Confucianism

by Gloria

There are some religions that worship a greater god that is unattainable, and some religions that are based off a set of principles. Examples of these are Christianity and Buddhism, respectively. When I started looking into Confucianism, I expected it to be a religion that was based off principles. But I asked my parents about it, and they laughed when I referred to it as a religion. I learned from them that in many parts of Eastern Asia, Confucianism isn’t a religion, it’s the culture.

My mother, grew up in Taiwan in a small town in the country. Their religion was Buddhism/Taoism: “The religion I followed was a mixture... it is hard to separate them,” she told me, but their culture was full of the teachings of Confucius. These teachings are what the belief system Confucianism is based on. Confucius’ Chinese name is Kong Fuzi. He is considered the greatest teacher and most revered person in China’s history, also called the “Sage of All Time” and “First Teacher”.

In Confucianism, the value of family is one of the most important; three of the Five Relationships are within the family. The Five Relationships are father/son, husband/wife, older brother/younger brother, ruler/subject, and friend/friend. The only relationship of equals is friend/friend; in the others, the more dominant member of the relationship is listed first. I can see these values reflected in my daily life, where my father is more dominant than my mother. There is no mother/daughter or father/daughter, but this seemingly sexist aspect of Confucianism feels outdated and doesn’t exist in my family; that may be the case in the rest of the world as well.

Confucius was born over 2500 years ago to a government official who died when he was three years old. At a young age, he had already shown a vivid interest in learning, thought it is unclear how he was educated. Most of the information on Confucius and his life is known from the Analects, a collection of his conversations put together by his followers after his death. Some stories in the Analects are legends, and have not been proven to be true.

By the time that Confucius reached the age of 50 and was appointed Minister of Public Works and Crime, he had already begun teaching and had gained many followers. There was some disagreement and conflict between Confucius and members of the nobility, so he was forced to step down and was exiled from his province, Lu. He and his followers journeyed to many other provinces for many years in search of a leader, or someone of power who would listen to him and could use his ideas to change the world, but he claimed that no one’s offer was sincere and returned home to teach again. He died at the age 72 and considered his life a failure, unaware of how his teachings would later change China.

Works Cited
Hoobler, Thomas. Confucianism (World Religions). New York: Facts on File, 1993. Print

Interview

Littleton, C. Scott. The Sacred East: Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Shinto. London: Baird, 2003. Print.

Riegal, Jeffrey. "Confucius (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 5 Sept. 2006. Web. 07 Dec. 2010. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/confucius/