Record of Teaching and Practice
Qian Dehong's Preface
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Dehong said:
“Formerly Nan Yuanshan printed the Record of Broad Study and Practice in Yue, in two volumes. The lower volume excerpted eight pieces from our late Master's own letters.
“Of the two Replies to Xu Chengzhi, our Master himself said, ‘The world has long judged Zhu right and Lu wrong. To reverse that all at once is hard. For now the two letters offer a mediating account that leaves both possibilities open, letting people think it through for themselves.’ Was this also why Yuanshan placed them at the beginning of the lower volume?
“Now the distinction between Zhu and Lu has long been clear to the world. When I printed our late Master's Collected Writings, I placed the two letters in the Supplementary Collection to indicate that they were not complete accounts. Thus they are not included again here.
“Among the rest, nothing explains the original constitution of knowing and acting more fully than the four letters: the Reply to a Correspondent on Learning and the replies to Zhou Daotong, Lu Qingbo and Ouyang Chongyi. Nothing explains ‘investigating things as the ground where learners can apply effort and see daily results’ more fully than the Reply to Luo Zheng'an.
“Throughout his life our Master faced the world's condemnation, slander and attempts to bring him down, surviving as one life against ten thousand deaths. Restlessly he never forgot to teach, fearing only that we might not hear this Way and might drift into achievement, profit and calculating cleverness, daily falling among border peoples, birds and beasts without knowing it.
“His mind made one body with things. He spoke insistently throughout life, stopping only with death. This was the bitter concern of sages and worthies since Confucius and Mencius. Even disciples and followers could not adequately console his feeling. Nothing expresses this feeling more fully than the first Reply to Nie Wenwei.
“All these retain what Yuanshan originally recorded. But nothing explains more clearly, simply and directly that ‘one must always have something to attend to’ is precisely the work of extending innate moral knowing, so that people can immediately find a place to begin upon hearing it, than the second Reply to Wenwei. Thus I have added it.
“Amid the uproar of that time, Yuanshan could embody and illuminate this Way. In the end he met malicious opposition and dismissal, yet remained serenely glad only that in this life he had heard this learning, without the least trace of resentment, depression or indignation.
“People see that printing this record greatly benefits those sharing our purpose, but do not know how difficult his circumstances were. What I now retain or omit follows what is fitting for the time. It is not that I can bear to add or subtract arbitrarily.”
Reading note
The two-volume/eight-piece arrangement, four named letters, two replies to Xu Chengzhi and two replies to Nie Wenwei are Qian Dehong's account of the edition. His additions and omissions describe that edition's history; this English layer does not remove source records. Lu Qingbo remains the name written here rather than being silently replaced by an addressee from a later chapter. The repeated rare speech word is read as insistent speaking. Chinese source text and reading layers are unchanged.
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