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Notes
- 1.
Daśabhūmi—the “ten stages” in the 52 sections of the development of a bodhisattva into a Buddha. The first of these is worldly wisdom, which has not been “fertilized” by Truth, and so is called the “dry” wisdom stage (干慧地). Each of the ten stages is connected with each of the ten “pāramitās,” which Mr. Liang proceeds to discuss next.
- 2.
Pratyeka-buddhahood (辟支佛), by which only the “dead ashes” of the past is left. At this stage, one understands the 12 nidānas, or chain of causation, and so attains complete wisdom.
- 3.
佛地。The point at which the bodhisattva has arrived at highest enlightenment and is just about to become a Buddha.
- 4.
Throughout his life and in all that he said and wrote, Mr. Liang stressed practice (praxis) and practicality (effectiveness). This central strand of his thought is obvious even in his discussion of Buddhism, which most people has nothing to do with either. Mr. Liang’s personality, as exemplifed by his actions throughout his life to the very end, was itself a manifestation of these points of emphasis. He himself used the Chinese phrase “表里如一”(unity of inner feelings and outer action), which he used to describe himself later in this day’s interview. That is, he would translate any idea he had into action in the real world. His personal actions were always like this (as shown by the episode of his conduct during the “Criticize Lin Biao, Criticize Confucius” Campaign discussed below), and his public actions, such as the way in which the entire Rural Reconstruction Movement was designed specifically to express his cultural philosophy.
- 5.
Mr. Liang’s mind and memory were extremely impressive for a man of any age. At this time he was still writing every day, which I assume kept his mind sharp. It certainly did not seem to be impaired in the least by his 89 years.
- 6.
Mr. Liang told me this story twice during our interviews. He obviously enjoyed telling it each time, and laughed and smiled broadly. I had the impression that Mr. Liang felt that Hu Shi was indeed no philosopher, and that his various theories were philosophically groundless. To put it a bit more bluntly, I suspect that Mr. Liang thought Hu Shi to be an intellectual lightweight. Upon arriving at Peking University in 1917, Hu and Liang met. Apparently Mr. Liang wanted to pursue a certain question onto a more serious intellectual level, and Mr. Hu refused, saying, apparently to Liang’s resentment, that it was hot and it was a social occasion, not an academic one.
- 7.
When he invited me out to a vegetarian restaurant the week after this, Mr. Liang did respond to my toasts in beer with taking a few sips himself. As he said, one eats to satisfy oneself, but one drinks to satisfy others. This is perfectly consistent with his interpretation of the spirit of Chinese culture, which stresses respect for the “other” in a relationship.
- 8.
Mr. Liang had something of a hobby in medicine, as did his father, Liang Ji, who often brewed the medicine for members of the family.
- 9.
It was almost certainly 1974, as the campaign started in the latter part of 1973. Criticism of Confucius was, of course, meant to be criticism of Premier Zhou Enlai, and so the Confucian hero, the Duke of Zhou, was added to the list, a clear pun on the surname Zhou.
- 10.
This report appeared in several publications outside of China. It was accurate in that Liang did respond to the campaign by refusing to criticize Confucius. For the most part, the report was comparable to what Mr. Liang told me. The reports stated that Liang replied that he was a man of independent thought whose inner convictions and outer actions were identical. His inner convictions were that he could not criticize Confucius, so his outer actions could not criticize Confucius. As far as I can see, the newspaper reports attributed only one statement to him that he himself denied (see elsewhere in these transcripts). The statement was that Liang observed that “he was already 83” and so “had nothing to fear.”
- 11.
Newspaper reports outside of China included Liang’s quotation of this Confucian Analects.
- 12.
Apparently Mr. Liang did make at least one attempt to see Chairman Mao after this. He wrote something for Mao’s birthday (probably the 1973 birthday, his eightieth), took a bus to the Zhongnanhai and reported to the guards at the gate that he had a birthday present for the Chairman. The guard replied, “Our Chairman does not accept gifts” and, of course, would not let him go in. I think that it is significant that Liang, who had already reached 80 years of age, had the initiative and determination to get himself to the gate, despite the physical difficulty and the psychological pressure.
- 13.
I was completely amazed at Mr. Liang’s capacity to summarize these meetings with Mao with such accuracy. This description and analysis was exactly the same as he had recorded just a few months after the event. I myself had observed that he must have made his point very well, because shortly after this, Mao began stressing “the special, distinctive features of Chinese society,” history, and culture.
- 14.
At Mao’s request (order?) Liang returned to Beijing from Beibei, Sichuan, in January, 1950.
- 15.
People usually use the term “Sinification of Marxism” to describe Mao’s policies which he fashioned in 1939 and after.
- 16.
Here Mr. Liang inadvertently admits that his rural reconstruction program was aimed at organization of rural society, diffusion of modern technology, and thus the creation of a new civilization. Liang had hoped that using the more culturally conservative rural society as a base, he would effect a total economic, political and social revolution that would result in “a new kind of civilization, the likes of which had never existed before,” and which he further predicted would be “the inevitable fate of mankind.” In effect, Liang had hoped to create a new world civilization that would be superior to the “abnormal,” “distorted,” money-based, overly industrialized and urbanized civilization of the West. “This is our historic mission….Our movement is both for the Chinese people and for the world.” The Theory of Rural Reconstruction (《乡村建设理论》), 1937, p. 143, p. 146, pp. 445–447. A general account of the Shandong Rural Reconstruction Institute and the Zouping Experimental District (《山东乡村建设研究院及邹平实验区概况》), Zouping, 1936, p. 6. In these interviews however, Mr. Liang was always very careful to say that all of his goals for rural reconstruction had been met, and so never makes reference outright to this larger, more ambitious goal of creating a “new civilization.”
- 17.
In these interviews, Mr. Liang did act very much as though it was his responsibility to introduce to the world all of the major features of “Eastern” (meaning Chinese) culture. This shorter book performed the same function, and much of what he wanted to convey to me was what he had written in it. There is a certain consistency in the way he wanted to transmit to me all of China’s major philosophical traditions. In a way, Mr. Liang’s fame and distinguished career as a thinker started with discussion of the relationship of certain philosophical ideas and cultural patterns, as with Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies. So, he continued to think along these lines right to the end of his long life.
- 18.
As with other Chinese terms that have become part of the English language, I use the incorrect but customary English language Romanization (as with the Romanization of Chiang Kai-shek).
- 19.
In 1973 I did go to the spot alone, and saw the base of the monument. Because I was a foreigner which wasn’t very common in those days, a crowd of young neighborhood children started following me and staring. I asked them if they knew where the monument was. They told me that they indeed did know of the whereabouts of the stele, and would bring me to see it. They took me to a neighborhood house’s yard, where I found the monument sawed up into blocks, clearly intended for use in construction. I had just started to read what characters I could see when the owner of the house came rushing out and shooed me and the children out of the yard. He didn’t even speak while he was doing it, assuming that I wouldn’t understand anyway. His action was brusque and hostile. I, of course, could not very well argue with him. Until the late 1980s, I do not think people in Beijing welcomed foreigners walking in the hutongs.
- 20.
I had mistaken Mrs. Liang’s age because, as Liang later told me, she had lied about her age when they married. The newspaper reports on the wedding were my only source of her age, and so I got it wrong. Of course, everyone else at the time, including the Liangs, had got it wrong too.
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Alitto, G.S. (2013). August 15, 1980. In: Has Man a Future?. China Academic Library. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35816-6_4
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