ABSTRACT
Neo-Confucianism has two major currents, that is, the Zhu Xi school and Yangming school, as the new interpretations of early Confucianism that arose against the ideological challenges of Buddhism and Daoism. Wang Yangming’s argument is very close to the thought of Mencius that one knows the mandate of Heaven by cultivating one’s own mind wholeheartedly. Though Wang Yangming also talks about the distinction between the mind of Dao and the mind of humans. According to Wang Yangming, the goal of our learning lies in learning how to follow the innate knowledge of good within everyone’s mind. In Wang Yangming’s scheme, the metaphor of the bright mirror plays a significant role in describing the “equilibrium before one’s feelings are aroused” as the principle immanent in our mind as well as the basis of the universe. In fact, Wang Yangming asserts emphatically that Confucianism is distinguished from Daoism and Buddhism in that it serves to manage family, country, and the entire world.
