Unit 5 · Key Teachings of Confucius

The word ren appears over 100 times in the Analects. It is the most important virtue in the book. English translators use words like humaneness, goodness, kindness or benevolence. Legge often wrote ’perfect virtue.’

A student named Fan Chi once asked Confucius what ren means. Confucius gave a short answer. He said it means to love people. That answer is in Analects 12.22.

The Chinese character for ren is made of two parts. One part means person. The other part means two. Many readers say this shows that ren is about how people treat each other, not about being alone.

In Analects 15.23, a student named Zigong asked for one word to guide a whole life. Confucius answered with the word shu. Legge translated it as reciprocity. Others say consideration or empathy.

Then Confucius explained. What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others. This is sometimes called the Silver Rule, because it is said in a ’do not’ form.

Many traditions have a teaching like this. Readers often compare it to the Golden Rule in the Christian Gospels. Scholars discuss how the ’do not’ and ’do’ forms are alike and different.

Some people thought goodness was only for great heroes. Confucius said something different. In Analects 7.29, he asked, is ren really far away? He said it more simply than they expected.

He answered his own question. If I truly want ren, he said, it is right here. Many readers take this as hope. Anyone can begin to act with care, today.

But Confucius also said ren is hard to keep up every day. He praised his student Yan Hui for keeping to it for months. So readers see two sides: ren is close, and it takes practice.

The word li first meant rituals, like ceremonies to honor ancestors. Confucius used it more widely. Li also means everyday manners: how you greet, bow, sit, eat and speak.

In Analects 12.1, Confucius’s favorite student Yan Hui asked about ren. Confucius told him to guide himself by li. Do not look, listen, speak or move in ways that go against li.

So in the Analects, li and ren go together. Li gives care a shape people can see. A bow, a greeting or a thank-you are small forms of li. Readers still discuss how the two fit.

Confucius did not want empty manners. In Analects 3.3 he asked: if a person has no ren, what good is li to them? What good is music to them? Manners, for him, were meant to carry real feeling.

In Analects 3.4, someone asked about the root of li. Confucius said that in a funeral, deep sorrow matters more than perfect details. In ceremonies, it is better to be simple than showy.

Readers say this means li should come from the heart. A bow done with care means something. A bow done only to look good means much less, Confucius taught.

Li is not only for ancient China. Every school has its own customs. Students line up, raise hands and greet visitors. Each custom helps people live and learn together.

Confucius taught that small customs matter. They help people know what to expect. They also show respect in a way others can see and understand. They make a shared life run more smoothly.

Customs differ from place to place. A bow in one school may be a handshake or a wave in another. Readers of the Analects often say the respect matters more than the exact form.

Another key word is yi. It means rightness or doing what is right. Legge translated it as righteousness. It asks: what is the fair and proper thing to do here?

In Analects 4.16, Confucius compared two kinds of people. The junzi, he said, understands what is right. The small person understands only what brings profit.

Confucius did not say gain is always bad. In Analects 4.5 he says people want wealth and honor. But he taught that they should not be gained in the wrong way.

The word junzi once meant the son of a lord, a person of noble birth. Confucius changed how it was used. For him, a junzi is noble because of character, not family.

Translators write ’exemplary person,’ ’gentleman’ or, in Legge’s words, ’the superior man.’ The junzi learns, practices ren and li, and does what is right.

The Analects often contrasts the junzi with the ’small person.’ In 14.29, Confucius says the junzi is modest in speech but goes beyond it in action. He does more than he says.

The Analects opens with learning. In 1.1 Confucius asks: isn’t it a joy to learn and to practice what you learn? For him, learning meant changing how you live.

In Analects 2.15, he said learning without thinking is wasted. Thinking without learning is dangerous. A good student reads, asks questions and thinks it through.

Many Confucian readers say this is how a person becomes a junzi. You study good examples. You think about them. Then you practice, again and again, in real life.

Confucian thinkers wrote about five key relationships. They are ruler and subject, parent and child, husband and wife, older and younger sibling, and friend and friend.

The book Mencius lists them in 3A.4. It names a quality for each pair. Parent and child should share affection. Ruler and minister should share rightness. Friends should share trust.

The other two pairs have their own qualities in that list. Husband and wife each have their own roles. Older and younger should keep a proper order. Together, the five describe a whole society.

People sometimes think the five relationships are only about obeying. But Confucian texts give duties to both sides. A parent must care for a child. A ruler must care for the people.

In Analects 12.11, a duke asked Confucius about good government. Confucius said: let the ruler be a ruler, the minister a minister, the father a father, the son a son.

Readers say this means each person should live up to their role. A ruler who is cruel is not being a true ruler. Mencius went further and said the people matter most in a state.

Four of the five relationships put one person above the other. Only friends are equals. In old China, this often meant wives had less power than husbands. Daughters had fewer chances to study than sons.

Many people have questioned this. In the 1900s, Chinese writers and reformers criticized these rankings. They called for equal rights and schooling for girls and women.

Today readers respond in different ways. Some say the rankings belong to the past. Some keep the idea of care and duty but drop the ranking. Some scholars point to women who studied the classics long ago.

Mencius is the Latin form of Mengzi, meaning Master Meng. He lived about a century after Confucius. Traditional dates are about 372 to 289 BCE, but these are not certain.

Mencius traveled from state to state. He talked with kings and tried to persuade them to rule with kindness. He also taught students who wrote down his talks.

The book Mencius has seven books, each in two parts, like 2A and 2B. Later Confucians called him the Second Sage, after Confucius. His book became one of the Four Books.

The story of the three moves comes from an old book of stories about women, the Lienü zhuan. It was put together by Liu Xiang around the first century BCE, long after Mencius lived.

The same book tells a second story. Once young Mencius quit his studies early. His mother cut the cloth she was weaving. She said quitting learning was like ruining the cloth. He went back to study hard.

Historians cannot check these stories. But people in China have told them for over 2,000 years. They honor Mencius’s mother as a model of a caring, wise parent.

The book Mencius opens with a meeting. King Hui of Liang asks Mencius how he can profit the kingdom. It is found in Mencius 1A.1. It is one of the best-known scenes in the book.

Mencius answers: why must Your Majesty speak of profit? He says there is only humaneness and rightness. If everyone chases profit, from the king down, the kingdom will be in danger.

Mencius taught that a good ruler cares for the people like a parent. He said that if a ruler is cruel, the people may rightly turn away. This idea was bold in his time.

Mencius told a famous example in Mencius 2A.6. Imagine you suddenly see a small child about to fall into a well. What would you feel? He asked his listeners to picture it clearly.

Mencius said anyone would feel alarm and compassion. You would not feel it to win praise, or to please the child’s parents. You would simply feel it, right away.

Mencius used this example to argue that people are born with a feeling of care for others. He said a person without it would hardly be human. This is his way of showing that human nature is good.

In the same passage, Mencius named four sprouts. A sprout is a tiny new plant. He said every person is born with four feelings that are like sprouts.

The feeling of compassion is the sprout of ren. The feeling of shame at doing wrong is the sprout of yi. Modesty is the sprout of li. Knowing right from wrong is the sprout of wisdom.

Sprouts are small. Mencius taught they must be cared for to grow into full virtues. Like plants, they need the right conditions, just as his mother looked for the right home.

In Mencius 6A.8, Mencius described Ox Mountain. Its trees were once beautiful. But people cut them down, and cattle ate every new shoot. Now it looks bare.

Mencius said people might think the mountain never had trees. But it did. In the same way, he said, a person who acts badly still had sprouts of goodness. They were just harmed.

Not all Confucians agreed. A later thinker, Xunzi, taught that human nature tends toward selfishness. He said goodness comes from learning and ritual. Readers still compare the two views.