Welcome to East Asian Religions and Ecology. We're going to begin this week with an overview of a Confucian Worldview, that's very complex and yet can be understood with a simple diagram, from the self, to family, society, education, government, nature, and the cosmos itself. Now, what does this mean? We're going to unfold it in a few moments. But essentially when we look at that diagram the self is not an isolated being, but is contained with and in relationship to all of these other concentric circles, it's a very different image of the individual than Western individualism, especially, from the enlightenment into the modern period. The first circle that contains the individual or family that have regulations, and have a sense of order. In fact, the basic Confucian belief is that order in the family will actually influence the whole state, so if families are harmonious, if families are getting along you'll have a state that is in harmony as well. Along with this, the notion for Confucius is that education lies in the family, this is why mothers are very important for Confucian education, but all education actually begins in the family with moral teachings and human relations. This is why of course, family closeness is primary and ties with one another, are absolutely fundamental, this is true for many traditional families around the world clearly. But for the Confucians in particular, a sense of loyalty and lineage is central, the ancestors and reverence for the ancestors, and a sense even a future generations, is crucial for Confucian families. This is clear because filial piety or Xiao, is actually the root of being human, humanus, or ren, and we have two different spellings here because we have a Wade-Giles which is the earlier transliteration, and then a pinyin, which is the more modern version of doing the Chinese with Western letters. But the root of humanity, that's the aim of what it is for humans to cultivate themselves. But to do that they have to begin by respecting and caring for their parents as the source of life, and they have this sense that parents have nurtured them especially for the first number of years of life and so even in death, there's a mourning period for several years to honor one's parents as the source of life. This sense of honoring is a sense you're carrying on your family name, and so your behavior has got to reflect that. Here's a fascinating one, in addition, is that respecting the body as a gift, means this isn't a tradition that's acetic or self-denying if you will, it's a tradition that loves good food, that loves gathering, and eating together, and celebrating, and so on. Revering one's elders though and respecting one's ancestors is absolutely crucial. When I first went to Japan I was amazed even as a teacher who was older than the students, that there was this natural sense of respect. The importance of a male heir to carry on a family name is central for Confucius, and this is throughout their multigenerational history. Now, the social ordering then that comes out of these family relations it begins with a sense that the role of morality, and ritual, and education, is what have binds humans with one another. This sense that it's a cultural DNA if you will, how these human relations work. We know that so many projects and even institutions can collapse without good human relations, so psychologically this is a very attuned sense of why harmony needs to be established throughout institutions and educational systems and so on. The individual then is always in relation to a group, there's a sense of belonging that's crucial. Again when I went to Japan first to teach there, it was very clear whom you belong to and all of those relations need to be cultivated over time. But what's very interesting is that there's a sense of obligations to others even more than rights of the individual and these relations are very mutually implied. The five relations for Confucians throughout their history is ruler to minister. Now, again even though this seem hierarchical, they imply mutual obligations and responsibilities, the minister could even reprimand the ruler if he was doing immoral things. The husband and wife relationship, again meant to be mutually enhancing not just dominating the parent and child mutual implied relationship throughout life. The older brother and younger brother, this means any older person and younger person respect and obligations go hand in hand. Friend and friend is the one that's clearly mutual, and throughout the Confucian tradition, you have celebration of friendship especially through the poets, Du Fu and Li Bo, and so on, writing to one another at distances throughout their lives. Now, the sense of ritual is actually extremely important to make this happen, and the rituals are propriety ceremonies and music, help to make this not just rigid but have a sense of beauty and decorum. Rituals are in personal and daily life, and this comes very early on in the book of rituals which is an ancient texts and Confucianism, so how you greeted your parents in the morning, what you wore, how you brought them food, even how they interacted with you, this was all prescribed in the book of rituals. The rites of passage when a child is born, when a child comes of age, marriage, the first children, death, all of these are carefully prescribed in the book of rituals but then in customs and cultures throughout the Confucian world. Religious rituals that pattern of both organizing a person in relation to society and nature is very critical, and Confucius had Confucian temples that help to do these religious services. As well, there's a sense of Confucianism as a civil religion. Political ritual state rituals of the Temple of Heaven for example, in Beijing and that the altar to Earth. These were rituals that were provided for the whole society. Even today in Tokyo at the Imperial Palace, the emperor will do rituals for the planting of crops, of planting of rice in the early spring and the harvesting of rice. This gives a sense the whole nation is actually in order with the seasons.
