
in place; Mountain and Marsh are the same ch'i; Thunder and Wind arouse one
another; Fire and Water do not attack one another. The eight trigrams are
mutually Antipodal (hsiang ts'o
•"C° Lai glossed: "'Mutually Anti
podal' means yin and yang are opposite: one yin is opposite one yang; two
yin are opposite two yang; three yin are opposite three yang. Thus the first
and eighth are Antipodal; the second and seventh are Antipodal; the third and
sixth are Antipodal; the fourth and fifth are Antipodal."CP
"Heaven"
is the trigram ch'ien, the first in the Shao Yung order; "Earth" is k'un, the
eighth. Likewise, each other trigram, designated by a primary attribute, is
paired with its linear opposite.
In this Lai saw the numerical order being
folded in half, as it were, and the Antipodal trigrams meeting at each
point.
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This operation explains the remainder of the original passage, which
then became the basis for Lai’s "Graph of Fu-hsi’s Eight Trigrams at the
thumbs (Fu-hsi pa kua fang-wei t’u JjJ^
\
O
H
)”:133
It
HL
-
That last part of "Discussion of the Trigrams" 3 reads: "To number the past,
[count] forward; to know the future, [count] retrograde. Thus Change counts-re
trograde.”cq
Lai glossed: "Only when the eight trigrams are counted retro
grade can they, be mutually Antipodal. . . .
Ch’ien, number one, tui, two,
li, three, and ch'en, four, the first four trigrams, are ’the past.’ HsUn,
number five, k'an, six, ken, seven, and k’un, eight, the latter four tri
grams, are 'the future.’ 'To number the past, [count] forward' is the forward
enumeration of the graph's first four trigrams--'the past1--ch'ien, one,
through ch'en, four.
'To know the future, [count] retrograde' is the retro
grade knowledge of the graph's latter four trigrams--’the future’--hsUn, five,
m
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■
175
through k'un, eight.
’Thus Change counts retrograde' means that because
there are Antipodal trigrams, the Change employs retrograde enumeration:
cr 134
hstfai, five, does not follow ch_en, four, but follows ch'ien, one."
As the graph shows, trigrams one through four are arrayed counter
clockwise, while five through eight follow clockwise. Thus the fifth trigram, hsUn, is next to the first, ch'ien, rather than next to ch en, the
fourth, where one might expect to find it. Only in this way, we are told,
could the Antipodal function be displayed on the circular graph Lai believed
to have been the basis for the passage and the numerical order generated by
Shao Yung's geometric progression still be maintained.
It is "retrograde
enumeration" that associates the Antipodal function with the divinatory ca
pacity of the Change, for the same counter-progression that here yields
Antipodal symmetry allows 'knowledge of the future." Because every yang im
plies a yin (and vice-versa) toward which position it moves in its cyclical
phases, every trigram has its Antipode. The presence of the first necessi
tates the ultimate materialization of its opposite, occurring 180° around
the circle.
This circular arrangement of the trigrams may be brought to the cosmo
graph, whose temporal and spatial correlatives are now matched to the eight
basic figures and their dynamics. From any point on the cosmograph, we can
"enumerate the past," see the order of events in the present, and from the
necessary mathematic of bipolar flow infer the general course events will
take in the future. Thus cosmographic theory dictates that hsUn be 180° from
ch en, its polar opposite.
If trigram placement adhered to progressive enu
meration exclusively, hsUn would follow ch en separated by 30°, and the tri
grams would not be, as the text in Lai's understanding stipulates, "mutually
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176
Antipodal."
Lai notes that the Sung scholars, Shao Yung and after him Chu Hsi,
failed to plumb this passage due to their misinterpretation of the word
"ts'o," Lai's Antipode. They took it to mean, "[The trigrams] interchange
135
with one another and form the sixty-four hexagrams,"
a theory of hex
p g
agram generation about which there will be more to say below. Whether or
not this constituted misinterpretation, Shao Yung's gloss of the subsequent
passage showed him to be mustering for exegetical purposes two elements
lacking specific textual bases. 'Shao said, "'To number the past, [count]
forward (shimJ/jj )' is like saying movement follows (shun] Heaven's, that
is, it revolves to the left. All of these [first four trigrams] are 'al
ready-produced (i-sheng
)' trigrams. Thus it says 'number the past.'
"To know the future, [count] retrograde' is like saying movement is retro
grade to Heaven's, that is, it revolves to the right. All of these [latter
four trigrams] are 'yet-to-be-produced (wei-sheng
)' trigrams. Thus
it says 'know the future. ",ct
While the idea of Heaven's leftward movement— east to west is right to
left for one facing north--does not offend common sense, there is nothing in
the passage at hand to warrant its application here. There is even less
justification for "already-produced" and "yet-to-be-produced" trigrams, a
137
concept that seems to be unique to Master Shao.
Ironically, Lai's read
ing of the passage could be taken to further validate the numerical order of
Shao's "Prior Heaven," a concept which, as we shall see, Lai rejected philo
sophically, by showing how it is possible to have both that numerical order
and polar opposition without leaving the confines of the text. Thus Lai
maintained one idea originating with Shao Yung, the numerical order for the
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trigrams, while overturning another and evolved an integrated interpretation
with textual roots, providing one accepts his gloss of "Antipodal" for
ts’o."
There are several other articles formative to Lai’s Change mathematics
which seem to have their origins as Neo-Confucian beliefs in the writings of
Shao Yung.
Like the Fu-hsi trigram arrangement, these came to Lai by way
of the Great Compendium of Chou Change amongst the collection of nine figures
which still preface Chu Hsi’s Fundamental Meaning of Chou Change. We shall
discuss one of these, the "King Wen" order of trigrams, presently, deferring
for the moment to an examination of the numerical figures known as the
"River Graph (Ho-t’u
j^J )" and the "Lo Chart (Lo-shu y t j|£ )/A38
^at_
139
ter plays only a supporting role in Lai’s thought,
but the "River Graph"
is a main prop for his number theory. With Chu Hsi, Lai believed that the
assignment of the first five odd integers to Heaven and the first five even
integers to Earth as stated in "Attached Verbalizations" 1:9 had its origin
in that figure.^
In both graphics, numbers are indicated by dots. The
"Lo Chart" is a "magic square"
3
4
9
2
3
5
7
8
1 6
Its numbers are arranged with five in the middle and the other eight digits
placed around it so that the sums of the axes and diagonals total fifteen in
each case.
The "River Graph," too, has five in the middle, but also ten. Odd-even
pairings appear at each, cardinal point, with the first four digits located
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as i f
on an inner circle and six through nine on an outer circle:
142
7
2
8 3
5 10
4 9
1
6
One and six are placed in the north; three and eight in the east; two and
seven in the south; and four and nine in the west. Members of pairs are re
lated by the fact that in each case the member on the outer circle is the
sum of the inner circle's number plus five.
Lai believed the "River Graph" to have been discovered by Fu-hsi, who
r
„ 143
from contemplation of it evolved the base-ten system of numeration.
This was accomplished via the observation that the Graph's pattern of dots
is arranged in opposing pairs, odd matched with even. Continuing his gloss
of "Attached Verbalizations" 1:9, the passage which reads, "The numbers
of Heaven are five; the numbers of Earth, five. At the five stations they
face one another, and each has its mate,"
Lai explains that the five places
on the "River Graph"— top, bottom, left, right, and center--are the sta
tions" referred to.
i
In each place, odd numbers face even numbers across the
center and are paired with even numbers in their own 'station,
matched the yin and yang of husband and wife."cv 4
as are
While Lai has not thus
far strayed from Chu Hsi's interpretation of the passage,145 he has intro
duced his fundamental concept of mutual attraction between opposites on the
sexual model into the discussion of the generation of numbers that follows.
Lai's assertion gives vitality to the theory of "producing (or begetting) and
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179
completing numbers (sheng-ch1eng-shu
'fjC )," another idea which, became
generally accepted through Chu Hsi's offices.^
Lai began with Chu Hsi's conclusions in exploring the "River Graph's"
properties. "Begetting" and "completing" numbers derive from the Graph's
concentric circles: the numbers of the inner circle "beget" those of the out
er circle through the agency of the central five; likewise, the numbers of
the outer circle "complete" the inner numbers.
Lai explains this in terms
of the Five Phases, as had Chu Hsi.147 One and six are respectively the "be
getting and completing numbers" of Water, three and eight of Wood, two and
seven of Fire, four and nine of Metal, and five and ten of Earth.
From this
point, Lai began to think in terms of his own cosmographic physics. The
"River Graph" imaged to him the operation of the Five Phases in the ascend
ing values of odd and even digits. The odd numbers begin in the north, the
origin of all yang tendencies, with one and pass
clockwise through three,
seven, and nine, thereby describing one circuit of accumulation and disper
sion. Yin has its origin in the south at the time of yang's fullness and
follows, too, a clockwise path to its own peak at the number six on the Graph,
148
thence to dispersal at eight.
The same pattern can be observed in the "Lo Chart," though the places
of nine and seyen are reversed in the yang cycle and of eight and six in
the yin cycle. The reversal is seen to be contingent upon the "Lo Chart's"
intention to express the "four Images" of "major" and "minor" yin and yang.
Nine and six in the Chart are "major" yang and yin respectively, and by vir
tue of the Chart's reversal of numbers from those given in the "River Graph"
are properly situated at their respective coordinates of maximum accumulation in the south and north.
14-9
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The property of the figures most consistent with Lai's physics is the
opposition in both in the placement of odd and even digits.
In the "River
Graph," odd and even are paired along the axis intersecting the concentric
circles at shared coordinates, as with one and six in the north. On the
axes of the same circle, they are paired across the center, as one and two
on the inner circle, six and seven on the outer.
In the "Lo Chart," odd and
even are interspersed, the odds at cardinal points, the evens between; thus
they run in a continuous odd-even pattern. This distinction mates the "River
Graph" with the Fu-hsi arrangement of trigrams and the "Lo Chart" with the
King Wen trigram arrangement to be discussed below, but about which we might
note beforehand that it is an arrangement analogous to Lai's "flow through
phases" concept as the Fu-hsi order is the analogue for "opposition.
These associations opened a new range of implications peculiar to Lai's
system. Lai worked out the relationship between the trigrams and the "Lo
Chart" and "River Graph" with reference to the trigram numeration in Shao
Yung's geometric progression. There ch'ien ~ and tui ~ were both seen to
evolve from "major yanp"
, which produces ch'ien by the addition of a
solid line and tui by the addition of a bipartite line. Therefore, ch'ien
and tui, numbered one and two, are placed together in the Fu-hsi order, where
they are in the south and southeast, and both correspond to the south of
the "River Graph," but only by virtue of association between "major yang" and
the south, the place of yang's "peak." This fluid application of terminolo
gy allowed placement of the other trigrams in pairs according to their sup
posed descent from "major yin" (k'un and ken in the north),"minor yang" (k'an
and hsUn in the west), and "minor yin" (li and ch'en in the east)
In
order to achieve these matches, Lai was forced to adjust the trigram numbers
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assigned in the Shao Yung order to the "River Graph" by switching the conno
tations of the trigrams' enumeration.
If the Fu-hsi order and the "River
Graph" were to coincide, ch'ien and tui had to be related to "major yang"
despite the fact that the former is a yang trigram and the latter a yin by
virtue of having a minority of yin lines in its composition. Theoretically,
the number of "major yang" was nine, yet ch'ien and tui were obliged to be
located in the south, seat of seven and two, while the west with its nine
and four were given over to hsUn and k'an. In the end, the southerly asso
ciation won out over numerical consistency, and we must infer that numerical
opposition of odds and evens, analogous to the linear opposition in the Fu-hsi
circular trigram graph, was the sole criterion for relating the "River Graph"
to the Fu-hsi order.
By the same token, it is the semblance of "flow through phases" through
contiguous odds and evens that is seen to bring the "Lo Chart" into line with
the trigrams in their King Wen arrangement father than any satisfactory cor
respondence between the numbers assigned to the two. In this sense, the "Riv
er Graph" and the "Lo Chart" proved as. difficult for Lai to incorporate into
a homogenous interpretation of the Change as it would to Huang Tsung-hsi and
other like-minded scholars of the early Ch'ing Dynasty who, instead of forc
ing associations, rejected the two graphics as extraneous to the Classic.^
Fortunately, Lai's system is not dependent upon these associations, for he
did not consider the "Lo Chart" or the "River Graph" antecedents to the cre
ation of the Classic. Rather, the correspondences between the graphics and
the trigram designs were spontaneous, proving that the Pattern was being ex
pressed in all cases without any conscious manipulation on the part of the
152
Sages who laid them down.
Thus Chart and Graph were synchronistic equi-
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182
j
jvalents to the eight trigrams; they are the implicit eight trigrams before
|
153
jthe trigrams were drawn.
For this reason, the "River Graph" and the "Lo Chart" play incidental
roles in Lai's Change commentary, the appeal to the "begetting and completing
numbers" of the former in explanation of "Attached Verbalizations" 1:9 being
the outstanding example of their application therein. As a key to understand
ing Lai’s physics and discipline of the Mind, however, the centrality of five
in both figures cannot be overlooked. The only allusion to the "Lo Chart"
in the commentary appears in reference to this similar feature of the two
graphics: "In both the 'River Graph' and the 'Lo Chart,' five occupies the
center; thus five is the progenitor of numbers.mCW
In our remarks on Lai's description of the Nature as a continuum of
"seasons of the Mind," we discussed the quality of Faith (hsin
), which
Lai placed in the center of his graphic portrayal of the Five Natures."^
Though Faith is given no seasonal counterpart to help describe its activities,
the manner of its functioning in the Mind's economy may be inferred from the
role of five in the two figures. Five provides the link between the poten
tial energy of "begetting" and the kinetic energy of "completing" in the
"River Graph." Thus it represents actualization: "Five flows through phases
in the midst of [the four digits arrayed] to its front, behind, left, and
v
right and threads through them."cx
1 rr
Again, "Five is the central number.
'The numbers of Heaven are five, the numbers of Earth are five.
It is this
by which are completed modulation and transformation and are put into action
157
the spirits.'
. . .It is for this reason that between Heaven and Earth
the myriad things cannot go beyond fives."cv
7 1S8
Five is the dominant number in the field of being, the space between
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Heaven and Earth wherein occurrences happen and phenomena exist. Lai found
support for this pivotal role of the number five in the prevalence of pen
tads in commonplace descriptions, of phenomena. The human body is spoken of
in terms of "five members (wu-t'i^.f'f ),"159 "five officers (wu-kuan %
% ),"160 and ’’five organs (wu-tsang
•l|161 In man's life> his
and Pattern comprise the Five Natures, the Five Relationships, and the "five
matters (wu-shih
)."162 There are five types of animals,163 and to
nourish them there are five grains.164 Colors, sounds, flavors, and smells
are other five-fold categorizations that Lai points out.165 To him these
ubiquitous groups of five were autonomous parallels among various levels of
natural phenomena, precisely the type of evidence Lai most appreciated in
support of the number theory underlying his philosophy and his Change study.
The "spirits (kuei-shen)" which in Lai's understanding of the "Attached
Verbalizations" 1:9 passage cited above were "put into action" by the num
bers generated by five form the bridge between abstract numbers and the ap
plied mathematics of divination.
In this matter there emerge differences
between Lai's thinking and Chu Hsi's that sharpen the definition between their
general approaches to the Change. As our translation indicates, Lai dif
ferentiated between "modulation (pien Ifr )" and "transformation (hua-{&),"
seeing in the former gradual change toward a new state and in the latter the
completion of that process.166 Chu Hsi took them to be interchangeable
terms,167 and explains Lai's "spirits (kuei-shen)" as "describing the in
tension and extension, going out and coming in of the producing and completr odds
11 and
j evens."
„cz 168
ing of
Lai specifically rejected this last,""69 wishing to maintain the literal
ness of "spirits," a concept used in other "Attached Verbalizations" con-
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184
I
texts170 in reference to the ineffable aspects of divination. To Lai, "modu-
llation" refers to the begetting and "traiisformation" to the completion of
phenomena, so in tandem the two mean "number (shu'ffic.
1 71
Begetting and
completing are the essence of existence, corresponding to the facts of oppo
sition and flow through phases respectively; hence they constitute the cycle
that may be expressed as a mathematical function. The "spirits" acting in
the midst of numerical abstractions is the ineffable agency by which the
oracles summoned by divination receive their unique form. Lai believed that
his view stood in contrast to Chu Hsi's, whose interpretation seemed to be
that the process was one of mechanical interplay between the numbers them
selves, that divination worked because of the "going out and coming in of
the producing and completing of odds and evens."
Let us digress for a moment to expand upon Lai's concept of Spirit,
which we encountered in his description of the Mind and which now takes on
its implications for the Change, since "spirits" in the context at hand
has an equivalent connotation. Lai said that the words Spirit, Decree (ming
), the Nature, tao, the Pattern, and the Great Ultimate are basically
the same. Only the context of the idea causes a differentiation in usage. 172
Spirit, it will be remembered, is one of three components of the Mind, the
Governor which shapes ch'i into forms. As in the human Nature, Spirit is the
archetypal force molding individual destiny, so it is the "spirits" that ac
count for the organization of the numerical constructs of divination which
provide the forms of the hexagrams.
Divination is performed with "spirit things (shen wuftfe $3)""^--yar
row stalks and turtle shells. They partake of Spirit despite the fact that
the former "is a grass,,a thing with no Mind or emotions. Thus [the text] 174
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says, ’does not think.’ Although the turtle has a Mind and emotions, it
does nothing. Thus [the text] says, 'does not act.'. . . They are the most
stupid and inactive things.”da 175 Nonetheless, in their very unconscious
ness they perform their task of rendering intelligible the modulations and
transformations of time. Sages therefore reverence these two things, even
though others consider them insignificant,precisely because they convey this
"Spirit intelligence (shen-ming%fr
)."176 Thus the yarrow and the turtle
in their divinatory functions provide concrete examples of the functioning
of Spirit in nature at large.
The hexagram texts, products of the same Spirit at work forming verbal
Images in the Sages' Minds, are descriptions of all possible numerical con
figurations in the closed system of sixty-four figures. Spirit, being unre.......
,
.
. r£ db 177
stricted to consciousness— "that which in yin and yang is ineffable
does not communicate directly to consciousness in words: "Spirit cannot of
itself tell men of propitiousness or adversity. Only having the words of
the divinatory hexagrams is theresomething to speak for the spirits and
assist them in that of which they
are not
themselvescapable. Thus[the
Sage’s words] can ’assist Spirit. ”'dc 178 In this passage, "Spirit (shen)"
and the "spirits (kuei-shen)" activated in divination are seen to be equi
valent.
The verbalizing work the Sages performed to "assist Spirit" has an un
conscious effect on the people, even as it aids in making the Change intel
ligible on behalf of the unconscious Spirit. The Sages explained propitiousness and adversity so the people would have no doubts and could do their
work without tiring. Evolving the "drum them on, make them dance in order
to fulfill Spirit (ku chih wu chih i^ chin shen ^ j.^
I
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)" meta_
186
phor o£ ’’Attached Verbalizations" 1:12, Lai says that the efficacy of the
Change’s verbal Images "is like the drum's sound, which creates the dancing
attitude. When the drum sound in fast, the dancing attitude is also fast;
as long as the drum sound does not stop, the dancing attitude does not stop.
It is spontaneously so--[the dancers] do not know who is compelling them.
This is what is meant by ’fulfill Spirit.’. . . Fulfilling Spirit is the
achievement of the Sages' attaching verbalizations [to the hexagrams]."^ ^
Like the drum sound, the verbal Images of the Change speak directly to the
unconscious part of the Mind and evoke action that "completes the ceaseless
activity under Heaven."^8
The numerical expression of the Spirit through the process of divination
reinforces the aim of Lai's discipline, which, as we saw earlier, is content
ment with one's own "number," the limits of the environment in which he ex
ists. In the words of "Attached Verbalizations" 11:5, one has "exhausted [the
potential of] Spirit (ch’iung shen^j ^
tentment.
181
)" when he has achieved such con-
Thus in using the Change, the role of consciousness is to ef
fect obedience to the numerical structure of existence, which is unconscious
both in the sense of its lacking human-type consciousness itself and of
being beyond the direct apprehension of conscious thought processes. Modu
lation and transformation— the mathematical facts of fluctuations of ch'i
in the midst of phenomenal existence--are lodged in the ineffable. Thus
number "comes from Heaven and Earth. Heaven and Earth have no way of under
standing it.
[Number] is imitated in divination and the hexagrams, but the
Sages had no way of understanding it. Therefore it is glorified as Spirit.„dg 182
The opening passage of the "Discussion of the Trigrams" Wing deals once
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again with the subject of number and Spirit and finds Lai disagreeing once
more with Chu Hsi in his understanding of these terms. Glossing the line,
"[The Sage counted] threei to Heaven and two to Earth and made those numbers
rely on one another,"^ 183 Lai appealedto the ’’River Graph’s” "begetting and
completing numbers": "The numbers one, two, three, four, and five are the be
getting numbers of the Five Phases. Six, seven, eight, nine, and ten are the
completing numbers of the Five Phases. The begetting numbers occupy the in
terior of the ’River Graph1 and are the incipits of the Five Phases. Thus
they can be used to evolve numbers. The completing numbers occupy the exte
rior of the 'River Graph' and are therefore the products of the Five Phases.
Thus they cannot be used to evolve numbers. '[Counting] three to [Heaven]
means 'to treble.' This means the three places one of Heaven, three of Hea
ven, and five of Heaven.
'[Counting] two to [Earth]' means 'to double.'
This means the two places two of Earth and four of Earth.
'Rely on one ano
ther' means 'take support from one another.' One of Heaven takes support
from three of Heaven; three of Heaven takes support from five of Heaven; and
together they make nine. Two of Earth takes support from four of Earth, and
together they make six.
*t.
184
"If we speak in terms of strokes, all together there are three.
'[Counting] three to [Heaven]' produces three threes; ’[counting] two to
[Earth]' produces two threes.
"When the Sages used yarrow stalks to evolve numbers, if the nine trans185
formative operations [necessary to form the trigram ch'ien]
were all
three-stroke yang,186 then trebling the three [operations necessary to form
one yang line], they got nine. This is the mother of nine. Thus the total
number of stalks left over from the dividing operation (she ^
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) being four
188
'nines or thirty-six,187 this is the offspring of nine.
In terms of '[count
ing] three to [Heaven],’ this is three twelves.
188
"If the nine transformative operations were all two-stroke yin,
then
doubling the three [operations necessary to form one yin line], they got six.
This is the mother of six. Thus the total number of stalks left over from
189
r
the dividing operation being four sixes, twenty-four,
this is the offspring
of six.
In terms of '[counting] two to [Earth],' this is two twelves."dl 190
Lai continues this analysis for the total number of counters remaining
!
on the table after the four operations needed to complete one of the purely
yin and yang hexagrams— 216 [6 x 36) for THE VIGOROUS (hex. 1) and 144 (6 x
24) for THE COMPLIANT (hex. 2)— and extracts the common denominator seventy-
two from those sums. As 216 = 3 x 72 and 144 = 2 x 72, Lai claims another
proof for his interpretation of "[counting] three to [Heaven] and two to
[Earth]." Again, the remnant counters from the generation of all 192 yang
lines, 6$12, and from all 192 yin lines, 4$08, for all sixty-four hexagrams
share the common denominator of 2,304, which is one-third and one-half of
the foregoing sums--another case of trebling and doubling. Adding 6,912 and
4,608 gives 11520, the total number of the myriad things according to "At
tached Verbalizations" 1:9, and with this all numbers have been evolved from
the "River Graph's" begetting numbers.
191
Lai states that the "Discussion of the Trigrams" Wing opens with this
discussion of the yarrow stalks and numbers because, "The yarrow and the
f
'River Graph' were both produced by Heaven."^ 19^ Therefore, the basis for
the later Sage enterprises of constructing the hexagrams and evolving their
texts was lodged entirely in nature. As a control, he points out that neither
seven, the number of a non-modulating yang line, nor eight, the non-modulating
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|
189
Iyin, can be evolved from a trebling of Heaven's or a doubling of Earth's
numbers, but are admixtures of the two: 2 + 5 or 3 + 4 for seven, 1 + 3 + 4
or 1 + 2 + 5 for eight.
It was clear to Lai and Chu Hsi both that Confucius had had the "River
Graph" in mind when detailing the assignment of the first ten digits to Hea
ven and Earth. Lai departed from Chu after being impressed by the fact that
the first three odd numbers total nine and the first two evens, six--the yang
and yin numbers cited in every line of the Change. In this lay the connective
tissue between nature at large and its imitation in the Change. Lai reminds
us that it was Confucius who in his "Attached Verbalizations" Wing first
pointed out the numbers of Heaven and Earth and that Confucius had proceeded
in his work of explaining this aspect of the Change on the basis of Fu-hsi's
194
"River Graph."
The symmetries in the Heavenly and Earthly numbers exhibit
the properties of trebling and doubling in their respective "begetting num
bers," one, three, and five, and two and four. These properties can also
|
be discovered in the divinatory mathematics of the yarrow stalks, inanimate
objects capable of no conscious organization which nonetheless convey "Spirit
intelligence" in the numbers they generate. When it is realized that,aside
from consistent doubling and trebling seen in the various stages of divination,
the total number of remnant counters left from the production of all sixtyfour hexagrams equals the number of the myriad things, the equivalence of
the Change and Heaven and Earth has received yet another "mathematical proof."
This was the fact that Confucius had intended to convey in the "Discussion
of the Trigrams" Wing, and through Lai's work, the opening passage of the
latter is rendered consistent with the number theory extracted from "Attached
Verbalizations" 1:9.
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190
Such consistency was not to be found in Chu Hsi's Fundamental Meaning
of Chou Change, however. While Chu Hsi had set the precedent for interpreting
the numerical passages in the "Attached Verbalizations" TVing with reference
to the "River Graph," he had devised another approach entirely for the reintroduction of number concepts in "Discussion of the Trigrams" 1. His ex
planation of "san t'ien liang ti jr
there, which we have seen Lai
interpret as "[counting] three to [Heaven] and two to [Earth],1 was an inge
nious but, according to Lai,195 fundamentally erroneous theory based on the
belief that "Heaven is round; Earth is square Ct'ien ytlan ti fang
73 )." Chu wrote: "What is round has a circumference of three to a diameter
of one. These three are unified in one solid line;^9^ therefore,’treble Hea
ven1 and get three. A square with a side of one has a perimeter of four.
These four are composed of two bipartite lines; therefore, ’double Earth’ and
get two. All numbers are evolved from this."^ 197
A circle is a single unbroken line whose length is equal to three times
its diameter. The solid line here, as in the hexagrams, is taken to be an image
of Heaven, and when it is "trebled’to form a circle, it remains unbroken and
becomes another image of Heaven in its roundness. A square has four sides
as two yin lines have four segments in. the figures of the Change. Two dimen
sions, length and width, are necessary to find the square’s perimeter, where
as only one dimension and the constant pi 7T , roughlythree, are needed to
find the circumference of the circle.
Doubling those two dimensions of the
square to arrive at the perimeter, then, is the implication Chu Hsi saw in
"double Earth (liang ti
and multiplying the diameter by "three" to
find the circumference explains "treble Heaven (san t’ien ^ 7^- )." In
both cases Chu seized upon the constants in the geometric formulae to ex-
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plain the assignment of these numerical values to Heaven and Earth.
Lai Chih-te interpreted this passage as an extension of the "River
Graph" scheme of numeration where Chu Hsi had seen it as an independent
proof of the numerical basis of the Change, drawing upon the solid and bipar
tite lines to establish correspondences rather than appealing to the "River
Graph." This implies that Chu did not incorporate the "River Graph" into
the "evolving of numbers" that both he and Lai assumed to be the inport of
this passage's predicate "i shuj^^r •" Lai's gloss of the term was "made
those numbers to rely on one another," as translated above. Chu Hsi took
the numbers mentioned to be those of the divination process and decided
that those numbers derived from the constants associated with a "round" Hea
ven and a "square" Earth. Lai, on the other hand, equated the abstract num
bers of Heaven and Earth he believed to have been identified by the "River
Graph" as stated in "Attached Verbalizations" 1:9 with the numbers of the
divination process he used to gloss the opening passage of the "Discussion of
the Trigrams" Wing.
In this manner, he was able to arrive at "the number of
the myriad things (wan-wu chih shu
)" through the doubling and
trebling process of the latter, precisely as the "Attached Verbalizations"
1:9, the locus classicus of this term, does in saying, "The stalks needed
to make THE VIGOROUS (hex.l) are 216; the stalks needed to make THE COMPLIANT
(hex. 2) are 144. Altogether this is 360--the number of days in a year.
In
the two sections [of the Classic of Change, the First (shang Jl. ) and the
Latter (hsia "fC ) Parts (p'ien
), the number of stalks needed to make all
the hexagrams is] l,520--the number of the myriad things."
1-y. *i n o
To Lai,
the "number of the myriad things" constituted the ultimate point of conver
gence between the numbers of Heaven and Earth separately discussed in the
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192
two "Wings."
To Chu Hsi, then, the function of the "River Graph" in the "Wings" was
to explain the assignment of even and odd to Earth and Heaven respectively
and further to explain their allignment as the "producing and completing num199
bers" which render operative the Five Phases.
In the "Discussion of
the Trigrams" instance, he departed from that line of reasoning and contrived
a new number theory having no basis in the body of Change material, one that
seems to derive from his researches into yarrow stalk divination aimed at
rediscovering the authentic method of Chou times.^ The introduction of the
accepted premise that "Heaven is round; Earth is square"201 and two geomet
rical postulates might not have been offensive in another context, but Lai
found them out of place in the explanation of the Confucian Wings, where it
had already been agreed that the "River Graph" was the referent of the num
bers of Heaven and Earth. We are reminded of the extra-textual tack taken
by Shao Yung to explain the "Discussion of the Trigrams" 3 terms "number the
past" and "know the future." There it was seen that Shao, like Chu Hsi in
the case at hand, attempted to force correspondence of the Classic and nature
at large by appealing to reasonable, but non-canonical premises.
I
i.-2
%
The contrast between Lai's insistence on canonical consistency and the
Sung masters' more eclectic number theory is clear in their respective ex
planations of how the hexagrams came to be formed from the eight trigrams.
Published at the beginning of Chu Hsi's Fundamental Meaning of Chou Change
is a graphic entitled "Fu-hsi's Sixty-four Hexagrams in Sequence (Fu-hsi liushih-ssu kua tz'u-hstl
an adaptation of Shao
Yung's "Lateral Graph of the Sixty-four Hexagrams of Prior Heaven (Hsient'ien liu-shih-ssu kua heng t'u 3C.7R A -+ Y21 ^ 1'
)."203 shao's graph
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193
purports to explain the first sentence in "Attached Verbalizations" 11:1,
"The eight trigrams were set in order, and the Images were in their midst.
For this reason they were doubled, and the lines were in their midst.
Lai
agreed/with Chu Hsi that the "order" in which the eight trigrams were origi
nally "set" was the ch'ien, one. . .k'un, eight, arrangement derived from
Shao Yung's "increase by a factor" concept,
itself a product of Master
Shao's reading of "Attached Verbalizations" 1:11, "Thus the Change has its
Great Ultimate. This produced the two types; the two types produced the
four Images, the four Images produced the eight trigrams."^0
Lai accepted Shao's interpretation to this point, and he incorporated
Shao's graphics relevant to it into his own collection as faithfully repre205
senting Confucius' intention.
Master Shao, and after him Chu Hsi, did
not stop at this point, however, but applied the "increase by a factor" method
until all sixty-four hexagrams had been generated. Thus in Chu's explanation
of the above-mentioned graphic we read, "The eight divided and made sixteen,
the sixteen divided and made thirty-two, the thirty-two divided and made
sixty-four."^
Lai countered in his explanation to his "Eight Trigrams Modulate to
Sixty-four Hexagrams Graph (Pa kua pien liu-shih-ssu kua t'u
^
\ © i)~ 1J) )” by saying that whereas the trigrams were indeed formed by
«
|
subsequent addition of lines to the "two types" and "four Images," the hex207
agrams were formed by a process of modulation from the eight trigrams.
The first step in this process, presumably performed by Fu-hsi, was the
doubling of the eight trigrams by stacking each atop itself and making the
hexagrams which in the Change have the same names as their component tri208
grams.
Because "Firm and pliant replace one another and beget modula-
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tion and transformation','*^ 2^ and also because "The lines refer to modula
tion,"^
it could be known that the lines of the eight doubled trigrams
had been seen to modulate successively to beget the remaining fifty-six hex
agrams.
In this fashion, and not via Shao Yung's geometric progression, had
the hexagrams originally been formed.
Lai's understanding was that the trigrams in themselves were discrete
clusters of potential Images that only became active in their combination
with other trigrams. The eight are, in the words of "Attached Verbalizations"
1:9, only a "small completion (hsiao ch'eng ^
) " enroute to the forma
tion of the hexagrams and "insufficient to exhaust the possible occurrences
under Heaven. Only by extending these eight trigrams to form sixty-four
hexagrams, . . .by cataloguing [phenomena] under these eight trigram types
and enlarging them. . .are all the possible occurrences under Heaven ex
hausted."^ 211
Lai amplified this line of reasoning in his gloss to "Attached Verbali
zations" 11:1, saying, "Fu-hsi's eight trigrams were set in order, and al
though they did not enunciate Images, nonetheless as soon as they had be
come the eight trigrams, King Wen's Images were already contained therein.
ALthough Fu-hsi's trigrams had no line [texts], nonetheless when they were
doubled to make six[-line figures], the Duke of Chou's six lines were already
contained therein."
9T 9
Elsewhere Lai said, "If the trigrams had not been
doubled to form six-stroke [figures], they could not modulate to form sixtyfour. Only because there are six strokes can there be modulation to sixtyfour."^11 2^
This reflects Lai's understanding of "Discussion of the Tri
grams" 1, which reads in his sense, "[The Sage] observed the modulations of
yin and yang and set up the hexagrams."^v 2^
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195
Thus Lai presented his trigram-begotten hexagram theory as an organic
alternative to the purely mathematical Shao Yung-Chu Hsi model. To Lai,
the modulation of the eight figures to sixty-four imaged the process visible
in nature of birth following sexual attraction of opposites. The MSung
Confucians'" approach was wrong because their extended geometric progression
"is a line of dead n u m b e r s , ^ manipulation of numbers for its own sake.
Because it did not reflect the observable behavior of living things, the "in
crease by a factor” method could not have produced the hexagrams of the
Change--"Only by way of eight added to eight does one then see the mystery
of yin and yang's spontaneous bringing into existence."
In a collection of "songs (kofjX)" prefixing Chu Hsi's Fundamental Mean
ing of Chou Change, there is one entitled "Successive Ordering of the Hexa
gram Images in Palaces (Fen kung kua hsiang tz'u-hsU-^j ^
),"717
Such "songs" were apparently designed for use by diviners as memory aids,
and this one in particular is relevant to the system of divination main
tained in the book A Hundred Days to Mastering the Arts of Divination, As
trology, and Physiognomy, which was advanced in chapter I as a possible key
to understanding some of the lost arts of Han Dynasty Image and Number school
Change
exegesis.
In the Hundred Days system, the "eight palaces (pa kungyv
& )" constitute the order of the hexagrams, and the same song found in
Chu Hsi's collection is used in a slightly modified form--Five Phase associates are added— to help determine the significance of oracles.
218
It was
also noted in chapter I that Ching Fang's system employed the "eight palaces,"
but it
is no longer clear what purpose the device served. The function of
Chu Hsi's "song" in the context of the Fundmental Meaning,aside from its
intrinsic interest as a historical document, is not apparent either; he does
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not seem to appeal to the "eight palaces" in reference to either the Classic
or its "Ten Wings."
However, when in the course, of his editorial revision of the Great Com
pendium of Chou Change Lai Chih-te discarded the "increase by a factor" method
as a fallacious genesis for the sixty-four hexagrams, he selected from among
the Great Compendium's textual matter the "Successive Ordering of the Hexa
gram Images in Palaces" song as the correct model for hexagram generation^
In so doing he was not indicating the influence upon his own work of Ching
Fang,219 but was putting to use an otherwise unapplied portion of the mate
rial sanctioned for examination study.
In fact, Lai did not use the name "eight palaces" in reference to his
.adaptation of the schema for subsuming all sixty-four hexagrams under the
eight doubled trigrams, calling it "Eight Trigrams Modulate to Sixty-four
Hexagrams (Pa kua pien liu-shih-ssu kua J
\
)" instead.
^
As a sample of that graphic we reproduce the series associated with the
220
doubled trigram ch1ien:
(head) (a)
(b)
(c)
hf i
(d)
(e)
(f)
(g)
f l I 1] S
Although Lai’sintentions were probably different from those of Han Change
commentators, he retained intact the logic of "eight palace" organization as
preserved in both the Hundred Days system and Ching Fang's. Thus the "head
(shou ^ )" hexagram, one of the doubled trigrams, is seen to modulate lineby-line through the fifth line, in this case bringing the process to TEARING
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197
(hex. 23), (e). The top line cannot modulate without forming the doubled
trigram k'un W and thereby encroaching upon another group. The devisers
of this arrangement solved the problem by having the fourth line modulate
once more (f). This step was traditionally called the "wandering anima (yuhun
a term seemingly related to "Attached Verbalizations" 1:4, "The
wandering of the anima is known as modulation."^ ^
The last hexagram in
the series was called "returning anima (kuei-hun ^
)," in which the lower
trigram reverts to the "head" trigram, while the upper trigram remains the
same as that of the "wandering anima," yielding in our example GREAT POS
SESSION (hex. 14), (g).
It is not known what function the "wandering" and "returning animae" per
formed beyond denoting the operation that apportioned the sixteen remnant hex
agrams among the "eight palaces." Lai, who did not employ the traditional
terminology, was, however, impressed by certain qualities of these "two tail
hexagrams (wei erh kua
)," as he called them. He notes that the
last two hexagrams subsumed under the "head" DEPENDENCE (hex. 30), the doubled
trigram Id
I
(hex. 13) S
, the hexagrams DISPUTE (hex. 6)
and TOGETHER WITH OTHERS
, both contain the trigram ch'ien. This relates them to the
ch1ien series depicted above, the last two hexagrams of which--(f) and (g)—
222
both contain the trigram li.
This type of interrelationship had analogues
in all eight cases and established in Lai's mind that the mathematics of
this arrangement was composed "entirely of natural numbers,"^2 ^
confirming
for him the system's viability as a replacement for the "increase by a fac
tor" method. The model's efficacy was further strengthened by the realiza
tion that when "head" hexagrams were mutually Antipodal, as in the case of
THE VIGOROUS (hex. 1) and THE COMPLIANT (hex. 2), all the members of their
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sets were also mutually Antipodal.
A A
J
Thus Lai felt that in this system he
offered as an alternative to Shao Yung's and Chu Hsi's explanation a "natural"
mathematic, one based upon actual "begetting" rather than upon a symmetri
cal and abstract idealization of numerical relationships, and that his
system was confirmed by its inclusion of Antipodalism, one of two primary
structural principles observed in King Wen's hexagram order.
In addition, the modified "eight palace" generation scheme incorporated
the trigrams' role as Image determinants, where the line-by-line incrementing
of Shao Yung's progression seemed to ignore that role. The. fact that Chu Hsi's
"song" is phrased entirely in "Discussion of the Trigrams" trigram attri
butes--"THE VIGOROUS is Heaven; Heaven-Wind, MEETING; Heaven-Mountain, FLEE63
ING,"
225
etc.— no doubt enhanced its attractiveness to Lai. Lai employed
the same wording in another of his graphics, "Graph of the Eight Hexagram
[Groups] in Sequence, [Showing Them to be] Mutually Inverse (Pa kua tz'uhsU tzu-hsiang tsung t'u J\ ^1-
^
1^ ),"22^ and elsewhere in his
commentary proper. When we deal with specific exegetical cases, we shall
see the central importance of trigram analysis in Lai's hermeneutics. Lai
applied this device to a greater extent than anv of the Great Compendium of
Chou Change expositors thanks to the agency of Inversion and Antipodalism,
which allowed him to expand the channels of relationship between trigrams
and hexagrams.
Because of the association between the "River Graph" and the Sage Fuhsi, all of the number theory examined to this point has been related to what
Lai called "the Change of Fu-hsi (Fu-hsi chih i
^
),"227 It was
accepted by the Sung scholars and by Lai alike that Fu-hsi's Change comprised
the eight trigrams in the circular array of polar opposition reproduced on
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
page 174 above. The exact symmetry of this arrangement favored the evolu
tion of Shao Yung's "Prior Heaven" theories, originally derived from the
pairing of polar opposite trigrams in "Discussion of the Trigrams" 3. Chu
Hsi duly noted Shao Yung's idea of "Prior Heaven" without necessarily hav228
ing been convinced of its validity as a tool for Change exegesis,
but the
concept of "the Change of Fu-hsi" is prominent in the graphics prefixed to
the Fundamental Meaning of Chou Change, where four graphs allude to Fu-hsi
229
in their titles,
and was thus inescapable to students of his commentary.
Master Shao differentiated "Prior Heaven" from "Latter Heaven (hout'ien j[p
)," a distinction by which we are referred to his understanding
of "function (t'i^ t )" and "use (yung jj?
The former is the undifferen-
tiated Great Ultimate, the Principle inherent in any phenomena, while the
230
latter is its expression in concrete foim.
As "function," "Prior Heaven"
is the ideal order that prefigures actual phenomena; as the "use" of that
"function," actual phenomena are necessarily "Latter." The order of trigram
presentation in "Discussion of the Trigrams" 5--ch'en
k'un :: , tui
, hstin == , li EE ,
, ch'ien = , k'an VL , ken r= --was taken to express this
actualized order of "Latter Heaven," also called the "Change of King Wen
(Wen wang chih
•£
232
That order translates into a circular graph,
i*.
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which Shao Yung attributed to King Wen and made the basis of the practical
Change, saying: "How far-reaching was King Wen's making of the Change! Did
he not attain to the 'use (yung) ’ of Heaven and Earth?"e^
To Lai, Fu-hsi's graphic trigram arrangement is one aspect of the Pattern
it is the principle of opposition expressed in terms of number. Of the graph
reproduced on page 174 above he wrote, "This [graph] is the Change of Fu-hsi;
it is the mathematic of the Change, that which is invariably in opposir
ec 234
tion."
Lai agreed with Shao Yung that the King Wen trigram arrange
ment imaged the actual information of ch'i, saying, "[The King Wen graph] is
the ch'i of the Change, that which flows through phases unceasingly."ec*
For this reason, the trigram ch'ien, for example, should be considered as
having different forms in the two graphs: "The ch'ien of Fu-hsi’s circle
graph bespeaks the ch'ien of Heaven and Earth; the ch'ien of King Wen’s
circle graph bespeaks the ch'ien of the Five Phases, where ch'ien is Meti’®® 236
In the Fu-hsi graph, ch'ien occupies its ideal position at the south
pole, and its opposite is k'un, seated in the north.
Ch'ien and k'un thus
define one another by their opposition: ch'ien is Heaven, firm, vigorous,
etc.; k'un is Earth, pliant, compliant, etc.
It was to these opposing quali
ties that Confucius referred in the opening passage of "Attached Verbalizaef
tions" 1:1, "Heaven is lofty, Earth lowly; ch'ien and k'un are fixed."
In
glossing this passage, Lai concluded, "In Fu-hsi's circle graph, where yin
and yang are opposed, where yin is Antipodal to yang and yang is Antipodal
to yin, Confucius found inspiration for this passage."e® ^
In King Wen's
graph, ch1ien is placed in the northwest, which denotes its entelechy as a
phase in the cosmographic circuit.
It is not opposite k'un, now in the
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201
southwest, and the ideal Heaven-Earth association is replaced by the Five
Phase associate of Metal, a chfien attribute listed in "Discussion of the
Trigrams" 11.
From this point of view, it is not incorrect to discriminate the ideal
from the actual in the two graphs. However, they are not properly distin
guished as a priori and a posteriori in the manner of Shao Yung’s "Prior"
and "Latter Heaven." The Fu-hsi cycle is, in Lai’s thought, ideal only inso
far as it projects in purest form the motivating factor— opposition— of ac
tual cycles; the King Wen arrangement is actual only insofar as any cycle
may be expected to proceed under ideal conditions, without the interference
of other cycles. Because they portray schematically the two interdependent
factors of opposition and flow through phases, they must be read simultane
ously.
Confucius had presented this fact in the sixth chapter of "Discussion of
the Trigrams," a chapter which Chu Hsi had declared "unintelligible (wei
hsien ch'i i
-j ,,238 yransiate(j t0 reflect Lai's understanding
of it, that passage reads: "Spirit refers to that which makes mysterious the
myriad things. For activating the myriad things, there is nothing so quick
as Thunder. For broadcasting the myriad things, nothing is so quick as Wind.
For drying the myriad things, nothing dries like Fire. For making joyous
the myriad things, nothing is more joyous t?ian Marsh.
|
$
myriad things, nothing is moister than Water.
For moistening the
For bringing to an end and
beginning the myriad things, nothing fulfills like Cessation.
"Thus when Water and Fire are equal to one another, Thunder and Wind
do not resist one another, Mountain and Marsh are the same ch'i, then can
there be modulation and transformation and bringing to completion of the myri-
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ad things.,,eh 239
The first paragraph in the foregoing translation employs vocabulary
parallel to the "Discussion of the Trigrams" 4, where the "Change of Fu240
hsi" is said by Lai to be the subject.
In chapter four, "There is Thun
der to activate [things], Wind to broadcast them, Rain to moisten them, Sun
to illuminate them, Cessation to stop them, Joy to make them joyous, ch'ien
to rule them, k'un to store them."ei 2^
In this passage, the order of
presentation of trigrams--here mentioned by their various associates, shown
in our translation by capitalization, in reference to ch en, hsUn, k'an, li,
ken, tui, ch'ien, and k'un respectively--breaks down into Antipodal pairs.
In chapter six, however, although the roles assigned to each trigram is car
ried over from chapter four, the trigrams are presented-in the "King Wen
order," seen to have its origin in "Discussion" 5. Chapter six, then, might
be viewed as an amalgamation of chapters four and five, and in Lai's analysis
the apparent blend of the two sets of ideas demonstrated that the "Change of
King Wen" and the "Change of Fu-hsi" must be understood simultaneously. Lai
|
commented: "This [sixth chapter] does not place Fire opposite Water or
Mountain opposite Marsh. Earlier Confucians did not comprehend opposition
and flow through phases and fabricated the theory of 'Prior Heaven' and 'Lat
ter Heaven.' Thus the Fundamental Meaning says of this passage that it is
as
|
'unintelligible.'
[Chu Hsi] did not understand that the two graphs cannot
be discriminated as 'prior' and 'latter.'
"For example, Heaven and Earth are opposites. When their two ch'i inter
change and arouse [one another] to beget and complete the myriad things,
there is flow through phases. How can either Heaven or Earth be prior or
latter? Male and female are opposite. When their two ch'i interchange and
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arouse [one another] to beget and complete other males and females, there is
flow through phases. How can either male or female be prior or latter? There
fore, one cannot discard either the Fu-hsi or the King Wen graphs. This was
the fact whereby Confucius was able to discover the thousand-year secret of
the two Sages.
"This passage combines in one the preceeding four passages, and its
ei 242
meaning is that neither of the two graphs can be discarded."J
Opposition is that which "impels the Spirit and mystery (yUn ch'i shen
miao
)" of the flow through phases. One cannot speak of flow
through phases without opposition because were there no intercourse of op
posites, there could not be the begetting and completing of phenomena that
is the medium in which flow through phases takes place. 243 The two aspects
of ch'i are dependent upon one another in the Change no lessthan in nature:
"There being opposition, the movement of [the Change's] ch'imust flow through
phases unceasingly. There being flow through phases, the mathematic of
[Change's] Images must be in unvariable opposition. Thus male and female are
mutually opposed, and their ch'i must push against one another.
If they
did not push against one another, then male and female would be dead things.
In this activity, where does one find what comes first or afterward? Thus
ek 244
I do not differentiate between ’Prior Heaven’ and 'Latter Heaven."
Again, as with the "dead numbers" of the geometric progression, Lai's cri
tique of Sung exegesis in this instance suggests that vitality has been sac
rificed in favor of idealized symmetry and rational compartmentalization.
If one understands their significance, says Lai, the two graphs representing
the principles of opposition and flow through phases cannot be taken separately--the mathematics based on opposition finds no expression outside the
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the movement of forms through their regular phases.
It is the model of the circle that permits simultaneous comprehension of
Lai's two aspects, for, as we have seen, shared coordinates on the cosmograph implies similitude.
In order to assert the unity of opposition and
phased flow, Lai constructed his own circular graph, the one reproduced on
page 146 above, and placed it first in his collection of graphics. By it
he intended to show that the circular model forned the basis of the Change,
representing the Classic's equality to natural processes. Without any ad
ditional symbols or words, his graph contains at once all the potential Images
concretized in the trigrams of the Fu-hsi and King Wen graphs: "My graph
sets up no words. Because the Pattern, ch'i, and Image and Number are no
.more than this, this, then, combines in one opposition, flow through phases,
and the governing Pattern and graphs them. Thus the graph is antecedent to
Fu-hsi's and King Wen's."em 24^
Defending his originality in a statement reminiscent of the reply to
a friend's oblique criticism of his reevaluaticn of Sung School of Princi
ple Change teachings cited above, Lai wrote: "If it be asked, 'Fu-hsi and
King Wen already had graphs, and now you would add this graph— how can it
be?' I respond, this is not correct. Fu-hsi had a graph, yet King Wen's
graph is dissimilar to it. Could it be that Fu-hsi's graph is incom
plete?"611 246 Fu-hsi’s graph was not, of course, incomplete; rather, it ad
dressed one aspect of the Change and King Wen's addressed another. Clearly
in Lai's view, however, the antiquity or the authorship of explanatory ma
terial did not grant it exclusive claim to truth.
Instead, the common vi
sion of the Change could properly be expanded if one's purpose were to add
to the Classic's general intelligibility.
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205
Lai also incorporated Shao Yung's circular arrangement of the sixty247
four hexagrams into his thinking,
but preferred to introduce this "Fuhsi" hexagram order, based on polar opposition of hexagrams across 180° of
the circle, in a linear graph matched with a linear graph of King Wen's
248
hexagram procession that constitutes the present order of the Classic.
In
so doing, he intended to assert that the necessity of simultaneous comprehension extended to the hexagrams in arrangements that evoke their represen
tation of opposition and flow through phases as well as to the trigram cy
cles. This again was a fact that his predecessors had failed to grasp:
"Confucians ii’oin the Han through the Sung took [the order of the hexagrams]
to refer solely to the arrangement of the First and Latter Parts (shang
hsia p'ien
). They did not know that its importance is equal to
the circle graph [of the hexagrams in their Fu-hsi order], that the many Ima
ges are all contained in the two graphs of the Antipodes and the Inverse
e „eo 249
pairs."
The Antipodal hexagram cycle is once more an ideal image in the sense
that each hexagram is assigned its place according to the symmetrical scheme
of polar opposition.
In fact, Lai did not make extensive use of the graph
entitled "Fu-hsi's Hexagrams (Fu-hsi kua
gi-
beyond the assertion
of its equivalence and compatibility with the given order of the hexagrams
in the Change proper. We might assume that Shao Yung's graphic offered a
handy schematization for the Antipodal function which otherwise lay implicit
in the order of hexagrams he believed to have been evolved by King Wen.
We have seen that Lai believed the actual order of hexagrams in the -Classic to have had its source in King Wen's ability to interpret and ex
press the Images latent in the lines without imposing conscious designs.
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206
Too, we have discussed the two symmetries, Inversion and Antipodalism,
that emerged in the course of Wen’s work and have noted the role Lai assigned
them in the formation of verbal.Images for the individual hexagrams. Taking
now the complete sequence of Change hexagrams as an Image of flow through
phases complementary to the opposition of the "Fu-hsi Hexagrams," we shall
examine other symmetries that confirmed for Lai the correlation between this
sequence and the cycles of phenomenal occurrences.
In these symmetries he
found further proofs of the mathematical infrastructure of the Change and
further substantiation of the importance of Inversion and Atnipodalism.
The proofs are set down in an essay entitled "The Meaning of the First
and Latter Parts of the Classic CShang-hsia p’ien i
There
Lai sees in the order of the sixty-four hexagrams two like sequences, each
beginning with Images of sexual-type attraction between opposites and both
&
ending with the Images Fire and Water, signifying the actualization of the
phenomenal continuum initiated and maintained by that attraction.
Classic
al support for his interpretation was discovered in the "Procession of the
Hexagrams" Wing, which breaks its.train of dynamic transitions from one hex
agram to its successor at DEPENDENCE (hex. 30), the last hexagram in the
"First Part," and begins afresh with the first hexagram in the "Last Part,"
AROUSAL (hex. 31). At that point, the "Procession" says, "There being Heav
en and Earth, thereafter there are the myriad things. There being the myriad
things, thereafter there are male and female. There being male and female,
thereafter there are husband and wife."6^ ^
According to Lai Chih=te, "Heaven and Earth" and the "myriad things" re
fer to the sequence of hexagrams in the "First Part," beginning with THE
VIGOROUS (hex. 1) and THE COMPLIANT (hex. 2). About them the "Procession"
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says, "There being Heaven and Earth, thereafter the myriad things are
begotten="eci 252 The Classic’s initial section, then, is seen to be concerned
with the general distinction of masculine and feminine projected upon the
forces of nautre, while the "Last Part" is addressed specifically to the life
processes of individual phenomena. Lai wrote: "The 'First Part’ of the Clas
sic is headed by THE VIGOROUS and THE COMPLIANT, the fixed places of yin
and yang and the masculine and feminine of the myriad things.
It is the
eT 253
mathematic of the Change, that which is invariably in opposition."
Meanwhile, "The ’Last Part’ of the Classic is headed by AROUSAL and CONSTAN
CY (hex. 32), the interchange of arousal between yin and yang and the ch*ien
and k’un in any one thing.
It is the ch’i of the Change, that which is unss 254
ceasingly flowing through phases.11
In calling it "the mathematic of the Change," Lai describes the "First
Part" of the Classic in the same words applied to the Fu-hsi trigram cycle.
Beginning with the doubled trigrams ch’ien and k’un, the "First Part" re
calls the polar locations of those two trigrams in the "Graph of Fu-hsi's
Eight Trigrams at the Rhumbs." The relationship to the symmetrical graph
is reinforced by the median hexagrams in the "First Part," THE OPEN (hex. 11)
and THE CLOSED (hex. 12), which occur after a lapse of ten hexagrams.
Lai
explains that the ten intervening hexagrams have in all sixty lines, and
"Yang peaks at six, yin peaks at six, and at this point THE VIGOROUS and
THE COMPLIANT modulate."et 255
The idea of "peaking at six" seems to have its origin in the "Attached
Verbalizations" 1:2, "The movement of the six lines is in the tao of the
three reaching their peak."eu Lai glossed, "'The three' are the Three
Agents (san ts’ai j£. % ), the place of Earth, the place of Man, and the
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208
place of Heaven. The Three Agents are the six lines.
are the six lines, together they are the Three Agents.
the maximum.
Individually they
'Peak' means reach
If the lines do not peak, there is no movement toward modulation.
Yang peaks and becomes yin; yin peaks and becomes yang. This is to say the
movement toward modulation of the six lines takes place because the fact
of the Three Agents peaking at their maximums is like this."ev ^
With reference to a hexagram, the "Three Agents" are: lines one and two,
Earth; three and four, Man; five and six, Heaven.
Glossing the tenth chap
ter of "Attached Verbalizations" II, Lai expanded on the "tao of the Three
showing that each "place" in a
Agents
hexagram is necessarily bipartite. Observing odd-even distinctions, the
"tao of Heaven" among the Three Agents is yin and yang, the sixth and fifth
lines respectively; the "tao of Man" is Humanity and Morality, the third and
fourth lines; and the "tao of Earth" is firm and pliant, the first and second
lines.
If either term were missing in any of these three, stasis would re
sult: Heaven would be only yang, Earth only yin, and asexual Man would be un257
able to beget and complete.
When Lai says "together they are the Three
Agents," he means that as a class of phenomena the hexagrams may be generally
described in terms of three planes orienting man in the context of nature as
a whole.
In specific cases, a line’s "Three Agent" designation may influence
the formation of its verbal Image. The Image "field (t*ien 0 )" in THE VIG
OROUS (hex. 1) 9/2 is attributed by Lai to the line's position in the hexa258
gram's place of Earth,
and in the same hexagram's 9/3 "the lord (chtln-tzu
$ )" is said to reflect the place of Man in the "Three Agent" vocabula7CQ
ry.
To La», then, the "Three Agents" rubrics had concrete application
i
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in exegesis beyond their abstract typological task of relating the linear
constructs to nature at large.
"Individually they are six lines," however, and as discrete hexagrams
and lines the linear figures exhibit the same tendency to "peak," to reach
the point of modulation to opposites, as do the Three Agents generally.
Each line is named either "nine (chiu f L )," the maximum yang, or "six (liu
)," the maximum yin. To Lai, the text for each line was written from
the point of view that the line is at the point of modulation, as seen in
the "Attached Verbalizations" 1:3 statement cited earlier, "The lines refer
to modulation." When it is gotten in divination, the modulating line pro
vides the link between the present hexagram and the "modulant hexagram (pien1.
kuaiff-
or chih-kua
)."
Read from bottom line to top line in the hexagrams of the Change, each
line is conceived as modulating to form another hexagram: "For example, the
first line of THE VIGOROUS (hex. 1) modulates, and [the whole] becomes MEET
ING (hex. 44); the second line modulates, and [the whole] becomes FLEEING
(hex. 33)."ew 260 When the sixth, the top line, is reached, the hexagram has
i
reached the point of total modulation. To Lai, this was the meaning impli
cit in the additional text "to make use of nine (yung-chiu
j t s ) " append
ed to *he top line of THE VIGOROUS (hex. 1). That text reads, "To make use
ex 261
of nine, see that the assembled dragons have no head. Propitious."
The "assembled dragons" are seen to refer by metonymy to the six lines of
the hexagram, four of which (9/1, 9/2, 9/5, 9/6) speak of "dragons." The
fact that they "have no head'"1no leader, means that the modulation of the
top line has completed the transformation of yang to yin--all lines have re
solved into their opposites and where once there was THE VIGOROUS now stands
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THE COMPLIANT (hex. 2).2^2 Likewise, THE COMPLIANT 6/6 says, "Dragons war
in the wilderness,"e^ indicating to Lai that the all-yin hexagram has peaked
o/:•z
and modulated to yang, since dragons are the Image of THE VIGOROUS.
In
this manner, all hexagrams peak at the sixth line and modulate to their Anti
podes.
Within Lai's system, there is another associate for "peaking at six."
An Inverse pair implies upward scanning from the first to the sixth lines
of one member and then downward through the same configuration to the original
first line, now the top line of the second member. This translates to the
cosmograph sub-divided into twelve nodes enumerated by the twelve "earthly
branches," associated with the hours of the day and the months of the year
■(reproduced on page 156 above), and gives a reference in naturally occurring
phenomena for the idea of "peaking at six." As they are ranged around Lai's
own black and white graph, the twelve "branches" fall so that peaking and
modulation of light and dark, summer and winter, take place after six nodes
each. Lai explained, "It is that yang fundamentally is progressive movement,
begotten at the the twelfth period, (hai ft ) and dying at the seventh (wu
). Yin is fundamentally retrograde movement, begotten at the seventh
period and dying at the twelfth."ez 2^
Lai believed this seasonal reference to figure in RETURN'S (hex. 24)
fcl
words "coming to return in seven days."
Seven days is the period of re
turn--"Yang^ peaks at six and yin peaks at six; they peak and then turn
back."^ 2^
He allows "day" in this context to refer to time in general and
discusses the Image with reference to months, since RETURN, with its lone
yang line in the bottom position, is suggestive of the eleventh month, when
the year's yang is reborn in the illustration of the "twelve accumulation
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211
and dispersion hexagrams" pictured on page 14 above. This takes seven nodes
after the peak of yang in the fifth month, at the time of the summei ;olstice represented by THE VIGOROUS (hex. 1); hence return after six nodes, that
266
is, at the seventh node, is a function of Lai's cyclical numeration.
Returning to the "First" and "Last Parts" of the Classic, then, we find
that Lai has invoked the physical certainty of complete modulation at the
sixth line of a hexagram and the mathematical certainty of return after a
lapse of six nodes in the cycle of any phenomenon to explain the occurrence
of THE OPEN and THE CLOSED in their exact positions in the "First Part." Be
cause there are thirty each of solid and bipartite lines between THE COM
PLIANT and THE CLOSED, Lai makes the sixty lines of those ten intervening
hexagrams a complete cycle of the two initial hexagrams at the end of which
THE VIGOROUS and THE COMPLIANT are seen to have modulated to mixed forms.
THE OPEN s
and THE CLOSED I* are both composed of the trigrams ch'ien
and k'un atop one another, and from the juxtaposition of the two pure tri
grams in this manner issue the remaining hexagrams of the "First Part."
The last two hexagrams therein are SINKING (hex. 29) §•£ and DEPENDENCE (hex.
30)
, the doubled trigrams k'an and H.
These trigrams occupy the hori
zontal axis of Fu-hsi's graph and carry the attributes "water'.' and "fire"
767
respectively.
Lai wrote: "Water and fire are things inherent in THE
VIGOROUS and THE COMPLIANT--it is all in the tao of Heaven; it is the com
position [of phenomenal existence]. Were there no water and fire, THE VIG
OROUS and THE COMPLIANT would be dead things."^0 ^
k'an == and li
Imaged in the trigrams
, water and fire are admixtures of yin and yang, the ulti
mate result of the symbolic intercourse between the first two hexagrams and
in naturalistic terms the vehicles by which the yin and yang tendencies of
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212
i
ch’i find expression.
Each of these features in the "tao of Heaven," the more idealized pres
entation of the "First Part," finds a counterpart in the "Last Part" of the
Classic. Where THE VIGOROUS and THE COMPLIANT were "the male and female of
the myriad things" in the former, the first two hexagrams of the "Last Part"
are AROUSAL (hex. 31) PL and CONSTANCY (hex. 32) =_ , called "the interchange
of arousal between yin and yang and the ch1ien and k’un in any one thing"
in the passage translated on page 207. After a lapse of ten hexagrams, again
described as the movement toward the "peaking at six" of yin and yang, oc
cur DECREASE (hex. 41) and INCREASE (hex. 42), two hexagrams described as
"the modulation of male and female."^
Lai notes that DECREASE 1= is
.composed of the upper and lower trigrams of AROUSAL =1 in reverse order, and
in parallel fashion, INCREASE H. is composed of the upper and lower trigrams
of <: NSTANCY W- in reverse. The last two hexagrams in the "Last Part,"
ALREADY COMPLETED (hex. 63) H
and NOT YET COMPLETED (hex. 64)11 are jux
tapositions of the trigrams li and k’an, closing the cycle with "the fire
and water of male and female."^e ^
This "Last Part" in speaking of "the
enactment of male and female intercourse is entirely occupied with the tao
ff 271
of man,"
in contrast to the "tao of Heaven" imaged in the "First Part."
In this sense, the "Last Part" alludes to the actual phased flow of phenomena
in a way that is analogous to King Wen's trigram arrangement.
The two sequences, "First" and "Latter Parts," thus have an exact typo
logical relationship to one another by which they elucidate the two func
tions of existence, opposition and flow through phases. That they are con
sidered parallel to one another is demonstrated in the diction of Lai's es
say, whereby each word referring to the "First Part" is given a correspond-
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213
ent in the treatment of the "Last Part." At once we are guided to the
similitude of the two and given a key via comparison for understanding their
different significances.
In this Lai indicates that for the same reason
the trigram graphs of Fu-hsi and King Wen are to be considered simultaneously,
the two sections of the Classic must be read as two aspects of a whole. As
metaphors for the relationship between the two functions of opposition and
flow through phases, each is dependent upon the other for its meaning.
Lai completes his argument with a series of numerical comparisons to
supplement his previously noted symmetries like the equal number of yin and
yang lines between THE COMPLIANT and THE CLOSED. He states that the remainder
when the number of yang lines is subtracted from the total of yin lines in
the "First Part" is eight, equal to the remainder when yin is subtracted from
yang in the "Last Part." Continuing from this, Lai computes the respective
differences when the Inverse pairs are considered as one hexagram wherever
they occur. Now counting the Inverse pairs as one and the eight uninvertable
hexagrams singly, there are eighteen hexagrams in each section, and the re
mainder after subtraction of yin from yang and yang from yin in the two "Parts"
m
is still equal, this time, four. To Lai, the uncanny equalizing effect
wrought by recognition of Inversion, suggests the "extreme subtlety (chih ching
)" of the hexagram order constructed by King Wen with its two func-
Refutation of the "Hexagram Modulation" Theory
For his Confucian contemporaries, the validity of Lai's efforts rested
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214
upon the persuasiveness of his novel interpretation of ’’Ten Wings" termin
ology and the power of the two functions, Inversion and Antipodalism, thereby
derived in elucidating passages within the Classic. The test of their strength
came when they were pitted against Chu Hsi’s major exegetical invention, the
theory of "Hexagram Modulation." Master Chu had adapted the idea from graphs
attributed to YU Fan273 in order to explain the phrasing of nineteen "Materia"
Wing statements like: "The firm comes and attains centrality"^2 (DISPUTE [hex.
6]); "The firm comes to beneath the pliant"^1 (FOLLOWING [hex. 17]); and "The
firm rises, the pliant comes down"^ (DECAY [hex. 18]). As Chu Hsi under
stood the "Materia" comments, all nineteen statements reflected an impression
of movement in the linear complex as a pre-condition of its verbal Images.
While trying to determine the source of this apparent movement, Chu Hsi
might have noticed that DISPUTE, for example, was grouped by YU Fan along
with eight other hexagrams having two yin or two yang lines, all of which YU
274
had thought of as having modulated from FLEEING (hex. 33).
Comparing
DISPUTE P
l with
FLEEING fl , he would have seen that the latter has a firm
third line and a pliant second, while in the former the situation is just the
reverse.
If, as YU Fan had suggested, DISPUTE were a "modulation" of FLEE
ING, the firm line might be said to have "come" from a higher position to
275
a lower, the second place, which is "central" in the lower trigram,
thus
making sense of the recondite "Materia" text.
Rearranging YU Fan’s graph in
a manner that visibly demonstrated the rationale of modulation by successive
stages while rectifying an obvious anomaly,
7 7 f\
Chu discovered that in every
case of movement inplied by the "Materia," the hexagram in question lay ad
jacent to at least one other hexagram in the graph whence it might be said
to have been derived by-modulation after the fashion of DISPUTE from FLEE-
E
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ING. That part of his chart displaying the hexagrams with two-yin and twoyang hexagrams as modulants of FLEEING and APPROACH (hex. 19) respectively
as a sample of Chu's thinking:
277
i* f
£ ft
*
-s *
%
* *
iS
l
I
I
%
k
1
I
Once Chu Hsi had made this connection, he drew upon the purported der
ivations in glossing the texts and "Materia” Wings of those nineteen hexa
grams, as in the example of THE OPEN (hex. 11) cited on pages 139-140 above
In a letter to Wang Hsia ~£
, Chu Hsi summarized his thoughts on the con
cept thus: "The Change methodology of earlier scholars cannot be discarded,
yet their ideas of the 'composite corpus (hu-t1i $
p
■Zi
"VCi
^
^'279
p^ve phases>
),'278 'na-chia
'flying-hidden (fei-fuj&
)'28^ devices
do not serve to advance our thinking. Hexagram Modulation alone is useful
in regard to the phrasing of the 'Materia' Wing. However, the old graph is
also incomplete. Recently, I have edited it, and now what was missing can
be filled in. In the empty places I have drawn the hexagrams and lines and
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and tested them against the 'Materia.' Thus whence the hexagrams come may
.
„fj 281
be seen." J
It is apparent that Lai himself broke away from this concept only with
great difficulty.
It was in the last of three periods of discovery, follow
ing those in which he came to understand the full implications of the Change
Images and then of the Antipode and Inverse functions, that he realized the
fallacy of Hexagram Modulation.
In light of his earlier illuminations, Chu's
theory was no longer necessary to explain the nineteen "Materia" statements—
all could be traced to the Inverse hexagram. Thus the fin line which "comes
and attains centrality" in DISPUTE (hex. 6) ^
is in Lai's thinking the mid
dle line of the trigram k'an, which in the Inverse hexagram, WAITING (hex.
•5) H. , occupies the upper, or "outer," three lines. Moving through the
pair's epicycle, the line "comes" to the inner three lines of DISPUTE, where
it is "central" in the second place, the middle of its trigram. The alter
native suggested in this case had its analogue in the other eighteen hexa
grams cited by Chu Hsi and was, unlike Chu's concept, applicable to other
hexagrams as well.
Lai felt that scholars had succumb^to the Hexagram Modulation theory
for want of an appreciation of the role of Inverse hexagrams in Image forma
tion, a deficiency fostered by the confusing complex of Sung views on Images
in general.
In the century following Lai's death, attacks aimed at this as
pect of School of Principle Change exegesis mounted in breadth and intensi
ty. Huang Tsung-hsi, Mao Ch'i-ling
(^
«T > 1623-1716),^ and
following them Hu Wei attempted to prove the various conceptual graphs—
the "River Graph," "Lo Chart," "Prior" and "Latter Heaven," and "Hexagram
Modulation"--that Chu Hsi had employed in explicating the Classic were all
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217
apocryphal. Huang wrote, "[Master Shao] fabricated theories of the ’River
Graph' and 'Prior Heaven,' and these, too, were no more than his personal
approach to the subject. Chu Hsi wrote the Fundamental Meaning and added
[Shao's theories] at the beginning.
Students of the Change subscribed to
them; later generations promulgated than. The education officials at first
still published [the Fundamental Meaning] together with [Cheng I's] Change
fk 283
Commentary, but afterwards published only the Fundamental Meaning."
Huang set up proofs to show that the current "River Graph" had nothing
to do with the eleventh chapter of "Attached Verbalizations" I, which says,
fin
"The River put forth a graph; the Lo put forth a chart."
Instead it came
into Confucianism via Shao Yung and Liu Mu^'i JfK. (
.school of Ch'en T'uan
(ffl *
)
from the Taoist
, fl. ca. 950 A.D.).284 Moreover, the
"increase by a factor" method of generating the "Prior Heaven" arrangements
of trigrams and hexagrams was by virtue of its novelty with Shao clearly
a "personal approach" and violated the meaning of its purported locus classicus in "Attached Verbalizations" 1:11.
285
Huang questioned the theory of Hexagram Modulation on the grounds
286
of its narrow application to only nineteen of the hexagrams.
looked
instead to the "opposite (fan-tui
)" hexagram, which in Lai Chih-te's
system is called the Inverse, for the source of movement alluded to in
the "Materia" Wing: "The hexagram texts of the so-called 'nineteen hexagrams
M
of Master Chu' all take their meaning from the 'opposite. ",:&1 287 Expla
nation based on the "opposite" could extend to other hexagrams than the nine
teen in question. Thus it was reasonable that "opposite" hexagrams represent
ed a consistent principle of verbal structure in contrast to the Chu Hsi pro
posal, which "cannot be unified."^0 288 Huang states that Li Chih-ts'ai
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\
X_ %
(M
Z~), Shao Yung's teacher in Image and Number,2®9 had forrnu-
lated the correct thesis in a graph combining line modulation with the "op
posites" but had diluted his success with a companion graph of the Hexagram
290
Modulation type that was clearly a prototype of Chu Hsi's theory.
The first of Li's graphs reminded Huang of Lai Chih-te, both in its
sense of linear modulation of hexagrams as a process depicted in succession
from the first line upward, as in the "Eight Trigrams Modulate to Sixtyfour Hexagrams" graphic shown on page 196 above, and in its emphasis on
the inverted partner: "Lai Chih-te expanded on [the line-by-line modulation
theory] to discuss modulation and took the 'opposites' to be what was meant
by 'tsung .jjt' and the mutual opposition of the solid and bipartite lines to
be what was meant by 'ts'o ^
.' Aside from the eight hexagrams like MDUIH
[hex. 27) and EXCESS OF THE GREAT (hex. 28), which are paired in mutual anti
thesis, he related the already paired 'opposites' with their own 'Anti
podes. ' He did not understand that [everything he claims to find] within
the mutual antithesis of solid and bipartite lines implicitly inheres in
the 'opposites'--it is not that there emerges another level of meaning.
If
there is another level of meaning in mutual antithesis, why do the hexa
grams and lines omit to use it? What the hexagrams and lines use not, one
would do well not to suggest as an alternative."^ 29^ Huang was not per
Wi
suaded by Lai's arguments for Antipodal influence uninhibited by distance
between hexagrams in the Change order, seeing no need to look beyond his
"opposites" for the exegetical purpose served in Lai's system by Antipodalism,
1
Hu Wei agreed with Huang's assessment of Lai's theories, saying Lai had
"taken out of context the terms tsung and ts'o,"^ rendering the simultaneous
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graph of the Inverse aid Antipodal hexagrams discussed on page 205 above
fr 292
"of no use to the Classic.”
Unlike Huang Tsung-hsi, who reproduced
Lai’s "Fu-hsi and King Wen Antipode and Inverse Graph (Fu-hsi Wen wang ts’o
tsung t’u yjJt Ifc X £
ue.294
iS )
Hu discarded the graph as of no val
Application of the Exegetical Devices
1
Huang Tsung-hsi and Hu Wei shared Lai's interest in the Inverse hexa
grams but took exception to the breadth of Lai's application of Antipodalism,
seeing the latter as an unfounded hypothesis.
It was suggested earlier that
in Lai's system, Antipodal influence is primarily active in finer defini
B
tion of a potential Image whose general form is pre-determined by other fac
tors. Lai constantly invokes Antipodal hexagrams and trigrams to explain
Change Images but left no account of the reasoning that led him to embrace
the idea. Of course, there are the ubiquitous allusions to the necessity of
intercourse between opposites in nature for the propulsion of continuity, but
the equality of the Change and nature at large will not answer Huang's or
Hu's criticism that the Classic does not bear out Lai's claims. We must
join Lai in looking to the Change and its "Ten Wings," then, for evidence
of the validity of the Antipodal function.
The eight "correct hexagrams (pa cheng kua ) \ Jk *!■* )
those which have
no Inverse partners and are paired each with its Antipode, provide the ob
W"
:1
vious sites for initial exploration. Among the eight we find only one in
stance in Lai's glosses of appeal to the Antipode as the source of verbal
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
220
Image— THE COMPLIANT (hex. 2) 6/6, ’’Dragons war in the wilderness.”e^ ^
comments: "The six yang [lines of THE VIGOROUS (hex. 1)] are the dragons,
the Antipode of THE COMPLIANT. For this reason yin and yang may both be
called ’dragon.”'
In Lai's thinking, the Image "dragon" is distinct
ly a property of THE VIGOROUS as a hexagram: "The dragon is a yang thing whose
modulations and transformations cannot be plumbed.
In this it is like the
modulations and transformations that are the tao of THE VIGOROUS."^1' ^
This Image thus expresses the individual character of the hexagram and does
not properly belong to the trigram ch’ien*s catalogue in the "Discussion of
297
298
the Trigrams" Wing.
Lai continued, "Ch’ien is originally the horse,
yet here it says ’dragon.’ It is because the tao of THE VIGOROUS is modula
tion and transformation. The dragon being a thing of modulations and transfu 299
formations, [the lines] are therefore spoken of as dragons."
Lai fur-
thur suggests that the inclusion of "dragon" in the HsUn Shuang addenda to
the ch’ien trigram catalogue in the "Discussion of the Trigrams" Wing con
stitutes verification of the relationship between the dragon and THE VIGOR
OUS.300
The "Wing" entitled "Comment on the Words (Wen yen X. g )" refers to
the situation in THE COMPLIANT’s top line as a conflict between yang and
yin: "Yin thinks itself to be yang; they must fight. Because [the Duke of
Chou] suspected one might think there were no yang, he mentioned ’drag
on. ’"^v 30^ Lai comments, "’Thinks itself’ means ’is as if’--as if one deems
himself an equal match for another, lacking any difference of greater or
lesser. Yin basically cannot war with yang, but now yin flourishes and is
daring as if to challenge yang. Thus it is verbalized as a ’war.’ Yin
flourishing, there is no yang at all, so basically one cannot speak of ’drag-
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221
ons' and would not know that yang cannot be nonexistent, even for a single
day. Thus the Duke of Chou verbalized [this line] with 'dragon’ in order
to preserve [the presence of] yang."^ ^
303
From Lai's viewpoint, which, incidentally, he shared with Ch'eng I
and Chu Hsi,^ the Duke of Chou brought an Image associated with the polar
opposite into this context to assert the physical fact that even when one
tendency is at its peak, the other is never absent. We saw this concept
applied to natural science in Lai's description of the modulation and trans
formation of physical water through the Water, Fire, and Metal Phases of ch'i
on its southeastward run to the sea. In that discussion, antecedent Phases
"floated above" succeeding ones until they dispersed, only to return in due
time to a new information. Lai believed the general displacement of yang
by yin followed the same model.
:3
Speaking of the yearly round in terms of the
"twelve accumulation and dispersion hexagrams," he wrote: "Fundamentally,
the Pattern of MEETING (hex. 44) and RETURN (hex. 24) is that in the fifth
month one yin is begotten [in the first place of THE VIGOROUS] forming
MEETING. One yin is begotten within, therefore yang ch'i floats and is ex
terior. Coming to the tenth month, although the yin of THE COMPLIANT flour
ishes, yang never ceases--it is only exterior. This is similar to the situ
ation in which although the wife is dominant, the husband is never eliminated.
Thus in the eleventh month, [which is assigned to RETURN,] a single yang is
begotten, and it is said [by the 'Materia' for RETURN], 'The firm turns
back.'
'Turns back' means 'to turn back and return to the interior.'
"In the eleventh month a single yang is begotten and retums--one yang
is begotten within, and so yin ch'i floats and is exterior. Although coming
to the fourth month the yang ch'i of THE VIGOROUS flourishes, yin never
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ceases--it is only exterior. This is similar to the situation in which
although the husband is dominant, the wife is never eliminated. Thus in the
fifth month a single yin returns, to life.
"Although Heaven and Earth are differentiated, yin and yang are just
one ch'i; it is only that one [tendency] is interior, one exterior. One
interior and one exterior is the same as one rising and one sinking, one
flourishing and one declining, one replacing and one dying. Accumulation
5%
I
m
i
m
m
and dispersion, fullness and emptiness revolve in a circuit with no begin
„fx 305
ning or end--this is what is verbalized in TEARING (hex. 23) and RETURN.'
As expected, what was true for nature at large is true for the Change
in its schematic of temporal progression. When one tendency of ch'i is in
its fullest expression, the other remains implicit, potential--"exterior"
but still exerting an influence.
In the simile of husband and wife, each de
rives definition from the other. A woman could not be a dominant wife if
she were not first of all the mate of her husband. Thus even in his capitu
lation, the male continues to structure the situation conducive to her emer
gence and "is never eliminated."
This brings Lai back to the unified nature of ch'i. Although there are
discrete phenomena like Heaven and Earth, all partake of the single ch'i.
Thus the moment that one discrete phenomenon appears, the ultimate occurrence
of its opposite becomes potential; the more the first phenomenon is actual
ized, the greater the potential energy of its opposite. This fact is revealed
in the hexagram MEETING (hex. 44)
, which in the twelve-hexagram schema
for the yearly round follows THE VIGOROUS. Yin, having reached its point
of complete dispersion at the summer solstice, when yang flourishes, makes
its preliminary reappearance in MEETING, and, although the one bipartite line
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223
represents the minority, it dominates the hexagram's verbal Image: "The femi
nine is strong; no use in taking a woman."^z ^
Lai glosses, "One yin is
begotten beneath five yang; yin is most small. Yet the Sage says, 'The
feminine is strong; no use in taking [a woman]' in order to guard against what
is gradually [accumulating],"ga 30^ Lai bases his comment on the "Materia"
for the hexagram, which says, "The pliant meets the fim,"g^ and in this
seems to place the focus of attention on the single yin line as a rationale
for the hexagram text's feminine Image.
The situation in MEETING is analogous to that which was seen to have
produced "Dragons war in the wilderness" in THE COMPLIANT, except that in
the latter the Image-producing factor remains lodged in the potential-what Lai calls the "exterior"--where in MEETING it is actually present in
the immediate linear complex. That the potential opposite of THE COMPLIANT
could have affected Image formation in the same manner as an actual factor
and that this influence in confirmed in both cases by a Confucian "Wing"-"Comment on the Words" in the case of THE COMPLIANT and the "Materia" for
f’EETING— constitutes a step toward, establishing the nature of the Antipode's
active role in suggesting the text of IHE COMPLIANT from Lai's perspective.
In other instances of appeal to the Antipode, Lai perceived a similar
•fU &
mechanism in effect. The Image of the "flown bird (fei niao
^ )" in
EXCESS OF THE SM'VLL (hex. 62)
expresses in part the Antipodal relation
ship between that hexagram and FAITH WITHIN (hex. 61) O
in Lai's interpre
tation. The latter has the overall Image of the trigram Id =2 , being yin
at its center and yang in its extremities, and li, according to "Discussion
of the Trigrams" 8, is associated with the pheasant, whence, says Lai, comes
the Image of "flown bird": "Having modulated to its Antipode and become EX-
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uESS OF THE SMALL, the overall Image has become that of k'an [=-=.]• One
sees kjan and does not see li; thus the bird has already flown away."gc 308
In discussing EXCESS OF THE SMALL, Lai believed that the "Materia" in saying,
"There is the Image of a flown bird,"gd was pointing to the appearance of
the hexagram as the source of the Image. Solid in the middle and "empty* at
the top andbottom because of the presence of bipartite yin lines in those po
sitions, the six lines are seen as an ideograph of a bird in flight, its
body flanked by two wings.309 The hexagiam’s appearance was not the only
factor in the choice of this verbal Image, however, and Lai saw the finali
zation of the "already flown" qualification as having been confirmed by the
hexagram's Atipodal relationship with li-shaped FAITH WITHIN. Because of
the latter's absence after total modulation to the Antipode, the bird of LL
is gone, but its resonance lingers to shape the Image of EXCESS OF THE SMALL.
The verbal Image of EXCESS OF THE SMALL is therefore a complex of these con
tributing factors.
The foregoing recalls the situation in THE VIGOROUS’ (hex. 1) "to make
use of nine" passage cited on pages 20.9-210 above, where "the assembled drag
ons have no head" because, in Lai's thinking, "Yang, has modulated to become
an, firm has modulated to become pliant.”ge 310 That the "head" is associated with the top line of the hexagram is one of the best documented Change
tropes,311 and "head" is also an associate of the trigram ch'ien given in
"Discussion of the Trigrams" 9. In THE VIGOROUS, the implicit modulation of
the peaking top line, then, is reflected in the verbal Image of a "head"
fiL*a
that is no longer a "head."
Antipodal influence is not confined to definition by negation in Lai's
system, however.
In the case of THE ARMV (hex. 7) 9/2 cited on page 137
above, attributes of the component trigrams of TOGETHER WITH OTHERS (hex.
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225
13), the Antipode of THE ARMY, are said to be expressed directly in the lat
ter*s line, ’’The king thrice rewards by decree." Direct appropriation of
the Antipode*s Image is the rule, in most instances to which Lai applies his
unique exegesis.
Lai's insight into the Antipodal function is supposed to have formed
while he contemplated this phrase in the top line of AT ODDS (hex. 38): "Sees
a pig carrying mud on its back."®^ ^
That text continues, "[Or] a cart
carrying ghosts. First he draws back his bow; later he sets it aside."®®
Lai explains, "Li [the upper trigram in AT ODDS =
313
is Antipodal to k'an [=~i ]. K'an is 'pig1;
E
, in which 9/6 is located,]
it is also 'water'
314
— the
Image of 'pig carrying mud on its back.' K'an is 'what is hidden, in se315
cret' --the Image of 'carrying ghosts.' It is also 'bow,' also *;suSpicions'
31 ft
— the Image of drawing back the bow then setting it aside. One's
mind is suspicious and uncertain."®1 ^
Earlier Lai had noted that the
character k'uei
, meaning "at odds," is related to vision, as its radi318
cal ( [3 ) indicates— vision that is impaired.
At the top line, where AT
ODDS "peaks," the impairment to vision becomes most severe. The cart thus
poorly seen is the frustrated ox-cart of the same hexagram's 6/3: "One sees
the cart dragged back while its ox pulls ahead."®^ ^
Lai thus says of
9/6, "At first when one sees third six's cart dragged back and its ox pull
ing ahead, he mistakes it for a pig.
Then he wonders if it perhaps is not
a pig and might be a ghost. At that point he wants to draw back his bow
and shoot [the apparition]. Then again he suspects it might not be a ghost.
He sets aside the bow and proceeds ahead.
[In fact] it is third six."®^ ^
In all hexagrams, lines separated by two other lines— first and fourth,
second and fifth, third and top— are called "resonants ( y i n g )" and "cor-
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226
rect resonants (cheng ying
jbjjjk)" if one is yin and the otheT yang. ^
The 6/3 and 9/6 lines of AT ODDS enjoy a "correct resonant" relationship,
which is in Lai’s system generally seen as a strong influence on Image for
mation. Thus that the "cart" of 9/6 refers back to the oxcart of third six
is the line’s standard interpretation, as suggested by our summary of the
glosses for this same line done by Wang Pi, Ch’eng I, and Chu Hsi presented
on pages 32-34 above. Lai departs from Ch’eng and Chu in devising a rationale
for the illusory quality of the pig and cartful of ghosts based on the tri
gram k’an, which appears in the body of the hexagram as the upper nuclear
trigram (lines three, four, and five) with 6/3 as its bottom line and also,
as we have seen, exerts Antipodal influence on the top line. "Cart" is an
322
associate of k'an, as is "dragging back."
The oxcart, the actual Image
of 6/3, is twice mistaken in the top line, but both times the misconception
is influenced by k'an as the Antipode of the hexagram’s upper trigram, Id.
What is poorly seen thus has its origins in k'an-type Images, but its par
ticular outlines are hazy due to the poor vision inherent to this entire hex
agram. Thus it might be k'an's "pig" with mud from k'an's "water" on its
back, or k'an's "cart" occupied by a ghostly being from k'an's "what is hid
den, in secret." And one's mental state being thus under the influence of
k'an's "suspiciousness," he is indecisive about shooting with k'an's "bow."
In the third line, where k'an is in fact present as a nuclear trigram,
its manifestation as "cart" is immediate, according to Lai. 323 In the top
line, k'an shapes the Image, though removed from actual presence, as the Anti
pode of li. Given the poor vision that affects AT ODDS, we are presented
with ideal conditions to observe the functioning of the Antipode as the Image
is seen to resolve through two mirages to its correct apprehension. Whether
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or not this reasoning approximates Lai's own process of discovery associated
with the line in question, his gloss demonstrates that again, as in the case
of THE COMPLIANT 6/6, Antipodal effect takes place on the unconscious level,
influencing the choice of a verbal Image in a manner analogous to the psycho
logical effect of k'an-type Images upon the confused observer in AT ODDS 9/6.
At any rate, Lai did not believe that the Image for that particular line in
that particular hexagram could
be
explained by recourse to the immediate
linear construct alone and depended upon the subtle shaping influence of the
Antipode.
This "subtle influence" must be understood in the context of Lai's whole
vision of the Change as a natural phenomenon. As Huang Tsung-hsi's critique
of Antipodalism suggests, it is difficult to find concrete support in the
accepted Classical material for Lai's contentions, and in this case in par
ticular, there is no Confucian "Wing" to bear it up. Moreover, essentially
the same argument had been advanced by Ch'eng I, as we have seen, simply by
making reference to the nuclear trigram k'an as the source of the Images in
324
AT ODDS 9/6 via "correct resonance." . Lai himself had used a device simi
lar to the one employed there by Ch'eng I in explaining TRIALS (hex. 3) 6/2,
for example. That line has its "correct resonant" in 9/5, which forms the
center of the upper trigram k'an, and Lai glossed the Image "bandits" in
325
6/2 saying, "The resonant line is in the trigram k'an. K'an is 'robber'
the Image of 'bandit.
rrm
70^
If such an approach were warranted there, why
not in AT ODDS?
The difficulty raised is inherent to the field of Image and Number as
■3
if'
a branch of Change scholarship. When Chu Hsi ventured into the ideas of that
school, for instance, he left himself vulnerable to the criticism of inconsis
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tent application o£ the theory of Hexagram Modulation.
In Lai's system,
however, the choice of explanatory device would seem to be an outgrowth of
the Image catalogues in the "Discussion of the Trigrams" Wing. Lai opens
his essay "Image fHsiang |L)" by saying, "Among the Images set up within the
hexagrams, there are those unrestricted by 'Discussion of the Trigrams' cate
gories like 'ch'ien, horse; k'un, cow' or 'ch'ien, head; k'un, abdomen, "'gn 327
He goes on to describe Images derived from the "qualities of the hexagram (kua
ch'ing
)," as is the case with "dragon" in THE VIGOROUS (hex. 1), seen
on page 220 above; and from the "shape of the drawn hexagram (baa hua chih
hsing & |f
)," which we have seen operative in the "bird" of EXCESS
OF THE SMALL (hex. 62) on pages 223-224 above. We have also noted the role
a line's position among the Three Agents, Heaven, Earth, and Man, may play
in Image formation, and there are leitmotifs like the top line's identifica
tion with the head witnessed in the analysis of "to make use of nine" in THE
VIGOROUS, page 224 above. The "head" in the latter, the Three Agents as the
source of the "field" in THE VIGOROUS 9/2 mentioned on page 208 above, and
the "bird" in EXCESS OF THE SMALL typify the class of Images based upon the
shape of the drawn hexagram, and Lai also alludes to Images like the "bed"
in TEARING (hex. 23) 6/1 and 6/2 as of the same type. The latter is said
to derive from the shape suggested by the hexagram's single yang line sup—
328
ported by the leg-like yin == , a shape which resembles a bed.
In all, Lai lists ten tropes, which are, aside from the two just men
tioned: 'the overall Image of the hexagram (kua t'i ta hsiang
$ j![
j^K.)>
whereby a hexagram is seen to have a shape suggestive of a particular trigram,
EXCESS OF THE SMALL and k'an being an association we have earlier discussed
on pages 223-224 above;-Antipodal influence; Inverse influence; jdn-yang.
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229
relationships (chi yin yang erh ch’ll hsiang ftp
jis) > by which
it is understood that any yang trigrain (one having only one yang line, as
explained on pages 172-173 above) may share any of the trigram ch'ien's
attributes, and so also for yin trigrams and the attributes of the trigram
k'un; Images extending an Image from a related line in the same hexagram
(hsiang yin erh ch'll hsiang
@
H k ) , as, for example, the top line
of CHANGING (hex. 49) speaks of "leopard (pao^fcfr))" solely as an extension
of the "tiger (hu
)" mentioned in the same hexagram's 9/5; modulation of
one line (yao pien 3(
)> which brings to bear the Image of a new trigram
or hexagram formed when a particular line is seen to anticipate its poten
tial for modulation and influence the wording of its native hexagram in ad
vance, as it were; nuclear trigrams; and the Images associated with divination
(chan chung chih hsiang
^
%l.~) , those directives like "no disaster
(wu chiu tfr jfg )" and "advantage in Rightness (li chen
1
^
|
J) )" by which
King Wien and the Duke of Chou instructed readers as to the proper behavior
329
in any given situation.
Less generalized postulates of Image formation are distributed through-
§j
M$
out Lai's commentary, each presented as a fact established by comparison.
In his dissertation, Hsll Ch'in-t'ing assembled a partial list of these.'330
Among those not listed by Hsll, we find, by way of exairple, that "Where the
two lines, top and fifth, speak of family affairs, the top is the father and
the fifth is the mother";® ^
and, "In all cases where [the trigram] li
modulates to ch'ien and [the modulant line, i.e., the central line of li] has
a resonant that is yang, [such lines] are mentioned [in their Images] as
'ancestor.'"®1 ^
As we have seen in- the several instances mentioned, "Discussion of the
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Trigrams" Wing associates thread through all exegetical tropes, however,
and they are frequently advanced instead of what might seem to be more im
mediately available devices. For example, TEARING (hex. 23) 6/1 says, 'Tear
up the bed with the foot,"gcl and THE CAULDRON (hex. 50) 6/1 says, 'The Caul
dron inverts its legs"gr— two cases in which Lai's postulate, "In all cases,
the hexagram's first line is its foot,"gs 333 would appear to provide an
obvious exegetical choice, as indeed it did for Ch'eng I in both instan
ces.33^ Lai, however, saw the lower appendages as deriving in both examples
from the trigram ch-'en i_r , which is "foot" in "Discussion of the Trigrams"
9, and appears by virtue of modulation of the first line of TEARING
en335
tailing the formation of ch'en in the lower trigram,
and by Antipodalism
in THE CAULDRON
, where the lower trigram is hsUn, ch-en's polar oppo-
site.336
Even a cursory reading of Lai's commentary leaves the impression that
■i
I
he endeavored as much as possible to relate the Images of the Classic proper
to the "Discussion of the Trigrams," that "Wing" which deals most intimately
with trigram associates. This is not difficult to understand in light of
his insistence upon trigram intercourse as the sixty-four hexagrams' route
to becoming discrete, pre-verbal linear complexes.
If the trigrams are under
stood to play a pivotal role at the primary level of Image formation, the
verbal expressions of the linear forms would also have to reflect the tri|
grams' parental influence.
It is with reference to trigram analysis that the effort to compare
the commentary procedures of the various scholars confronts the limit of
rational evaluation within Confucian bounds, for there is enough overlap
amongst the attributes the "Discussion of the Trigrams" collates to allow
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231
considerable latitude of application. That breadth admits almost unlimited
varieties of interpretation. Thus, for example, Lai and the others seized
upon the "Discussion of the Trigrams" 11 line, "In terms of carts, [k'an]
is many accidents,"g*to explain the presence of "cart" in AT ODDS 9/6. On
the other hand, the same chapter of the "Discussion" says, "K'un. . .is a
large cart,',gu and Lai brings this association to bear upon SMALL INHIBITS
(hex. 9) 9/3 to explain the cart Image in that line: "Ch'ien [the lower tri
gram] is Antipodal to k'un--the Image of 'cart. ",gv 33^ In AT ODDS 9/6, then,
an oblique "Discussion of the Trigrams" reference to carts via "many acci
dents" for k'an became a bona fide source, making "cart" available as a
function of two trigrams.
Likewise, the Image "horse" might derive from the trigram ch'ien, as in
Lai's gloss to THE COMPLIANT (hex. 2);338 from ch en, as in TRIALS (hex. 3)
6/2;33^ or from k'an, as in TRIALS (hex. 3) 6/4.3^8 Although "horse" is
primarily associated with ch'ien in "Discussion of the Trigrams" 8, chap
ter 11 of the "Wing" grants particular horse attributes to ch'en and k'an,
the former being, "in terms of horses [ch-en] is a good whinn.yy, is prancing,
is a white forehead,,,gw and the latter, "in terms of a horse [k'an] is a
good backbone, is high spirits, is a lowered head, is thin hoofs, is a shambling step.M6A
7.A 1
With the "Discussion of the Trigrams" so rich in horse
associates, there are three direct possibilities by which to explain the ap
pearance of "horse," and in Lai's system there are several indirect means of
making an association bear upon any particular Image.
In THE COMPLIANT
example, for one, "horse" is seen to come from the Antipode, ch'ien.3^
Again, "horse" in INJURY TO THE LIGHT (hex. 36) 6/2 Lai perceived as an ac
tualization of ch'ien's potential horse Image through the effect of that
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line’s modulation upon the hexagram's trigram infrastructure. When 6/2
modulates, the lower trigram li becomes ch'ien.343 Having these three poten
tial sources, then, and a range of relationships to work with, the Image
’’horse” could theoretically be traced to a trigram in a legitimate Wing
location from any line in any hexagram.
Of course, Lai was attesting to explain Images that actually did ap
pear in the Change and not theoretical possibilities. To do so, he con
structed cross-references to the Confucian "Ten Wings whereby he sought
to make the same connections that Confucius had first made. The channels
of cross-reference were limited by Confucius' own methodology as it may be
inferred from the various "Wings.” The concepts of trigram analysis, reso
nant lines, correct line positions (i.e., matching yin and yang lines with
their odd or even numbered places in the hexagram), and shape of the linear
construct are unmistakably built into the "Materia” and "Greater” and Less
er Images" Wings.344 The importance of nuclear trigrams appears to be the
referent of "Attached Verbalizations" 11:8, "Were it not for its inner lines
(chung yao<t>
), [a hexagram] would be incomplete,
345 and these tri
grams composed of lines two through four and three through five were men
tioned in the oracle interpretation of the Tso-chuan,34^ giving their use
a respectable pedigree. Linear modulation is implicit in the divination
process that is the Classic's raison d'etre, and would appear to be the
subject of "Attached Verbalizations" 1:2, "Firm and pliant replace one ano
ther and beget modulation."^
Lai's addition of Inversion and Antipodalism finalized a structural
network accounting for Images in the Change as a whole and in its particu
lars. Whether his unified hermeneutic stands or falls in the Confucian con-
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233
text depends upon whether his interpretation thus amplified remains within
acceptable textual parameters, or if, as Hu Wei charged, he has "taken the
terms [ts'o and tsung] out of context." In the latter event, we properly
require reasoned rebuttal or preferable alternatives from his critics. As
it happens, however, Hu Wei said of the terms, "They refer to the manipu
lation of yarrow stalks."^2 3^
Here we are thrown back to Chu Hsi's inter
pretation of the passage in "Attached Verbalizations" 1:10 discussed on page
134 above, a passage whose terminology Chu admitted was "difficult to under
stand (nm h s i a o S ).m348 Thus Hu's proposal derives from Chu Hsi's
tentative effort to make sense of two obscure characters.
We have discussed how Lai's interpretation of the character ts'o pertained
not only the the "Attached Verbalizations" 1:10 occurrence but to other in
stances of the character's usage in the later "Wings" as well. Thus in re
gard to "Discussion of the Trigrams" 3, Lai's gloss of ts'o was permitted
to remain consistent when Chu Hsi was forced to abandon the divination stalk
connotation and fall back upon Shao Yung's "increase by a factor" method
to explain the character.
349
Returning for a moment to Huang Tsung-hsi's refutation of Lai's Antipode
as an Image-formative function, we recall that the case for the existence of
m
p
is
KVii
such influence can only be inferred from the type of subtle, 'unconscious
relationships noted by Lai in AT ODDS (hex. 38) 9/6 but not directly sup
ported in any of the "Ten Wings," particularly in this case the "Lesser
Image" for the line.350 A closer look at Huang's counter-proposal shows
that while denying the Antipodal possibility to Lai, Huang was willing to
extend his own general principle of the "opposite" hexagrams to even the
noninvertable "correct'-' hexagram pairs.
He believed, for example, that "The
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'cock's crow' o£ FAITH WITHIN's (hex. 61) top line is, when [the hexagram is]
turned upside-down, the 'flown bird1 of EXCESS OF THE SMALL's (hex. 62)
first line."ha 351 Having denied the possibility that Lai's Antipodes
could influence Image formation in the invertable hexagrams, Huang turns to
maintain that the "opposite" effect is operative in two hexagrams that have
no "opposites." Lai's suggestion is based upon the fact that an Antipode for
each hexagram can be identified, a fact that had been recognized in the tra
dition of Change exegesis since YU Fan. But a "correct" hexagram when in
verted undergoes no modification that might be said to affect its relation
ship with the neighboring polar opposite. Thus neither Huang nor Hu offer
evidence of Lai's alleged violation of Classical terminology or unassailable
alternative exegesis.
A more serious charge encompasses Lai with all others who included Shao
Yung's additions to Change scholarship among their primary sources.
If the
"River Graph" and the "Lo Chart" are discounted along with the "increase by
a factor" geometric progression and the two circular trigram graphs, "Fu-hsi's"
and "King Wen's,"352 the integrity of portions of Lai's commentary is threat
ened. For example, the association of the trigram li with the number three,
1
sl
which Lai employed as a general rule, is rendered meaningless, as is his mathe353
matical proposition for explaining "Discussion of the Trigrams" 1.
No
doubt it was in light of the fact that Lai exhibits more than one of the
elements Huang and Hu found distasteful among the School of Principle spon
sored accretions to the canon that they summarily dismissed his contentions.
Yet as sturdily as their arguments against the supposedly apocryphal material
are made, they are constructed on but a few clues preserved from times dis
tant from the seventeenth century.
In particular, Han Dynasty Change prac-
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txces were spottily preserved, as the "missing” notations in the contents oi*
the Ching i k'ao readily attest. The claim that the "River Graph" and other
graphics were unknown to Confucian exegesis prior to Ch’en T'uan is at
best a stimulating suggestion.
Moreover, as we saw above it was the autonomous correlation between the
numerical patterns of the "River Graph" and the "Lo Chart" on the one hand
and the structural design of the Change that impressed Lai. He, too, was
interested in the matter of their dating, but accepted on the basis of "At
tached Verbalizations" 1:11, "The River gave forth the Graph, the Lo gave
forth the Chart, and the Sages took them as models,"
that both figures were
extant from as far back as the time of Fu-hsi. This argument, based on what
Lai held to be Confucius1 own words, refuted School of Principle acceptance
of the theory of Liu Hsin^ij®* ( 3-1^ ) that the "Lo Chart" had no history
354
earlier than the time of YU the Great.
He was not, however, troubled by the question of whether the illustra
tions mentioned in "Attached Verbalizations" 1:11 were the same as the specimines preserved in Chu Hsi’s collection of graphics— to this extent Lai
shared the general assumption that those graphs represented the original
"River Graph" and "Lo Chart." But he also believed that Fu-hsi did not re
fer to the "Graph" nor King Wf- to the "Chart" in the course of their work
on the Change. All the graphics Lai used demonstrated to him the same bi
partite conception that made the Change and other phenomena expressions of
opposition between antithetical partners and the flow through phases that
every cycle of ch*i followed. His personal discoveries concern the internal
structure of the Classic, and other material supports those discoveries in
sofar as they reveal the Pattern he perceived to function in the Change and
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236
the natural world alike. Aside from cases like the relationship between
the trigram li and the number three, the commentary is self-contained, rely
ing on the fabric of cross-references between the Classic itself and the
various "Wings’' to trace the verbal Images. Thus even if one accepts the
Huang Tsung-hsi purge of Image and Number exegesis from the Classic of Change,
certain minor aspects of Lai’s study would be shaken, but the major elements
would survive intact.
Lai's own sense of the canonical parameters of Change exegesis is thrown
into relief by his "re-editing" of the "Attached Verbalizations" and "Dis
cussion of the Trigrams" Wings. Early editions of his commentary contained
a sixteenth chapter that "examined and arranged (k’ao ting^
)" those two
"Wings." In it he rearranged sections of the "Attached Verbalizations" Wing
following the lead of Ch'eng I and Chu Hsi.
■zee
As for the "Discussion of
the Trigrams" Wing, he said he had "broadened the Images of the eight trigrams"^0
by adding more associates to chapter eleven's Image catalogues.
Chu Hsi set the precedent for enhancing the catalogues by appending the Han
scholar Hsbn Shuang's trigram associates to each paragraph of that chapter
while himself making no comment on the text.
Instead, he wrote, "This chap
ter expands the Images of the eight trigrams.
In it there is much that can
not be understood.
not entirely tally.
If one seeks [to corroborate] it in the Classic, it does
^
By this Chu referred to the tenuous relationship between the chapter
and the texts of the Classic. Many if not most of the trigram associates in
"Discussion" 11 appear to have been collected from sources outside the Change,
having no exact correlatives therein. The catalogues of that chapter con
stituted the lexicon of Lai's system, however, and he believed that most
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of the Images in the Change could be related back to them. We have seen
examples in our analysis of AT ODDS (hex. 38) 9/6, where "pig" was linked
to k’an by virtue of "Discussion of the Trigrams" 8, but "mud," "ghosts,"
"cart," "bow," and "suspicious" were all said to point to chapter 11. These
associations require varying degrees of ingenuity to be appreciated. The
character for "bow (hu
from AT ODDS 9/6 does not appear in "Discussion"
11 under k'an, but "kung ^ ," the bow radical, does. We mentioned earlier
the indirect routes by which Lai saw "suspicious" and "cart" to have arrived
in the AT ODDS Image configuration.
The onlyclaim for "ghosts" as a k'an-
type Image is that ghosts are "hidden (yin-fu
)," while to get "mud"
from the catalogue's "water" we must
rememberthat pigs are generally caked
with dirt, which produces "mud" when
water isadded.
If they ask imagination, these referents are nonetheless directed toward
a locus classicus in the "Ten Wings." Acceptance of Lai's use of these as
sociations favors his contention of Antipodal involvement in the structure of
AT ODDS 9/6 by establishing a concentration of k'an attributes in a line
that is part of the trigram li. The vague outlines of some of these asso
ciations may be attributed to the fact that Lai was not attempting to show
that exact usage parallels between the Classic and the "Wing" exist, but
that k'an has a cluster of native Images, all of which express the same
|
fundamental balance of ch'i that the trigram's lines schematize. That is
why he says there are Images in the Change which are "not restricted" to
the "Discussion of the Trigrams" catalogues but occur spontaneously in the
presence of particular linear configurations. Thus the "bow" in AT ODDS 9/6
and the "bow" in the "Discussion" 11 k'an group bear each other out as inde
pendent occurrences of.a k'an associate.
Theoretically, then, the "Discus-
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238
sion of the Trigrams" Image clusters could be extended until all "possible
occurrences" were assigned to one of the eight types.
That this is the case may be. established by investigation of Lai's ex
pansion of the catalogues with HsUn Shuang's and his own personal additions,
In his essay "Images," Lai seconded his justification of "dragon" as an
Image in THE VIGOROUS (hex. 1) in the discussion of that figure recounted on
pi
page 220 above by saying, "Moreover, HsUn's Nine Scholars (HsUn chiu chia
JL 0^ )358 3150 ^
'C^1-*-en *s drag011*"'k0 359 Lai's first line of explana
tion had been that the "dragon," a thing known for its ability to change its
appearance, bespeaks the quality of the purely yang linear construct.
In
this case, HsUn Shuang's contribution to the ch'ien catalogue in the "Discus
sion of the Trigrams" Wing's eleventh chapter is taken to strengthen the ori
ginal claim.
In other instances, Lai appeals to these extra listings without
differentiating them from the "Wing" proper.
"bag (nang
)" of THE COMPLIANT (hex. 2) 6/4, "K'un is 'bag': yin is empty
and able to contain--the Image of 'bag.
ch'ang Tf ^
For example, he explains the
^
Again, "yellow skirt (huang
)" in the fifth line of the same hexagram appears because "K'un
is yellow,'is 'skirt'--the Image of 'yellow skirt.'"^ ^
the phrasing "k'un is (k'un wei
In both cases
reflects "Discussion of the Tri
grams" usage, the verb wei being similarly employed throughout the "Wing."
All three associations--"bag," "yellow," and "skirt"--are HsUn Shuang additions, however,
•ZfL *7
and in this manner the later associates are granted equi
valence to the original words of the "Discussion."
What is interesting here is that the additional associates "bag," "yellow,"
and "skirt" seem to originate in THE COMPLIANT itself. HsUn's k'un addi
tions kept by Lai are : "female (p1in ^ y,)," "lost (mi 4^)," "square (fang
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7})," "bag (nang ^ )," "skirt (ch'ang ^
"satin (go ^
)," "yellow (huang ^ )," and
)/i364 Along with these, Chu Hsi had preserved "chiang^L1,365
(meaning "broth"?), which Lai deleted without comment. The additions which
Lai accepted appear in the text of the Change in the order of the HsUn Shuang
list: "female" and "lost" in THE COMPLIANT's hexagram text; "square" in its
6/2; "bag" in 6/4; "skirt" is 6/5; "yellow" in 6/5 and 6/6; and "satin" in
ORNAMENTATION (hex. 22) 6/5. Significantly, "chiang," the one HsUn addition
that Lai omitted, has no locus classicus in the Change or the "Ten Wings."
By contrast, only one of the original "Discussion of the Trigrams" k'un attri
butes actually appears in THE COMPLIANT--"black (hei
)" in 6/6.
The lack of specific correlations between the Classic and the "Discussion
of the Trigrams" lists, evidenced in the variant characters for "bow" as
well as in the observation that only one associate for k'un appears directly
in the Classic, enforce an impression that the original catalogues in that
"Wing" are based on natural observations and associations made independent
ly of the Change itself. Appeal to those catalogues in exegesis, then, lo
cates the Classic's Images amongst types assembled from nature at large as
further evidence of the continuity, the "equality" between them. Lai's
selectivity in removing 'bhiang" indicates that he decided subsequent addi
tions from the HsUn Shuang offerings were to be based exclusively on Change
material, establishing that the criterion for inclusion be the extent to
which an Image from the Change contributes to the unified definition of tri
gram qualities begun by Confucius in the "Discussion of the Trigrams" Wing
proper.
At first glance, appeal to HsUn's additions to explain an Image would
therefore seem tautological.
"Bag" in THE COMPLIANT 6/4, for example, is
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240
said to be an Image inherent to the trigram k'un, implying that this asso366
ciation is responsible for the presence of the Image in 6/4,
even though
our analysis of HsUn Shuang's addenda strongly suggests that the appearance
of "bag" in 6/4 is in fact the source of its incorporation into the "Dis
cussion of the Trigrams." Nevertheless, when Lai continues to compare the
emptiness of the bag with k'un's inner emptiness as a linear construct, we
see that this application of a HsUn Shuang suggestion to exegesis is veri
fied by the most fundamental type of rationale in Lai's system, the visual
pattern in the linear structure.
llll
Lai appears a bit more credulous when he says, "K'an is 'roofbeam,'"
to explain "The roofbeam bends"*1'*' in EXCESS OF THE GREAT (hex. 28).^
The
only basis for this claim is HsUn Shuang's addenda to the k'an catalogue in
"Discussion of the Trigrams" 11, and continuing on the assumption developed
for HsUn's k'un supplement it is the text for EXCESS OF THE GREAT that almost
certainly provided the rationale for the inclusion of "roofbeam." The tauto
logy is eased, however, when in the second appearance of the same Image, the
hexagram's 9/3 line, Lai backs up the proposition by allusion to the "Discusion of the Trigrams" 11 statement, "K'an. . .with regard to wood is much
solidity at its heart.
368 Now the complex route of Image formation be
comes clearer. The hexagram
has the overall Image of the trigram k'an — ,
with solid lines at the center surrounded by bipartite lines. This suggests
wood of the k'an type, solid at its heart, and in this hexagram the firmness
within is exaggerated by weakness at the extremities, accounting for the
bending of the beam. What is exceptional about HsUn Shuang's choice of
"roofbeam" as a k'an attribute is that k'an does not appear in EXCESS OF THE
GREAT as an upper, lower, or nuclear trigram.
HsUn must have applied the con-
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241
cept of "overall Image," then, in making his judgement, and Lai simply ackiowledged its correctness by preserving it in his commentary. Unquestion
ably aware of these nuances in HsUn's work, Lai was no doubt inspired at
finding a hint of compatibility in amongst the Great Compendium of Chou
Change material he felt otherwise lacked any appreciation of the Images.
Lai's own additions are, like HsUn's, gathered from observations regard
ing the Change, but are not restricted to the Classic alone. The idea that
the trigram ken has, supplementary to its "Discussion of the Trigrams" 11
attributes, the associates "bed (ch'uang
"dwelling (chai
)," "cottage (lu
and
clearly derives from TEARING (hex. 23) s.i , with
the "overall Image (ta hsiang
)" of ken
and includes those
three Images in its 6/1 and 9/6 lines and its "Greater Image" Wing respec
tively. The origin of the Images in the visual structure of TEARING's one
371
yang atop five yin is explicit in Lai's essay "Images,"
and Lai counted
these three as analogues worthy of inclusion among those generally applicable
to ken. The same type of thinking underlies the belief that "Id is three,"
an association theoretically based on "Discussion of the Trigrams" 3 but in
fact issuing from Shao Yung's ideas discussed on page 172 above. Lai fre
I
quently tapped this association for.explanatory purposes and included it in
* *'
372
his "corrections (pu-ting
)" to the "Discussion of the Trigrams."
An examination of Lai's emendations to the "Discussion of the Trigrams"
Wing shows him expanding the catalogues primarily to enhance the "Wing" rather
than to provide himself convenient exegetical tools.
Indeed, we can now
say that what is meant by Lai's explanations of Change wording through appeal
to the "Discussion" is that he compares the Image in the Classic with one
preserved in the "Wing." Repeatedly Lai emphasizes that King Wen nor the
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242
Duke of Chou had models before them or any conscious biases 'when they en
deavored to set down the Classic of Change. Rather, their study of the line
ar complexes touched meaningful associations within their universes of dis
course, and these were recorded as the hexagram and line texts. The "Ten
Wings," written some six hundred years later by Lai's calculation, dilated
upon the observations of the early Chou Dynasty Sages but represented, no
more than did the "River Graph" or the "Lo Chart,"material used in the Clas
sic's construction.
If we accept that the "Discussion of the Trigrams" proper
is a collection of associations accreted to the eight trigrams independent
of the Change itself, any relationships between individual Change Images and
the "Discussion" catalogues represent a kind of proof by spontaneous separate
occurrence that a common significance exists. The fact that a remotely simi
lar figure, for example, a line text "cart" that can be associated with k'an's
cluster if only because k'an is said in the "Discussion of the Trigrams" 11
catalogue to bespeak carting disasters, occurs in both the Classic and its
"Wing" indicates that the linear structure TZ spontaneously evoked such an
Image in the minds of the various Sages.
The Classic of Change and
Personal Discipline
Our examination of Lai Chih-te's Change exegesis as it expresses his
ethics, his physical description, and his mathematical speculations brings
us to the conclusion that he appreciated the Classic on several levels simul
taneously. On the one hand, he was affected by a vision of Confucian "Right
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243
ness" he found continuous in the Change and the rest of the canon, particu
larly the Four Books, a vision which so deeply impressed him that he endea
vored to mold his personal actions in accord with it. On the other, in
the same spirit of experimental observation with which he applied himself
to investigate natural phenomena and fit his explanations of their behavior
into a consistent physics, he attacked the Change as a phenomenal informa
tion of ch'i that like all other phenomena reflected spontaneously a unified
Pattern in its various strata of Images. From the latter viewpoint, the
phenomenology of the Change was deemed especially suited for coming to grips
with the Pattern. By virtue of rehearsal in its verbal expressions of preverbal symmetries in its linear structure and through the exposition of that
typology HI Confucius' "Ten Wings," the Change was a phenomenon whose innards
were exposed to view in several different, but mutually reinforcing frame
works.
Identification of the independent recurrence of the Pattern in the Change
formations rests upon several presumptions in Lai's system, and we have seen
the most basic of these to be: 1) that the ordering of the hexagrams preceeded composition of the verbal texts; 2) that the hexagrams were placed in or
der after visual symmetries were isolated, leading to the pairing of all
hexagrams as Inverse pairs or, that being impossible, as Antipodes; 3) that
the order thus predetermined is sequential in terms of pivotal hexagrams,
yin and yang line quotas, and Five Phase necessities, and that the "First"
and "Latter Parts" set forth two complete sequences of the same symbolic
nature; and 4) that the general concept of the hexagram as established by its
name was affixed before the Image was further delineated in hexagram and line
texts. Thus before any of the extended verbalizations existed, the hexa-
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244
grains had been studiously placed in order and names assigned them. The
name indicative of the hexagram's general tenor was seen to reflect its
place in the sequence, its pairing with arelated neighbor, peculiarities of
its linear components, and/or the suggestion of its shape.
In forming the
verbal descriptions of hexagram and line texts, however, only the immediate
linear complex was considered. Sage meditation on the internal dynamics of
each hexagram gave voice to more detailed enunciations of the general tenor
encapsulated in the hexagram’s name, all of which, by Lai's reckoning, dis
played the Sage minds' proclivities to ten formative tropes.
Yet these tropes were only discovered by Confucius' research--King Wen
and the Duke of Chou had not applied them intentionally. This same quali
fication applies to other material like the "River Graph," "Lo Chart," and
the Fu-hsi and King Wen trigram cycles, which might properly be brought to
bear upon Change exegesis as independent evidence supportive of the Classic*
inherent symmetries.
In this manner, the verbal Images conformed to several
laws of construction spontaneously, and in their spontaneity they revealed
the same types of structural consistencies expressed in the ordering of the
hexagrams. Thus made accessible by repetition, the internal Pattern of the
Change could be interpreted as a model of the single Pattern traced by all
phenomenal occurrences, and its structural principles could be used in under
standing the dynamics of nature at large.
This transferability was a function of the circular mathematics Lai
evolved to describe the consistent Pattern. His mathematics required that
at every point in the period of its existence as a discrete information of
ch'i, each phenomenon is analogous to every other at a point equidistant in
degrees into its own cycle. Confucian tradition provided a set of typical
■a
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245
analogues, which in their specificity ranged from relatively gross subdivi
sions of the whole--bipolar yin and yang, the four seasons, directions, etc.-to finer distinctions like the twenty-four solar terms and the sixty-four
hexagrams.
In concert with the circular cosmograph, the divinational mathe
matics underlying the Change comprehended all analogues from the undifferen
tiated Great Ultimate to the number of the myriad things, and what was true
for those numerical correspondences pertained to the Classic's other strata
as well. Thus the "Attached Verbalizations" 1:4 assertion of equivalence be
tween the Change and Heaven and Earth was not a matter that asked acceptance
on faith in Lai's system, but a fact the Classic demonstrated in numerous intersubstantiating Imagistic formations.
By this mathematical equivalence, the Confucian moral vision discerned
in the texts of the Change is affirmed as the natural course for human be
havior. King Wen and the Duke of Chou in their texts reflect the Sage's
automatic morality, his ability to function correctly in any temporal frame.
This, indeed, defines the Sage, and at the same time establishes the tangi
ble goal of both Lai's discipline and his Change study.
Commenting on THE
VIGOROUS (hex. 1), "Materia" Wing, Lai said, ". . .the Sages intuited the
complete Pattern from beginning to end in the tao of THE VIGOROUS' six lines.
They saw that the six places each have that which is necessary to it and are
fashioned spontaneously in accord with their times. Thus the six yangs1
times of shallowness or depth, advance or retreat are all placed at my disposal."
That is to say, the Sages interpreted by "intuition" the tem
poral context of THE VIGOROUS and communicated their understanding for gen
eral use.
It is the Sage's "cleansed Mind (hsi-hsin
*W }
)" that allows him
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246
such permeability to the meaning of time. That binome appears in "Attached
Verbalizations" 1:11: "Therefore the Virtue of the yarrow is round and
Spirit-like; the Virtue of the hexagrams is square whereby to know; the sig
nificance of the six lines is what the Change offers. The Sage has these
I 374
stored back in the secret recesses of his cleansed Mind."
Lai glossed:
'"Cleansed Mind' is the designation for [a kind of] Mind. The Mind of a
Sage has not one shred of human desire--it is as if ’washed by the Yangtze
375
River and the Han River.'
It is Spirit; it is knowing; it also responds
to modulations without exhaustion.
It holds complete the Virtues of these
three [i.e., the yarrow, the hexagrams, and the six lines] and is for this
reason called the ’cleansed Mind.’. . . That before they had drawn the hex
agrams the Sages already held complete these three is the Virtue of the
cleansed Mind, and thus the Sage is the same as yarrow, hexagrams, and the
six lines. . . . Thus the Spirit in the Sage's cleansed Mind suffices in
itself to know what is going to occur; the wisdom of his cleansed Mind suf
fices in itself to store up past occurrences. According to the stimulus, it
responds, and this is the same as the yarrow and the hexagrams being acti
vated and thereafter laying open the causes of [all occurrences] under Heav
en. This being so, he uses his Spirit and does not use the yarrow; he
uses his wisdom and does not use the hexagrams. He does not consult the
hn 376
oracle through divination and knows propitiousness and adversity."
m
Lai states that "secret recesses" refers to the state in which the
emotional moods have "not yet arisen (wei-fa
)," a term from the first
chang of the Doctrine of the Mean which Lai understood to mean the uncon
scious Mind, domain of the Five Natures. When we recall Lai's description
of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious spheres of Mind
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247
and his insistence that the Pattern inheres in the latter, making it proper
that consciousness accede to the Spirit in the unconscious, the equivalence
of the Change and the Mind that is "cleansed" of material desires' obstruc
tion follows necessarily. Direct conscious knowledge of the "Spirit" is
obtainable when the three classes of material desires are prevented from
dominating the conscious part of Mind and thereby disrupting communications.
The Change is an expression of the Pattern mediated through human faculties.
The men who compiled it were "Sage" only insofar as they had submitted to
the discipline of "curbing" the self, of blocking the disruptions caused by
material desires. Since it is an expression of the Pattern, the meaning of
the Change is implicit in the Mind of every man: "The modulations and trans
formations of the Change are not only in the Change itself but are complete
Tirx 777
in my person."
Thus as any man may become a Sage by applying the dis
cipline of the Sages, he may come to realize the teachings of the Change in
ternally without further reliance on the mediation of the Sages: "The Change
is not a property of the Four Sages but is a property of m y s e l f . ^
Until one has attained the perfection of discipline, however, he re
quires guidance in comprehending the Sages' message, guidance which did not
seem to Lai forthcoming from the Change commentaries of the Sung Neo-Confucians. Just as their methodology for cultivation of the Mind left the be
wildered student with no place to begin, their Change exegesis dealt only
with Moral Principles without establishing the unconscious connection be
tween moral behavior and the Images of the Change. Lai believed that such
connections could be obtained through application of Image and Number research.
Image and Number study generally refers to the Han and Wei period mode
of exegesis interested in joining the Confucian school's philosophical inter
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I
248
pretation now preserved in the "Ten Wings" with the divination techniques
which appear to have dominated the field of Change study at the time. By
the sixteenth century, only traces of Han commentary survived, both literal
ly in teims of fragmentary manuscripts and abstractly to the extent the
school's concerns lingered even in the Great Compendium of Chou Change as
a rationale for certain of the Classic’s diction.
Chu Hsi’s attitude that
the Change best be regarded as a book of divination contains resonances of
Han and Wei priorities, divination practice being a special area of Chu’s
investigations and, as we have seen, providing him recourse in the explana
tion of obscure passages like the ones which became crucial to Lai’s argument.
The affinity Chu felt for Han-Wei exegesis is most obvious in his theory of
"Hexagram Modulation," where YU Fan’s extra-canonical device was advanced
as a reason for specific Change statements. Thereby, hexagrams were seen
to "come from" other hexagrams in a mechanical way that was understood to
be reflected in the Classic’s texts. By this we must understand that the
verbalizations of the Change were to Chu Hsi effects caused by such peculiar
relationships.
Lai's Change study may be distinguished form Chu Hsi’s in part be
cause he viewed the verbal Images as coincident to the linear structures,
not as their effects in the manner of the "Hexagram Modulation" theory. The
subtlety of Antipodal influence released his exegesis from the cause-andeffect orientation of Master Chu's and allowed that an effect would occur
where necessary, whether or not an overt cause could be located by conven
tional means. Moreover, the entire direction of his thought supported the
belief that synchronistic happenings were related by temporal analogy even
in the absence of physical contact. To him, the failure of previous efforts
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to explain the Change lay in the inability to draw the inference of synchronicity from its various levels of Images
>from Confucius’ explanations of
the same.
Too, Lai's interest in divination seems confined to its manifestations
in verbal Images. Although mantic requirements helped to explain the abstract
flexibility of the Change's language, and though he no doubt believed the
book worked as an oracle, he does not make significant reference to any
role for divination in his own life, nor does he include divination instruc
tions among his explanatory material. His aim was to teach others to under
stand the Images as natural phenomena and to ingest the lessons the Change
provided concerning the Pattern so that ultimately they would know spontane
ously, without divinatory intercession, the meaning of their temporal context
and the action it required of them. Pursuant to that goal, he de-emphasized,
if anything, the use of the Change for divination without detracting from
its spiritual dimensions.
As with this last aspect of the Classic of Change, Lai Chih-te attempted
in his exegesis in general to dispell the mystery that seemed to surround
the Classic without sacrificing respect for its "marvellous subtlety." The
hermeneutic that he adopted with its various devices for relating verbal
!
I
I
Images to Inverse and Antipodal hexagrams, to trigrams, and to other features
of the linear constructs could be coherent because it was based upon his
|
sense of the human mind as a natural phenomenon.
I
tion that the mind reflects in its linguistic expressions the same predic-
I
table orderliness that is witnessed in other processes of existence, the
1
thesis underlying Lai's Change commentary was that the Images could be ana-
1
Growing from the assump-
lyzed in the same manner as any otherphenomenon. To the Chinese philosopher,
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phenomena were composed of ch'i, and Lai Chih-te applied his own ideas about
ch'i to explain both the behavior of water, for example, and the structure
of the hexagrams and their verbal Images.
The minds of the Sages had translated the ch'i structure of the linear
constructs into words, opening to investigation in the Classic of Change as
a whole one great Image of ch'i. Lai's ability to expound the complete struc
ture of the Change in this manner released his commentary from the need to
fall back upon the ineffable when other avenues of explanation failed. This
concrete approach must have recommended the work to readers seeking an alter
native to the abstract religious ideas of Buddhism and to the array of meth
odological systems offered by contemporary Neo-Confucianism, particularly
because Lai incorporated a system of discipline, equally concrete as his
exegesis, into his presentation of the Classic.
In this way, he emulated
Confucius' own pedagogy, at least as Lai's idol, Yen Hui, stated it in the
quotation cited at the very beginning of our study, "broadening" his readers'
knowledge of the transcriptions of their culture and guiding them toward
the "ritual" restraint that alone would allow expression of the Pattern
within.
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251
Appendix A
Textual Notes
A copy of the original edition of Lai Chih-te’s Chou Change: Compiled
Commentaries (Chou-i chi-chu If}
), published in his native Liang-
shan with sixteen chUan in 1599, is contained in the rare books collection
of the Taiwan National Central Library in Taipei.
It includes as an appen
dix Lai’s ’’Dispelling Confusion in the Study of the Change’s Sixty-four
Hexagrams (I-hsUeh liu-shih-ssu kua ch’i-meng
\
VS)
^
)" and
a postface by a student named Tai Kao^Jc, i& , but neither Lai’s own pre
face nor the explanatory material Lai intended to predeed the actual text
I
appear.'* Hsli Ch'in-t’ing lists as the earliest edition the one of 1601 pub2
3
lished by Kuo Tzu-chang, an error to which Cheng Ts'an also subscribed.
Hsll then notes four subsequent editions based upon the Kuo Tzu-chang text,
the first of which is a Ming Wan-li-§b,^f period edition from Szechwan with
no reliable date of publication.^ The second of these he dates 1610 and
identifies only as a "Hangchow reprint (Hang-chou chung-k*an-pen
■H ,#■)
The Naikaku Bunko in Tokyo contains a Chou-i chi-chu of that
date edited by Huang Ju-heng.
Since Huang was a native of Ch’ien-t’ang
' . i t , part of Hangchow prefecture, it seems safe to assume that the Naikaku Bunko holding represents the third edition.
Chou-i chi-chu was the name Lai chose for his work,^ and the Ch’ing
Dynasty palace library edition, the Ch*in-ting ssu-k'u ch'Uan-shu chou-i
chi--chu
22if
M
> published in 1781, was the last to
remain true to Lai’s intended nomenclature. The Taipei Commercial Press
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
252
reprint of the latter, published in 1973, is the most reliable of the acces
sible texts, and it is the reference for all citations to the Compiled Com
mentaries in the present study.
The next edition in chronological order after the 1610 text of Huang
Ju-heng is entitled Chou-i Lai chu $ J^j
in 1632.
f£ and was edited by Shen Chi-
Thecopy in the Taiwan Central Library exhibits other
changes besides the title.
Chih-te yUan-t'u
For example, the "Lai Chih-te Circle Chart (Lai
(U lf£l )"^ is drawn with the vertical diameter
that betrays confusion of Lai's ideas with those of Yang Shih-ch'iao.
7
In
addition, the book has only fifteen chllan. The sixteenth chUan, noted in
the three previous editions, was originally a recapitulation of the "Attached
Verbalizations" and "Discussion of Trigrams" Wings in what Lai believed to
O
have been their correct arrangements. These emendations were edited into
the commentary proper for those two "Wings" in the 1632 edition and all sub
sequent editions except for the Ssu-k'u ch'Uan-shu text.
HsU Ch'in-t'ing was not aware of the Shen text, but next in his chro
nological review notes two editions in 1688, one at the Kuang-yU t'ang
, and the second by Ts'ui Hua^L ^
(j£. 4. ), the plates being retained
by the Tun-jen t'angf/C^ If .9 A photo-reproduction of the latter was
I
made in Taiwan in 1957,^ and another private printing was done in 1976 by
the T'ien-te hung-she ^
^ . The Ts'ui Hua text is the earliest I
have seen that bears the title I-ching Lai chu t'u chieh <|gf *
i . j M ,
and that appends the collection of 107 graphics appearing in all current edi
tions except, again, the Commercial Press reprint of the Ssu-k'u ch'Uan-shu
text.
HsU Ch'in-t'ing believed that Lai had gathered this miscellany from
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the works of his predecessors and added his personal commentary.
11
This is
easily disproved by referring to the Anthology of Graphs and Charts (T'u shu
pien
if]
) by Chang Huang, a work which was completed in 1585.12 51
of the 107 graphs and much of the commentary found in the Ts'ui Hua appendix
can be traced to this earlier work. Thus, for example, the gloss which HsU
calls "Lai-shih ho-t'u t1ien-ti chiao lo-shu jih-yUeh chiao lun
^ & A
& ;CJ ijD
"13 is actually an excerpt from a longer explan
atory note found on pages l:30b-31a of Chang's compendium, a note belonging
to a different graphic entirely than the one to which it is attached in the
Ts'ui Hua text and HsU's dissertation.
Cho Erh-k'ang, whose Complete Book of Change Study (I-hsUeh ch'Uan-shu
^
) alludes elsewhere to Lai's Change study by name, reprodu
ces thirteen of the Ts'ui Hua graphs and attributes none of them to Lai.
Moreover, nine of the charts are titled with reference to Shao Yung's ideas
of "Prior" and "Latter Heaven," a concept that Lai strenuously rejected.^
There is no reason, then, to assume that Lai worked with any of this material,
let alone authorized its inclusion in his commentary.
Except for the extraneous addenda, the Ts’ui Hua text is faithful to
the original Liang-shan edition. Unfortunately, however, there is a col
lateral line of filiation whose representatives now enjoy wider circulation
but are inferior in quality. Liu An-liu^'j
%'\ , about whom otherwise we
know only that he memorialized the emperor in 1643 requesting sacrificial
rites be performed for Lai,'*'3 is known to have re-edited the Kuo Tzu-chang
text.^ This recension was apparently the basis for Kao Hstieh'“chUn's edi
tion, though Kao felt that Liu had lost sight of the author's original in
tent in his adjustments to the text, particularly in eliminating certain
E
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
|
254
passages thought to be reduplications.
17
Kao claimed to have rectified
Liu's errors, but in fact transmitted a text characterized by deletions
throughout. A handwritten manuscript of Kao's text, simply titled Chou-i
$
is in the rare books collection of the Taiwan Central Library, but is
undated. A preface by Ling Fu-tun/^^'ff.
tions of Kao's text
f t
) carried in other edi-
bears the unspecified sexagenary cycle date chia-yin
■ Ling, who punctuated the text, alludes to Kao's editorial work
as having preceeded his own.
The Gest Oriental Library at Princeton contains a Ning-yllan t'ang
edition entitled I-ching Lai chuj^,£fjfal and bearing the date 1834.19
This text is the Kao recension and has a preface by Chou Ta-chang }H
^
dated 1729 and commemorating the re-edition of Lai's I-ching t'u chu ch'Uan
chieh ^3 if (I|
. Chou says that he found the text in Szechwan
after becoming frustrated with inaccuracies in the cheap editions of Lai's
Change for sale in the marketplace.
20
Chou himself had published a text
based on his Szechwan find and titled I-ching Lai chu t'u chieh
iff.
tt gH #? - A copy of this book is contained in the University of Michi
gan library, and the preface states that it was based on plates cut at
Ch'ao-shuang t'ang m
t
■ HsU Ch'in-t'ing could not date the ■latter text
other than to say it was of Ch'ing Dynasty provenance, but noted that it
also contained Ling's preface.
It would seem probable, then, that the
Ch'ao-shuang t'ang text was Ling Fu-tun's re-issue of Kao HsUeh-chUn's edi
tion with new plates for punctuation.
In any event, Chou's 1729 text elim
inates 1734 as a candidate for the sexagenary date chia-yin, and Ling's pre
face must have been written in 1674. This means that Kao HsUeh-chUn did
his work with Lai's commentary sometime in the first three decades of the
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
255
Ch'ing Dynasty--after Liu An-liu's publication, which we might place in
the late 1630's or 1640's on the basis of his memorial, and before Ling
Fu-tun's.
All current reprints append the 107 graphics found in the Ts'ui Hua
edition. There is no specific reference to these in Kao's comments, however,
despite the fact that he was interested enough in Lai's drawings to in
corporate into his manuscript an abridged digest of graphs and explanations
form Lai's Journal (Jih-lu 0 # - ) entitled "Emending Omissions in the Lai
Charts (Lai t|u pu i ^
). I suspect that the presence of the ex
traneous graphics is the result of a wedding of the Kao and Ts'ui editions
by later publishers.
Chou Ta-chang's mention of inaccuracies in marketplace copies sup
ports Ch'ien Chi-po's statement that Lai’s work was widely available in
such editions.21 The Ssu-k'u ch'Uan-shu editors noted that "Men of the Ming
in printing old books frequently altered them according to personal opinions
a 22
and threw them into chaos, and even moreso after the Wan-li period,"
and
the condition of Lai's Change after only half a century may be taken as
proof of this contention. The bastardized Kao HsUeh-chUn text with the ac
companying Ts'ui Hua graphics is the culmination of errors resulting from
frequent editorial manipulation in the process of reprinting to meet
continuing demand.
Nonetheless, the Kao HsUeh-chUn text has been the most important in
recent times, influencing the dissertation of HsU Ch'in-t'ing. The publi
cation of Hsu"'s dissertation in 1969 was followed by four new editions of
the Kao recension23 and the decision of the China Confucius Study Society
(Chung-kuo K'ung hsUeh hui ^ ® } \ J f H
) to use an "edited and corrected"
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
edition, entitled Ting-cheng i-ching Lai chu t!u C h i e h ^
for their commemorative volume marking the sixtieth year of the Republic.
This text is most useful for its appendices of biographical and anecdotal
material assembled by Li Huan^ ^
,2^
HsU notes five other editions, omitting his source of discovery: a
K'ang-hsi period edition with ''Chou-i pien
" as a heading for its
first chUan; a Ch'ing Dynasty Chia-ch'ing period Szechwan edition done at
the Ning-yUan t ' a n g ^
;25 a Lai-shih I-chu hsiang-shu t'u shuo
published by Chang En-lin^U^* ^
&
2^ in 1885; an undated
Liu-yUan t'ang
edition; and an undated Pao-lien t'ang^ J|; tC edi27
tion. The last two HsU assumes to be Ch'ing editions as veil.
In addition,
there was a lithograph of the Kao text made in the Republican period by
the Chiang-tung shu-chU ;1
^3 in Shanghai.2®
The other primary source for investigating Lai's thought is his Jour
nal, the Lai Ch'li-t'ang hsien-sheng jih-lu
wang^SJ
j?
%->%- ^
. Fu Shih-
says in his preface to the "Hsing shih lu %
>" section
V of the Journal in the numeration established below, that the title for
the entire collection was selected by Kuo Tzu-chang and originally may have
been intended for the literary works now comprising the "Outer Chapters (waip'ien
>"29
tiQy^er chapters" contain thirteen separate collections
of poetry and essays in five chUan. The contents of the present Journal,
however, include a range of philosophical discourses as well.
The Library of Congress has an edition of the Journal entitled Chung
Lai Ch'U-t'ang hsien-sheng jih-lu; that is, a "Re-edition."30 The
most recent preface in that text is by Chang Wei-jen
and is dated
1611. Because there are discrepancies in the numeration of chUan in this
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
this text, the one which the present study follows, and because the con
tents differ somewhat from the Journal as it is described in the Ssu-k'u
ch'Uan-shu tsung-nru t'i-yao,
the table below may be consulted to clarify
the Journal's contents and to locate references cited in the preceeding
chapters.
"The Inner Chapters (Nei-p'ien
Huang Ju-heng's "re-edition"
)"
Ssu-k'u ch'Uan-shu description
I. Nung yUan p'ien ^ (fjjtll
i
I
pp. la-45b is equivalent to
1. Nung yUan
pp. 46a-52b
2. Ho-t'u lo-shu ;?) 1^)
3. (same as II)
II. Ke-wu chu t'u
4. Ta-hsUeh ku-pen
(riot included)
I
I
&
[]|)
III. Ju sheng kung-fu tzu-i
5. (same as III)
IV. Hsing chileh lu
6. (same as TV)
a
€ tnk.% 4*
7. K'ung-tzu chin-yen kung-fu JL 5 ft.%.
pp. 43a-45a
V. Hsing shih lu ^
jgfrr
8. (same as V)
p. 38a
9. Chiu hsi t'a chi
(not included
10. Ssu chen \23
(not included)
11. YU su U
(appendix to V)
12. Ke sang- tsang chih su ^ f t
VI. Li hsUeh pien i
13. (same as VI)
VII. Hsin hsUeh hui-ming chieh
14 (same as VII)
^
(not included)
^
^
15. Tu i wu yen
\\3 l
!o a
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
As for the ’’Outer Chapters," the two editions are agreed as to the
order of the thirteen literary collections, and because only incidental use
of the poetry was applied to this study, citations name the selected col
lections in full.
Selections from the Journal along with miscellaneous letters and in
scriptions were deited by Fan Nao-ting-£,
t'ang hsien-sheng chi
li-hsUeh pei-k’ao
yfiF ^
under the title Lai Ch’U-
and included in the series Kuang
, an undated collection, presumably of
the Ch'ing Dynasty, printed at the Wu-ching t'ang
jit .
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix B
The Hexagrams of the Qassic of Change
1. THE VIGOROUS (cl^ienfe) 3
20. WATCHING (kuanffijf!
2. THE COMPLIANT (k'un
21. CHEWING THROUGH (shih ho
)\\
3. TRIALS (chun ^
22. ORNAMENTATION (pi |f )g
4. CONFUSION (meng jfc.) H
23. STRIPPING AWAY (po ^») )f|
5. WAITING (hsU'fjp )||
24. RETURN (fu
6. DISPUTE (sung
25. NO GUILE (vai wang
7. THE ARMY (shih
)i|
^
^ )H
)§
26. GREAT INHIBITS (ta ch*u A
i )S
8. SUPPORT (pi k k ) H
27. MOUTH ( i ^
9. SMALL INHIBITS (hsiao ch’u
28. EXCESS OF THE GREAT (ta kuo A
10. TREADING (lUjfJ )g
29. SINKING (k'an ^
11. THE OPEN (t'ai &
30. DEPENDENCE (lig4 )%
)U
12. THE aOSED (pM, ^ )ft
31. AROUSAL (hsien
13. TOGETHER WITH OTHERS (tTung
32. CONSTANCY (heng
jen
)
)H
)f|
)§I
33. FLEEING
14. GREAT POSSESSION (ta
M
34. GREAT IS STRONG (ta chuang A 7^ ) ==35. ADVANCE (chin ^
15. MODESTY (ch'iengjjt)gg
----
36. INJURY TO THE LIGHT (ming i ^ ^ )
16. THE CONGENIAL (yU ffott
17. FOLLOWING (sui
)H
37. MEMBERS OF THE FAMILY (chia jen ^
18. DECAY (ku ^ ) H
19. APPROACH (lin Jg%)|f
38. AT ODDS (k'uei
S.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
260
63. ALREADY COMPLETED (chi chi
39. TROUBLE (chien ^
40. ALLEVIATION (hsieh M )lf
41. DECREASE (sun ^
64. NOT YET COMPLETED (wei chi
)=I
42. INCREASE
43. CLEARING AWAY (kuai ^ )lt
44. MEETING (kou-j^ )=L
45. GATHERING (ts’ui ^
)f|
46. ASCENT (sheng & )==
47. SUFFERING (k’uri gg )ft
48. THE WELL (ching
)R
49. CHANGING (te^ )S
50. THE CAULDRON (ting j$j. )lt
51. ACTION (chen
52. STOPPING (ten
53. EASING ON (chien
)II
54. MARRIAGE OF THE YOUNGEST
DAUGHTER (teei mei 0 -^) fi
55. FLOURISHING (feng W M
56. TRAVELLING (lU$<jR
57. ENTERING (hsUn f| ) R
58. JOY (tui ^ )1§
59. DISPERSAL (huan
)H
60. RESTRAINT (chieh jjfc ) H
61. FAITH WITHIN (chrng fu $ ^ ) H
62. EXCESS OF THE SMALL (hsiao kuo
r./!
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
4 $)
261
Notes
Chapter I
^Analects 9:11. Reference here and below is to the numeration in
Yang Te-ch'ung^l
^
Shih chu lun-yll tzu-hsiu tu-pen
%$
& % (Taipei: I-wen, 1967). The Chinese texts of all passages translated
herein are contained in the "Texts" section which follows the "Notes" and
can be located by the lower case letter affixed to their respective trans
lations.
^See, for example, Ch’ien Mu^ ‘4^
, "Lun shih i fei K'ung-tzu tso
," in Ku Chieh-kang^ 1zt|®'J , ed., Ku shih pien ^
(Taipei: Ming-lun, 1970), III, 90. The crux of Ch'ien’s argument
is the lack of allusions to the Classic of Change in any material attributed
to Confucius himself as well as in the writing of Mencius or Hslin-tzu. Ouyang Hsiu^X^"/^
, 1007-1072) was perhaps the first scholar to
raise doubts about Confucius’ alleged authorship of the commentary material
referred to as the "Ten Wings (Shih i f
^ )." See Iulian K. Shchutskii,
Researches on the I Ching, trans. by William M. MacDonald and Tsuyoshi
Hasegawa (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 67.
3
Analects 1:14. I have chosen to leave the term tao, often rendered
as "Way" untranslated.
4.ibid., 1:6
5.ibid., 1:12.
^Ssu-ma Ch'ien, Shih chi ^ ( P e k i n g : Chung-hua, 1959), 130.3298.
7.
ibid., 130.3298
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
262
*1
sLo Chen-yU.il.
& compiled the table of contents to the Ching i k'ao
of Chu I-isun^H ^
^ ^
. The portion of Lo's work, Ching i k'ao mu-lu j[ £
S £&■ , which pertains, to the Change is contained in Chang T'ai-
yen^
et
al., I-hsUeh lun tsung $ ^
1$} jjl (Taipei: Kuang-wen, 1976),
beginning on p.194 with separate pagination.
®Chi YinJ;(l$
^
^
et al., Ssu-k'u ch'Uan-shu tsung-mu t'i-yao v7p jiff£
(Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1933), hereafter cited as
Ssu-k'u.
10P'i Hsi-jui
Ching-hsUeh li-shih
(Taipei:
Commercial Press, 1968), la.
•^Ssu-k'u, l:la-2a
32
P'i Hsi-jui concurred, 57a-66a.
13Ssu-k'u, 1:1b
^See Julia Ching, To Acquire Wisdom (New York: Colimbia University
Press, 1976), 104-124, for discussion of this element in Wang's thought.
^3Jen Yu-wen, "Ch'en Hsien-chang's Philosophy of the Natural," in Wm.
Theodore deBary, ed., Self and Society in Ming Thought (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1970), 78.
■^Cited in deBary, "Individualism and Humanitarianism in Late Ming
Thought," in Self and Society, 159. The translation is Wing-tsit Chan's.
17
See "Inquiry on the Great Learning," trans. in Wing-tsit Chan,
A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1963), 659-667.
1O
Takehiko Okada, "Wang Chi and the Rise of Existentialism," in Self
and Society, 138.
19
Cited in deBary, "Individualism and Humanitarianism," 158.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
263
20Ssu-k’u, 5:12a.
71
Shchutskii's review o£ ’'Commentary Studies," 196-206, and "interpre
tations," 207-211, notes the several major works in the field, but no com
prehensive historical treatment exists in European languages. Toda
Toyosaburo's/ (3)% 3.
, Ekikyo chushaku shiko
(Tokyo: Kazama shobo, 1968), is representative of the more extensive work
on the history of Change theory in Japanese.
Several contemporary Chinese
works touch on the topic: Tai ChUn-jen^c^^ , T’an ifjg 0) (Taipei:
K"ai-ming, 1961); Wang Ch’ung-shan£
, 1 hsUeh t’ung lun jg
jfip
(Taipei: Kuang-wen, 1962); and Wu K’ang^ Jjjj^ , Chou i ta kang
(Taipei: Commercial Press, 1970).
22See Appendix A.
2^Ssu-k’u, l;2b-3a.
2^P’i Hsi-jui, Ching hsUeh t’ung lun $z ^
(Taipei: Commercial
Press, 1969), 15.
25Ch’U Wan-liy^
Jt
, Hsien-Ch’in Han Wei i li shu-p1ing
'/%■
, (Taipei: Hslleh-sheng, 1967), 77-82.
9
As I have chosen to translate anew some of the hexagram names to
more closely approximate Lai Chih-te’s usage, I adopt the convention of
printing the names in capital letters and suffixing the number of the hexa
gram in the standard order in parentheses. Appendix B is a complete list
of the translated names, the Chinese characters, and the linear figures.
2^See Huang Tsung-hsi^
,1^ hsUeh hsiang shu lun
(Taipei, Kuang-wen, 1974), 2:la-2a, for the mathematics of this distribu
tion.
?8
Ch’ll Wan-li, 80..
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
»
29See the graphic representation reproduced in Wang Ch'ung-shan,
35-38.
30ibid.,35
30aChiao Yen-shou, I-lin (Taipei: Chung-hua, 1970), preface, 2a-b,
explains the system for locating a particular hexagram according to the
day of the year on which it was divined.
31ibid., 10;10b
32See Shen Yen-kuo;^j^
, "Ching-shih I chuan ch'eng wei f - &
," in Chang T'ai-yen, 33.
33Ch'U Wan-li, 127.
34ibid., 97.
35ibid., 121.
36,See note 2 for this chapter.
See p. Ill for a complete list of my translations for the titles of
the "Ten Wings."
38In Li Ting-tsof
^
, Chou i chi chieh
J r-M
(Taipei:
Commercial Press, 1968), vol. 29 of Kuo-hsUeh chi-pen ts'ung-shu
^
39,Ch'U Wan-li, 133-136.
40Tai ChUn-jen, 32.
4*P'i Hsi-jui, Ching-hsUeh t'ung-lun, 23 and 15-16.
42Tai ChUn-jen, 59-66.
43See Wang Ch'ung-shan, 48-53.
44Ssu-k'u, 1:11b notes remnants of Han concepts relating hexagrams to
the annual cycle in RETURN (hex. 24), as Wang comments upon it, for example.
44aAs in Lai Chih-te, C.h*in-ting ssu-k'u ch'Uan-shu chou-i chi-chu
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
265
^Wang Pi and Han K'ang-pof^JPj.'^ , Chou-i Wang Han chu J tj
^
(Taipei: Chung-hua, 1969), 10:8b-9a. Hellmut Wilhelm translates and
discusses this section of Wang Pi's thought in Change (New York: Harper
t il
and Row, 1960), 87-88.
^ ibid., 10:9a.
In the Chuang-tzu, the first two lines are identical
to the ones translated here. The passage continues, "The idea is the purpose
of words--one gets the idea and forgets the words. How can I find someone
who has forgotten words and talk to him?" % T& f { \ ] * A^5|.0
%.6 %
Yf -Si’§ X-
vV?4 ^
_5§.
. Chuang-tzu chi chieh pit-
, vol. 4 of Hsin pien chu-tzu chi ch'eng^j ijy
(Taipei:
Shih-chieh, 1974), 181.*
47-Wang Pi, 10:9a
48ibid., 10:6b.
49ibid., 10:9b.
50as, for example, in FLEEING (hex. 33) 6/2 and INJURY TO THE LIGHT
(hex. 36) 6/2.
In the former, z k , there is no trigram k'un in the upper,
lower, or nuclear trigrams, yet the image of "cow (niu ^ )" appears in the
text for the second line. Likewise in INJURY, Hs-, "horse (ma^j )" is men
tioned in the second line of a hexagram with no trigram ch'ien visible.
Please note the convention used herein of referring to individual lines
by indicating, as in the Classic itself, first whether the line is a "9,"
meaning a "firm" or unbroken line, or a "6," a "pliant" or broken line. That
numeral is followed by a slash and a second numeral, 1 through 6, to show
the position of the line in the hexagram.
"1" is the bottom line; "6" is the
top line. Where the text of the hexagram is intended, no additional num
bers are shown.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
266
51Wang Pi, 10:9b-10a.
52P'i Hsi-jui, Ching hsUeh li-shih, 42b-43a.
C7
The book was jointly edited by the Shanghai Chinese Mecidine Study
Society (Shang-hai kuo-i hsUeh-she f "M- $1
^
)> from all appearances
in the 1920's or 30's, and reprinted (Taipei: Ta-fang, 1961).
I have not
witnessed this method in use, but comparison of the geomantic and astrologi
cal sections of the book with contemporary works on those subjects suggests
that this represents a generally practiced method of divination. Wang
Ch'ung-shan, 47, also compares some of the Han Dynasty techniques with those
of "contemporary occultists (chin shu-chia^y
^
which supports the
notion of continuity from early Image and Number practices to devices of
the kinds employed in the Hundred Days.
^In standard I Ching divination, one of four numbers— 6 and 8 being
yin, broken lines and17 and 9 being yang, solid lines— is obtained by the
complex manipulation of yarrow stalks or by throwing three coins and totaling
the values assigned to their faces, say, 3 for heads and 2 for tails.
If
the number thus gotten is 6 or 9, the lines "modulate" in their position
in the original hexagram, changing to their opposites and forming a new hex
agram. The second hexagram adds another dimension to the oracle.
See
Richard Wilhelm, trans., The J_ Ching, trans. from German by Cary F. Baynes
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 721-724.
55.Huang Tsung-hsi, I hsUeh, 1:22a.
56,
This is the order as seen in Hundred Days, 1:7.
57
From Wang Ch'ung-shan, 46.
58.Hundred Days, 1:3-4.
59,Huang Tsung-hsi, I hsUeh, 1:27b.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
267
^Which theories P'i Hsi-jui rehearses in Ching hsUeh t’ung lun, 89. P'i finds unsubstantial all the arguments for assigning the texts to
King Wen and the Duke of Chou because there is no source antedating Cheng
HsUan that makes this claim.
61ibid., 10.
^ ibid., 6-8; also Shchutskii, 81 n.
63P'i Hsi-jui, Ching hsUeh t'ung lun, 8.
64See Ch'U Wan-li, 98.
65See ibid., 129 and 79.
^Huang Tsung-hsi, Sung YUan hsUeh-an ^
(Taipei: Shih-chieh,
1973), 208. Hereafter, this reference will be cited as SYHA.
^cited in Wu K'ang, Sung Ming li-hsUeh
0$
(Taipei: Hua-kuo,
1973), 34-35. The "Graph" is depicted on Wu's p. 36; also SYHA, 7.92.
Further discussion of the "Explanation" appears below, p. 58.
^For documentation's sake, reference to the "Hsi-tz'u c h u a n "
proper will indicate the first (shang Jl ) section as "I," and the latter
m
(hsia 'f . ) as "II," followed by an arabic numeral indicating the chang^
of the citation in the arrangement established by Chu Hsi in the Chou-i
Een-ijl!^ %
.
70
Further discussion of this concept appears below, p
^Ch'eng I and Chu Hsi, _I Ch'eng chuan; I_pen-i
^
(Taipei: Shih-chieh, 1972), Chu's preface, 1.
72
"Propitiousness and adversity, regret and remorse are produced by
movement is IM
ife-^
-fili ," "Hsi-t'zu chuan," 11:1.
73
Chu Hsi, I pen-i, Chu's preface, 1.
^4ibid., Chu's preface, 1.
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9
268
78ibid., Chu's preface, 1.
76Alluding to "Hsi-tz'u chuan," I;5, "Producing and producing is called
change
1%
77n,
Cited in Tai Chlln-jen, 101-102.
78Cited in ibid., 105.
79Cited in ibid., 101.
89Cited in ibid., 101.
81Chu Hsi, 1^ pen-i, 1. This is part of Chu's gloss for THE VIGOROUS
(hex. 1).
82ibid., 1.
o-z
The Image and Number aspect of Chu's thinking is more apparent in
his commentary to the "Ten Wings." See, for example, the discussion of Chu's
understanding of "Shuo kua!$->^* " 1, below, p. 190-191.
84See below, p.225, for discussion of "resonance."
85,Ch'eng I, I Ch'eng chuan, 171.
86Chu Hsi, I pen-i, 35.
87
According to "Shuo kua" 5. References to this commentary state the
chang in which the citation appears with an arabic numeral, again with refer
ence to Chu Hsi's I_pen-i.
88Wang Pi, 4:9b-10a.
89Chu Hsi, 40.
90Ting I-tung, Chou-i hsiang i )1|'lb
1973), "I t'ung lun
," shang
(Taipei: Commercial Press,
:la-3b.
9^ibid., "I t'ung lun," shang:5b-8a.
92.ibid., "I t'ung lun," shang: 4b.
93Cited in Ssu-k'u, 3:52b.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
94'in
, his Tu i chU yao
the Yung-lo ta-tien &
269
T
>
, parts o£ which were preserved in
• See Ssu-k'u, 3:53a-b.
99See below, p. 213 ££.
Qfi
Toda Toyosaburo, 692.
9^Lai Chih-te, Chfin-ting ssu-k'u ch'llan-shu chou-i chi-chu
4i.it
(Taipei: Commercial Press, 1973), Lai’s preface,
5b. Hereafter, this text will be cited as CICC.
98Huang Tse, I hsUeh lan shang
M i (Taipei: Commercial Press
1965), Huang’s preface, 21b.
99
ibid., Huang's preface, 3b.
,
100
101
ibid., Huang's preface, 6b.
though Huang Tse appears to have been a self-taught classicist.
See SYHA 1730-1731.
102
Ssu-k'u, 4:5b. As partly preserved in the Yung-lo ta-tien, Wu's
Image study dealt with linear-opposite hexagrams and Hexagram Modulation
theory among other topics. See ibid., 4:6a-b.
10^
See ibid., 4:3b-5a. Lai Chih-te's references to Wu Ch'eng's work
are noted on page 118 below.
104,Ssu-k'u, 4:25b.
105,Huang Tsung-hsi, I-hsUeh, 2:llb-12a and 34a-35a. The only remain
ing copy of Chu’s work was hopelessly corrupt by the eighteenth century.
See Ssu-k'u, 7:10b.
106,See Ssu-k'u, 4:12a-14a.
107
See ibid., 4:2a-b.
~ ^ ibid., 4:2a-b.
^99ibid., 4:2a-b.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
270
■^Cited in Tai ChUn-jen, 108.
IllSsu-k'u, 5:2b.
112.ibid., 7:16b, 17b.
■^The Ssu-k'u ch'Uan-shu tsung-mu t'i-yao, which followed the same
system but has fewer entries, offers a clear example in the arrangement of
notices surrounding that for Lai Chih-te's Change. The entry for Ch'en
Shih-yUan^. tfr(>fcf
, a chin-shih of 1544, preceeds Lai's (5:9a).
Lai, who passed only the chtl-jen^ A. examination in 1552, is followed by
Chang Hsien-i ykfyC
J )» for whom no exact dates are known save
that he was a student in the National University sometime in the long Chiaching period (5:12a). The next entry with a chin-shih is P'an Shih-tsao
’ 1537-1600), who passed in 1583 (5:14a). Thus Chang
Hsien-i is fit into the order as if he had received his chin-shih between
1552 and 1583. •
.
A T 1 •- i
114The works of Han Pang-ch'i, Hsiung Kuo, Ch'en Shih-yllan, Lai Chihte, and Ch'ien I-pen^jj. - 'J fr
3fjp , 1539-1610). All but Ch'ien's ideas
are mentioned below.
115See Ssu-k'u, 5:5a-b.
116ibid., 5:5a.
117
ibid., 5:8a.
' ^ ibid., 5:8b.
119See Hsiung Kuo, Chou-i hsiang chih chUeh lu jf] >07
(Taipei: Commercial Press, 1973), Hsiung's preface, 7b, where he speaks of
the "strengths and weaknesses" of his predecessors, including Ting I-tung
and Huang Tse.
120ibid., "Szu s h i h ^ ^ i ," 1:1b.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
121Cited in Ssu-k’u, 5:9b.
122ibid., 5:9b-10a.
i23Chang Huang, T'u-shu pien (T'u C h i n g - y l i a n e d n . , 1613), fanli
, lb.
124See Ssu-k'u, 7:36b.
125.Yang Shih-ch'iao, Chou-i ku-chin-wen ch'Uan-shu (Ts'ai Tseng-yll
edn., 1607), vol. 46, 1:7b.
Isla
126f
See below, p. 146
127.Yang Shih-ch'iao, vol. 46, 1:7b.
128As documented in Appendix A, p. 252
129Cho Erh-k'ang, I-hsileh ch'Uan-shu (Ming Dynasty ms., Taiwan National
Central Library), vol. 21.
130,Huang Tsung-hsi, I-hsUeh, Huang's preface, 2a.
131
Ssu-k'u, 5:11b.
152ibid., 5:12a.
133 1
1
J
•
r“ .
^
1D1Q. , Di-L^a.
134Ch'ien Chi-po^|*^|
, Chou-i chieh t'i chi ch'i tu-fa jf] Jq
(Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1935), 98.
135
ibid., 97. The other book Ch'ien places in this category is a
Buddhist interpretation, Chou-i ch'an chieh
shih %
;L
by Chih-hsU fa-
.
■^CICC, Lai's Preface, 5b. The term "ming-shih
" can mean "time
of enlightened rule," particularly with reference to one's present ruler in
a formal essay.
Indeed, I have rendered the term that way in translating
Lai's memorial declining office (see p. 121 below).
In this context, how
ever, I have maintained the literal sense of the term to communicate Lai's
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Ill
sense of the uniqueness of his native era and because the term's connota
tion remains "this present dynasty" in either of its nuances.
Chapter II
^Kao's biography of Lai Chih-te is contained in Chu Y e n - s h i h j f ^ ,
et al., ed., Liang-shan hsien chih
tl/
(Taipei: Ch'eng-wen, 1976),
9:3a-9a. Citations herein refer to the more readily available text which
appears as an appendix to Cheng Ts'an^f 'J $ t , ed., Ting-cheng i-ching Lai
chu t'u chieh iffft $ $ £ jfefe 8 U
(Taipei: Chung-kuo K'ung-hsUeh hui,
1971), appendix, 6-14, hereafter noted as "Kao, biography." The same appen
dix, p. 25, states that Lai's grandson, Lai Hsiang-k'un^rjy'.^ » wrote a
"Ch'U-t'ang nien-p'u
," which is supposed to be in the Liang-
shan hsien chih also; however, no edition that I have seen contains it.
2
Kao, biography, 6.
3ibid., 5-6. The origin of the nickname is my speculation. Mt. Wu
in Szechwan is famed for its twelve prominences as well as for mythology
surrounding a dalliance between King Huai of Ch'u
lady of the mountain.
and a spirit
See Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Chinese Language
(Chung-wen ta tz'u-tien ^ 5^
^
)> entry 8927.8.
4Cited from the Szechwan t'ung chih
)'\
, ch. 152, in Cheng
Ts'an, appendix, 5. Also Kao, biography, 6.
5Kao, biography, 6.
6ibid., 8.
^Ming shih
(Taipei: I-wen edition), 193:14b. Ch'en returned to
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter II
273
the capital in about 1553 after the mourning period for his father and
rose steadily through the central administration, having held these posts
by the time Emperor Mu-tsung took the throne in 1567.
8ibid., 193:14b.
Q
Cheng Ts'an, appendix, 23.
10,
Kao, biography, 8.
11Lai related this story in a letter to Kuo Tzu-chang (about whom see
4+
below, p. 120), in Fan Hao-ting:^
, ed., Lai Ch’U-t’ang hsien-sheng
chi jjfc
;£• JfL
(Wu-ching t'ang
^
, no date), 48a. Hereafter,
this source will be cited as "Lai, Collected Works."
12hung-chfen £L )|T , i.e., mundane society.
13,hei-tzu^
, "moles in a pattern," suggests a physiognomic omen.
Here the figure probably refers to the visual image ofi the visa-black words
on paper, though Lai may also be speaking of his fatal inability to pass
the examinations.
14.wu-ssu
is a kind of woven silk writing paper, but here the re
ference is to the scarf upon which Lai inscribed, "I intend to emulate Con
fucius."
fci
15Alluding to the enormous p1eng
16Lai, Collected Works, 60b-61a.
bird of Chuang-tzu, ch. 1.
17,Charles 0. Hucker notes that this system of recommending "tribute stu
ig
m
in
1
.■<-j
p
|4|
& .J
la
dents (kung-sheng or sui-kung^ g
)" from the state supported school sys
tem produced successful officials in the dynasty's early years but declined
during the mid-fifteenth century. Hucker, "Governmental Organization of
the Ming Dynasty," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 21 (1958), 13.
"^Lai Chih-te, Chung-k'e Lai Ch'U-t'ang hsien-sheng jih-lu
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter II
274
, ed. by Huang Ju-heng
(1611?), Ill:38b.
See
Appendix A, p. 256for textual information and explanation of reference nu
meration. Hereafter, this text will be cited as "Lai, Journal."
19ibid., III:40b.
20.ibid., III:3Sb.
21
Lai alludes here to Analects 2:4 and Mencius 3:2.
ibid., Ill:38b.
22 Kao, biography, 8.
23,ibid., 8. Lai’s "new understanding" is discussed below, p. 58.
24.Lai-i Collected Works, 58a.
25ibid., 58a.
26ibid., 58a.
27Kao, biography, 9.
28Wu Hui-chang^.'lfgives this date in his preface, dated 1585, to
Lai, Journal, la.
29-Kao, biography, 5.
30,Ming-jen chuan-chi tsu-liao so-yin (Taipei: Taiwan National Central
Library, 1965), 301.
31
Collected among the "Outer Chapters" of Lai, Journal.
32Lai, Collected Works, 51b-52a.
33,See below, p. 60 ff., for discussion of this term.
34Kao, biography, 9.
35
Kao, biography, 12.
36
Kao, biography, 13.
37ibid., 12.
38
ibid., 13.
39Cheng Ts'an, appendix, 26. This intimation is based on anecdotes
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Chapter II
collected by Tu Hua^ill
275
, a twentieth century native of Wan-hsien.
49Lai, Journal, IV:12a.
4^As seen, for example, in Huang Ch'ao-ch’Uan^
mi
£
, K'an-yU ao-
■ % : (Ying-hua: Taiwan I-hsUeh kuan, 1971), a manual for geo-
mantic analysis of landscapes. Lai's use of this vocabulary may be seen
in his e:xplanation of rainfall, below, p. 158-159.
42Cheng Ts'an, appendix, 26.
43Lai, Collected Works, 49a-b.
44
Alluding to Analects 4:15.
4^Alluding to Chung-yung cj7
Yung and the Ta-hslleh
, chang 20. Chang numbers for the Chung-
refer to Chu Hsi's Ssu-shu chi chu
f£
(Taipei: Shih-chieh, 1974).
^Alluding to "Hsi-tz'u chuan," 11:1.
4^CICC 14:4a. The anthology of statements referred to in the last
sentence is Lai, Journal, III.
4^Lai, Journal, III:74a.
49SYHA, 292.
5Qibid., 292.
51ibid., 292.
32Lai, Collected Works, 10a.
53SYHA, 292.
54CICC, 14:3b.
55SYHA, 288.
^Compare Chan's translation of this passage in Sourcebook, 475, and his
note 64 on that page.
Chan reads, "Having no discontent, he treated wealth,
honor, poverty, or humble station in the same way. As he treated them in
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter II
276
the same way. As he treated them in the same way, he could transform them
and equalize them."
57See D. C. Lau, "A Note on ke wo^fj 1^0
The Bulletin of the School
of Oriental and African Studies, XXX part 2 (1967), 353-357.
58Li-chi Cheng c h u ^
> Kuo-hsUeh chi-pen ts'ung-shu edn.
(Taipei: Hsin-hsing, 1974), 19:9a.
5^ibid., 19:9a.
^°Chu Hsi, Ssu-shu, Ta-hsUeh, 6. This is Chu's gloss to chang 5 and is
his statement of Ch'eng I's interpretation.
^This distinction is made in Chu Hsi's gloss for the opening chang of
the Ta-hsUeh, Ssu-shu, 2.
^Discussed below, p. 142-143.
^See below, 79-80.
\
^According to Wang T'ing-chang £
in his preface to Lai,
Journal, IV.
65Lai, Collected Works, 64b.
^Lai, Journal, Huang’s preface, 12a.
f\7
HsUeh refused to follow the
the eunuch as did other officials,
on trumped-up charges.
expedient
practice of kneeling
and this snub led to his Imprisonment
Ming shih, 182:8a.
68W. T. Chan, "The Ch'eng-Chu School of
Early Ming," in Self
34.
^Jung Chao-tsu’f?
before
, Ming-tai ssu-hsiang shih
^
(Taipei: Taiwan k'ai-ming reprint, 1973), 14.
69aibid., 7-10.
79Huang Tsung-hsi, Ming ju hsUeh-an
^ (Taipei: Chung-hua,
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
and Society,
Chapter II
277
1970), 7:2a. Hereafter, this text will be cited as "MJHA."
71,Chan, "Ch'eng-Chu School,” 35.
72MJHA, 7:4b.
73ibid., 7:4b.
74ibid., 10:4a.
75c
See Tu Wei-ming, Neo-Confucian Thought in Action (Berkeley: Univer
sity of California Press, 1976), 49-50, for a discussion of this event in
the perspective of Wang's spiritual development.
76,See ibid., 120 ff., and Julia Ching, 81 ff.
77.MJHA, 10:1a.
78See Julia Ching, 150-152 and 174-175.
79See deBary, "Individualism and Humanitarianism,” 178-188.
80
'See ibid., 188-222.
81Lai, Journal, I.
82Ta-hsUeh, chang 1, translated to follow Lai's understanding of the
passage.
83
Analects 12:1.
84,Mencius 14:35. Chapter and passage references conform to those in
!
Chang Wen-hsUiijr
!
Won Yit, 1967).
]
, ed., Meng-tzu hsin shih Jq,|-f^f
(Hong Kong:
85.MJHA, 53:16b.
86See below, p. 100.
87
Chu Hsi, Ssu-shu, Meng-tzu, 194.
88Ssu-ma Kuang, Ssu-ma wen-cheng kung ch'uan chia chi a\
^
(Taipei: Commercial Press, 1937), 809.
89,MJHA, 53:16b.
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X J&-
Chapter II
278
90Lai, Collected Works, 22a.
9^See Wu K'ang's discussion of Chou Tun-i, Sung Ming li-hsUeh, 42-46.
5aAL
$
92Lai, Journal, II:1b.
95ibid., II:1b.
94MJHA, 53:17a.
95Lai, Collected Works, 7a.
96ibid., 5b.
97
si
;
1
■
&
0;*
I
§i
K
IS
|
Lai, Journal, II.
98MJHA, 53:16b.
99Lai, Journal, III:37b.
i nn
ibid., Yang Ch'eng's preface to II, 3a.
101ibid., Yang Ch'eng's preface to II, 2b-3a.
102Mencius, 2:5.
In context, D. C. Lau's rendering of this term as
"valor" is apt. See Lau, Mencius (London: Penguin books, 1970), 62. Lai'
sense of the term is more general, hence, "power."
^ ^Msncius, 2:5.
■^94D. C. Lau's translation of Mencius 2:5; Lau, 66.
■^In dividing the binome "hslteh-ch1i
" into its two components
I follow Chu Hsi's gloss in Ssu-shu, Lun-yli, 116. This is presumably the
|
0,
I
way Lai would have read the passage.
106Lai, Collected Works, 22a.
107,Analects, 6:3.
108Lai, Collected Works, 43a.
^
109Lai's Hsing shih lu if
> which comprises Journal V, has a
heavy concentration of such material.
^ 9Lai, Collected Works, 4b.
m
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Chapter II
279
111Ch'eng I, I Ch'eng chuan, 107.
^ 2Wu K'ang, Sung Ming li-hsUeh, 160, discusses these relationships
within Ch'eng's thought.
113MJHA, 53:17b.
"^Cited in ibid., 53:16b.
11C
Chu Hsi, Ssu-shu, Ta-hsUeh, gloss to chang 1, 1.
116Cited in MJHA, 53:16b.
117Lai, Collected Works, 7b.
118
Ch'ien and k'un are the names of the first two hexagrams in the
Classic of Change. The terms take on the extended connotations of "Heaven
and Earth" (as in Chan's translation of this passage, Sourcebook, 497), and
"father and mother," among others. The "Shuo kua" Wing, 10, begins, "Ch'ien
is Heaven; thus it is called father. K'un is Earth; thus it is called mo
ther
119SYHA, 384.
120ibid.,
.
316.
121
122
ibid., 854.
ibid , 854.
123.ibid., 855, following Chan's translation, Sourcebook, 593-594.
124Jen Yu-wen, "Ch'en Hsien-chang's Philosophy of the Natural,” in
Self and Society, 70.
125..
ibid., 85-86.
126,'Translated in Chan, Sourcebook, 659.
127ibid., 675.
128MJHA, 10:5b-6a.
129
Translated in Chan, Sourcebook, 664-665.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter II
280
-*-39See Julia Ching's discussion o£ this matter, p. 77.
In fact, Wang
states that though the order of the Ta-hsUeh from ke-wu through "cultiva
tion of one’s personal life (hsiu-shen^if % )" is given in sequence, "in
substance they are one and cannot be separated." Translated in Chan,
Sourcebook, 666.
130aTranslated in Chan, Sourcebook, 684. See Tu Wei-ming, 172-176, on
"chih hsing ho .i."
*3^Cited in Wu K’ang, Sung Ming li-hsUeh, 217.
"^Cited in ibid., 165.
133Cited in ibid., 166.
134ibid., 166.
135ibid., 166.
13^Lai, Collected Works, 6b.
■^37Two terms from the vocabulary of the School of Principle cited in
ibid., 6a.
138ibid., 15a.
139ibid., 15a.
140ibid., 15a.
141SYHA, 854.
^4^Lai, Journal, II:35a.
143ibid., IV:12a.
144cf. Chan's translation, Sourcebook, 98.
*43Lai, Journal, III:62a.
146ibid., III:62a.
147Mencius, 13:15.
148A term from Chung-yung, chang 7.
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Chapter II
281
149.Lai, Collected Works, 12a.
^°Lai, Journal, II;15b.
151c£ .
Lai’s gloss of kuei^L as the yang spirit of human composition,
the hun jffi,, which is the breath; and shenffi as the human 232. spirit, or
pog^ , sensate intelligence, in CICC, 13:14b.
*^Lai, Journal, III:29b.
■^1 chose "begotten" for sheng %. in this context because of Lai's
underlying sense of the sexual analogy for the impetus behind material exis
tence. See below,, p. 112.
154Lai, Journal, III:29b.
155ibid., Ill:13b.
156SYHA, 292.
157,Wu K'ang, Sung Ming li-hsueh, 58.
158Chu Hsi, Ssu-shu, Chung-yung, gloss to chang 1, 1.
159Cited in Wu K'ang, Sung Ming li-hsileh, 210.
160ibid., 211.
161ibid., 210.
162SYHA, 864.
165ibid., 864.
^ Li-chi Cheng chu, 16:1a.
165Lai, Journal, II:13b.
166ibid., III:35b.
167ibid., III:31b-32a.
168CICC, 14:9a.
"^Cited in Wu K'ang, Sung Ming 11-hsUeh, 211.
17D
Lai, Journal, II:20b.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter II
282
171ibid., III:27b.
172ibid., III:30a.
■^The relationship between the "heart (hsinAr )" and fire remains
as article of traditional Chinese medicine.
See Wang An ^
ts’ao pei-yao j? ^ ^ JfP (Tainan: Kuang-t'ien, 1972), 7.
^74Lai, Journal, III:4a.
175ibid., III:4a.
176ibid., III:5a.
177ibid., III:13a.
178ibid., III :9a.
179ibid,, III:9a-10a.
m
180ibid., III:4a-6a.
1
181ibid., II:7a.
182Alluding to Analects 2:4.
183Lai, Journal, II:45a.
184ibid., IV:2a.
h:-a
m
185ibid., Ill:6b.
186Lai, Collected Works, lib.
187ibid., lb.
188ibid., lb.
189ibid.,
.,
24a.
- j
190ibid., lib.
191
Lai, Journal, III:40a-b.
192ibid., III:16a-b.
195ibid., III:21a.
194ibid., III:40a
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
, ed., Pen
Chapter II
283
195ibid., II:13b.
■^"Hsi-tz'u chuan,M 11:5, following Lai's gloss, CICC 14:18b.
197CICC, 14:19b.
1 QO
The phrase used to describe Yen Hui in Analects 6:3.
199Lai, Journal, III:24a.
299Alluding to Chung-yung, chang 20, cited by Lai in Journal, III:27a.
29^ Lai, Journal, II:7a.
202ibid., II:46a-b.
Alluding to Chung-yung, chang 20.
$
3
•a
1
204Lai, Journal, II:45a.
205ibid., II:45a-b.
206ibid., II:45a.
207ibid., II:45a.
20^Lai, Collected Works, lib.
209ibid., 5a.
210Lai, Journal III:74a.
P
i
P
I
211
The reference is to "Hsi tz'u chuan" 11:8. Lai takes the entire
passage in which the term "tien-yao" appears to refer to the mutability of
the Change. The Classic's hexagrams are in fact six stations that are them
selves "empty" of permanent definition, being now sol,id and again bipartite.
If the statements in the Change constituted a "definitive outline" of phenome
nal processes, it would be restricted to specific actualities and thus un
adaptable to fluctuations of ch'i and incapable of rendering a timely response
in divination.
212
See CICC 14:39a.
Yang Ch’eng, preface to Lai, Journal II, 5b-6a.
71 ^
Lai, Collected Works, 49b.
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Chapter II
284
214CICC, Lai's preface, 4a.
215ibid., 13:3Sa-b.
21^ibid. ,"shou shang ^ Ji ," 6a.
217ibid., 1:2b.
218ibid., 1:2b.
219,The reference is to TROUBLE (hex. 29), "Ta hsiang chuan."
220 CICC l:2b-3a.
,
The last reference is to ACTION (hex. 51), "Ta hsiang
chuan."
22^"Hsi-tz'u chuan," 11:1.
222
The reference is to Mencius, 6:1. In order to expose the archer Hsi
for an unprincipled hunter, the charioteer Wang Liang 5 &
used guile
to take ten trophies when proper tactics failed to get a single fowl. "Under
handed methods" follows D. C. Lau's translation, Mencius, 106.
22^The reference is to the "T'an kung shang
Jl " chapter of the
Li-chi. Li-chi Cheng chu, 2:6.
224,The reference is to Analects, 4:5.
225CICC 14:a-b.
226Analects, 17:1. Yang Hu was a steward of the Chi
227The reference is to Analects,.15:9.
if
family.
228The reference is to Mencius, 11:10.
22^The reference is to EXCESS OF THE GREAT (hex. 28) 6/6, following
Lai's gloss, CICC 6:29a. The line continues, "Adversity; no disaster. DL/
&
230,This passage is translated with reference to Lai's gloss of "Hsin," 1:11, CICC 13:53b.
CICC 14:3b-4a. "Concentrated unity" alludes to the "Ta YU mo
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter II
m
-
285
chapter of the Shu-ching. See Chu Hsi, ed., Shu-ching chi chu
f£ (Taipei: Hsin-lu, 1971), 22.
252ibid., 22.
233ibid., 22.
234ibid., 22.
235CICC, "shou shang," 13b-14a. The standard count divides the "T'uan
chuan" into "First (shang ji )" and "Latter (hsia
)" as the first two
"Wingsimitating the standard division of the Classic into two parts.
K'ung Ying-rta
Chou-i cheng ij§^| jk ^
See
(Taipei: I-wen, 1955).
23^CICC, Lai's preface, 4a.
237SYHA; 292.
238Actually, the "First (shang Ji )" and "Latter Parts (hsia p'ien
—- ki’
I'ffl )" of the Change are to be read as two such series, each verifying
the other by repetition. See below, pp. 206-213.
239
According to the date on Lai's preface to this work. The preface is
not included in the CICC but can be found in I-ching Lai chu t'u chieh ^
(Taipei: T'ien-te hung-she, 1976), 105.
240FAI1H WITHIN (hex. 61) H
hsiang ^
, for example, has the "overall Image (ta-
of the trigram LL Er , its bipartite inner lines being en
closed by solid outer lines. See CICC, "shou hsia ]§. h ," 57b.
24^Lines in a minority are considered dominant on the basis of "Hsitz'u chuan" II:‘4, where it is understood that yang trigrams are those with
two yin lines, and vice-versa.
See Lai's gloss to the passage, CICC 14:17a.
In Lai's "Dispelling Confusion," this principle is extended to hexagrams,
demonstrated in each case by naming other hexagrams with the "same substance
(t'ung t'i Jo]*^)>" i*e., the same linear components in terms of yin and yang.
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Chapter II
286
242Lai, I-ching Lai chu t’u chieh (Taipei: T'ien-te hung-she, 1976),
preface to "Ch'i-meng," 103.
243Based on CICC, Lai's preface, 4a.
244f
See SYHA, 851.
245CICC, Lai's preface, 5a-b.
246ibid., Lai's preface, 5b.
24\ai, Collected Works, 44a-b.
248This was the impression of the Ssu-k'u chiton-shu editors, Ssu-k'u,
5:12a, and it is supported by Lai's failure to note similarities or expose
differences between his own work and that of like-minded Image and Number
proponents, as noted above, pages 36-37.
24^As was Lai's intention, according to CICC, Lai's preface, 5a.
250HsU Ch'in-t'ing^Jf ij. , I Lai-shih hsUeh ^
(Taipei:
Taiwan Cement Corp. Cultural Foundation, 1969).
on
For example, yin-yang assignments of line stations on an odd-even
basis--odd-numbered lines, yang, even-numbered, yin--may be inferred from
usage in the "Hsiao hsiang chuan
." See Hsll, 553.
252For example, in Lai's comments on NDDESTY (hex. 15) 6/2 and 6/4,
CICC, 4:19b and 21a.
253ibid., 15:41b.
254ibid., 1:8b-9a.
255ibid., 1:7b.
256ibid., 8:2a.
257Lai, Collected Works, 41a-b.
258ibid., 41b.
23^Author of the Tso-chuan %
.
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Chapter II
287
^Author of commentaries on the so-called "ancient text (ku-wen ^
5^ )" editions of the Shu-ching. Analects, and Hsiao-ching 4 If; .
261tLai, Collected Works, 41b.
262Ssu-k'u, 5:11b.
263I-ching Lai chu t'u chieh (Taipei: T'ien-te hung-she, 1976), Kuo's
preface, 3b-4a.
2f^Kao, biography, 10.
2^This position, grade 9b, was not always staffed, according to its
description in Ming shih, 73:19b.
266.Kao, biography, 11.
267Lai, Collected Works, 44a.
268Kao, biography, 10; also Ming shih, 283:29b.
2
Chung k'e Lai-tzu I chu hsli
heng, YU-lin chi jg?
," in Huang Ju-
(Ssu-ming t'ien-ch'i, 1624), 2:8a-10b.
2^ I -ching Lai chu t'u chieh (Taipei: Hui-wen, 1972), Kao's preface, 5.
771
The reference is to Analects 4:8, "The Master said, 'Hearing of tao
in the morning, it is all right to die in the evening.’" J 13 •
’
f^ \
^
£ .
272Lai, Journal, V:38a.
273Kao, biography, 11.
77 a
See James F. Cahill, "Confucian Elements in the Theory of Painting,"
in A. F. Wright, ed., The Confucian Persuasion (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1960), 137.
275Kao, biography, 12.
276Lai, Collected Works, 46a.
277Lai, Journal, IV:12a.
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2b8
Chapter II-III
278ibid., 12a.
m
Chapter III
^CICC, 13:7a. Lai follows Chu Hsi's gloss verbatim in the first sen
tence. See Chu Hsi, I pen-i, 56.
2
See above, page 103.
Chu Hsi, Shu-ching chi chu, 18.
4ibid., 104.
3CICC, Lai's preface, 2b-3a.
6ibid., 1:4a.
7ibid., I:4a-b. "One and all" translates "mi-lun
," which Lai
glosses at its locus classicus, "Hsi-tz'u chuan" 1:4, "'Hi’ means ’filling
all the cracks, encompassing every detail, the uniting of the myriad into one
yet completely without deficiency.’. . . ’Lun* means 'threads and cords,
one by one and all in order, clearly discriminated, the dissecting of the
one into myriads which yet have obvious relationships.’"
O
ibid., Lai’s preface, 2b.
^ibid., Lai's preface, 2b.
1(^SUFFERING (hex. 47) 9/4.
n THE CAULDRON (hex. 50) 9/6.
12TREADING (hex. 10).
13INJURY TO THE LIGHT (hex. 36) 6/4.
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Chapter III
289
14CICC, Lai's preface, 2b.
15ibid., 7:49a.
16ibid., 13:10a.
^See Lai's gloss, ibid., 13:2a.
18ibid., 13:3a.
19ibid., 13:9b.
29Shchutskii, 11.
2^"HsU kua" I. This appendix is traditionally divided into two sec
tions, "shang fc" and "hsia
," cited herein as I and II respectively.
22CICC, 15:25b.
23Ssu-k'u, 5:11a.
24Chu Hsi, I pen-i, 61.
25ibid., 61.
2^CICC, Lai's preface, la-b.
2^The brief "Tsa kua" has no subdivisions; unless a specific gloss is
noted, then, no detail will be added to citations from that "Wing."
28CICC, 15:34a.
29ibid., 15:34a.
-MVf
30ibid., 15:34b.
According to "Shuo kua," 7. Reference to this "Wing" is by chang
32The character "hsien
------------
|A/V
is associated with k'an in the "T'uan
----------
chuan" for SINKING Chex. 29), the doubled trigram k'an.
33CICC, 15:34b.
34"Hsu
kua," I, following Lai's gloss, CICC, 15:25a.
33CICC, "shou shang," 7a.
3^ibid., "Shuo kua," 11, has the trigram ch'ien as "lord (chUn
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
),"
Chapter III
290
and it is this that Lai associates with "king (wang i )" in the line in
question. Li is the third trigram in the order proposed by Shao Yung on
the basis of "Shuo kua," 3, as described on page 172 below. "Decree (ming
4$ )" is associated with the trigram hsUn because of the first line of the
"T'uan chuan" for ENTERING (hex. 57), "Double hslhi so as to repeatedly de
cree,"^ ||
^
. Following Lai's gloss, CICC, 11:34b.
'37CICC, 3:4b.
38ibid., "shou shang," 7a.
■zq
Pointed out by Lai in CICC, 8:41a.
40ibid., 9:13b.
4^Hexagrams 11 and 12, 17 and 18, 53 and 54., and 63 and 64.
42CICC, "shou shang," 24b.
43ibid., 3:31a.
44Ch'eng I, I Ch'eng chuan, 51.
43Chu Hsi, 1^pen-i, 14.
46CICC, "shou shang," 6a. The other three are "trigram virtues (kuate j.|v
)," those characteristics of the trigrams listed in "Shuo kua," 7;
the "overall hexagram Image (kua-hsiang
J)<^ or ta-hsiang
^
)," by which
a hexagram is compared to one of the trigrams; and the "hexagram's sub
stance (kua-t'i
47CICC, 1:1b.
48
49
)," the yin and yang qualities of its various lines.
*b"
With reference to "Hsi-tz'u chuan," 1:3, Lai's gloss, CICC, 13:13b.
SYHA, 292.
3^Lai, Collected Works, lb. See Irene Bloom's discussion of the devel
opments in thinking about the relationship of li and ch'i through the early
sixteenth century, "Qn-the 'Abstraction' of Ming Thought: Some Concrete Evi
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Chapter III
291
dence from the Philosophy of Lo Ch'in-shun," in IV. T. deBary and Irene Bloom,
ed., Principle and Practicality (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979),
pp. 76-91.
^I follow here W. T. Chan's studied translation in Sourcebook, 634,
of Chu Hsi’s intended meaning for the phrases "hsing erh shang che" and "hsing
erh hsia che" from "Hsi-tz'u chuan," 1:12. These phrases are translated to
reflect Lai’s understanding of them immediately below.
52Hu Kuang, et. al., ed., Hsing li ta ch'Uan shu
jjr (Taipei:
Commercial Press, 1973), 26:1b.
55ibid., 3a.
54ibid., 3b.
55CICC 13:58a-59a.
56ibid., 15:3a-b.
5^"Ts’ai-chih
" is the term that follows upon the "Hsi-tz’u chuan,'
1:12 passage translated on page 143 above and that is translated here accord
ing to Lai’s gloss, CICC, 13:58a, where it is related to the tailoring of
cloth, thence metaphorically to the division of the year into four seasons,
the month into thirty days, and the day into twelve periods.
58CICC 3:31b-32a.
59,
'CICC 13:49b-50a.
^Lai, Collected Works, 10a.
61ibid., 10a.
62ibid., 10b.
63CICC, 13:58a.
64ibid., 14:20a.
65Lai, Collected Works, 2a.
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292
Chapter III
66,
'Reproduced from CICC, "shou shang," 17a.
67,Kao HsUeh-chlln, ed., "Emending Omissions in the Lai Charts (Lai t'u
ifl I-ching Lai chu t'u chieh (Taipei: Hui-wen, 1972), 44.
El
See page 255 below for an explanation of this source, which will be cited
hereafter as "Lai, T’u chieh."
^From "Song of Working with the Round (Nung yUan ko
llfj^
)," in
ibid., 44.
69.Lai, Journal, I.
70,'Reproduced from Lai, T'u chieh, 54.
71ibid., 54.
72ibid., 54.
73ibid., 55.
74Reproduced from ibid., 58.
75ibid., 58.
76Chu Hsi, Ssu shu, Meng-tzu, 37.
77.MJHA, 8:11a.
78ibid., 46:10b. See also 7:5a, 8:3b, 8:10a, 46:9b.
79,The reference is to Analects, 11:26.
80.
Lai, Collected Works, 7b.
81.
ibid., lOa-b.
82Lai, T'u chieh, 55.
^^Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Chinese Language, 17434.72.
84
Lai gives no such exact figures. I have suggested these to orient
this phase in the tree's cycle on the circle according to Lai’s general theory.
88The reference is to the "YUeh chi^f£. " chapter of the Li-chi, Lichi Cheng chu, 11:11b. _
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Chapter III
293
86 .
Lai, T'u chieh, 58.
87ibid., 59.
88.
Lai, Collected Works, 21b.
89CICC, 14:20a.
90r
Reproduced from Lai, T'u chieh, 59.
^See Tung Chung-Shu's
(ca. 179-ca. 140 B.C.) theories as
translated in Chan, Sourcebook, 279.
Q?
Wu K'ang, Sung Ming li-hslleh, 38, summarizing the Five Phase theory
from the LU-shih ch'un-ch'iu ^
0 *2
and Hsiao Tai li-chi
•
In "Shuo kua," 7. Presumably, when something sinks into water, it
is "stored" therein.
94.Lai, Collected Works, 31b-32a.
95See Hu Kuang, Hsing li ta ch*Uan shu, 26:17b.
^Lai, Collected Works, 33a.
^"T'o-yUeh^Mr ," "bellows," alludes to Lao-tzu
(Taipei: ChungW’
hua, 1973), 5:3b.
QO
In "Shuo kua," 3, Lai takes. "Mountain" to refer to the trigram ken
and "Marsh" to refer to the trigram tui. CICC, 15:7a-b.
QQ
Lai, Collected Works, 32b. The last reference is to the "Li-yUn
" chapter of the Li-chi, Li-chi Cheng chu, 7:7b. "Aperture" translates
"chiao ^
100
," which Cheng Hsllan glossed as "k'ung
7:7a.
As stated in Hu Kuang, Hsing li ta ch'Uan shu, 26:15a-b.
101Lai, Collected Works, 32a.
I translate the Chinese measures fen
and ts'un •J' into the approx-
mate, though not equal, units of the decimal system for convenience. Lai was
not concerned with quantitative accuracy in making this conjecture.
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Chapter III
103Lai, Collected Works, 32b.
294
104ibid., 34a.
*05Li-chi Cheng chu, 7:7b.
106ibid., 7:8a.
107Lai, Collected Works, 33b. Lai apparently thought the earth to
r*s
be larger than it in fact is.
108ibid., 34a.
109.Presumably a "Buddha world" parallel to our own.
110.
Lai, Collected Works, 34b.
m ibid., 34b.
112ibid., 34b.
113ibid., 35a.
story contained in the Huai-nan-tzu
ch'eng
^
, in Chu-tzu chi
(Taipei: Shih-chieh, 1974), v. 7, 117-118.
^ 8Lai, Collected Works, 39b.
11^ibid., 39b.
117ibid., 40a.
118ibid., 40a.
11^ibid., 36b.
120ibid., 34b.
1 71
ibid., 36a.
122ibid., 37b.
125ibid., 38b.
■m
~2^ibid., 38b.
^28ibidr-, 3a.
126CICC, 1:2b. -
fag
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Chapter III
295
127
The "order of Earth" Lai understood to refer to flora in its con
stant and orderly manifestations.
See ibid., 14:7a.
128ibid., 14:7b.
129
Using the terminology of "Hsi-tz'u chuan," 1:11.
130See Wu K’angs Shao-tzu I-hslleh
(Taipei: Commercial Press
1972), 16-21.
131See page 172 below.
132CICC, 15:7a.
133.'Reproduced from ibid., "shou shang," 20a.
134ibid., 15:7b.
i^
ibid., 15:7a; cf. Chu Hsi, I pen-i, 70.
"^Cited in Wu K'ang, Shao-tzu i-hsUeh, 19.
157ibid., 21.
138
These became in the seventeenth century the subject of a contro
versy regarding their legitimacy as Change-related material.
For a rehearsal
of evidence regarding their filiation, see Hu W e i $ f , I_ t'u ming pien
||gj
(Taipei: Kuang-wen, 1971), ch. 1.
139.Primarily as evidence for the centrality of the number five. See
CICC, 1:3a.
140CICC, 13:34a-b; cf. Chu Hsi, I pen-i, 60.
^S e e Schuyler Camman ,"The Evolution of Magic Squares in China,"
JAOS LXXX(1960), 116-124. The "Lo Chart," modified here to show Arabic numer
als, follows the example in Chu Hsi, I pen-i, "Chou-i pen-i t'u," 6.
142„River (^ph"
modified to show Arabic numerals and follows
ibid., "Chou-i pen-i t'u." 6.
143CICC, 1:3a.
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296
Chapter III
144ibid., 13:35a.
145 See
Chu Hsi, I_pen-i, 60.
146c
See Wang Ch'ung-shan, 72. Chu set forth his ideas in I-hsUeh ch'i
meng |q ^ 4 ?
1:5a.
in Chu-tzu 5. sh u ^
^
(Taipei: I-wen, 1969), v. 12,
147,Chu Hsi, I pen-i, 60.
148Lai, Journal, I:47a-48a.
149ibid., I:49a. Lai seems content with the approximate northerli
ness of the number 6 in this scheme.
ISO-ibid., I:48a.
151See note 138 to the present chapter.
152Lai, Journal, I:50a.
i - ia
!l
153ibid., I:52a.
154,CICC, l:3a-b.
155See above, page 87 ff.
156Lai, Journal, 1:52a.
157This reference is to "Hsi-tz'u chuan," 1:9, according to Lai's gloss.
CICC, 13:35b. See also note 151 to our chapter II.
158Lai, Journal, IV:10b.
The Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Chinese Language, 262.1133, iden
tifies these as either muscles, blood vessels, bones, hair, and flesh or
the two arms, two legs, and head.
^ 9Ears, eyes, nose, mouth, and either the figure (hsing4 t ) or the
mind (hsin^c); ibid., 262.433.
■^Liver, heart, spleen, lungs, and kidneys; ibid., 262.1132.
^T h e "five matters" come from the "Hung fan
" chapter of the
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Chapter III
297
Shu-ching, Shu-ching chi chu, 119. The Five Natures are enumerated on page
87 above; the Five Relationships on page 76.
163Feathered, hairy, shelled, scaly, and naked; Encyclopedic Dictionary,
262.109.
164ibid., 262.996, offers seven lists, most of which include hemp,
rice, wheat, millet, and beans.
165Lai, Journal, IV:10b.
166,
'CICC, 13:35a-b.
^ 7An inference that may be drawn from Chu's gloss to "Hsi-tz'u chuan,"
1:9: "One changes to produce Water, and six changes to complete it; two
changes to produce Fire, and seven changes to complete it." — ^
•£
>?fP
I_pen-i, 60.
168ibid., 60.
169CICC. 13:35b.
170,The line at the end of the same chapter, "Hsi-tz'u chuan," 1:9, that
speaks of "helping the Spirit (yu shen^^tj))" is one example. See Lai's
gloss, CICC, 13:39b-40a.
171ibid., 35a-b.
172Lai, Journal. IV:13b.
According to "Hsi-tz'u chuan," 1:11.
■^"Hsi-tz'u chuan," 1:10: "The Change does not think, does not act."
Following Lai's gloss, CICC 13:43a.
175ibid., 13:43a.
176ibid., 13:48a.
■*"77According to Lai's reading of "Hsi-tz'u chuan," 1:5, CICC, 13:20b.
178ibid., 13:39b-40a.
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Chapter III
298
179ibid., 13:56a-b.
~*~89ibid., 13:57a, with reference to "Hsi-tz'u chuan," 1:11.
*8^5ee Lai's gloss of "Hsirtz'u chuan," 11:5, CICC, 14:21b.
182ibid., 13"40a.
183"Shuo kua," 1.
*1
One in a solid line — and two in a bipartite line —
. This is the
sense of Lai, Collected Works, 3b, "Where there is one single yang, there will
1
be two }dn to oppose it." Jfa — j^j —*
IOC
^
fk .
.
Lai refers to the divination procedure thought to be outlined in
"Hsi-tz'u chuan," 1:9. See Richard Wilhelm, 721-722.
1
Reference here is to the divinatory system as reconstructed by Chu
Hsi, where if "major yang," the modulating solid line, is numerically indi
cated, one notes it with a 0
, a figure requiring three calligraphic strokes.
See I pen-i, "Shih ijfc'jHf
4.
1Q7
After the first "transformative operation," forty-four stalks remain
for use in the second operation, which leaves forty on the way to forming a
"major yang." If all three yield "major yang," after the third operation
thirty-six stalks will be left.
*1 O O
In Chu Hsi's system, where a "major yin," the modulating bipartite
line, is indicated, one notes it with
, two calligraphic strokes.
See
I pen-i, "Shih i," 4.
189
As with the operations which yielded the yang line , Lai refers
here to the total number of stalks remaining on the table after a "major yin"
line is gotten. The first operation leaves forty, the second, thirty-two,
and the third, twenty-four.
190CICC, 15:lb-2a,
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Chapter III
299
191ibid., 15:2b-3a.
192ibid., IS:4a.
193ibid., 15:2b.
194ibid., 13:34b.
195ibid., 15:1b.
196,Chu Hsi, I-hsUeh ch'i meng, 1:5b.
197Chu Hsi, 1^pen-i, 70.
See Richard Wilhelm'sexplanation of the mathematics of this passage,
311-312.
199(
Chu Hsi, I pen-i, 60.
200
See Chu Hsi, I-hsUeh ch'i meng, 3:5b, where he explains other divi
nation numbers with reference to the circumference and perimeter constants.
201An idea that appears as early as the Huai-nan-tzu, 35.
202
Chu Hsi, I pen-i, "Chou-I pen-i t'u," 7.
203.reproduced in Wu K'ang, Shao-tzu i-hslieh, 23.
204Compare CICC, 14:1b and Chu Hsi, I pen-i, 64.
205
CICC, "shou shang," 27a-28a.
206Chu Hsi, I pen-i, "Chou-I pen-i t'u," 7; cf. Wu K'ang, Shao-tzu
i-hslleh, 22
22 .
207CICC, "shou shang," 33b.
208ibid., 14:1b.
209Reference is to "Hsi-tz'u chuan," 1:2, following Lai's gloss, CICC,
13:7a-b.
210
Reference is to "Hsi-tz'u chuan," 1:3, following Lai's gloss, CICC,
,
13:10b.
211ibid., 13:39b.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
300
Chapter III
212ibid., 14:2a-b.
2^3ibid., "shou shang," 33b.
^Following Lai's gloss, ibid., 15:3a.
2^ibid., "shou shang," 34a.
216.ibid., "shou shang," 34a.
^
2^Chu Hsi,
^
pen-i, "Chou-I pen-i kua ko
218.Hundred Days, 1:1-2.
," 5.
219As Hsli Ch'in-t'ing suggests, 553.
770
Reproduced from CICC, "shou shang," 29a-b.
771
According to Lai's gloss, ibid., 13:14b-15a. To Lai, the "wandering
of the anima" signified the dissolution of the corporeal form, death, hence
modulation.
222ibid., "shou shang," 29b.
223ibid., "shou shang," 29b.
224ibid., "shou shang," 35a.
225Chu Hsi, I pen-i, "Kua ko," 5. The terminology for the trigrams
comes from "Shuo kua," 3.
226,CICC, "shou shang," 39a-43b.
227ibid., "shou shang," 20b. .
228Chu Hsi, I pen-i, 70. Commenting on "Shuo kua," 3, Chu concluded,
"This is the so-called study of .. 'Prior Heaven,'
without making any personal comment.
229ibid., "Chou-I pen-i t'u," 7-8.
230
SYHA, 209-210.
231,Chu Hsi, I pen-i, 71.
^Reproduced from CICC, "shou shang," 21a, Lai's "King Wen"trigram
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
301
Chapter III
graph.
233Cited in Hu Wei, 8:8a.
234CICC, "shou shang," 20b.
235ibid., "shou shang," 21b.
236ibid., 15:9a-b.
v,38
237ibid., 13:3a.
238Chu, Hsi, I pen-i, 71.
23^"Shuo kua," 6, following Lai's gloss, CICC, 15:llb-13a.
240ibid., 15:8b.
24^"Shuo kua," 4, following Lai's gloss, CICC, 15:8a-b.
242CICC, 15:12a-b.
243ibid., 15:12b-13a.
244ibid., "shou shang," 21b.
245ibid., "shou shang," 17b-18a.
246ibid., "shou shang," 17b.
247ibid., "shou shang," 19a-b. The circular graph is also reproduced
in H. Wilhelm, 84.
248See the "Fu-hsi and King Wen Antipode-Inverse Graph (Fu-hsi Wen
wang ts'o tsung t'u &
tL
$
)>" CICC, "shou shang," 22a-26a.
24^ibid., "shou shang," 25a-b.
250ibid., "shou shang," 19a-b.
251,'Hsli kua," II, following Lai's gloss, CICC, 15:29a.
252
HsU kua," I.
253,CICC, "shou shang," la.
254ibid., "shou shang," lb.
255
ibid., "shou shang," la.
■M
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Chapter III
302
256ibid., 13:8b-9a.
257ibid., 14:46b-47a.
258ibid., 1:5a.
259ibid., 1:5b.
260ibid., 15:3a.
261,THE VIGOROUS (hex. i) g/6, following Lai's gloss, ibid., 1:8b.
262ibid., 1:8b.
263ibid., 1:45b.
2^4ibid., "shou shang," 8b.
265ibid., 5:35a.
266ibid., 5:40a.
2 According to "Shuo kua," 11.
2^8ibid., "shou shang," lb.
2^9ibid., "shou shang," 2a.
279ibid., "shou shang," 2b.
27^ibid., "shou shang," 2a.
272ibid., "shou shang," 3a.
273Huang Tsung-hsi, I-hsUeh, 2:10a and 2:15a-16b.
274ibid., 2:15a-b.
275
As noted on page 139 above, perceived movement from the upper to
the lower part of a hexagram is called "coming," from lower to upper is
called "going."
27^YU Fan's inability to find a place in his scheme for FAITH WITHIN
(hex. 61) and EXCESS OF THE SMALL,(hex. 62).
See Huang Tsung-hsi, I-hsUeh,
2:16b.
27Reproduced from the "Hexagram Modulation Graph (Kua-pien t'u
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter III
303
Chu Hsi, I pen-i, "Chou-i pen-i t'u," 9.
278
The forerunner of the "nuclear trigram" theory first mentioned
in the Tso chuan and systematized by Ching Fang, Ch'll Wan-li, 127.
77Q
A scheme for relating the "heavenly stems" to the trigrams, "na-chia"
is usually ascribed to Ching Fang and was later used by YU Fan to interpret
the Change. ibid., 121-123.
280
A device positing latent, fu, hexagram qualities that emerged in
analysis of texts alongside the more obvious, fei, qualities. Also said to
be of Ching Fang provenance,
ibid., 103.
& If}
281Cited in Ku-chin t'u-shu chi ch'eng ■+
va^
79, I-ching' 5:4a.
282Mao's works include Ho t'u yUan ch'uan p'ien :j\|gj
T'ai-chi t'u shuo i i
, Ching
H
and
, both provocative works in the seven
teenth century reevaluation of the Image and Number tradition, as well as
numerous works on the Change. See Ssu-k'u, 6:14b-18a.
283Huang Tsung-hsi, I-hslleh, preface, lb.
Urn
284ibid., 1:4a.
285ibid., l:llb-12a.
286ibid., 2:8a-b.
287ibid., 2:9a.
288ibid., 2:14a.
289f
SYHA, 208.
299See Li's "Pien kua fan-tui
^
" in Huang Tsung-hsi,
I-hsileh, 2:17a-18a; and "Liu-shih-ssu kua hsiang sheng t ' u 4
," ibid., 2:19a-20a.
291ibid., 2:10a.
292Hu Wei, 9:13a.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
^
Chapter III
304
293Huang Tsung-hsi, I-hsUeh, 2:26a-27a. The original is in CICC,
"shou shang," 22a-26a.
294,Hu Wei, 9:13a.
295CICC, 1:41b.
296ibid., l:3b-4a.
297In fact, "dragon" is subsumed under the trigram chren in "Shuo kua,"
8.
298'According to "Shuo kua," 8.
299CICC, "shou shang," 4a.
399ibid., 4a. See below, pages 238-241.
301"Wen yen" for THE COMPLIANT, following Lai's gloss, CICC, l:51a-b.
302.
‘ibid., l:51a-b.
303,Ch'eng I, I Ch'eng chuan, 18,
304Chu Hsi, I pen-i, 7.
305CICC, 5:35b-36a.
306MEETING Chex. 44), following Lai's gloss, CICC, 9:9b.
507ibid., 9:9b.
308ibid., 12:23b.
309ibid., 12:25b. See also 12:23b.
310ibid., 1:8b.
311
See, for example, Wang Ch'ung-shan, 186. Lai states this princi
ple in CICC, 1:8a.
312Kao, biography, 10.
313'According to "Shuo kua," 8.
314According to "Shuo kua," 11.
315According to "Shuo kua," 11.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter III
305
316
Both according to what Lai takes as synonyms in "Shuo kua," 11.
"Bow" is discussed on page 237 below; "suspicions (hu-i
seems to
be an extended inference based on "additional worries (chia yu JjQ ^
),"
which Lai glosses, "The Mind feels precarious; its thoughts are deep." Al'JIL
at
CICC 15:20b.
517ibid., 8:15b-16a.
318ibid., 8:8b.
319Following Lai’s gloss, ibid., 8:12b.
320ibid., 8:16a.
This idea seems to derive from Ching Fang’s "eight palace" system,
where each successive linear modulation is called one generation (shihjg: )
and the line separated by two from the modulant line is its resonant, ying.
See Ch’U Wan-li, 99-101.
322Both according to 'Shuo kua," 11. Lai makes these associations ex
plicit in CICC, 8:12b.
323ibid., 8:12b.
324Ch'eng I, I Ch’eng chuan, 171; see also above, 32-33.
325According to "Shuo kua," 11.
326CICC, 2:5b.
327ibid., "shou shang," 4a.
328ibid., "shou shang," 4b-5a.
32^ibid., "shou shang," 4a-6b.
330,Hstl Ch'in-t'ang, 76-77.
331„r
. reference to DECAY (hex. 18) 9/6, CICC, 4:44a.
With
332With reference to TOGETHER WITH OTHERS (hex. 13) 6/2, CICC, 4:4a.
333ibid., 1:8a. -
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|Chapter III
306
Ch'eng I, I Ch'eng chuan, 102 and 226 respectively.
335CICC, 5:29a.
336ibid., 10:12a.
337ibid., 3:19a.
338ibid., 1:37a.
339ibid., 2:5b.
340ibid., 2:7b.
341"Shambling step" is appropriated from James Legge, trans., I Ching
(New York: Bantam, 1969), 431.
342CICC, 1:37a.
343ibid., 7:46a.
344Wang Ch'ung-shan assembles examples of these "wings'" appeal to the
various tropes mentioned, trigram analysis on 159-160, 161, 162-163, 167168, 173; resonant lines on 170, 172; line position on 159, 170, 171, 175179, 188-193; and hexagram shape aspects on 175, 182-188.
345Following Lai's gloss, CICC 14:43b.
See also Chu Hsi, I pen-i, 68.
34^See note 278 of the present chapter.
347Hu Wei, 9:13a.
348
Chu Hsi was referring particularly to the first two characters in
the passage, "ts'an w
u
>" "which he takes to refer to the numbers gener
ated in the divination process. He wrote, "'Ts'an.wu, ts'o and tsung' all are
ancient words, and 'ts''an'and 'wu' are especially difficult to understand."
% a 6%
. I pen-i, 61.
349
ibid., 70. See also page 173 above.
n
upi; --77^-777* qVimr
o•
I—flo
■“
351
Huang Tsung-hsi., I-hsUeh, 2:9b.
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Chapter III
307
352Huang Tsung -hsi’s argument that these last represent the personal
theory of Shao Yung and not original Change material is contained in ibid.,
l:lla-13b.
333See pages 172 and 186-188 above.
334An argument summarized in Lai, Collected Works, 4a.
7PC
The most important case is the line that begins "T'ien i ti erh. .
.
....
The line was moved from what is now chang 1:10 to the
beginning of the present 1:9. There Chu Hsi notes that he is accepting
Ch'eng I's suggestion in this emendation, I pen-i, 60. On the original six
teenth chapter to the CICC, see page 252 below.
356CICC, Lai preface, 5a.
357Chu Hsi, I pen-i, 72.
358,This refers to the name by which Hslin's anthology of Change com
mentary, Chiu chia _i
, is remembered.
359CICC, "shou shang," 4a, cf. Chu Hsi, I pen-i addenda to "Shuo kua,"
11, page 72.
360CICC, 1:43b.
362.ibid., 1:44a.
365ibid., 15:27a.
364ibid., 15:27a.
365Chu Hsi, I pen-i, 72.
366CICC, 1:43b.
367ibid., 6:23b.
368ibid., 6:27b.
369ibid., 15:22b.
370'According to Lai's generalization, "In all cases where a yang is
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Chapter III, Appendix A
308
on top, the Image is ken." %
|
. ibid., "shou shang,"
5a.
371ibdd., "shou shang," 4b-5a.
372ibid., 15:21b.
373ibid., 1:11b.
374Following Lai's gloss, ibid., 13:46a.
375The reference is to Mencius, 5:4.
376CICC, 13:46a-47a.
377ibid., 13:28a.
378ibid., "shou shang," 17b.
Appendix A
^CICC, Lai's preface, 4b-5a. This preface is dated 1598 and lists
the titles of charts and essays Lai intended as supplementary material.
the CICC, these constitute the "shou shang
In
Ji. " chapter.
2Hsli Ch'in-t'ing, 596.
‘'Cheng Ts'an, preface to appendix, 1.
^Hsll Ch'in-t'ing, 596.
5ibid., 596.
^See above, p. 146.
See above, pp. 42-43.
8See above, p. 236.
^Hstt Ch'in-t'ing, 596.
10
Cheng Ts'an wrote in his preface to his edition to Lai's text, p. 1,
m
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix A
j
i
309
that the original was owned by Wang Chen-shih J
of Shih-lin, Tai-
|wan. I have examined the text, which is in twelve volumes, but must rely
Ion Hsli Ch'in-t’ing for the date of publication, p. 596.
^ ibid., 424. Hsll was persuaded that the original arrangement of
Ithese graphics had become jumbled over time and attempted to reconstruct
the original order, providing commentaries for those whose glosses were pre
sumed "lost." He eliminated without explanation sixteen of them and grouped
the remainder under three headings.
12
The edition of Chang's compendium in the Taiwan National Central Li
brary was published in 1613, four years after his death. A nien-p'u included
as ch. 5 states that the work was completed in 1585, 5:9a. Chang nowhere
.indicates awareness of Lai either by direct reference or through allusion
to any of Lai's innovations. On Chang's Change study, see above, page 42.
1 3 HSU
1
-.••A
m
i'Jo
ll
^'.'5
Ch'in-t'ing, 506.
14See above, pages 201-203.
15Kao, biography, 13.
Cheng Ts'an, preface, 1; Kao Hslieh-chUn's "Fan-liJL^i " in Lai,
T’u-chieh, 12.
17Kao, "Fan-li," in ibid., 12.
1ft
For example, in Lai, T'u chieh (Taipei: Hui-wen, 1972).
19
Hsll Ch'in-t'ing, 596, lists the Ning-yllan t'ang text as a Szechwan
cut of the Ch'ing Chia-ch'ing period. The Ning-yllan t'ang of Chu Ch'engtien %
was located in Hunan, however, and I presume the text in
question is the same as the Gest Library holding.
20
Lai Chih-te, I-ching Lai chu (Ning-yllan t'ang: 1834), Chou Ta-chang's
preface, 2a.
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310
Appendix A
21Ch'ien Chi-po, 98.
2 2',Ssu-k'u, 3:18b.
23I-ching t'u chieh ^ j$L
(Taipei: I-ch'Un, 1969); I-ching Lai
chu t'u chieh (Taipei: Hui-wen, 1972) and (Tainan: Ta-ch'ien shih-chieh,
1973); and Chou-i Lai chu (Taipei: Ch’eng-wen, 1976).
24This is the Cheng Ts’an Ting-cheng edition
used as the source for
Kao's biography of Lai and other anecdotal material. Li Huan was also in
volved in the photo reproduction of the Ts’ui Hua text in 1957. See Hsll
Ch'in-t'ing, 596.
25
See note 19 for Appendix A.
Shao I-ch'enof JLto Ogives Chang's name as^u. #4
ssu-k'u chien ming mu-lu piao chu
in Tseng ting
gT
(Shanghai:
Chung-hua, 1959), 27.
27HsU Ch'in-t'ing, 596-597.
28ibid., 596.
29Fu's preface, la.
30 edited by Huang Ju-heng.
31Ssu-k'u, 124:34b-35a.
The edition followed by the editors came
from the library of Chu I-tsun.
m
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311
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342
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355
Abstract
Lai Chih-ts^J^^* (1525-1604) and the Phenomenology
of the Classic of Change (I Ching
The history of exegesis surrounding the Classic of Change exhibits two
distinct schools of commentary from the Han Dynasty through the end of the
Imperial period. The "Image and Number" school attempted to explain the
words of the text with reference to the structure of hexagrams as linear
complexes and to various aspects of the divination tradition. Those of the
"Moral Principle" persuasion preferred to restrict their commentaries to the
"Ten Wings," that commentary material supposedly set down by Confucius.
After spending thirty years in seclusion studying the Change, Lai Chihte published in 1599 a commentary that contained original insights into both
these aspects of the Classic.
Specifically, his ideas dealt with the manner
in which verbal texts came to be attached to the hexagrams and lines through
the meditation of the Classic’s authors upon the hexagrams and the order of
their presentation. Lai isolated structural principles in that order, in par
ticular the relationship between any hexagram and its inverse and linear op
posite, and demonstrated how those relationships contributed to the forma
tion of a verbal image.
Lai's perception regarding the Change reflects his understanding of
the structural principles underlying phenomenal existence, which he believed
to be an expression of ch’i jjcL taking discrete forms according to its own in
ternal dynamics and passing necessarily through a pattern of distinct^phtses
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
of development shared by all phenomena alike, As an object in its own right,
the Change could be analyzed after the fashion of other phenomena; indeed,
the Classic was to Lai a laboratory for exploring the way in which chfi takes
forms in general. Amid the two levels of Change imagery— linear and verbal—
Lai discovered typological relationships which established that the minds of
the Classic's authors had spontaneously produced an object that was totally
integrated in its expression of the unified pattern.
This "Image and Number"
study in turn confirmed that the moral discipline advanced in the Change was
one that attuned humans to the behavior necessary for living in acceptance
E
s
of and obedience to the pattern of their own component ch'i.
Larry James Schulz
B
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