Name: EASTERN PHILOSOPHY - Confucius
Uploaded: 2017-04-22T06:46:18.000Z
Duration: 5 min 36 s
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Adverbs of degree

We know very little for certain about the life of the Chinese philosopher,

Basic passive voice

He is said to have been born in 551 BC in China. He may have been a student of the Daoist master, Lao Tzu

he began Government service, and served many roles, including: Minister of Crime,

Confucius and the duke fell out, after the duke received a present from a neighboring ruler:

The duke spent all of his time riding the horses, and being entertained by the woman.

Which Confucius found deeply improper for a ruler.

So he left the court, and wandered for years.

Around between the 3rd, and 5th century B.C,

the "Analects 论语 (Lunyu)", a collection of sayings, written down by his followers.

Some of the morals Confucius taught, are easily recognizable.

Most notably, his version of the Golden Rule:

"Do not do unto others what you don't want done to yourself"

But, some of them also sound very strange, or old-fashioned to modern ears.

But we need his advice all the more for this.

It serves as an antidote to the troubles we currently face.

Here are a few examples, of what Confucius helps us to remember:

The Analects are filled with strange conversations between Confucius and his disciples,

Tsze-kung wished to do away with the offering of a sheep.

Confucius  said, "Ts'ze, you love the sheep; I love the ceremony."

But, Confucius is reminding Tsze, and us, about the importance of ceremony.

In the modern world, we tend to shun ceremony,

and see this as a good thing, a sign of intimacy, or lack of pretension.

But, Confucius believed in the value of ceremonies over sheep,

because he valued what he called "Ritual Propriety 禮 (Li)"

This might seem a very outdated and conservative idea

but, in fact, many of us long for particular rituals.

That meal mum cooked for us whenever we were sick,

We understand that certain premeditated, deliberate, and precise gestures

and they help us to understand how to behave.

2 : We should treat our parents with reverence.

In particular, Confucius had a very strict idea about how we should behave towards our parents

He believed that we should obey them when we are young,

and make huge sacrifices in their memory thereafter.

He even said that we shouldn't travel far away while our parents are alive,

and should cover for them if they steal a sheep

This sounds strange now when many of us leave our parents' home as teenagers

We may even see them as strangers arbitrarily thrust upon us by fate.

After all our parents are so out of touch,

so pitifully human in their shortcomings,

so difficult, so judgmental, and they have such bad taste in music.

Yet Confucius recognised that in many ways moral life begins in the family.

We cannot truly be caring, wise, grateful and conscientious

unless we remember mum's birthday and meet dad for lunch.

3 : we should be obedient to honorable people

Modern societies are very egalitarian - we believe that we are all born equal

and should ultimately be able to say and do whatever we like.

Yet Confucius told his followers: "Let the ruler be a ruler,

the subject a subject, a father a father and a son a son".

This might sound jarring but it is in fact important to realise

that there are people worthy of our deep veneration

We need to be modest enough to recognise the people

whose experience or accomplishments outweigh our own

Confucius explained: "the relation between superiors and inferiors

is like that between the wind and the grass:

the grass must bend when the wind blows across it."

Bending gracefully is, in fact, not a sign of weakness

4. Cultivated knowledge can be more important than creativity.

Modern culture places a lot of emphasis on creativity

but Confucius was adamant about the importance of the universal wisdom

that comes from years of hard work and reflection

He listed: benevolence, ritual propriety, righteousness, wisdom, integrity

While Confucius believed that people were inherently good,

he also saw the virtues like these must be constantly cultivated

He spoke about moral character and wisdom

Of course, a burst of inspiration may well be

what we need to start out business or redo our

But if we're being very honest with ourselves,

we'll have to admit that we also need to devote more

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EASTERN PHILOSOPHY - Confucius

ultimately

discipline

deliberate

integrity