Confucius

by Meher McArthur

  Chen Ziqin went away delighted and said, ‘I asked one thing, and learned three. I learned about the Poems, I learned about the ritual, and I learned how a gentleman maintains distance from his son.’25

  This excerpt suggests that Confucius did not cultivate a warm, loving relationship with his son, preferring to keep him at a distance, more like teacher and student than father and son. Boyu, it seems, was understandably intimidated by his father, and apparently tiptoed around the family home so that Confucius would not notice him. When his father did spot him on these two occasions, he merely urged him to read two of the great classics. Boyu does not comment on whether or not he was pleased with his father’s advice, stating simply that this is what he learned from his father. Sadly for Boyu, not only was he treated more as a disciple than as a son, he does not even seem to have been one of Confucius’ favourites. Boyu’s name is rarely referred to in The Analects or other texts, but a number of other disciples, such as Zilu, Zigong and Yan Hui, are mentioned regularly as engaging in stimulating exchanges with Confucius about morality, politics and the like. Confucius was particularly fond of Yan Hui, a young man from a poor family whom Confucius deemed to be of exceptional moral calibre. Over the years, Confucius appears to have become fonder of Yan Hui than of his own son. Because Confucius lived to such a great age (seventy-two or seventy-three), he outlived some of his students and his son. When Boyu died in his late forties c. 483 (the year Boyu’s son and Confucius’ grandson, Zisi, was born), Confucius was presumably saddened; there are no records of his reaction to his son’s death. However, when Yan Hui died four years later, Confucius was utterly devastated. According to The Analects he wailed wildly, saying, ‘Alas! Heaven is destroying me! Heaven is destroying me!’ His other disciples were shocked at his behaviour and said to him, ‘Master, such grief is not proper.’ When they then gave Yan Hui a grand funeral, Confucius lamented, ‘Yan Hui treated me as a father, and yet I was not given the chance to treat him as my son,’ that is, by giving him a modest funeral, like the one he gave his own son.26 Confucius died later that same year, perhaps affected by the loss.

  We may know very little about Boyu, but it is more than we know about his daughters, a fact that is not surprising considering the traditional Chinese attitude towards women as socially inferior to men. Apparently, Confucius and his wife lost their first daughter when she was still a child, but their second daughter survived. The only reference to her in traditional texts is in The Analects, where it was noted that Confucius selected a husband for her, one of his followers, Gongye Chang, also known as Zichang. Gongye Chang, he declared, ‘would make a good husband. Although he has been in jail, he was innocent.’27 It was critical for a woman to marry well, and Confucius would have given the selection of a husband for his daughter careful consideration, so we can assume that this man was of high moral character – perhaps someone who was wrongfully imprisoned for standing up for his beliefs. Other than the fact that she married Gongye Chang, we know nothing about his daughter – not even her name. Confucius, and his disciples and the historians who recorded his life and teachings, no doubt shared the common negative perception of women in China 2,000 years ago, and he and his teachings have been heavily criticised in modern times as being anti-women. Many scholars cite the following excerpt from The Analects as evidence of his sexism: ‘Women and underlings are especially difficult to handle: be friendly, and they become familiar; be distant, and they resent it.’28 His defenders, however, counter that although Confucius and his followers may have been guilty of ignoring women, they did not set out to oppress them.29

  Despite his apparent low regard for women, Confucius does appear to have been deeply reverential towards his own mother, in part from his strong sense of filial piety, an attitude that was already of great importance in this early period of Chinese history.30 To Confucius, filial piety was the foremost attribute of a gentleman and was essential in the development of one’s moral character. In The Analects he is said to have taught, ‘A gentleman works at the root. Once the root is secured, the Way unfolds. To respect parents and elders is the root of humanity.’31

  He demonstrated this piety when she died around the year 527 BC, when Confucius was in his mid-twenties. According to tradition, a bereaved son or daughter was required to spend twenty-seven months (extended over three years) in mourning, since this represented three times the gestation period of a baby and was the length of time that children were completely dependent on their parents. Official mourning meant taking time off work, wearing special clothes (made from rough cloth and not silk), abstaining from certain foods (such as fine white rice), refraining from listening to music and, most importantly, performing ceremonies honouring the deceased parent. Confucius felt very strongly about this tradition and criticised others who cut short their mourning period or skipped details of the rituals. Of Zai Yu, one of his disciples, who suggested that one year was enough time to mourn one’s parents, Confucius complained, ‘Zai Yu is devoid of humanity. After a child is born, for the first three years of his life, he does not leave his parents’ bosom. Three years’ mourning is a custom that is observed everywhere in the world. Did Zai Yu never enjoy the love of his parents, even for three years?’32

  Confucius was certainly a pious son but, for him, honouring his deceased mother properly was more than an act of filial piety. It had been his mother who had taught him about rituals and instilled in him the sense of their importance. The least he could do for her in return was to conduct all the mourning rites with the utmost reverence and regard for protocol. He may also have gone beyond what was required of a son when it came to her funeral. It is recorded that although he arranged for an appropriate burial for her, he later exhumed her tomb, found and exhumed his father’s tomb (which was presumably with his other family) and buried them together in a new grave site. He erected a mound over their coffins so that he could identify their burial place in later years.33 The new grave mound is said to have collapsed after a heavy rainstorm, reducing Confucius to tears.34

  If this legend is true, it is very revealing about his feelings towards his own family circumstances, in particular about the status that he wished his mother had actually held within the Kong family. Perhaps he went this far to show his respect for his mother because he perceived her as a person who had fulfilled all her social roles in a most worthy manner. To Confucius, successfully discharging one’s ethical duties was of utmost importance to people of both sexes and all social classes, and he was deeply in awe of men and women who managed to accomplish this.35 At the various stages of her life his mother was a model daughter, wife and mother. As a daughter, she had obeyed her father and married a man more than three times her age in order to help raise her own family’s status. As a wife of an elderly man, she had done her duty to him and swiftly borne a son who could continue his family line. And as a mother, she had provided for her son as best she could without a husband or much money, and she had prepared him well for his role in maintaining the family line. Although there is no specific mention of Confucius’ admiration for her in The Analects or other texts, he surely viewed her as a highly honourable daughter, wife and mother. It is not surprising, therefore, that her death motivated him to break with protocol one of the few times in his life to alter the family burial arrangements, thus elevating his mother’s status.

  His mother’s death marked a critical moment in Confucius’ life, both personally and professionally. Confucius was about twenty-four years old, his own children were very young and he was beginning his career as a civil servant and teacher. With her death, he no longer had a living parent and had two children of his own, making him the head of his own family and the sole person responsible for revering his family ancestors. He had spent much of his childhood and early adult years absorbing knowledge about history, traditional culture and rituals, and was now so well informed that he was in a position to form his own social philosophy and begin to teach it to others. His personal experience of mourning his mothe
r’s passing – one of the ultimate family rituals – equipped him to teach the value of human relationships, a concept that lay at the core of his philosophy.

  4

  Early Career and Teachings

  Confucius’ twenties were a time of major personal changes and challenges. He married, had three children and lost one, and his own mother died, leaving him without parents. This period also marked the beginning of his professional journey along the dual paths of his career – civil servant and teacher. Ever since his childhood he had studied the traditional rituals and the protocol surrounding the important ancestral sacrifices, as well as the songs and poems from the Zhou dynasty. Now, as an expert in the ways of the ancients, he hoped to find employment as a government adviser in ritual and protocol. Despite his family’s aristocratic origins Confucius was merely a commoner, and at this point in Chinese history it was rare for a person of his low rank to attain an important government post. Such positions were generally assigned according to social status, rather than education or talent. However, his reputation as a diligent scholar and his determination to enter the civil service soon rewarded him with a low-level government job.

  Around 530 BC, when Confucius was about twenty years old, he was appointed manager of the state’s grain warehouse,1 not a glamorous position but an important one, as grains such as rice and millet have long been the staple foods of China. This grain was often stored by governments to be used in case of famine; it was vital to protect it from insects and mould and keep precise records of the quantity available. Although his job kept him far from those who made major political decisions, Confucius worked diligently, keeping meticulous records of the state’s holdings and making sure the grain was safe. He described his responsibilities in a very matter-of-fact manner. ‘My calculations must all be right – That’s all I have to care about’2 he said, suggesting that he was contented with such a low-key post at this point in his career.

  Within a year or two Confucius was promoted to a slightly higher government position, this time managing the state’s herds of oxen and flocks of sheep. While working as husbandry manager he was equally conscientious, treating the job with importance and respect. Again he was very straightforward about his responsibilities, declaring, ‘The oxen and sheep must be fat and strong and superior – that is all I have to care about.’3 Such an attitude demonstrates focus and dedication to his work, as well as a humble, dignified acceptance of his social status. Two years into this appointment his mother died, and during the three-year mourning period he was required by tradition to refrain from working. So at this point he left the post and appears not to have returned to it.

  These government jobs apparently did not pay enough to support his family, so at the age of about twenty-two, while still working as a civil servant, Confucius opened a school and began his career as a teacher. His school was probably within his home compound, either a room in his house or an area in the courtyard where he sat and delivered his lessons to a small class of students. As well as providing more income for his family, the school also gave him the intellectual stimulation and sense of importance that was missing in his government post. Though he did not complain about his official work he likely found it somewhat tedious, as it consisted largely of accounting and management, which were never his foremost interests. The opportunity to share with young, keen minds some of his knowledge of history, ritual and music undoubtedly sharpened his own intellect and motivated him at this formative stage in his career to begin to develop his own political philosophy.

  In his early days as a teacher he did not focus on philosophical issues, as he had not yet evolved a social or political philosophy. Instead, he taught what he himself had spent years studying – history, rituals, music and poetry. He described his credentials as a teacher with the following words: ‘He who by revising the old knows the new is fit to be a teacher,’4 and he claimed that he was simply sharing his knowledge with others: ‘I transmit, I invent nothing. I trust and love the past.’5 He insisted that in order to understand the world and to better themselves, people should study the wise words of the ancients. In particular he advocated reading such texts as The Book of Songs, since these traditional songs or poems contained great moral wisdom, and he once claimed, ‘The three hundred Poems are summed up in one single phrase: “Think no evil.”’6 However, he also strongly encouraged critical thinking and offered the following example of what could happen if study was not accompanied by careful thought: ‘Consider a man who can recite three hundred Poems; you give him an official post, but he is not up to the task; you send him abroad on a diplomatic mission, but he is not capable of simple repartee. What is the use of all his vast learning?’7 His overall approach to education is therefore best summarised by his statement, ‘To study without thinking is futile. To think without studying is dangerous.’8

  Confucius was somewhat selective about the students he allowed into his school and had two basic policies for admission. Firstly, they had to be intelligent and enthusiastic. According to The Analects he said, ‘I only enlighten the enthusiastic; I only guide the fervent. After I have lifted up one corner of a question, if the student cannot discover the other three, I do not repeat.’9 Secondly, admission was open to students of any social class or background and was not restricted to the wealthy. Students paid what they could afford. He proudly claimed, ‘From the very poorest upwards – beginning even with the man who could bring no better present than a bundle of dried flesh – none has ever come to me without receiving instruction.’10 Clearly, though Confucius needed the income from his school to support his own family, it mattered more to him that his students be eager to learn than able to pay for tuition.

  In his early twenties his knowledge of ancient history, ritual and music was already unrivalled in the state of Lu, and despite his relatively low social status he was regarded as a culturally sophisticated gentleman or junzi. As with the English word ‘gentleman’, the Chinese word ‘junzi’ originally referred to a male aristocrat who possessed various social and cultural skills, but by Confucius’ day it could also be applied to a well educated commoner like Confucius. To Confucius, however, the concept of the gentleman was to take on a far deeper, more ethical meaning over the course of his life and career. In his teachings he described a true gentleman as a man of advanced learning and impeccable moral character, who was kind and considerate to others and behaved in a manner appropriate to his social status. Such a morally superior figure could then help raise the level of others he met, including the xiaoren who lacked moral virtue.11 All his life he strove to live as a gentleman of exceptional moral calibre, and he occasionally lamented that he had not attained his goal. At one point he commented, ‘A gentleman abides by three principles which I am unable to follow: his humanity knows no anxiety; his wisdom knows no hesitation; his courage knows no fear.’12 As a young teacher, he certainly would not yet have considered himself a gentleman by his own standards but, fortunately for him, enough people in the state of Lu held his erudition in high regard, and his school was soon full of students.

  His students came from all over, from the capital city to the countryside. Some were sons of aristocrats and were eager to study the history and rituals necessary to equip themselves properly for government office. Others, like Confucius, came from families who had once been part of the aristocracy but were now commoners. Perhaps some of them believed, as Confucius did, that the current unstable political situation and their own social status could only be remedied by learning from the past, and they looked to Confucius as a valuable source of ancient wisdom. Others still were sons of farmers, merchants, soldiers and craftsmen. These young men of modest means and backgrounds also sought his teachings, apparently hoping that by studying with him they too could become respected gentlemen with a sophisticated understanding of traditional culture. Many of the less wealthy students hoped to improve their lives by attaining government posts, as their teacher had done. All that his pupils had in common was that they w
ere young men. Confucius had no female students, a fact that was not remarkable in his day, so was not commented on by his disciples or by early biographers or historians. Being considered socially inferior, women generally did not receive the same level and type of education as men.13

  One of his first students was a teenager called Zilu (also known by his style name, or more formal name, of Zhong You), who came from a farming background but aspired to a career in politics. A rather brash fellow only nine years younger than Confucius, Zilu is said to have challenged him from their very first meeting. Confucius asked Zilu what he was most fond of. When Zilu replied that he loved his long sword, Confucius suggested that if he added an education to his swordsmanship, he would become a superior man. Zilu scoffed at this, saying that learning was of no use to him, as he was already able to take a strip of bamboo, cut it and sharpen it so that it could pierce a rhinoceros’s hide. Confucius pointed out that an education would enable him to turn the bamboo into an arrow with a steel point and a feathered tail, and that such an arrow could pierce the rhinoceros’s hide more deeply. At this Zilu bowed twice and said, ‘I will reverently receive your instructions.’14 Such an exchange, though perhaps only legendary, provides an insight into the characters of both young men: Zilu the rough, impetuous fighter, and Confucius the level-headed educator who could turn any conversation into an opportunity to learn. According to The Analects, Zilu remained impulsive and argumentative throughout his life, often receiving sharp criticism from Confucius for his fiery ways. However, even though they argued for decades, Zilu continued to be a devoted student of Confucius for many years. Confucius was deeply fond of Zilu, and years later he is said to have cried when he heard of Zilu’s death in battle.15