The Jolly Awareness: Confucius in the face of Death

K'ung Fu-tzu, or Confucius as we call him in English by Latinizing his name to suit our Eurocentric ear, is the earliest of the five teachers I am discussing in these talks. We think he lived from the second half of the sixth century to the third decade of the fifth century before Jesus. Like Socrates and Jesus, he appears not to have written down his thoughts for posterity, or even for his own students. This means that we have the same doubts about whether or not we are reading what he thought or what others say that he thought. All we can do in the face of these uncertainties is to accept them and turn them to our benefit. We can benefit from this absence of a set text because it gives us some flexibility to think for ourselves, personally, about what we have from him. We also should be thankful for the fact that what we have is a collection of anecdotes and aphorisms that are purportedly the records of his students. In other words, we are getting glimpses into the way of the teacher through the ears and minds of his students. How they recorded these conversations should in some way reflect or indicate the impact their teacher or master had on them.

Poiss inä lensit avaruuteen, niin ehkä löysit, mitä sä hait, sammuessasi maailmaan uuteen kirkkaamman,k auniimman loiston sä sait.

2017

Confucius states that we must not focus on the afterlife, because we know so little of it, and we must focus on everyday life. However, Confucianism holds a philosophy of afterlife, even if it is not outright said or depicted. This paper will aim to prove just that. First, through Confucian ideals of being a dutiful person, to grant yourself an honored afterlife, and second, through how Confucianism influenced other religions such as Buddhism and Daoism, which will show a clear depiction of afterlife by considering death rituals, festivals, commune with ancestors, prayers, tomb decor, and the ideology of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism – you will begin to see the depiction of afterlife within Confucianism. But also, you will get to see how Confucianism has evolved and took on traits of both Daoism and Buddhism, which in turn is called Neo-Confucianism. Furthermore, the paper also taps into the history of Confucianism within Modern China. When communism took power, it obliterated ...

Asian Philosophy, 2008

A striking feature of Confucius' grief at the death of his beloved disciple Yan Hui is its profound intensity, an intensity detectable nowhere else in the Analects. Like his disciples, the reader of the Analects may be puzzled by the depth of Confucius' grief in this instance. In distinct accounts, Philip Ivanhoe and Amy Olberding bring some measure of intelligibility to the Master's grief. While partially plausible, I think their offerings on the matter fall short of being fully satisfying. Specifically, I argue that Olberding's proposal that Confucius loses certain developmental avenues after Hui's death should be augmented with the claim that the great depth of his grief largely follows from the importance of Confucius' expression of virtue in the lives of his disciples. It was Yan Hui who best facilitated his Master's expression of virtue, and with Hui's passing, Confucius loses an avenue to a robust expression of virtue, a loss he laments deeply.

Asian Studies, 2018

The main purpose of the present article is to explicitly link the Analects to the embodiment theory (ET). As indicated in the introduction, embodiment has been an important topic in recent Sinological research, but until now rather few explicit connections have been made with the ET. In relation to the embodied knowledge, the article discusses the following topics: embodiment, embeddedness, enactment, extendedness, emotivity, implicitness, emergence, joy and apprenticeship or self-cultivation. The same themes are found to be important in the Analects, with a plethora of examples. Arguably ET could thus be a useful paradigm for discussing several important themes of the Analects. And the Analects being one of the founding texts of the Chinese philosophical tradition (though similar concerns are manifest also in other texts), it could also be beneficial to further developments in the ET itself, on the condition that its proponents familiarize themselves with the Chinese philosophical traditionwhere important issues of ET have been explicitly discussed for two and a half millennia.

China Media Research

This paper engages the Analects from multiple perspectives. The Deleuzean read reveals its function as a cogwheel in the feudal social machine serving the purpose of overcoding. The Flusserian read brings into relief a meta-program that works to perpetuate the feudal social order, and a functionalism that has been revived in the post-historical era. From an interological perspective, Confucian ritual formalizes and normalizes interality. In terms of rhetorical and performance studies, the Analects has the gentleman as its second persona, inculcates a role aesthetics, and models a sense of decorum. From a Daoist viewpoint, the Analects contains an autobiography that documents Confucius's personal development as a spiritual adventurer and his becoming-Daoist later in life. From a Chan perspective, Confucius was a virtuosic performer of upaya, and the Analects feels like a precursor of the mondo or question-and-answer books that flourished in the Chan community in later historical periods. Moreover, a Chan-minded heterodox hermeneutics regarding the Analects has taken shape over time. The paper ends by pointing to Ouyi's Chan-spirited reinterpretation of the Analects as an exciting project to take on. Although the Buddha expounded the Dharma in a single voice, each of all living beings attained understanding according to its kind.-JIANG Qian 江 谦 (translated by Richard John Lynn) A Taoist hat, Confucian shoes, and a Buddhist robe combine the three houses into one. (Hori, 2003, p. 555) Three men gathered around a vat of vinegar. Each dipped a digit in and then touched it to his tongue. To Confucius, the taste was sour; to Gautama Buddha, the taste was bitter; to Laozi, the taste was sweet. All three different; all three one. This exploration approaches the Analects of Confucius with a nomadic sensibility. "Nomadic" invokes multiple strands of philosophical currents, including the treatise on nomadology developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus, the species of nomad thought Deleuze perceives in Friedrich Nietzsche, the kind of nomadism Vilém Flusser associates with post-history in The Freedom of the Migrant, the emerging philosophical paradigm that has coalesced around the term "interology," and Daoism and Chan Buddhism, which have had a long history of co-evolution, rivalry, complementarity,

2022

BSTMOUMN 2-A Activity: 1. Explain the essence of Confucian golden mean. The essence of Confucianism "Golden Mean" emphasizes the importance of staying in the middle and maintaining a constant state and balance, as well as reaching the mean even when circumstances change. For example, if over consumption is on one side of the food intake spectrum and food deprivation is on the other, the golden mean is a balanced diet. Whether it's consumption or abstinence, I've learned that everything done in excess creates an imbalance. The golden mean in the duality of consumption and abstinence is moderation. When we act in a moderately manner, the outcome is not always zero or the absence of something, but rather the average of all the values present or required to achieve the intended whole. Its proponents are not intended to do by what another person or entity wants solely to appease them, but rather to seek a middle ground rather than acting on extremes. It focuses on the points where two extremes find common ground, because from what Aristotle says, the middle ground is generally closer to one extreme than the other. Being in the center, which can also signify passivity, would have been closer to recklessness than being in the sweet spot, or "mean." The golden mean is composed mostly of moderation and normality, as well as universal moral rule and equilibrium. Confucianism also defined as a main attribute or a philosophy of the mean. Wisdom, courage, and humanity must all be practiced as well as with all other virtues in order to have a wise balancing of all the parts of our personal and social virtues in which it will result in a Golden Mean. Polytechnic University of the Philippines Open University System Bachelor of Science in Tourism and Management 2. How did Confucius characterize virtue? Confucius characterize virtue as a 'harmony chain' because for Confucius, harmony, means having everything in its place and function properly, with virtues. He believed that if every person can put the virtues of courtesy, generosity, good faith, diligence and kindness into practice then everyone will be good-natured. The "ren" is one of the foundational virtue of Confucianism. It signifies goodness and virtue. "Ren could be illustrate on how a person lives life among his/her peers,specifically to be compassionate, understanding, and sympathetic towards the feelings and sufferings of others. Confucius explains that "ren" is the highest perfection of goodness and although people may strive to achieve it, few succeed. There is a famous saying that implies "No man is an island." This saying also mean that man is unable to exist in the world alone and must live among his peers. Confucius generalize this basic idea and thrive it into a way of life that specifies that man should live in the world aiding, respecting, and ultimately understanding others. If an individual put the "ren" into a practice everyday, then this will spread to one's family, state, country, and lastly all over the world. Another main component is the "tao," when translated into Chinese it means road or path. However for Confucius this term means "the way" or a particular state "has the way," moral principles prevail. So if a person has a "tao," he or she will act in good order, by-rights and has outstanding moral character. Confucius also emphasizes the virtue of "Filial Piety (Xiao)" which consists of being respectful to one's parents and always obeying them. It is important factor for Confucius since family is very important unit in Chinese society. Lastly the final component of Confucius Philosophy is the "Ritual (li)" which means the propriety or the rules of good behavior. It is simply the interactions of polite society and the proper way to conduct oneself like people Polytechnic University of the Philippines Open University System Bachelor of Science in Tourism and Management needs to bring their inner peace of mind so that they have a proper outlet for each emotional that arises, and that emotions are not express in a rampant manner. They need also to have an external restraint upon one's conduct, so that one does not exceed what is deemed to be right and proper. Confucius believed that cultivating individual human greatness was the key to transforming society into its harmonious ideal. The three qualities of Xiao, Ren, and Li were at the center of this procedure.

Philosophy Compass, 2022

This article presents different readings of Confucius's irony in the Analects (or Lunyu 論語) and expands on the implications of irony for how we perceive Confucius. Scholars who have appreciated the irony of Confucius tend to see it as distinctive of an unsagely, everyday man, often juxtaposed to the dominant image of the Master as a hyperserious sage. Moreover, irony is considered a pedagogical tool. These readings mainly recognize verbal irony (Confucius means the opposite of what he says). I discuss a second type of irony: complex irony (Confucius both means and does not mean what he says). I argue that sageliness is not incompatible with irony, and further propose that complex irony can be found beyond the sentence level; it can be the feature of the relation between specific sayings. Adapting to his interlocutors' diverse personalities and needs, and to a constantly changing world, Confucius sometimes provides different and even conflicting answers to the same questions, based on contextual appropriateness. Each answer is meant to be taken literally and fits one concrete situation. The same answer, however, can be simultaneously ineffective or even dangerous in another albeit seemingly similar context. Thus Confucius sometimes both means what he says and does not mean it in an absolute sense.