Life And Death In Confucius And Mencius's Thought

Confucius and Mencius have inherited the concept of the mandate of heaven (Ming) from three older dynasties,and their views about life and death are closely linked with thier concept of the mandate of heaven, The mandate of heaven basically means two parts, firstly it means human's mission given from heaven; Secondly it means human's fate as a given gift. From one part of heaven, man's life and death,fate, riches and honour, are determined by the heaven. From human's view,human only cultivate theirs morality life and comply with the heaven and mandate, they just are content with the heaven and the mandate,and lastly extricate themselves from bad mandate of heavern,At the same time,human only know their mission from the heaven,they just face calmly their life and death,and lastly are to achieve Tao in place of the heaven. Confucius and Mencius think that Benevolence (true virtue,or "Ren") and the mandate of heaven are the same ones,because acheiving Benevolence is not only essential condition to know the mandate of heaven, but also is the tallest standard of cultivating human's moral life.The main ways to achieve Benevolence is Raising Our Virtue lnside(Fan Qiu Zhu Ji),Seeking Myself Lost Heart(Qiu Qi Fang Xin),Expanding Four Initial Stage of Good(Si Duan),etc.Its main purpose is to pursuit the tallest rejoicings of All things are already complete in us(Wan Wu Jie Bei Yu Wo),to get the eternal value of Worth, Work, Words by some ways,such as to die to achieve virtue,to lost life to get rightousness,to expand loving-kindness,etc.Ultmately,between The mandate of heaven and Human's Tao are the same one,and we would know life,comfort death calmly,and overstep life and death.Confucius and Mencius thought that origin and root of Benevolence is two human feelings setting up blood relationship——Duty (Xiao) and fraternal love(respect for one's elder brother),samely they would contact creativitly mourning, Benevolence and the Root of Benevolence with the mandate of heaven,and initiated the life and death in Confucianists.As we known from their view about mourning that we pursuit erternal life and overstep the death to adopt three ways,First,we adopt to worship our ancestors to achieve flesh eternal life.Second,we adopt to complete the things that our ancestors don't complete,and the offsprings recollect ancestors,to achieve mind eternal life.At last,we propagate our dffsprings to get all eternal life.So, we could have conclusion that life and death in Confucianists is the life and death of all things forming a harmonious whole.