Abstract

The intention of this dissertation is, first, to explore the religious and mystical dimension of Wang Yang-ming's thought, and second, to attempt to retrieve a more fundamental view of detachment in the light of Wang Yang-ming's philosophy of Liang-chih. ;Upon investigating the religious and mystical dimension of Wang Yang-ming's thought, we found Wang Yang-ming was indeed influenced greatly by both Taoism and Ch'an Buddhism. Taoism and Ch'an Buddhism's philosophical wisdom of Wu, not as a threat to conquer, but as a source of being and action, therefore, provided a theoretical basis for the emergence of Wang Yang-ming's principle of detachment as the realization of Liang-chih. ;Basing himself on his new insight of the Confucian notion of Liang-chih as "neither good nor evil," Wang Yang-ming saw the original ontological reality of man's being as in the state of clear Te, loving people, and the highest good. This new synthetic notion of Liang-chih was further explicated by Wang Yang-ming as man's ontologial state of being at oneness with all things in the universe on the one hand, and man's existential effort to realize this original ontological reality of man's being on the other hand. ;Wang Yang-ming used clear Te, loving people and the highest good to describe man's ontological state of being, namely, Liang-chih, as in the state of detachment. In this regard, we found detachment was originated in the very way man's ontological state of being manifests itself; and it is here at the origin of man's being that man is truly detached. However, existentially, if one's realization of his ontological reality of detachment is being fixated in a limited or falsified version of the self, one's original state of being will not be able to expand to its ultimate potential. Thus, detachment was understood by Wang Yang-ming as a two-fold structure: There is a detachment that will lead to one's ultimate ontological reality, and there is a detachment that flows from this original ontological reality of man's being. These two levels of detachment, as two aspects of man's Liang-chih, represent two inseparable aspects of the same process. ;At the end of our study, we have attempted to retrieve some fundamental characteristics of detachment by viewing it in the light of this original meaning of detachment, thus, opening up the way for future research.