Wang Shouren's Idealist Pantheistic World View

Abstract

Wang Shouren affirmed that "the teachings of the sages are nothing but the teaching of mind" (Wang Wencheng gong quanshu: Xiangshan wenji xu [Preface to the Collected Writings of Xiangshan in Complete Works of Wang Wencheng]). He believed that Lu Jiuyuan, in proposing the formulation that the mind equals principle, continued the legacy of the teaching of the mind that had begun in China with the teaching of Yao, Shun, and Yu (the three mythological emperors) and which was exemplified in the saying "The human mind is always in peril; the mind of the natural Way is always hidden; emphasize essentiality, emphasize unity; maintain equinanimously the Middle Internal Path." He thought that this was the correct orthodoxy (zheng tong) passed on by Kong (Confucius), Meng (Mencius), Zhou (Dunyi), and Cheng (Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi). In Mencius's time, Mo Zi advocated reciprocal and mutual compassion (jianai) and benevolence and principledness (ren yi) and asked of people only that in their external actions they atta...