|
What Is the Foundation of Morality and Real Traditional Chinese Culture? By He Yuancun
(Clearwisdom.net) Honesty has been a recurring theme for judging human
morality, but why is this the case? For those who believe in gods and the
concept of Heaven, they say that gods are watching everything and that good
deeds will be rewarded and bad deeds punished. Even for those who do not believe
in gods, they still believe that honesty is an inborn quality and virtue. However, in present day China, making money has become the underlying,
driving force behind people's behavior. When people behave without the restraint
of belief in higher beings and values, they may think, "If I am honest
while others are not, I will be the one who suffers for it, so that would be
acting foolishly!" This lack of honesty and integrity is reaching the point
of crisis. Chinese society's moral baseline is rapidly disappearing. In China, society's ultimate moral basis came from traditional Chinese
culture, generally consisting of the tenants of Buddhism, Taoism and
Confucianism. The concepts of "truth" in Taoism, of
"compassion" in Buddhism, and of "tolerance, compassion, loyalty,
righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trustworthiness" in Confucianism
constituted the backbone of traditional Chinese morality. The Chinese people
emphasize "genuine beliefs," those that are rooted in heavenly
principles, arising from the depths of one's heart, and immune to being swayed
by external factors. Under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), many traditional values
were branded as the "Four Olds" [Old Customs, Old Cultures, Old
Habits, and Old Ideas] and cast aside. Meanwhile, the CCP pretends to hold the
banner of traditional Chinese culture in interacting with other countries. The CCP has consistently maintained a policy of "keeping the best and
discarding the rest" toward traditional Chinese culture. The key, though,
is that the CCP gets to choose what is considered "the best" to suit
its needs. Different schools of thought have risen into and fall out of favor
over the years, but the CCP's stance on atheism being the state
"religion" has remained throughout. Over the course of several decades, the CCP has liberally used violence to
eradicate people's belief in and reverence for divine beings. Even today, the
CCP still maintains its mantra of "doing away with superstitions,"
which is a different way of targeting spiritual beliefs. It has gotten to the
point that it is difficult to reverse the effects of the CCP-driven march into
atheism. It may sound bizarre that the CCP has used the label of "the dregs of
feudal society" to attack religion and spiritual beliefs. Today, the CCP's
scholars claim that Confucius and Lao Zi were originally atheists and that
Buddhism was introduced to China from the outside. They seek to discredit and
cheapen the virtues that traditional Chinese culture has championed. The CCP took the term "heaven" from Confucianism's belief of
"unity of heaven and man," as well as the term "nature" from
the Taoist scripture of "the ways of men are conditioned by those of earth;
the ways of earth by those of heaven; the ways of heaven by those of Tao; and
the ways of Tao by nature," and twisted them to mean that materialism and
atheism are the "natural" course of action for man to take. The
Book of Changes, which leads the "Five Classics", was recast as
a tome on science from ancient times. They twisted the Confucius saying to
"respect the spirits and gods but keep a distance from them" to mean
that Confucius did not believe in gods. In reality, the "nature" in Taoism refers to a realm of non-action,
rather than the literal representation of the natural environment. Taoism
stresses that "the human body is a small universe," but it is not
about the human body literally as the CCP says it is, but rather the principles
of Taoist cultivation. Throughout Chinese history, the emperor's role included
respecting and worshiping heaven, earth, and gods. How could it be said that
traditional Chinese culture is "atheistic?" As the CCP appears to promote the morality of traditional Chinese culture, it
tries its best to erase belief in higher beings, even though the two go hand in
hand. In propagating traditional Chinese culture by discarding the essence of
people's belief in heavens and gods, the CCP is sabotaging traditional Chinese
culture and poisoning the beliefs of its own people. Divine Performing Arts' world tour, on the other hand, is putting on display
China's five thousand years of traditional, divinely-inspired culture on stage
in a dignified and glorious way, which will help to revive mankind's morality.
That approach is a great way to truly restore traditional Chinese culture. Posting date: 2/10/2008 |