Reclusland

“In the beginning, there was t’ai chi (taiji) (the great ultimate of being), which was fundamentally identical with wu chi (wuji) (the ultimate of non-being). Because of the abundance of energy within t’ai chi, it began to move and thus produced the yang (the positive cosmic force). When the activity of the yang reached its limit, it reverted to tranquility. Through tranquility the yin (the negative cosmic force) was generated. When tranquility reached its limit, it returned to movement (yang). Thus yin and yang generated each other. Then, through the union of the yin and the yang the transformation of both, the five agents (or elements) of metal, wood, water, fire and earth were brought into being. These five agents are conceived of as material principles rather than as concrete things. They can therefore be considered the common basis of all things. The interaction of the yin and yang through different combinations of the five agents generates all things in a process of endless transformation.

Zhou Dun-yi conceptualized the Neo-Confucian cosmology of the day, explaining the relationship between human conduct and universal forces. In this way, he emphasizes that humans can master their qi (“vital life energy”) in order to accord with nature. He was a major influence to Zhu Xi, who was the architect of Neo-Confucianism. Zhou Dunyi was mainly concerned with Taiji (supreme polarity) and Wuji (limitless potential), the yin and yang, and the wu xing (the five phases).

Although very active in his civil service career he never did achieve a high position or get the “Presented Scholar” degree (jinshi). Some of the positions that he held were district record keeper (1040), magistrate in various districts (1046-1054), prefectural staff supervisor, and professor of the directorate of education and assistant prefect (1061-1064), among others. He resigned from his last post one year before he died. He died in Lushan, Jiangxi province.

He developed a metaphysics based on the idea that “the many are “ultimately” one and the one is ultimate”.

Spoke of principle, nature, and destiny together, which became 3 cardinal concepts of Confucian thought. He had a Daoist perspective toward nature. There are stories of Zhou Dunyi loving his grass so much that he would not cut it, reinforcing the concept that humans should appreciate life in nature and the importance of non-action. Zhou Dunyi is also known to have said that the best quality of life is that of a pure Lotus growing out of dirty waters, where the Lotus is the natural equivalent of the noble person.

During his lifetime, Zhou was not an influential figure in Song political or intellectual life. He had few, if any, formal students other than his nephews, the Cheng brothers, who studied with him only briefly when they were teenagers. He was most remembered by his contemporaries for the evident quality of his personality and mind.

The two key terms, which appear in the opening line of the Explanation, are wuji and taiji, translated here as “Non-Polar” and “Supreme Polarity.” Wuji had been used in the classical Daoist texts, Laozi (Chapter 28), Zhuangzi (Chapter 6), and Liezi (Chapter 5). Wu is a negation, roughly equivalent to “there is not;” ji is literally the ridgepole of a peaked roof, and usually means “limit” or “ultimate.” So in these early texts wuji means “the unlimited,” or “the infinite.” But in later Daoist texts it came to denote a state of primordial chaos, prior to the differentiation of yin and yang, and sometimes equivalent to dao.

Taiji was sometimes identified with Taiyi, the Supreme One (a Daoist divinity), and with the pole star of the Northern Dipper. It carried connotations of a turning point in a cycle, an end point before a reversal, and a pivot between bipolar processes. It became a standard part of Daoist cosmogonic schemes, where it usually denoted a stage of chaos later than wuji, a stage or state in which yin and yang have differentiated but have not yet become manifest. It thus represented a “complex unity,” or the unity of potential multiplicity. In the form of Daoist meditation known as neidan, or physiological alchemy, it represented the energetic potential to reverse the normal process of aging by cultivating within one’s body the spark of the primordial qi (psycho-physical substance), thereby “returning” to the primordial, creative state of chaos from which the cosmos evolved. Chen Tuan’s Taiji Diagram, when read from the bottom upwards, is thought to have been originally a schematic representation of this process of “returning to wuji” (Laozi 28), the “Non-Polar,” undifferentiated state.

In bringing this largely Daoist terminology into Confucian discourse (chaos was generally frowned upon by Confucians), Zhou may have been attempting to show that the Confucian view of humanity’s role in the cosmos was not really opposed to the fundamentals of the Daoist worldview, in which human categories and values were thought to alienate human beings from the Dao. In effect, he was co-opting Daoist terminology to show that the Confucian worldview was actually more inclusive than the Daoist: it could accept a primordial chaos while still affirming the reality of the differentiated, phenomenal world.