Time and History: East and West

Sept. 28- Oct. 1, 2000
Holiday Inn Select Executive Center
Columbia, Missouri, USA

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Gui and Shen: basis of life, death and time awareness in Zhu Xi
Prof. Kirill Thompson
Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University (Taipei, Taiwan)
 

ABSTRACT:

An analytical thinker, Zhu Xi (1130-1200) displays a sharp grasp of sequences of events in linear recorded time, from the ebb and flow of dynastic history to the works and days of his own life. At the same time, he identifies and experiences time through cyclic alternations, as of month, season, year, generation and era. He knows and records his own works and days along a linear temporal grid, as reflected in his precise autobiographical remarks and in the "Annual Chronicle" (nianpu). At the same time, he identifies cycles of physical and mental transformations within that pace and pattern his experience of objective cycles of events without.

Zhu give considerable attention to the forces driving the primary cycles of physical and mental transformations within, forces which underlie one's basic experience of duration. Following the Northern Song masters Cheng Yi and Zang Zai, he characterizes these forces as "capabilities" and "traces" of the "two qi," yin and yang, while naming them gui (ghosts) and shen (spirits). Zhu attaches considerable importance to this topic. It appears in his correspondence (Zhuzi wenji) and takes up the third section at the beginning of his "Classified Dialogues" (Zhuzi yulei), between sections on the formation of the world and on the formation of man, suggesting that gui and shen form an important interface between these two spheres.

The present discussion will attempt an account of Zhu's concepts of gui and shen in the context of his system, and proceed to examine how he deploys them in various related contexts, for example, to refine his notion of qi and yin and yang in discussing life and death as natural processes, to account for popular superstitions about ghosts, to show the grain of truth in ancestor worship, and to clarify the natural Confucian position on human life and destiny in countering the somewhat non-empirical Buddhist notions of karma and rebirth. Of particular interest are Zhu's own thoughts on life and death and "nurturing life": despite mortality--because of mortality--one strives to make one's life (and death) meaningful by cultivating character and nurturing life in ways conducive to living significantly.  In this way, on realizes a high affirmation and consummates one's mortality.

Panel III- Chinese and Japanese Conceptions of Time, Culture and History
Friday, 9/29/00 * 1:15 - 3:15 p.m. * Windsor II

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