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Kong Fuzi promulgated a Mandate of Heaven capable of unifying the peoples of the country by bringing peace and prosperity for everyone. He believed that rulers should be chosen based on merit (rather than strictly by parentage); as well as, their devotion to the people. Virtuous leaders who constantly strove for perfection in all aspects of daily living served as a worthy role model for others to emulate (eliminating the necessity of regulating personal conduct). According to the Analects of Confucius, when asked by his students for one word to serve as a guiding lantern for others to follow on their journey through life, Kong Fuzi chose the Golden Rule of shu - Never impose upon others what you would not choose to impose upon yourself. Kong Fuzi advocated ancestral reverence; considerate kindness towards others; familial loyalty; truthful impeccability in speech, facial expressions and bodily mannerisms; and respectful attentiveness to developing and honing exemplary personal behaviors. He encouraged delineating a more compassionate, ethical future for everyone by studying and learning from the past. Confucian ethics taught the importance of basing one's life on the pursuit of yì or righteousness reciprocity, and of performing morally right actions for the right reason. Yì righteousness sprouted from the seed of rén empathetic kindness towards others. Virtuous behavior blossomed like a lotus lily upon the pond of harmonic relations with others.
Confucianism was a philosophy of a Way of Life that was mainly about
the ethical relations that defined the standards for family life and the
administration of the state. According to the teachings of Kong Fuzi, the motive
for change must be right. It must be good for the whole; as well as, the self.
A moral self was cultivated through a path of virtue where Yi-Jen-Li were integrated into righteous benevolent propriety. Kongzi's teachings also have a deep reverence for the powers of Heaven and Earth that regulate Nature and effect the course of human events. Kong Fuzi's ethical teachings included the following values and virtues: Chung (loyalty to the state); Li (ritual, propriety, etiquette); Hsiao (love within the family); Jen (benevolence, humaneness towards others); Yi (righteousness); and Xin (honesty and trustworthiness). Four of Life's Passages were regulated by tradition: birth; reaching maturity; marriage (with the six stages of proposal, engagement, dowry, procession, marriage, reception); and death. Over the centuries, the teachings of Kong Fuzi have been elaborated upon and expanded by his students and followers to include sets of practices and rules. Books on Confucianism were written by Mencius and Xun Zi. Mencius wrote eloquently about the immeasurable innate goodness of humankind; while, Xun Zi wrote about the reasonable worldly wise aspects of thinking. Later on, the Song dynasty scholar Zhu Xi, who taught at the White Deer Grotto Academy, reinterpreted Kong Fuzi's teachings and blended them with those of Daoism (Taoism) and Buddhism. With the assistance of other scholars, Zhu Xi codified the Analects of Confucius, the Mencius, the Great Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean into the Four Books, the Confucian Classics Cannon; and, the Classic of Poetry, the Classic of History, the Book of Changes (I Ching), the Classic of Rites, and the Spring and Autumn Annals into the Five Classics... Continue on Go back
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