See also West, “Literature from the Late Jin to the Early Ming,” 609, 585.

32. Yuan Hongdao, “Zhi Zhang Youyu Zhenming Hou” 識張幼于箴銘後 [Notes on Zhang Youyu’s proverbial inscriptions], in Yuan Zhonglang Quanji 袁中郎全集, juan 20, quoted in Gao Xiang, “The Rise of a New Tradition, 3. Allusion to Zhuangzi’s discourse on the different legs and feet of birds.

33. Lynn “Alternate Routes to Self-Realization in Ming Theories of Poetry,” 335–336; Chou, Yüan Hung-tao and the Kung-an School; Chaves, “The Panoply of Images,” 353–360, 341, and “The Expression of Self in the Kung-an School,” 123–150.

34. Brook, “Rethinking Syncretism,” 19–20.

35. For classic Confucianism, the world was not regulated by immutable and transcendent principles, and in this respect, Confucianism was not very different from Daoism (Hall and Ames, Thinking From the Han, 13–21). Even in Neo-Confucianism the concept of “Supreme Vacuum” (wuji 無極) is linked with the dialectical alternation of stillness (jing 靜) and motion (dong 動) (Frisina, “Heaven’s Partners or Nietzschean Free Spirits?,” 29–60, esp. 35–41). On early medieval religious syncretism, see Campany, “On the Very Idea of Religions,” 299–310.

36. On Li Zhi, see Sanjiao Gui ru Shuo 三教歸儒說 (Explanation of How the Three Doctrines Lead Back to Confucianism) in Xu Fenshu 2: 75; yet the essay, after dealing with the Three Doctrines’ attitude toward health and power, focuses on the moral decadence of Confucianism. On Fang Yizhi, see Jiang Guobao, Fang Yizhi Zhexue Sixiang Yanjiu, 118. See also Araki, “Confucianism and Buddhism in the Late Ming,” 39–92. Many authors of the period, like Jin Shengtan 金聖歎 (ca. 1610–1661), had a similar syncretistic attitude. See John Ching-Yu Wang, Chin Shengt’an, 36–38.

37. Mengzi, Li Lou II 離婁下, 40, “great men are those who do not lose their child-heart” 大人者，不失其赤子之心者也.

38. “郭姓者，四川人，言少時曾上峨嵋山，意欲棄世學道，見老翁 […] 老翁笑曰：為仙為聖為佛，及其成功，皆嬰兒也。汝不聞孔子亦儒童菩薩，孟子云：‘大人者，不失其赤子之心乎？’ […] 其殿門外朱書二對，云：“胎生卵生濕生化生，生生不已；天道地道人道鬼道，道道無窮” (“Crane Carrying a Carriage 仙鶴扛車,” Santangelo, Zibuyu, 7: 444–445). One may also observe the vitalistic element of the creative force or “production and reproduction” (shengsheng 生生) of the universe.