Roots…

Boston Confucianism

Paul Sprecher

Second Parish in Hingham

November 5, 2006

We’ve all encountered Confucius in some form or other, often in snide one-liners which start out “Confucius say… as though a Chinese Sage wouldn’t know grammar.” Like, “Confucius Say: It's ok to let a fool kiss you, but don't let a kiss fool you.” Confucius gained a reputation in the West as a Wise Man of the East when his writings were first discovered, a reputation which declined when many of his writings appeared puzzling in some of their earlier, wooden translations. Still, Ralph Waldo Emerson, our Unitarian Sage of Concord, lauded Confucius as “the George Washington of the world of thought,” and Voltaire said that “to realize the theories of Confucius would bring about the happiest and most valuable period of human history.”[1] Some of his other interpreters have been less kind, especially those who were determined that Jesus would necessarily emerge superior to Confucius in any comparison of the two great teachers. “Confucius” is a Latin name given by 16^th Century Jesuit missionaries to China who were trying to convert the Chinese to Christianity by finding common elements in Chinese and Christian traditions. The name of the founder of this great tradition was Kung Fu-Tsz’ or Kung the Teacher, who was born about 550 years before the birth of Jesus, and his teachings might better be called “the classic tradition of China,” because the notion of a distinct religion which one joins is not an accurate representation of the role these teachings play.

You might ask, Why “Boston” Confucianism? How is Confucianism related to Boston? Unitarianism is related to Boston, of course. It used to be said that the real creed of the Unitarians was the Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Man, and the Neighborhood of Boston. So why Boston Confucianism? Here’s an explanation by Tu Wei Ming, Professor of Chinese History and Philosophy at Harvard, in his introduction to Robert Neville’s Boston Confucianism:

[T]he complexity of late-modernity demands that serious thinkers everywhere make a concerted effort "to embrace all the traditions within the world culture of philosophy." This inclusive vision may be seen as articulation of faith: "the world society will never be civilized until a genuine world culture is developed that respects the diverse cultures and harmonizes them to make crucial responses to such issues as care for the environment, distributive justice, and the meaning of human life in the cosmos." Boston Confucianism so conceived is a step toward the transformation of seemingly highly specific local knowledge into a globally significant philosophical task.[2]

We as Unitarian Universalists are engaged in a similar task. Both our Unitarian and Universalist forebears long since abandoned the notion that everyone must believe as they did or face the consequences. Instead we have traditionally cast our eyes on the road we travel in this life and considered how best to spend the precious hours and days and years granted to us. This was well expressed in William Ellery Channing’s sermon “Likeness to God,” in which he urged a program of action—the culture of the potential of the self—to nurture and perfect our own character. Confucius would not have been uncomfortable with Channing’s statement, “God is another name for human intelligence raised above all error and imperfection, and extended to all possible truth,”[3] though he might prefer to refer instead to his concept of chun tzu, a Superior Person, or Humanity-at-its-Best, or perhaps a Mature Person. We also have a strong commitment to finding ways to move outside the particulars of our own local and national communities to promote peace on earth; as our sixth principle says, we covenant to affirm and promote “The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.” Finally, if I may, we speak of the sources of our living tradition as including “Wisdom from the world’s religions,” but we are least acquainted with the religious traditions of China even though China is rapidly becoming one of the most powerful nations of the world. Developing an understanding of these traditions can help us to broaden our grasp of the role of religion and spirituality beyond our own experience while also opening us to understanding our more distant neighbors as their importance to us grows.

Attachment to particular traditions is less rigid in China (and in India) than it has been in the West, and the notion of a war over religious belief such as the great wars which tore Europe apart after the Reformation would be completely foreign within Chinese tradition. A young Chinese girl tells how she was placed in a Catholic convent at 11, adopted their beliefs and started quoting from the Bible. When she returned home, she discussed with her grandfather Ye Ye their respective beliefs:

"As a Chinese from the old school, I have always had difficulty sticking to any one religion," Ye Ye said. "Even though I believe in reincarnation because I am a Buddhist, I honor my ancestors and read the I Ching and the Tao Te Ching. All my educated friends behave similarly.

"Unlike Muhammadans or Christians, we Chinese have trouble with the western view that there is only one true God. Why can't Muhammad be accepted as a prophet as well as Moses? Why does one belief have to exclude another? Why can't all the religions merge together and become one?

"As a boy, your father got into big trouble with an American firm once because he wrote on his job application form next to Religion?': 'Catholic, but willing to become Methodist as well, if necessary.' The manager summoned him into his office and called him a 'rice Christian,' ready to turn his back on Catholicism for a job with a Protestant firm.

`Why must there be only one true sect?' your father protested. 'Why can't I be a Catholic as well as a Methodist? Why can't I be both?'

"But the American manager was angry and your father didn't get the job."[4]

Some Western scholars have argued that Confucianism is not a religion because it largely ignores the question of God. In fact, however, one derivation of the word “religion” refers to the Latin word religionem, meaning respect for what is sacred, care for worship and traditions; Augustine spoke of religion as that which binds fast, and we might think of our religion as that which binds us together, holds us to our traditions. In truth, the tradition promoted by Confucius is one of the great examples of religious humanism, a tradition which has also had a strong role in the formation of contemporary Unitarian Universalism. One of our churches in Texas was recently threatened with loss of tax-exempt status because members were not required to believe in God; the ruling was quickly overturned when officials realized that Buddhist organizations, for example, would fail the same test. Like the Buddha, Confucius drew attention to action in this world when followers raised questions about another world. “Asked about serving the spirits of the dead, he answered, ‘You are not even able to serve people. How can you serve the spirits?’ Asked about death itself, he replied, ‘You do not understand even life. How can you understand death?’ In short: one world at a time.”[5] At the same time, the highest Confucian ideal is the unity of Human Beings with Heaven and Earth, which itself requires a form of transcendence. As Huston Smith puts it, “The project of becoming fully human involves transcending, sequentially, egoism, nepotism, parochialism, ethnocentrism, and chauvinistic nationalism, and (we should now add) isolating, self-sufficient humanism. As Tu Wei Ming puts it:

To make ourselves deserving partners of Heaven, we must be constantly in touch with that silent illumination that makes the rightness and principle in our heart-minds shine forth brilliantly. If we cannot go beyond the constraints of our own species, the most we can hope for is an exclusive, secular humanism advocating man as the measure of all things. By contrast, Confucian humanism is inclusive; it is predicated on an "anthropocosmic" vision. Humanity in its all-embracing fullness "forms one body with Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things" and enables us to embody the cosmos in our sensitivity.[6]

Confucius was born in a time of great violence, when three baronial families who had usurped the power of the legitimate duke of his state battled each other for supremacy, even to the point of their own destruction. The great Teacher’s task was to find a way to recover and bring back to life the traditions which had once served to bring happiness to the people through the wisdom of their rulers. This might not be a bad time to consider whether such wisdom could be helpful to us as a nation and also, I believe, to this religious community. We, too, struggle with how to retain what is most valuable from our religious, cultural and institutional past while still facing forward to creating a legacy for new generations who will be born into a very different world than we were born into or than we now inhabit.

One of the schools which opposed the teaching of Confucius was the school of the Realists or Legalists. They insisted that the exercise of power by the state was critical, and that the people would do what was right only if they were punished for any infractions. What do you do with people (or children) when they don’t behave? You hit them so they won’t do it again. In our own society, our prisons are bursting at the seams as we imprison a higher proportion of our people than any other society on earth; as long as politicians find the fear of crime an effective way to gain votes, we can expect this approach to continue. On a global scale, the use of military power has been favored over the exercise of diplomacy for a period now; the fruits appear to be an increase rather than a decrease of violence. Another school, the Mohists, believed that if only people were treated with love, they would respond with love and obedience. They were, if you will, the hippies of their era: “All you need is love” might well have been their motto.

Confucius, in contrast, believed that good order could only come from the creation of a deliberate tradition, a renewal of ancient ways which had become meaningless through long use; he realized the need to re-vivify them for a new era. When tradition is no longer spontaneous and unquestioned, he believed, it must be re-enlivened through conscious attention. We in our nation face similar challenges as old ways are discarded to make way for the newest products and the newest fashions and each generation is left to discover for itself the right ways to behave and to live their lives. The institutions we have long trusted, especially our schools, are under severe strain because the forces of many divergent tradition each try to enforce their own primacy. Many of the political issues which have become paramount in elections represent competing attempts to assert one or another conflicting tradition. Like the people of Confucius’ time, we are struggling to find continuity with our past so that we can move forward into the future together.

The deliberate tradition which Confucius taught can be summarized under five key terms. First, there is jen, in Chinese a combination of the character for “human being” and for “two,” suggesting that the ideal human being lives only in relationship to others, in community. It has been translated as goodness, man-to-man-ness, benevolence, and love, but is perhaps best represented as human-heartedness. This is what we get to, I believe, if we take our first principle seriously: “Rspect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person.” Reciprocity is inherent in human relations as understood by Confucius, so as we give, we also receive. Confucius expresses this in one context in the negative, perhaps earliest expression of the Golden Rule in history: “’Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do to unto you…’ Confucius put the point positively as well. ‘The person of jen, desiring self-affirmation, seeks to affirm as well.’ Such largeness of heart knows no national boundaries for those who are jen-endowed know that ‘within the four seas all men are brothers and sisters.’”[7]

Second, there is chun tzu, which we encountered earlier in speaking of Channing’s notion ideal of Likeness to God. Such a person, embodying Humanity-at-its-Best, is completely real, at ease with himself or herself, armed with a self-respect which in turn generates respect for others. “It is only the person who is entirely real, Confucius thought, who can establish the great foundations of civilized society. Only as those who make up society are transformed into chun tzus can the world move toward peace. We speak in our 3^rd principle of “Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations” and thereby refer to the reciprocal nature of caring for and accepting one another’s growth as human beings, but our tradition has sometimes been week in promoting individual spiritual practice which develops our own character, our own development as spiritually complete human beings. Earlier generations of Unitarians spoke of Self-Culture in referring to this development of the spiritual side of our selves, but I am also thinking of regular practices of mediation and prayer, of reading from sacred tradition, of time taken to invest in our selves for which we can expect a harvest of life better lived.

Thirdly, there is li, or ritual propriety. Here some of us begin to have trouble with this Confucian teaching, partly because of the nature of our own society and our particular histories, partly because Confucius has been stereotyped as highly formal. As one of his translators puts it, “Does not the name conjure up in most minds the figure of a highly starched philosopher, dry, formal, pedantic, almost inhuman in the unimpeachable correctness of his personal conduct, rigid and precise in his notions of ceremonial, admirable no doubt in his sentiments, but always more a man of words than deeds?”[8] In fact, the man himself was quite the opposite, always appealing to jen, the feeling of the heart when judging behavior, and beloved of his students; he would hardly have attracted hundreds of young followers if he conformed to our stereotype of rigidity and coldness.

Some of us don’t like even the name “ritual” and wish instead to be spontaneous, to do as we please. Some of us as parents, however, have come to recognize how important ritual can be in raising children. For example, in the absence of bedtime rituals, the task of getting children from whatever they are doing at the end of the day can become an exercise in frustration and anger on both sides. Rituals help us to set our day in order. As Robert Neville puts it,

“[W]hen ritual propriety is observed, people are brought into cooperative action that respects the place, needs, and merits of each. Where ritual propriety is not observed, or where a society lacks the rituals that articulate the diverse position, needs, and merits of its citizens, morality falls back to dependence on the following of moral rules and the happenchance exercise of good will. Unlike moral rules and good will, propriety is lodged in the habits of bones and muscles and in the deepest schemes of imagination.”[9]

“Lodged in the bones and muscles.” I like that phrase. I know we struggle with our traditions here in this place as well. Enlivening and correcting our traditions—making propriety habitual but also real—is one of the tasks we face as a community. In Unitarian Universalist circles, we have recently been speaking of working through what it means to be in right relationship with each other as members, as leaders, as ministers and teachers. This is an effort like that of Confucius to work through propriety in a way which makes our congregations healthy and vital.

Next is te, the authority of rule. Confucius called upon the rulers to govern their own powers, to govern themselves first; then the people will want to follow them and indeed it will be in their interests to do so. As he put it, “A virtuous ruler is like the pole-star, which keeps its place, while all the other stars do homage to it.”[10] If the ruler is not righteous, the land will be disordered and the Mandate of Heaven will be lost by the ruler.

Finally there is wen, the arts of peace as opposed to the arts of war, to music, art, poetry, the sum of culture both aesthetic and spiritual. The nation with superior culture will be attractive to other nations and will ensure ultimate victory in struggles between nations. “Ultimately,” as Huston Smith puts it, “the victory goes to the state that develops the highest wen, the most exalted culture—the state that has the finest art, the noblest philosophy, the grandest poetry, and gives evidence of realizing that ‘it is the moral character of a neighborhood that constitutes its excellence.’”[11] Our use of the arts in worship is not accidental; it is beauty which speaks to us at a deep level and guides us toward right relations with ourselves, with each other, and with our neighbors near and far.

Confucius was a failure during his lifetime; he held office only briefly and did exceedingly well, but went into retirement when the ruler of his state stopped following his teachings. His greatness is in the legacy he gave his students. For nearly two thousand years, the first sentence a Chinese child was taught to read under the influence of Confucius has been “Human beings are by nature good.”[12] We are engaged in work like Confucius undertook, and religious humanism within our tradition has much to gain from his teachings. Jen calls us to human-heartedness, affirming others as we affirm ourselves; chun tzu asks us to culture ourselves, to develop our best selves, toward what Channing calls “Likeness to God;” li asks us to develop meaningful rituals and to enliven our traditions so they are truly useful to our living—to learn better to come into right relationship with one another; te calls upon us to ensure the righteousness of our rulers, a task we are called upon to undertake this Tueaday; and wen calls us to practice the arts of peace, to cultivate our minds and hearts in worship and in our daily living. Perhaps Boston Confucianism is not after all so very far removed from the teachings and practice of Boston Unitarian Universalism.

May these teachings enrich our understanding of our own lives and broaden our understanding of others. May we, in honoring and enlivening our own traditions, also share in the wisdom of others. Let me close with these words by Tu Wei Ming, one of the Boston Confucians:

Copernicus decentered the earth, Darwin relativized the godlike image of man, Marx exploded the ideology of social harmony, and Freud complicated our conscious life. They have redefined humanity for the modern age. Yet they have also empowered us, with communal, critical self-awareness, to renew our faith in the ancient Confucian wisdom that the globe is the center of our universe and the only home for us and that we are the guardians of the good earth, the trustees of the Mandate of Heaven that enjoins us to make our bodies healthy, our hearts sensitive, our minds alert, our souls refined, and our spirits brilliant.

We are here because embedded in our human nature is the secret code for Heaven's self-realization. Heaven is certainly omnipresent, our active participation to realize its own truth. We are Heaven's partners, indeed cocreators. We serve Heaven with common sense, the lack of which nowadays has brought us to the brink of self-destruction. Since we help Heaven to realize itself through our self-discovery and self-understanding in day-to-day living, the ultimate meaning of life is found in our ordinary, human existence.[13]

Amen