The Zou Xin 邹䜣 — Zhu Xi’s Daoist Alias & the Confucian-Daoist Dialogue
Paul PengThe greatest Neo-Confucian philosopher of the Song Dynasty had a Daoist alias. Zou Xin 邹䜣 was the name used by Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) in Daoist contexts — a figure also known by the Daoist title “Daoshi of Kongtong” (空洞道士 — Daoist Priest of the Hollow Grotto). That the man who synthesized Confucian thought into the system that would define Chinese intellectual culture for centuries also engaged seriously enough with Daoism to adopt a Daoist alias is not a contradiction — it is a window into the deep interpenetration of Confucian and Daoist thought in Song intellectual culture, and into the particular quality of Zhu Xi’s mind.
Zhu Xi (1130–1200) was the dominant intellectual figure of the Southern Song period — a philosopher, educator, and commentator whose synthesis of Confucian thought into what became known as Neo-Confucianism (理学, Lǐxué) shaped Chinese intellectual, educational, and political culture from the Song Dynasty through the twentieth century. His commentaries on the Four Books became the standard curriculum for the imperial examination system; his philosophical framework — centered on the concepts of li (理 — principle) and qi (气 — vital energy) — provided the dominant framework for understanding the relationship between the cosmos, society, and the individual.
The name Zou Xin (邹䜣) was Zhu Xi’s chosen Daoist alias — the name he used when engaging with Daoist practitioners and contexts. The character xin (䷏) is an archaic variant with connotations of joy, delight, and willing acceptance — qualities that the Daoist tradition associated with the practitioner who has genuinely aligned themselves with the natural flow of the Dao.
Zhu Xi also held the Daoist title “Daoshi of Kongtong” (空洞道士 — “Daoist Priest of the Hollow Grotto”). The title Kongtong (空洞 — “hollow grotto” or “empty cave”) carries rich Daoist resonance: the cave as a liminal space between the human and celestial realms, and the quality of emptiness (空, kōng) as a fundamental Daoist virtue — the openness and receptivity that allows the Dao to flow through the practitioner without obstruction.
Zhu Xi’s engagement with Daoism — his friendship with Fu Deyi, his adoption of the alias Zou Xin, his Daoist title — reflects a broader pattern in Song intellectual culture: the serious, sustained dialogue between Confucian and Daoist thought that characterized the period’s most significant intellectual figures.
His friendship with Fu Deyi — the Jingming Daoist whose doctrine of loyalty and filial piety overlapped significantly with Zhu Xi’s own Confucian ethics — was not accidental. It was the natural result of two serious thinkers recognizing that, despite their different frameworks, they were engaged with the same fundamental questions about how to live well and what genuine cultivation requires. The Daoist tradition and the Confucian tradition, at their best, have always found more to discuss than to dispute.
