Core Beliefs or Tenets

This picture was on Flickr titled 'my big fat Chinese family'.

 Confucian teaching rests on three essential values: Filial piety, humaneness, and ritual.

The top portion of the character for xiao, or filial piety, shows an old man and underneath, a young man supporting the old man (Oxnam 1). The young should support the old, that is the natural order of things. However it's also reciprocal as it is in this country. We take care of our children and hope that they in turn take care of us when we need them.

Filial piety is the honoring of the family bond between a child and his or her parent.  In Classical Confucianism this is the relationship between a father and son. Humaneness is the goal but it is all built on Filial piety. A famous saying attributed to Confucius says:

If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character.

If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home.

If ther is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation.

If there is order in the nation there will be peace in the home. (Smith 174)

                                                                            Confucius

Although this poem is built on the quality of an individual's heart, it immediately puts that person in relation with the family.  In Confucianism this idea that the nation was dependent on family piety was not a bromide, but a true belief.

Ren is the second Confucian virtue that Oxnam translates as humaneness. He states: "I prefer to translate it as humaneness or humanity because the character is made up of two parts. On the left is the element that means a person or a human being. On the right the element that represents a number two. So, ren has a sense of a person together with others. A human being together with other human beings, a human being in society" (2).  Huston Smith translates ren as 'human-heartedness' (172).  Ren is first developed in the family between a father and a son, between a wife and husband and between an older brother and younger brother.  There are mirror relationships involving daughters and mothers, however, they are not mentioned.  It is disheartening (there is the heart word again) that Confucianism was so silent about women and their role in his system.

Another important relationship that requires Ren is between a ruler and his ministers.  Again, how the nation is ruled is dependent on the quality of relationships and the practice for cultivating relationship begins in the family.

The intensity of focus on the bond between people sacralized it. One way to maintain that sacredness was through the third value of Confucianism, Li, or ritual.  Huston Smith writes that li also means propriety, doing things correctly (174). Oxnam translation the Chinese li symbol as ritual, based on the character of li:  "On the left side of the character, li is the element indicating prognostication or pre-saging. On the right, you have a ritual vessel" (3).  Li as propriety is a generalization from ritual.

Of the three foundational values, ritual is less doable in this modern age.  This particular virtue cannot be done as fully as it once was.  This is also the virtue that was most dependent on class status. A rich family could spend a great deal of time in ritual observance; in fact the Emperor spent almost all his time performing rituals. Confucianism is returning to modern China as a strong religious force after being suppressed during the communist era.  It will be interesting to see what is done in this modern age to transform the ritual component of Confucianism to maintain the sacralized bonds between people.

A Chinese country family.