I re-read a young lady's illustrated primer recently and it made me in the mood to lear about confuscianism

I re-read a young lady's illustrated primer recently and it made me in the mood to lear about confuscianism.
Where do I start.

Other urls found in this thread:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=hdKIVnjEk5Q
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

Start with the Greeks.

论语

Slingerland's translation of the Analects includes introductions and commentaries, you could do worse than that.

sima qian

論語
>Confucius didn't write in pleb-hand communist characters.

confuscianism a shit

t: lao tzu

I bet you don't even cane your delinquents.

According to legend, Confucius got rekt by Laozi

>According to “Shiji”, or “The Records of the Grand Historian”, Confucius went to Luo Yang, the Capital city, to meet Laozi to enquire about propriety (the order of rituals and courtesies – more superficially called ‘etiquette’ in English).
>When he came back, he kept silent for three days. His students were curious and asked their teacher what had happened.
>Confucius said: “I know how a bird can fly. I know how a fish can swim. But I do not know how Laozi could rise and fly like a sublime dragon riding on clouds in the sky.”

Confuci niggas r gay.
Real niggas be Taoist

Confucianism for the State
Taoism for the Soul

He didn't write in 楷書 either m8.

Confucianism for "sorting yourself out" Peterson style, Laozi for the state, Zhuangzi for escapism.

>a state that does absolutely nothing

>A state that doesn't need to do anything

We depend on the people. An unhealthy population leads to an unhealthy state.

Lao tzu is a retard
Zhuang Zhou is the goat

Confucius>Lao-Tzu>Mencius>Zhuangzi

Wu Wei doesn't literally mean 'don't do anything'. If you read the rest of the text it's all about how to pull strings behind the scenes.

It's Zhuangzi who praises people who just want to spend all day fishing, or who are useless, or who meditate so long and deeply that their body turns into withered wood.

It's actually not very helpful to think of Zhuangzi and Laozi as part of the same school of thought.

Sweet memes famalams, but Confucianism had a tremendous impact on the early formation of Daoism and the later tradition of Neidan. Laozi ain't got shit on the Neiye.

The Analects of Confucius are tricky, mostly because they employ a technical terminology that was only extrapolated by later Confucians, Mencius in particular.

Confucianism had a great revival in the Song dynasty owing to the efforts of Zhu Xi. Besides organizing the writings of six select Song Confucians into a coherent whole, his most notable achievement was substituting the canonical Five Classics, which predated Confucius, for the Four Books - these being the Analects, Mencius, Daxue and Zhongyong. The last two were individual chapters from one of the Five Classics, the Book of Rites.

The best place to start is with the Daxue and Zhongyong, preferably in Ian Johnston's translation as he gives both the original text from the Book of Rites with traditional commentaries and Zhu Xi's revised and annontated version. I like Irene Bloom's translation of Mencius and Arthur Valey's Analects.

For translations of Zhu Xi, I recommend the following;

>Reconstructing the Confucian Dao, Joseph Adler
>Reflections on Things at Hand, Wing Tsit-Chan
>Neo-Confucian Terms Explained, Wing Tsit-Chan

Wang Yangming is another great worthy to study. He more or less combined Chan (Zen) Buddhism with Confucianism, respectfully criticizing certain ideas of Zhu Xi. His main works has been translated by Wing Tsit-Chan as Instructions for Practical Living.

I hope you enjoy your studies.

17
The supreme rulers are hardly known by their subjects.
The lesser are loved and praised.
The even lesser are feared.
The least are despised.

Those who show no trust will not be trusted.
Those who are quiet value the words.
When their task is completed, people will say:
We did it ourselves.

30
Those who advice the ruler on the Way,
Do not want the world subdued with weapons.
Such deeds bring on retaliation.
Thorn bushes grow where armies have camped.
Battles are followed by years of famine.
Therefore, good leaders reach solutions,
And then stop.
They do not dare to rely on force.

Solutions without arrogance,
Solutions without scorn,
Solutions without pride,
Solutions without benefit,
Solutions without domination.

Things exalted then decay.
This is going against the Way.
What goes against the Way meets an early end.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=hdKIVnjEk5Q

Ching chong honor family and ruler.

There, now you saved time.

>Confucianism had a tremendous impact on the early formation of Daoism

To take the debunking one stage further, there's no word for Confucianism in Chinese, Kongzi was a culture hero like Robin Hood, rather than the exclusive property of a certain sect, the Analects didn't exist before the Han dynasty, Daoism didn't exist as a school of thought until Buddhism arrived in China, the term usually translated as Confucianists 儒家 predates Confucius and refers to experts in ritual and propriety.

>the term usually translated as Confucianists 儒家 predates Confucius and refers to experts in ritual and propriety.

Very interesting user. Where can I learn more?

If you read Chinese there's the baidu encyclopaedia article on 儒 ru. In English there are some articles, search for Ru Confucianism, Ruism, origin of Ru etc.

The term "Ru" is even in job titles inscribed on Shang dynasty oracle bones, 500 years before Confucius.

If you wanna get into the relational aspects of the Analects/Confucius check out my professor's Great Courses lecture on the Analects (Robert LaFleur) he's brilliant and the series is super in-depth. He also gets into how to apply the text to your life so it's doubly helpful in my opinion. also read the Roger Ames version of the text and do not skip that intro, it's pure fucking gold

Thanks, that great courses lecture series seems like a good recommendation. The first lecture is free on YouTube.