Confucius: China's great sage
Confucius 孔子 [23 Aug 551 BCE - 479 BCE]
Statue of Confucius at Qufu, Shandong
No guide to China would be complete without a fulsome mention of Confucius. He lived in the Warring States period of the Zhou dynasty. Every town used to have a temple with red walls dedicated to Confucius 孔庙 kǒng miào or 文庙 wén miào.
Born at Qufu in Shandong Province he traveled widely among the kingdoms offering advice to rulers who all refused his help but gathered a dedicated band of disciples. It was his followers who had more impact, some took up appointments and promulgated his views on wise governance. Confucianism is not a religion in the same sense that Islam and Christianity are; but Confucius is revered far more than just an ordinary philosopher such as Socrates ➚. This reverence is due in part to the fact that he managed to live up to his own strict principles.
His name in Chinese is 孔子 kǒng zǐ or 孔夫子 kǒng fū zǐ meaning “Master Kong”. As with many Chinese names the English version Confucius has evolved from the Wade-Giles system of writing his name phonetically with English sounds. Kong is the family name and his descendents (now at the 83rd generation) still live at his home town of Qufu and claim the longest documented family tree in the world. Every year his birthday on 23rd August is honored as a minor national festival throughout China and beyond.
Confucius was a teacher of the right way for a society to function. In his view human nature is naturally virtuous but needs careful control. His analogy was to the flow of water, water naturally flows down (the way of virtue) but circumstances can sometimes force it to flow up, as in the splashing at the base of a waterfall (a turn to the bad). He had no belief in an after-life or divine intervention, concentrating entirely on giving direction to the living. He is understood to have been a rather austere, inflexible and crusty man. His doctrine is grounded in the lives of men on earth and is not shrouded in superstitions. For many hundreds of years a student wishing to become a government official needed to know the Confucian classics by heart. These examinations began as early as the Han dynasty (over two thousand years ago). Confucianism was the guiding doctrine throughout many dynasties and is still very important today. In the last ten years Confucius Institutes ➚ have sprung up all over the world; even the structure of the Chinese Communist Party is based upon Confucian principles.
Benevolence and Empathy
Confucius identified the roles and responsibilities of everyone in society so that they can live together in harmony. The strict relationships included the ones between ruler to those ruled but just as importantly between father and son; husband and wife. He looked back from the turbulent times of the Warring States to the early years of the Zhou rule, which he considered a ‘Golden Age’ of peace and harmony. Broadly speaking Confucian doctrine defines the boundaries for relationships. When relationships are properly acknowledged people can live in harmony. Respect for parents (filial piety) is of the utmost importance, even after their death. One of the early fervent followers Lao Laizi ➚ went so far as behaving as a child in front of his parents - playing with toys - to keep them happy and feeling young even at the age of seventy. In essence he advocated taking account of the wishes of others rather than just yourself, always choosing benevolent behavior and the most harmonious path. The guiding principles are 仁 rén benevolence and 恕 shù empathy. He placed great emphasis on following proper procedure and the due ceremony (rites) 礼 lǐ. Later dynasties had senior officials whose sole purpose was to ensure the proper rites were maintained at all costs. Over time over 300 ceremonies and 3,000 rules of behavior were codified. The use of the kowtow to physically demonstrate due reverence was an important acknowledgment of hierarchical relationships. In particular he saw that rulers must be seen to lead a virtuous life if they were to retain the support of their subjects. This is a different perspective to that of Buddhism or Daoism where a more self-centered approach is taken. Support for the Confucian doctrine was always strong in the scholarly aristocratic circles rather than ordinary working people. From the Ming dynasty onwards the overly doctrinaire and rigid interpretation of his teachings is widely regarded as preventing reform and progress. There have been periods when Confucian doctrine was rejected; these occurred in the Tang dynasty when Buddhism was dominant; the Taiping Rebellion and Mao's period as leader of the PRC. The Communist wish for continuous revolution and reform is at odds with a fixed hierarchy of relationships.
Confucius's teachings were only taken up widely in the Han dynasty long after his death. It was the work of his followers Mencius [372 - 289 BCE)] and Xunzi [313 - 238 BCE)] that cemented his reputation. Much later on in the Song dynasty, a new rigor was brought to the philosophy by Zhu Xi ➚, founder of the neo-Confucian school. Confucius is believed to have written the classic Spring and Autumn Annals ➚ as well as the mainstay of Chinese study for centuries the Four Books and the Five Classics ➚. His philosophical views are gathered into the ‘Analects ➚’ an assortment of sayings collected hundreds of years later. Typical sayings ➚ include: ‘In serving one’s master one should be focused on the task, not on the payment for carrying it out’ (Book 15.37); ‘To expect much from yourself and little from others is the way to cure discontent’ (Book 15.14); ‘Slow to anger; resolute; rooted and loathe to speak - such a person is close to Goodness’ (Book 8.27); and ‘When out walking with friends I am certain of learning from them. There are good qualities I will aim to emulate and bad ones I will seek to suppress in myself.’ (Book 7.21);‘People who study but do not think are lost. People who think but not study are a great danger.’ (Book 2.15)
Other important works include the ‘Great Learning’ Daxue ➚ and the ‘Doctrine of the Mean ➚’ Zhongyong ➚. In the doctrine of the mean the path to follow is always somewhere between extremes - often nowadays termed the 'third way'. Confucian thought has been subject to revision, during the Ming dynasty, scholars such as Wang Yangming ➚ updated and broadened the philosophy . The Neo-Confucian movement of the Song dynasty reinvigorated the philosophy. It broadened the coverage away from just ethics to metaphysics and cosmology so that Confucian scholars could supply answers to questions that only Daoist and Buddhists had previously been able to answer. Zhu Xi (1130-1200) and the Cheng brothers were the leading proponents of the new school of thought that used the concepts of 礼 lǐ and 气 qi to explain the workings of the world. It can be thought of an a new synthesis of Daoist, Buddhist and Confucian thought. Confucian writings have poignancy today just as they did over 2,500 years ago.