IOverview
The School of Mind is the Confucian current that holds principle, the pattern of what is right, to lie within the human mind rather than in external things. The name Lu-Wang joins the surnames of its two main figures, Lu Jiuyuan of the Southern Song and Wang Yangming of the Ming. Its best-known watchwords are extending innate knowing and the unity of knowledge and action.
Like the Cheng-Zhu school, it is a scholarly tradition, not a sect. It has no organisation, no rites of its own and no initiation. Its followers are people who read its books and try to live by them. It arose as a critique, from inside Confucianism, of Zhu Xi's way of learning.
IIHistory
- 1139 to 1193Lu JiuyuanKnown as Xiangshan, he taught that the universe is my mind and my mind is the universe, and that one must first establish the great root within.
- 1175Goose Lake meetingLu and Zhu Xi met at Goose Lake Temple to debate the right path of learning. They did not agree, opening a rivalry that lasted centuries.
- 1472 to 1529Wang YangmingBorn Wang Shouren, both a civil official and a military commander. He once tried Zhu Xi's method by contemplating bamboo for days and found no principle in it.
- 1508Awakening at LongchangExiled to Longchang in Guizhou, he realised that the way of the sages is complete within one's own nature and need not be sought outside.
- 16th centuryLater schoolsHis students split into several branches. The Taizhou school of Wang Gen carried the teaching to merchants and artisans.
- 17th centuryTo JapanNakae Toju (1608 to 1648) is regarded as the founder of Japanese Yomeigaku.
After the Ming fell in 1644, early Qing scholars such as Gu Yanwu partly blamed the empty talk about mind and nature among Wang's later followers. The school therefore declined in Qing China while staying alive in Japan.
IIITeachings and Distinctive Ideas
For Wang Yangming, the mind is principle. Outside the mind there is no principle and no affair. Everyone is born with innate knowing (liangzhi 良知), a sense of right and wrong that needs no learning, as Mencius had said. The task of learning is to extend innate knowing (zhi liangzhi 致良知), carrying it through fully in every situation.
The unity of knowledge and action (zhixing heyi 知行合一) follows directly. To know without acting is not yet to know. Someone who truly knows filial piety simply acts filially, just as someone who sees beauty simply likes it, with no separate step of deciding. For Wang, splitting knowing from doing was the root illness of exam learning, where people memorised books and lived otherwise.
| Point | Cheng-Zhu | Lu-Wang |
|---|---|---|
| Where principle lies | In all things, found by investigation | In the mind, already complete |
| Investigating things | Probe the principle of each thing fully | Set right one's intentions when meeting affairs |
| Role of reading | Central, the main path | Useful but not the root |
| Knowing and doing | Know first, act after | Knowing and acting are one |
The School of Mind is often read as saying the world is merely created by the mind, like some Buddhist schools. Scholars point out that Wang was chiefly concerned with ethics. The rightness of an action lies in the mind, but he did not deny that things exist. He also criticised Buddhism for turning away from family duty.
IVCultivation and Action
Followers practised quiet sitting to settle the mind but did not treat it as the goal. Wang stressed training within daily work, polishing oneself on actual affairs. His students recorded his words in the Instructions for Practical Living (Chuanxi lu), the school's main text. His own life was the example students cited most. He taught, served as an official and led troops that crushed the Prince of Ning's rebellion in 1519.
VTransmission and Spread
The school spread through Ming lecture gatherings and academies, with no central organisation. In Japan, Yomeigaku (陽明学) was never the shogunate's official learning, which followed Zhu Xi, but it attracted people of action. Ōshio Heihachirō, who led the Osaka uprising of 1837, was a Yomeigaku scholar, and some activists of the Meiji Restoration were influenced by the school. Today it is studied at universities in mainland China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and the West.
VIIn Vietnam
No source has been found for an organised School of Mind or a clear line of transmission in Vietnam. Vietnamese examinations followed Zhu Xi's commentaries from the early Lê to 1919, leaving the school no official place. Wang Yangming's thought has been introduced and translated by modern Vietnamese scholars of philosophy, but that is academic work, not a community of followers.
VIISymbol of the Branch
No symbol of its own is recorded with a source for this branch, so the library uses the common symbol of the path.
VIIISub-branches
- Lu Jiuyuan
- Wang Yangming
- Japanese Yomeigaku
IXOther Branches of Confucianism
Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism宋明理學 程朱學派, School of PrincipleThe school that built a full cosmology on principle and qi, with the investigation of things as its path.
Classical Confucianism先秦儒家, pre-Qin ConfuciansThe Confucianism of Confucius, Mencius and Xunzi, concerned with ethics and government rather than metaphysics.Lu-Wang School of Mind陸王心學, 陽明心學 (Xinxue)Holds that principle lies in the mind rather than in external things.Uses the common symbol of the pathHan Confucianism漢儒, Han-era Confucian learningDong Zhongshu urged setting aside other schools and making Confucianism the sole state orthodoxy.Uses the common symbol of the pathQing Evidential Learning考證學 kaozhengxue, 樸學, Han learning 漢學In the Qing, scholars turned to philological research to recover the sages' words, called Han learning in contrast to the moral philosophy of Song learning.Uses the common symbol of the pathNew Confucianism新儒家, 當代新儒學A 20th-century current answering the May Fourth critique, accepting Western science and democracy while keeping the learning of mind and nature.Uses the common symbol of the path
Vietnamese ConfucianismNho học, Hội Tư văn, Văn MiếuConfucianism became a system in Vietnam under the Lý, with the Temple of Literature in 1070, the first examination in 1075 and the Imperial Academy in 1076.Korean Confucianism, Sungkyunkwan성균관 成均館 Seonggyungwan, 유교 YugyoSungkyunkwan was founded in Hanyang on 25 September 1398 and is today Korea's Confucian body.Uses the common symbol of the path
Confucian Religion in IndonesiaAgama Khonghucu, MATAKIN (Majelis Tinggi Agama Khonghucu Indonesia)Confucianism organised as a religion with a council, houses of worship and rites, one of Indonesia's six officially recognised religions.XSources
The library cross-checks the sources below. Where they disagree, the page gives both.
?Quick Questions
What does the unity of knowledge and action mean?
That knowing and doing cannot be separated. For Wang Yangming, knowing what is right without doing it is not real knowing. It is often reduced to practise what you preach, but the original point is deeper and concerns the nature of knowledge itself.
Is the School of Mind the same as Zen?
No. It is Confucian and puts family ethics and social duty first. Contemporaries did accuse it of resembling Chan because it stressed the mind and sudden insight, yet Wang himself criticised monastic renunciation.
Why did it thrive in Japan?
Japan had no examinations based on Zhu Xi, so the pressure of orthodoxy was weaker. A teaching that prized action and sincerity appealed to some samurai and scholars, especially in the late Tokugawa period.