Great Song Dynasty Writer

Chapter 226 The Eve of Ideological Revolution

Ouyang Xiu leaned forward slightly, showing great interest: "Zihou, what do you mean by this? Do you perhaps have a different opinion on my desire to abolish the 'Imperial Academy Style'?"

He thought this middle-aged scholar from Shaanxi was trying to refute his proposal to reform writing style.

Among the members of the Qingsong Society, the reason why Zhang Zai could stand out so much was not because of his age of thirty-eight, but because of his past experience.

During the Qingli era, Zhang Zai, who was in Shaanxi, wrote a letter entitled "Nine Articles on Border Affairs" to Fan Zhongyan, who was then serving as the Deputy Military Commissioner of Shaanxi and in charge of the defense of the Northwest. Fan Zhongyan personally summoned Zhang Zai and appointed him as his advisor.

With Fan Zhongyan's recommendation, Zhang Zai could have entered officialdom long ago, but instead of choosing to do so, he returned home to continue his studies.

The books Zhang Zai read at home were quite different from those read by most scholars. He did not study Confucianism for the imperial examinations, but instead studied Buddhism and Taoism for ten years before returning to Confucianism.

He only began taking the imperial examinations after he felt he had mastered the teachings of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. And this year, he passed the exams and became a Juren (a successful candidate in the provincial-level imperial examinations).

In other words, for Zhang Zai, becoming an official and passing the imperial examination was simply a matter of whether he wanted to, not whether he could. If he wanted to, it would be an easy thing.

Therefore, none of the members of the Green Pine Society present, whether old or young, dared to underestimate Zhang Zai, not even Ouyang Xiu.

"No, Ouyang Xiu wanted to rectify the way of writing and eliminate the strange, bizarre and frivolous, and I wholeheartedly agree."

Zhang Zai bowed respectfully, his tone sincere, before shifting his focus to a deeper issue: "What I am concerned about is the fundamental path for scholars like us to pursue knowledge! Since Emperor Wu of Han revered Confucianism and Dong Zhongshu advocated the concept of 'interaction between Heaven and Man,' later scholars have regarded the Six Classics as the ultimate standard. However, over the past thousand years, commentaries have been as numerous as the sea and chapters as abundant as the forest. How many scholars who have devoted their lives to studying the classics have actually glimpsed the true mind of the sages? They have merely searched for chapters and sentences, providing footnotes for their predecessors, thus suffocating the wellspring of knowledge in the quagmire of textual research and exegesis!"

Zhang Zai's feelings at this moment were by no means unfounded.

Approaching forty, having experienced the trials and tribulations of life, he deeply felt the constraints of Han and Tang dynasty classical commentaries.

In fact, Zhang Zai's feelings were not unique to him. This trend of abandoning classical studies and exploring the ultimate principles of heaven and earth in a deeper philosophical realm began with Dan Zhu, Zhao Kuang, and Lu Chun in the mid-Tang Dynasty who first advocated "abandoning the commentaries to seek the classics." They attempted to bypass the cumbersome three commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals and directly explore the intentions of the sages. This new trend, fueled by the "Three Masters of the Early Song Dynasty" Hu Yuan's "understanding the essence and applying it," Sun Fu's strong rejection of commentaries, and Shi Jie's advocacy of "the orthodox tradition," is now surging like subterranean fire. It only needs the final accumulation before new ideas can erupt like a volcano!

Following in the footsteps of these sages, Zhang Zai, with even greater courage, attempted to forge a new path for Confucianism that directly points to the origin of the universe.

Several years ago, he ended his extensive exploration of Buddhist and Taoist thought and returned to Confucian classics with a complex experience of critical thinking and absorption. The desire to break free from the shackles in his heart was more intense than anyone else's.

Zhang Zai's tone grew increasingly agitated, as if he had been suppressing his feelings for a long time: "I ask you, did Confucius edit the Six Classics so that future generations would spend their entire lives agonizing over the gaps between the lines? The Book of Changes says, 'The continuous creation of life is called change,' and 'Exhausting the spirit and understanding transformation,' how grand that is! The Doctrine of the Mean speaks of 'When harmony is achieved, heaven and earth are in their proper places, and all things flourish,' how magnificent that is! But what about now? Scholars bury themselves in old books, meticulously calculating the gains and losses of every single word and phrase, spending their lives studying the classics, yet they are getting further and further away from the fundamental principles of the workings of heaven and earth and the nurturing of all things! Although this is different in style from the 'Imperial Academy style' of piling up obscure allusions and obscure language, the harm of shackled thought and stifled new insights may be the same!"

The Songtao Pavilion was completely silent, with only the faint sound of the Cai River flowing outside the window.

Mei Yaochen stroked his thick beard, Zeng Gong frowned, and the Cheng brothers, Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi, stared intently. Only Yan Jidao picked up his teacup, his face showing indifference as if it were none of his business. "How vast is heaven and earth, how subtle are the principles of all things! The teachings of the sages are meant to explore the fundamental principles of the universe, and to understand the infinite mysteries of the interaction of Yin and Yang, which give rise to all things!"

"Just as Han Yu advocated classical prose to oppose parallelism and cleanse the superficiality, today's learning also needs to emulate the courage of the ancients, break through the barriers of Han and Tang commentaries, explore the origins of the Six Classics, and look out at this vast universe to seek the 'Great Way' that connects heaven and earth and human relations and remains unchanged throughout the ages!"

Zhang Zai looked out the window at the vast night sky again, as if the answer lay hidden in the deep darkness.

This is precisely the core germ of Zhang Zai's thought—the intuition that "qi" is the origin of the universe.

While studying the Book of Changes, he vaguely sensed that what filled the heavens and earth and gave birth to all things was not the ethereal “divine will” or the Buddhist “emptiness,” but a very real and dynamic existence, which he called “qi.”

Although Zhang Zai's systematic theory of "the Great Void is Qi" was not yet mature, the impulse to seek the ultimate basis of the universe had already surged in his heart.

"These words are a wake-up call!"

Cheng Hao suddenly stood up and said, "I feel the same way! Recently, I read the Record of Music in the Book of Rites. When I came to the sentence, 'Man is born still, which is his nature; when he is moved by things, he is moved by his desires,' and then I thought of Mencius's words, 'He who fully understands his mind knows his nature; he who knows his nature knows Heaven,' I often felt something stirring in my heart, like a fishbone stuck in my throat, but I could not put it into words!"

He slightly raised his hands, as if trying to capture that intangible insight.

“There must be a subtle principle connecting this ‘nature’ and ‘heaven’! If we only focus on the interpretation of words and phrases, how can we glimpse the mystery of how the mind and nature are connected to the way of heaven? This ‘principle’ must be vibrant and lively, like spring grass sprouting, like a kite soaring into the sky, existing in all things, and also within my heart!”

The young Cheng Hao was in the budding stage of his most inspired thinking. Although he and his younger brother Cheng Yi studied under Zhou Dunyi, who was then the Imperial Academy Doctor and famous for his "Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate", his insights at this time actually came more from the Zen Buddhist theory of mind and nature.

This is closely related to the clash between Confucianism and Buddhism in the intellectual circles of the Song Dynasty at that time. Lu Beigu had already clearly felt this clash when he had exchanged ideas with Master Baoyue and Zen Master Zuyin in Sichuan.

Having completed its upgrade centered on "establishing characters," Zen Buddhism has almost surpassed Confucianism by a whole major version in philosophical fields such as the theory of mind and ontology.

The exchange between Confucianism and Buddhism allowed Confucian scholars to begin drawing inspiration from Zen Buddhist thought on a large scale.

Temporary setbacks do not mean that Confucianism will always lag behind Zen Buddhism in philosophical speculation; on the contrary, they stimulate Confucian scholars to respond to this situation academically.

The first to perceive this change of the times and to respond in their respective research directions were young scholars such as Zhang Zai, Cheng Hao, and Cheng Yi.

This autumn night in the first year of the Jiayou era was on the eve of a dramatic transformation in the intellectual world of the entire Song Dynasty, but apart from Lu Beigu, no one at that time could clearly recognize this.

(End of this chapter)