Ming society from the late sixteenth to the mid seventeenth century was a society in the grips of profound economic, social and political changes. It is always easy to look back on a period, view the big picture and label it as a period of upheaval. But records left show that even contemporaries recognised the ferment they were living through. With such all-encompassing and intense changes, it was perhaps inevitable that the tradition of morals, …showed first 75 words of 2033 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2033 total…of insecurity and disorientation as the people of the Ming must have felt. Today, psychology-babbling gurus have cashed in. In the 16th and 17th century, the neo-confucians cashed in. Seeing a people in need of guidance, they picked out those elements of their teachings which would be comprehensible and relevant and expanded them into a new ideology to suit the times. Neo-confucianism in the late Ming was less a faith than a secular counselling service.