The dialectical relationship between spiritual self-cultivation and action: Interpretation of modern Yangming learning in East Asia

Recent years have seen a revival of Yangming Learning in East Asia, beginning in Japan and spreading to China and Korea. In response to national crises or in efforts to encourage a national spirit of morality, Yangming Learning has been promoted by some scholars and intellectuals as a movement of revolutionary action. There are significant discrepancies, however, between this promoted form of Yangming Learning and the conscience philosophy, particularly with regard to the development of Yangming Learning in Japan. Motivated by this issue, this study explored the revival of Yangming Learning in East Asia and the "obscurity of truth with falsehood" in the form of Yangming Learning promoted by intellectuals. To distinguish between these subtleties, we began by studying the abstractions of "self-cultivation" and "action", and the relationship between these concepts. The results of this study showed that when promoting and practicing Yangming Learning, reform or revolutionary intellectuals in China and Korea still placed great emphasis on the "purity of self-cultivation"; adherents of Yangming Learning in Japan prior to the Meiji Restoration also held firmly to this belief. Prior to and after the Restoration; however, there were proponents of "quasi self-cultivation" (such as Yoshida Shoin, 1830-1859) and suicidal actions (such as Yukio Mishima, 1925-1970) who saw Yangming Learning as a philosophical context for their practices. The main reason for this was the belief in the divinity of the Emperor. This study seeks to clarify that the schools of thought promoted by these scholars is "Japanese Yangming Learning", rather than "Chinese Yangming Learning".