Happiness: Precept 17-1

Reference: The Happiness Rundown

17-1 . Look

See what you see, not what someone tells you that you see. 

What you observe is what you observe. Look at things and life and others directly, not through any cloud of prejudice, curtain of fear or the interpretation of another. 

Instead of arguing with others, get them to look. The most flagrant lies can be punctured, the greatest pretenses can be exposed, the most intricate puzzles can be resolved and the most remarkable revelations can occur simply by gently insisting that someone look. 

When another finds things almost too confusing and difficult to bear, when his or her wits are going around and around, get the person to just stand back and look. 

What they find is usually very obvious when they see it. Then they can go on and handle things. But if they don’t see it themselves, observe it for themselves, it may have little reality for them and all the directives and orders and punishment in the world will not resolve their muddle. 

While one can indicate what direction to look and suggest that they do look, the conclusions are up to them. 

A child or adult sees what he himself sees and that is reality for him. 

True competence is based on one’s own ability to observe. With that as reality, only then can one be deft and sure.

.

Exercise

0. Make sure you have completed the exercise section at Happiness: Precept 17. Study the precept above.

1. Check the responses to the following questions for false data (see false data steps at Happiness: Prologue).

(a) “Have you been told or taught not to look for yourself?”
(b) “Do you have any rules or ideas contrary to seeing what you see?”
(c) “Have you been led to believe that you shouldn’t look for yourself?”
(d) “Do you know of anything that conflicts with looking for yourself?”
(e) “Do you have any false data about looking and seeing what you see?”

.

2. Go over each of the following questions repetitively, until there are no more answers: 

(a) “How have others transgressed against the precept: ‘Look. See what you see, not what someone tells you that you see’?”
(b) “How have you transgressed against the precept: ‘Look. See what you see, not what someone tells you that you see’?”

Do a quick review to see if you did not miss any answers on this step. You should be feeling good about this step.

.

3. See if the following question definitely brings up some name you know of:

“Is there any specific person in your past who really transgressed against the precept: ‘Look. See what you see, not what someone tells you that you see’?”

If no name comes up then go to step 4. if a name has come up, then continue with step 3 as follows:

“Can you recall an exact moment when you observed ___(name)___ transgressing this precept?”

If there is a realization, go to step 4. Otherwise, continue contemplating as follows, until there is some realization.

“Is there any time when you wanted to be like ___(name)___ ?” 
“Is there any time when you decided that seeing what someone told you that you saw, was a good thing?”
“Did you ever do anything bad to ___(name)___ ? (Get all possible answers)
“Are there any differences between ___(name)___ and yourself?”
“Are there any similarities between ___(name)___  and yourself?”

.

4. Handle any anomalies that come up on the following question by looking at the anomaly more closely. 

”Do you have any reservations about looking and seeing what you see and not what someone tells you that you see?”

If the anomaly does not resolve then review the precept as well as all the exercise steps above to see if anything was missed. Then do step 4 again. When there is no anomaly go to step 5.

.

5. Contemplate on the following question.

“Do you have any reservations about getting someone else to see what they see and not what they are told they see?” 

If any reservation comes up, then consider the following: 

“How would that be a problem?” 

Get answers to this question until there are no reservations.

.

April 1, 2023 – 5:11 AM Categories: Subject Clearing | Post a comment

Happiness: Precept 17

Reference: The Happiness Rundown

17. BE COMPETENT

In an age of intricate equipment and high speed machines and vehicles, one’s survival and that of one’s family and friends depends in no small measure upon the general competence of others. 

In the market place, in the sciences, the humanities and in government, incompetence can threaten the lives and future of the few or the many. 

I am sure you can think of many examples of this. 

Man has always had an impulse to control his fate. Superstition, propitiation of the right gods, ritual dances before the hunt, can all be viewed as efforts, no matter how faint or unavailing, to control destiny. 

It was not until he learned to think, to value knowledge and to apply it with competent skill that he began to dominate his environment. The true “gift of heaven” may have been the potential to be competent. 

In common pursuits and activities, Man respects skill and ability. These in a hero or athlete are almost worshiped. 

The test of true competence is the end result. 

To the degree that a man is competent, he survives. To the degree he is incompetent he perishes. 

Encourage the attainment of competence in any worthwhile pursuit. Compliment it and reward it whenever you find it. 

Demand high performance standards. The test of a society is whether or not you, your family and friends can live in it safely. 

The ingredients of competence include observation, study and practice.

.

17-1 . Look. 

See what you see, not what someone tells you that you see. 

What you observe is what you observe. Look at things and life and others directly, not through any cloud of prejudice, curtain of fear or the interpretation of another. 

Instead of arguing with others, get them to look. The most flagrant lies can be punctured, the greatest pretenses can be exposed, the most intricate puzzles can be resolved and the most remarkable revelations can occur simply by gently insisting that someone look. 

When another finds things almost too confusing and difficult to bear, when his or her wits are going around and around, get the person to just stand back and look. 

What they find is usually very obvious when they see it. Then they can go on and handle things. But if they don’t see it themselves, observe it for themselves, it may have little reality for them and all the directives and orders and punishment in the world will not resolve their muddle. 

While one can indicate what direction to look and suggest that they do look, the conclusions are up to them. 

A child or adult sees what he himself sees and that is reality for him. 

True competence is based on one’s own ability to observe. With that as reality, only then can one be deft and sure.

.

17-2. Learn. 

Has there ever been an instance when another had some false data about you? Did it cause you trouble? 

This can give you some idea of the havoc false data can raise. You could also have some false data about another. 

Separating the false from the true brings about understanding. 

There is a lot of false data around. Evil-intentioned individuals manufacture it to serve their own purposes. Some of it comes from just plain ignorance of the facts. It can block the acceptance of true data. 

The main process of learning consists of inspecting the available data, selecting the true from the false, the important from the unimportant and arriving thereby at conclusions one makes and can apply. If one does this, one is well on the way to being competent. 

The test of any “truth” is whether it is true for you. If, when one has gotten the body of data, cleared up any words in it that one does not fully understand and looked over the scene, it still doesn’t seem true, then it isn’t true so far as you are concerned. Reject it. And if you like, carry it further and conclude what the truth is for you. After all, you are the one who is going to have to use it or not use it, think with it or not think with it. If one blindly accepts “facts” or “truths” just because he is told he must, “facts” and “truths” which do not seem true to one, or even false, the end result can be an unhappy one. That is the alley to the trash bin of incompetence. 

Another part of learning entails simply committing things to memory—like the spelling of words, mathematical tables and formulas, the sequence of which buttons to push. But even in simple memorizing one has to know what the material is for and how and when to use it. 

The process of learning is not just piling data on top of more data. It is one of obtaining new understandings and better ways to do things. 

Those who get along in life never really stop studying and learning. The competent engineer keeps up with new ways; the good athlete continually reviews the progress of his sport; any professional keeps a stack of his texts to hand and consults them. 

The new model egg beater or washing machine, the latest year’s car all demand some study and learning before they can be competently operated. When people omit it, there are accidents in the kitchen and piles of bleeding wreckage on the highways.

It is a very arrogant fellow who thinks he has nothing further to learn in life. It is a dangerously blind individual who cannot shed his prejudices and false data and supplant them with facts and truths that can more fittingly assist his own life and everyone else’s. 

There are ways to study so that one really learns and can use what one learns. In brief, it consists of having a teacher and/or texts which know what they are talking about, of clearing up every word one does not fully understand, of consulting other references and/or the scene of the subject, of sorting out the false data one might already have and of sifting the false from the true on the basis of what is now true for you. The end result will be certainty and potential competence. It can be, actually, a-bright and rewarding experience. Not unlike climbing a treacherous mountain through brambles but coming out on top with a new view of the whole wide world. 

A civilization, to survive, must nurture the habits and abilities to study in its schools. A school is not a place where one puts children to get them out from underfoot during the day. That would be far too expensive for just that. It is not a place where one manufactures parrots. School is where one should learn to study and where children can be prepared to come to grips with reality; to learn to handle it with competence and to be readied to take over tomorrow’s world, the world where current adults will be in their later years, middle or old age. 

The hardened criminal never learned to learn. Repeatedly the courts seek to teach him that if he commits the crime again he will go back to prison: most of them do commit the same crime again and do go back to prison. Factually, criminals cause more and more laws to be passed. The decent citizen is the one that obeys laws; the criminals, by definition do not. Criminals cannot learn. Not all the orders and directives and punishments and duress will work upon a being that does not know how to learn and cannot learn.

A characteristic of a government that has gone criminal—as has sometimes happened in history—is that its leaders cannot learn: all records and good sense may tell them that disaster follows oppression; yet it has taken violent revolutions to handle them or a World War II to get rid of a Hitler and those were very unhappy events for mankind. Such did not learn. They reveled in false data. They refused all evidence and truth. They had to be blown away. 

The insane cannot learn. Driven by hidden evil intentions or crushed beyond the ability to reason, facts and truth and reality are far beyond them. They personify false data. They will not or cannot really perceive or learn. 

A multitude of personal and social problems arise from the inability or refusal to learn. 

The lives of some around you have gone off the rails because they do not know how to study, because they do not learn. You can probably think of some examples. 

If one cannot get those around him to study and learn, one’s own work can become much harder and even overloaded and one’s own survival potential can be greatly reduced. 

One can help others study and learn if only by putting in their reach the data they should have. One can help simply by acknowledging what they have learned. One can assist if only by appreciating any demonstrated increase in competence. If one likes, one can do more than that: others can be assisted by helping them, without disputes, to sort out false data; by helping them find and clear up words they have not understood; by helping them find and handle the reasons they do not study and learn. 

As life is largely trial and error, instead of coming down on somebody who makes a mistake, find out how come a mistake was made and see if the other can’t learn something from it. 

Now and then you may surprise yourself by untangling a person’s life just by having gotten the person to study and learn. I am sure you can think of many ways. And I think you will find the gentler ones work best. The world is brutal enough already to people who can’t learn.

.

17-3. Practice. 

Learning bears fruit when it is applied. Wisdom, of course, can be pursued for its own sake: there is even a kind of beauty in it. But, truth told, one never really knows if he is wise or not until he sees the results of trying to apply it. 

Any activity, skill or profession—ditch digging, law, engineering, cooking or whatever—no matter how well studied, collides at last with the acid test: can one DO it? And that doing requires practice. 

Movie stunt men who don’t practice first get hurt. So do housewives. 

Safety is not really a popular subject. Because it is usually accompanied by “be careful” and “go slow.” People can feel restraints are being put on them. But there is another approach: if one is really practiced, his skill and dexterity is such that he doesn’t have to “be careful” or “go slow.” Safe high speed of motion becomes possible only with practice. 

One’s skill and dexterity must be brought up to match the speed of the age one lives in. And that is done with practice. 

One can train one’s body, one’s eyes, one’s hands and feet until, with practice, they sort of “get to know.” One no longer has to “think” to set up the stove or park the car: one just DOES it. In any activity, quite a bit of what passes for “talent” is really just practice. 

Without working out each movement one makes to do something and then doing it over and over until one can get it done without even thinking about it and get it done with speed and accuracy, one can set the stage for accidents. 

Statistics tend to bear out that the least practiced have the most accidents.

The same principle applies to crafts and professions which mainly use the mind. The lawyer who has not drilled, drilled, drilled on courtroom procedure may not have learned to shift his mental gears fast enough to counter new turns of a case and loses it. An undrilled new stockbroker could lose a fortune in minutes. A green salesman who has not rehearsed selling can starve for lack of sales. The right answer is to practice, practice and practice! 

Sometimes one finds that what one has learned he cannot apply. If so, the faults lay with improper study or with the teacher or text. It is one thing to read the directions, it is sometimes another thing entirely to try to apply them. 

Now and then, when one is getting nowhere with practice, one has to throw the book away and start from scratch. The field of movie sound recording has been like that: if one followed what recordist texts there have been, one wouldn’t get a bird song to sound any better than a fog horn—that is why you can’t tell what the actors are saying in some movies. The good sound recordist had to work it all out for himself in order to do his job. But in the same field of the cinema there is a complete reverse of this: several texts on cine lighting are excellent: if followed exactly, one gets a beautiful scene. 

It is regrettable, particularly in a high speed technical society, that not all activities are adequately covered with understandable texts. But that should not stop one. When good texts exist, value them and study them well. Where they don’t, assemble what data is available, study that and work the rest of it out. 

But theory and data blossom only when applied and applied with practice. 

One is at risk when those about one do not practice their skills until they can really DO them. There is a vast difference between “good enough” and professional skill and dexterity. The gap is bridged with practice. 

Get people to look, study, work it out and then do it. And when they have it right, get them to practice, practice, practice until they can do it like a pro. 

There is considerable joy in skill, dexterity and moving fast: it can only be done safely with practice. Trying to live in a high speed world with low speed people is not very safe. 

The way to happiness is best traveled with competent companions.

.

Exercise

0. Make sure you have completed the exercise section at Happiness: Precept 16. Study the precept above.

1. Check the responses to the following questions for false data (see false data steps at Happiness: Prologue).

(a) “Have you been told or taught not to be competent?”
(b) “Do you have any rules or ideas contrary to being competent?”
(c) “Have you been led to believe that you shouldn’t be competent?”
(d) “Do you know of anything that conflicts with being competent?”
(e) “Do you have any false data about being competent?”

.

2. Go over each of the following questions repetitively, until there are no more answers: 

(a) “How have others transgressed against the precept: ‘Be competent’?”
(b) “How have you transgressed against the precept: ‘Be competent’?”

Do a quick review to see if you did not miss any answers on this step. You should be feeling good about this step.

.

3. See if the following question definitely brings up some name you know of:

“Is there any specific person in your past who really transgressed against the precept: ‘Be competent’?”

If no name comes up then go to step 4. if a name has come up, then continue with step 3 as follows:

“Can you recall an exact moment when you observed ___(name)___ transgressing this precept?”

If there is a realization, go to step 4. Otherwise, continue contemplating as follows, until there is some realization.

“Is there any time when you wanted to be like ___(name)___ ?” 
“Is there any time when you decided that not being competent was a good thing?”
“Did you ever do anything bad to ___(name)___ ? (Get all possible answers)
“Are there any differences between ___(name)___ and yourself?”
“Are there any similarities between ___(name)___  and yourself?”

.

4. Handle any anomalies that come up on the following question by looking at the anomaly more closely. 

”Do you have any reservations about being competent?”

If the anomaly does not resolve then review the precept as well as all the exercise steps above to see if anything was missed. Then do step 4 again. When there is no anomaly go to step 5.

.

5. Contemplate on the following question.

“Do you have any reservations about getting someone else to be competent?” 

If any reservation comes up, then consider the following: 

“How would that be a problem?” 

Get answers to this question until there are no reservations.

.

April 1, 2023 – 4:50 AM Categories: Subject Clearing | Post a comment

Happiness: Precept 16

Reference: The Happiness Rundown

16. BE INDUSTRIOUS

Work is not always pleasant. 

But few are unhappier than those who lead a purposeless, idle and bored existence: children gloom to their mother when they have nothing to do; the low-mindedness of the unemployed, even when they are on “relief” or the “dole” is legendary; the retired man, with nothing further to accomplish in life, perishes from inactivity, as shown by statistics. 

Even the tourist, lured by a travel agency’s call to leisure, gives a tour conductor a bad time if he has nothing for them to do. 

Sorrow itself can be eased by simply getting busy at something. 

Morale is boosted to high highs by accomplishment. In fact, it can be demonstrated that production is the basis of morale. 

People who are not industrious dump the workload on those around them. They tend to burden one. 

It is hard to get along with idle people. Aside from depressing one, they can also be a bit dangerous. 

A workable answer is to persuade such to decide on some activity and get them busy with it. The most lasting benefit will be found to arise from work that leads to actual production. 

The way to happiness is a high road when it includes industriousness that leads to tangible production.

.

Exercise

0. Make sure you have completed the exercise section at Happiness: Precept 15. Study the precept above.

1. Check the responses to the following questions for false data (see false data steps at Happiness: Prologue).

(a) “Have you been told or taught not to be industrious?”
(b) “Do you have any rules or ideas contrary to being industrious?”
(c) “Have you been led to believe that you shouldn’t be industrious?”
(d) “Do you know of anything that conflicts with being industrious?”
(e) “Do you have any false data about being industrious?”

.

2. Go over each of the following questions repetitively, until there are no more answers: 

(a) “How have others transgressed against the precept: ‘Be industrious’?”
(b) “How have you transgressed against the precept: ‘Be industrious’?”

Do a quick review to see if you did not miss any answers on this step. You should be feeling good about this step.

.

3. See if the following question definitely brings up some name you know of:

“Is there any specific person in your past who really transgressed against the precept: ‘Be industrious’?”

If no name comes up then go to step 4. if a name has come up, then continue with step 3 as follows:

“Can you recall an exact moment when you observed ___(name)___ transgressing this precept?”

If there is a realization, go to step 4. Otherwise, continue contemplating as follows, until there is some realization.

“Is there any time when you wanted to be like ___(name)___ ?” 
“Is there any time when you decided that not being industrious was a good thing?”
“Did you ever do anything bad to ___(name)___ ? (Get all possible answers)
“Are there any differences between ___(name)___ and yourself?”
“Are there any similarities between ___(name)___  and yourself?”

.

4. Handle any anomalies that come up on the following question by looking at the anomaly more closely. 

”Do you have any reservations about being industrious?”

If the anomaly does not resolve then review the precept as well as all the exercise steps above to see if anything was missed. Then do step 4 again. When there is no anomaly go to step 5.

.

5. Contemplate on the following question.

“Do you have any reservations about getting someone else to be industrious?” 

If any reservation comes up, then consider the following: 

“How would that be a problem?” 

Get answers to this question until there are no reservations.

.

April 1, 2023 – 4:32 AM Categories: Subject Clearing | Post a comment

CONFUCIANISM: Ethics or Religion?

Reference: Confucianism

[NOTE: In color are Vinaire’s comments.]

The project of becoming fully human involves transcending, sequentially, egoism, nepotism, parochialism, ethnocentrism, and chauvinistic nationalism, and isolating, self-sufficient humanism. 

Is Confucianism a religion, or is it an ethic? The answer depends on how one defines religion. With its close attention to personal conduct and the moral order, Confucianism approaches life from a different angle than do other religions, but that does not necessarily disqualify it religiously. If religion is taken in its widest sense, as a way of life woven around a people’s ultimate concerns, Confucianism clearly qualifies. Even if religion is taken in a narrower sense, as a concern to align humanity with the transcendental ground of its existence, Confucianism is still a religion, albeit a muted one. For though we have thus far spoken only of Confucius’ social concerns, these, while definitely the focus, did not exhaust his outlook. 

Religion, in its widest sense, is a way of life woven around a people’s ultimate concerns. In a narrower sense, it is a concern to align humanity with the transcendental ground of its existence. Confucianism qualifies as a religion.

To see the transcendent dimension of Confucianism in perspective, we need to set it against the religious background of the ancient China in which Confucius lived. Until the first millennium B.C., the unquestioned outlook was a compound of three related ingredients: 

First, Heaven and Earth were considered a continuum. The terms referred not primarily to places but to the people who dwelt in those places, as the House of Lords refers to the people who sit in that House. The people who comprised Heaven were the ancestors (ti) who were ruled over by a supreme ancestor (Shang Ti). They were the forefathers who had gone ahead and soon would be joined by the present retinue of Earth—the whole was one unbroken procession in which death spelled no more than promotion to a more honorable estate. The two realms were mutually implicated and in constant touch. Heaven held control of Earth’s welfare—the weather for example was “Heaven’s mood”—while depending on the current inhabitants of Earth to supply some of her needs through sacrifice. Of the two realms Heaven was by far the more important. Her inhabitants were more venerable and august and their authority was greater. Consequently, they commanded Earth’s reverence and dominated her imaginings. 

Until the first millennium B.C., Heaven and Earth were considered a continuum. The people who comprised Heaven were the ancestors (ti) who were ruled over by a supreme ancestor (Shang Ti). were more venerable and august and their authority was greater.

Being mutually dependent, Heaven and Earth would have needed to communicate for reasons of need even if not affection. The most concrete way by which Earth spoke to Heaven was through sacrifices. Earth’s residents thought it both wise and natural to share their goods with their departed ancestors, and the essences of their earthly goods were carried to Heaven on the ascending smoke of the sacrificial fire. A mound for such offerings was the focus of every ancient village. When the Chinese nation arose, its ruler, the Son of Heaven, affirmed his right to that proud title by overseeing the nation’s sacrifices to its ancestors. Even as late as Confucius’ day, an administration that lapsed in its worship of the ancestors was considered to have lost its right to rule. 

Being mutually dependent, Heaven and Earth would have needed to communicate. Earth spoke to Heaven was through sacrifices. An administration that lapsed in its worship of the ancestors was considered to have lost its right to rule. 

If sacrifice was the principal way Earth spoke to Heaven, augury was the channel through which Heaven responded. As the ancestors knew the entire past of their people, they were equipped to calculate its future. Augury was the device by which the present generation might tap into that knowledge. Being pleasantly disposed toward their descendants, the ancestors would naturally want to share with them their knowledge of things to come. They no longer possessed vocal cords, however, and therefore needed to resort to signs. It followed that everything that happened on Earth fell into two classes. Things people did intentionally were ordinary, but things that “happened of themselves”—we should read that phrase with a tinge of apprehension—were to be noticed with care. They were ominous, for one never knew when they might constitute the ancestors’ efforts to get peoples’ attention, most urgently to warn them of impending danger. Some of these omens occurred within or to the body: itchings, sneezings, twitchings, stumblings, buzzings in the ears, tremblings of the eyelids. Others were external: thunder, lightning, the courses of the stars, the doings of insects, birds, and animals. It was also possible for people to take the initiative and actively seek out Heaven’s prescience. They could throw yarrow stalks on the ground and observe their pattern; they could apply a hot iron to a tortoise shell and examine the cracks that appeared. Whatever the occasion—a trip, a war, a birth, a marriage—it was prudent to look for heavenly tips. An ancient record tells of a visitor who was asked by his host to prolong his stay into the evening. He answered, “I have divined about the day. I have not divined about the night. I dare not.” 

The Heaven responded in the way of augury. As the ancestors knew the entire past of their people, they were equipped to calculate its future.

In each of these great features of early Chinese religion—its sense of continuity with the ancestors, its sacrifice, and its augury—there was a common emphasis. The emphasis was on Heaven instead of Earth. To understand the total dimension of Confucianism as a religion it is important to see Confucius shifting his people’s attention from Heaven to Earth without dropping Heaven from the picture entirely. 

The first of these twin aspects of Confucianism can be documented easily. On a much debated issue of his day—which should come first, the claims of earthly people or those of the spirit world through sacrifices?—he answered that though the spirits should not be neglected, people should come first. The worldliness and practical concern by which the Chinese were later to be known was coming to the fore, and Confucius did much to crystallize their this-world orientation. 

Confucius was shifting his people’s attention from Heaven to Earth without dropping Heaven from the picture entirely. 

“I do not say that the social as we know it is the whole,” wrote John Dewey, “but I do emphatically suggest that it is the widest and richest manifestation of the whole accessible to our observation.” Confucius would have agreed. His philosophy was a blend of common sense and practical wisdom. It contained no depth of metaphysical thought, no flights of speculation, no soul-stirring calls to cosmic piety. Normally, he “did not talk about spirits.” “Recognize that you know what you know, and that you are ignorant of what you do not know,” he said. “Hear much, leave to one side that which is doubtful, and speak with due caution concerning the remainder. See much, leave to one side that of which the meaning is not clear, and act carefully with regard to the rest.” Consequently, whenever he was questioned about other-worldly matters, Confucius drew the focus back to human beings. Asked about serving the spirits of the dead, he answered, “You are not even able to serve people. How can you serve the spirits?” Asked about death itself, he replied, “You do not understand even life. How can you understand death?” In short: one world at a time.

The philosophy of Confucius was a blend of common sense and practical wisdom. 

One specific illustration of the way in which Confucius shifted the focus from Heaven to Earth is seen in his change of emphasis from ancestor worship to filial piety. In ancient China the dead were actually worshiped. True to the conservative component in his nature, Confucius did nothing to interrupt the ancestral rites themselves. He did not deny that the spirits of the dead exist; on the contrary he advised treating them “as if they were present.” At the same time his own emphasis was directed toward the living family. He stressed that the most sacred tie is the tie among blood relatives. For him the obligations of present members of a family to one another were more important than their duties to the departed. 

For Confucius the obligations of present members of a family to one another were more important than their duties to the departed. 

The extent to which Confucius shifted emphasis from Heaven to Earth should not lead us to think that he sundered Earth from Heaven entirely. He did not repudiate the main outlines of the world-view of his time, composed of Heaven and Earth, the divine creative pair, half physical and half more-than-physical, ruled over by the supreme Shang Ti. Reserved as he was about the supernatural, he was not without it; somewhere in the universe there was a power that was on the side of right. The spread of righteousness was, therefore, a cosmic demand, and “the Will of Heaven” the first thing a chun tzu would respect. Confucius believed that he had a mandate to spread his teachings. When during the “long trek” he was attacked in the town of Kwang, he reassured his followers by saying, “Heaven has appointed me to teach this doctrine, and until I have done so, what can the people of Kwang do to me?” Feeling neglected by his people, he consoled himself with the thought: “There is Heaven—that knows me!” One of the most quoted religious sayings of all times came from his pen. “He who offends the gods has no one to pray to.” 

Confucius did not repudiate the main outlines of the world-view of his time, composed of Heaven and Earth. For him, somewhere in the universe there was a power that was on the side of right. 

This restrained and somewhat attenuated theism enables us to understand why a contemporary Confucian scholar can write that “the highest Confucian ideal is the unity of Man and Heaven,” adding that in the Doctrine of the Mean this is described as “man forming a trinity with Heaven and Earth.” With this unity or trinity established as the consummating goal of the Confucian project, we can pick up on its successive steps, which in our earlier enumeration stopped short of the final goal. The project of becoming fully human involves transcending, sequentially, egoism, nepotism, parochialism, ethnocentrism, and chauvinistic nationalism, and (we should now add) isolating, self-sufficient humanism. To continue with the words of the Confucian scholar just quoted:

To make ourselves deserving partners of Heaven, we must be constantly in touch with that silent illumination that makes the rightness and principle in our heart-minds shine forth brilliantly. If we cannot go beyond the constraints of our own species, the most we can hope for is an exclusive, secular humanism advocating man as the measure of all things. By contrast, Confucian humanism is inclusive; it is predicated on an “anthropocosmic” vision. Humanity in its all-embracing fullness “forms one body with Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things” and enables us to embody the cosmos in our sensitivity. 

The project of becoming fully human involves transcending, sequentially, egoism, nepotism, parochialism, ethnocentrism, and chauvinistic nationalism, and isolating, self-sufficient humanism. 

.

March 31, 2023 – 8:45 AM Categories: Religion | Post a comment

CONFUCIANISM: The Confucian Project

Reference: Confucianism

[NOTE: In color are Vinaire’s comments.]

The purpose of the Confucian project is becoming a chun tzu, a fully realized human being.  The heart-mind expands in concentric circles that begin with oneself and spread from there to include successively one’s family, one’s face-to-face community, one’s nation, and finally all humanity.

Let us assume that the deliberate tradition Confucius sought to fashion was in place. How would life appear to a Chinese, set within it? 

It would beckon as a never-ending project of self-cultivation toward the end of becoming more fully human. The good man or woman in the Confucian scheme is the one who is always trying to become better. 

The good man or woman in the Confucian scheme is the one who is always trying to become better. 

The project is not attempted in a vacuum—this is not yogis retiring to mountain caves to discover the God within. Quite the contrary; a Confucian who is bent on self-cultivation positions himself or herself squarely in the center of ever-shifting, never-ending cross-currents of human relationships and would not wish things otherwise; saintliness in isolation had no meaning for Confucius. The point is not merely that human relationships are fulfilling; the Confucian claim runs deeper than that. It is rather that apart from human relationships there is no self. The self is a center of relationships. It is constructed through its interactions with others and is defined by the sum of its social roles. 

The Confucian claim is rather that the self is a center of relationships. It is constructed through its interactions with others and is defined by the sum of its social roles. 

This notion of the self is so different from Western individualism that we need to circle it for a paragraph. Confucius saw the human self as a node, not an entity; it is a meeting place where lives converge. In this it resembles a sea anemone, which is little more than a net through which tides and currents wash, leaving deposits that build what little substance the plant itself possesses. But though it is accurate in ways, this image is too passive; we do better to switch from sea currents to air currents that assail an eagle in flight. Those currents assault the eagle, but the eagle uses them to control its altitude by adjusting the tilt of its wings. Like an eagle in flight, our human life too is in motion, but in its case human relationships are the atmosphere through which it plows. The Confucian project is to master the art of adjusting one’s wings in order to ascend toward the elusive but approachable goal of human perfection. Or as Confucius would have said, toward the goal of becoming more completely human. 

Confucius saw the human self as a node, not an entity; it is a meeting place where lives converge. 

In this analogy Confucius’ Five Constant Relationships present themselves as relatively stable currents in atmospheric conditions that in other respects can fluctuate wildly. We have seen that all five relationships are asymmetrical in that behavior that is appropriate to one person in each pair is not identical with what is appropriate for the other person. This asymmetry presupposes role differentiation and details its specifics. 

The crucial question here is whether the specifics Confucius proposed tilt the relationships, positioning one person in each pair above the other person. In one sense they definitely do. It seemed altogether natural to Confucius that children should look up to their parents, wives to husbands, subjects to rulers, and younger friends and siblings to their older counterparts, for the latter, generally older, are more experienced and provide natural role models. But this is where wingslants must be adjusted precisely, for a hair’s-breadth difference puts the Confucian project into a nose dive. The danger is greatest for the “top” partner in each pair, who could be tempted to assume that the position carries built-in perquisites rather than ones that must be merited. Unquestionably, human nature being what it is, the Chinese succumbed to this temptation—to what extent defies calculation, but enough to make this the sinister side of the Confucian scheme. But Confucius himself tried to forestall abuse by insisting that authority—due authority—is not automatic; it must be earned. The loyalty that is due the husband from the wife is contingent on the husband’s being the kind of husband who warrants—instinctively inspires—such loyalty, and comparably with the other four relationships, although the nuances of loyalty differ in each case. In the ruler-subject relationship, for example, the ruler retains the Mandate of Heaven—his right to his subjects’ loyalty—only insofar as their welfare is in truth his chief concern and he possesses the talents needed to promote it. More than two thousand years before the Magna Carta and the Rights of Man, two millennia before the West separated divine right from the office of kingship, the Chinese (through Confucius and his disciples) built the Right of Revolution solidly into their political philosophy: “Heaven sees as the people see; Heaven wills as the people will.” Far from being enjoined, complicity in the face of unwarranted authority is, in the Confucian project, a human failing. 

It seemed altogether natural to Confucius that children should look up to their parents, wives to husbands, subjects to rulers, and younger friends and siblings to their older counterparts, for the latter, generally older, are more experienced and provide natural role models. But Confucius himself tried to forestall abuse by insisting that authority—due authority—is not automatic; it must be earned.  

As a metaphor for the Confucian project, we introduced the image of an eagle adjusting its wings to maneuver the atmosphere—analogue for the Five Constant Relationships—in ways that enable it to ascend. If we round off this metaphor by asking what ascent means here, we find that the answer was begun in the preceding section. It means becoming a chun tzu, a fully realized human being, through expanding one’s sympathy and empathy indefinitely. The Chinese character for this empathy/sympathy is hsin. Pictorially, hsin is a stylized drawing of the human heart, but in meaning it denotes both mind and heart, for in Confucian learning the two go together—sundered from each other, thought runs dry, feeling is rudderless, and the Confucian project gets grounded. As for the increase of this heart-mind that is hsin, it expands in concentric circles that begin with oneself and spread from there to include successively one’s family, one’s face-to-face community, one’s nation, and finally all humanity. In shifting the center of one’s empathic concern from oneself to one’s family one transcends selfishness. The move from family to community transcends nepotism. The move from community to nation overcomes parochialism, and the move to all humanity counters chauvinistic nationalism. 

The purpose of the Confucian project is becoming a chun tzu, a fully realized human being.  The heart-mind expands in concentric circles that begin with oneself and spread from there to include successively one’s family, one’s face-to-face community, one’s nation, and finally all humanity.

This broadening process is accompanied by one that is deepening; for when it was suggested above that Confucius saw the self as the sum of its social roles, that overstates the case if it suggests that he denied that the self has an internal, subjective center. His repeated calls to self-examination and introspection generally show that he not only recognized an interior side to the self but considered it important. Confucian learning pivots on the self and is for the sake of the self, though (to be sure) as the self expands, its separation from others attenuates. Interior life grows richer as empathy increases, for it is the breadth and depth of one’s hsin that shapes the contours of subjectivity and provides it with its primary food for thought.

Confucius recognized that as the self expands externally, it also deepens internally toward a subjective center.

So inside and outside work together in the Confucian scheme. The inner world deepens and grows more satisfying and refined as jen and hsin expand and the possibilities of li are progressively realized. The project is never attempted alone. It proceeds in the sea of humanity, alongside others who likewise (with varying degrees of seriousness) are trying to become fully human. Always the practice field is the Five Constant Relationships. In the course of one’s training, one finds that mastering a role in one of the five sheds light on the other roles. To improve as a parent throws light on what being a good child (of one’s own parents) entails. The nuances of the other roles likewise illuminate one another.

The Confucian project proceeds in the sea of humanity, alongside others who likewise (with varying degrees of seriousness) are trying to become fully human.

.

March 31, 2023 – 6:04 AM Categories: Religion | Comments (2)