56. Lu Xiangshan: Recorded Sayings
A Sourcebook in Global Philosophy - Mohammed Rustom
Philip J. Ivanhoe [+]
Georgetown University
Description
Lu Xiangshan believed the heart-mind (xin) embodies all the pattern-principles (li) that give structure and meaning to the phenomenal world. The heart-mind is the unique site where all pattern-principles can come to consciousness and be known. As he taught, “The universe is my heart-mind. My heart-mind is the universe.” Coming to understand the world is not a process of taking it in or thinking about, it but tallying or matching up the pattern-principles inherent in the heart-mind with the various phenomena of the world. Understanding always involves a personal, introspective dimension: one discovers how things are by coming to see each truth for oneself. This heart-mind is shared by all human beings, and its pattern-principles are the same throughout the universe and across time. When the heart-mind is rightly ordered, it tracks and reveals the very same truths that the greatest sages first discovered. As Lu says, “If one understands the fundamental root or basis, the Six Classics are all one’s footnotes!”