Individual Autonomy and Responsibility in Late Imperial China By ...

Confucian virtues of loyalty (zhong) and filial piety (xiao) constituted the fundamentals of the Way that one had to follow sincerely in action and elaborate effectively through public discussion. Li Zhi, on the other hand, emphasized cultivation of an authentic moral self for which moral codes such as loyalty and filial piety were vehicles. [...] Like Wang Yangming, Li denied that there was a fixed set of practices that constituted loyalty and filial piety; he instead emphasized spontaneous actions accordant with true moral feelings.”²¹ Inevitably, around 1584, a conflict erupted between Li and Geng, and the two began to criticize each other sharply.²² In 1585 Li Zhi left the Geng’s household in Huang’an and moved to Macheng,²³ retiring to the Longhu Monastery (龍湖廟), where he spent about fifteen years writing his most notorious works, including comments about the Classics as well as Buddhist and literary works. His monastic retreat was a sign of his resistance to the official world, a way to establish an autonomous identity and broaden his horizons.²⁴ The monastery was the private property of his friends, the local powerful Zhou brothers,²⁵ and the fact that it was not a registered Buddhist institution gave him great freedom. It was a place for syncretic nonsectarian meditation, and many illustrious visitors came there and stayed for short or long periods, creating a center of nonconformist thought, the so-called Dragon Lake Group.²⁶ In 1588, Li Zhi sent his family home to Fujian and intensified his syncretistic activity taking the tonsure. During his stay there in 1590, he published A Book to Burn, and the following year he was attacked by a mob during his trip to Wuchang. Cai Yizhong 蔡毅中 (1548–1631), a student of Geng Dingxiang, author of an essay titled “Refuting A Book to Burn,” was reportedly behind the mob attack.

From 1594 on, Li Zhi was the target of various attacks and charges by Geng’s disciples and agents, and the scandal of Mei Danran was amplified with the publication in 1596 of the correspondence with his female students on Buddhist learning. In the autumn of 1596 Li had to accept the invitation of Liu Dongxing 劉東星 and take refuge in Shanxi, the following year in Mei Guozhen’s governor’s office, then, after a visit to Beijing, moved to Nanjing, where he published the first