Li Zhi

Li Zhi (1527–1602), often known by his pseudonym Zhuowu (which means, “I who am smart”), was a Chinese philosopher, historian and writer of the late Ming dynasty. A critic of the Neo-Confucianist views espoused by Zhu Xi, which was then the orthodoxy of the Ming government, he was persecuted and committed suicide in prison.

Biography Li Zhi was born in Jinjiang, Fujian province (in modern Quanzhou). His ancestor by seven generations was Lin Nu, the son of Li Lü, a maritime merchant. Lin Nu visited Hormuz in Persia in 1376, converted to Islam upon marriage to a Semu girl ("娶色目女") (who was most likely either Persian or Arab), and brought her back to Quanzhou. This was recorded in the Lin and Li genealogy《林李宗譜》. However, the new faith did not take root in his lineage and the family stopped practising Islam during the time of his grandfather. His father made a living by teaching, and Li Zhi was therefore educated from an early age.

In 1551, he passed the village examinations, and five years later was appointed as a lecturer in Gongcheng (in modern Huixian, Henan Province). In 1560 he was then promoted to the Guozijian in Nanjing as a professor, but went into filial mourning, returning to his native Quanzhou. During this time he participated in the defence of the coastal city against Wokou raids. After returning from mourning in 1563, he was assigned to the Guozijian in Beijing.

In 1566, he served in the Ministry of Rites in Beijing, where he became learned in Yangmingism as well as Buddhist thought. He was then assigned as a prefect of Yao'an County in Yunnan in 1577, but left his post three years later. After this, he took up a teaching post in Hubei on the invitation of Geng Dingli, but was attacked as a heretic by Dingli's brother, the scholar and official Geng Dingxiang, and eventually moved to Macheng. In 1588, he took the tonsure and became a Buddhist monk, but did not follow the ascetic lifestyle of other monks. Two years later, his work A Book to Hide was printed.

Li travelled during the 1590s, visiting Jining and Nanjing, where he met with Matteo Ricci and discussed the differences between Buddhist and Catholic thought. Returning to Macheng in 1600, he was again forced to leave after attacks from the local magistrate for his philosophical views.

He has been credited with commentaries to Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, and Water Margin, as well as to the plays Romance of the Western Chamber and Tale of the Pipa; of these, only the preface to Water Margin has been established as the product of his brush.

In 1602, after being accused of deceiving society with heretical ideas by Zhang Wenda and other officials of the Censorate, he was arrested and imprisoned, where he committed suicide. Having heard that he was to be exiled to his native Fujian, he cut his throat with a shaving knife which he seized from a servant. After his death, he was buried in Tongzhou, where his grave still remains.

Philosophy Li Zhi's philosophy was based upon Neo-Confucianism, though he was a staunch critic of the then-orthodox Cheng-Zhu School, and indeed identified himself as a heretic. He can be seen as having been influenced by Wang Yangming (1472–1529), as well as the Taizhou School. He denied that women were inferior to men in native intelligence, and argued that many women in Chinese history, such as Wu Zetian, had actually been superior to men. However, he did not believe women should be emancipated and commended widows who chose suicide over remarriage.

The Childlike Heart-Mind (tóng xīn; 童心)The childlike heart-mind is the genuine heart-mind. If one denies the childlike heart-mind, then he denies the genuine heart-mind. The childlike heart-mind is free of all falsehood and entirely genuine; it is the original mind at the very beginning of the first thought. -Li Zhi, “On the Childlike Heart-Mind”Li Zhi wrote a considerable amount on the “childlike heart-mind” (tóng xīn; 童心). Although someone of a childlike heart-mind was once considered to be someone “naive, immature, and inexperienced in the ways of the world” – and thus “bound to come to a bad end” – Li uses the term in a different sense, as evidenced by his reference to the 13th-century play The Western Chamber (Xixiang ji). In this play, a scholar and a maiden develop a somewhat “forbidden” relationship, have a clandestine and passionate love affair, push through “traditional barriers” to their love, and finally marry. In the original telling (from the Tang Period, 7th-10th century CE), these same lovers have a short-lived, passionate romance which takes a sharp downward turn when the scholar decides to leave the maiden, leaving them both with no choice but to marry other people, although not out of “true love”. Pauline Lee, however, rejects this interpretation, arguing instead that Li's work is useful in allowing us to understand the cultural milieu in which he lived, and that his “philosophical vision” bears great “intrinsic value and power”. This does not mean that Li regarded all judgments as being entirely subjective. Consistent with his view that one should follow their heart-mind, their most genuine and spontaneous nature, he was highly critical of any actions that were taken or works which were written that did not come from this nature.

While Li advocates for spontaneity and “immediate” action “without prior reflection or thought,” this does not mean that he favors completely reckless behavior. For Li, such spontaneity was possible and favorable only because the subject had (ideally) worked to preserve their childlike heart-mind. A farsighted person, however, considers what is beyond that, “transcending” not only the body but also the “superficial appearances of life and death” while also turning their attention away from mindless chatter and prejudices and toward the teachings of the sages, which encouraged a more unbiased perspective. His philosophical works included A Book to Burn and A Book to Keep (Hidden).

A Book to Burn and A Book to Keep (Hidden)

A Book to Burn is composed of Li's responses to questions from friends (“soul friends,” he calls them) in which he offers criticism of what he considers to be mistakes of the contemporary scholars of the day. Li wanted to print this book because of the possibility that it would make its way to those who might be interested in his ideas. Though he feared being killed by dissenters for what he'd written, he was nevertheless optimistic that someone might read his work and understand what he meant.

Li also writes of the relationship between married couples in this text, describing “loving-kindness” as being particularly “profound." He discusses how the intimacy that is cultivated within such a relationship extends beyond sex and even friendship by virtue of both parties having struggled and “sacrificed” together. He waxes poetic about his late wife, praising her “feminine” virtues, which, in Confucianism, referred to “womanly virtue, womanly speech, womanly appearance, and womanly work."

A Book to Keep (Hidden) gives accounts of thousands of years of good and bad deeds from antiquity to the current age. By Li's own advice, it cannot be read by those who possess “eyes of flesh” (a Buddhist term indicating the “most mundane form of vision” characteristic of someone unenlightened).