Filial Piety Is The Function And Extension Of Benevolence

Filial piety in Wang Yangming’s life and academic is of special significance.Wang Yangming grew up in a loving family atmosphere and had even more greater affection for his parents than himself.His important choice of life is also controlled by these feelings,which brought profound impact on his life and academic road.He wanted to follow the Buddhist and Taoism "from the dust",while a glimmer of filial piety dismissed this idea,making him really chose the Confucian.Although he intended to escape far away while being hunted,because of this filial piety he gave up this idea and went to Longchang in Guizhou where he was enlightened ultimately,regardless of personal safety.The enlightenment in Longchang the most significant event in the academic history of Wang Yangming and it is believed in my opinion that filial piety played a key role in facilitating this enlightenment.Filial piety occupies a very important position in Wang Yangming’s theory system.Wang Yangming suggested that filial piety is the "Zhong Xing" of human and the basis of humanity which is inherent and indelible.Filial piety is the most important part of virtue,and the basis on making the other parts into reality as well as the fundamental way to santification.Filial piety is of great significance to the construction,perfection and dissemination of Wang Yangming’s theory system.Wang Yangming constructed and developed his system of psychology based on the experience of filial piety with filial piety as examples often used to interpret his thoughts.Wang Yangming absorbed Mencius’ concept of "innate knowledge" and raised it to the position of value ontology.Filial piety is not only the origin of ethics,but also the ultimate evidence of the "existence" of all things in the universe(the exsistence in the meaning world)."Heart is reason",indicate that the human heart—innate knowledge—is the original reason.Filial piety is the reason of serving parents and the virtue developed from innate knowledge and family affection under the circumstance of "Gantong".Innate knowledge is the origin of filial piety,and filial piety is the function of innate knowledge.This is the answer of Wang Yangming to "the possibility of filial piety".If there was no drawbacks in innate knowledge,people would fulfill their filial duty.However,selfish desire exists in one’s heart and clouds the innate knowledge,resulting in failure to fulfill filial duty since filial piety is known while not done.Wang Yangming suggested that children should fulfill their filial duty which is necessary to eliminate the cloud on innate knowledge by selfish desire..Attaining innate knowledge is the Kong Fu of fulfill filial piety and the investigation of things is the Kong Fu of attaining innate knowledge,i.e.if filial piety was done in accordance with innate knowledge,"filial duty would be fulfilled with nothing left".Through the investigation of things,the reason of filial piety will expand from heart to things concerning serving parents and these things obtain reason of filial piety with innate knowledge extended to the extreme.Through the investigation of things,selfish desire is removed.With innate knowledge uncovered by selfish desire,people will remember filial piety when "seeing their parents" and then do their filial duty spontaneously,reaching the status of fulfilling filial duty naturally.Setting up an ambition is able to provide driving force for investigation of things and be responsible for ambition is the Kong Fu of eliminating selfish desire.Innate knowledge is the unity of knowledge and action.As the function of innate knowledge,filial piety is also the unity of knowledge and action and only when knowledge and action is united,would filial piety be real.Without action filial piety is only "Wang Yan";fulfilling filial duty without guidance of innate knowledge is "Ming Xing".Knowing while not fulfilling is not real knowing,and vice versa.Meanwhile,knowledge and action are both dynamic process and present throughout the Kong Fu process of fulfilling filial piety.Benevolence and filial piety possess a relationship of substance and fuction.Benevolence is the substance with filial piety as its forward function.Benevolence is functioned to be the universal love of all things,and filial piety is the deepest love,loving parents.Benevolent is the realm of all things united,and the highest realm pursuit by Wang Yangming.Filial piety is the fundament of benevolence,and also the practice of all things united.Filial piety is not only personal virtue and family ethics,but also political ethics and fundament of "State Governing and World Peace"."State Governing and World Peace" begins from "Governing by Filial Piety".Hence,when there confliction appears and unable to be balanced among different functions of Benevolence with limited conditions,Wang Yangming advocated the principle of priority,i.e.,the forward function is prior to the backward one,and filial piety obtained the highest priority put at the first position.There is a relationship between mind and etiquette of filial piety with mind as the beginning and origin while etiquette as the end and development.Etiquette of filial piety is the natural function of the mind.He was opposed to pursuit etiquette of filial piety outside of mind through the Kong Fu of "learning,asking,thinking and distinguishing" and hold the opinion that etiquette is inside one’s mind instead of outside with the Kong Fu of attaining innate knowledge.If not clouded by selfish desire,innate knowledge would be spontaneously functioned as etiquette of filial piety.Ancient etiquette is established by ancient scholars according to innate knowledge.Since innate knowledge is immortal,ancient etiquette is able to past on from generation to generation.However,the situation of "Fan zhi wu xin er wei an" occurs when practicing ancient etiquette,due to the mistakes in passing down of ancient etiquette and variation of ancient and modern customs.In this regard,Wang Yangming insisted his view:it is inappropriate to stick to ancient etiquette and stifle innate knowledge while it is supposed to modify ancient etiquette using innate knowledge,making the etiquette both based on innate knowledge and suitable for customs.Wang Yangming paid much attention to moralization of filial piety.He served the government throughout his life,moralizing local people with filial piety in various kinds of way such as bulletin and providing accommodation for officials to fulfill their filial duty.Wang Yangming attached importance to the education of filial piety on children in his clan and urged them to fulfil filial duty by family letters.As filial piety is the focus of elementary education,he put forward the guiding ideology of education-"teaching people with filial piety",at the same time of initiating education.Wang Yangming deemed that filial piety includes not only giving consideration and respect to parents,but also cherishing body and life.This is his inheritance of the original Confucian filial piety.In addition,he also suggested that a dutiful child should love and respect parents regardless of outcome.He believes that the right attitude towards gain and loss is accepting destiny which will prevent harm of nature by outside temptation.This is his development of the original Confucian filial piety.As inferring by "Xiao mo da hu yang zhi",father’s greatest ambition is child being sanctified.Child taking sanctification as an ambition is Yang Zhi and being sanctified is the great filial piety.Wang Yangming’s piety on his parents is Yang Zhi,highest level of filial piety.Wang Yangming’ funeral thoughts:there is a knowledge for being in mourning and excessive grief is not proper,as "Ai yi you he" said;etiquette is required to obey and appropriately adjusted accordingly instead of harshly judged while being in mourning;elaborate funeral is not encouraged;the significance of epitaph is denied and the effective way to immortalize the dead is to be sanctified rather than epitaph.Then scholars of post-Yangming school,Luo Rufang and Li Zhi,inherited and developed Wang Yangming’s filial piety.Luo Rufang established his theory based on profound filial piety experience,and thought that filial piety is the implementation of benevolence and the present expression of innate knowledge,as well as the fundamental way to great knowledge.Above is the inheritance of Luo Roufang’s filial piety on that of Wang Yangming.Differences still exist despite similarities.Luo Rufang chose filial piety,fraternal love and kindness,separately,from a number of virtues as the present expression of innate knowledge.Wang Yangming did not make such a distinction.As for the Kong Fu of fulfill filial piety,Luo Rufang advocated the combination of benevolence and etiquette.Attaining innate knowledge is only one of them,and he also advocates learning external norms,such as the propreties produced by ancient sage.This can be seen as his introspection on the disadvantages that Wang Yangming only focused on innate knowledge and ignored the etiquette.Although Li Zhi is a maverick thinker,he remains to be a scholar of post-Yangming school and inherits a list of Wang Yangming’s filial theory.He believes that innate knowledge is made by the heart,not from outside of heart,and it is not proper to hurt the love for parents with oustside form and norms.Kong Fu follows the heart directly and it’s not necessary to pursuit modality or be overcritical.And he believes that great filial piety is enlightenment which he is striving for his whole life.Of course,there are also differences between the two theories.Wang Yangming thought that,the origin of filial piety is innate knowledge,while that of Li Zhi is childlike heart is innocence.Innate knowledge is pure without desire,while childlike heart contains desire.Therefore,desire induced by innate knowledge and childlike heart are also different.Modern society calls for filial piety.Enlightenment of Wang Yangming’s theory of filial piety in constructing filial piety theory system for modern society includes:filial piety is human nature and the spontaneous function of original intention—innate knowledge which answer the question on legitimacy of filial piety instead of the external norms;the Kong Fu theory of "Extension the knowledge through investigation of things" is proposed to provide a way for fulfilling filial duty;filial piety is the unity of knowledge and action and neither is dispensable;modifying undesirable etiquette of filial piety to the make it both based on innate knowledge and suitable for customs.