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Religions of the World I: Confucianism

[As] a Confucian, perhaps I can offer some clarifications. The distinction between philosophy and religion is a Western one, and stems from two sets of historical circumstances not shared by China. In Ancient Greece, where philosophy began, the "religion" (beliefs about the gods) was generally shared and generally irrelevant. The Homeric myths did not explain much about the nature of being, nor did they tell you how to live. Philosophy came in to fill that gap.

Later, something similar occurred in Christian Europe. It was assumed that everyone involved in the theoretical debate shared the same religious tenants. However, their views on why these tenants were true and exactly what they meant differed. Thus we had a distinction between religion and philosophy, which basically paralleled the distinction between faith and reason. This distinction worked well in Europe, and also fit the sociological situation in the Mid-East.

It didn't fit the situation in China or Japan, and I doubt it did in India. In China there was one word: "hsueh", meaning learning, that had to serve double duty. Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity, etc., were all hsueh. Early missionaries in China had a lot of difficulty placing these teachings. Buddhism was obviously a religion, because it had a myriad of gods and demons (oh yes it does, at least in its popular forms), believed in some notion of an afterlife, etc. Confucianism, on the other hand, sometimes had such things and sometimes didn't. Normally, the Confucian believes in Tsien, or Heaven, as the source of goodness and order, though this is generally, but not always, thought to be impersonal.

Confucians themselves are sharply divided on the issue of whether their hsueh is a religion or a philosophy in the Western sense. The best compromise, in my opinion, is to call it a philosophy with religious elements.

However, the point is that we have to be very careful applying these terms (philosophy, religion) to beliefs that originated outside of Western experience. They just don't fit comfortably. It is probably safest to say that there are religious and philosophical elements in these foreign teachings. We could then go on to discuss "religious elements in Confucianism" or "philosophical elements in Buddhism," knowing that we are applying Western categories.

Actually, I can. I consider myself a Neo-Confucian (more neo- than a lot of them like.)

Early Confucianism was marked, as you noted, by a strong concern for social issues. There was a spirituality there, but it was deeply embedded in the striving for political reform and personal cultivation. Confucius just wasn't interested in metaphysical speculation. He advised his students to respect the gods, but not to think about them very much. There was one metaphysical concept, Heaven (Tsien) which got mentioned now again, but it wasn't very well developed.

When Buddhism began to invade China in a big way, Confucianism really suffered. These guys had a really well worked out metaphysical theory, and Confucianism just couldn't compete. Some Confucians thought that was a good thing. Best to stay away from these new fangled ideas (much the same way that some religious people reject science). But one group thought that they could remedy the problem. The first was Chang Tsai, with his "Reflections on the Great Ultimate". Chang Tsai was followed by the Cheng brothers and most importantly Chu Hsi. These are the first and most important Neo-Confucians.

Many Western scholars claim that the they borrowed heavily on Buddhism, or rather, that they merely tacked some Buddhism onto Confucianism. Chinese Confucians, of course, often deny that there was any Buddhist influence at all. My own judgment is that these guys came up with something distinctly Confucian, though they wouldn't have if it hadn't been for Buddhism.

(As an aside, the competition between the two schools was pretty fierce. On the ugly side, Confucians had held a favored position in court for centuries, and they didn't like giving it up. On the not so ugly side, Buddhism created a real economic problem. So many people were running off to monasteries to beg for a living that there weren't enough left to run the economy. In addition, Buddhists are always real big on individual charity [giving spare change to the homeless, for example], but they're kind of slow on social reform. That really irked the Confucians, for whom things like famine relief and public works were always important.)

The new theory went something like this: There is Heaven, which is the source of all goodness and reason. Heaven is infused through every existing thing in the form of principle (li). Any time we understand anything, no matter how trivial, we are grasping li, and thus are grasping Tsien (in a small way). Grasping li not only tells us what a thing is, but also how we should act in regard to it. ("It is the li of a cart that it goes on land and not on water.") The Neo-Confucians realized, as Confucius had, that the morality of an action is contextual. What is inappropriate for a son who's father is normal and loving is not necessarily inappropriate for a son who's father is abusive.) The result of this was that every action in accordance with li had a spiritual corona, even things like going to look at the wildflowers in spring. (Chu Hsi has some charmingly frank things to say about spirituality in the marriage bed).

The main Confucian spiritual practice is ko wu, the investigation of principle. This included acting on what you had learned. (Chinese philosophy is generally very practically oriented). Chu Hsi allowed for the Buddhist practice of quiet sitting, but only for half the day. The rest had to be spent in ko wu.

The main appeal of Confucian spirituality for me is its groundedness. You express your spirituality through effective action in the world, instead of through withdrawing from the world. One of the very best books on Confucianism in English is a little one by Herbert Fingarette called Confucius --The Secular as Sacred.

That's the main idea. It began in tenth century, or perhaps slightly earlier, and went through a lot of mutations, reactions, developments. There were even various strains of fundamentalism (if its not in the Analects, its not Confucian!). Neo-Confucianism enjoyed a lot of success in Tokugawa Japan (the Shogun era), with a distinctively Japanese tone. It was also influential in Korea and Vietnam, but I don't know any details.

The term Great Ultimate comes from the I-Ching which was influential for all native Chinese religions. I'll write more on the Great Ultimate later. Cosmology isn't my bag, but I can give you some general notions. (Don't ask me to argue for them, though, because I can't. I just don't understand them well enough).

However, for now, I'll just say that the main difference between Confucianism and Taoism was never primarily cosmological. It was ethical. Taoists were hermits that stressed personal equanimity. Confucianists were scholars and administrators who stressed a well-ordered state (including such radical notions as public welfare and education). Confucianists didn't like the Taoists because they abandoned their families and such. But cosmologically, they got along pretty well. That gets blurred over here in North America (can't speak for Europe), because we knew there was a major difference, and so we assumed that it must be speculative. There are frequent debates between Confucius and Mencius and Taoist hermits, but they never revolve around cosmology. They revolve around the notion of the sage, and human relationships.

Confucius actually uses the term Tao. But he thought the way was realized through human action in society, whereas Taoist often felt that society was in opposition to the Tao.

Impersonal God? For Confucianism it would be Heaven, which in a certain sense would be identical to the Tao. Heaven is the what, the Tao is the how. Sloppy, but not wholly inaccurate. If you're really interested in this sort of thing, look for The Doctrine of the Mean in collections of Chinese religious writings. Some editions of the Analects have it. It talks about the Tao and how it is realized.

As I was learning more about Taoism I came to the conclusion that "the way to The Way is The Way" I like that way of thinking about the Tao and it jives with my Western notion of God as being both transcendent and immanent - the journey as well as the destination. Also, I find it interesting the Jesus stated "I am the way..."

Yeah, I think the transcendence in immanence is more Chinese than it is Confucian or Taoist. And I find it really appealing, too. The Christians tried to get something like that, but they never really could with their creation story like it is. There's no way you can get around God first, then the Universe.

In the end, Tsien and Tao end up being two aspects of the same thing.

Hadn't thought about it before. I'd have to say no. Theoretically, Confucianism has a lot in common with Aristotle, but Aristotle never really got translated into an "approach to life". Almost every Western approach to life subsumes the concern for the daily aspects of human society under some overarching principle. The Kingdom of God, Progress in classical liberalism, the good of the State, in socialism. None of them take the human being in her existing web of relationships as a foundation, something worth defending for its own sake. I'd have to say that the same is true of Taoism.

Theoretically, Taoism and Christianity are worlds apart. But in practice... look at all those hermits.

I think Taoism has much in common with Native American and other earth centered cultures. These cultures/traditions work with the natural flow of life rather than attempting to control that flow.

Do you think there's enough continuity between Native American cultures to group them like this? I don't know much about it, but it seems to me they're too diverse to admit this sort of comparison.

As far as working with nature...hmmm. From [Confucian] perspective, it's us who are working with nature. We see human society and institutions as an outgrowth of nature. You Taoists are in opposition to nature, because you're trying to be something your not.

I suppose either perspective has validity. To view human society as a natural expression of human nature or to view human society as the working of human free will against the natural world. I suppose the key to this debate is moderation. If human society were "run amok" we would destroy the very environment that supports us.

Thus I think there is a place for both the Confucian social concerns and the Taoist concerns for nature's way. "Both And" - that's the key. A balanced approach to life. I suppose that's one reason why people in the orient are able to be two or more religions at once - each serves a different function and each, in its own way, is necessary.

Well said. In fact, one modern Confucian (Chung-Ying Cheng), says that Chinese don't think in terms of right and wrong but in terms of balanced and one-sided. I don't think his sociology is right, but I think he's onto something. There are some positions I'm willing to say are just dead wrong, but in judging world views on a broad scale, I'd have to say that disagreements are largely a matter of emphasis.

Though I must say that the Taoists, especially Western Taoists, have exaggerated the lack of concern for nature among the Confucians. The Analects has a clearly stated policy of forest and wildlife conservation, for example. We Confucians focused on humans and their relationships, including their relationship to nature, but after all, we're humans, talking to other humans. Maybe we should have said more about nature, but since we rarely completely solved the problems we were addressing, perhaps it was best not to take on more.

This is an important but difficult issue. It's difficult because while in a certain respect practicality and reverence are often divided. Confucianists are very practical people. With certain exceptions, we're not very contemplative. Some religions show reverence in distinction to practicality, we try to show reverence through practicality. (Whether we're successful or not is an open question.) You used the term externals, but for us the distinction between external and internal is only relevant when something is going wrong.

Li is ritual form, and just exactly how closely you have to follow it depends on the writer you’re reading. Confucius wasn't above changing forms when the newer form was more in keeping with the moral meaning he found embodied in the ritual.

Li is also principle, but the two words aren't really related. Chinese is loaded with homophones, and sometimes you run into problems like this. I don't know that the Taoists ever cared much for either category, though I can't say for sure. Certainly, they didn't stand on formality.

[A Taoist enters the discussion]:

"The main difference between Confucianism and Taoism was never primarily cosmological"?
I'd have to say just the opposite. I think it is the cosmological view that was the biggest difference between the two - though the ethical one is, I agree, a huge difference, the ethical difference arose precisely from the difference in cosmological views. If you really want to go deep into it, the book Myth and Meaning in Early Taoism: the Theme of Chaos (Hun-tun) by N.J. Girardot got into the cosmological background of Taoism, and touches on the difference of Confucian cosmology. It's a great book (just about impossible to find though).

[Confucian response]:

In the first place, I should have said early Confucian and Taoist differences were mainly ethical. I can't say whether this is so in Sung and Ming periods, because the Taoists had taken a back seat to the Buddhists by then (and were all busy trying to invent the elixir of immortality anyway. Which, by the way, Confucian philosopher Cheng-I assumed they had done successfully.) In the Analects and the Mencius, there is no explicit cosmology, and very little implicit. Hard to argue cosmology with someone who doesn't have one. The Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu have one, but I still see the main thrust of the books as being ethical. "Seeing as the world is this way, act like this." That's just an off-the-cuff defense. Treat it as scornfully as it deserves.

Is the order a natural or manmade one? It was the Taoists that drew that distinction, not us. I think its a false dichotomy. True, what's natural for humans is not natural for other animals, but I don't feel that this is very decisive. One of the main differences, I suppose between Taoism and Confucianism is that [the later] believed that the Tao was revealed through human society as well as through nature. In fact, some Confucian philosophers thought that other animals practiced ritual sacrifices to the gods. Otters and wolves spreading their food around them was proof that ritual was natural. (I'm not exactly sure what they're talking about, but I'm pretty sure modern zoology would have a different explanation).

As far as I know, Confucian writers never used the concept of wu wei, very important in the Chuang Tzu, but Mencius had a recurring phrase about helping the rice grow (by tugging on it), which definitely fit.

Your [comments] about li [are] interesting. I'll have to look over the Chuang Tzu for the references. Your definition sounds more like Li from the li-chi distinction than the term for ritual, though I may be mistaken. I may also be mistaken that the two were unrelated homophones. If it’s Li as in principle, then I'd have to say there's nothing mechanical or artificial about it. Mechanical and artificial things have their principle, but li isn't something you can create. I'll try to check on this from my end.

About A. Watts: I've heard from a former Rinzai monk that he's a good source on Zen. Haven't heard anything about his Taoism. However, he's not very reliable when he's commenting on Western philosophy, and I'd be suspicious of his reports on Confucianism. Not to say he's necessarily wrong, but I'm leery. While Watts seems pretty good at describing what he likes, he doesn't seem very good at describing what he doesn't like.

Sorry, didn't make myself clear. "tugging on rice" is exactly opposite of wu wei. The story goes like this. Dad comes in and announces he's been very busy all day, helping the rice grow by pulling on the stalks. Son runs out in horror to discover all of the plants are dead. Lesson, don't force nature.

If you'll forgive me for being tongue-in-cheek, I'd say that the Taoists did figure out a better way to grow rice--sit back and watch the Confucians do it. Remember that Taoists were hermits, Confucians administrators. One of the major topics that occupied almost every Confucian philosopher is famine relief and control. How do you feed a huge population with fairly limited resources? Some of the Confucianists came up with pretty good answers, at least in China. But this was never much of an issue for Taoists. Kind of puts us "Busy Backsons"^* in a different light.

[*reference to Benjamin Hoff’s The Tao of Pooh: a "Busy Backson" is someone, like a Confucian, who is always busy and will be "back soon"]

[see discussion on nature and the environment, above]

"Te" is a common concept in both Confucianism and Taoism. I'm not sure the relationship between Te and Li, but I'll hazard a guess. Li is the standard, Te is the achievement. If you follow Li (principle) you have Te (virtue). Just a guess, but it sounds good to me.

Li is the inherent nature of the thing, that which governs what it is and what it should be, in a very Aristotelian sense. That is, we tend to think of "shoulds" as imposed from outside, rather than being something like a principle that corresponds to our spiritual health, if I can be forgiven the term. The actually acting in accordance with Li, not just for me but for other things, would be Te.

One can be a certain way by one’s nature but if one does not act according to one's nature one is not considered virtuous?

I think that's right. Though this presents problems that "human nature" philosophers on both sides of the Urals have had trouble with: How can nature be describe and proscribe? The best answer I can give, which is not definite enough for my tastes, is to compare it to health. An animal will flourish under certain circumstances, according to its nature, and then it is expressing its nature to the fullest. Under less favorable circumstances, it is still expressing its nature, but not to the same extent.

So the fullest expression of human nature is ethical. The unethical is, to whatever degree, an expression of a warped, stunted, or undeveloped nature. (Speculative, I know. It's the best I can do at the moment).

Since Li is different for different people/things, Te would also be different from case to case. An action that is Te for one because it is in line with that one's Li would not be Te for another because that other's Li is different.

I agree strongly with this statement, and I think most people would, if you stated it the right way. It's ethical for John to have sex with John's wife, but it might not be ethical for James to have sex with John's wife. This is a silly and provocative statement, but when we start considering actions in the concrete instead of in the abstract, it becomes obvious that the right course of action in a situation varies widely. It would be unethical for me to perform a tracheotomy in the field, even if I knew one was needed. I don't know how and I'd end up killing the person. For a doctor, it would be unethical not to.

I guess situational ethics is a loaded term. My response is usually, "How can you be ethical except in a situation?" That doesn't really meet the question, but it changes the emphasis. As we discussed earlier, most people think of ethics in terms of avoiding bad things. Don't lie, don't steal, don't commit adultery. But if you take the view that ethics is not avoiding doing the wrong thing, but doing the right, i.e. being truthful, being generous, being faithful, you see that you still have a lot of options. The best option depends on the situation.

For example, Confucius stated that we should always be respectful to our fathers. But he was well aware that not all fathers are good fathers. To be respectful to a bad father entails quite a different set of concrete actions than does being respectful to a bad father. In extreme cases, it is respectful to put dad in a position where he will be held accountable for his crimes.

[our Taoist chimes in again]:

[Confucian response]:

The implication of [that observation] is that Confucianism does not teach that the appropriate response is relative to the situation, but instead teaches "strict codes of behavior". This is a common stereotype, but it isn't in fact the case, as an unprejudiced reading of the Analects will show. Reread Mencius vs. the Mohists and the debate between the Confucianists and the Legalists.

I run into this view a lot, and find it very frustrating. Too many people have read The Tao of Pooh. Great intro to Taoism. Lousy intro to Confucianism and A. A. Milne.

[You should take a look at some of the] later Taoists like Wang Pi and Ho Yen. I find that most Western students of Taoism are sort of Taoist Fundamentalists: if it's not in the Tao Te Ching or the Chuang Tzu, it's not real Taoism.

If you're really interested in getting past the "Tao of Pooh" understanding of Confucianism, take a look at Yang Hsiung or Chou Ton-I, and almost any Neo-Confucian from the Ming period. You might find a lot you like there. Wing-Tsit Chan or Fung Yu-Lan are the translators to look for. J.C. Cleary has a collection of snippets from Ming Confucians called Worldly Wisdom, published by Shambala. Cleary is, as you probably know, very sympathetic to Taoism, and there is some editorial bias in his selection. But his translations are regarded as solid, and as far as I know, the bias isn't too misleading.

I also wanted to give you some sources. If you read Chinese, you’re in luck, but if not, the pickings are slim. Fortunately, the quality of what there is, is generally high, so the amount of books worth reading are about the same as for Zen or Taoism.

One of the problems that has plagued Confucianism throughout its entire history is that its scholars tend to be more interested in history than philosophy. There's reams of stuff on the history of Confucian thought, but very little current Neo-Confucian thinking. I've listed the best below, with comments:

• New Dimensions of Confucian and Neo-Confucian Philosophy, Chung-ying Cheng. SUNY (State University of New York), 1991. I liked this book a lot, though his understand of Western philosophy is a little shallow, I think.
  

• Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Confucian Religiousness, Tu Wei-Ming, SUNY 1989. Its safe to say that Tu is the best English speaking living philosopher of Neo-Confucianism. (But how many can there be?) In addition to being a fertile thinker, he's a good writer. I loved this book, and I also recommend the next one (also by Tu Wei-Ming).
  

• Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation, SUNY 1985
  

• The Religious Dimensions of Confucianism, Rodney Taylor, SUNY, 1990. After reading Tu, its easy to be critical of Taylor, but this isn't a bad book. It's particularly interesting because Taylor is fluent in Christian spirituality, and has some enlightening comparisons between Christian and Confucian spirituality. My favorite was the one on the spirituality of suffering.
  

• Thinking Through Confucius, David Hall and Roger Ames. SUNY, 1987. (Noticing a pattern with the publishers yet?) This book is very good in some respects, but I can't recommend it without qualification. The authors are very influenced by current philosophy, including current Pragmatism (Rorty) and to a degree, deconstruction. They don't write with dry, academic prose, but it is pretty demanding. If you aren't the type that gets bogged down trying to figure out exactly what each sentence means, you may find it rewarding. Its fairly controversial in scholarly circles, but both of these guys are well respected in Confucian circles. Not many white men can say that.
  

• The Confucian Creation of Heaven, Robert Eno, SUNY 1990. This looks at early Confucianism from a sociological perspective. Some of it is, in my opinion, dead wrong. But it’s still worth reading. Even his mistakes are interesting ones, if that makes sense.
  

• The best book on Confucianism in English is Confucius -- The Secular as Sacred by Herbert Fingerette. It isn't Neo-Confucian specifically, but it is a lovely, simple exposition of the spiritual core that runs through all Confucianism.

• If you’re interested in the history of Neo-Confucianism. The best sources are Wing-Tsit Chan and William Theodore de Bary. Chan is a historian of philosophy, de Bary a more general historian. I particularly recommend de Bary's The Trouble with Confucianism for a historical overview with a highly philosophical flavor. Chan is pretty dry reading, de Bary less so.
  

• Julia Ching is also a very good historian of philosophy. She tends to be dry like Chan, and she writes generally on Chinese religion and philosophy. She used to be a Confucian, but when I talked to her not long ago, she seems to be drifting away from it. She is a dedicated Catholic, but that doesn't seem to give her work a slant.

• As far as original sources, the most indispensable is Reflections on Things at Hand edited by Chu Hsi (the St. Thomas of Confucianism) it is sort of a "best of..." of the Neo-Confucians up to Chu Hsi and his immediate students. The beginning is very heavy going, laying out quotes about the relationship between Heaven, Fate, Endowment, etc. But it isn't written like a Western treatise, with one chapter depending on the previous, so if you don't feel you understand it, you still get something out of the later chapters.
  

• A.C. Graham has written a book on the Cheng brothers (Cheng-I and Cheng-Hao) If there were better books about them in English, I'd say don't bother, but there isn't.
  

• J.C. Clearly has translated some exerts from later Neo-Confucianism: Worldly Wisdom: Confucian Teachings of the Ming Dynasty, Shambala, 1991. Clearly normally does stuff on Taoism, and I think there's a bit of an editorial bias in these works. The scholars said what he says they said, but I think he picked out the stuff that sounded the most Taoist. Still, well worth getting. If nothing else, it puts the Tao of Pooh in a different light.
  

• There are a couple of translations by J. Percy Bruce, usually of Chu Hsi. Bruce was a missionary and was convinced that Confucianism and Christianity were deeply sympathetic. He kind of forced monotheism into his translations, and he shouldn't have. But once you know to watch for that, they can be helpful.

• The best single source of Chinese philosophical writings is A Source Book of Chinese Philosophy edited by Wing-Tsit Chan. It has Confucian, Taoist, Buddhist writings, as well as Legalists, Logicians, as well as Marxists and maybe a Christian or two (if you think American Christians are dogmatic...Look out!)
  

• There is a history of Neo-Confucian thought by Carsun Chang which is to be avoided. Chang interpreted the history of Confucianism through the lens of the 19th century Western metaphysical debate between realists and idealists. Don't ask me why. Not only are these categories totally foreign to Confucian thinking, but Chang didn't understand Western philosophy very well, either. This is a very common problem in East/West communication.

Libraries, especially University libraries, will have more. The big names to look for are Chu Hsi, Cheng-I, Cheng-Hao, and Wang Yang-Ming. Wang was a dynasty later, and considered a heretic until quite recently. Many people really like him, but I consider the debate to have ossified somewhat with his teaching. I think he lost a lot of nuances. If you’re familiar with Medieval Western philosophy, I think he is to Chu Hsi what Duns Scotus was to St. Thomas.

In Japanese philosophy, look for Ogyu Sorai, Yamazaki Ansai (the man who codified Bushido), and Kaibarra Ekken. I don't know if you know the tale of the 42 Samurai, but Sorai was called in as an expert witness on the case, and his decision was maintained. Hayashi Razan and Fujiwara Seika were responsible for establishing Neo-Confucianism in Japan, but they were more popularizers than anything.

One final note: Neo-Confucian metaphysical debate centers on the relationship between li and chi (ri and ki in Japanese). You [may be] familiar with the term chi from Taoist writings, but it’s meaning is quite different in Neo-Confucianism. Sort of like "soul" in the West. It gets used a lot of different ways. Li is usually translated as principle, chi as matter. One is never found without the other. Li gives definition to matter, chi gives substance to principle. I find it very Aristotelian. Many people who know far more about it than I do say it isn't like Aristotle at all. But when I've explained it to Aristotle scholars, they've agreed with me. But then, maybe my explanation was biased. Caveat Emptor.

[This discussion took place in CompuServe’s Religion Forum in February of 1996]