Published by Kongzi was very worried about his country, China, during a time when war was prevalent. He created his own system based on the importance li or rituals. Kongzi saw that as a person performed his duties through rituals he would find his place within the family, community and government forming the perfect society that he sought through self cultivation. When the perfect society was working properly, though there would still be smaller problems, but he believed that war would end and peace would be perpetuated within China. Ritual was very important for men to move forward in society by acting as gentlemen as well as maintaining the society through the male role in the family, community, and government.
By understanding where the figure of li came from we can understand a little more about the meaning of the character. The figure li depicts an alter with an offering upon it. This ritualistic action of giving upon an alter is virtuous and is honorable and respectful to the family and gods. This phrase, li is a great way that Kongzi found for men to become gentlemen. Mainly he would like men to act as gentlemen, being respectful and honorable. To do this he believes that rituals are necessary both for one to learn his place in society and to become a gentleman by understanding a large variety of rituals. Virtue, another key point of being a gentleman, could also be gained by ritual practice.
Rituals were not only important for gentlemen but also to humanize all people through co-participation in a community. Kongzi saw that what set us apart from animals, or the beast, was that we performed rituals. In this sense a ritual is not only a religious practice but also a repetitive action based in meaning and tradition with an intention for a result. This can even include hygiene rituals and schooling/learning as a ritual. Learning itself was a very important part of society for Kongzi as he saw that one could raise himself by learning and passing the imperial exams not just by being born into a high family, but by earning the right to be higher in the society. Learning, for Kongzi is only one piece of the puzzle that is required for self cultivation, an ultimate goal for all persons.
Kongzi’s analect 1.2 says that a gentleman can achieve ritual harmony which will give him balance to then achieve self cultivation. He must act modestly without overstepping boundaries to make a perfected form (2.4). Kongzi did believe that knowledge was very important though this would not be the only thing that you would need for self cultivation. It is also important that you become cultured, for example through music, learning how music itself must be in harmony and incorporate it into your life for further self cultivation. Music and art are often incorporated into rituals in our society as we have idols that are often prayed to in rituals as well as sacred music that often has certain meanings when performed in certain environments. These are rituals which would help the gentleman, along with his learning, to be come balanced and achieve self cultivation.
As previously noted, li depicts an alter with an offering, often a container. This container is noted as being for ‘knowledge and ingenuity’ for the progression of ‘spiritual goodness.’ This goes along with Kongzi’s idea that learning is genuinely important to society through ritual. Through this ritual of learning we hope that man will truly see and understand the world so that he may understand how to separate himself from the ‘beast’ which does not perform rituals by seeing the ‘sacred and marvelous’ humanity within his society of rituals. If the ‘beast’ were to have rituals they would not have the same meaning to them as we have, often spiritually, with a purpose to our rituals.
Kongzi understood that rituals had both a physical and mental piece to them and said that the physical substance must come first, as we often do as a child with our rituals, so that we understand how to do them whether we understand why we do them or not. Eventually the mental piece will come and just as one remembers the feeling of living in an old house when one returns. One will gain the same sort of mental feeling when doing a ritual after practicing the physical portion of it. It is also important to actively participate in the ritual so that self cultivation will come from it, you must act ‘whole heartedly’ and believe in what you are doing just as a child eventually realizes why he brushes his teeth and then brushes his teeth for them to be clean, not just to brush them. Practicing rituals sincerely brings self understanding and a purpose to your ritual both at home and in society.
It is difficult to find a balance between home and society because they are two different atmospheres though a gentleman must conquer this. The hard part is to be truthful to both and for the gentleman to be himself in his natural form. In society one must be truthful, helpful, and refined. This alone is not enough though because one must truly be these things naturally and be the same at home having neither remorse nor plot revenge of any sort due to not truly being truthful, helpful, and refined. At home it is also important to be respectful and honorable to the family, which if done truthfully, will also be helpful in society, understanding how being respectful to your elders and those of higher rank. It is possible to gain all of these attributes through performing ritual like actions to become accustom to the reality of each attribute and then through ritual a gentleman will be true.
Rituals, in general are very important to every day traditional Chinese life. Often they were duty bound for certain levels of society, men and women. It was thought that if one person does a ritual correctly others would follow their lead, and eventually all of society, creating social harmony. It was very important to follow your own rituals and to respect others. This was proper behavior, specifically during mourning rituals where different traditions have such a broad range of rituals for the dead and therefore one must accept others traditions and join in their rituals to honor the dead correctly. This is one instance, where being a gentleman is very necessary so that your actions will be understood due to the diversity of ritual practices in the Chinese culture.
Rituals are different for people of different casts as well as for men and women. Kongzi thought that as long as one followed their rituals for their position in society, everything would fall into place. This system actually followed the authoritarian government so was widely accepted. The first ritual that was specifically for women was cooking. Cooking and preparation of food was very important as it often would be used as an offering in a ritual which was often performed just by men. The women, in preparing the food were able to put their offerings into the food and their heartfelt ideals, making it a ritual for themselves. There was not only the offerings which would be brought to a temple for the gods but also food for the ancestors of the family. The food was first offered to the ancestors and then eaten by the family as blessed food so that their desires would be known and hopefully be brought by their ancestors. This is similar to communion. We can even see how, like communion and taking the body of Christ into your self through eating bread, young children would perform the action of preparing a meal without understanding the significance of giving the offering to the gods or ancestors but over time the meaning would become apparent to them and would mean more.
There were a few rituals that were specifically for the upper casts or even the emperor. One ritual, vital to all of China was the winter solstice performed by the emperor to bring yang power back to the world after a cold winter. This was very important that this be performed correctly because they were worried that if the ritual was not performed correctly with the correct intentions they would never return to yang and remain in the dark, yin, winter. This ritual is a nice comparison to ones that would occur in a village by an elder or wise person to bring rains or a good harvest. These both are essential to different levels of community and many people believe in their importance to perpetuate life which adds to the meaning of the ritual.
‘Religions of China,’ by Daniel L. Overmyer has a good example of an important purpose of males performing a ritual for a community. In one village there has been a young boy that was claimed by a spirit residing in a lake. It is the job of the sages, wise men, and other honorable men (gentlemen) of the community to perform an exorcism to remove the spirit and to let the young boy’s spirit be at rest so it would not be angered by being killed, causing another killing of an innocent. This ritual was very important to protect the community as well as to declare and ensure the position of the males in the community. Knowing their place in the community was important but Kongzi thought it was more important to start with knowing one’s place in the family bringing honor and respect to the family through rituals. When this was accomplished the same would be done for the community and eventually the empire. These rituals of a male were important to ensure their role in the government though they would still need knowledge to prove that they were capable of their role forming the entire society which Kongzi imagined.
As I noted in the beginning, Kongzi saw that as a person performed his duties through rituals he would find his place within the family, community and government forming the perfect society that he sought through self cultivation. There are many examples of how rituals affect a person through out their life all with a goal in the end of self cultivation. As a child one may not understand the rituals that are performed but they do so anyways. As they grow older they know that they must honor their family at school by learning well, a ritual of itself. When the child gets older and starts to understand what their actions are, the rituals that are performed will start to gain meaning that will translate into their every day life of building a home as a woman or through maintaining a family’s prosperity at work. The rituals they will understand will bring honor to their families and they will learn to show respect as it is a way to get what is needed for their family. By learning all the things necessary to be a gentleman, a man may become more involved in his community in the same way he is involved with his family at home. This will continue and he will become involved with the government based on the same principles he learned through ritual. All of these rituals humanized the man so that he was not like the beast making him able to act correctly in society. To full complete this transformation the gentleman must also become cultured to allow self cultivation. By including the arts in a community, all people will be acclimated to the rituals of are and will be allowed to learn self cultivation as a result.
