INTRODUCTION
RIVI HANDLER-SPITZ, PAULINE C. LEE, AND HAUN SAUSSY
Iconoclast, eccentric, hero, individualist. These words have all been used to describe Li Zhi (1527–1602; style name Zhuowu), the “Confucian monk” whose provocative actions and inflammatory writings captivated readers in the waning years of the Ming dynasty. Li Zhi’s life and books exemplify many of the social, ethical, metaphysical, economic, and linguistic concerns emblematic of his era. Never a systematic thinker, he delighted in poking holes in respected doctrines, upending traditions, subverting norms, and decrying the hypocrisies of the social class into which he had risen. Fearlessly irreverent and unremittingly creative, he embraced paradox and, oscillating between sincerity and irony, charted a zigzag course strewn with self-contradictions. His writings in many genres—essays, letters, poems, aesthetic criticism, historical annotation, and philosophical commentary—showcase his keen powers of observation and his incisive interpretations of popular and classical texts spanning the Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist traditions.
The internal inconsistencies found everywhere in Li Zhi’s writings have generated widely divergent interpretations. Some scholars have labeled him a steadfast anti-Confucian. Others have portrayed him as a devout Buddhist, a Daoist, a nihilist, or a relativist. One of the earliest Western scholars to write on Li Zhi, William Theodore de Bary, regarded him as an “arch-individualist.”1 This volume aims to probe beyond two-dimensional explanations of Li Zhi that would cast him simply as an adherent to (or opponent of) any one school. Rather, the contributors to this volume maintain that deep-seated contradictions and inherent ambiguities lie at the core of Li Zhi’s literary and philosophical oeuvre and inform his polyvalent identities as a lay Buddhist, an example of mercantile-literati values, and a new type of Confucian contending for a place in the orthodox lineage.
Given Li Zhi’s penchant for celebrating contradictory positions, the chapters in this book correspondingly provide arguments that sometimes clash, sometimes converge. What emerges in these pages is not a uniform image of Li Zhi but a kaleidoscopic array of opposing perspectives. Approaching his life and work from heterogeneous disciplinary perspectives—literary studies, intellectual history, social and cultural history, religious studies, and book history—each chapter focuses on a single type of contribution he made to late-Ming culture: his theory of authenticity, displays of filial piety, practice of friendship, pedagogical strategies, performances of masculinity, revaluation of women’s roles in society, participation in examination culture, involvement in Buddhist self-cultivation, commentaries on popular drama and fiction, and views on the afterlife. And just as Li Zhi adopted the pedagogical method of withholding answers to students’ questions—at times hoping thereby to spark independent, critical thought and at other times perhaps believing answers could be found only within the heart and mind of each student—so too does this book refrain from neatly reconciling discrepant views.
Arranged in five sections—“Authenticity and Filiality,” “Friends and Teachers,” “Manipulations of Gender,” “Textual Communities,” and “Afterlives”—these chapters analyze the relationship between Li Zhi’s much-touted celebration of genuineness and the fragmented sense of self conveyed in his autobiographical writings. They question the autonomy of his understanding of selfhood and inquire into its dependence on social networks. They seek the meanings underlying his inconsistent use of language and the seriousness of his attacks on Confucian officialdom. They examine the relative malleability and intransigence of his public persona and its dependence on and diffusion via print media. They explore his intense devotion to friendship and letter-writing. And they analyze his attitudes toward “eight-legged” examination essays, filial piety, Confucian orthodoxy, women’s self-realization, and metaphysics. In doing so, they reflect the complexity and internal diversity of Li Zhi’s corpus and demonstrate its ability to crystallize debates of central importance in the late Ming. Moreover, they establish Li Zhi as a pivotal figure in the history of dissent in China.
LI ZHI’S LIFE
Born into a Muslim merchant family in the port city of Quanzhou in the southern province of Fujian, Li Zhi was schooled by his father in the Confucian classics. As a young man, he hired himself out as a tutor, and in 1552, at the age of twenty-six, he passed the first level of the imperial examinations. Due to his obligation to support his only living parent, his father, along with his siblings, he decided in 1555 to settle for a government position immediately rather than sit for the metropolitan examination in hopes of attaining a better placement. He was assigned to serve as a lecturer at the government school in Huixian, Henan. This marked the beginning of his more than twenty-year-long official career.2
In 1566 he was promoted to a coveted post in the Ministry of Rites serving in the southern capital, Nanjing. Four years later, he accepted the position of secretary of the Ministry of Punishments (1570–77). Across the Yangzi River and a little less than a hundred miles east of Nanjing was the city of Taizhou, birthplace of Wang Gen (1483–1541), founder of what would later be referred to as the Taizhou School, a branch of Wang Yangming’s (1472–1529) School of the Mind, which blended Confucian ethics with Buddhist teachings and celebrated each individual’s innate ethical knowledge. While serving in Nanjing, Li Zhi became deeply influenced by disciples of Wang Yangming who shaped the Taizhou School. These included Wang Bi (1511–1587), son of Wang Gen, as well as two great teachers whom Li Zhi deeply admired, Wang Ji (1498–1583) and Luo Rufang (1515–1588). Li Zhi’s final official post (1577–80) was as prefect in the remote region of Yao’an, Yunnan.
Beginning in the 1570s, Li Zhi enjoyed the patronage and close friendship of the Geng family, which occupied a leading position in Huang’an County, Huguang Province. He sustained a lengthy and spirited epistolary correspondence with the successful older brother, Geng Dingxiang (1524–1596), who rose to national prominence as a vice censor in chief. Yet the younger brother, Geng Dingli (1534–1584), was Li Zhi’s more cherished friend. Having failed the provincial examinations, Dingli devoted himself to ethical and spiritual cultivation, including the study of Chan Buddhism and the teachings of Wang Yangming. Inspired in part by Dingli’s example, Li Zhi stepped down from his post in Yunnan, drawing harsh criticism from the conservative Geng Dingxiang, who viewed Li’s act as an abdication of Confucian duty to society. The differences between Geng Dingxiang and Li Zhi led to a highly publicized epistolary quarrel between the two in which Geng strove to position himself as the embodiment of orthodoxy and to discredit Li as a deviant.3 For his part, Li cast Geng as a careerist hypocrite and portrayed himself as an authentic truth-seeker.
Li Zhi esteemed those who, unlike Geng Dingxiang, unwaveringly adhered to their ideals and made personal sacrifices to realize them. One of his greatest heroes was He Xinyin (1517–1579), an adherent of the Taizhou School, who believed that moral truth resided in the heart of each individual. Though friendly with Geng Dingxiang, He Xinyin turned his back on an official career and forsook his family in order to cultivate moral and spiritual growth alongside like-minded soul-friends. A passionate social reformer, He Xinyin also organized local communities to resist official corruption and predatory tax collecting. Li Zhi revered this bold reformer and was aghast that Geng Dingxiang, who held considerable political influence on the national stage, refused to intervene when He Xinyin was later arrested for sedition and beaten to death in prison. Li publicly condemned Geng for moral weakness and excoriated him as a disloyal friend. It was probably with Geng in mind that Li wrote, “He Xinyin’s intimates and fellow students calmly observed his death as if they were throwing stones down a well.”4 Li Zhi regarded He Xinyin as an ethical model deserving emulation; Geng Dingxiang, lamentably, as a compromised friend who could not be brought back to the Way.
The gulf between Li Zhi and Geng Dingxiang only widened in 1587 when Li sent his wife of over forty years, Madame Huang (1533–1588), as well as their daughter, sole survivor among their seven children, back to their hometown in Fujian while he espoused a monastic life of study and contemplation. Greatly attracted by Buddhist teachings, Li Zhi moved first to the Vimalakīrti Monastery and then to the Zhifoyuan Monastery on Dragon Lake, just outside of the city of Macheng. The year 1588 was particularly eventful for Li Zhi: having abandoned his family and taken up residence in an unlicensed monastery, he shaved his head as if entering Buddhist orders, an act that provoked scandal and outrage. Geng Dingxiang considered it a repudiation of Confucianism, but Li Zhi himself wrote that he shaved his head merely to unburden himself of familial obligations and show his family and clan that he was determined never to return home.5 His wife died that same year; Li Zhi learned of her burial only later and never did return to his hometown.
Nestled in his mountain retreat on the shores of Dragon Lake, a place often mentioned in his writings, Li Zhi devoted his days to study and composed his most influential works during this period. He also took part in Buddhist rituals, all the while carrying on a lively correspondence with prominent Ming literati, including Jiao Hong (1540–1620), the Yuan brothers Zhongdao (1570–1623), Hongdao (1568–1610), and Zongdao (1560–1600), and many others. Friendship among like-minded individuals was central to Li Zhi’s vision of a good life, and his conversation partners further included those both nearby—such as his patron Ma Jinglun (1562–1605)—and far away, including the Jesuit Matteo Ricci (whom Li met for the first time in 1599). Li Zhi’s friends and acquaintances also included Buddhist monks, such as the abbot of the Cloister, Wunian (secular name, Xiong Shenyou, 1544–1627), and women, including Li’s most controversial disciple, Mei Danran, daughter of the statesman Mei Guozhen.
The publication, wide dissemination, and even falsification of Li Zhi’s writings confirmed his towering status in the burgeoning print culture of the late Ming. Yet responses to his works were mixed. Some contemporaries heralded him as a fearless champion of authenticity and self-expression, while others condemned him as a threat to public order. In 1602, the chief supervising secretary of the Ministry of Rites, Zhang Wenda (d. 1625), presented a memorial to the emperor accusing Li Zhi of heretical beliefs, heterodox writings, and outlandish behavior. Li was condemned for praising tyranny (exemplified by the first emperor of China, Qin Shihuang) and applauding unfilial acts like elopement (exemplified by the second century BCE widowed poet Zhuo Wenjun)—two unorthodox judgments among many expressed in his writings. Zhang also relayed gossip about Li’s questionable behavior, including bathing with prostitutes and inviting the daughters of respectable Macheng families to spend the night at the monastery. These allegations, although unproved, caused serious trouble for Li.
In the years leading up to Zhang Wenda’s memorial, Li Zhi’s critics had threatened and harassed him. In 1591, while sightseeing with his friend and disciple Yuan Zhongdao at the Yellow Crane Pavilion in Wuchang, Li Zhi was attacked by a mob, possibly set on him by Geng Dingxiang. A few years later, he was accused of undermining public order by the Huguang provincial surveillance commissioner, Shi Jingxian, who threatened to have Li Zhi sent back to his native province of Fujian. A few years later, Li Zhi’s quarters at the Zhifoyuan Monastery were burned down and the gravesite he had been preparing for himself was desecrated. He fled from Macheng to Tongzhou, a dozen or so miles from Beijing, and was received by his friend and staunch supporter Ma Jinglun.
Several months later, imperial marshals sent in response to Zhang Wenda’s memorial arrested Li Zhi at Ma Jinglun’s home and took him to prison. Once there, Li asked a prison guard for a razor; with it he cut his throat, committing suicide at the age of seventy-six. His dramatic death seems only to have fed his fame. Although an imperial edict issued the same year banned his books and ordered them burned along with the wooden blocks for printing them, his writings continued to circulate widely, inciting scandal and shaping aesthetic tastes for generations.
AN OVERVIEW OF THIS BOOK
Part I: Authenticity and Filiality
The opening chapters address Li Zhi’s repeated attempts to express his genuine self. Chapter 1, by Wai-yee Li, argues that Li Zhi characterizes “genuineness” (zhen) as the return to an original essence, a pure state of selfhood untainted by external influences. The “genuine” self to which he alludes in his celebrated essay “On the Childlike Mind” (Tongxin shuo) is a unitary entity that admits no divided or conflicted loyalties. Yet as Wai-yee Li points out, Li Zhi’s autobiographical writings rarely portray their author engaging in such spontaneous, unselfconscious acts of “genuine” self-expression. Indeed, autobiographical writings by their very nature tend to bifurcate the self: a present, writing self reflects upon a past, narrated self. Accordingly, his writings cast him simultaneously in the roles of subject and object, highlighting his theatrical flair and his struggles to make sense of conflicting desires. He was aware, as Ying Zhang argues in chapter 6, that he could not control the reception of his writings. Thus Wai-yee Li examines the rhetorical strategies he undertook to square the circle—to reconcile the multiplicity of perspectives his writings embody with their bid for pure, “genuine” self-expression. The chapter concludes by suggesting that despite relentless self-questioning, Li Zhi never succeeded in attaining his ideal of a “genuine,” unitary self.
Chapter 2, by Maram Epstein, connects Li Zhi’s struggle for authentic self-expression to Confucian understandings of filial piety. Anticipating Miaw-fen Lu’s more detailed historiographical account in chapter 11, Epstein focuses on one pivotal moment in the reception history of Li Zhi’s works, the May Fourth Movement. Epstein argues against May Fourth understandings of Li Zhi as a brazen iconoclast and an apostate from Confucian values. Instead, she foregrounds his efforts to present himself as a model filial son and exemplar of Confucian masculinity. Paying close attention to the paired concepts of gong, “the appropriate or ritually sanctioned,” and si, “the improper, selfish, or biased,” Epstein exposes the lengths to which Li Zhi went to cultivate the image of a Confucian man cleaving to his ethical values and consistently prioritizing obligations to his patriline over responsibilities to his wife and children. Epstein’s conclusion, that May Fourth intellectuals overemphasized the subversiveness of Li Zhi’s thought, resonates with Kai-Wing Chow’s investigation into Li’s advocacy for the conservative Confucian “eight-legged” examination essay genre (chapter 8). Although his efforts to project the public image of an exemplary Confucian man were not very successful (chapter 6), Epstein maintains that his posture as both a rebel and a filial son—or as a rebel who yearned to be regarded as a filial son—unsettles May Fourth conceptions of filial piety as antithetical to modern individualism.
Part II: Friends and Teachers
Li Zhi adopted the rhetorical stance of a filial son, but he departed from classical precedent by ranking friendship, not political or familial relationships, first among the five Confucian bonds (wulun): ruler-minister, father-son, husband-wife, elder brother–younger brother, and friend-friend. The chapters in part II examine Li Zhi’s attitudes toward and relationships with friends and, by extension, teachers and students. In chapter 3, Martin Huang examines Li Zhi’s commitment to friendship in both theory and practice, as well as the censure this devotion drew. Enthusiasm for friendship reached a new peak in the Ming dynasty, as exemplified by the writings and actions of Li’s heroes He Xinyin and Deng Huoqu (1498–ca. 1569), who left behind family and career and, disregarding four of the five relationships, dedicated themselves to friendship. Li Zhi not only defended these men verbally but also emulated their unorthodox deeds, choosing to live away from his family for long stretches and refusing to take a concubine after his wife’s death, even though he had no heir.
The portrait of Li Zhi that Huang sketches differs starkly from the image Epstein paints: Huang casts him as an iconoclast whose decision to reject familial obligations and instead seek a “soul-friend” with whom to pursue enlightenment and investigate questions of life and death scandalized contemporaries. Huang’s chapter anticipates Jiang Wu’s discussion of Li Zhi’s spiritual seeking in chapter 9 and paves the way for Miaw-fen Lu’s analysis of Li’s attitudes toward the afterlife in chapter 11. Tragically, although Li Zhi never found the ideal friend he sought, he did alienate many contemporaries by daring to question the orthodox Confucian hierarchy of human relationships that would place family over friends.
No one criticized Li Zhi more harshly than did his sometime friend Geng Dingxiang. In a widely publicized series of open letters that circulated both as manuscript copies and in redacted, printed form, each man accused the other of straying from the ethical path. In chapter 4, Timothy Brook analyzes this epistolary exchange in light of two shaping factors: the history of postal delivery—including personal and commercial courier services—and the expansion of print culture in the late Ming. These widely circulated letters contributed substantially to Li Zhi’s growing image problem, the topic of chapter 6. Brook shows that despite the deepening ideological rift between Li and Geng, both men agreed to publish their differences, providing a highly visible example of a friendship forged and contested publicly in print. In published letters, each friend earnestly strove to correct and admonish, guide and reform the other, thus taking on the role of teacher. And, as Brook argues, it was their shared commitment to this type of rigorous ethical transformation that prompted them to bring their philosophical disagreements before the court of public opinion. In doing so, they contributed to the late-Ming “public sphere of letters,” a forum for publicly voicing unauthorized opinions.
Although Geng Dingxiang’s remonstrations failed to move Li Zhi, the latter did develop close relationships with teachers and students, several of whom he described as “teacher-friends” (shiyou). As Rivi Handler-Spitz demonstrates in chapter 5, even though Li Zhi abjured the formal role of pedagogue, he willingly mentored students and embraced the role of student, studying under prominent neo-Confucians such as Luo Rufang and Wang Ji. Analyzing Li Zhi’s funerary tributes to these masters, Handler-Spitz traces his recorded impressions of and interactions with these two influential teachers. This chapter demonstrates that just as Li Zhi strove to present himself in print as a filial son (chapter 2) and a model Confucian man (chapter 6), so too did he endeavor to create the public image of himself as a loyal friend to his teachers and a worthy transmitter of their teachings. Yet his teachers prized personal self-discovery and self-reliance over strict adherence to doctrine. The question thus arises how, or even whether, students trained in this school could acknowledge and honor their mentors: would striking out on their own and rejecting their teacher’s doctrines paradoxically preserve the teacher’s legacy? Li Zhi encouraged intellectual autonomy and goaded his students to think critically. His pedagogical strategies thus echo rhetorical strategies evident in his commentaries on the classics (chapter 7), and these in turn resonate with comments attributed to the fiction and drama commentator “Li Zhuowu,” an alias designed to impersonate Li Zhi. As Robert Hegel suggests in chapter 10, the persona of Li Zhuowu employed an arsenal of commentarial strategies consonant with the anti-authoritarian pedagogical style of the historical Li Zhi.
Part III: Manipulations of Gender
One reason Li Zhi was considered such a controversial figure was that he unsettled conventional Confucian gender norms. Part III examines his attitudes toward women and his performance of his own masculinity. In chapter 6, Ying Zhang builds on Epstein’s argument (chapter 2) to illuminate Li Zhi’s efforts to present himself as the embodiment of exemplary masculinity. Highlighting Li Zhi’s artful combination of neo-Confucian and Buddhist vocabularies, a theme elaborated by Wu in chapter 9, Zhang demonstrates that the nuances of Li’s position often eluded readers. For in the late-Ming world of promiscuous printing, Li Zhi’s words were frequently torn from their original contexts; readers excerpted them at will, co-opting them for their own polemical purposes. As unpredictable interpretations proliferated, questions arose regarding who had the authority to determine the meaning of a printed text: the author, the state through its educational institutions, or individual readers? The multiplication of opinions regarding Li Zhi generated what Zhang terms Li’s “image problem.” Although he consistently and unflinchingly criticized the moral decline of his era, readers attacked him for exemplifying that very moral decline, especially with respect to women. Thus, while his enemies saw him as a threat to established gender norms, his defenders, especially his patron Ma Jinglun, praised him as a model of manly self-restraint and the embodiment of Confucian values. The coexistence of these opposing interpretations attests to the impossibility of controlling one’s public image in an era of increasingly widespread print media.
Pauline Lee in chapter 7 also focuses on the subject of gender. But in marked contrast to Zhang’s analysis of loss of control, Lee focuses on the masterful control Li exhibits in his writings. Picking out seemingly insignificant lines from poems, historical essays, letters, and philosophical commentaries, Lee argues that what emerges in bits and pieces is a rather consistent effort to nudge or provoke the reader to reimagine conventional conceptions of women’s roles in society. Li Zhi envisions women as fully actualized human beings who travel freely, read and write, choose their own marriage partners, and participate in government. Juxtaposing this view of women’s roles in society with more radical developments in the late Qing, Lee stresses Li Zhi’s commitment to anchoring his progressive ideas in the classical texts of the Confucian canon. This chapter adumbrates the deviously creative strategies Li Zhi developed to achieve his aim of inserting women into central positions in the Confucian tradition: he redefined the meaning of words, “misremembered” passages from classical texts, and recast anecdotes from antiquity. These strategies, which showcase his own virtuosity as a reader and critic, anticipate the irreverent tone and iconoclastic opinions characteristic of the “Zhuowu” fiction and drama commentator (chapter 10).
Part IV: Textual Communities
Part IV emphasizes the internally diverse textual communities in which Li Zhi participated. In chapter 8, Kai-wing Chow highlights Li’s contributions to a newly emerging class of “mercantile-literati” (shishang), while Wu, in chapter 9, addresses Li’s role as a Dao learner (xuedaoren), a “spiritual seeker” who used Buddhism to pursue self-cultivation across sectarian and doctrinal lines. Chow highlights Li’s central role in a social network that was expanding to include writers who identified as literati but relied on both patronage and commercial publication. The glue holding this network together was print. Like Epstein, Chow argues against the widespread view that Li was an “individualist” out of step with his time. Instead, Chow deems him exemplary of a newly emerging merchant-literati culture, whose materialist values—including self-interest and care of the self—he articulated and publicized. He not only expressed merchant-literati values; he also courted readers belonging to this social class by addressing subjects of interest to them. His comments on friends’ eight-legged examination essays, annotations on the Four Books, and paratextual advertisements aimed at examination candidates can all be interpreted in this light. These various methods, Chow argues, permitted Li to redefine ethical relationships in material terms, legitimate worldly concerns, and chip away at the social hierarchy that would maintain the traditional dominance of literati over merchants.
If Chow regards Li Zhi as a representative of the mercantile literati, Wu identifies him as a standard-bearer of a very different community, “Dao learners” who, drawing eclectically on Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian teachings, attempted to cultivate themselves ethically and spiritually. Relying on the concept of “textual spirituality,” spirituality cultivated through reading and writing, Wu examines Li Zhi’s interpretations of Buddhist texts and shows how he and the community of Dao learners not only read and wrote but also performed, witnessed, and reenacted one another’s performances of Chan encounter dialogues. Through eccentric actions such as rolling on the ground, Dao learners both demonstrated and taught their conceptions of “authenticity.” Harking back to Wai-yee Li’s discussions of authenticity (chapter 1) and Lee’s analysis of Li Zhi as a reader (chapter 7), this chapter concludes by inviting us to consider how Li Zhi’s interpretations of Buddhist texts shaped his understanding and enactment of authenticity.
Part V: Afterlives
The final section provides two complementary interpretations of the afterlives of Li Zhi’s writings. In chapter 10, Robert Hegel approaches the subject of afterlives from a metaphorical perspective and examines the renowned fiction commentator “Li Zhuowu,” the fictitious persona created by ghostwriters, primarily Ye Zhou, in imitation of Li Zhi. In chapter 11, Miaw-fen Lu takes as her subject Li Zhi’s metaphysical reflections on transcendence after death and the relevance of these ideas to the reception of his works from the Qing dynasty on.
As Hegel shows, Li Zhi’s name was pinned to commentaries on several of the most popular Ming dynasty works of long fiction in the xiaoshuo genre: The Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan), The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo zhi yanyi), and The Journey to the West (Xiyou ji), as well as several dramatic works. Situating the “Li Zhuowu” commentaries in the history of seventeenth-century fiction commentary, Hegel notes the tremendous influence these commentaries exerted on the development of Chinese vernacular fiction. He shows that in these commentaries, which took the form of brief interlinear remarks as well as lengthier prefatory or concluding statements, Li Zhuowu comes across as an astute, discerning, impish, and emotionally keen reader. The authenticity of these commentaries, let alone their connection to views held by the historical Li Zhi, cannot be verified. Nonetheless, they unquestionably reflect values associated with Li Zhi: affirmation of individuality, celebration of subjectivity, and passionate expression of emotion. Moreover, Hegel argues, these renowned commentaries provide glimpses of the image projected upon Li Zhi by his contemporaries.
Expanding on the theme of reception history, Lu demonstrates that although many scholars have characterized Confucian thought as unconcerned with the afterlife and matters of transcendence, Confucians from the late Ming through the Qing cared deeply about these subjects. She situates Li Zhi’s preoccupation with death and his changing attitudes toward it in the context of diverse neo-Confucian approaches to moral cultivation. Her discussion opens onto a larger question: If after death all humans shed their individual identity and return to the cosmos, why should anyone engage in self-cultivation at all? Outlining various responses to this question, this chapter provides a fitting conclusion to the volume by demonstrating the shifting values that stimulated widely varying responses to Li Zhi’s writings. In his own time, Li Zhi was considered a highly controversial figure; in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as Wang Yangming’s teachings receded and evidential scholarship rose to the fore, interest in Li Zhi waned; in the twentieth century, scholars approached him with renewed interest, heralding him as a harbinger of the Chinese Enlightenment; and following on the twenty-first century’s discoveries of new aspects of his writings, this volume attests to the complexity and continued relevance of Li’s thought.