On Mourning and Sincerity in the ji and the Shishuo xinyu 63

Chapter 3 On Mourning and Sincerity in the Li ji and the Shishuo xinyu

Jack W. Chen

When we mourn, we are caught within a state of psychological impasse in which we fruitlessly seek to keep alive our dead in memory despite knowing that this is impossible.1 The experience of such grief demands rationalization even when reason is inadequate, and if we cannot make sense of our grief, then we need ways in which it can be structured so that we can find our way back to the ordinary world from memory’s prison. At least this is how Michael J. Puett, in a recent essay, understands the role of mourning ritual, arguing that:

… in the case of the mourning rituals, the goal is not to inculcate a par- ticular view of the ancestors. The goal of the rituals is to break us from our tendency to fall into dangerous patterns at the death of a loved one and to help us channel these dispositions more productively. Out of the disjunction between these two will hopefully come a more refined way of responding to the world.2

Puett argues against the notion that the primary function of ritual is to encode our subjectivity with determinate ways of thinking and acting, to shape us in a way that conforms to prevailing societal belief systems. What he offers instead is a view of ritual that might be thought of as regulatory (both in the sense of normativizing and as managerial practice), allowing us to negotiate experien- tial traumas in an idealized, imaginary space. This is what he calls elsewhere

1 The relationship between mourning and memory is set forth by Sigmund Freud in his essay, “Mourning and Melancholia.” See On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works, vol. 14 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, edited by James Strachey and translated by Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud and with the assistance of Alix Strachey and Alan Tyson (London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1953), 243-58. 2 Puett, “Ritual and Ritual Obligations: Perspectives on Normativity from Classical China,” Journal of Value Inquiry 49 (2015): 549.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004368637_005 64 Chen the world of “as if,” or the subjunctive world.3 In his view, ritual creates a realm in which we act out idealized versions of ourselves, how we should behave, and then releases us back to the ordinary world to reside in this disjunctive experi- ence of being between who we might be and who we are.

The Li ji and the Regulation of Mourning

A major source for Puett’s reading of ritual is the “Tan Gong” 檀弓 chapter of the Li ji 禮記 (Record of ritual).4 Of particular importance is this passage: “Mourning ritual is the utmost [realization] of sorrow and grief; it restrains sor- row by following the changes [of feeling], and it is how the superior person keeps in mind those who bore him” 喪禮，哀戚之至也；節哀，順變也；君 子念始之者也.5 This is not the most transparent statement, and one might ask what is meant by the terms “utmost” (zhi 至), “restrain” (jie 節), “follow” (shun 順), and “change” (bian 變). Puett translates the passage a little differently than I have: “The rites of mourning are the extreme [expression] of grief and sad- ness. In modulating grief, one [learns to] accord with the changes [of life and death]. This is how the refined person remembers from where he came.”6 The key difference is in how one understands the phrase shunbian 順變, which seems to mean “to follow in accord with changes.” The question is, what are the “changes” in question? Puett’s reading points to changes on the scale of a per- son’s entire life, turning the mourning rite into a structure that will shape ap- propriate response to extremities of emotion over the human durée. In the

3 This is elaborated in greater detail in Adam B. Seligman, Robert P. Weller, Michael J. Puett, and Bennett Simon, eds. Ritual and Its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). A similar argument about the function of mourning ritual is made by the Italian anthropologist Ernesto de Martino in his Morte e painto rituale nel mondo antico: dal lamento pagano al pianto di Maria (Torino: Boringhieri, 1975). De Martino’s work is discussed in James S. Amelang, “Mourning Becomes Eclectic: Ritual Lament and the Problem of Continuity,” Past & Present 187 (2005): 3-31. 4 The chapter is titled after an otherwise unknown character named Tan Gong, who is men- tioned in its opening lines. 5 Li ji xunzuan 禮記訓纂, annotated by Bin 朱彬 (1753-1834), edited by Rao Qinnong 饒 欽農 (: Zhonghua shuju, 1996), 4.127. I have consulted both the translations in James Legge, trans., Li Chi: Book of Rites. An Encyclopedia of Ancient Ceremonial Usages, Religious Creeds, and Social Institutions, edited by Ch’u Chai and Winberg Chai, 2 vols. (New York: University Books, 1967), 167; and Li ji jinzhu jinyi 禮記今註今譯, annotated and translated by Wang Meng’ou 王夢鷗, 2nd rev. ed. (: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1984), 162. 6 Puett, “Ritual and Ritual Obligations,” 544.