Scholars › Philosopher / Thinker

Zhou Dunyi

Northern Song scholar-official who taught the young Cheng brothers and whose Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate became a founding text of Neo-Confucianism

Also known as Zi Maoshu · Hao Lianxi · Lianxi Xiansheng · Yuan

Zhou Dunyi, courtesy name Maoshu, came from Yingdao in Daozhou. Through his uncle Zheng Xiang he entered service as registrar of Fenning county, and he spent most of his career in local posts. In 1046, while legal officer at Nan'an, he was asked by the official Cheng Xiang to teach his two sons, Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi. In his last years he governed Nankang and built a house below Lotus Peak on Mount Lu beside a stream he named Lianxi after the one at his birthplace, so that scholars called him Master Lianxi. His writings include the Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate (Taiji tushuo), Penetrating the Book of Changes (Tongshu) and the short essay "On Loving the Lotus". He died in 1073 and was given the posthumous name Yuan under the Southern Song. Zhu Xi wrote commentaries on his two main works and placed him first in his record of the Cheng school's origins.

Life and times

  1. 1017 CEBornSong
  2. 1073 CEDied

Works

  1. Literature · Sayings5
    1. Rising from the Mud UnstainedSongIdiom from Zhou Dunyi's On the Love of the Lotus: staying pure in a corrupt world
    2. To Be Admired From Afar, Never Trifled WithSongLine from Zhou Dunyi's On Loving the Lotus: a flower to admire from afar, not to toy with
    3. Neither Sprawling Nor Branching Like the Lotus StemSongIdiom from Zhou Dunyi's On Loving the Lotus: a straight stem, now a byword for concise writing
    4. The Lotus Scent Grows Purer with DistanceSongFamous line from Zhou Dunyi's On Loving the Lotus: a fragrance purer the farther it goes
    5. Washed by Clear Ripples Yet Never ShowySongFamous line from Zhou Dunyi's On Loving the Lotus: the lotus as a pure, modest gentleman
  2. Literature · Prose1
    1. On the Love of the LotusSongZhou Dunyi's essay on the lotus as the gentleman's emblem, against chrysanthemum and peony

Connections

  1. Teachers and students2
    1. Cheng HaoStudent · 1032 CE–1085 CE
    2. Cheng YiStudent · 1033 CE–1107 CE

Records

Wrote the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate and the Penetrating the Book of Changes

Northern Song

Zhou Dunyi wrote the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate, which opens with "the Ultimate of Non-being, which is also the Supreme Ultimate" and goes on to explain how yin and yang and the five phases arise, how humans receive the finest of these and are endowed with spirit, and how the sage, settling matters by the mean, the correct, humaneness and righteousness and holding to stillness, establishes the human standard. He also wrote the Penetrating the Book of Changes in forty chapters, expanding on the meaning of the Supreme Ultimate. While he was judicial clerk at Nan'an Army, Cheng Xiang sent his two sons Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi to study under him; he often told them to look for the joy that Confucius and Yan Hui found, and the History of Song says the learning of the Cheng brothers has its source here.

References (1)