Lu Jiuyuan was an influential Neo-Confucian philosopher in the Southern Song who differed from Zhu Xi (see source 3.9) in emphasizing moral intuition and meditation over study of the classics as a means of self-cultivation toward the goal of attaining sagehood. Critics accused him and his followers of being influenced by Chan (Zen) Buddhism. Lu’s ideas failed to gain official recognition as orthodox, unlike Zhu Xi’s, but were later a crucial foundation for the thought of the Ming Neo-Confucian Wang Shouren (Wang Yangming, 1472-1529), who likewise was accused of being a Chan Buddhist in disguise.

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Space and time (yuzhou 宇宙) are nothing more than my mind-heart (xin 心). My mind-heart is nothing less than space and time. If a sage emerged from the eastern sea, he would have this same mind-heart and this same principle (li). If a sage emerged from the western sea, he would have this same mind-heart and this same principle. If sages emerged from the southern and northern seas, they would have this same mind-heart and this same principle. When a sage emerged a thousand hundred generations ago, and if a sage emerges a thousand hundred generations from now, his mind-heart and principle would be no different from this.

[Translator’s note: Lu Jiuyuan purportedly composed this text at the age of twelve in 1151, after a mystical epiphany triggered by learning the phrase yuzhou (space and time), today used as the Chinese word for “universe.” The image of sages emerging from the world’s four seas is clearly inspired by Mencius 4B.1 (see source 1.4) but it amplifies that passage’s universalist claims. Chinese Muslims and Christians would later use it to represent their “western” religions as sagely teachings compatible with Neo-Confucianism, but Lu Jiuyuan himself may not have intended to imply that non-Chinese peoples were capable of producing sages.]

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1. Human beings live together between heaven and earth and are, without exception, of the same qi. It is simply our moral duty to support anyone who does good and stop anyone who does evil. Why should there be any idea of “them” and “us”? And why should there be any idea of self-interest?
2. Space and time (yuzhou) have never set barriers between human beings, but human beings themselves have set barriers [between themselves] in space and time.
3. Space and time have no boundaries. When heaven and earth were created, we originally were all one family. When former sages were born, their lands were more than a thousand li apart, and they lived in ages separated by more than a thousand years. But when they achieved their aspirations and applied [their governance] to the Central Lands, it was like uniting the two halves of a seal.¹ This must be because we are all one family.

[Translator’s note: These are undated oral teachings by Lu Jiuyuan that expand on the universalist implications of his vision of space and time. However, the “space and time” epiphany at age twelve was not the only early experience that shaped Lu Jiuyuan’s life profoundly. Lu also claimed that at the age of fourteen or fifteen (i.e., around 1153–1154), he was moved to a passion for revanchist or irredentist warfare against the Jurchen Jin upon reading about the history of “the barbarians bringing disorder to the Chinese” (Yi-Di luan Hua): that is, the rise of states and dynasties ruled by Inner Asian peoples in north China during the period between the Western Jin and the Sui. Lu then briefly underwent training in archery and horsemanship in the hope of pursuing a military career. Although he soon returned to philosophical and scholarly pursuits, his universalistic understanding of principle and humanity seems to have coexisted with strong anti-Jurchen revanchist sentiment throughout his life, creating an implicit tension between universalism and ethnic identity. Such sentiment lies at the heart of the following passage from Lu’s collected sayings, which probably recounts an incident from the early 1160s, when Lu was in his early twenties.]

That afternoon, for instance, one of us asked about the caitiff (i.e., Jurchen) ambassador being in favor of peace talks between our two countries. The teacher responded by praising the avoidance of war as good because it will save many lives. But we are all literati who have read the Annals and understand the difference between the Central Lands and the barbarians. How can we not avenge [the capture by the Jurchens of] the two sages (i.e., emperors Huizong and Qinzong)? There are things that one should desire more than life, and things that one should abhor more than death. Now we live in luxury and idleness and dine at ease and leisure, and that is something to be ashamed of. We are embracing peace rather than moral duty. All [that I have said] is just telling the truth about real principles.

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When the sage [Confucius] regarded the Central Lands as superior and the barbarians as inferior, he was not being unduly partial to the Central Lands. The Central Lands have received balanced qi from heaven and earth, and so that is where ritual propriety and moral duty are found. Regarding the Central Lands as superior is not really regarding the Central Lands as superior but rather regarding ritual propriety and moral duty as superior. Even though [the Central Lands] had gone through decline and disorder [in Confucius’s day], the sage-kings’ institutions and laws still survived and the remnants of their customs had not been fully extinguished. When the barbarians became militarily strong and began swallowing up smaller states, they were about to take advantage of their strength to invade and conquer the Xia states. If this happened, there would be no place left for ritual propriety and moral duty. This was a matter of great worry for the sage [Confucius].

[Translator’s note: This passage is from a lecture on the Annals that Lu Jiuyuan delivered at the Imperial University in 1182. It resembles Hu Yin’s earlier rationalization of Confucius’s supposed ethnic prejudice (see source 3.8), but also draws on qi­-based arguments from Han and Tang anti-expansionist rhetoric (see Chapter 2) to explain the barbarians’ supposed moral inferiority in geographical terms.]

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1. Quoting Mencius 4B.1 (see source 1.4). ↩︎