I was reading Mengzi book 7 part B and stumbled upon the following:

> A man worth having is called good. A man who possesses goodness in himself is called faithful. One who is filled with goodness is called excellent. A man whose full goodness radiates outward is called great. A great man who transforms others is called a sage. One who transforms others like a sage without their awareness is called spirit-like.

I believe, iirc, that spirit-like is translated from Shen

Is this category higher than Sheng (which includes figures like the five emperors…etc), a subcategory, an ideal or something different?

Did later scholars try to identify figures as Shen? And if so, then who?

And what constitutes their difference from the sage or sheng?

Used for ritual offerings, prayer, meditation, and consulting the Yijing.

Hi! 😊
I’m currently doing an assignment for my World Religions course, where I need to interview someone from a different religious background.
I am especially looking for someone who identifies as Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Confucian, or Taoist for this interview.

The conversation will be respectful and casual, focusing on your beliefs, daily practices, and perspectives on religion. It will be conducted only via messages (chat), not calls, and we can arrange the timing in a way that’s comfortable for you.

If you’re interested, please DM me. Thank you so much! 🙏

Hey folks, realized I didn't announce directly here that Analects Reader is live on iOS. This must be the most relevant of all subs (lmao), so posting a few notes and a couple of very special requests... especially for anyone on Android.

What is it?

Analects Reader of course contains the full text of The Analects itself plus the Legge translation (damn copyright— and btw if you have any ideas for how I could obtain rights for a more... modern translation, please do give me a shout). But it is much more importantly a learning resource. These are just a few of the included tools:

• Color match mode: Chinese terms and matching English translations are highlighted in matching colors for easy back-and-forth checks of glosses.
• Per-passage definitions: Literally every Chinese glyph in the entire text is tappable, and all are contextualized to the passage they appear in. Eg. 君子 gets "exemplary person" most places, and "Lord's son" in some others. These are compiled by referencing 8 different translations: Ames & Rosemont, Chin, Lau, Legge, Ni, Roberts, Singerland, and Watson.
• Pinyin w/ received pronunciations: 說 will not be marked as shūo, it will always be yùe.
• Three museum-quality historical copies: 1550 Kiyohara house collection manuscript, 1737 National Palace Museum Taiwan Jiang Heng manuscript, and Edo-era National Archive of Japan woodblock
• Notes, Guides, & Discussion: Take notes fully offline, read commentary a growing list of passages, and link out to discussion for any passage you like.

There's much more too. And a fun aside, since I've got this one "feature stable", I'm about to use the same framework to publish a 道德經 reader.

You can help!

This app is far from done, and I would greatly appreciate your help.

Android users (more urgent): Google requires personal developer accounts to have 14 days of sustained usage by beta users, along with developer-collected feedback, to launch in production. If you would be so kind as to become a beta tester, this would make a huge difference. You can do so by:

1. Join the tester group (nothing is posted there, it's just the list, and membership is not public): https://groups.google.com/g/analectsreaderbeta
2. Install from Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.analects.reader

Once that is done, you can submit feedback on ANY part of the app through the "report a problem with this" link in any definition card (screenshot below).

iPhone users: The app is live already (see the link above)! But you can join in the fun of improving the massive amount info that has gone into the definition cards. As mentioned in the other section, there is a "report a problem with this" link in every definition card that you can use if you feel a definition or translation has a problem.

Included a few screenshots to give you some ideas of what this all is.

Hi! Everyone! I want to help my parents and work to make sure that everything they did for me is not wasted. I want to help my siblings (though finding a wife and building a family isn't in my mind right now).

Though even all of that, I don't want to make my identity with all of it. I want to see my parents smile, became proud of me, I want to help my siblings, as an older brother, help them when they needed, though there is something in me that want these things in a loose manner. That I will live even if I don't achieve any of this in a way I plan.

My inspiration in all of this is ancient religious story like Rama and Arjuna and how they did their duty in a detach way. I want to live like them. (That's why I am planning to study authors like Eckhart Tolle and Michael Singer).

I appreciate your thoughts on this. Thank you

The question really speaks for itself: which translation of the ‘Analects’ would you regard as most accurate, most in the spirit of the original Chinese and most readable?

(sorry if my thoughts are a bit scattered) 

over the past year, I've read the 4 confucian classics (the analects, the book of learning, doctrine of the mean, and mencius), Confucianism: A Very Short Introduction by Daniel K. Gardner, Confucianism for the Modern World by Daniel A. Bell, as well as Ho Chi Minh On Revolutionary Morality.  My study of Confucianism is largely in relation to my study on Marxism-Leninism and meta ethics (specifically moral constructivism and edumonian virtue ethics).  I think a lot of the way I think about Confucianism is largely indicative of that analysis. In my reading of these confucian works I've found a bit of overlap in my understanding of Marxism-Leninism as a political philosophy. Namely the more egalitarian nature of marxism and leninist vanguardism with the Confucian concepts of ren and zhi. The Leninist concept of party men with the junzi, The proletarian revolution with the loss mandate of heaven, tian with historical materialism. In general there is a strong emphasis on education and praxis within Leninism and I've found this study on Confucianism and Hồ Chí Minh’s Thought shared a lot of my own thoughts after reading these works and explained my thoughts a lot better than I can. I would say though that since i am a marxist-leninist first and confucianist second, i disagree with some of the more metaphysical or ‘taoist’ elements within certain stands of confucianism. I’d also say just as much that I'm not a fan of the new confucianism movement either, being the antithesis of what I think a ‘confucianism for the modern age’  should look like. I think the liberalisation of confucianism with western democracy is a devaluing of merit based noocratic ideals that confucianism is built on. Liberalism explicitly also ‘opportunises’  confucianism in that the liberal understanding of democracy is fundamentally incompatible with Mencius's adaptation of Li as well as neoliberalism’s own economically contradictory nature to Mencius's furtherance of Ren.  Last but not least I'd like to leave with a few of my favorite verses from the four books:  “That is to say, if one gains the masses one gains the state; if one loses the masses one loses the state… Virtue is the root, goods are the branches. If you take the root to be outer and the branches to be inner then you will contest with the people over distribution and expropriation… Where wares are expropriated with hostility, they will be seized back with hostility as well.” [the book of learning].   “Tzu-kung asked about government. The Master said, ‘Give them enough food, give them enough arms, and the common people will have trust in you.'  Tzu-kung said, ‘If one had to give up one of these three, which should one give up first?'  ‘Give up arms.'  Tzu-kung said, ‘If one had to give up one of the remaining two, which should one give up first?'  ‘Give up food. Death has always been with us since the beginning of time, but when there is no trust, the common people will have nothing to stand on.'”  [analects 12:7]. “Yi Yin said- ‘In giving birth to the people, Tian obliges those who first gain understanding to awaken those who gain understanding later, and those who awaken earlier must awaken the others. I am among those who have awakened first, and I will use this Dao to awaken the people.’” [mencius 5b.1]. “A man who plunders humanity is called a thief; a man who plunders righteousness is called an outcast. I have heard of the execution of Outcast Zhòu; I have not heard of the execution of a ruling lord Zhòu.” [mencius 1b.8].

Greetings! I’m new to this whole thing, and my research has been inconclusive, so I came by and wanted to ask: what are the main things about Confucianism and its beliefs?

What are the unwritten social rules that most Chinese people understand?

Welcome to our monthly Q&A thread!

This is a dedicated space for you to ask questions, seek clarification, and engage in discussions related to Confucianism. What's been puzzling you? What would you like to understand better?

Some possible questions to get you started:

• What's the difference between 仁 and 義?
• What's the significance of the Analects in Confucianism?
• What is Zhu Xi's distinction between 理 and 氣?

Welcome to our Monthly Study Share! This is a space to share what you have been studying, ask questions, and learn from each other.

What have you been reading or exploring in Confucianism this week? Share your insights, ask for clarification, or seek recommendations.

Remember, studying is not a solo activity - learning is increased through interaction with each other.

Share your studies and let's discuss.

​

I have a strange hypothesis about Chinese history.

What if some ancient religious traditions were not simply “religion”?

What if they also preserved technologies of social control, information control, and authority?

The Shang dynasty already left archaeological evidence of blood sacrifice, divination, and political power being deeply connected.

Then history changed.

Some schools demanded clearer standards for truth. Others became better at saying things that could mean almost anything.

Over thousands of years, knowledge can be stolen, absorbed, renamed, ritualized, and eventually presented as sacred tradition.

A machine becomes an alchemical furnace.

A political technique becomes a religious ritual.

Control becomes morality.

Obedience becomes virtue.

And eventually nobody remembers that it was ever a technology.

I don't claim that supernatural beings, soul-harvesting machines, insect civilizations, or literal mind-control networks have been proven. I don't have that evidence.

But I do think there is a much more uncomfortable possibility:

Human beings may have been developing technologies of social control for far longer than we realize.

And the most effective control system may not need chains.

It only needs people to believe that questioning the system itself is forbidden.

So I want to ask:

How much of what we call “tradition” is actually accumulated technology for controlling human behavior?

What happen to Cheng-zhu school of neo-confucianism after it lost its status as state ideology and its supporter Tokugawa shogunate after Meiji restoration? We see lot of japanese followers of Lu-wang school during meiji era but somehow cheng-zhu school dissappeared completely from history.

In southern Vietnam in the 20th century, a spiritualized form of Confucianism appeared called Minh Đức Nho giáo Đại đạo 明德儒教大道 appeared, turning Confucius into a god. It has since been merged with Caodaism, another native Vietnamese religion that worships all kinds of people and things.

Hi, I just came back from China (even visited Confucius tomb) and it peaked my interest on the topic. I would like to start from the story of the man itself, more than what was built on him afterwards. As I drive a lot, I prefer podcast or audiobooks. Among the many, I found this (in depth enough, without being a full on course). Does it seem legit to you? https://youtu.be/4waCHZ9LL28?si=tW1wilrecp1Bxzds

There are lot of cases where parents are abusive and harm their children. Going far as refusing to accept their faults and blaming everything on them. How zhu xi and wang yangming dealt with this topic? Should children continue to obey their abusive parents or oppose them ?

Harvey Lederman (NYU, formerly UT Austin) explains the ideas of Wang Yangming by means of illustrative anecdotes from the influential Neo-Confucian philosopher's life.

The thread tying them together is the notion of "moral authenticity" – that knowledge of the right way to live life is inherent in the subject, and does not need to be sought elsewhere. All that is necessary is to diminish selfish desires, and moral principles will shine forth from within.