Zhu Xi

(1130–1200). With his interpretation of the teachings of the ancient sage Confucius and his followers, Zhu Xi shaped people’s understanding of Confucianism from the 13th century onward. The Sishu (Four Books), which includes teachings of Confucius and his disciple Mencius and commentaries by Zhu Xi, was for centuries the central text for both primary education and the civil service examinations in China. It has had a greater influence on Chinese culture than any other text.

Born on Oct. 18, 1130, in Youxi, Fujian Province, China, Zhu Xi was educated in the Confucian tradition by his father, a local official. He passed the highest civil service examination at the age of 18, when the average age for such an accomplishment was 35. In his first official position, he served as a registrar in Tongan from 1151 to 1158. There he reformed the taxation and police systems, improved the standard of the local school, and drew up a code of proper formal conduct and ritual.

After his assignment at Tongan ended, Zhu Xi did not accept another official appointment for more than 20 years. He was dissatisfied with the men in power and their policies, and he preferred the life of a teacher and scholar. He continued his involvement in public affairs, however, by expressing his political views in memorandums addressed to the emperor.

Meanwhile, Zhu had become committed to Neo-Confucianism. He had studied with Li Tong, one of the ablest followers of the 11th-century Neo-Confucian philosophers. In their attempt to regain the intellectual preeminence that Confucianism had lost to Daoism and Buddhism in previous centuries, the Neo-Confucians had created a new metaphysical system applying Confucian principles to questions regarding the fundamental nature of reality.

Zhu Xi carried out a fruitful exploration of ideas through both his formal writings and his correspondence with friends and scholars of differing views. In 1175, for instance, he and fellow Neo-Confucian Lu Jiuyuan engaged in a famous debate on the issue of perfecting the mind. In contrast to Lu’s insistence on meditation as the exclusive means of achieving spiritual growth, Zhu Xi emphasized the value of inquiry and study of external reality, including book learning.

Consistent with this view was Zhu Xi’s own prolific literary output, which included his influential commentaries on four Confucian texts. He completed his commentaries on the Lunyu (Analects) of Confucius and the Mencius in 1177. In 1188 he wrote an important commentary on Daxue (Great Learning), a text on moral government attributed to Confucius and his disciple Zengzi. Confucius’ assertion that the emperor could accomplish the moral transformation of the world by first cultivating his own mind was an idea to which Zhu Xi returned repeatedly in his writings. He completed a commentary on the Zhongyong (Doctrine of the Mean) in 1189. The following year Zhu Xi published these four texts, along with his commentaries on them, as the Sishu.

Zhu Xi was an outspoken and uncompromising critic of Chinese politics. Near the end of his life, he was barred from political activity, and he was still in political disgrace when he died on April 23, 1200.

Zhu Xi’s reputation was restored soon after his death, and in 1241 his memory was honored with the placement of his tablet in the Confucian Temple. Ironically, in the 1310s, his philosophical system was officially adopted by a government more authoritarian than those he had so vehemently criticized. In Korea the Choson, or Yi, Dynasty (1392–1910) also adopted Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism as the state ideology, and his philosophy permeated Japanese society during the Tokugawa period (1603–1867).

Zhu Xi’s philosophy synthesized important concepts that had been developed by earlier Neo-Confucians. Like them, Zhu Xi held that the universe has two aspects: the formless and the formed. The formless, or li, is a principle or a network of principles that determines the nature of all things. The qi, or material force, brings physical form to the li and serves to explain the existence of individuals, change, and creation.

According to Zhu Xi, universal human nature—the li of human beings—is essentially perfect, and defects—including vices—are introduced into individuals through impurities of qi. He asserted that one may eliminate one’s mental imperfections through the constant investigation of the principles of all things. This process of perfecting knowledge removes the barriers between the human mind and the mind of the universe, which is the universe itself.