Who is kong fu zi

The Chinese believed in the Mandate of Heaven, which suggested that those who govern must govern in the interest of those governed. Confucius believed that we are all born with different capacities for moral action; our obligation is to maximize this potential.

Wa Social or Group Harmony Wa is social, harmony. It is the mellow feeling that comes when people are getting along. It is working together in a state of mutual understanding. He opened a school aiming to teach able students of all classes and developed the art of teaching in China. In his forties, Kongfuzi joined the government of the king of Lu, serving in various offices over the following years. His deep morality earned admiration and loyal adherents, though he faced opposition to his ideas of proper governance within the regime.

He left office in his fifties, hoping to find a ruler more open to his views. Twelve years of travel, teaching, and learning ended with his retirement at the age of sixty-seven.

In the remaining six years of his life, he wrote and edited his works, the most famous and influential being his Analects. At sixty I heard it with a compliant ear.

At seventy I follow the desires of my heart and do not overstep the bounds. Raise up the crooked and set them above the straight and the people will not obey. I have yet to see anyone who can recognize his own errors and bring charges against himself within. When patterned refinement prevails over substance, you have a clerk. When substance and pattern are in balance, only then do you have a junzi.

When the crooked stay alive it is simply a matter of escaping through luck. To pick a task that people can fulfill and set them to it, is that not to be a taskmaster of whom none complain? If one desires ren and obtains it, wherein is he greedy? If he never dares to be unmannerly, regardless of whether with many or a few, with the great or the small, is that not to be dignified but not arrogant?

When the junzi sets his cap and robes right, and makes his gaze reverent, such that people stare up at him in awe, is this not, indeed, to be awe-inspiring and not fearsome? In pre-philosophical writings, the word junzi was used to refer to someone who was heir to a ruling position by virtue of his birth. For Confucians, the hallmark of the junzi was his complete internalization of the virtue of ren and associated qualities, such as righteousness yi and full socialization through ritual skills.

Originally probably denoting a man of good birth, in the Warring States era the term shi comes to denote a man whose character exemplifies the social accomplishments once associated with birth — a change of meaning paralleling the evolution of the term junzi.

The name is unrelated to the martial art known as kung fu. Copyright by Who2? All rights reserved. Breadcrumb Home Cite Confucius.