Summary and Comments on "What is Confucianism?" by Nobuyuki Kaji - Confucianism as a religion deeply connected to death. Recommended commentary to learn about the Chinese view of religion.
The book we present here is "What is Confucianism?" by Kaji Nobuyuki, published by Chuokoron Shinsha in 2015 (expanded edition).
Let's take a quick look at the book.
Confucianism is often understood as a mere ethics and morality rather than a religion.
AmazonProducts Page.
It also carries with it a dark image of feudalism that supports the old family system.
However, at its essence, it is a religion deeply connected to death and deeply rooted in the lives of Japanese people, including funeral rites.
This book reexamines Confucianism from the fundamental issue of death and points out its religious nature.
Then, while tracing the history that began before Confucius, we will consider its relationship to the present day.
The entire book has been expanded and a sixth chapter, "Confucian Ethics," has been added.
As the title suggests, this book is a work that looks at what Confucianism is. As noted in the book's introduction above, Confucianism is often seen as more of an ethic and morality than a religion, but according to the author, Confucianism is precisely what has greatly influenced the Chinese religion.
You will learn in this book that Confucianism is deeply connected to death and that it cannot be contained by rituals, ethics and morality alone.
At the beginning of this book, there is an interesting passage about Chinese thinking and their view of this life and the next, which I will quote here. It is a bit long, but it is an important part of the book, so I will read it carefully.
Chinese people think in Chinese characters and texts using Chinese characters. Chinese characters are especially important. These Chinese characters are essentially ideographs. The ideograms are copies of things. Since it is a copy of an object, the object comes first, and then the pictorial representation of the kanji character is created to resemble the object. This means that an object (natural existence) exists before anything else, and the world of objects takes precedence. There is the Word (God) in the beginning," not "There is the thing in the beginning. This is why the Chinese are more interested in the metaphysical world than the metaphysical world. Because of this structure of thought, the Chinese have come to think in a realistic manner, following the facts as they happen. What is reality? It is the concrete world of the senses surrounded by things. For this reason, the world of the senses is what the Chinese are most interested in.
This is the fundamental reason why the Chinese are realistic and immediate. The Chinese place the highest priority on the world of the five senses, which are closely connected to reality.
The world of the five senses is this world. To see a beautiful woman, to listen to good music, to smell a good fragrance, to eat something delicious, to touch something pleasant - what else is there in this world but the pleasures of this world? This is the Chinese view of this world.
If this is the case, then the Chinese must wish to live even a minute or a second longer in this present world, which is filled with pleasure. The next world, heaven, hell, and other such unrealistic and fluffy things are fictional worlds that the Chinese find hard to believe in.
However, no matter how much we try to enjoy the pleasures of this life, death will surely come. For the Chinese, for whom this life is the highest, this is a very painful time. For those who believe in the next world or heaven, such as Indians and Christians, this world is only a temporary world, and death is only a part of the process. For those who believe in the divine and Buddhist revelation, there is no fear or anxiety of death. For the Chinese, however, who believe that this world is the only real world, death is a great fear. It is only natural, then, that the Chinese would want someone to explain death to them so that they can somehow be convinced that it is not to be feared. In response to this request, Confucianism has succeeded in providing an explanation that makes sense to the Chinese. （The Confucianism that has succeeded in providing an explanation that makes sense to the Chinese is Confucianism.)
Let me begin with a conclusion. The Chinese have a realistic desire to live in this world for as long as possible, even for a second, so their greatest desire is to be able to somehow return to this world after an unavoidable death. Therefore, we think in the direction of being able to return to this world again after death. We believe that we can pass the boundary between life and death.
Chuokoron Shinsha, Kaji Nobuyuki, What is Confucianism (enlarged edition), p. 15-17
The rest of the story is long, so please read the rest of this book to find out. It is a very interesting story.
This book goes on and on with this clear and interesting explanation. It is very easy to read.
Nobuyuki Kaji's writings were discussed in the previous articleConfucius, New Beyond Time.is also highly recommended. It is a wonderful biography that shows who and what Confucius was like. If you read it in combination with this work, the synergy effect is outstanding. I highly recommend the two books as a set.
However, one point that bothered me was the expression that often appears in this book, "The original Buddhism is 00, while the later Buddhism is △ △ △. This is sometimes criticized with the nuance that the teachings preached by Buddha in India are the original teachings of Buddhism and that later Buddhism (especially Japanese Buddhism) is wrong, but this idea that "the original Buddhism was like this" has been criticized in reverse by recent Buddhist studies. However, this "original Buddhism" has been criticized by Buddhist studies in recent years. This is a long story, so please refer to the following article, which I have already written on this blog.A History of Buddhism in New Asia 02 India II: The Formation and Development of Buddhism.andMahayana Buddhism Series, Volume 10: Mahayana Buddhism in Asia.Tomomichi NittaThe Abyss of the Mahayana Buddhas."We hope that you will refer to such information as the following.
I have only one point that I was concerned about from the standpoint of a Buddhist monk, and I do not disagree at all that Buddhism was transformed by the influence of Confucianism. I found this book very stimulating to learn what Confucianism was that influenced Buddhism.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in what Confucianism is all about. Why not pick up a copy?
The above is "Kaji Nobuyuki, "What is Confucianism?" - Confucianism as a religion deeply connected with death. A recommended commentary to learn about the Chinese view of religion".
Next Article.
Click here to read the previous article.
Related Articles
