Tuesday, September 20, 2011

ren, yi, li

I'm taking a course this semester titled "Ghost, Gods, Buddhas, and Ancestors." The course focuses on religions and traditional belief systems in China and how they exist in Chinese life and culture today. The class is excellent because there are a lot of on site field trip interspersed between all the normal lectures. This week we are studying Confucianism.

Confucianism is a system of ethics, morals, and virtues, largely based on the idea of humanism. Confucianism is less a theistic system of belief and more on based on the idea that a person can better themselves through learning, and move towards perfection in their life. The three main ethics of Confucianism are ren, yi, and li. Ren is an altruistic obligation to the community at large. Yi is having a generally moral disposition and the drive to be righteous and do good things. And li is a sort of system of rules, customs, morals, and etiquette that exist in everyday life. People who practice Confucianism don't identify themselves as Confucian, instead they follow a religious system such as Islam or Buddhism but also ascribe to the moral values associated with Confucianism.

Confucius, the founder of the ethical system, lived during the Spring and Autumn period in Ancient China. There is no proof that anything that remains of ancient texts about Confucianism came from Confucius himself. More likely his teachings were written down and compiled by his disciples, the most famous of which are The Analects. Today, Confucian temples have become places of wish making, and many people come to pray for different hopes and wants to come true. One of the things praying to Confucius is supposed to ensure is good grades in school. As you can imagine this interested many of the people in my class.

 A statue of Confucius in the Temple.
Prayers and wishes left by visitors to the Temple. They were written in every language.

This is a picture of the main alter. The walls of the room were covered in inscriptions of The Analects.
 This piece of natural cut stone was preserved because it naturally represented the landscape of the earth while also coming from the earth.
 Natural rock formations such as this one were collected by Confucian literati. It was important to pick a good stone that naturally represented some symbol. This specific rock is called "Cries of Dragons and Tigers." The part at the top brings to mind images of crying dragons and tigers while the bottom is supposed to look like dragons whispering.
 A view of the pond with a pagoda in the background. The pagoda comes from Buddhist architecture and has been adopted into Confucianism. 
 The pond is filled with coy and turtles. The coy represent wisdom and the turtles represent longevity. In ancient times fish would be taken alive from the fish mongers and released into the ponds in something called "liberation of animals." This was a sort of ritual sacrifice.
 And this...is just a statue I thought was really cool. The mouth looks almost like this animals tongue is sticking out but it's actually a moveable sphere located inside the mouth. 

The temple was very interesting and is the most impressive Confucian temple inside Shanghai. Although it was nearly destroyed in the Cultural Revolution it has been largely returned to it's glory. It's an impressive example of architecture and of Confucian thought that should definitely be explored on any trip to China.

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