Hallo! This is Prof. Bin Song at Washington College. To continue the previous topic, in this unit 4 of the course Ru and Confucianism, we will discuss another legendary sage-king at the beginning of the Ru tradition, Shun, who stepped onto the throne because of Yao’s abdication.

Yao accepted Shun’s candidacy to become the next King, because the assembly of representatives recommended Shun’s virtue of filiality (孝, xiao), and its another translation is “filial piety”. Because the virtue of filiality takes such a central role to the Ru ethic, we would focus upon this topic when discussing Shun. The above recommendation says that:

“Shun is the son of a blind man. His father was obstinately unprincipled; his (step-)mother was dishonest; his (half-)brother Xiang was arrogant. He has been able, however, by his virtue of filiality to live in harmony with them, and to lead them gradually to self-discipline, so that they no longer proceed to great wickedness. ” (Canon of Yao, translation adapted from James Legge)

But why can Shun finally transform his wicked family? The Classic of Documents continues to tell us that:

“In the early time of the King (Shun), when he was living by mount Li, he went into the fields, and daily cried with tears to the compassionate Heaven. To his parents, he took to himself all guilt, and charged himself with their wickedness. (At the same time,) with services to deliver, he appeared respectful before his father Gu-Sou, looking grave and awe-struck, till Gu also became transformed by his example. (This is how) entire sincerity moves the spirits!” (Counsel of the Great Yu, translation adapted from James Legge)

Ru classics added some details to Shun’s filial deeds. For instance, the Record of the Grand Historian by Si Maqian tells us that Shun’s family were once so wicked as to plot to kill him for multiple times, but Shun succeeded to foresee and flee all these plots in extremely smart ways; however, when Shun’s family’s unjust punishments to Shun were not that severe, Shun would simply bear them (《史记 五帝本纪》). Mencius also told us that when Shun cried with tears to the compassionate Heaven, he appeared to “resent” (怨) his parents because he always “admired and loved” (慕) them. However, Shun would not follow every order of his parents. A notable instance is that Shun did not ask for his parents’ approval when deciding to get married. This is because if he did so, he would fail to marry anybody, and if stripped of the possibility of continuing the family’s lineage, he would have been more unfilial. (Mencius 5A)

Given the first, also the greatest example of filiality in such a disintegrated and dysfunctional family, the later Ru tradition is sharply alert to the possible existence of evil and wickedness of one’s parents. Overall, the principle to respond to the wrong-doings of one’s parents is described as “remonstration” by the Classic of Filiality, a book written around the 3nd century B.C.E under the influence of Confucius’s thought. It says:

“The father who had a son that would remonstrate with him would not sink into the gulf of unrighteous deeds. Therefore when a case of unrighteous conduct is concerned, a son must by no means keep from remonstrating with his father, nor a minister from remonstrating with his ruler. Hence, since remonstration is required in the case of unrighteous conduct, how can (simple) obedience to the orders of a father be accounted as filial?” (Translation adapted from James Legge)

In a more concrete term, Confucius explained the method of remonstration with one’s parents in the Analects 4:18 in this way:

The Master said, “In serving your parents, remonstrate with them gently. After showing your aspiration, though they do not comply, remain reverent but do not abandon your purpose. Though weary, hold no resentment.”

And Confucius’s method is elaborated in the Classic of Rites as such:

If a parent has a fault, (the son) should with bated breath, bland aspect and gentle voice, remonstrate with him. If the remonstration does not take effect, he will be the more reverential and the more filial; and when the father seems pleased, he will repeat the remonstration. If he should be displeased with this, rather than allowing him to commit an offence against anyone in the neighborhood or countryside, (the son) should strongly remonstrate. If the parent be angry and (more) displeased, and beat him till the blood flows, he should not presume to be angry and resentful, but be (still) more reverential and more filial. (Nei Ze, translation adapted from James Legge)

Good, with all these original materials in hand, how do we make sense all of these? Why can Shun continually love his parents even if they were extremely wicked? In particular, why did Shun’s filial love towards his parents not turn into a simple and blind obedience? Instead, Shun’s ultimate purpose was to turn his family to be good humans who know right or wrong, and thus, can discipline themselves.

After reading Shun’s filial story, although some scenarios of it seem extremely problematic from today’s perspective such as Shun’s family’s murderous plots, we are still left with a questioning mind to try to make sense of it at least from its own perspective. In human history, puzzling stories such as Socrates’s suicide and Jesus’s crucifixion all defy against normal human understanding. But once understood, they all have left an indelible mark upon a certain type of human spirituality. Since Shun was taken as the greatest example of filiality by the Ru tradition, it is not a lesser deal for us to try to comprehend it.

In order to sympathize with Shun’s filial story, we need to understand the motivation, method, and consequence of his filial deed.

So, what motivated Shun to keep filial even in face of wicked and abusive parents and brother? Mencius says that love towards one’s parents belongs to humans’ inborn disposition of “conscientious knowing” (良知) and “conscientious ability.” (良能) He also likened it to the spontaneously arising feeling of empathy and alarm towards a baby about to fall into a well. In the further development of Ruist metaphysics starting from Mencius, running through the Classic of Change, and all the way down to Neo-Confucianism, this moral sprout of conscientious knowing is seen as the manifestation of the virtue of humaneness leading to a universal love towards all beings in the universe. And this definitive virtue of human beings is furthermore connected to the power of daily renewal of the entire cosmos called “birth birth” or “constant creativity.” Seen from this metaphysical-ethical framework, why did Shun still love his parents even if they are wicked towards him?

Firstly, this is because Shun just cannot help doing so. That Shun had such a sensitive inner moral compass and grew up to hold on to it speaks to the fact that his adult life derived from a not too abusive childhood, and since he maintained to be a full-shaped human, he naturally had this constant feeling of love, admiration and concern towards his parents, particularly towards his father. In other words, this is a strong, natural feeling irreducible from the nature of Shun’s humanity, and as such, Shun must learn how to live with it, rather than suppressing or overlooking it to its oblivion, which is impossible.

Secondly, extraordinary human deeds are normally grounded upon a firm commitment to something beyond and larger than their nearby world. When describing Shun’s sincerity, the Classic of Documents says: “his mysterious excellence was resonated on high” (Canon of Shun) and this spoke to Shun’s faith. Using the language prevalent in the aforementioned Ruist metaphysical ethics, we can say what deeply motivated Shun is his unitary experience with the ever creating heaven and earth while being committed to fulfilling his human potential to continually humanize himself and the people surrounding him. In this sense, there is a faith in the depth of Shun’s heart towards the goodness of human nature as the goodness is entailed by the continual creating and life-affirming power of the cosmos. As discussed about the meaning of Ru in Unit 1, the ultimate mission of a Ru’s life is to manifest the cosmic creativity in the human world in a uniquely humane way, and the sustainability of human civilization becomes therefore one most wanted goal of this manifestation. For such a sustainability, the perfecting of parental relationship is definitely a precondition. If children lost trust towards their parents, or if parents lost trust towards their children, what else can we expect to exist in human civilization, let alone to sustain and thrive it? Therefore, the second answer to the question just asked is that, Shun had to love his parents in this way since this constitutes what is ultimately meaningful, purposeful and powerful for him.

However, how Shun remonstrated with his parents was highly consistent with the method described by later Ruist Classics that we have quoted, that is, Shun never abandoned his purpose of remonstration until he successfully transformed his parents. However, one notable distinction here is that given the extreme wickedness of his parents, it is conceivable that Shun’s remonstration did not take many verbal forms. Instead, he mainly remonstrated via his deeds, and influenced through his examples. For instance, he fled his parents’ murderous plots in order not to make them commit unrighteous conducts and serious crimes. He went to the fields to cry his resentment to the Heaven, with a consequence that people could hear it, and thus, circulated the message back to his parents. Shun also got married against his parents’ will, and respectfully did his duties and services before the eyes of his father. All of these gave us an idea about how Shun was persistent to do the right thing, and try to correct his parents’ wrong-doing, while showing deep love and respect to them.

There are undoubtedly great consequences of Shun’ filial deeds to later reflections upon family relationship in the Ru tradition.

Firstly, this unswerving faith towards the goodness of human nature is mostly supported by Ru scholars within the realm of family relationship. The relationship between Ruler and ministers is instead thought of as being much more fragile because if the rulers do not listen to remonstration, a Ru would think there is no obligation to continually indicate the loyalty towards them. In extreme cases, as argued by Mencius, it is even legitimate to overthrow a ruthless dictator.

Secondly, to love parents regardless of their wicked intention, to persist in rectifying parents’ wrong doing because of one’s indestructible love towards them, and more importantly, to abide by what is right to manifest humaneness in even broken family relationships, all of these constitute unique traits of the Ruist understanding of the virtue of filiality. To be genuinely filial, one needs to cultivate the virtue of “piety” towards the continually creating power of the cosmos, the virtue of “faithfulness” towards the intrinsic goodness and transformability of human nature, and the virtue of “independent thought” in the sense of abiding by the right principles in spite of parents’ wrong-doing and bad influences. It is indeed not an easy process; however, it speaks a lot to the feature of Ru spirituality.

And finally, seen from the perspective of self-cultivation, it is indeed very desirable not to give up one’s intention to rectify the wrong-doings of one’s family. However, seen from the perspective of social government, it cannot be denied that the wickedness of some human beings is very hard, if not impossible, to be transformed. Therefore, morally, Shun’s story encourages people to treat their family as such in a similar situation; however, a legal system of law and punishment should also be established so that these wrong-doings would not bring unbearable harms. This is the reason why although Confucius thought governance through ritual and moral impact is preferred, governance by law and punishment cannot be repealed either (Analects 2.3).

Seen from today’s perspective, any murderous intention and any bodily abuse by a wicked parent to their children, simply should not be tolerated in any sense. They should be immediately reported, and we should find all legal methods to stop them. However, if we elevate Shun’s filial story out of these ancient contexts, and look at its timeless kernel, we will find it implies one principle of human life that applies even today, that is, for any human relationship to go normal and well, a moral sense of right or wrong must always accompany the feeling of love and care, vice versa, and accordingly, the independent thought of individuals must never be abandoned.

Recommended Further Reading:

The Classic of Filial Piety
Michale Ing, “Born of Resentment: Yuan 怨 in Early Confucian Thought.” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 15.1 (March 2016): 19-33.
Keith Knapp, Selfless Offspring: Filial Children and Social Order in Medieval China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005.

Quiz:

1, What is special about Shun’s family?

A, His mother dies early, his father is obstinately unprincipled
B, His father, step-mother, and step-brother were extremely wicked and cruel towards him

2, When parents did something wrong, the Ru tradition’s instruction to their children is:

A, simple obedience.
B, crying while doing nothing.
C, persistent remonstration until success.

3, Which of the following Ru classics talks of the virtue of filiality?

A, The Classic of Filial Piety
B, The Classic of Documents
C, The Analects
D, The Classic of Rites

4, Love towards one’s parents belongs to humans’ inborn disposition called “Conscientious knowing” or “Conscientious ability.” Which philosopher has this view?

A, Confucius
B, Mencius
C, Xunzi

5, What is the ultimate mission of a Ru?

A, performing ritual
B, pursuing education
C, being a governmental official
D, manifesting humaneness to continue the constantly creativity of the cosmos in the human world.

6, If rulers do not listen to the remonstration of ministers for multiple times, what should these ministers do according to Ruism?

A, continue to be loyal and continue to remonstrate
B, no need of loyalty towards the rulers (which may mean leaving the government or the state)
C, in extreme cases, help to overthrow the rulers.

7, within a couple of sentences, please explain why Shun is thought of as the most filial son in the Ru tradition.

8, What’s your understanding of Shun’s story? Do you have any critical thought on it?

Hallo, this is Prof. Bin Song at Washington College. This unit of the course “Ru and Confucianism” will help you understand when is the beginning of Confucianism, or should we say, the beginning of the Ru tradition, and what the earliest democratic political institution in ancient Chinese civilization looks like.

It is an extraordinary task for Ru scholars to talk about the beginning of the tradition. This is because the beginning, as it is described by Ru classics such as the Classic of Documents and discussed by Confucius in the Analects, expresses the ideal of the Ru way of life, and therefore, is more a concept of morality and politics, rather than one of time and history. As one of my favorite ancient Chinese poets, Du Fu (712-770 C.E), mused: the purpose of his poetry-writing is “to help the emperors to become as magnificent as Yao and Shun, and to turn people’s morals and customs back to be that simple and amiable.” (致君堯舜上, 再使風俗淳)

As also indicated by Du Fu’s verse, the beginning of the Ru tradition starts from the stories of rulership by the sage-kings, Yao and Shun. The times when these kings lived were respectively called Tang and Yu, and according to the best archeological evidences we can estimate today, we are talking about almost two thousand years before the life of Confucius (551-479 B.C.E).

To consider the time of Yao and Shun as the beginning of the Ru tradition does not mean that there is no notable leader prior to Yao and Shun. Instead, if you read histories such as Si Maqian’s “The Record of the Grand Historian,” you will find an even older lineage of legendary kings in ancient China, such as King Yan, King Huang, and the King of Fu Xi. However, please remember, Confucius himself is also a historian. Among the six classics he compiled to teach his students, there are one grand history and another local history. The grand history is titled as the Classic of Documents (尚書), and it is opened with the chapters about Yao and Shun.

So, why did Confucius decide to put Yao and Shun at the beginning of the history which matters greatly to the Ru tradition? From Confucius’s discussion on related topics in the Analects, we find two reasons: firstly, the factuality of anything beyond the time of Yao and Shun passed down to Confucius’s purview was hardly to confirm (Analects 3.0). Secondly, which is more important, the personalities and rulership of Yao and Shun represented an ideal of the Ru way of life so that later Ruists can take this ideal as a supreme guidance to evaluate, live through, and contribute to varying regimes, societies and times (Analects 8.19, 15.5). In this sense, the stories of Yao and Shun, together with the one of Duke of Zhou whom we will focus on later, are major resources of Confucius’s thought, and should be studied carefully by students interested in the Ru tradition today.

Understood in this way, the crucial lesson we need to learn about the stories of Yao and Shun is: what kind of ideal of Ruism did they represent? To answer this question, we will focus upon Yao in this episode, and Shun in next one.

Do you still remember the text we once read about the Great Learning? It lays out a very concrete program of self-cultivation and social engagement for a Ru learner, starting from cultivating inner excellences, proceeding through loving and renewing the people, and aiming finally at abiding in the highest good, which is elaborated as peace and harmony throughout the world. Now, let’s read the opening paragraph of the Classic of Documents, and see how extraordinarily these two texts are related:

“Yao was reverential, intelligent, cultured, and thoughtful – naturally and without effort. He was sincerely courteous, and capable of all deference. The bright (influence of these qualities) was felt through the four quarters (of the land), and reached to (heaven) above and (earth) beneath. He made the able and virtuous distinguished, and thence proceeded to the love of (all in) the nine classes of his kindred, who (thus) became harmonious. He (also) regulated and polished the people (of his domain), who all became brightly enlightened. (Finally), he united and harmonized the myriad states; and so the black-haired people were transformed. The result was (universal) concord.” (Adapted from translation of James Legge)

In other words, Yao started to cultivate himself with all needed qualities to live a self-content personal life, and to govern a country well. Then, he was dedicated to aligning his extensive family; finally, he influenced the people beyond his family, and succeeded to unite a myriad of states under the heaven! Because he did this so well, he looked “natural and without effort” while achieving all of these! This effortless achievement was described by later Ruists as embodying the virtue of “non-action” (wu-wei), a sign of the highest moral achievement of a Ruist sage.

If you continue to read these opening chapters of the Classic of Documents, you will find details of Yao’s policies by which he could achieve this effortless good governance. For instances, he appointed able and virtuous talents to varying governmental posts, and set reasonable rules for the promotion of these governmental officials; he cherished the value of education, and established offices to take charge of educating the people, particularly about how to better human relationships within families; he also governed the country primarily through the moral impacts generated by virtuous leadership, elegant music and rites, while secondarily through establishing laws and punishments.

However, although these ways of governance by Yao all represent the Ru ideal to a certain degree, none of them can surpass the influence of the institution called “abdication,” (禪讓) which is about how to transition the supreme political power to the next King.

According to the Classic of Documents, when Yao turned into old, he summoned an assembly of regional leaders to decide how to transition his power to next king. Firstly, these leaders recommend the son of Yao, but Yao denied it because he thought his son was not good enough to be a candidate. Then, all these leaders recommended Gun, a regional leader in an aristocratic family; although Yao did not quite agree with this either, he finally yielded to the majority opinion of the assembly. However, after nine years of probation, Gun failed to prove that he was an ideal candidate mainly because he did not stop the big flood in those years. Then, Yao had to summon the assembly again, and said it can recommend a bright man even if this entails “ to raise a person who is poor and lives remotely.” (明明揚側陋). Eventually, the assembly recommended Shun, who was a very poor man in the lowest class but became well-known because of his filial conduct within his family. Then, Yao accepted this candidate and started another long period of probation until Shun’s final appointment.

As constructed by contemporary scholars, the procedure of this institution of abdication possibly consists of six steps.

First, leaders from different regions of a country will form an assembly of representatives;
Second, the assembly, together with the incumbent king, will nominate multiple candidates for the future king;
Third, the nominated candidates have a chance to answer raised questions for entering the next step;
Fourth, after the Q&A test, the assembly and the king will decide collectively through a majority vote who will be appointed to different levels and posts of government for a long “probation” period of three to thirteen years per cases we know;
Fifth, at the end of this probation period, the incumbent king will decide whether to accept the candidate as the head of the government;
Sixth, if approved by the king, the candidate will be the head of the government, and when the incumbent king passes away, the head of the government will become the new king. During the tenure of the head of government, the king-elect does not have the power to appoint new officials until the incumbent king passes away.

Given these six steps of abdication, anyone familiar with the imperial history of ancient China will find how distinguishing it is. The later Chinese history is one of dynasty after dynasty, and each dynasty is ruled by a royal family with its distinctive surname. These royal families either overthrew the previous dynasty or unified a disintegrated country through sword and blood. Within a given dynasty, the transition of supreme political power from one emperor to another is largely following the rule of the inheritance by the eldest son, but not without cruel and violent political struggles for it.

In contrast, the institution of abdication prevalent in the time of Yao and Shun succeeded in transitioning power with peace, and the balancing power from the assembly of regional leaders also gives us a glimpse into how the idea of “democracy” is not entirely alien to the minds in the earliest stage of Chinese civilization. More importantly, the willingness of Yao to yield his power to a poor commoner with an entirely different family name from him speaks to one most important Ruist principle of ideal politics: that is “to respect worthies” (尊賢), which means to guarantee that the most able and virtuous people can be appointed to the governmental positions fit for their talents. In the later development of Ruist political philosophy, this “human” element was also thought of as the most important one for good governance within a fixed political institution.

Unfortunately, this earliest democratic institution of abdication does not last long. As you may have noticed, the supreme leader, the king, still held a mighty power in the system, so if his power grows out of balance, it will be easy for him to pass on the power to his son, and thus, end this institution once for all. This was exactly what happened to the successor of Shun, namely, Yu, who passed on his throne to his son, who established a new dynasty called Xia. And starting from Xia, Chinese history waved farewell to the ideal politics of Yao and Shun, and became one of dynastic politics dominated by competing royal families. In this later type of imperial politics, the best Ruist scholars can aspire for is, as Du Fu’s poetry indicated, to help their emperor to return to be like Yao and Shun, but these scholars would never be able to dream to be the emperor themselves. Because of this, the original Ruist principle of “respecting worthies” central to the earliest democratic ideal is also dramatically undermined.

In a contemporary perspective, the most effective political regime we know so far which can achieve peaceful transition of political power is the western type of liberal democracy. However, the reason why liberal democracy can achieve this is based upon multiple institutions supporting its key ideal of government for the people, which include the universal suffrage, the competition among multiple parties, the check-balance among governmental branches, etc. In comparison, the most original form of democracy in ancient Chinese civilization, the abdication, still predominantly relied upon the personal choice of the supreme leader, and although it contained some democratic element, its institution was still very premature regarding its lack of those corresponding supporting systems in contemporary liberal democracy. However, even so, the central idea of “respecting worthies” based upon a system of meritocracy and power balance still sheds a great light upon even those contemporary practices of liberal democracy. Today, what Ruist scholars are particularly concerned is how to incorporate this uniquely Ruist meritocratic and democratic political philosophy into the contemporary practices of liberal democracy so as to perfect it and make it more fit for facing the challenges of human society today. In this regard, I hope the study of the most original democratic idea at the beginning of the Ruist history will bring much inspiration.

References:

Book of Yu 虞書, translated by James Legge.
朱小丰, “论禅让制度”, 《社会科学研究》2003年第3期, pp.125-150.

Further Recommended Reading:

Sungmoon Kim, “Confucian Constitutionalism: Mencius and Xunzi on Virtue, Ritual, and Royal Transmission,” The Review of Politics, Vol. 73, No.3 (Summer 2011), pp. 371-399.

Quiz:

(1) To find the beginning of the Ru tradition, which classic should we read?

A, The Classic of Documents
B, The Classic of Rites
C, The Record of Grand Historian
D, The Classic of Change

(2) “To help the emperors to become as magnificent as Yao and Shun, and to turn people’s morals and customs back to be that simple and amiable.” Who wrote this poem?

A, Du Fu
B, Confucius
C, Han Yu

(3) The Ruist idea of “non-action” (無為, wuwei) means:

A, One did something so well that the performance even looks effortless.
B, Doing nothing at all and then, following the flow of nature.

(4) By what policies did Yao achieve effortless good governance?

A, Appointing right people for the right position.
B, Enlightening people about what to do themselves through education
C, Creating good music and rites so that people enjoy performing them while transforming themselves.
D, Leading people through one’s moral impact.

(4) What is the relationship between Yao and Shun?

A, Shun is the son of Yao.
B, Shun had no blood relationship with Yao, but was recommended to succeed Yao’s kingship.
C, Shun overthrew Yao’s kingship in a battle.

(5) Which is the central idea of Ruist political philosophy?

A, To respect worthies
B, To love one’s father
C, To vote for leaders.

(6) What strikes you about the procedure of abdication (禪讓) through which Yao transitions his power to Shun?

(7) Do you agree with every aspect of the contemporary institution of liberal democracy? How can you improve it inspired by what you learn about the the beginning of Confucianism?

Hallo, this is Prof. Bin Song at Washington College. This episode is to let you know what to read first when learning Confucianism, or as I explained in the first episode, what to read first when learning the Ru tradition.

In general, the Ru tradition emphasizes practice more than theory, doing more than saying. However, for beginning learners, one most frequent question we can expect is still: what should I read first? After all, without ideas to guide, we can barely practice anything.

To answer this question, normally, many people will go to the book called the Analects (in Chinese, 論語), which is a book to have compiled sayings of Confucius and conversations between Confucius and his students, as their first pick. They may think since “Confucianism” is called “Confucianism,” and since there is one book all about Confucius’s original sayings, the Analects is naturally the first choice.

I would not recommend you to do so mainly because of two reasons:

Firstly, the Analects is like a book of collected notes among Confucius’s students to help themselves to continue the enterprise of social and political activisms that the school of Confucius originally aimed for. Since this is a notebook, without understanding the overall nature of that enterprise, it is very easy for beginning learners of Ruism to get lost among the so many detailed and minute discussions recorded there. This is also perhaps the reason why among beginning learners of ancient Chinese philosophy, Laozi’s Dao De Jing turns out to be more popular. When you open the Dao De Jing, and read its first verse “the Dao that can be said is not the genuine Dao,” you will say wow! And each chapter of the Dao De Jing reads like a philosophical treatise, very thematized and organized. However, when you open the Analects, it says “The Master says: Learn and timely apply what you have learned, is it not a joy?”; Ok, it feels warm, wise, a little bit breezy, but definitely not quite a wow. If you continue to read, you will find Confucius and his students are talking about so many concrete issues of human life in general and their society in particular, which include how to treat family, how to learn, how to govern, how to do one’s business and duty, how to speak, how to listen to music, etc. As I said, without a pre-understanding of the overall nature of Confucius’s school and his pedagogy, we will easily get lost when we read his students’ notes. If you give up the book and your interest of the Ru tradition right away because of this, believe me, this will be one of the most misguided decisions you made in your life.

Secondly, if the Analects is the notebook compiled by his students, what textbooks did Confucius use to teach his students? They are supposedly more, or at least equally important than the notebook, right? These textbooks were of six kinds, and they were pre-Confucian ancient classics compiled by Confucius to teach his students: the Odes (poetry), the Documents (ancient history), the Rites (think about the meaning of Ru we explained before), the Music (which we cannot find today since it is said to have been lost during later dynastic changes), the Change (the famous divination book), and the Spring and Autumn (the history of Confucius’s home state). In other words, after Confucius passed away, the Analects would be a notebook to guide new generations of Ru learners to study those ancient Classics. This situation makes the first pick of the Analects by interested beginning learners even more problematic, because without understanding the overall purpose of Confucius’ pedagogy, and the nature of the Ru community he helped to incubate, we really do not understand what is at stake in that would-be first pick.

Fortunately, Ruist leaders have faced a similar issue to tackle in history, since they also need to introduce the Ru tradition to beginning learners. And their response starting from the ninth century in the common era is to read a book with a much smaller size than the Analects, which is titled as Great Learning 大學. The text of Great Learning was originally one chapter in the Classic of Rites, and as instructed by those Ruist leaders, the first opening section includes the words said by Confucius, and it later parts are about the commentary written by Confucius’s student, Zeng Zi, on Confucius’s words. This arrangement of the text is also very typical to many Ru writings: the first part is called “Classic” 經, and the second part is called “Commentary” 傳. I attach my own translation of the Classic part of the Great Learning here, together with my interpolated annotation. If you are a student in the course of “Ru and Confucianism,” I would require you to read carefully every word on this chart. Here, I will mainly read the translation part.

So, now, you understand why this text was chosen by those Ruist leaders as the entry text to the Ru tradition, right? In this text, the Ruist enterprise of self-cultivation and social activism is programmed as concretely as three phases in the first paragraph, eight steps in the third, and with a method of daily meditation or self-contemplation described in the second paragraph. With such a concrete structure of learning and its explicitly stated ultimate goal, everything to learn down the road will be nicely fitted into a mindset, and therefore, beginning learners will get a greater sense of orientation regarding their overall understanding of the Ru tradition.

As for the interpretations of this text, at the first glimpse, particularly when you read my annotation in the chart, the text seems pretty much self-explanatory. However, I would like to warn you beforehand that the text also turns out to be among the most debated texts in the intellectual history of Ruism. Each mentioned term, such as “attain the knowledge,” “the investigation of things,” “feeling content,” and so on, undergoes an unusually intensive scrutiny and debate among Ru thinkers in history. Without any exaggeration, I will say the entire history of the so-called Neo-Confucianism, which lasted from 9th to 19th century across different East Asian countries, is one history of debate on the terms of the classical part of the Great Learning. In particular, two major competing lineages of learning in Neo-Confucianism, the school of principle and the school of heartmind, derive from their different understandings, and their accordingly different practical methods of social activism surrounding the key term “knowledge” mentioned in the third paragraph of the Great Learning. This phenomenon is also not surprising because since the Great Learning is the first text one needs to read when starting to learn the Ru tradition, everything they learn later will be constantly referred back to this foundational text, and therefore, people would intensively debate each other depending upon their overall experience of Ru learning and human living.

Nevertheless, as the instructor of this course, I have my own understanding of the text. In the following, I will stress several points of my understanding beyond what I have said in the annotation. This will give you an initial guidance for your further learning of the Ru tradition, but in the long run, given your understanding of the tradition gets more mature, I do hope you can have your own understanding of the text, and are able to apply your understanding to the benefits of your life.

Firstly, the position of “individual” in this Ruist pedagogy is very special. If the understandings of human self in world philosophies and religions are put in a spectrum, Buddhism will lie at the far left since it thinks humans essentially have no self whatsoever. Whereas, Thomas Hobbes’ idea of “everyone is the enemy against everyone” in the pre-societal state of nature will lie at the far right because human selves are thought of as irreducible atoms with their counteracting forces pitted against each other. However, as indicated by the Great Learning, the Ru understanding of self will lie rightly in the middle. The program of great learning starts from the strengthening of human self, namely, the manifestation of excellences in each individual in the three-phase paragraph, and the cultivation of one’s personal life in the eight-step paragraph. But these individual self-strengthenings are all envisioned as serving broader social and political goals such as loving people, aligning one’s family and bringing order to the state. In other words, according to the Ruist conception in the Great Learning, individuals thrive their lives in human networks and relationships, and the flourishing human networks also depend upon how strongly and thoroughly the individual proceeds in their self-cultivation. A sort of mutual harmony between community and individuals registers here.

Secondly, the meditative method described by the second paragraph is also very special. Terms such as “feels settled,” “become tranquil,” and “become content” are beautiful to describe the deep meditative experience of a Ru learner. However, the meditative practice is seamlessly embedded in a program of social activism that unabashedly affirms the value of this-worldly daily human life and social activism. I once described this type of meditation as “meditation in motion,” and made a whole serious of youtube videos to explain how we can practice this in the contemporary world. In my view, this type of meditation is very fit for modern professionals, and we will spend quite a time in this course to discuss and practice this type of meditation.

Thirdly, as discussed in unit 1 of this course, I once emphasized that the Ru tradition is extraordinarily broad and deep, since Ru care about everything in the civilization. It is philosophy, religion, and a way of living all at once, while not being constrained by any of these. Now, after reading the Great Learning, I hope you understand more why I said so. If looked at more closely, we find the “peace throughout the world” is a very sublime and transcendent goal pertaining to one’s position in the entire cosmos, and underneath it, “bringing order to one’s state” is about politics, “aligning one’s family” is about society, and “cultivating one’s personal life” through working on one’s heartmind, intention, and knowledge is about individuals. Understood in this way, the division of human knowledge prevalent in modern universities and colleges does not quite hold on to this holistic thinking of Ruism. That’s because none of this dimension of human flourishing can be realized without the other. Therefore, if one intends to pursue education and self-cultivation according to this Ruist program, one really needs to broadly learn, broadly communicate, and solidly build their own business in a robust human network on the basis of constantly bettering and strengthening themselves. I would say this Ruist pedagogy envisioned by Confucius embodies the spirit of liberal arts par excellence. It intends to continually liberate human individuals through flourishing human civilization, and vice versa. Because of this, I also think the text of Great Learning is worth reading by every student of liberal arts, and this is also another reason why we read it right here, right now.

Recommended Further Reading:

Daniel K. Gardner, The Four Books: The Basic Teachings of the Later Confucian Tradition (Hackett Publishing Company: 2007)

Andrew Plaks, Ta Hsueh and Chung Yung (The Highest Order of Cultivation and on the Practice of the Mean) (Penguin Books, 2003).

Quiz:

(1) What are the six classics used by Confucius to teach his students:

A, Odes
B, Documents
C, Rites
D, Music
E, Change
F, Spring and Autumn
G, Analects

(2) Who is the author of the Great Learning?

A, Confucius
B, Zeng Zi
C, Laozi

(3) There are two main lineages of thought in Neo-Confucianism. What are they?

A, the school of principle
B, the school of heartmind
C, the school of vital-energies

(4) Which philosopher thinks “everyone is the enemy against everyone” in a state of nature?

A, Confucius
B, Buddha
C, Thomas Hobbes

(5) After reading the Great Learning, how do you envision your education now?

(6) Do you have any critical thought towards the text of Great Learning?

Hallo! This is Bin Song, a philosophy and religion professor at Washington College. During the process of preparing this first unit of the course “Ru and Confucianism,” I ask myself: what do I want to say to students and friends who have never seriously learned Confucianism?

Think about how historically long-standing and geographically far-reaching the tradition of Confucianism has been, and we will find this is not an easy question to answer. And the situation to urge us to ask this question is also very unique: right now, Confucianism is generating global influences beyond what it has been traditionally in its pre-modern forms. In other words, it is entering a new era to migrate from East Asia to the north Atlantic and global world, and only in an area where the Confucian thought takes a minority role, the question just asked becomes especially urgent.

However, there is a convenient way to start the conversation. Just as what normally happens to people’s self-introduction to each other in a new meeting, the first thing we need to remember is their names. Therefore, why not let us talk about the English name of the tradition, Confucianism?

Throughout years, whenever allowable, I always try to push the conversations I was involved in about Confucianism to a realization that Confucianism is a wrong name. And my reason for this is very simple: Confucianism, this name, is not how the tradition historically called itself, and it was invented by Protestant Christian missionaries in around 19th century in a special period of western colonialism and with a very special purpose, the purpose of Christian mission, which is quite alien to the nature of the tradition those missionaries designated as such. However, a basic logic of respectfully naming is that the name we address people should sound agreeable to them; or at least, it should be recognizable by them as their name. None of these standards stands strongly in the case of “Confucianism,” and therefore, today, we should rectify our historical mistake, change it to how the tradition historically called itself, namely, the Ru tradition or Ruism. Meanwhile, what is more important is to understand what this term “Ru” means, and why the tradition chose this term as its name. I attached some articles, video and social media links below so that you can check the details if you want to know more about this sort of conversations.

While I made these efforts to explain the erroneous nature of the name of Confucianism, one of the most stimulating, or “provocative” should I say, push-back my interlocutors gave is that: who cares? It is just a name. Right or wrong, people use it to make reference; and as long as it is useful in the way that people understand it whenever it is mentioned, who cares that it is a wrong name?

Well, I think this push-back is particularly interesting because it can lead to an even richer conversation about almost everything related to the Ru tradition in the contemporary world. So I will try to respond to it here step by step.

Firstly, scholars in the discipline of philosophy indeed do not quite care whether “Confucianism” is a wrong name or not. This is because philosophy is normally understood as not pertaining to people’s religious identity. When philosophers study “Confucianism,” they think they are studying something similar to “Marxism,” “Platonism” or any other philosophical theory or doctrine that is named by a founding or major thinker.

However, if we look into how the Ru tradition starts, evolves and in particular, interacts with other traditions such as Buddhism, Daoism and Catholicism, we find that largely, Ruism is indeed not a membership tradition which has a clear-cut institutional boundary between insiders and outsiders. However, a person could still strongly identify him or herself as a Ru while conversing with other people who have their strong religious identities such as with a Buddhist, Daoist, or a Jesuit Catholic. A similar case to help you understand this situation is that today, a person may decide to practice Stoicism as her comprehensive way of living; clearly, in the West, Stoicism is not a church-based religious tradition, but if a person proclaims that she would like to be a Stoic, we still need to listen to this claim and address her spiritual identify in a careful way. So, understood similarly, despite not a membership tradition, because Ruism affords to be a comprehensive way of living, the practice of it can still engender a strong consciousness of spiritual self-identity in the contemporary world. If this is the case, I do think philosophers should be more sensitive to the right or wrong way of naming “Confucianism.”

A caveat about the last paragraph is that I used a crucial term “spiritual” to define the attitude of human life pertaining to one’s vision of the entire world, and in line with this vision, one would like to transform her whole personality. Understood in this way, a spiritually sharp and adept human can be philosophical or not, religious or not, theist or not, and therefore, the inclusiveness of the term “spiritual” will be very useful for us to talk about different belief systems or comprehensive ways of living without being confused by the ambiguous meanings of philosophy vs religion particularly when these terms are used across cultures and traditions.

Good, this is the case for philosophers. Then, secondly, scholars in the discipline of religious studies indeed care about the naming issue of religions or religion-like traditions more than philosophers. This is not surprising because from the beginning of the modern discipline of religious studies, scholars have tried to study religions objectively, and while doing this, one principle of terminology is that descriptions of religions ought to be recognized by religious insiders. A great example is that scholars have realized that “Muhammadanism,” a name prevalent in use around the same time when “Confucianism” was invented, is actually a wrong name. Muslims had their strong reasons to assert that this historical name of “Muhammadanism” is actually blasphemous. It was invented and imposed by religious outsiders, which is contrary to their own faith, since what the Islamic faith requires Muslims to “yield to” (the meaning of “Islam”) is Allah, the monotheistic singular God, not any human figure, even including their prophet. In face of this critique from religious insiders, scholars started to understand Islam more, and eventually eliminated the term “Muhammadanism” from contemporary English vocabulary.

By the same token, the strongest argument I read from scholars in the contemporary religious studies was from Dr. Wilfred C. Smith, who published the book “The Meaning and End of Religion” in 1963. His reasons to change the name of Confucianism to something like “the tradition of classicists” in order to match the Chinese term 儒 is very similar to my own, namely, Confucianism is an alien name to the spiritual self-identifiers with the Ru tradition.

However, since religious scholars typically pursue their studies in a detached and objective manner, a higher degree of advocacy on the change of the name will still depend upon how many spiritual advocates of Ruism and empathetic scholars would like to stand up to push the boundary of the public understanding of the Ru tradition.

For me, I spiritually identify myself as a Ru, but I am a cosmopolitan Ru who cherishes the values of impartial scientific researches, religious pluralism and critical thinking, since I believe all these values are intrinsically implied by the teaching of Ruism. For me, the most valuable reason to advocate the rectification of the name of Confucianism is that I believe people need to understand the meaning of the term “Ru” 儒, and why the Ru tradition chose this term as its name in tandem with a variety of schools of thought in the context of ancient East Asia.

According to the most influential commentary of the Classic of Rites, called the “Standard Meanings of the Classic of Rites” (禮記正義), which was compiled in Tang Dynasty (618-907 C.E) and later taken as a textbook for the system of civil examination, the term Ru has two meanings: firstly, “soft”, and secondly, “moisten.” The meaning of “soft” derives from the expectation that a Ru knows how to interact with humans and the nature in a civilized way, and these civilized human beings will intrinsically long for non-violence, peace and harmony. The meaning of “moisten” refers to the fact that the way a Ru can achieve non-violent transformation is through learning and practicing everything that distinguishes humans from other species. In Chinese, this distinctively human thing called 禮 is translated mostly as ritual, but actually refers to a cluster of civilized phenomena such as social etiquettes, moral conventions, civil and religious ceremonies, law and political institutions, etc. Overall, 禮 can be each and every possible manifestation of human civilization. But why is the idea of “moisten” related to this concept of 禮? This is because although 禮 civilizes human beings, if misused, 禮 can also be oppressive. Think about all those social etiquettes in a patriarchal, or a racially segregated society; they indeed set a rule for humans’ interaction, but they are also oppressive. Therefore, according to the Ru tradition, a Ru should learn and practice the right 禮 so that 禮 can continually benefit and nourish all people’s life, and therefore, the image of “moisten” or “watering” is invoked to indicate that the right purpose of ritual-performance is to nourish people’s life, rather than oppressing people in the name of order and hierarchy.

We will definitely spend more times to talk about 禮 in future episodes. However, seen from the naming issue of the Ru tradition, the central role of this concept 儒 to the Ru tradition speaks to several points which I think are uniquely valuable and thus, worth studying by all people around the world.

Firstly, the Ru tradition constantly operates its discourse upon a “civilizational” perspective. In other words, what distinguishes civilization from other worldly phenomena and how to sustain the civilization on the earth continuous with the non-human nature are two broadest questions that a Ru asks whenever they think about concrete minor issues. This civilizational orientation clearly distinguishes Ruism from other traditions in ancient Asia such as Daoism, which emphasizes the value of the non-human nature more than the complexity of human civilization, and Buddhism, which tends to deny the distinctive nature of any being including human beings. Today, this civilizational orientation of Ruism is very much needed since humanity today is facing unusual challenges, such as global warming, pandemic and destabilized international politics, and we need a genuinely global and civilizational perspective to guide human practices to tackle these challenges.

Secondly, despite aiming to sustain human civilization, Ruism perceives clearly the ambiguity of the phenomenon of “civilization.” Not everything in a civilization is worth commending, and some aspects of it, such as those undesirable rituals, can become seriously oppressive. In this way, Ruism’s attitude towards civilization is to perfect it, improve it in a process, rather than to celebrate it regardless. Clearly, this also fits the ambiguous nature of human civilization today. It is far from perfect, although it is also worth sustaining by its own right.

Thirdly, this civilizational perspective makes the Ru tradition unusually broad and deep, and thus, be very hard to be categorized. Is it a philosophy, a religion, a way of living, or an expression of the special civilization continually existing in the Eastern part of Eurasia continent? If we learn the tradition down the road, we will find that it is all of them, but not constrained by any of them. Therefore, it is an unusually demanding ideal to become a Ru, since everything about civilization will be concerned by them.

However, since life is short, limited, and lacks meanings for all of us, why not take on some ideal of human life that is genuinely sublime and noble? If the ideal makes any sense to you, from this moment on, let us remember the meaning of Ru 儒, and try to pronounce Ruism or the Ru tradition with the old name of “Confucianism” kept in mind.

Required further reading:

Bin Song, “Is Confucius a Confucian?“

Recommended further watch and reading:

• Tony Swain, “On Confucianism and Religion”, in Confucianism in China :An Introduction, Bloomsbury, 2017, pp. 1-22.
• Anna Sun, Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013): 45-76
• Bin Song’s discussion with scholars of comparative philosophy on Ru and Confucianism: http://warpweftandway.com/should-instead-confucianism/.
• Bin Song’s discussion with scholars of sinology: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sinologists/permalink/3211240495599467/.

Quiz:

(1) By whom and When was the name of “Confucianism” invented, which has been prevalent in use ever since?

A, Catholic missionaries in 16th century.
B, Protestant missionaries in 19th century.
C, Confucian scholars since the beginning of common era.

(2) “Muhammadanism” was once used to refer to Islam. Why is it a wrong name that has been stopped using?

A, Muhammad is a prophet, rather than the God, in Islam. The Muslim faith centers upon one’s subordination to Allah, rather than to any human being.
B, Muhammadanism is not how Muslims called their religion.
C. Muhammadanism is an imposed name by religious outsiders.

(3) What is the meaning of the term Ru 儒 used by the Ru tradition as its name?

A, “being soft,” since a Ru is expected to learn “rituals” so as to interact with beings in a civilized way.
B, “to moisten,” since a Ru is expected to practice the right rituals to nourish people’s life, rather than oppressing or manipulating human inferiors in the name of ritualization.

(4) what does the Ru tradition mean by Li, 禮?

A, religious ceremonies
B, social etiquette
C, political institution
D, moral conventions
E, everything that distinguishes human civilization from other worldly phenomena.

(5) Can you raise an example of good, nourishing rituals, or 禮 understood in the Ruist sense, in your life? Can you justify it using what you learn from the Ru tradition?

(6) Can you raise an example of oppressive ritual, or 禮 understood in the Ruist sense, in your life? Can you condemn it using what you learn about the Ru tradition?