On Chu Hsi’s Ritual Ideas

Ritual is one of the core ideas of Chinese thought. Ritual is not just means theceremony, but also about the social system, the habit, the behavior, etc in Chinesethought. It is involved in the daily life and behavior in Chinese traditional culture.Chu Hsi is the most important Confucian scholar on ritual researching in SongDynasty. And the ritual idea is a significant part of his Confucianism thought. ChuHsi’s ritual idea was a study on the inheritance and development of traditionalConfucian ritual.Chu Hsi made an ontology construction about the ritual ideas, and he made theritual ideas became an important part of his temperament theory. With the ideas ofheart of earth and heaven, the theory about the vogue of gas generation, Chu Hsiachieved the ontology construction on benevolence. The ritual is a directmanifestation of benevolence, so the ritual obtains an ontology connotation. But ChuHsi’s ritual idea eventually applied to the self-cultivation. Chu Hsi’s theory ofself-cultivation is called the Respectfulness. Chu Hsi’s theory of self-cultivation andhis ritual idea has a close connection. The Respectfulness contains the neat andserious of appearance, the etiquette rules when deal with something. And Chu Hsialso tried to make the ritual as the content of the primary learning. We can say, ChuHsi’s theory of Respectfulness itself as well as the response to the loss of theConfucian ritual situation, it is an attempt to reconstruct the Confucian ritual order.Chu Hsi emphasized on “Restrain Oneself and Restore Rites” more in old age, thatmeant the ritual was more significant in his self-cultivation theory system. Chu Hsiinterpreted the “Restrain Oneself” as conquer one’s selfish desire. Hence it made theritual was directly connected with mental cultivation. And Chu Hsi emphasized thatthe self-cultivation about “Restrain Oneself and Restore Rites” could not be regardedas two steps, they were integrated. Chu Hsi considered it was a mainly differencebetween Buddhism as the Confucian self-cultivation demanded one should conform tothe ritual when he had conquered his selfish desire. It is because of the ritual, the Confucian moral practice can be implemented specific. And Chu Hsi’s emphasisabout ritual is determined by his heart theory. In Chu Hsi’s philosophy, the concept ofheart is not an ontological concepts, it is just a concept about consciousness. InConfucianism, the theory of heart is about self-cultivation. Hence Chu Hsi’sself-cultivation is a gradual cultivation theory. The ritual guarantee the gradualself-cultivation can be implemented specific. The Chu Hsi’s self-cultivation theorymade the common Confucian can do it specific. This was why Chu Hsi emphasizedthe practice of specific rituals especially in family. So when we research the ritualideas of Chu Hsi, we should know the role and effect in his self-cultivation theorysystem.