A Contemporary Yangmingist: Wang Yangming in Japan Today

I am one of those strongly influenced by yomeigaku. … It is a fact of Japanese history that whenever the age changed greatly, people influenced by yomeigaku sprang into action against the establishment ideology that shushigaku supported.

Why am I looking again at Confucianism? Because the world today has fallen into exactly the same impasse. Knowledge now leans toward ornament, as the Cheng-Zhu school did then. Substantive argument thins out, and words are used to slip problems out of sight. Under such knowledge, people's hearts lose their bearings, and the order of nations and of the world falls into disorder beyond repair. To me the present world resonates with the moment when Wang Yangming appeared in the Ming.

Those shaped by Yangmingism acted first, as if their training in ordinary times had been for this moment. For them knowledge and action are not separate. This is exactly why I look to Yangmingism for my training, and not to Zhu Xi learning (what people generally take for Confucianism).

Before looking at large bodies such as humanity, nation, or society, I first understand myself thoroughly and nurture the "inside," my deep spirituality. At the same time I take in the social change and technological evolution that arise on the "outside" as the situation calls, and express it without separating the two, in non-separation. This is my basic way of thinking, and my point of reference here may surprise readers: it is in fact Chinese Confucian thought.

From this view the transformations and social reforms seen in today's world current have a basic problem. The yomeigaku reading of "shushin seika chikoku heitenka" is that you do not change the state or society first: unless you begin by understanding yourself thoroughly, you cannot create a lasting future.

For my part, I have learned a great deal from Japanese Yangmingism, which descends from Wang Yangming, and above all I have been powerfully shaped by the thought of Masahiro Yasuoka, which I keep facing every day. Along the way I found, in Wang Yangming's Instructions for Practical Living, a passage that speaks of exactly what lies beyond the confusion of this age.

Put simply, the root is to return to the original substance of the mind (心の本体), which all of us share. It comes down to this one thing. Knowledge and skill were never the question in the learning of the sages. The learning of the sages is the return to the original substance of the mind that everyone always holds in common, and it is for this that learning exists, that teaching exists, that study exists. That is what Wang Yangming taught.

What I used here is the thought of the Ming Confucian Wang Yangming, whom I revere. I took the protagonist, Kamuyamato Iwarebiko, to be someone who, while in Himuka, tended to separate knowledge from action.

At this moment Kamuyamato Iwarebiko's separation of knowledge and action disappeared, and for the first time he achieved chiko goitsu (知行合一), the unity of knowing and acting.

In every age and for everyone, the disciple leaps forward by meeting a good teacher. I feel it keenly again now, in my own life, and in the lives of the great figures of history. Those who came before us gave their lives to pass the relay of knowledge across barriers of language and culture. This time I take up that baton and, using the new vessel of contemporary technology, leave it behind as my own Instructions for Practical Living. That may be the mission of those of us who live now.

Ask someone today what learning is and you will probably not get an answer. … The place to begin is whatever moved you personally. In my case, it was Wang Yangming (1472–1529), and to reach him I wanted to walk back along the lineage that Japan came to call Yomeigaku, the school his thought became here.

In Ozu, I was shown a document in Toju's own hand. I put my hands together at the grave of Yukin Kawada (1684–1760), a scholar of the same school, and I was walked through the folklore and the history of the town by people who took care that I actually understood it.

My second reason for coming to Takahashi was to trace the footsteps of Hokoku Yamada (1805–1877), a Confucian scholar who played a remarkable role at Bitchu Matsuyama Castle from the late Edo period into the final years of the shogunate.

For my part, I have learned a great deal from Japanese Yangmingism… knowledge and skill … are never more than a means. The end is to return to the original substance of the mind and to live from that place.

In any age of peace, a pointless widening of knowledge is praised by everyone. Our own age is exactly this. The pointless intellectualism that centers on accumulating knowledge rode the great tide of globalization from the 1990s onward and spread across the planet. People who know nothing, with their pointlessly accumulated knowledge, now hold the floor as intellectuals. Such pointless voices suit mass media and social media, so they spread in an instant, and by the time we enter 2026 the situation is exactly the symbol of a century of sloppy, slapdash thought.

Wang Yangming set forth a concept he called batsuhon sokugen (抜本塞源), pulling out the root and stopping up the source. It is a bitter criticism of a society and people who chase only petty knowledge outside themselves and have lost sight of the essence.

The concept has two main meanings. One is a warning against the swelling of knowledge. The other is a return to the essence.

Stuffing in knowledge from outside is pointless, and however much of it we accumulate, we cannot save society. The first thing for everyone is to draw out the poison of selfish desire at the root of the heart and let pure life well up. That is the only way to truly save society with one's own ability.

That is why reflection in peacetime, and the steady accumulation of thought and practice about truly living, matter so much. The training of the heart through reflection is training for a lifetime. Once a crisis has begun, it is too late.

Heaven merely lays bare, in crisis, the disposition of people's hearts in ordinary times.

Because it is calm now, shall we neglect preparation and panic when the crisis comes? Or shall we make ready thoroughly in ordinary times, through training and the like, and set our hearts so that we do not stir whatever crisis we meet?

Once the age of upheaval has opened, it is too late.