Confucianism and Daoism Experience

Confucianism and Daoism Experience

For my experience, I decided to read parts of the Confucian Analects. I mainly just read the first two parts and then skimmed a few more, but the basic themes I got from the work was what qualities are desirable in a human being, how morality is seen in people’s behavior and how that reflects on them. Virtue is a recurring quality that I often saw presented, also. In the next part, the text shifts to matters involving government and family. On the topic of family, the text begins to grapple with the issue of ‘filial piety’, which refers to the virtue of respect for one's parents or ancestors. The idea was that basically, one must ensure that their parents or family is taken care of before pursuing other things, even if those things are obtaining an education.

(http://www.sacred-texts.com/cfu/conf1/htm)

Overall, I found many themes contained in the few chapters that I read, mainly which seemed to be goodness and humanity, which often the writer tied in with morality. Out of the themes that I encountered the one that spoke out to me the most was probably the ‘filial piety’, which is respecting one’s parents and ancestors. This probably spoke out to me because I’ve struggled with this in the past- with respecting my elders. Usually, I fully believe in respecting one’s elder, but not if they do something that doesn’t warranty respect, which is something that I have gotten grief over before. Other than that, there were a few other messages and themes that I did not fully agree with, but mostly I thought the passages wise, interesting and agreeable.

What is a theme in the Analects that you disagree with? Why?

What’s an example of somebody showing ‘filial piety’ that you’ve seen in your life?

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