The chinese word for jen (仁), meaning humanity,helps a lot in assisting good social orders and personal behaviors since acient China. With fast development of the current society and deepening influence of western culture, some of our acient ancestors’ wisdom had been gradually ignored. Actually we urgently need those good wisdom’s as social codes to follow or obey. Here several of Confucius’s humanity philosophy princiles are introduced.
1. Confucius said: “one who is not a man of humanity cannot endure adversity for very long, nor can he enjoy prosperity for long. The man of humanity is naturally at ease with humanity. The man of wisdom cultivates humanity for its advantage.” This means in a society of humanity, people are smart and wise enough to confront with hardships and can finnally go through hard times in the long term. Even in prosperous situation, people can enjoy prosperity wisely in peace and no crimes would be made due to any prosperity issue. If people nowadays still follow this principle severely, less quarrels and crimes would be made.
2. Confucius said, “if you set your mind on humanity, you will be free from evil.” By saying this sentence, he reveals that humanity is just like a spiritual belief which will guarantee you freedom whenever you need keep it deep in your mind. Just as Christians believe that when he strongly believe in God and God will bless him and will always be with him forever. Nowadays, many young people don’t have any beliefs and they just believe in themselves. Every society and country has its social rules and standards, those who don’t have any beliefs tend to violate social standards or laws more easily due to lack of spiritual standard in their minds.
3. Confucius said, “the man of wisdom delights in water; the man of humanity delights in mountains. The man of wisdom is active; the man of humanity is tranquil. The man of wisdom enjoys happiness; the man of humanity enjoys long life.” This saying uses a vivid parallel structure to describe how the life of a man of wisdom looks like. A man of wisdom is closely connected with delights, activeness, tranquility, happiness and longevity, which are all good things we human beings expect and pursue. Therefore, if you want to be closer to all those good things, you need to have humanity in your mind and heart. What’s shameful for us is that we human beings are damaging our natural environments by occupying more and more lands, polluting more and more oceanic areas, killing more wild animals and plants in order to provide themselves with place to live and food to eat, while no compensating measures are taken. If we continue to behave in a inhumane way, our nature will reward us in a similar way one day in the future.
Except for thoughts and principles of Confucius described as above, there are more other wisdoms from Confucius. We currently still need these philosophical concepts to guide us to our daily behavior and conducts, so we can be nearer to all good things that humanity could bring to us.
Comment