Caigentan and Its Author Hong Yingming

Little biographical material survives about Hong Yingming, the author of Caigentan (Vegetable Root Discourse). All we know is that his courtesy name was Zicheng and his hao (literary name) was Huanchu Daoren, meaning "the returning-to-the-origin wayfarer." His given name and courtesy name were probably taken from the twenty-first chapter of the Zhongyong (Doctrine of the Mean): "Being sincere and thereby becoming enlightened is called nature; being enlightened and thereby becoming sincere is called teaching."

His literary name, on the other hand, carries much of the flavor of returning to simplicity advocated by Laozi and Zhuangzi. Laozi said, "He who is rich in virtue is comparable to a newborn babe"; he also said, "The sage treats all as his own children"; and he said: "The crowd of others are merry and gay, as though at a great banquet; as though on a spring tower they stand. I alone am still and silent, like one who has not yet shown any sign; I am listless, as though I had nowhere to return." The philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi has a fondness for the childlike heart at the beginning of life. That Hong Yingming gave himself the name "Huanchu Daoren" shows how highly he esteemed the idea of returning to simplicity in Laozi-Zhuangzi philosophy.

So from Hong Yingming's given name and the literary name he chose for himself, we can roughly see his tastes and interests. Mr. Hong was a spontaneous scholar who pursued the genuine heart of a newborn babe.

Mr. Hong probably lived during the Wanli reign period. The Wanli Emperor was the fourteenth emperor of the Ming dynasty; politics during the Wanli era were relatively clear. Because the Senior Grand Secretaries Zhang Juzheng and Shen Shixing were both capable ministers, the national strength during the Wanli era was not weak, the economy kept developing, and foreign wars were won one after another; this is known in history as the Wanli Restoration.

Emperor Shenzong of Ming, the Wanli Emperor Zhu Yijun, was himself a rather individualistic person. He ascended the throne at age ten and reigned for forty-eight years, the longest-reigning emperor of the Ming dynasty. In his youth he brought about the Wanli Restoration. But after middle age, because of opposition from the whole court over the designation of the crown prince, and because the corruption scandal broke involving his former tutor and Senior Grand Secretary Zhang Juzheng, he saw through the helpless side of human nature and of imperial power politics in the feudal dynasties, and so grew weary of court affairs and became obsessed with opening mines to make money.

The Wanli Emperor did not hold court for more than twenty years; even when half the posts in the six ministries were vacant he paid no heed. The memorials of ministers criticizing the emperor piled up like a mountain, yet he made no response. He almost completely practiced the Taoist principle of non-action (wuwei).

Several prominent figures emerged during the Wanli era. The famous thinker Li Zhi (courtesy name Zhuowu, self-styled Zhuowu Laoren) was a man of the Wanli era. Li Zhi's talent was unrivaled of his time; his writings spread throughout the land and his influence was enormous. He criticized, with the utmost sarcasm, the way traditional Chinese Confucianism constrained human nature and hindered social development, and was attacked en masse by the Rationalist school. But Li Zhi was also immensely popular among the scholar class; as soon as his works appeared on the market, they caused a "paper price in Luoyang" sensation. It is clear that people at the time also deeply detested feudal ritual and ethics; those Ming people living under feudal rites were not as happy as some people today who call for restoring feudal rites imagine.

Yuan Mei, a talent of the Gong'an school, greatly admired Li Zhi and traveled a thousand li to meet him. Deeply influenced by Li Zhi, Yuan Mei pursued freedom of innate feeling and eventually became a great master of the literary world.

But the Rationalists one after another wanted to put Li Zhi to death. Li Zhi later had to shave his head and become a monk to show his break with Confucianism. However, Li Zhi also did not respect Buddhist thought and monastic rules; in his old age, the reclusive Li Zhi openly ate meat, giving others a handle and drawing much criticism.

Yuan Mei advised Li Zhi to tone it down and not eat meat openly, but Li Zhi replied to Yuan Mei that he could not enjoy a meal without meat. The willful Li Zhi was eventually taken to Beijing and kept by Ma Jinglun of Tongzhou, where he devoted himself to scholarship in the Ma mansion and was dismissive of the powerful who came to visit him out of admiration. Such a personality led Li Zhi to make enemies as numerous as a forest, and in the end it could not fail to alarm the Wanli Emperor. Wanli ordered the authorities to arrest Li Zhi and throw him in prison. Li Zhi, a great man of letters and giant of thought, ultimately chose to take his own life with a razor in prison, leaving before death the line: "What does a seventy-year-old man seek?"

During the Wanli era there was also the famous upright official Hai Rui. Hai Rui was a very unsociable person with deep conflicts with the other ministers; he became a tool in cruel political struggles without realizing it. Because his personality was too unsociable, he was eventually dismissed from office.

This was a period later historians call the sprout of capitalism in China, an era that almost saw the emergence of a Renaissance-style cultural movement.

If, a few decades later, the Qing troops had not entered the pass and overthrown Ming rule, China might have entered the capitalist era ahead of time. In this era the famous Western missionary Matteo Ricci came to China and lived here for many years, widely associating with the Chinese scholarly elite.

From the broad background of the times, during the Wanli era of the Ming, the orthodox Confucian thought that upheld the order of the state and ethics not only met with criticism from thinkers like Li Zhi; even the Wanli Emperor himself did not take it very seriously. Only a few people like Hai Rui remained devoted to upholding the ethical order of Confucianism.

The times in which Mr. Hong lived were roughly like this. Some textual researchers say that Mr. Hong also wrote two books, Xian Fo Qi Zong and Xiaoyaotuo, but judging from the content of Caigentan, Mr. Hong was a very down-to-earth person and probably would not have given his books such fantastical names.

Caigentan absorbs certain ideas from Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and even Chinese medicine, yet does not blindly follow any of them. The author, Mr. Hong Yingming, although he revered Confucianism (judging from his self-reference as "our Confucians," "scholar-gentlemen," and "the gentleman," he preferred Confucian learning), nevertheless disdained the Rationalists' self-righteous loftiness and did not care for the fame and fortune pursued by ordinary scholars. Mr. Hong absorbed much from Taoist and Buddhist thought, yet did not endorse the life choices of monks and priests.

Caigentan is a collection of maxims recording the author's reflections on various problems of life. He blends the essence of Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and even the regimen of Chinese medicine, and it is suitable for adults of a slightly older age. Once a person has tasted the bitter and the sweet of life, reading Caigentan again will leave a different flavor.

Mr. Hong was erudite and versatile, with profound insights and high literary cultivation. Judging from his writing, in literary level alone Mr. Hong is no worse than Su Shi or Tao Yuanming. He was thoroughly versed in Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and medicine; more rarely, he achieved what Cao Xueqin described: "A thorough understanding of worldly affairs is itself learning; a practiced grasp of human relations is itself writing." He also achieved, "Where the writing goes, the spirit is mature; when learning is deep, the disposition is even."

Reading Caigentan, one can feel Mr. Hong's calm, unhurried, upright, and balanced personality, and readers can also calm their own hearts through his words. Mr. Hong did not like to sing high-sounding tunes or to play the mystic; his thought is very down-to-earth and approachable.

He was not a lofty-minded person. He said: "A perfect reputation and integrity should not be monopolized by one; share some with others, and you can ward off harm and preserve your whole self. A tarnished conduct and a stain on the name should not be pushed entirely onto others; take some upon yourself, and you can conceal your light and cultivate virtue." And: "In conducting oneself one should not be too spotless; all manner of insult and filth must be endured. In dealing with others one should not draw lines too sharply; all kinds of good and evil, the wise and the foolish, must be embraced." This is very different from the way many people strain to beautify themselves like gods.

This way of thinking is precisely the "bearing of disgrace" idea of the Kun hexagram in the Book of Changes. Greed for fame is also a form of greed; in life, if one pursues a perfect reputation too obsessively, one will inevitably fall into a bottomless abyss of the spirit. Mr. Hong makes us realize that it is very necessary to leave ourselves a little unsavory reputation. If someone doesn't like us and wants to scold us, let him scold; it fulfills the other person and lets ourselves off the hook.

He was also not a person who advocated ascetic hardship and barren solitude. He said: "One whose inner impulses are intense treats others generously, and everything is intense. One whose inner impulses are bland treats himself thinly and others thinly, and everything is bland. Therefore the gentleman's ordinary tastes should not be too rich and colorful, nor should they be too barren and lonely." He also said: "A scholar should have a conscientious, diligent frame of mind, and also a free and easy delight. If he merely restrains himself in austere bitterness, that is like having autumn's killing frost without spring's life—how then can all things grow?" From this it is clear that Mr. Hong was a positive person who loved life.

Precisely because he was such a person, he could write such exquisite lines as: "Unmoved by favor or disgrace, I watch the flowers bloom and fall before the court; carefree about going or staying, I gaze at the clouds rolling and scattering in the sky." "The years are originally long, but the busy shorten themselves; heaven and earth are originally broad, but the narrow-minded confine themselves; the wind, flowers, snow, and moon are originally leisure, but the toiling and restless burden themselves." "Finding delight does not depend on abundance; among a basin of water and a handful of stones, mist and cloud are enough. Encountering scenery does not depend on distance; beneath a thatched window and a bamboo hut, the wind and moon are more than enough."

Mr. Hong's given name and literary name were probably taken only in order to write the book Caigentan. His actual identity may have been some influential figure of the Wanli era; he must have gone through many vicissitudes of the world before he cultivated such a detached and open-minded state of mind.

He said: "If a person is willing to stop here and now, then it ends here and now. If he must look for a place to rest, then although marriage and family are complete, affairs are still many. Although monks and priests seem fine, the mind is not finished. The ancients said, 'If now you can stop, then stop; if you seek a time to be done, there will be no time to be done.' This is a penetrating insight."

This wisdom of letting go in the present can probably only be attained after going through expectation, then disappointment, and then plainness. Every day we expect that once we have solved certain problems our mind can be at leisure. But in fact, after solving this problem we become entangled by another. If one waits until all problems are solved before letting go, then one will never let go in this lifetime.

When he wrote Caigentan, Mr. Hong had evidently already passed through the impetuosity of youth and understood the principle of deep accumulation leading to a sudden release. So he said: "Tempering oneself should be like metal forged a hundred times; what is hurriedly achieved is not deep nourishment. Acting should be like a ten-thousand-jun crossbow; what is lightly released has no great effect."

Mr. Hong also had a deep personal experience of the disastrous consequences caused by prejudice in life. He said: "The illness of indulgence can be cured, but the illness of entrenched bias is hard to cure; obstacles from external things can be removed, but obstacles from fixed opinions are hard to remove." This is exactly the "obstacle of views" emphasized by Buddhism, and also the harm of the stubborn insistence on one's own opinions that we see most often in daily life. Many people are swayed by narrow prejudices and are hard to connect with on any level.

Mr. Hong must also have gone through many interpersonal frictions before arriving at the insight that "the gentleman should keep a cool, observing eye and be careful not to lightly unleash his upright but rigid heart." In the dusty world, sometimes we need to learn to be a cool observer, to be part of the silent majority.

But most of the time, Mr. Hong preferred to be a warm and loving person. He said: "The qi of heaven and earth: when warm, it gives life; when cold, it kills. Therefore those whose nature and temperament are cold and austere also receive a cool and thin share of blessing; only the warm-hearted and warm-spirited person has both abundant blessing and lasting grace."

So such a person, even if what he wrote is not every word a gem, must still be full of insight. His understanding of life has reached a very high level; at least I personally can use his reflections to deepen my own understanding of life.