According to the People’s Daily, China with the help of overseas Chinese worldwide will build JINING, a new city east of Shandong Province to showcase the lives and hometown of both Confucius and Mencius.
Xu Jialu, vice-chairman of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee and chief of the construction project, said on Thursday (June 30 2005)“Confucius and Mencius, the two greatest philosophers of ancient China, symbolize the essence of Chinese traditional culture and thought”. “The construction is the best way not only to commemorate the ancient masters, but also to give people more vivid picture of Chinese culture to the world”. “And the construction plan for the city should fully represent Chinese traditional culture and carry academic research value”, he added. Probably the construction of the new city will start in 2006.
Indeed a purpose built city is a fitting tribute to these two ancients, for Confucius was only a transmitter and not a maker, who believed in and loved the ancients [Analects Book VII]. And Mencius expounded that man’s nature is good [Mencius].
These ancient sages whose Confucian teachings are still taught in schools in China (and parts of Asia) for more than two millenniums, have been misunderstood or largely ignored by those biased for whatever reasons best known to them. For such people perhaps learning has stagnated or come to a halt, since even the Neo daoists and daoist immortals have exhorted the integrated study of the Daoist, Confucian and Buddhist doctrines for self and/or spiritual development.
As usual, the effort to learn and how far to go is entirely up to the daoist or Yi student. The case is not too dissimilar to the two warnings contained in the judgment in Hexagram 48 Ching / The Well. (‘A man may fail in his education to penetrate to the real roots of humanity and remain fixed in convention; or he may suddenly collapse and neglect his self-development’. Commentary W/B)
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