Yangming Retreat

Yangming Retreat

Yangming Retreat

The Yangming Retreat is located by Yingpanshan Reservoir in Longchang Town, Xiuwen County, about 6 kilometers from the county seat. Covering an area of over 200 acres, it was funded with more than 800,000 yuan by Jiang Qing, a renowned contemporary Wang Yangming scholar both in China and abroad and a professor at the Shenzhen Administrative College. Construction began in 1996 and took over five years to complete. It includes a Yangming orchard spanning more than 150 acres, as well as over ten classical-style buildings such as Xingtian Garden, Sisheng Garden, and Fengyuan Tower. The four characters “Yangming Retreat” on the main gate plaque were inscribed by Mr. Takeshi Kazuhiko, an internationally esteemed scholar of Yangming studies and honorary professor at Kyushu University in Japan. To date, scholars from Japan, South Korea, Canada, as well as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Beijing, Shanghai, Fujian, Guangdong, and other regions and provinces in China have come to the retreat for academic discussions, with the total number exceeding several hundred. The Yangming Retreat provides a fine venue for researchers of Wang Yangming’s philosophy to study and contemplate. It also embodies the philosophical concept of “the unity of heaven and humanity” and reflects Mr. Yangming’s spiritual pursuit of “the unity of all things in benevolence.” Mr. Jiang Qing’s dedication in establishing the retreat for the committed study and dissemination of Wang Yangming’s teachings is truly respectable and admirable.

Wang Shouren (1472–1529), a philosopher of the Ming Dynasty in China, was the synthesizer of the Idealist School of Mind. His courtesy name was Bo’an, and his pseudonym was Yangming. He was a native of Yuyao, Zhejiang. A renowned thinker, writer, philosopher, and military strategist of the Ming Dynasty, he was the leading figure of the Lu-Wang School of Mind and had profound knowledge of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Wang Shouren is ranked alongside Confucius, Mencius, and Zhu Xi as one of the great sages: Confucius, Mencius, Zhu, and Wang. His philosophical doctrine, known as the Wang School (or Yangming School), became the most influential school of thought during the Ming Dynasty. His academic ideas spread to China, Japan, the Korean Peninsula, and Southeast Asia. Embodying both moral integrity and scholarly achievement, his accomplishments were unparalleled in the Ming era... More details about Wang Shouren ++