Cheng Hao
A truly humane person feels at one with heaven, earth and every living thing – and finds the principle of all things in inner calm.
Placement
Elder of the two Cheng brothers: the humane person forms “one body” with Heaven, Earth and all things; principle is grasped by inner stillness.
Key ideas
- Humaneness as one body with all things
- Heavenly principle (tianli)
- Calming the nature
Teachers: Zhou Dunyi
Influence
Influenced by 3
Mengzi (Mencius)
influenced by
Cheng Hao’s ‘On Understanding Humaneness’ (Shi ren pian) draws on Mencius: all things are complete in me, and cultivation must neither forget nor forcibly help growth. Cheng Hao, Shi ren pian, in Er Cheng yishu; W.-t. Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (1963)
Evidence: AI draft
Mengzi (Mencius) › c. 372–289 BCE
Zhou Dunyi studied with
studied with
Attested by the brothers themselves: their recorded sayings recall having once studied with Zhou Maoshu (Henan Chengshi yishu 2A), and Cheng Yi’s account of his brother dates it to his mid-teens; that Zhou founded their school is Zhu Xi’s later construction. Henan Chengshi yishu 2A (recorded by Lü Dalin); Cheng Yi, Mingdao xiansheng xingzhuang
Evidence: AI draft
Zhou Dunyi › 1017–1073
Zhang Zai
influenced by
Cheng Hao’s Letter on Calming the Nature answered Zhang Zai’s question how the nature can stay calm amid things; the Cheng brothers praised Zhang’s Western Inscription. Cheng Hao, Dingxing shu; Zhang Zai, Ximing; W.-t. Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (1963)
Evidence: AI draft
Zhang Zai › 1020–1077
Influenced 2
Zhu Xi
influenced
Zhu Xi compiled the Cheng brothers’ recorded sayings (Er Cheng yishu, 1168) and, with Lü Zuqian, took Cheng Hao’s sayings into Reflections on Things at Hand (1175). Zhu Xi (ed.), Er Cheng yishu (1168); Zhu Xi & Lü Zuqian, Jinsilu (1175), tr. W.-t. Chan, Reflections on Things at Hand (1967)
Evidence: AI draft
Zhu Xi › 1130–1200
Lu Jiuyuan (Lu Xiangshan)
influenced
Lu Jiuyuan named Mencius, not the Cheng brothers, as his source; Feng Youlan (1934) read Cheng Hao as forerunner of Lu’s learning of the mind (xinxue). Feng Youlan, Zhongguo zhexue shi II (1934), tr. D. Bodde, A History of Chinese Philosophy II (1953)
Evidence: AI draft
Lu Jiuyuan (Lu Xiangshan) › 1139–1193
Position
Cheng Hao saw the cosmos as ceaseless life-giving and humaneness (ren) as its moral core: the humane person forms one body with Heaven, Earth and the myriad things, just as medicine calls numb limbs “not humane” because the body no longer feels them as its own. Though he had learned much from others, he said, he had worked out heavenly principle (tianli) himself. Writing to his relative Zhang Zai on calming the nature, he taught that true calm holds in activity and rest alike, for the mind responds impartially, without dividing inner and outer. Feng Youlan and others see him as a forerunner of Lu Jiuyuan and Wang Yangming.
Life & context
Cheng Hao, known as Mingdao, was born in 1032 into an official family settled in Luoyang; as a youth he and his younger brother Cheng Yi studied briefly with Zhou Dunyi. He passed the jinshi examination in 1057 and served mostly as a local official. As a censor he opposed Wang Anshi’s New Policies and was sent back to the provinces. He died in 1085.
Main works
- Letter on Calming the Nature (Dingxing shu, mid-11th century)
- On Understanding Humaneness (Shi ren pian, recorded saying, 11th century)
- Surviving Works of the Two Chengs (Er Cheng yishu, compiled by Zhu Xi, 1168, posthumous)
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