On Ren (仁, Humaneness)

On January 15, 2023January 15, 2026 By Bin SongIn Confucianism History & Philosophy, Poetry TranslationsLeave a comment

Introduction:

I translate and annotate Zhu Xi’s “On Ren” to show how Zhu Xi understood the cardinal human virtue of Ren (仁, humaneness). In my view, this is one of the most comprehensive explanation of the virtue Ren in Ruism.

仁說

天地以生物為心者也。而人物之生，又各得夫天地之心以為心者也。故語心之德，雖其總攝貫通，無所不備，然一言以蔽之，則曰仁而已矣。請試詳之：

蓋天地之心，其德有四，曰元亨利貞，而元無不統；其運行焉，則為春夏秋冬之序，而春生之氣無所不通。故人之為心，其德亦有四，曰仁義禮智，而仁無所不包；其發用焉，則為愛恭宜別之情，而惻隱之心無所不貫。故論天地之心者，則曰乾元、坤元，則四德之體用不待悉數而足；論人心之妙者，則曰“仁，人心也”，則四德之體用亦不待遍舉而該。

蓋仁之為道，乃天地生物之心，即物而在。情之未發，而此體已具；情之既發，而其用不窮。誠能體而存之，則眾善之源、百行之本莫不在是。此孔門之教所以必使學者汲汲於求仁也。

其言有曰：“克己復禮為仁”，言能克去己私，復乎天理，則此心之體無不在，而此心之用無不行也。又曰：“居處恭，執事敬，與人忠”，則亦所以存此心也。又曰：“事親孝，事兄弟，及物恕”，則亦所以行此心也。

又曰：“求仁得仁”，則以讓國而逃，諫伐而餓，為能不失乎此心也。

又曰：“殺身成仁”，則以欲甚於生，惡甚於死，為能不害乎此心也。此心何心也？在天地則坱然生物之心，在人則溫然愛人利物之心，包四德而貫四端者也。

或曰：“若子之言，則程子所謂愛情仁性，不可以愛為仁者非與？”曰：“不然。程子之所訶，以愛之發而名仁者也。吾之所論，以愛之理而名仁者也。蓋所謂情性者，雖其分域之不同，然其脈絡之通，各有攸屬者，則曷嘗判然離絕而不相管哉？吾方病夫學者誦程子之言而不求其意，遂至於判然離愛而言仁，故特論此以發明其遺意，而子顧以為異乎程子之說，不亦誤哉？”

或曰：“程氏之徒言仁多矣，蓋有謂愛非仁，而以萬物與我為一，為仁之體者矣；亦有謂愛非仁，而以心有知覺，釋仁之名者矣。今子之言若是，然則彼皆非與？”

曰：“彼謂物我為一者，可以見仁之無不愛矣，而非仁之所以為體之真也。彼謂心有知覺者，可以見仁之包乎智矣，而非仁之所以得名之實也。觀孔子答子貢博施濟眾之問，與程子所謂覺不可以訓仁者，則可見矣，子尚安得復以此而論仁哉 ? 抑泛言同體者，使人含胡昏緩而無警切之功，其弊或至於認物為己者有之矣；專言知覺者，使人張皇迫躁而無沈潛之味，其弊或至於認欲為理者有之矣。一忘一助，二者蓋胥失之。而知覺之雲者，於聖門所示樂山能守之氣象尤不相似，子尚安得復以此而論仁哉？”

因並記其語，作《仁說》。(《朱子全書》二十四册)

On Ren (仁)

The being of Heaven and Earth consists in creativity. When things and people come into existence, they are endowed by Heaven and Earth with their natures. Because of this, the human mind-heart—within which human nature is embodied—has virtues which embrace all, penetrate all and thus, lack nothing. Nevertheless, one word can sum them up: Ren (仁, humaneness). Let me try to explain in detail.

There are four virtues for the creativity of Heaven and Earth: initiation, permeation, harmonization, and integration. The virtue of initiation governs them all (i). In their operation, these virtues are manifested in the four seasons—the vital-energy of spring permeates them all (ii).

Correspondingly, there are four virtues for the human mind-heart: Ren, righteousness, ritual-propriety, and wisdom—the virtue of Ren embraces them all. When these virtues come forth and function, they are manifested in the human feelings of love, obligation, respect, and judiciousness—the feeling of commiseration pervades them all (iii).

Therefore, when discussing the creativity of Heaven and Earth, if we simply say, “the initiative power of Qian (Heaven), the initiative power of Kun (Earth),” then its four virtues and their functions are encapsulated.

For discussing the magnificence of the human mind-heart, if we simply say, “Ren is what the human mind-heart is,” then its four virtues and their functions are summarized (iv).

So, the virtue of Ren is actually what the human mind-heart—which is produced and sustained by the creativity of Heaven and Earth—consists in. It functions when the human mind-heart engages with things. When feelings are not aroused, the virtue is already there. When feelings are aroused, it functions inexhaustibly.

If we can sincerely embody and preserve the virtue of Ren, then we have in it the fountain of all goodness and the root of all deeds. This is why the teachings of the Confucian school (Ruism) urge scholars to pursue, keenly and unceasingly, the virtue of Ren.

Ruism teaches, “Master oneself and return to ritual-propriety.”(v) This means, if we can eliminate selfishness, and recover the principle of Tian within ourselves, then this mind-heart will reach everywhere and its function will always be operative.

It also teaches, “Be respectful when you are at home, be dedicated when you work, and be trustworthy when dealing with people.”(vi) These are ways to preserve this mind-heart.

It also teaches: “Be filial when serving parents, be discreetly obedient when serving elder brothers, and be empathetic when engaging with all kinds of things.”(vii) These are ways to practice this mind-heart.

It also teaches: “(Bo Yi and Shu Qi) sought Ren and then, they found it.” (viii) This teaching is about Bo Yi, who declined a throne and left the state in favor of his younger brother Shu Qi. The brothers also remonstrated against King Wu’s rebellious expedition, and after failing to persuade him, they chose to starve to death. That they were determined to do this is because they didn’t lose this mind-heart. (ix)

It also teaches, “Sacrifice life in order to accomplish Ren.”(x) This implies that we desire something more than life and hate something more than death in order not to injure this mind-heart. What is this mind-heart all about? It is rooted in the all-encompassing creativity of Heaven and Earth, and in the human world, this mind-heart loves people and nurtures things. It incorporates the four virtues (i.e., Ren, righteousness, ritual-propriety, and wisdom) and bonds together the four moral incipient sprouts (i.e., the feeling of commiseration, the feeling of shame and disgust, the feeling of deference, and the feeling of distinguishing right and wrong) (xi) .

Someone asked: “According to your words, is it not wrong for Master Cheng (xii) to say that love is a particular feeling while Ren is the human nature and therefore, love should not be regarded as Ren?”

I answer, “Not so. What Master Cheng criticized was to use the human status when the feeling of love is aroused to portray what is Ren per se. What I argued is to use the principle of love to portray Ren per se. For human nature and human feelings—although they belong to different existential spheres—connect to each other like arteries and veins in the same body (xiii). How can they become sharply separated and have nothing to do with each other? Scholars recite Master Cheng’s words without understanding their meaning to the extent that they even talk about Ren as being something separate from love. I worry about this, and therefore, made the above exposition in order to reveal the lost meaning of Master Cheng’s teaching. You think of my view as divergent from Master Cheng, isn’t this wrong?”

Someone asked, “The followers of Master Cheng have given many explanations of Ren. Some say that love is not Ren, and regard the oneness of all things and one’s self as what is Ren per se. Others maintain that love is not Ren, but explain Ren in terms of awareness possessed by the mind-heart (xvi). If what you say is correct, are they all wrong?”

I answer, “From what they call the oneness of all things and one’s self, it can be known that Ren involves love for all, but this oneness is not what is Ren per se. From the fact that the mind-heart possesses awareness, it can be seen that the virtue of Ren includes wisdom, but this is not how the Ren per se can be named. If you look up Kongzi’ answer to (his pupil) Zi Gong’s question whether conferring extensive benefits on and thus, helping all the people will constitute Ren (xv) and also Master Cheng’s view that Ren ought not to be construed in terms of awareness, you will see the point. How can you still explain Ren in these terms?

“Furthermore, if the oneness of things and one’s self is superficially talked of, that will lead people to be indistinct and inattentive so that no effort is made to keep alert. The harmful effect—and there has been—may be to mistake exterior things for one’s own self. If Ren is construed in the specific term of awareness, that will lead people to be anxious, impatient, and impetuous so that the process of moral self-cultivation lacks depth. The harmful effect—and there has been—may be to mistake one’s desire as moral principle. In the first case, the mind-heart is oblivious, but in the second case, the mind-heart is agitated and disturbed. Both are wrong. Further, as for the construal of Ren in terms of awareness, this view is especially incongruent with Kongzi’ teachings that a person of Ren has the temperament of loving mountain (xvi) and that only the virtue of Ren can preserve what human knowledge has been aware of (xvii). How then can you still explain Ren in this way?”

It is because of all this that I record their questions and compose this essay on Ren.

Notes:

(i) Tian (天, heaven) is an all-encompassing constantly creative cosmic power. Its creativity has four generic features: (1) Tian creates the world from nothing and initiates the world as a process of continual creation, and in this sense, Tian’s creativity is initiative (元, yuan). (2) Tian creates everything, so Tian’s creativity is permeative (亨, heng). (3) Everything created by Tian is and becomes together within Tian, so Tian’s creativity is harmonizing (利, li). (4) Tian creates the world as a whole, and also, every creature is endowed with a nature to integrate itself, so Tian’s creativity is integrative (貞, zhen). These four basic features of Tian’s creativity are called by Zhu Xi its four ‘virtues’ (德, de). Also, Zhu Xi uses “Heaven and Earth” to refer to Tian. This is legitimate, because seeing from the human perspective, Tian is manifested as two parts: heaven and earth. Tian’s creativity is accordingly manifested in the co-creativity of heaven and earth. Furthermore, Zhu Xi thought the virtue of “initiation” governs all other virtues. This is because without the initiative power of Tian, there would be no world, and as a consequence, all other generic features of Tian’s creativity would lose their ground. Zhu Xi’s thought is based upon the statement of the hexagram for Hexagram Qian in the Classics of Change (易經): “元,亨, 利, 貞”.

(ii) Principle (理, li) and Vital-energy (氣, qi) is a basic dyad of categories in Zhu Xi’s thought, which is arguably comparable to the one of Form and Matter in Greek philosophy. The most generic features of the four virtues of Tian’s creativity are referred to by Zhu Xi as the “Principle of Tian” (天理) in the later part of the essay. These principles of Tian are manifested in the action of the cosmic vital-force during the course of four seasons.

(iii) The feeling of commiseration (惻隱之心, the Mencius 2A), according to Mencius, is what one spontaneously feels when one sees a baby about to fall into a well. For Mencius, this is the moral incipient sprout of the cardinal human virtue of Ren, which Mencius thinks is what human nature is all about. For Zhu Xi, he maintains Mencius’s thought and thinks that the feeling of commiseration is also one incipient form of the human feeling of universal love. However, in a more delicate way than Mencius, Zhu Xi furthermore grounds the feeling of love upon the virtue of Ren, and then, in turn, grounds the virtue of Ren upon the all-encompassing creativity of Tian.

(iv) Here we encounter another basic dyad of categories in Ruism: Ti (体, living-substance) and Yong (用, function). The ti of a thing is what the thing per se consists in, while its yong is one thing’s manifested functions when it engages with other things. For example, using Zhu Xi’s example in his other works, the ti of an ear is the ear itself as one organ of human body, while the yong of an ear is its ability to hear. In the context of this essay, the human feelings of love, obligation, deference, and judiciousness are thought of by Zhu Xi as the yong of the four human virtues: Ren, righteousness, ritual-propriety, and wisdom. Quite obviously, for Zhu Xi, every virtue has its ti and yong. For example, for Ren, its ti is universal human love which is rooted in the all-encompassing creativity of Heaven and Earth. But its yong is the particular human feeling of love, including, for example, the feeling of commiseration.

(v) The Analects 12:1.

(vi) The Analects 13:19

(vii) This quote is a combination of the Classic of Filial Devotion 孝經, ch. 14 and perhaps Cheng Yi’s teaching on empathy.

(viii) The Analects 7:14

(ix) Bo Yi and Shu Qi are sons of a king in a state during the Shang Dynasty. When their father left the throne to Shu Qi, he declined in deference to his elder brother Bo Yi, but Bo Yi would not violate the order of his father and therefore, chose to flee. Later, when King Wu (r. 1046-1043 B.C.E) overthrew the Shang dynasty in spite of their remonstration, and founded Zhou Dynasty, they would not eat the food of Zhou and starved to death. Their remonstration was arguably unjustified because King Wu’s rebellion was thought of by early Ru as legitimate since it aimed to overthrow a ruthless tyrant, the King Zhou of Shang Dynasty. However, because of the sense of duty that Bo Yi and Shu Qi showed to their father, to each other and to their country, their deeds were almost unanimously praised as being of high moral values by early Ru texts such as the Analects and the Mencius.

(x) The Analects 15:8.

(xi) The Mencius 2A

(xii) Master Cheng refers to Cheng Yi (1033-1107 C.E) or Cheng Hao (1032-1085 C.E), two pioneering Ru philosophers for Song and Ming Ruism who lived in Northern Song Dynasty.

(xiii) Xing (性, nature) and Qing (情, feeling) is another dyad of categories for Ruism. It corresponds to the aforementioned dyads ‘ti-yong’ and ‘li-qi’ in Zhu Xi’s thought. For Zhu Xi, human nature consists in the ti, also the li of the human mind-heart, viz., the four human virtues of Ren, righteousness, ritual-propriety and wisdom. In relation, human feelings are the yong, the manifested functions of vital-energy, of human nature. For Zhu Xi, these two aspects of human existence can never be separated.

(xiv) These two views are perhaps influenced by Buddhism.

(xv) The Analects 6:28.

(xvi) The Analects 6:21

(xvii) The Analects 15:32.

(Figure: A Chart of Ren)
Commentary:

In order to more clearly explain Zhu Xi’s essay, On Ren, I have created The Chart of Ren According to Zhu Xi (please see the below). Through reading the texts and pondering the chart, I believe at least three goals can be achieved for contemporary readers of the Ru tradition: (1) They will understand how the most analytic mind in the Ru tradition thinks of the cardinal human virtue, Ren, 仁. (2) The reading will dissipate their doubt that Ruism may be just a social ethics, without any substantial metaphysical dimension undergirding its ethical teaching. (3) They will understand none of these metaphysical terms or thoughts was borrowed from Daoist or Buddhist traditions, as many stereotypical sayings about Song and Ming Ruism claimed it to be. The truth is that Ruism is a continuous living tradition of “ethical metaphysics” or “metaphysical ethics”, from Kongzi, through Zhu Xi, until now.

With all the rich meanings of terms in mind, I will try my best to explain this chart briefly. In order to understand the chart, Ru learners need to start by following the arrows. Once understood, the chart could be contemplated from anywhere. So, let’s begin:

The nature of Tian is creativity. Creativity means initiation. The initiative power of Tian is manifested in the one of Heaven (Qian) and the one of Earth (Kun). There are four virtues of the creativity of Heaven and Earth: initiation, permeation, harmonization and integration. The virtue of initiation governs them all. These four virtues are manifested in the action of cosmic vital-energy during the course of four seasons. The vital-energy of spring permeates them all.

These four virtues are the principle and living substance of Tian’s creativity, while the four seasons manifest the vital-energy and function of Tian’s creativity. Therefore, for discussing the creativity of Tian, once we say “the initiative power of Qian (heaven), the initiative power of Kun (earth),” then both the four virtues and their functions are encapsulated.

The lower part of the chart is about human beings. It has a parallel structure to the upper section of the chart. Human beings are born from the process of cosmic creativity of Tian. Human nature is embodied in the human mind-heart, and it is the virtue of Ren. There are four virtues for the human mind-heart: Ren, righteousness, ritual-propriety, and wisdom. The virtue of Ren embraces them all. When the human mind-heart is aroused and engages with things, the four virtues of human mind-heart are manifested as four human feelings.

There are two alternative ways to name these four feelings. For Zhu Xi, they are the feelings of love, obligation, deference, and judiciousness. For Mencius, they are the feelings of commiseration, shame and disgust, deference, and distinguishing right and wrong. Using Mencius’s words, these four feelings can be called the four incipient sprouts of human virtues. Zhu Xi’s alternative way to name the feelings derive from Mencius, but is more succinct. One apparent exception is the feeling of obligation, which is different from the one of shame and disgust. However, they are actually based upon the same virtue, righteousness—they connote different aspects of this virtue. When we feel we ought to do something, we have the feeling of obligation; but when we do something we ought not to do, we may feel shamed and disgusted by ourselves. Overall, the feeling of love or commiseration pervades all the other feelings.

The four virtues of human mind-heart are the principle, the substance, the nature and the non-aroused status of human mind-heart. The four human feelings for Zhu Xi and the four moral incipient sprouts for Mencius manifest the vital-force, the function, the feeling, and the aroused status of human mind-heart. Therefore, for discussing the magnificence of the human mind-heart, once we say “Ren, is what the human mind-heart is,” then both its four virtues and their functions are summarized.

Zhu Xi’s essay On Ren illustrates the cosmological root of the cardinal human virtue, Ren. In this sense, his thought could be seen as an ethical metaphysics.

( Translated and Annotated by Bin Song. Edited by Ben Butina.)

This essay has been incorporated into “Significant Figures in Confucianism (Ruism),” in Routledge Research Encyclopedia of Chinese Studies: Chinese Religion and Philosophy, ed. by Zhouxiang Lu (Routeldge, December 2023). A chart is also created for illustrating the concepts of Zhu Xi’s metaphysical ethical system in “On Ren.”

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A Chart of Ruist Virtues

On January 8, 2023December 31, 2025 By Bin SongIn Confucianism History & PhilosophyLeave a comment

(This article was firstly published at Huffington Post: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-catechism-of-ruism-conf_4_b_11607540.)

In several recent essays on dynamic harmony, the five cardinal human relationships and ten riciprocal duties, and the three guides and five constant virtues, I discussed many Ruist virtues. To help you understand the relationships among these virtues, I’ve created this Chart of Ruist Virtues. I encourage you to read the chart from the top down at first. (After you have a sense of the chart as a whole, however, you can contemplate it from any point.) Because I’ve already explained most of the terms on the chart in previous essays, I’ll focus here on the relationships between and among the terms.

The Chart in Detail

First, let’s discuss the Way of Heaven (Tian) (天道, Tiandao), which appears at the top of the chart. Tian refers to an all-encompassing, constantly creative cosmic power. Tian is the transcendent in Ruism. Literally, Dao means “the way,” but when these two terms are used together, Dao takes on a special meaning: it refers to the principle that runs through the all-encompassing power. By placing Dynamic Harmony (和, he) below The Way of Tian, we’re saying that Dynamic Harmony is the principle that runs through Tian. In other words, we can say that Dynamic Harmony is the Way of Tian. Because virtue (德) in Chinese can be extended to characterize the generic features of Tian, we can also say that Dynamic Harmony is a virtue of Tian.

The reason we can say that Dynamic Harmony is a virtue of Tian is because, as explained earlier, Tian’s creativity is all-encompassing. Everything that has ever existed, exists now, or will ever exist is brought into being by Tian and every being in the universe is part of Tian. In other words, as created by Tian, everything is and becomes together, which is the basic meaning of ‘dynamic harmony’. If we understand this, we can see that Dynamic Harmony is embedded in every aspect of this constantly-unfolding cosmic creation. We can also see that this all-encompassing force is neither anthropomorphic nor anthropocentric. In other words, Tian is not a person, nor is it exclusively focused on humans. As such, humans cannot directly access Tian per se, but must approach it through Ruist mysticism, a topic I’ll discuss in future writings.

The way humans engage with Tian concretely is to realize Dynamic Harmony in human society. We do this through the virtue of Humaneness (仁, ren). For this reason, you’ll see on the chart that the virtue of humaneness is the Way of Human Beings.

In Ruist ethics, Humaneness is the highest human virtue. In the most general sense, the virtue of Humaneness is the manifestation of Tian’s creativity within human nature. When we look in more detail, however, Humaneness includes five different facets, each of which refers to a different dimension of Humaneness:

Humaneness (仁, ren),

Righteousness (義, yi),

Ritual-Propriety (禮, li),

Wisdom (智, zhi),

Trustworthiness (信, xin)

We refer to these as the Five Constant Virtues (五常, wuchang). The Five Constant Virtues are universal principles that govern concrete human relationships. For this reason, the lower region of the chart describes how the Ruist tradition understands and describes particular human relationships.

First, let’s look at the Three Guides (三綱, sangang), a Ruist ethical understanding of three major human relationships. Originally, 君為臣綱 meant “ruler is the guide of subjects.” In a modern context, however, it ought to be understood as something like “in public life, a superior is the guide of subordinates.” This refers to relationships such as those between the state and citizens or between employer and employees. Likewise, although 父為子綱 originally meant “father is the guide of son,” a modern formulation would be something like, “parents are the guides of children.” Finally, 夫為妻綱, which originally meant “husband is the guide of wife,” should now be understood as “husbands and wives are the guides of each other, depending upon their different areas of expertise.”

The ethics of the Three Guides is a distillation of Mencius’ teachings about the Five Cardinal Human Relationships (五倫, wulun), which appear next in the chart. These relationships are parents and children, ruler and subjects, husband and wife, elder and junior, and friendship. Mencius taught that the virtues that guide each of these relationships are affective closeness (親, qin) between parents and children, righteousness (義, yi) between ruler and subjects, distinction (別, bie) between husband and wife, proper order (序, xu) between elders and juniors, and trustworthiness (信, xin) between friends.

The ethics of the Ten Reciprocal Duties (十義, shiyi) are described in an important chapter of The Book of Rites (禮記) called The Unfolding of Ritual Propriety (禮運). The text prescribes a single virtue for each person as they act out their role in these relationships. In the chart, for example, you will find that in the relationship between parents and children, parents should be guided by the virtue of parental kindness (慈, ci) and children should be guided by the virtue of filial devotion (孝, xiao). The practice of these two reciprocal duties by parents and children respectively will nurture the guiding virtue of affective closeness (親, qin) taught by Mencius in the Five Cardinal Human Relationships. This pattern of reciprocal virtues is repeated for the remaining four relationships.

The Big Picture

This chart of Ruist virtues suggests that each of us should cultivate the Five Constant Virtues — which can be seen as different facets of a single cardinal virtue, Humaneness (仁, ren) — so that we can play our roles well in a variety of human relationships. The ultimate goal is to create and sustain Dynamic Harmony in society, which is a concrete manifestation of the Dynamic Harmony of Tian’s all-encompassing creative power.

Notes on Interpretation of This Chart

When using this chart, there are two important caveats to keep in mind. First, you’ve probably noticed that some characters appear in this chart multiple times. This is because they represent different virtues depending on the context. At the top of the chart, for example, Humaneness (仁, ren) appears as the single cardinal virtue, the Way of Human Beings. In the section on the Five Constant Virtues below, however, it appears as one of the five virtues, and is taken in this context to refer to universal human love. Likewise, Righteousness (義, yi) appears in the Five Constant Virtues as the way human beings love appropriately in various situations. When Righteousness (義, yi) appears in the Five Cardinal Human Relationships, however, it is presented as the guiding virtue of the relationship between ruler and subjects and refers to the primary duty of both rulers and subjects to act appropriately toward each other.

The second caveat to keep in mind is that this chart is not intended to prescribe an ethical law that requires each Ruist to understand and practice these virtues one-by-one. This chart doesn’t contain every virtue cherished by Ruists over the past 2,500 years — after all, society is far too complex to be described by a single chart, and the ways in which each of us manifest these virtues in our daily lives will depend a great deal on the context in which we live.

So, although this chart is neither comprehensive nor prescriptive, it can serve as kind of reference chart to help you understand the backbone of Ruist ethical teachings. It is my hope that by studying, contemplating, and meditating on this chart, you will be better equipped to practice Ruist wisdom in your daily life.

Zhu Xi as the Reservoir of the Daoxue (道學) Movement

On October 30, 2022January 2, 2026 By Bin SongIn Confucianism History & PhilosophyLeave a comment

Hallo, this is Dr. Bin Song at Washington College to teach Ruism, global philosophies and religions.

The Ru tradition experienced a major reboot in its second millennium after being adopted as the state ideology in Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE). And there are two major historical backgrounds of this reboot. Firstly, the immigration of Buddhism and the establishment of Daoist religions stimulated Ru thinkers to create a new version of Ruism able to orient individuals’ life more comprehensively. Since seeking the genuine Dao, the Way, so as to provide guidance to all major aspects of human life is always a goal of Ru self-cultivation, these Ru thinkers referred to this historical reboot of Ruism as a Daoxue movement, and Daoxue (道學) means the learning of Dao. In English scholarship, we also call it Neo-Confucianism. Secondly, since the 8th century, the Chinese imperial system had endured a series of severe domestic and foreign threats. Ru literati therefore sought to overcome the threats and recover the ancient ideal of humane governance while creatively reinterpreting Ru classics. To such a reacting and synthesizing Daoxue movement, Zhu Xi (1130-1200)’s philosophy played the role of an intellectual reservoir into which his predecessors’ thoughts confluence and out of which later Ru thinkers derive and diverge. To evidence such a role, Zhu Xi condensed the originally expansive Ru classics into a new canon comprising four books, viz., the Great Learning, the Analects, the Mengzi and the Centrality and Commonality, and his 四书章句集注 (Commentaries of the Four Books) was thereafter officialized as a textbook for the systems of civil examination in East Asia.

Zhu Xi’s synthetic Ru philosophy, despite its extraordinary scope and complexity, pivots itself upon one singular concept, Li (理, translated alternatively as principle, pattern-principle, Pattern, or coherence, see Angle & Tiwald 2017:28-34), and aims to parse out the three phases and eight steps of self-cultivation articulated by the Great Learning which furnishes a comprehensive guide to the Ru way of life. According to the Great Learning, the realization of the ideal of peace and harmony among all under heaven rests upon the regulation of one’s state and the alignment of one’s family, which furthermore rest upon the cultivation of one’s genuine self comprising four major steps, viz., rectifying the heartmind, authenticating intentions, attaining the knowledge, and investigating things (格物, gewu). Zhu Xi maintains that the object of the ultimate step of gewu is Li, defined as “the reason why things come to be so and the rule how things ought to be so.” (Zhu 2002 Vol. 6 大学或问 An Inquiry into the Great Learning:512)For instance, the Li of a table is the sum of all the conditions which explain why the table is produced in a certain material with a certain shape so as to fit itself with all surrounding items in a given environment. Because the factual ways to fit oneself with all the others in a given context lead to the ideal state of harmonization in which all beings evolve and thrive together without undermining the essential identity of each, Li is both descriptive and prescriptive. In the natural world, Li refers to the patterns of changing realities which co-exist in the broadest ontological scale of the whole universe, viz., Tian. In the human world, Li designates the moral principles and social conventions which perfect human relationships so as to sustain the development of civilization, and hence, to manifest the cosmic harmony of Tian in the human realm.

With Li construed as such, appropriate intentions of the heartmind towards external things are those in line with Li so that one does not merely intend objectives sincerely, but also authentically. For Zhu Xi, the process of authenticating intentions to rectify the heartmind leads to the recovery of one’s genuine human nature endowed by Tian, a trope continuous with the teaching of the Mengzi and the Centrality and Commonality. And the process is characterized by accumulation, ecstasy and extrapolation. Accumulatively, one needs to broadly engage the world via activities such as reading classics, canvassing histories, studying the nature, having discussions with friends, and dealing with human affairs so as to learn each and every Li. (Zhu 2002 Vol. 6 大学或问:527-528) While one’s practical knowledge of Li continually increases, an ecstatic moment would transpire when one can comprehend the coherence of all Li in the universe, and hence, grasp the interconnection of all dimensions of moral living. (Zhu 2002 Vol. 6 大学章句 An Exegesis of the Great Learning: 20) After the ecstasy, one needs to extrapolate their general knowledge of the Li of the world into minute and novel details, and hence, keep being centered in the everyday moments of mundane life. (Chen 2000: 309-314)

Among the three aspects of “thoroughly studying Li (穷理),” the ecstatic moment begs more attention since it reveals the overarching structure of Zhu Xi’s thought. The following chart illuminates the structure via illustrating Zhu Xi’s treatise of “On Ren (humaneness) (仁说).” I link my full translation of this treatise here, and I’ll read the most relevant few paragraphs in this treatise, and explain them later.

A Chart of Ren (Humaneness) according to Zhu Xi

“The being of Heaven and Earth consists in creativity. When things and people come into existence, they are endowed by Heaven and Earth with their natures. Because of this, the human heartmind—within which human nature is embodied—has virtues which embrace all, penetrate all and thus, lack nothing. Nevertheless, one word can sum them up: Ren (仁, humaneness). Let me try to explain in detail.

There are four virtues for the creativity of Heaven and Earth: initiation, permeation, harmonization, and integration. The virtue of initiation governs them all. In their operation, these virtues are manifested in the four seasons—the vital-energy of spring permeates them all .

Correspondingly, there are four virtues for the human heartmind: Ren, righteousness, ritual-propriety, and wisdom—the virtue of Ren embraces them all. When these virtues come forth and function, they are manifested in the human feelings of love, obligation, respect, and judiciousness—the feeling of commiseration pervades them all.

Therefore, when discussing the creativity of Heaven and Earth, if we simply say, ‘the initiative power of Qian (Heaven), the initiative power of Kun (Earth),’ then its four virtues and their functions are encapsulated.

For discussing the magnificence of the human heartmind, if we simply say, “Ren is what the human heartmind is,” then its four virtues and their functions are summarized.

So, the virtue of Ren is actually what the human heartmind—which is produced and sustained by the creativity of Heaven and Earth—consists in. It functions when the human heartmind engages with things. When feelings are not aroused, the virtue is already there. When feelings are aroused, it functions inexhaustibly.

As demonstrated by the chart, several categorical dyads have structured Zhu Xi’s philosophy. Firstly, with Li construed as principle, Qi (气) is the material vital-energy pervading the entire universe, the dynamics of which manifests the normativity of principles. The dyad of principle and vital-energy is thus, albeit with an emphasis on process and change, comparable to the one of form and matter in ancient Greek philosophy. Secondly, the relationship between Li and Qi is further interpreted as the one of Ti (体, substance) and Yong (用, function). The Ti of a thing is what the thing per se consists in in its enduring form, while its Yong is the manifested functions of the thing when it engages with other things. Thirdly, Xing (性, nature) and Qing (情, feeling) characterize the dimensions of human heartmind which correspond to the dyads “Li-Qi” and “Ti-Yong.” For Zhu Xi, human nature is equivalent to the Li or Ti aspect of the heartmind, while the nature is signified by four cardinal virtues of Ren, righteousness, ritual-propriety and wisdom. Human feelings are the Yong, viz., the manifested functions of Qi, aspect of the heartmind. Using a contemplative language, Zhu Xi also describes the aspect of principle, substance or nature of the heartmind as underlying one’s experience of inner peace and centrality prior to any concrete feeling aroused by external things. Therefore, another dyad of “non-aroused (未发)” and “being-aroused (已发)” indicates one’s respective experiences of spiritual formation in the different states of heartmind characterized by the aforementioned dyads.

Understood as such, the system of Zhu Xi’s thought per the chart can be explained as follows:

According to the Classic of Change, The nature of Tian is creativity. Creativity primarily means initiation. The initiative power of Tian is manifested jointly by the proactive Heaven (Qian, the most Yang hexagram) and the receptive Earth (Kun, the most Yin hexagram). There are four virtues, viz., four generic traits, of the creativity of Heaven and Earth: initiation (which means Tian creates everything from nothing), permeation (which means Tian’s creativity pervades everything), harmonization (which means everything dynamically co-exists within Tian), and integration (which means each created thing is endowed with a nature and all things comprise an interconnected whole within Tian). The virtue of initiation governs them all. These four virtues are manifested in the proceeding of cosmic vital-energy during the course of four seasons. The vital-energy of spring permeates them all.

Those four virtues are the principle and living substance of Tian’s creativity, while the four seasons manifest its vital-energy and function. Therefore, for discussing the creativity of Tian, when the initiative power of Qian (heaven) and the initiative power of Kun (earth) are mentioned, both the four virtues and their functions are encapsulated.

The lower part of the chart is about human beings. It has a parallel structure to the upper one. Human beings are born from the process of cosmic creativity of Tian, and the endowed human nature is the virtue of Ren embedded in the human heartmind. There are four cardinal virtues for the heartmind, viz., Ren, righteousness, ritual-propriety, and wisdom, and the virtue of Ren embraces them all. When the heartmind is aroused and engages with things, the four virtues are manifested as four incipient moral feelings.

There are two alternative ways to name these four feelings. For Zhu Xi, they are the feelings of love, obligation, deference, and judiciousness. For Mengzi, they are the feelings of commiseration, shame and disgust, deference, and distinguishing right and wrong. Zhu Xi’s alternative way to name the feelings derive from Mengzi, but is more succinct. Overall, the feeling of love or commiseration pervades all the other feelings.

The four virtues are the principle, substance, nature or non-aroused status of the human heartmind. The four human feelings for Zhu Xi, which are the four moral incipient sprouts for Mengzi, manifest the vital-energy, function, feeling, or aroused status of the heartmind. Therefore, for discussing the magnificence of the human heartmind, once it is pointed out that Ren is what the heartmind consists in, then both its four virtues and their functions are summarized.

In a word, Zhu Xi’s treatise of “On Ren” demonstrates the cosmological root of the distinctively good human nature, which is summarized by the cardinal human virtue, humaneness. While urging individuals to rediscover and nurture such a cosmically endowed human nature via cumulatively studying and practicing Li, Zhu Xi’s philosophy can be understood overall as an all-encompassing ethical metaphysics which aims to manifest the supreme harmonization of Tian’s creativity in the human world.

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Zhang Zai

On January 7, 2022January 7, 2026 By Bin SongIn Poetry TranslationsLeave a comment

芭蕉詩

芭蕉心盡展新枝，新卷新心暗已隨。

願學新心養新德，旋隨新葉起新知。

On the Basjoo Tree

The basjoo tree

perfects its core

to unfurl a new stem.

Unnoticed, a new curl of

a new core

is already emerging.

I love to learn

with a renewing mind-heart

to cultivate new virtues,

so that,

soon after a new leaf,

a new stem of knowledge

will arise.

Commentary:

Zhang Zai (1022-1077 CE) was a pioneering Ru philosopher of the so-called Dao Xue (Learning of the Way, 道學) movement, which is usually called Neo-Confucianism in English. Zhang is famous for his treatise, The Western Inscription (西铭), in which he grounds the Ru virtue of filiality (xiao, 孝) on the cosmic piety of human beings towards the heavens and the earth.

In this exquisite poem, On the Basjoo Tree, Zhang Zai uses the image of a Basjoo tree to express his Ruist thinking concerning the relationship between the world and human beings. For Ruists, the cosmos, called tian (天), is an all-encompassing process of continuous novelty and creativity. Correspondingly, the ethical commitment of human beings is thought of as a constant renewal process of learning such that a condition of dynamic harmony (he, 和) is continually being created in the evolving situations of human society.

The biological peculiarity of the Basjoo tree is that what looks like its trunk is actually composed of curled-up stems packed together, so that when one curled stem becomes mature, a new leaf is unfurled and its stem then grows into a new branch of the plant. For Zhang Zai, this feature of the Basjoo tree represents perfectly the core of Ruist aesthetics: the world continually renewing itself. Thus, in the second half of the poem, Zhang Zai says he loves to learn with the Basjoo tree and in that way to continue to nurture and renew his virtues and to uncover new knowledge about the world.

Some use of puns or word-play in Chinese is crucial for the poem’s diction. In Chinese, 心 (xin) can mean “mind,” “heart” or “core.” It is used by Ruists to refer to the undivided central capacity of human consciousness and encompasses its intellectual, emotional and volitional dimensions. Therefore, a standard English translation of the Ruist idea of xin is “mind-heart.” Because xin also means “core” in Chinese, the curled-up stems making up the trunk of the Basjoo tree is portrayed by Zhang Zai as its xin, and its continual unfolding symbolizes a renewing of the human mind-heart that longs for continual learning and self-cultivation. Also, the Chinese term for “stem” (zhi, 枝) has the same pronunciation as the Chinese term for knowledge (zhi, 知). So, as each new stem is unfurled, it symbolizes a virtuous Ruist learner who has garnered a new piece of knowledge. Please pay attention to the fact that for Zhang Zai, knowledge and virtue are intertwined in the self-cultivation of a human being, and so these renewals are manifestations of the transformation of one’s own mind-heart. This reminds us of the first three paragraphs of Great Learning (Daxue, 大学), which lays out a detailed procedure for Ruist self-cultivation based upon attaining knowledge (致知), rectifying one’s mind-heart (正心), and illuminating one’s bright virtues (明明德).

Another important lesson from Ruist poetry is that in the perspective of comparative literature, Ruists are fond of using the same image to express multiple meanings. For example, “lotus” is an image heavily used in Buddhist literature to express Buddhism’s commitment to eliminating desires and anxieties and thereby to search for release from the suffering process of reincarnation through Buddhist practice. However, in Zhou Dunyi’s “On Loving the Lotus,” the lotus is described as “Inside, it is open; outside, it is straight” “It neither sprawls nor branches,” and in this way the lotus becomes a Ruist image, symbolizing the Ruist moral ideal of an upright and honest noble-person (junzi, 君子). Similarly, the Basjoo tree is an icon also popular in Buddhist literature where its trunk is actually “empty” once you account for all the unfolding stems. But in Zhang Zai’s poetry, the Basjoo tree becomes an icon expressive of the Ruist metaphysical insight concerning the constant creativity of Tian (cosmos) and the Ruist ethical commitment to the constantly being renewed self-cultivation of human beings.

(Translated and Commented by Bin Song)

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Introducing a New Ruist (Confucian) Ritual: Tian-worship and Confucius-veneration （敬天尊孔）

On December 31, 2021December 31, 2025 By Bin SongIn Confucianism History & PhilosophyLeave a comment

There is a religious ritual system in Ruism which has been translated as ‘The Three Sacrifices’ (三祭, sanji): Sacrifice in celebration of Tian (Heaven), sacrifice in celebration of distinguished teachers such as Confucius, and sacrifice in celebration of one’s ancestors. Traditionally, the sacrificial ritual in celebration of Tian could only be performed by an emperor, the so-called Son of Tian (天子). This ritual used to take place in the suburb of a capital such as this:

The 'Platform of Tian' (天壇) in Beijing — The ‘Platform of Tian’ (天壇) in Beijing

The sacrificial ritual in celebration of Confucius was performed in Confucian temples such as this:

Everyone is allowed to perform this ritual. However, because Confucius is taken to be the common teacher of everyone in the Ru tradition, the main participators in this ritual were the Ruist literati.

By comparison, the ritual of sacrifice to one’s ancestors is more private. It is either performed before an ancestral altar in each individual household, in cemeteries, or in an ancestral temple shared by an extended family. It looks like this:

At this time, I would like to introduce a new ritual which combines the first two rituals, which I am calling a ritual of Tian-worship and Confucius-veneration(敬天尊孔).

The major reason that such a combination is needed is that in a contemporary context, the celebration of Tian can no longer be performed by an emperor alone. As a Ru committed and connected to the all-encompassing transcendent power of Tian, not just an emperor but every person has the need and right to celebrate it. Actually, traditional Ru literati also realized the egalitarian power of the idea of Tian, since each individual Ru was free to interpret this idea in his or her own particular way in order to counteract the ideologies and political policies which may have been endorsed by his or her emperor. This was a distinctive Ruist check and balance system within the traditional Chinese dynastic polity. However, because the polity was imperial, the ritual aspect of Tian-worship could not be decoupled from the monopoly power of the emperor. Nowadays, the political context of emperor has died out, and every Ru has accordingly recovered the right to perform a ritual of Tian-worship.

The reason I suggest combining the ritual of Tian-worship and the ritual of Confucius-veneration is that the relationship among Ru, as students of Confucius, is egalitarian. They are friends (友, you), committed to the Dao of Tian (天道, tiandao), who are trying to realize dynamic harmony at all levels of human existence in accordance with Confucius’ teachings. Therefore, when an occasion arises for Ruist friends “who are coming from afar” [Analects, 1:1] to join each other and to advance their Ruist learning, they will be able to perform the ritual of Confucius-veneration and the ritual of Tian-worship at the same time. This will remind the Ruist community that when studying the tradition, each Ru is not only a student of Confucius, but also a citizen of Tian (天民, tianmin). In this way, each Ru will continually nurture the feeling of gratitude towards the ultimate origin of their personal lives and personal energy; simultaneously, they will enhance their devotion to a life of manifesting Tian’s creativity in a distinctively human way in accordance with Confucius’s teaching about ‘humaneness’ (仁, ren).

Based upon these reasonable considerations which encourage the creation of an updated ritual (“to create rituals according to what is right,” – “以義起禮”, 禮記∙禮運), during the first ‘Ruist Friends From Afar’ Retreat in North America, held at Marsh Chapel, Boston University, on July 1-3rd, 2016, and before any formal readings and discussions even began, Ru friends performed a new Ruist ritual of Tian-worship and Confucius-veneration.

We tried to make the set-up of the ritual simple, since simplicity and authenticity are a consistent concern which traditional Ruist rituals convey. The set-up of the ritual looked like this:

We used a Chinese landscape painting to symbolize Tian. It was hung out in front. Then, we placed a Confucius statue on a small table in front of it, and an altar in the middle for holding incense. The painting we chose was drawn by Wang Hui (王翚, 1632-1717 CE) during the early Qing dynasty. A digital version of it looks like this:

This painting was selected by courtesy of Yair Lior, as Yair, among all the friends who attended the retreat, is a Ru versed in Chinese art history. The ‘Tian’ which this painting depicts feels solemn and energetic. In choosing the painting, we made sure that it was one which included Heaven, Earth, and Human Beings, since these three are the constitutive co-creators (三才) within Tian. In future, we have a plan to choose some western landscape paintings to symbolize the same Tian. This is because Tian’s creativity is all-encompassing, whether in the East or in the West, and one major concern of the participants of the retreat was how to share the Ru tradition’s wisdom and experience with fellow Americans.

The performative act of the ritual was also simple. At the beginning of the ritual, a Presider held two sticks of incense, bowed to Tian three times, and then stepped aside a bit, and bowed to Confucius once. After this, the Presider placed the incense in the altar, and then handed another couple of sticks to a second Ruist friend. After all friends had completed their celebrations, we stood in a line facing the altar, meditated for a while, and then completed the ritual.

There is no strict meaning for the numbers mentioned above. Neither does any step in the sequence have to be rigorously followed. After the Presider has performed the ritual, each friend can follow it in his or her favorite way: bowing to Tian but not bowing to Confucius, or as we elected to do during the retreat when some friends didn’t feel comfortable performing a religious-seeming ritual, giving them the option to wait in the reading room during the entire event. In a word, the performance of this suggested ritual is entirely voluntary.

However, because I was lucky enough to be supported by friends to act as Presider of the ritual, I tried to endow a Ruist meaning in my mind at each step of the ritual. Once again, these meanings were my own interpretation, and they are heuristic, and not in any way prescriptive. Future practitioners will surely choose whether to follow my interpretation or not according to their own understanding of the Ruist tradition. Here was my thinking:

I used two sticks of incense to symbolize Yin and Yang, the two most basic forms of cosmic reality in the Ruist cosmology. In this way, holding two sticks of incense while bowing to Tian symbolized that Tian is an even higher cosmological concept than Yin and Yang, since the power it refers to creates everything in the universe including these two realities. I bowed three times to Tian because, as I mentioned earlier, Tian includes three parts: Heaven, Earth and Human Beings. This trinitarian idea of Tian in Ruism underpins the Ruist commitment to Tian as both ecological and humanistic.

We all bowed to Tian in front of the statue of Confucius because we wanted our celebration of Tian to witness to our common teacher Confucius, who taught us to treat Tian as what is ultimately meaningful and powerful, that is, what is transcendent for human life. Each friend may also choose whether or not to bow to Confucius after bowing to Tian depending upon how comfortable he or she feels about bowing to a statue of a human being.

In conclusion, what I have set out in this essay is the totality of the new Ruist ritual of Tian-worship and Confucius-veneration performed during the first retreat. The effect of the performance, I have to say, felt good and appropriate. Friends told me that it was simple and felt authentic. Their feelings toward Tian and toward Confucius were expressed and enhanced. In this way, they also felt more at home in this beloved Ru community and in the more than 2,500 year-old living Ru tradition.