Zhang Zai

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ZHANG ZAI

ZHANG ZAI (1021–1077), also known as Zhang Heng-qu, the second major Neo-Confucian thinker in the traditional lineage of Neo-Confucian teachers. Zhang Zai was a native of Chang'an in modern Shaanxi. His study of what became central Neo-Confucian texts began at the age of twenty-one when he corresponded with and then met Fan Zhongyan (989–1052), a prominent Confucian official. Fan suggested that Zhang Zai begin his study with the Zhongyong (Doctrine of the mean). This advice led Zhang Zai to study Confucianism, but like many Neo-Confucians he also studied Buddhism and Daoism, particularly their religious practices such as meditation. Eventually, however, he rejected their philosophies and returned to Confucian classics. Zhang Zai was appointed to office in 1057 and became widely recognized as one of the major interpreters of Confucian teachings. He eventually resigned from office over disagreement with the reform measures of Wang Anshi (1021–1086), a figure of major political influence during the Song dynasty. Zhang was appointed once again, only to retire and die on the trip home from the capital in 1077.

For Zhang Zai, the focus of his return to Confucian teachings was his interest in two of the classics, the Yi Jing (Book of changes) and the Zhongyong, works that served as the foundation of his philosophical and religious thought. Zhang Zai's prominent position in the lineage of Neo-Confucian teachers, a position in part the result of the lineage drawn up by the great synthesizer of Neo-Confucianism, Zhu Xi (1130–1200), derives from the interpretive stance he developed toward these works and from his position as teacher to both Zheng Hao (1032–1085) and Zheng Yi (1033–1077), two of the most prominent figures in the development of Neo-Confucian thought.

Like Zhou Dunyi (1017–1073), the first major Neo-Confucian teacher, Zhang Zai based much of his philosophy upon the Yijing. For Zhang Zai, the taiji, or Great Ultimate, refers to the source of all existence, which he takes to be qi, the material or vital force of existence itself. Thus taiji is identified with qi and yin and yang, the symbols of polar opposites in Chinese thought, as well as with the Five Elements (wuxing), the basis of an early cosmological theory of the nature of change. Although later modified by other thinkers, this qi -based monism continued to play an important role in Neo-Confucian metaphysics.

Zhang Zai's thought had far-reaching religious implications as well. While Neo-Confucianism has often been thought to be primarily a rationalistic system whose major influence was intellectual, a more recent reassessment of the tradition suggests that Neo-Confucianism also contains a profound religious dimension. The focus of this religious perspective is the central role assigned to the figure of the sage (sheng) and to the goal of sagehood. To become a sage became increasingly important as the goal of Neo-Confucian learning and self-cultivation.

When Neo-Confucianism is considered in this context, Zhang Zai's philosophical system is fully religious. In Zhang Zai's most celebrated work, the Ximing (Western inscription), the monistic metaphysical structure of qi is enlarged to include a poetic vision of the unity and interdependence of the universe and its multifaceted phenomena:

Heaven is my father and Earth is my mother, and even such a small creature as I finds an intimate place in their midst.
Therefore that which extends throughout the universe I regard as my body and that which directs the universe I consider as my nature.
All people are my brothers and sisters, and all things are my companions. (de Bary and Bloom, 1999, p. 683)

Some have called this passage the foundation of Neo-Confucian ethics. Others have expanded its meaning to include not only ethics but a religious dimension that ultimately comprehends the religious goal of sagehood.

Later Neo-Confucians primarily valued Zhang Zai's doctrine of the sage "forming one body with the universe." This doctrine represents both the Neo-Confucian contiguity with its classical Confucian heritage and an enlargement of the Neo-Confucian system. At the center of Zhang Zai's teaching is the idea of ren, humaneness or human-heartedness, in many ways the salient teaching of the classical Confucian tradition. This basic quality, which was for Confucius and Mencius the bond between human society and the ways of Heaven (tian) and hence fundamental to the underlying moral structure of the universe, was expanded by Zhang Zai to encompass the universe itself, since for the sage to form "one body with the universe" suggests the complementarity and fundamental identify of microcosm and macrocosm. The doctrine illustrates as well Zhang Zai's belief in the fundamental goodness and purpose of the universe and in the potential of the individual to realize the ideal of the sage.

In the teaching of "forming one body with the universe," Zhang Zai also claimed to distinguish Confucianism clearly from Buddhism and Daoism. For him the universe and its processes have a real existence. In turn, human life is looked upon as intrinsically valuable and ultimately the very foundation for the realization of sagehood. For Zhang Zai, such a view is clearly distinguishable from Daoism and Buddhism, both of which require a radical departure from the universe as it is given in order to fulfill the soteriological quest. In Zhang Zai's terms, Daoism and Buddhism both emphasize escape from the world, while Confucianism finds fulfillment and ultimate identity precisely within the changes found in this world, a world of qi rather than of emptiness. The sage accepts the ultimate reality of qi and its inherent goodness, he acknowledges the infusion of ren throughout the very structure of the universe itself, and thus he can fulfill the ideal of the sage, "forming one body with the universe."

Bibliography

The thought of Zhang Zai is introduced with a translation of the Western Inscription as well as of his other major work, Correcting Youthful Ignorance, in A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, translated by Wing-tsit Chan (Princeton, 1963), pp. 495–517, and Sources of Chinese Tradition from Earliest times to 1600, 2d ed., compiled by Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom (New York, 1999), vol. 1, pp. 682–689. Selections from Zhang Zai's writings are included in the major anthology of Song dynasty Neo-Confucianism compiled by Zhu Xi and Lü Zu-qian, translated into English by Wing-tsit Chan as Reflections on Things at Hand (New York, 1967). Discussions of Zhang Zai's thought may be found in Fung Yu-lan's A History of Chinese Philosophy, 2d ed., vol. 2, The Period of Classical Learning, translated by Derk Bodde (Princeton, 1953), pp. 477–498, and in Carsun Chang's The Development of Neo-Confucian Thought, vol. 1 (New York, 1957), pp. 159–183. More detailed discussions of specific problems in the thought of Zhang Zai may be found in Siu-chi Huang's "The Moral Point of View of Chang Tsai," Philosophy East and West 21 (April 1971): 141–156, and Chun-i T'ang's "Chang Tsai's Theory of Mind and Its Metaphysical Basis," Philosophy East and West 6 (1956): 113–136. For general discussions see Xinzhong Yao, An Introduction to Confucianism (Cambridge, 2000) pp. 98–104; John H. Berthrong, Transformations of the Confucian Way (Boulder, Colo., 1998), pp. 6–114. and Rodney L. Taylor, The Illustrated Encyclopoedia of Confucianism, 2 vols (New York, 2003), pp. 107–108.