Study On Confucius’ Ides Of Life Education

As a hot education issue raised in recent years,life education is not only studied by scholars,but also practiced by educators.It originates from thanatology in nineteen sixties in the United States of America which produces death education and life and death education.In1968,American scholar Walters set up Avanda Village community and Avanda Shool for Living Wisdom where he advocated and practiced life education.Since Chinese reform and opening-up, the voice of getting rid of the education such as examination-orientedjob-finding-oriented education and technical ability-oriented which only services for students’ survival competition is often heard while education such as respecting life、thanksgiving life and enjoying life emerges as the times require. The content of Confucius’ideas of life education is about life while its goal is cultivating ideal personality and its methods are life-centered.Deep research on it not only is good for correcting the lack and less importance put on the traditional culture in life education,but also can input contents of traditional culture into modern life education by connecting traditional and modern civilization.Confucius’views of life include such contents as attaching importance to life,valuing man’life,observing filial piety and loving people.As the creator of Confucianism,he eulogized life.In his opinion life was the greatest virture of heaven and earth.He had the same opinion as the ancient that man’s life was the most valuabe.Man could only contact with man to form various kinds of interpersonal relation through which he confirmed his identity and existential value as well as treasured the existence of himself.Confucius thought filial piety needed one to protect his body and maintain his existence as life was the foundation of filial piety.Parents could not deprive their children’s lives eventhough they gived them.In his opinion,the superior person should strive after virtues and practice benevolence to control his emmotion,deal with everything rationally,ayoid misfortune and observing filial piety strictly.Not only did he value his life,but also he valued other people’s lives.To love all men meant to confim the others’ existential value with deep feelings and love the others as love himself. Confucius degreed with the doctrine that one should be wise to safeguard his body in oder to hear,promote and practice benevolence.The purpose of safeguarding one’s body was not maintaining one’body negatively,but doing things actively.Confucius’s view of death which has the characteristics of paying attention on life while dealing with death cautiously,rationally and optimistically concentrated on repects such as ’while you know nothing about life,how can you know anything about death’,’death and life are determined by fate’,’Yperson with benevolence will give up his life to make him perfectly benevolent’,’careful attention is paid to parents’ funerals and sacrifices are given to ancestors who died long ago’ and ’repecting the spirits but staying away from them’.As to the relationship between life and death,he advocated to know death through life which meant to know life firstly while death secondly as he believed one could not know death without the knowledge of life and existence.In his view,one could not change his fate that he would die someday as death was doomed.Though he supported to value and safeguard life,he would give up his life as he believed benevolence was more valuabe than life.The people with lofty ideas and benevolence should observing benevolence at the expense of their lives as they valued benevolence more than they valued their lives.Confucius thought that death was the end of life.The funeral and sacrificial rites which meant to inherit the spiritual lives of the ancestors who died long ago embodied the spirit of careful attention paid to parents’ funerals and sacrifices given to ancestors.He left the question whether the spirits existed or not open.The so-called being in awe to the spirits in fact expressed one’s memory of his ancestors and the deceased.As to the heavenly principles,Confucius put forward original views of the relationship between Heaven and man. At the times when the views of the heavenly principles changed greatly,he not only inherited the views of the Zhou Dynasty that Heaven as a personal God was deeply worshiped,but also developed them by emphasizing and strenthing man’s subjective initiative.Listening to the heavenly principles meant that man worshiped and relied on Heaven as well as infulenced Heaven by cultivating virtues and promoting benevolence.Heaven and man thus set up the relationship between them and interacted.Knowing the heavenly principles meant Confucius was keenly aware of his mission and reponsibility.Athough there were constraints and limitations of the heavenly principles,man could still perform his partial free will by working hardly.To do one’s best with the results listoning to Heaven is Confucius’development of the traditional view of the heavenly principles.The superior person were in awe of Heaven not because of himself’s auspiciousness or inauspicousness,but because of his lack of self-cultivation and viture which disappointed Heaven.Confucius did not lack of happiness of life though he stood in awe of Heaven.Throughout his life,he ofen worried.Sometimes he complained and felt unfairly,however his spirits of life were indeed optimistic and ready to accept his fate.The goal of Confucius’life education was to cultivate ideal personality which carries his understanding of life.The ideal form of life that he educated students to achieve was the superior person who was ofen poor and lowly origin but had more virtues and much knowledge than those who were gentlemen by birth.Confucius,who had the good internal qualities, external ornament and way of a superior person had set a good example for his disciples.The good internal qualities of a superior person were benevolence.Those who had bevevolence were called superior persons while those who had not bevevolence could not be so called. Filial piety and respect for one’s elder brothers were the roots of benevolence.To do to others what he did to himself was the right way to practice benevolence.A superior person had three great virtues:being wise,benevolent and bold.The three states of a superior person of which the first one was the base of the two others were to cultivate himself so as to be serious and earnest in every thing, cultivate himself so as to give comfort and peace to others and cultivate himself so as to give comfort and peace to all the people.The proprieties were the ornament of a superior person. Without knowing the proprieties,it was impossible for one to establish himself in society.To keep down one’s desires and act on the proprieties was benevolence.The proprieties and music were external form of benevolence without which they were empty shell.Applying the proprieties was to achieve the harmony among people.As for a single person,he could deliver his all kinds of feelings and deal with everything to the point so as to avoid either going too far or not going far enough by applying the proprieties.As a result, his body and mind could be in a peaceful and harmonious state.As for the group,because each person in the group played different role and took different position, everyone was special and independent as well as interdependent by applying the proprieties.The way to be a superior person was to unite benevolence and the proprieties.In fact,the unity of benevolence and the proprieties was the unity of the good internal qualities and external ornament.The two interconnecting inseparably was just the doctrine of the mean as a virtue.The way to be a teacher and the way to be a disciple consisted the methods of Confucius’ life education. As a teacher,Confucius did such things as setting himself as an excellent example for life,teaching disciples with the six arts to enlighten their lives,teaching disciples by individualized ways to face each one’s exclusive life and moving disciples with affection to enrich their lives.Confucious asked his disciples to set their minds on learning firstly, improve their self-cultivation and personality, unite studying aknowledge and practicing benevolence, form the good habit of being fond of learning, pay equal attention to learning and thinking, practice hardly and to reach the state of being happy to learn in the end.Confucius’life education has the characteritics of paying great attention on the real world,sensibility,pratise and harmony.He attached importance to the real life and did not want the world after death.He regarded sensibility as the substance and root of human nature,thus paid more attention to the cultivation of human affection.He emphasized that one should fit his actions to his words and practice hardly in his daily life.He paid special attention on harmony. In order to solve various conradictions faced in life,he stressed that one should keep inner peace, interpersonal harmony and harmony between man and nature.Confucius’views of life education still has precious value as they enlighten contemporary life education.His views of life and death inspire us to cherish life,to establish the meaning of life in daily life and to resolve the issue of ultimate concern by transcending death.His view of the heavenly principles inspires us to listen to and reverence Heaven and deal with the relationship of man and nature properly.Man should find a right way to get along well with nature.His view of personality inspires us to improve the state of life,to construct spiritual home,to pursue to being a superior person who has many virtures such as combing good internal qualities with external ornament,remaining joyful in poor life,being enthusiastic and pressing on himself,putting much blame on himself and little on others and putting more attention on moral righteousness than on gains.His view of education inspires us that the best way of life education is individualized.Each one’s life and its unique development course and difference with other’s should be respected.The educated should be inspired and moved to realize-and accept himself correctly so as to achieve the most outstanding development suitable to his individuality.