Spirituality – Zhou Dunyi: The Metaphysics and Practice of Sagehood (Part 1)

Joseph A. Adler

Zhou Dunyi (or Zhou Lianxi, 1017-1073) occupies a position in the Chinese tradition based on a role assigned to him by Zhu Xi (1130-1200), the architect of the Neo-Confucian school that eventually became “orthodox.” According to one version of the Succession to the Way (daotong) given by Zhu Xi, Zhou was the first true Confucian Sage since Mencius (4th c. BCE), and was a formative influence on Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi (Zhou’s nephews), from whom Zhu Xi drew significant parts of his system of thought and practice. Thus Zhou Dunyi came to be known as the “founding ancestor” of the Cheng-Zhu school, which dominated Chinese philosophy for over 700 years. His “Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Polarity” (Taijitu shuo), as interpreted by Zhu, became the accepted foundation of Neo-Confucian cosmology. Along with his other major work, Penetrating the Classic of Change (Tongshu), it established the appendices to the Yijing as basic textual sources of the Neo-Confucian revival of the Song dynasty. And Zhou’s short essay, “On the Love of the Lotus” (Ai lian shuo), is still a regular part of the high school curriculum in Taiwan.

Zhou was born to a family of scholar-officials in Hunan province. After his father died when he was about fourteen, he was adopted by his maternal uncle, Zheng Xiang, through whom he later obtained his first government post. Despite the increasing importance of the civil service examination system in determining status in Song society, Zhou never obtained the “Presented Scholar” (jinshi) degree. Consequently, while he earned praise for his service in a very active official career, he never rose to a high position.

Zhou’s honorific name, Lianxi (“Lian Stream”), was the one he gave to his study, built in 1062 at the foot of Mt. Lu in Jiangxi province; it was named after a stream in Zhou’s home village. He was posthumously honored in 1200 as Yuangong (Duke of Yuan), and in 1241 was accorded sacrifices in the official Confucian temple.

During his lifetime, Zhou was not an influential figure in Song political or intellectual life. He had few, if any, formal students other than his nephews, the Cheng brothers, who studied with him only briefly when they were teenagers. He was most remembered by his contemporaries for the evident quality of his personality and mind. He was known as a warm, humane man who felt a deep kinship with the natural world, a man with penetrating insight into the Way of Heaven, the natural-moral order. To later Confucians he personified the virtue of “authenticity” (cheng), the full realization of the innate goodness and wisdom of human nature.

Zhou’s connection with the Cheng brothers was the ostensible rationale for his being considered the founder of the Cheng-Zhu school of Neo-Confucianism. Yet that connection was, in fact, slight. Although they later spoke fondly of their short time with him and were personally impressed with him (as were many other contemporaries), the Chengs did not acknowledge any specific philosophical debts to Zhou. Nor are any such debts evident in their teachings. In fact, Zhou’s teachings were rather suspect in the eyes of many Song Confucians because of his evident debts to Daoism. This was especially true during the Southern Song (1127-1279), when Confucians increasingly defined themselves in opposition to Buddhism and Daoism. Indeed, Zhou’s “Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Polarity” attracted considerable interest among Daoists, and made its way into the Daoist Canon (Daozang).

Given Zhou’s tenuous connection with the Chengs, why then did Zhu Xi regard him as the first Sage of the Song? The question is significant, for had it not been for Zhu Xi’s estimation of him, Zhou’s writings would almost certainly not have become as central to the Neo-Confucian tradition as they are. They apparently were not widely known outside the circle of the Chengs and their students until the twelfth century, and today the only extant editions besides those edited by Zhu Xi are the Taijitu shuo in the Daoist Canon and the Tongshu in another anthology , neither of which is accompanied by a commentary. So it is safe to say that Zhou Dunyi’s place in the Chinese tradition is largely a creation of Zhu Xi.

It was the content of Zhou’s teachings in relation to Zhu Xi’s system of thought and practice that persuaded Zhu to exalt Zhou Dunyi, to ignore his Daoist connections, and to stretch the available data concerning Zhou’s affiliation with the Chengs.[6] Zhu was particularly interested in the relationship between the active, functioning mind (xin) and its metaphysical substance or nature (xing), and in the implications of that relationship for moral self-cultivation. Zhou’s writings supported Zhu’s position on these issues by integrating the metaphysical, psycho-physical, and ethical dimensions of the mind, chiefly by means of the concepts of “Supreme Polarity” (taiji), “authenticity” (cheng), and the interpenetration of activity (dong) and stillness (jing).

Translated below are the complete text of his best-known work, the “Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Polarity” (Taijitu shuo) and six of the forty short sections of Penetrating the Classic of Change (Tongshu). These works stand on their own as foundational texts of the Neo-Confucian tradition and as superb examples of the integration of Confucian ethics and Daoist naturalism.

Luc Paquin