왕양명의 종교적 경험 연구 - 윌리엄 제임스의 시각을 중심으로 -

Abstract

This paper purports to explore religious experiences of Wang Yang-ming(王陽明: 1472-1528) from the perspective of William James. As a methodological tool to explore ‘religious experience’, this paper will use James’ theory on ‘religious experience’. Through ‘radical empiricism’, James combined experiences with metaphysics, expanding people’s understanding on them. They are no longer a mere psychological object. Generally, experiences are understood as personal ones. However, there must be a certain objectivity if they can be accepted properly to others. James achieved objectivity by defining “experience” as “stream of consciousness”. That is, a personal experience is a temporary case encountered in the ‘stream of consciousness’ and in a broader term, an experience is on an epistemological and metaphysical basis. It mainly explores Instructions for Practical Living which well shows his journey with his followers to find the way of “being a Sage”. In understanding and explaining it, this paper accepts conventional explanation on important themes in his life and philosophy, while focusing on revealing some parts which can get new explanation from the perspective of James. Previous studies believe only mysterious experiences are religious and place them in a confronting position with rationalism. However, this paper investigates how Wang Yang-ming experienced “Heavenly Principle - Reality of the Unseen”, and liangzhi which is embedded in subject and finds out that through spiritual training, he experienced the unity with “Wider-self”, overcoming egocentrism. By explaining liangzhi as subliminal consciousness self suggested by James and with different viewpoint from transcendental, conventional studies, it connects the intrinsic and universal characteristic of liangzhi with religious experiences. A characteristic of religious experiences of Wang Yang-ming is that they always happen in the daily life. To Yang-ming, every spiritual exercise should start from things people experience daily[shishang molian : 事上磨煉]. The exercise bears a life fruit of living a harmonious life in every relation, which is “religious unity experience” and this cultivation well combines emotional elements and intellectual elements. In short, Wang Yang-min was well aware of “human desire - uneasiness” and in order to deal with this matter, he walked on the way to salvation, zhi liangzhi. In that sense, he can be considered a man living ‘religiously in the world.’