Qīngshǔ Bǐtán 清暑筆談
Brush Jottings to Cool the Summer Heat by 陸樹聲 (著)
About the work
The Qīngshǔ Bǐtán 清暑筆談 (“Brush Jottings to Cool the Summer Heat”) is a miscellaneous prose notebook (bǐtán 筆談) in 1 juǎn by the late-Míng official and scholar Lù Shùshēng 陸樹聲 (1509–1605). Written during retirement in the summer heat, the work collects the author’s observations on cosmology, natural philosophy, Neo-Confucian metaphysics (the relationship of yīn–yáng, gān–kūn, kǎn–lí, and the human body’s inner alchemy), astronomy, and miscellaneous learning accumulated over a long career. The title invokes the topos of “cooling the summer” (qīngshǔ 清暑) through intellectual activity rather than physical means.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
Abstract
The text opens with a brief preface (not separately headed) in which the author describes himself as an old man in retirement (shuāilǎo tuìxiū 衰老退休), confined indoors through the long summer (zhǎng xià yǎn guān dú zuò 長夏掩關獨坐), writing down recollections of things heard and seen during his career (niǎn chū jiànwén jīxí 憶曩初見聞積習). He dates this preface to “Gēngchén xiàzhòng” 庚辰夏仲 — the midsummer of a gēngchén year. Given Lù’s biography (born 1509, retired from his final post as Minister of Rites in 1588 after several extended retirements), the most likely gēngchén is Wànlì 8 (1580), when Lù was about 71 suì and in one of his earlier retirements.
The content is eclectic and reflects a broadly Neo-Confucian metaphysical framework with Daoist cosmological inflections: the opening sections discuss the yin-yang polarity of mountains and waters (the paradox that water, being yin, flows dynamically while mountains, being yang, stand static), the trigrams Qián/Kūn and Kǎn/Lí as body/function (tǐyòng 體用) pairs, the circulation of inner alchemy (nèidān 內丹) in the human body as paralleling the circulation of fire and water in the cosmos, and the mutual generation of the eight trigrams. Internal references to Lóngqìng jǐsì 隆慶己已 (1569) and Jiājìng rénzǐ 嘉靖壬子 (1552) suggest the notes draw on observations accumulated over decades.
Lù Shùshēng 陸樹聲 (1509–1605), zì Yúzhāng 與章, hào Píngquán 平泉, of Huátíng 華亭 (Sōngjīang, Jiāngsū). He passed the jìnshì examination in Jiājìng 20 (1541) and served as Hanlin academician, Vice Director, and eventually Minister of Rites (Lǐbù shàngshū 禮部尚書), resigning repeatedly due to political pressure before his final retirement. CBDB records him at personid 33843, with dates 1509–1605. He was known as a model of official integrity and moral seriousness, associated with the Tàizhōu school of late-Míng thought. He lived to 96 suì, one of the longest-lived major officials of the Míng.
The Qīngshǔ Bǐtán is a short and relatively minor work; it is not in the Sìkù collection. The Kanripo file (1560 lines) represents the complete text.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature on this specific work located.
- Goodrich, L. C., and Chaoying Fang, eds. Dictionary of Ming Biography. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976. Vol. 1, pp. 970–972 (biography of Lù Shùshēng).
Links
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