Chinese Attitudes Toward Nature, Time, Good and Evil Essay

As for the attitude of Chinese community toward temperament, it is uncontroversial that it is marked by a strong feeling of harmony, for example, mavinness of constitution and piece. According to Dong Zhongshu, who was the most of import philosopher of the Western Han, Heaven had its leave alone and purpose. It was Heaven that made the sun, the moon, and the stars move, the four seasons change, and all animals and plants grow and die. Heaven was kindhearted, so it made things produce one a nonher Heaven was also severe, so it made things over go far one a nonher. Moreover, Heaven created a overtopr to rule over the pot. This soakedt that Heaven wanted the p from each oney deal to be ruled.When a s delegacyer did something wrong, Heaven would be angry and would give the ruler warnings by do strange natural phenomena to happen, such as eclipses, hide outquakes, floods and droughts. This theorythe inter satisfy among Heaven and manhad a clear purpose. On the one hand, it was mean to come out that the rulers position and world-beater were given to him by Heaven, and should not be questioned on the other hand, the ruler should be moral and benevolent, and govern well, so as not to incur Heavens anger. Dong had a well-known verbalizeing The Way is great because it originates in Heaven. Heaven does not change nor does the Way. I would like to explain the brain clearly by an example. That is Feng Shui. Feng Shui (also known as geomancy) is an ancient Chinese strategy of aesthetics believed to use the laws of both Heaven (astronomy) and Earth (geography) to help one improve life by receiving positive qi. Maybe many masses think it is superstition, simply I consider it bottom of the inning reflect the pursuit of harmonious life of Chinese people. There atomic number 18 four purposes in Feng Shui, seeking the harmony of kind-hearted body the harmony in the midst of people and people the harmony betwixt people and society the harmony between people and nature.Let me give a small example slightly placing a bed. The bed shall be slightly high uper than the knee and not near the door. And it shall face to the south and back to the north in rules of order to adjust duxhlt, the aorta and large veins direction of the blood circulatory dodging, so that people dirty dog fall a sleep easily, and confirm a high quality sleep. The bed cant facet the west, because the rotation of the earth is from east to west, making the blood rush toward the head, and people cant sleep soundly.Beam presses which mean air conditioners hang above the pillow, or the lights suspend above the bed, bring about oppression, and cause adverse force of body and mind. Mirrors cant face the bed, if not people may be startled easily in midnight, and cant be peace. It really can express the attitude toward nature, uniting of heaven and humanity. As for the attitude of Chinese people toward age, three features go forth be mentioned about. The firstl y is round- type time outlook. In the oriental founding, farming is the major way of carrying out material and exchanging advantageouslys dominates all the economic life of the whole society.This unpolished civilization treats human and the nature as interrelated and interacted,the world as an integer organically linked. So in oriental society the round-type time outlook is that nature and human is integrate. This kind of time outlook holds the visual modality that time is like a circle and all the things in the world return to its origina1 state after a cycle of time, for example, the alternation of day and night, the come and go of the four seasons,the turning of the twelve months, the increase of the age and the evolution of plants.This kind of time have makes the Orientals handle the time at their governance and do things at ease. For instance, when a t severallyer has not finished an important point in his class,he can pro gigantic his class. At the Chinese spousal rela tionship feast, few people go forth come at the time which is indite on the invitation card. Moreover, Chinese use time very casually and intangibly. Chinese prefer to say some uncertain words 1ike at erst, sometimes, a short while, which a1ways confuse the westerners.Chinese students who are studying English tend to misuse the tense when communicate with foreigners. In a word, Chinese dont have clear specialisation concept of time. The second is polychromic time system. coloured time system means people are very casual in victimisation time. In other words, being punctual is important, but not strict. Polychromic time system is the heritage of traditional agri ethnic society. People are used to do severa1 different things at the same time and do things emphasizing prime time.Chinese think that everything in the world develops with the cycle of time, so people catch the time that is ripe for acting, which means each step of our action is determined temporarily by our surroundi ngs. So action is poorly planned by Chinese. In some occasions, people can do many things in the same time. A Chinese salesman can check out with the first customer on the one hand,and show the thoroughlys to a second one on the other hand, even accost a third One at the same time. However, westerners can barely accomplish them and also can not accept them. The third is agone time orientation.Time orientation is a relatively stable performer in cultural difference. It is connected to the historical background of the. Generally speaking, people who have too heavy tradition, look up to history and past, so their time orientation is past-oriented. Chinese be coherent to past-oriented. People show great respect to the past. The past experience and 1esson are important reference for forthwiths success and failure. Chinese show respect to ancestors and teachers. They like to say things by referencing to the old books and stories. That is why Chinese call teachers Lao shi. lao means old.People attach importance to age and experience, because they are symbols of power and wisdom, so words like lao and da ever so mean respect in Chinese. As for the attitude of Chinese people toward good and evil, perhaps the most extreme view of chastity is found in the Buddhist tradition. Buddhism maintains that we are born pure and are closest to what is called benignant kindness when we enter this world. Hence, people are good, and our culture is what makes us evil. The view of goodness is also found in Confucianism. Meng Zi made the original goodness of human nature the keynote to his system.To him, the sexual morality of humanity together with the resultant virtues of righteousness, rites and wisdom arises from the inner springs of the human heart. These four cardinal virtues come in their seed formthe four beginnings, as the feeling of compassion, shame, modesty, and of the distinction between right and wrong. Such feelings are universal among mankind and they come as naturally ad taste for food, and sight for beauty. This, Meng Zi argued, can be seen in the fact that a child naturally loves his parents and that a man will instinctively experience a feeling into a well.Therefore, human nature is originally good, and will be good if it is guided by its inwrought feelings, just as water is inclined to flow downward. In line of credit to the concept of the goodness of human nature advocated by Meng Zi, Xun Zi declared that human nature is originally evil because human desires inevitably lead to rapacity and strife if left untrained. Believing that goodness can only be acquired, Xun Zi stressed the value of education and environment. To him it is environment and authority that make the man, and it is respect of the precepts of the sage-kings that produces the goodness that is in him.In the end, however, not only is the life of virtue a possibility but even sage-hood is within reach. Therefore, Xun Zi said, Every man on the street can become like th e sage-king Yu, a utter(a) orthodox Confucian note. What mentioned about are viewpoints from the ancients. Nowadays Chinese attitudes toward good and evil are very wide and vague, not like Christianity which has a ten commandments, making the general public even those without much cultural literacy has some certain standards, ruling what can do and can not do, their attitudes toward good and evil are absolutely clear.But to Chinese, nothing moldiness been done and nothing can not be done. The edge between good and evil is obscure, in some condition something is good but in other condition it may be bad. To Chinese the boundary is always about degree, whether it is excessive or not. For example, talking between Chinese friends sometimes contains abusive language, but it doesnt mean they hate each other, most of time, it is just joking. That behavior is not really evil, but if it is overdone, it will be.Chinese Peoples attitude toward nature, time, good and evil have been formed gra dually, and they are relatively stable in a long time, but they are not without changes. The better living conditions, the development of the economy, the cash advance of the society and the increase of the interaction of people from different cu1tural backgrounds will doubtlessly have subtle effects on their views, although it is also a long process. What I talking about is some basic attitude of Chinese, it will help foreigner to understand Chinese better, but not always apply to every Chinese at every time.