Hallo, this is Dr. Bin Song at Washington College, and I am talking of the Ru style of meditation for varying courses I am offering to the college on the topics of Asian and comparative philosophy, religion, theology and literature.

The ancient Chinese Ru tradition, also named Confucianism in English, experienced its second peak time in the second millennium of imperial China (which is approximately from 9th to 17th century C.E). This period of Ruism is termed as Neo-Confucianism in English. Using its original Chinese self-reference, I’d like to name this period of Ruism as the Daoxue movement (道學). Daoxue means the learning of Dao. Among many new traits of Ruism that the Daoxue movement embodied, the practice of quiet-sitting and other related forms of meditation stand out impressively. As influenced by the Daoist and Buddhist styles of meditation, the Daoxue movement developed its unique Ruist style. This style cares about the holistic well-being of human individuals, advocates social activism, cherishes a this-worldly oriented ethic, and is very friendly to intellectual analysis and integrative learning. In this talk, I’ll use the example of Gao Panlong to illustrate these distinctive traits of Ru Meditation.

In the introductory part of the assigned book “Ru Meditation: Gao Panlong,” I furnished a short biography of Gao Panlong. He was a typical Ru governmental-official who had dedicated his entire career to philosophy, community-building and politics. Among his many venerated philosophical accomplishments, Gao Panlong’s practice and contemplative writing of Ru meditation are particularly influential, and in my view, Gao is among the Ru scholars who has achieved the highest spiritual state of contemplative life in the Ru tradition.

Three traits highlight Gao Panlong (1562-1626)’s contemplative practice and writings:

Firstly, Gao’s understanding of the significance of quiet-sitting evolved throughout his life, and he also furnished rich phenomenological descriptions of his meditative experiences in varying genres of literature such as poetry and prose. For instance, his four five-character poems titled as “Chants for Quiet-Sitting” describes his sitting meditation in the mountains, on the river bank, among the flowers, and beneath the tree. These are really among the best contemplative poems we can find in the Ru tradition.

Secondly, living in the conclusive decades of the Daoxue movement, Gao sought to ritualize Ru meditation in a fixed format of time, place and agenda. For instance, his “A Syllabus for Living in the Mountains” and “Rule for a Seven-Day Renewal” (2018:19-26) describe how he conducts a meditative retreat respectively in a one-day and seven-day format. I once assigned my students at Washington College to come up with their own agendas if they had a chance to organize a spiritual retreat inspired by Gao’s, and the results are just lovely.

Thirdly, in the advanced stage of his contemplative practice, Gao conceived of the goal of Ru meditation as the achievement of “being normal-and-ordinary (pingchang 平常).” Resonating with the Centrality and Commonality (zhongyong 中庸), one of the four Ruist classics canonized by the Daoxue movement, the state of pingchang intends to execute the norm, viz., the varying pattern-principles (理, li) which indicate how diverse factors in a given situation dynamically and harmoniously fit together, in the ordinary moments of everyday life. In other words, a person of pingchang would try to realize the highest spiritual awareness within ordinary moments of their mundane life, such as how to conduct one’s morning routines, how to interact with human fellows in varying relationships, and how to be dedicated to one’s meaningful work for the benefits of oneself and others. In consideration of the prevalence of the emphasis by global traditions over the mysterious and extraordinary nature of meditative experience, the culmination of Gao’s contemplative philosophy in pingchang speaks to the this-worldly oriented spirituality of Ruism exquisitely.

Fourthly, regarding the method of achieving pingchang, Gao (2018:34) says, “in everyday life, whenever we don clothes, put on our hats, or see and meet with one another, we do so with order and decorum. Through this practice, our heartmind (xin 心) gradually trains itself over a long period, and then, just as gradually, it becomes normal-and-ordinary.” In other words, the sustaining practice of “reverence (jing 敬)” towards the appropriately ritualized details of everyday life leads to pingchang. More importantly, Gao thinks that one’s ability of discerning appropriate ritualizations depends upon the final and utmost endeavor of self-cultivation elaborated by the Daxue, viz., “investigation of things (gewu 格物),” since it is only via the investigation of things that the rationales of ritualization, viz., the pattern-principles of things, can be discerned.

The fourth trait highlights the distinction of Gao Panlong’s contemplative lifestyle from previous Ru meditators. In the Daoxue movement, there is a distinction of the lineage of pattern-principle led by Ru exemplars such as Cheng Yi (1033-1107) and Zhu Xi (1130-1200) from the lineage of heartmind led by Ru thinkers such as Wang Yangming (1472-1529). There would not be enough time here to elaborate their differences, about which I do encourage you to take on my more advanced level of courses such as the three hundred “Ru and Confucianism.” However, it suffices to say that Cheng-Zhu’s learning style is more externalist, since they predicate their Ru learning upon the investigation of pattern-principles of things in the world. Nevertheless, Wang Yangming’s learning style is more internalist, because Wang thinks the gist of Ru learning consists in recovering the pure moral intuitions which are already within the human heartmind. In Gao’s time, Wang Yangming’s influence was widely felt and kept rising. Gao Panlong, however, systematically refuted the critiques offered by Wang Yangming and Wang’s follows to Zhu Xi, and sought to strengthen the lineage of the Cheng-Zhu learning of pattern-principle. I will raise one instance as follows to illuminate such a distinctive role of Gao in the Daoxue movement. Once again, the following instance has a very dense philosophical context, and if some of my listening students feels it difficult to grasp the essentials of the addressed philosophy, please seek my other courses on Eastern Religions. So, the instance goes on like this:

As mentioned, Wang Yangming believes in the existence of an innate moral capacity of liangzhi, translatable as good knowing or conscientious knowing. In reliance upon the intuitive capacity of liangzhi to grasp pattern-principles of things in the world, Wang Yangming (Chuanxilu: 2) once employed the dictum “no pattern-principle exists outside the heartmind (xinwaiwuli 心外无理)” to repudiate the externalist and intellectualist tendency of Zhu Xi. For Zhu Xi (14 Zhuziyulei 3:298) once insisted that the knowledge of pattern-principles of realities ought to be obtained prior to one’s moral actions towards them. However, to refute Wang’s critique and clarify Zhu’s instruction, Gao Panlong (1773 8a:24) says, “Pattern-principles belong to the heartmind, and it is also up to the heartmind to scrutinize the pattern-principles. However, if the heartmind is not dedicated to scrutinizing (a pattern-principle), we cannot say that the heartmind has possessed the pattern-principle. If a pattern-principle has not been scrutinized, the pattern-principle cannot be deemed as belonging to the heartmind either. … Everything has its own norm endowed by Tian (heaven or the universe), and we humans just need to abstain ourselves so as to treat things as they are in our everyday life.” In other words, Gao agrees with Wang in principle that “no pattern-principle exists outside the heartmind.” However, Gao does not think that the pattern-principles are therefore able to be totally invented by the heartmind. Instead, only when the heartmind invests itself in scrutinizing the pattern-principles of existing things in the world, the ontological reference of “heartmind” can be deemed as equivalent to the one of “pattern-principle.” To highlight this outwardly oriented method of scrutinizing pattern-principles, Gao (1773 8a:3-8) insists that even the pattern-principles of seemingly trivial things such as a blade of grass or a piece of wood (yicaoyiwu 一草一物) ought to be investigated. This is because one would then be aware of how the life-generating power of the universe is concretely manifested in grasses and woods, and the awareness shall connect one to the power so as to nourish their own heartmind (yangxin 养心). This contemplative and self-nourishing attitude towards the investigation of outside things puts Gao’s thought in a direct opposition to Wang Yangming since Wang once famously told (Chuanxilu:120) that he turned into the inward learning of heartmind because he once failed so miserably to investigate the pattern-principle of bamboo trees using Zhu Xi’s method.

In a word, Gao Panlong exemplifies how a Ru meditator is able to do meticulous intellectual work and access the sublime experience of spiritual transcendence simultaneously. For students, scholars and professionals who are either working in or next to the environment of modern universities and colleges of liberal arts, I think such an approach to meditation of Gao Panlong would appear very appealing.

References:

Gao, Panlong 高攀龙. 1773. The Posthumous Works of Master Gao高子遗书. Qin Ding Si Ku Quan Shu Ben 欽定四庫全書本.
——. 2018. Ru Meditation: Gao Panlong (1562-1626). Translated by Bin Song. Boston: The Ru Media Company.

Wang, Yangming 王阳明. 1992. The Complete Works of Wang Yangming 王阳明全集. Shanghai: Shang Hai Gu Ji Chu Ban She.