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Confucius (孔子; pinyin: Kǒngzǐ; lit. ' Master Kong '; c. 551 – c. 479 BCE), born Kong Qiu (孔丘), was a Chinese philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. Much of the shared cultural heritage of the Sinosphere originates in the philosophy and teachings of Confucius. [1]
Each man's expression represents the predominant attitude of his philosophy: Confucianism saw life as sour, in need of rules to correct the degeneration of people [citation needed]; Buddhism saw life as bitter, dominated by pain and suffering due to the attachment to possessions and material desires [citation needed]; and Taoism saw life as ...
Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, [1] is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China, and is variously described as a tradition, philosophy (humanistic or rationalistic), religion, theory of government, or way of life. [2]
The basis of Daoist philosophy is the idea of "wu wei", often translated as "non-action". In practice, it refers to an in-between state of "being, but not acting". This concept also overlaps with an idea in Confucianism as Confucius similarly believed that a perfect sage could rule without taking action.
In traditional Confucian philosophy, li is an ethical concept broadly translatable as 'rite'. According to Wing-tsit Chan, li originally referred to religious sacrifices, but has come to mean 'ritual' in a broad sense, with possible translations including 'ceremony', 'ritual', 'decorum', 'propriety', and 'good form'.
The concept was later expanded to all manner of ritualised cultural life. Within the Confucian tradition, the purpose of ritual was to engage in a continuous process of applying appropriate behaviours, taking the correct frame of mind when doing so, as a way to shape one's thinking and reinforce moral character. [3]
The Book of Rites, along with the Rites of Zhou (Zhōulǐ) and the Book of Etiquette and Rites (Yílǐ), which are together known as the "Three Li (Sānlǐ)," constitute the ritual section of the Five Classics which lay at the core of the traditional Confucian canon (each of the "five" classics is a group of works rather than a single text).
Examples of rituals identified by Confucius as important to cultivate a ruler's de include: sacrificial rites held at ancestral temples to express thankfulness and humility; ceremonies of enfeoffment, toasting, and gift exchanges that bound nobility in complex hierarchical relationships of obligation and indebtedness; and, acts of formal ...