CONFUCIOUS - Kung Fu-Tze⁽¹⁾

I. Oriental World View

YANG (active, positive) YIN (passive, negative)

Outcome:

II. Kung's Five Categories:

Jen (love your neighbor as yourself). Self respect; respect for others.

Chun-tzu (becoming the ideal person). Always behaving from a good heart.

Li (right relationships). Family devotion, respect for "elders," and avoiding extremes.

Te Government by example rather than by force.

Wen Cultivate the peaceful arts (poetry, music, painting).

III. Take one statement from each of the three groups. State in writing on the next page how each is Confucian, including which category above is fulfilled in the statement.

Group #1:

1. Is not pleasure found both in learning and in the practice of learning?

2. Whom lack of fame cannot bother, is not his person a gentleman?

3. A good son and a younger brother is seldom fond of thwarting those over him.

4. What are the roots of love, but the duty of a son and brother?

5. Honeyed words and flattering looks seldom speak of love.

6. If a man honors worth and forsakes lust, serves father and mother with all of his strength, and keeps faith with his friends; though men may call him crude, I call him learned.

7. If a gentlemen is frivolous, none stand in awe of him, nor can his learning be sound.

8. Have no friends unlike yourself; don't be ashamed to correct your faults.

9. By respecting death and remembering your forefathers, the good in you will again grow strong.

10. As long as his father lives, a son should study his wishes. After he is gone, the son should study his life.

11. In governing, cleave to the good. As the north star holds its place, the multitude of stars revolve upon it.

12. Learn how to live by warmth and honesty, by politeness and modesty and yielding.

13. Listen much, keep silent when in doubt, and always take heed of the tongue. You will make few mistakes.

14. Exalt the straight, set aside the crooked, and the people will be loyal. Exalt the crooked, set aside the straight, and the people will be disloyal.

15. What is a gentleman? He puts words into deeds first, and then adds words to his deeds.

Group #2:

1. A man without love, what is courtesy to him? A man without love, what is music to him?

2. A king should behave with courtesy to his ministers; the ministers should serve him faithfully.

3. What you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to others.

4. When someone was recommended to him as "thinking three times before he took action," Confucious replied, "Twice should be enough."

5. The well-bred are dignified but not pompous. The ill-bred are pompous but not dignified.

6. If there be goodness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character. If there be beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home. If there be harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation. If there be order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.

7. On a lonely side of Mount Tai a woman was wailing. Asked by a traveller why she wept, she replied, "My husband's father was killed here by a tiger; then my husband; and now my son has met the same fate." Why do you live in such a dreadful place? "Because here there is no tyrant."

8. During the Boxer Rebellion, the Empress Dowager issued an edict that all foreigners be killed. Five of her ministers, schooled in Confucious, changed her word "killed" to "protected." They knew full well it would cost them their lives.

9. A heart set on love will do no wrong.

10. A gentleman can never sin against love.

11. A gentleman trusts justice; the vulgar trust favor.

12. The gentleman considers what is right; the vulgar what will pay.

13. Rotten wood cannot be carved; nor are dung walls plastered.

14. Read to become a gentleman, not merely to show off.

15. When Nature outweighs art, there is roughness. When art outweighs Nature, there is affectation.

16. The highest good is to hold fast to the golden mean.

17. Will the right. Hold to the good. Rest in love. Move in art.

Group #3:

1. A gentleman is always calm and generous. The vulgar are always fretting.

2. Without a sense of courtesy, attentions grow into fussing.

3. Poetry arouses us; courtesy upholds us; music is our crown.

4. To love daring. To detest poverty. These lead to crime.

5. Study as though the time were short.

6. With wine he set no limit. But he never drank until he was befuddled.

7. Too far is no better than not far enough.

8. What is love? To respect mankind. What is wisdom? To know mankind.

9. A gentleman is firm but not quarrelsome.

10. Windy clouds kick the white waves./ Misty birds are lost in the purple air./ The road at the front of my house./ In a single night has turned into a river bed. (Poem: Rain).

11. Far away I sail in my light boat./ My heart leaps with a gust of joy./ Through blossomed branches I see the temple in the woods./ From the mist the magpies and cranes cry.

ANSWER TO GROUP #1:

#12. "Learn how to live by warmth and honesty, by politeness and modesty and yielding." This falls under Chun-Tzu - becoming the ideal person. People are not to be treated with physical force but with kindness and respect.

ANSWER TO GROUP #2:

#8. This seems to fit under both Jen & Te. (Self-respect; respect for others and government by example rather than force). Moral force and persuasion is the effective way to govern. (also same as above).

ANSWER TO GROUP #3:

#11. This fits under Wen (cultivate the peaceful arts). The atmosphere depicted leaves you with an attitude of calmness. The poem is very soothing.

1. NB: This discussion has been left in the masculine idiom because it seems impossible to properly convey Kung Fu-Tze's aristocratic ideal without the language of king, minister, and gentleman. Women could never have played these roles in Kung's time and, in his view, never should. SEM