Liang Shuming

Liang Shuming (, Wade-Giles Liang Shu-ming; sometimes Liang Sou-ming, October 18, 1893 – June 23, 1988), born Liang Huanding , courtesy name Shouming , was a Chinese philosopher, politician, and writer in the Rural Reconstruction Movement during the late Qing dynasty and early Republican eras of Chinese history.

Biography Liang was born in Beijing. His family were ethnic Mongolians of Guilin and Guangxi origin. He was the son of a famous intellectual who committed suicide apparently in despair at the state of the Chinese nation. He had a modern education and exposure to Western writings. Liang was always fascinated by Buddhism, but never joined a monastery due to the opposition of his father. At the age of sixteen, he refused to allow his mother to discuss marriage on his behalf and at nineteen he became a vegetarian, remaining so for the rest of his life.

In 1917 he was recruited by Cai Yuanpei to the philosophy department of Beijing University, where he produced an influential book based on his lectures entitled Eastern and Western Cultures and their Philosophies, which expounded some of the doctrines of a modern Confucianism. He also displayed the influence of Henri Bergson, then popular in China, as well as Buddhist Yogachara philosophy. Although Liang had abandoned his determination to become a monk in 1920 and his celibacy in 1921, Buddhism influenced him for the rest of his life. This was one of four main Neo-Confucian responses to Scientism. His theory stemmed from Yogachara Buddhism's three natures. His theory was based in his definition of the formation of distinct cultures. In Liang's book he states: "What is culture? It is the life-style of a people. What is life? It is the expression of inexhaustible will—something quite close to the will in Schopenhauer—always being satisfied and yet not fully satisfied".

According to Liang, will decides life and life decides culture, so cultures are different when the wills and desires of the people who populate them differ. To Liang, the three orientations of will were not unconnected but a progression.

In his book The Substance of Chinese Culture, Liang contrasted Chinese culture with that of Western culture. He did this by exploring the relationship between the social structures in the two regions. Social structure, he asserted, created the cultural factors determining everything about the two cultures. He said Social structure is heavily influenced by cultural viewpoint, which in turn is defined by the social foundation of the society (its means of existence). Liang believed society had three forms: communities, families and individuals. A cultural viewpoint that heavily emphasizes one combination of these will differ greatly from a viewpoint that emphasizes different ones.

Rural reconstruction Liang Shuming believed that the rural village was the most important aspect of Chinese society and that for the last hundred years Chinese history had been characterized by its destruction. Between the years of 1931 and 1937 Liang was instructing the rural reconstruction in Zouping County of the Shandong Province. Many people assert that he was the reason for the great improvements witnessed there. He had been interested in Buddhism since his youth, which he often attributed to his feelings that many of the mistakes of the past had been made due to a focus on the external world for answers that come from within.