The Religious Character of the Confucian Tradition

·期刊原文
The Religious Character of the Confucian Tradition
By Rodney L. Taylor
Philosophy East & West
V. 48 No. 1 (January 1998)
pp. 80-107
Copyright 1998 by University of Hawaii Press

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Nothing is new about the question of whether Confucianism is a religion.[1] What is new is the range of responses and, particularly in the last several decades, the ways in which more and. more serious attempts have been made to suggest some level of religious capacity in the tradition.[2] Regardless of the outcome of a query into the religious nature of the tradition, one thing is very clear from the outset: volumes dealing with traditions such as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, or Judaism do not have to begin with an apology, used in the best sense of the term, for the religious nature of the tradition that is to be studied. It is assumed that Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Judaism, to name only a few, are religions, and no one questions the appropriateness of describing them as religious traditions.

When we turn to Confucianism, the certainty that we are still dealing with a religious tradition seems to change. Why is this? A variety of reasons have been given. Some would say that Confucianism seems to be more a social-humanistic and ethical teaching than a religion because it is focused on the establishment of proper relationships between persons and the capacity of the individual to develop his or her moral nature.[3] Beyond the role of the individual, it appears to be focused on societal well-being. There is little that points beyond self and society. Is such a focus necessarily exclusive of religious motivation? Religion certainly has a capacity for social-humanistic and ethical responses to issues. In fact, it might be the case that a particular religious tradition would define itself primarily in terms of these kinds of responses. Why, then, is the capacity for religious response questioned in the case of Confucianism when a similar response in another tradition would not be questioned as anything other than religious?

A number of issues are associated with this perception of the tradition as focused on social-humanistic and ethical concerns. Confucianism appears to lack a concept of the transcendent and therefore is seen by some as not fulfilling a basic requirement of what constitutes a religion.[4] That is, lacking the element of the transcendent denies its religious base. Such a perspective involves a narrow definition of religion, one that sees religion as dependent upon a theistic notion of a God transcendent of humanity. The idea of the transcendent is not, however, the only category within which religion can operate. We know from a variety of religious traditions that the idea of a transcendent God, while one way of structuring the religious meaning of worldview, is met by a dazzling choice of alternative structures when other traditions are examined. Yet these other traditions are not questioned as to whether they constitute

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religious traditions. It is also not at all clear that the Confucian tradition necessarily lacks the presence of the transcendent--and here scholarly opinions differ substantially.[5] Why is it that Confucianism continues to receive such close scrutiny, either to deny its use of the transcendent or in turn to suggest that without a transcendent it cannot be considered religious?

Part of the answer lies in the commonality of the transcendent as an assumption about the nature of religion, particularly in Western cultural contexts.[6] To a large degree the religious milieu from which Westerners arise has been presented as presupposing the existence of the transcendent as a basic and defining quality of religion.[7] It has been seen as the basis of the Abrahamic traditions that form the foundation of the religious West: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This has not, however, prevented traditions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, or Shinto as being recognized as religious traditions. Confucianism remains an outsider to this recognition in part because in it there is no ready substitute for the transcendent in the same way that there appears to be in other traditions because of the way they present themselves.

Take the transcendent away and other features of what would appear normally to constitute a religious tradition are seen as wanting in the Confucian tradition. Some would say that the Confucian tradition lacks a scripture.[8] Is scripture to be defined only in terms of a theistic god seen as a lawgiver who reveals scripture through a chosen individual?[9] What of the other religious traditions of the world that are not theistic? In other religions there are traditions of inner wisdom and meditative forms of knowledge. Such forms of knowing are capable of producing something that the tradition will regard as scripture. And what of the Confucian tradition? There are the Classics, works that purport to represent the records of the rulers of the early Chou dynasty. The Classics appear to represent a different kind of material, not obviously religious. Is there room, however, for the understanding of scripture within a larger arena of religious meanings?[10]

Some would argue that the founder of the tradition, Confucius, is not defined in terms of a religious founder.[11] He performs no miracles, he does not talk with the gods, he does not present himself as one possessed of great or special knowledge. He is simply a person who attempts to advise the rulers of his day on how to restore peace to the world based on his knowledge of the ways of the ancient sages of China. Being unsuccessful in this attempt at influencing the political events of his day, he becomes a teacher, and for the rest of his life gathers disciples around him to promulgate the teachings of the ancient sages. Are such characteristics of a founder figure necessarily inimical to the nature of religion, or is this simply a case of the need to expand the perimeters of what constitutes the nature of founder figures within religious traditions?

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A Religious Dimension of the Tradition
Without a concept of the Absolute, we are not dealing with the subject matter of religion.[12] On the other hand, when the Absolute is present, the capacity for religion is also present.[13] Notions of the Absolute within religion can appear in different forms--transcendent or immanent, theistic or monistic, or any of a variety of other forms. Why is it, then, that variation in the structure and meaning of the Absolute is allowed without denying the religious foundation of the tradition until Confucianism is discussed? The answer lies in the failure to perceive the Confucian understanding of the Absolute. If there is a Confucian Absolute, is it possible that it expresses itself in ways ordinarily reserved for that which is normally not identified with the Absolute? In other words, are there reasons that the concept of an Absolute in the tradition has not been obvious? Consider the focus on social-humanistic and ethical values and the full extent of meaning that the tradition ascribes to such issues. Perhaps such issues are not fully understood for their capacity to entertain religious meaning for the Confucian tradition and to clarify the grounds upon which a Confucian Absolute can be identified.

Without an understanding of its capacity for the Absolute, the Confucian tradition fits only with what seems to be some compromise into a category of world religious traditions. The difficulty of the fit between Confucianism and other religious traditions has produced a variety of ways of describing the tradition as a religious tradition. In general, there has been some discomfort with the idea of representing the tradition as a whole as a religious tradition, that is, that Confucianism is a religion. Rather than trying to address the issue of Confucianism as a whole as a religion, this difficulty has been met by suggesting that it is far better to look for a religious or spiritual dimension to the tradition.[14]

Is there a difference between identifying the tradition as religious or simply finding a religious or spiritual dimension? Certainly a religion implies a set of beliefs and practices. It also includes an institutional history and community. Such elements can obfuscate an identification of a religious or spiritual dimension, particularly if that element only is found in the personal experience of the individual. There is, however, a danger that in limiting our understanding of the religion of Confucianism to a religious dimension we preclude elements that through exclusion limit our understanding of the full religious understanding of the tradition. If the tradition itself places importance upon its own history and institutions as well as beliefs and practices, then its capacity for religion is broadly exclusive and not limited to certain specific features, even those of the inner spiritual life.[15]

There is also a question of whether a definition of the religious capacity of the tradition that limits that capacity to a particular element does not violate the way in which religious faith and belief operate. To

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suggest that there is a religious dimension to the tradition is to suggest that there is also much about the tradition that is not religious.[16] Frequently those who argue for a dimension of the tradition as religious or spiritual will also suggest that any such religious dimension is a small aspect of the tradition as a whole. In other words, there may be a religious dimension to the tradition, but it plays a small role in an otherwise nonreligious tradition.[17] The presupposition remains that the majority of elements of the tradition as a whole are in fact nonreligious. The argument is a curious one, for it relegates the element of the religious or spiritual to a singular dimension of the tradition, not to the tradition as a whole.[18] Interestingly enough, the argument also treats religious belief as coequal with any other belief in terms of its ability to be held to a singular dimension. Is this the manner in which a religious person holds religious belief?

When Joachim Wach described religious experience, he spoke in terms of an experience of the Absolute, that which by definition was beyond all else. He described the response of the individual to the Absolute as a total response of the total person.[19] In other words, in an experience of that beyond which there is nothing else, the experience itself is all-encompassing and all-inclusive. There is nothing that is not included. While Wach is referring specifically to the nature of religious experience, it might still be argued that he is also describing the basic character of religious belief.[20] It is the total response of the total individual. To persons who are religious there is no aspect of their life that is not in some fashion informed by their religious belief. Virtually everything that transpires for religious persons is incorporated into their religious belief.[21] Some people can be religious or nonreligious, but if they are religious their capacity to be religious is more inclusive than a single dimension allows.

A Definition of Religion
Religion, as we have indicated, involves that which is regarded as the Absolute. It is not just the Absolute, however, that is, the Absolute as an abstract category. The Absolute can exist without being regarded in a religious fashion. Metaphysics deals with the establishment of an Absolute, but metaphysics is a branch of philosophy, not of religion. Certainly there are metaphysicians who may choose to regard in a religious way the Absolute that they have established, but this is not a requirement of doing metaphysics.[22] A definition of religion might help to clarify how we can delineate the essential features that make up a religious tradition and differentiate it from something as close as philosophy.

Something identified as the Absolute is a requirement of religion.[23] This is simply to say that religion must have an end point that is regarded as of the nature of the Absolute. This category will be called many dif-

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ferent things: God, Spirit, Tao, Earth, Principle, specific designations of deities or forces--the list is almost endless.[24] The point remains that without the Absolute we are not dealing with religion, but when it is present we have the capacity for religion; that is, religion is potentially present to the degree we approach the Absolute in a religious fashion.

The Absolute of the philosopher need not be a religious Absolute. What is the difference? The difference lies in the capacity to approach the Absolute in a religious fashion. This is not a tautology, but the observation that religion is more than the Absolute. To say "more than the Absolute" seems to be a paradox. What is meant is that in addition to the identification of an Absolute, there must also be the clarification of the relationship of the individual with that Absolute. That the philosopher can identify an Absolute yet remain without a religious view says something about the relationship he has established with what is identified with the Absolute. A religious person in turn poses another form of relationship. It is that relationship that becomes a critical, defining element in the meaning of religion.

Frederick Streng defined religion as a "means of ultimate transformation."[25] This is a definition that not only provides a basis for identifying the Absolute but sees the nature of the relationship with the Absolute as a critical part of the definition itself. When Streng uses the term "ultimate" he is suggesting what we have referred to as the Absolute, but using the phrase "ultimate transformation" implies more than simply the Absolute. It also involves the relationship between the individual and that which is regarded as the Absolute in a relationship of transformation.[26] The movement from the philosopher's Absolute to the Absolute of a religious person involves the element of transformation. In the relationship with the Absolute the individual is transformed in a deep and profound fashion. He is transformed, in Streng's words, ultimately.[27] Such a state, be it salvation for a Christian or enlightenment for a Buddhist, defines the goal and end point of the tradition. For a religion to be a religion, such a goal must be part of the tradition.

Religion thus involves a perception of, knowledge of, or insight into, that which constitutes the Absolute and, in addition, the ability to provide a means for the individual to engage in an ultimate transformation toward that which is regarded as the Absolute, the fulfillment of the relationship between the individual and the Absolute. Without transformation, the capacity for religion remains unrealized. It is as if a religion were to say that it could identify the goal of all life, but was incapable of providing the means for the realization of that goal. Religion, however, is a very practical matter, and being practical it provides the means whereby this ultimate transformation will take place, the perception of the Absolute, and the movement toward it.

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The Primacy of the Religious
Whether the Confucian tradition can be defined in terms of a religious tradition or religious dimension, its religious capacity when identified is not an insignificant aspect of the tradition. In fact, one can argue that where religion is present, it is never secondary. In this respect the religious capacity of the tradition is not the same as identifying the political, economic, sociological, or philosophical aspects of the tradition. While all of these factors and many more can be identified and discussed, if and when the religious dimension of the tradition is established, it is primary. It is not one factor among other factors; it is the factor that determines the nature of the tradition.[28]

The religious capacity is primary because of the object of its focus and the resulting relationship between the individual and the religious end point. Establishing the Absolute as the end point and focus of the tradition provides the basis for describing the tradition in religious terms. As the experience of the Absolute involves the total individual in a total response, the nature of the religious capacity likewise demands the total individual in a total response. Such a response is all-encompassing and no longer of a single dimension. People who are religious are simply not religious in just part of their lives.

There are degrees in the way in which various people demonstrate religiosity,[29] much more in some than in others, but the difference between religious and nonreligious revolves around the establishment of an Absolute as a category for meaning in the life of the individual. Once the Absolute is part of the meaning structure of the individual, there is little if anything in one's life that is not affected. This line of reasoning suggests that there is a potential contradiction to the notion of religious dimension. The way in which the term is most frequently used is to identify one element that may appear to give some religious meaning to the tradition. If that dimension is being identified as the sole element within the tradition that allows for a discussion of religion, with the assumption that much if not all the rest of the tradition is not religious, the nature of religious belief as all-encompassing has been ignored. Religion does not allow for a single dimension; it is all-encompassing. Thus, if a religious dimension can be established, then we are dealing with a religious tradition as a whole.

For most scholars the tradition is only marginally religious, and discomfort is felt when any attempt is made to talk of the tradition as a whole as religious.[30] If the discussion remains at the level of religious dimension in which the religious capacity is a marginal feature of the tradition as a whole, religion plays a role unsuited to its definition. It is secondary, not primary. If there is no identifiable religious character in the Confucian tradition as a whole, and the focus remains upon particular elements that seem to have the capacity to reflect a religious dimen-

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sion, our concern rests with the need to clarify whether a particular dimension can establish the religious character of the tradition itself. If the religious dimension bears the burden of carrying the religious meaning of the tradition, then the nature and character of the religious dimension must be self-supporting of what can be described as religious for the whole tradition.

Let me give two examples of the identification of religious elements in Confucianism to illustrate the potential inability of a religious dimension to sustain a claim for religiosity. There has been a suggestion that the religious dimension of the tradition lies in the exercise of ritual, li.[31] Ritual is seen as the essential and defining feature of the tradition as a whole. The origin of Confucianism is understood as connected to those individuals who were responsible for the preservation of the ancient ritual codes. Such ritual codes were originally connected to earlier religious worldviews, but much is made of the point that the Confucian tradition divorced itself from these earlier religious worldviews while at the same time preserving the importance of ritual.

For the Confucian, ritual itself becomes a profound and centering concept and practice for the tradition as a whole. This can be seen first in terms of the emphasis that is placed on the centrality of the performance of ritual. Even more important, however, is the extension of the concept of ritual to a view of the universe as ordered and structured, that is, ritualized, in a fashion that demands of the individual a response in terms of propriety or deference. This attitude is said to resemble a form of religious expression and thus bears the possibility of possessing a religious dimension.[32]

Ritual may well be a religious element within the Confucian tradition, but it is a product of the establishment of the tradition as religious, not the basis for claiming that a religious dimension exists. What is it about ritual that is religious? Our lives are filled with ritual, which is understood as patterned and repeated behavior that places symbolic meaning upon specific actions, but few would argue that many of the rituals we perform have much in the way of religious meaning attached to them unless such behavior is focused on a religious object or goal, in other words, that it is part of a religious worldview. Ritual for ritual's sake is not religious ritual; it is merely ritual. What seems to matter most is the intent of the participant as to why a particular ritual is performed.

A similar issue arises with the identification of other elements in the tradition deemed to possess a religious dimension. Some scholars have sought to find religious significance in the Confucian virtue ching, seriousness or reverence, a phrase used to describe the proper attitude of persons who have fulfilled within themselves the ideals of the tradition.[33] It will often be expressed in terms of the display of ching toward learning, human relations, or life itself. There is little doubt that ching is one of the

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stronger indicators of a religious response or attitude on the part of the Confucian, and it is critically important to identify it as such.

It is a different question, however, to suggest that the presence of the attitude creates the religious dimension itself. In fact, one might well argue that the two standard translations for the term--seriousness and reverence--are the basis for the differentiation between its use in a religious and in a nonreligious setting.[34] Seriousness and reverence are similar in the intent of the attention focused on something, but they differ in the response of the individual to what is being focused on. One can be serious about any number of issues. One is reverent when there is a difference in the way in which the object is viewed.[35] It is not a matter of the state of ching creating a sacred domain, but rather confirming the existence of such a domain. The differentiation between seriousness and reverence lies in the way in which the object of attention is viewed. One person may hold something in seriousness while another holds it in reverence, or in turn, at different times, the same person may hold the same object with changing attitudes. If attention is focused on that which is regarded as religious, then the attitude is religious, or in this case reverence is demonstrated. The key remains, however, the underlying structure of meaning or the object of attention, not the attitude itself.

To identify a religious dimension applicable to the Confucian tradition necessitates a focus on that which may be considered the basis for claiming the Confucian tradition as a religious tradition. Both the examples we have cited of religious dimension illustrate the problem of simply identifying an element bearing an appearance of religious quality.[36] In the case of Confucianism more is required. We must be able to identify that element that leads us from a religious dimension to a religious tradition. Without this element identified, the religious dimension is sadly marginalized in the structure of the tradition, and discussions of the capacity for the tradition to be represented in religious terms are potentially diluted to the point of disappearance.

The Nature of the Confucian Religious Tradition
To find what makes this tradition religious it is necessary to be able to identify something within the tradition that is regarded as an Absolute, that is, that which is regarded as the end point and goal, that beyond which there is nothing else, that becomes the source of meaning and motivation for the individual and community alike. One does not have to look far to find this element in the tradition. It is a readily identifiable and key component in the tradition, but one that is rarely given the full extent of meaning that bears its religious centrality in the unfolding of the Confucian tradition.

The element is T'ien, translated most frequently as Heaven, in the early or Classical Confucian tradition, and T'ien-li, Principle of Heaven,

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in the later or Neo-Confucian tradition. Throughout twenty-five hundred years of Confucian history, either T'ien or T'ien-li has been at the center of Confucian thought and practice. One can argue that it is the point around which all Confucian thought and practice is ultimately defined.[37]

Given the stated veneration by the Confucians for the ways of the ancients and, in turn, the salient role played by T'ien within that culture that is most sought after as an object of emulation by the Confucians, there remained a strong continuing role for T'ien within Confucianism. The principle question that scholars have debated concerns not Heaven's continued role in the tradition, but the meaning Heaven carries for the Confucians. While Confucius' statement of his own role as transmitter rather than creator[38] is frequently offered as an explanation for a close connection between Confucianism and earlier traditions, it is also apparent that Confucius radically changed many of the elements of the traditions that he was supposedly simply transmitting. How did Confucius and the rest of the tradition interpret T'ien?

Various attempts have been made to interpret the role of T'ien for Confucius and the Confucian tradition. Some scholars have sought to differentiate Confucius from the tradition he inherited and transmitted by maintaining that Confucius' concept of T'ien is not the Chou dynasty concept of T'ien. Specifically, Confucius is seen as the beginning of the humanistic tradition, which is interpreted as a rejection of the earlier religious worldview.[39] T'ien thus becomes a central defining structure for the moral content of the universe, but not a religious authority. In this interpretation Confucianism's contribution to China is the advent of humanism, which was seen as freeing humankind from the yoke of religious authority.

Other scholars have sought to maintain a religious quality about T'ien but have removed it from any possibility of interpretation that would suggest it retained qualities of the high god of the Chou rulers. Much discussion centers on the capacity of T'ien to entertain the quality of transcendence. If T'ien functioned as a high god, then it would appear to have transcendence as part of its nature. The question that remains is not whether transcendence is appropriate for a description of T'ien as a high god, but whether Confucius in incorporating T'ien into his own thought and practice retained an element of transcendence, though freeing it from any idea of a high god. The argument at times echoes the initial concern of differentiating Confucius' humanism from an earlier religious worldview. T'ien from this point of view may retain transcendence but represents a radical step toward a philosophical absolute, not a religious authority.[40]

Others have sought to eliminate the element of transcendence entirely, arguing that the Confucian meaning of T'ien reinforced Confucian teachings, teachings that remain focused on the relation of person

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to person and the formation of community.[41] In other words, T'ien, while borrowed from an earlier age that still attached religious authority to an external high god, is retranslated for the Confucians into the centering principle of the moral nature of the individual and the community. In this sense, T'ien is recreated within the context of Confucianism, a Confucianism defined primarily in terms of its humanistic teachings, not in terms of a teaching of transcendence.[42]

It is unfortunate that so much attention has been given to the question of transcendence in T'ien, as if its existence or nonexistence was the key to understanding the religious character of the tradition as a whole.[43] Much of this attention is a reaction, however, to those who early on claimed to find proof for a belief in a transcendent god in T'ien or for even earlier beliefs of the Chinese people in a form of primitive monotheism.[44] Such arguments were based on a personal theological agenda and did little to clarify the unique religious character of the Confucian tradition. Often those who now want to eliminate the category of transcendence from the discussion of T'ien argue in terms of the cultural misappropriation of Western categories and ask that the tradition and its terminology be interpreted through its own context.

A similar issue of nomenclature arises when one shifts to later Confucian thought, the Neo-Confucian tradition. T'ien has become T'ien-li, Principle of Heaven, the underlying moral structure of all things.[45] Imminence rather than transcendence may describe much about the character of T'ien-li, but there are also hints of its capacity to be viewed as a transcendent principle as well. We do not want to lose sight, however, of the larger role played by T'ien-li, Principle of Heaven, in the later tradition. As if through a refracting lens, it is the focal point for clarity of all things. It is the inner structure of the universe, bath microcosm and macrocosm. It is both the beginning point and the end point. As such it is an Absolute.

I am not sure it is even particularly important to establish whether T'ien or T'ien-li is transcendent or immanent as an issue in the determination of the religious character of the tradition.[46] What is lost in such discussions is the centrality of T'ien not only to Confucius but to the entire Confucian tradition in the life and practice of the individual, community, and state. In its constant and repeated references throughout Confucian writings, in its centrality as a defining paradigm of what is right and ordered in the universe and in its capacity to hold the highest aspirations for all segments of humanity, as humankind's goal and end point, it is functionally an Absolute. It is that beyond which there is no higher goal.

Sagehood as a Religious Goal
At the center of the Confucian tradition lies T'ien or T'ien-li. It Functions as an Absolute. As an Absolute, T'ien provides the possibility of

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creating a religious tradition. Its establishment as an Absolute is the first critical step, and without this step no further discussion would be necessary. Ultimately, however, the extent to which Confucianism is religious is dependent not merely on the identification of an Absolute, but also on the clarification of the relationship between the individual and that which is regarded as Absolute. We have defined religion as a means toward ultimate transformation. T'ien as the Absolute is that which is regarded as Ultimate. We must now identify the relationship of T'ien and the individual that allows for the process of transformation toward that which is Ultimate.

Within Confucianism the relationship of humankind and T'ien is seen in terms of a movement of humankind toward T'ien, the Absolute; that is, the relationship is a transformation toward that which is Ultimate. The relationship of humankind and T'ien or T'ien-li is represented most frequently in Confucian literature through the highest form or ideal type of human being. This ideal type is referred to as the sage, sheng, and it occurs as a reference point throughout the history of the tradition.[47]

The sage is seen as the figure who understands T'ien or T'ien-li not simply in an intellectual fashion but as an embodiment of the full knowledge of the Confucian Absolute. The origin of the word for sage, sheng, conveys much of this understanding of the concept. Its definition in the Shuo-wen suggests that the word means "to penetrate" or "to pass through." From this meaning is derived the sense of "thorough understanding."[48] Thus the sage's understanding penetrates all things, Heaven, Earth, and humanity.

The word or character sheng itself is composed of two parts. Each carries a meaning contributing to the understanding of the word itself. One of the parts means "ear" or "to hear" and suggests that the sage is the one who hears.[49] What does he hear? He hears the Way of Heaven. The phonetic component of the character appears to carry meaning, thus suggesting "to manifest" or "to disclose." This suggests that the sage is one who manifests or discloses something.[50] What is it that he manifests? Again, the answer, according to the Shuo-wen dictionary, suggests the Way of Heaven. Taken together, the word for sage means "he who hears the Way of Heaven and manifests it to humankind." The sage is thus the exemplar of the perfection of humankind.

The sage is a figure who has engaged in this process of relationship and thus progressed toward the goal of realizing the relationship between himself and T'ien. This movement toward the goal suggests a process of transformation undergone by the sage. Because the goal is the Absolute, the transformation is itself the ultimate transformation. What this suggests is that the sage is a figure of a transformed state of being. He rests in the realization of the ultimate state of being itself. The sage as a transformed figure resting in a realized state of the Ultimate is living

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proof or verification of the ability of the tradition to offer not just an Absolute, but an Absolute that is a goal and that can be attained.

The Records of the Sages
The living proof of the traditions of the sage was to be found for the Confucians in the literary records of the early Chinese tradition, the ching or "Classics." The origin of the term ching is significant in this case. Originally meaning "warp," that is, the threads of a piece of cloth that run lengthwise, as opposed to the cross-threads or weft,[51] warp means that which runs throughout or underlies the piece of cloth. As the warp provides continuity to a piece of cloth, a work designated as a "classic" provides continuity across time and space. There is an element of structure that the warp provides to the cloth that may be more difficult to translate into the term "classic." Such structure might best be seen as a form of authority.[52] The problem is that "classic" as a translation carries only a very limited sense of authority. This is where an extended meaning of "classic" may be necessary.

Ching is used not only in the Confucian tradition to refer to the literary works surviving from the early Chou dynasty, but also in other religious traditions in China and East Asia in general to refer to their sacred writings. In the context of other traditions, the same word ching is translated as "scripture."[53]

Ching is translated as "scripture" in Buddhism and Taoism while ching is translated as "classic" for texts that the Confucian tradition has sought to preserve. Is there a substantial difference in the nature of these works? The standard response is to suggest that while Confucian works may not be historical per se, they lack any pretense of ascribing their origin to the realm of gods and are not viewed as revealed texts. The issue, however, is more complex than allows dismissing their religious dimension on the basis of a failure to appear as revealed in origin.

For the Confucian tradition, while the works are not ascribed to the realm of the gods in origin, they are ascribed to the sages. They in fact represent the records of the sages. The sage, as we have determined, is a religious figure. He is the figure who hears the ways of Heaven and manifests them for humankind. The Confucian ching are the records of the sages hearing the Way of Heaven, and quite literally become the manifestation of what is heard of Heaven's Way for humankind. As such, their authority is the authority of the sages. If the sage is a religious figure, then the record of the sages is a religious record. In many respects it may be more appropriate to refer to the Confucian ching as Confucian scriptures rather than as Confucian "Classics." By so doing, the ground of the tradition in the sage has been clarified for its religious character and they may be properly understood as bearing religious authority within the context of the Confucian tradition.

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Learning to Become a Sage
With the records of the sages as scriptural authority, the Confucian belief in the goal of sagehood established the sages as models for emulation and the goal of the learning process. That sagehood itself could be attained by anyone was not always self-evident within the Confucian tradition. When Confucius himself talks of sages, he is referring to a set of rulers who were purported to have existed at the beginning of the Chinese cultural tradition.[54] These were figures who, according to early literary records, represented the highest embodiment of virtue and the full manifestation of the Way of Heaven. They ruled with the full embodiment of Heaven's Way, and, according to tradition, they brought peace to the world.

That there was a relationship between humankind and T'ien was proved by the existence of the sages for Confucius, but sagehood itself was not viewed as an attainable goal for the individual. The goal was a more modest, though still extremely subtle, state of understanding that Confucius called the chun-tzu, noble person.[55] The noble person was a profound human being in deep understanding of Heaven's Way, but he was not a sage. The word "sage" was limited to only the rulers of high antiquity.

As the tradition developed, however, the figure of the sage moved out of high antiquity and became a more approachable goal. This movement began with the second major Confucian teacher, Mencius. For Mencius, "sage" still referred to the rulers of high antiquity, but it now also referred to the founders of the Chou dynasty, and Confucius himself was viewed as very near the state of sagehood.

More importantly, however, because Mencius taught that every human being had the seeds of a nature of goodness, he stressed that everyone had the same nature, which did not differ in kind from that of the sages.[56] There was a common nature of goodness that defined what it meant to be human. If all humanity had the same basic nature and the sages represented the perfection of human nature, then, Mencius argued, any human being could become a sage.[57] With this simple argument, sagehood moved out of high antiquity and became a realizable goal, the object of learning and self-cultivation as the end point and highest fulfillment of the tradition.[58]

As the Confucian tradition developed, the goal of sagehood only became more relevant to the immediate concerns of learning and self-cultivation.[59] This is not to say that there were not differences in the interpretation of the nature of sagehood or the learning and self-cultivation that was necessary to achieve the goal. The sage, however, came to stand not only as the paradigmatic figure at the root of the tradition, but as a figure who, in his representation of the highest ideals of the perfection of humankind in their understanding of the Way of Heaven, could

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be emulated. Any person could become a sage, though not without extraordinary effort and commitment.

In much of Neo-Confucianism, it would seem as if all attention is placed on the ideal of the sage. The sage is seen as the figure who has fully embodied the Confucian Absolute, now referred to as T'ien-li, the Principle of Heaven, a unifying metaphysical structure found within all things. One of the most popular Confucian works from the Sung dynasty, the Chin ssu-lu, Reflections on Things at Hand, is essentially a handbook for the learning necessary to become a sage and suggests that the object of all learning is nothing other than the goal of sagehood.[60]

The two major schools of Neo-Confucianism, Li-hsueh, School of Principle, and Hsin-hsueh, School of Mind, both focus on and articulate the goal of sagehood as the end point of the learning and self-cultivation process. While differences lie in the emphasis on the source for the knowledge of T'ien-li, both schools, and Confucianism in general, see the learning and cultivation process as providing a means toward the end point of sagehood, the point at which the Absolute of T'ien or T'ien-li is fully realized.

Sagehood demonstrates the existence of a process of transformation within Confucianism from the present human condition to that which is regarded as the Absolute. The process of transformation from the human condition to T'ien or T'ien-li is what we might call the soteriological or the transformative component of the tradition. This capacity for transformation is at the very heart of the religious nature of the tradition. What makes the tradition religious is the existence of the Absolute and the capacity that the tradition offers to move toward or transform into that Absolute state. The tradition's religious roots are thus its Absolute and its soteriological or transformative capacity. Both are necessary to be able to define the tradition in terms of religion. The tradition itself thus becomes the means whereby this process of ultimate transformation takes place. The degree to which the figure of the sage becomes the model for the tradition as a whole is the degree to which the tradition offers a process of ultimate transformation.

The Human Condition
Forming the backdrop to the goal of sagehood is the Confucian view of the human condition.[61] The Confucian tradition has placed the seeds of ultimacy within humankind from the very beginnings of the tradition. The tendency to see human nature as possessing ultimacy began in earnest with the second major Confucian teacher, Mencius. We have already noted Mencius' role in bringing the ideal of the sage out of high antiquity and in suggesting that it was a state that anyone could attain. The basis for this increased relevancy of the state of sagehood rested on Menciu's arguments for the goodness of human nature.[62] He suggested

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that every human being has the same capacity for the development of goodness, the seeds of virtue, planted deep within one's nature. The source of such goodness was T'ien or Heaven and each individual possessed a Heaven-endowed nature of goodness.[63] Even with the development of Neo-Confucianism the argument remained basically unaltered: the roots of the Absolute lie within the individual defined as either human nature, hsing, or heart/mind, hsin.

Though the roots of the Absolute lie within human nature, the human condition is more than the question of human nature. The human condition from the outset is at odds with a view of human nature as inherently good. When the world is examined, the nature of much of human action, from the Confucian point of view, does not imply the full development or realization of the roots of the Absolute. In fact, from the Confucian perspective, the nature of most human action more often demonstrates the lack of understanding of the roots of the Absolute than an indication of the development of goodness of the true human nature. There is, in other words, a major disjunction between the ideal state of the development and realization of one's Heaven-endowed nature of goodness and the present circumstances of the world. The conditions of the world and of the individual are far from what ought to be the case. The human condition defined in terms of what is the case has produced a world of suffering and travail, and the Confucian tradition from its origin has seen its role as attempting to remedy this present condition of the world.

Religious traditions by definition set out basic understandings of the human condition. Such understandings of the human condition stand in contrast to the goals and aspirations of the tradition itself. The ultimate transformation offered by each religious tradition is against the backdrop of a definition of the human conditions from which transformation is seen as a desirable end. As Christianity sees the human condition defined in terms of sin, and Buddhism sees the human condition defined in terms of ignorance, Confucianism also spells out the human condition from which the ideal of the sage emerges as an act of transformation.

The human condition in Confucianism is marked by selfishness. From the outset of the tradition in the sayings of Confucius, there is a distinction drawn between the person who acts in accord with the Way of Heaven and the person who acts out of petty and selfish concerns. Confucius himself draws the distinction between the chun-tzu, noble person, and the hsiao-jen, petty person, suggesting that it is the noble person who has realized the human capacity for moral development as an emulation of the Way of Heaven.[64] The petty person, by contrast, represents the human condition without benefit of the development of the Way of Heaven. Mencius focuses his articulation of the human con-

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dition on the existence of human desires.[65] Neither he nor any other Confucian ever suggested that desires by nature created the human condition, but only that one must strive to overcome selfish desires. It is the failure to recognize one's moral obligations to both oneself and others, obligations that force one to transcend self-centered activity, that from the Confucian perspective create the basis for the problems we all encounter in the world.

As the tradition developed into later Neo-Confucianism, the description of the human condition continued in similar terms. The Neo-Confucians delineated the nature of this distinction in terms of the specific aspects of the human nature and heart/mind responsible for the arising of the human condition. The standard distinction was drawn in terms of either li, Principle, and chi, material force, or jen-hsin, human heart/mind, and Tao-hsin, the Heart/Mind of the Way.[66] The later category points specifically to the capacity of the individual to develop and act in moral ways.[67] Each person was seen as possessing each facet of the heart/mind, the jen-hsin that tied one to the human condition and the Tao-hsin that represented the Way of Heaven as inherent within the individual. The movement desired was from jen-hsin to Tao-hsin. The degree to which one was focused on the learning and cultivation necessary to become a sage was the degree to which the jen-hsin would play a decreasing role in the determination of one's nature and character with the emergence of the Tao-hsin in sagehood.

The Human Way and the Way of Heaven
The Confucian Way is thus defined in terms of the fulfillment of the Way of Heaven, T'ien or T'ien-li. The unfolding and fulfillment of the Way of Heaven is identified as the process of the unfolding of human nature or the process of becoming fully human.[68] Salvation within a Confucian context is identified with the fulfillment of the Way of Heaven, a process involving movement from the human condition to the roots of ultimacy of T'ien itself, the toots that are found within the nature of being fully human. In the end the Confucian idea of religion, defined as a means toward ultimate transformation, is to be found in the fulfillment of the way of being fully human.

To be fully human from a Confucian perspective is to realize the seeds of ultimacy within oneself as either hsing, human nature, or hsin, heart/mind. Such a vision of being fully human is to see that the Way of Heaven is the end point for the way in which one acts toward oneself as well as others. Being fully human within a Confucian context means that one fulfills the capacity for goodness inherent within the nature and acts upon this goodness in terms of the relation to self, family, community, state, and, in the end, the entirety of the world itself.

From the Confucian perspective, self-learning is the root and foun-

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dation for addressing the problems of the human condition in general. Where these problems lie in the world, they depend upon the necessity of self-learning for their rectification.[69] Such "learning for oneself," wei-chi, as the Analects expresses it,[70] is not so much a given as it is a potential. The capacity for the fulfillment of the human way has been implanted within human nature, but the dominance of the human condition over the capacity for the realization of the human nature requires for the majority of the Confucian tradition that learning for the self be pursued with arduous effort and tenacity. Fulfilling the potential for goodness is seen as the result of extraordinary effort. Confucius in this regard refers to himself as one who is not born wise but must acquire knowledge painfully.[71]

By fulfilling the learning of the self, one can then begin to extend the human way or the capacity for being fully human to others, beginning with family and extending outward to the community and ever enlarging circles, eventually encompassing the world itself and all things within it. The most inclusive, if not famous, statement of this vision is found in Chang Tsai's (1020-1077) Hsi-ming, Western Inscription.[72] Chang Tsai refers to Heaven and earth as his mother and father, and he identifies his own nature with a common substratum of moral nature that is found throughout the entire universe. Because of this identification of his nature with the nature of the universe itself, he goes on to suggest that all people are his brothers and sisters, and all things are his companions. The recognition of all people as brothers and sisters and all things as companions places one in community with all living things.

To Be Fully Human[73]

To be fully human in a Confucian sense is to enter into a community of relationship with all things. The Confucian vision of a community of living things sets out a religious vision of the unity of living beings, each bearing moral responsibility to the other. Its groundwork sets out a fresh perspective on human ethics and even environmental ethics,[74] suggesting that all life shares in a common T'ien-endowed nature.

The majority of Confucian teachings may be seen as ways of describing these relationships with all things. Such relationships are an inherent part of human nature and are described directly in the reference to a "single thread," i-kuan,[75] running through Confucius' teachings. The "single thread," identified as chung and shu, loyalty or "giving of oneself fully" and reciprocity or empathy,[76] addresses the ability of the individual to engage in a deep and profound relationship with others. Chung. suggests the ability of individuals to give of themselves completely and fully in the assistance of another person. Shu directs itself to a caring relationship with others, that is, to an understanding or empathizing with another's situation. The "single thread" suggests that the

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tradition is rooted in the expectation of the individual to develop his or her moral nature in the relationships with others.

Such expectation of moral relationship on the part of being human is described by the role of jen, humaneness. It describes the depth of the relationship established between the individual and all things. Cheng Hao (1032-1085) speaks of jen as the element unifying humankind with the universe itself, saying that the person of jen forms a single body with all things.[77] Wang Yang-ming (1472-1529) says that the person of jen forms a unity with Heaven, earth, and all things.[78] jen as the inherent capacity of the human spirit to express itself in goodness is fulfilled not just in the relationship of one person with another, but in the relationship of the individual with the universe.

Virtues such as chung and shu, the "single thread," and jen demonstrate the depth of interaction that occurs with all things, emanating from the person of goodness. This is the sense of being fully human. The self as fully human is a self in community with others, forming, as Cheng Hao and others have suggested, a single body with all things. jen understood in this way becomes a symbol of human and environmental ethics, that is, the capacity of the human spirit to reach beyond itself in moral relations, to establish goodness not just for oneself, not even just for one's species, but for all things. Such a vision is religious, particularly in this context, for it is seen from the Confucian point of view as a fulfillment of the Way of Heaven. The goal of the tradition is the realization of this vision. The means employed to reach this goal is nothing other than being human, fully human.

The Confucian soteriological transformation occurs in the context of becoming fully human. The fulfillment of being human is an act that in the end involves all things. To be fully human is to stand in relationship with others.[79] To move toward ultimate transformation is to stay in relationship with others. Self-learning expresses itself outward in the act of caring for others. In the end, the movement toward ultimate transformation is being fully human with all other things, not separating others from the self. Transformation is then the point at which the self is most in relationship with all other things.[80]

Transformation as the moment of deep and profound relationship with others brings us back to the understanding of T'ien and T'ien-li, the Way of Heaven. Heaven is within the individual as the seeds of being fully human, but Heaven is also more than the individual, for the fulfillment of the Way of Heaven is more than the individual.[81] To be fully human is to be in relationship with others. Heaven represents that combined point in which self is in relationship with all other things. The Confucian religious tradition offers a means toward this ultimate relationship and provides a way in which the human condition may be transformed. To be fully human for the Confucian is to be fully religious.

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NOTES
This essay appears in a modified form as the "introduction" to my forth-coming volume An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Confucian Religious Tradition (New York: The Rosen Publishing Group). Permission has been given by The Rosen Publishing Group for this essay to appear in print in this form.

1. A lengthy record of publications has attempted to address the question of the religious nature of the Confucian tradition. Of particular interest should be noted James Legge, The Religions of China (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1880), and Max Weber, The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism (New York: Free Press, 1951).

2. See, for example, Tu Wei-ming, Humanity and Self-Cultivation: Essays in Confucian Thought (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1979); idem, Confucian Thought: Self-hood as Creative Transformation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985); idem, Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Confucian Religiousness (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989); Herbert Fingarette, Confucius: The Secular as Sacred (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1972); Julia Ching, Confucianism and Christianity: A Comparative Study (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1977); David Hall and Roger Ames, Thinking Through Confucius (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987); Mary Evelyn Tucker, Moral and Spiritual Cultivation in Japanese Neo-Confucianism: The Life and Thought of Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714) (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990); john Berthrong, All under Heaven: Transforming Paradigms in Confucian-Christian Dialogue (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994); Michael Kalton, To Become a Sage: The Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning by Yi T'oegye (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988); and Rodney L. Taylor, The Religious Dimensions of Confucianism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990). For summaries and evaluations of the current study of Confucianism as a religious tradition, see Rodney L. Taylor, "The Study of Confucianism as a Religious Tradition," journal of Chinese Religions 18 (1990): 143-159; Rodney L. Taylor and Gary Arbuckle, "Confucianism," in "Chinese Religions: the State of the Field," ed. D. Overmyer, journal of Asian Studies [54] (2) (May 1995): 347-354.

3. The majority of studies of Confucianism have taken this point of view; see, for example, Fung Yu-lan, History of Chinese Philosophy,

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vol 1, The Period of the Philosophers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), and Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963).

4. We will return to the question of the role of the transcendent and its relation to the definition of religion. Some argue against the presence of the transcendent in the Confucian tradition, yet retain a religious dimension for the tradition. For an excellent discussion of this perspective, see Hall and Ames, Thinking Through Confucius, pp. 12-17, 201-216; see also Roger Ames, "Religiousness in Classical Confucianism: A Comparative Analysis," Asian Culture Quarterly 12(2)(1984): 7-23.

5. Scholars generally favoring some element of the transcendent include Berthrong, Ching, Tu, Tucker, and Taylor.

6. See Hall and Ames, Thinking Through Confucius, pp. 11-25, for a discussion of the context of comparative study and the dominance of Western paradigms in comparative study.

7. The monolithic structure of Western paradigms may become less monolithic through the advent of feminist and third-world critiques, but comparative studies are still largely at the mercy of cultural stereotypes when characteristics of whole cultures are presented.

8. For a review of issues related to the study of scripture, see Miriam Levering, Rethinking Scripture: Essays from a Comparative Perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), and Frederick Denny and Rodney L. Taylor, The Holy Book in Comparative Perspective (Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1985). Specific study of Confucian scripture is found in John B. Henderson, Scripture, Canon, and Commentary: A Comparison of Confucian and Western Exegesis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991). For a survey of Confucian scripture, see Rodney L. Taylor, "Confucianism: Scripture and the Sage," in Denny and Taylor, The Holy Book in Comparative Perspective, pp. 181-203, and reprinted as "Scripture and the Sage: On the Question of a Confucian Scripture," in Taylor, The Religious Dimensions of Confucianism, pp. 23-38.

9. "Scripture" also operates within nonliterate traditions; see Sam Gill, "Nonliterate Traditions and Holy Books: Toward a New Model," in Denny and Taylor, The Holy Book in Comparative Perspective, pp. 224-240.

10. See Taylor, "Confucian Scripture," in Denny and Taylor, The Holy Book in Comparative Perspective, pp. 181-203.

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11. The standard approach toward Confucius as a founder figure has been to differentiate him from other founder figures to the degree that he lacks elements of supernatural power or does not claim direct relation to a transcendent source of power. The latter point, of course, is arguable on the basis of the interpretation of T'ien and the relation between Confucius and T'ien. Studies that illustrate this trend are: D. Howard Smith, Confucius (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973); Pierre Do-Dinh, Confucius and Chinese Humanism (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1969); H. G. Creel, Confucius and the Chinese Way (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960); Shigeki Kaizuka, Confucius (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1956).

12. My perspective of the necessity of a category of the Absolute is based on the work of Joachim Wach. Wach sees this category as the defining quality of the phenomenon of religion; see Joachim Wach, The Comparative Study of Religion (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966); idem, Types of Religious Experience: Christian and Non-Christian (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951); and idem, Sociology of Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971).

13. I suggest here that it is the "capacity" for religion that is present. The category of the Absolute establishes the minimum conditions for the occurrence of the phenomenon of religion, but more than just the Absolute is required if the phenomenon is to be identified as religion.

14. See Taylor and Arbuckle for a review of the different ways in which the religious element of the tradition has been interpreted. Authors who take the tradition as a whole as religious include Ching, Kalton, Tu, Tucker, and Taylor. Berthrong also provides an excellent discussion of the religious interpretation of the tradition; see Berthrong, All Under Heaven, pp. 189-207.

15. The focus of Wach's work is relevant in this context. His Sociology of Religion presupposes the operation of a category of the Absolute and the human response to this category. Rather than reduce religion to one element of many, Wach argues that a sociology of religion is based on the recognition of the category of the Absolute for the religious person.

16. Berthrong and I have a friendly disagreement about the question of whether there are Confucians who are not religious, and exactly what that means. For Berthrong, some Confucians are religious and some are not. To me, some may display greater or lesser degrees of religiosity, but as individuals situating themselves within the tradition, they take on an orientation that remains religious.

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17. This is where the argument for the single dimension is at its weakest, for it suggests that religion can appear in a singular dimension with little or no connection to the tradition as a whole, an argument unsubstantiated by Wach's criteria for the nature of religious experience.

18. Lying behind this argument is the general assumption of the inclusive nature of the religious dimension associated generally and most commonly with theologian Paul Tillich. Tillich suggested that religion exists as a depth dimension of all activity rather than a single dimension exclusive of other dimensions in the life of the individual; see Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1958), pp. 1-40.

19. Wach describes four criteria of religious experience: (1) a response to the Absolute, (2) a total response of the total person, (3) an experience of intensity, and (4) an experience that must result in action; see Wach, The Comparative Study of Religion, pp. 27-58.

20. In other words, the four criteria of religious experience are not limited to religious experience, but constitute a basic definition of the phenomenon of religion. Thus when placed within the context of his sociology of religion, such criteria become inclusive of human religious activity in general. By extension, when applied to a religious tradition, Wach's criteria suggest the degree to which religiosity is an inclusive rather than an exclusive phenomenon and one that primarily integrates the individual with a unified orientation throughout all activities.

21. This includes, of course the occurrence of suffering, as witnessed by the role of the Book of job for Abrahamic traditions. For a general discussion of religious meaning and its relation to suffering, see Rodney L. Taylor, "The Problem of Suffering: Christian and Confucian Dimensions," in Taylor, The Religious Dimensions of Confucianism, pp. 115-134.

22. Many examples, from Plate to Heidegger, could be selected where metaphysics fits a larger religious worldview, but the enterprise of metaphysics itself and the establishment of metaphysical first principles is still to be differentiated from the phenomenon of religion when it exists without a religious worldview.

23. See Wach, The Comparative Study of Religion, pp. 30-37.

24. The classic statement of classifications of categories of the Absolute is G. Van Der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation, vols. 1 and 2 (New York: Harper and Row, 1963); see also W. Brede Kristensen, The Meaning of Religion: Lectures in the Phenomenology of

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Religion (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), and Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion (New York: World Publishing Company, 1966).

25. Frederick j. Streng, Understanding Religious Life, 3d ed. (Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1985), pp. 1-8.

26. The key element in Streng's definition is transformation. For Streng this is what establishes the phenomenon of religion. Most importantly and central to the definition of religion, the element of transformation centers the discussion of religion on the relationship of the individual to the Absolute, rather than on the nature and placement of the Absolute. It assumes the nature of the Absolute but then focuses on the interface between the individual and the Absolute and the movement of the individual toward the Absolute.

27. Streng relies on the work of Tillich; see Tillich.

28. Wach, The Comparative Study of Religion, pp. 30-37; Tillich.

29. The scale of religiosity can go from near zero to the most extreme forms of the religious life. The classic study of such forms is William James, Varieties of Religious Experience (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1982).

30. Of the many scholars who have studied the tradition, only the handful already mentioned have in any way sought to identify the tradition as a whole as possessing a religious core.

31. Probably the most obvious example of the attempt to identify the religious element with ritual is seen in the work of Herbert Fingarette; see Fingarette. More recently, Robert Eno's work also emphasizes the ritual roots of the Confucian tradition; see Robert Eno, The Confucian Creation of Heaven: Philosophy and the Defense of Ritual Mastery (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990).

32. Fingarette's argument is subtle and persuasive, and I do not intend to diminish its importance in the literature of Confucian studies. Fingarette does not, however, establish the basis for a religious component within the tradition. Ritual is centered on an activity directed toward an end, and the end remains unidentified in Fingarette's approach.

33. Kirill Thompson has presented an interesting argument that sees ching as the centerpiece in the religious structure of the tradition. There is little doubt about the capacity of ching to demonstrate a form of religious response within the tradition, both Classical Confucian and Neo-Confucian, but I have serious reservations about

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the ability of ching to establish religiosity. See Kiril Thompson, "The Religious in Neo-Confucianism," Asian Culture Quarterly 15 (4) (1990): 44-57.

34. The fact that "seriousness" has been used as the standard translation of ching reinforces the degree to which a broader audience remains largely uninformed of the potential religious meaning a Confucian writing might possess.

35. This would apply equally well to our differentiation of religionist and philosopher. Each has an Absolute, but only the religionist views it as sacred, because it becomes an object toward which ultimate transformation occurs.

36. A similar case could be made for a practice such as meditation; however, the argument remains the same. Meditation is only a form of religious activity to the degree that it is seen as a practice that is part of the process of transformation leading toward that which is regarded as Absolute. Anything else is mere practice without religious ends.

37. There is little debate about the centrality of the concept of T'ien, with perhaps the exception of the work of Robert Eno. The debate lies instead in how to interpret the location of T'ien, that is, whether it is transcendent or immanent, whether it possesses supernatural power or is simply natural process, and any combination of these. Eno's work is useful in demonstrating the range of potential meanings attributed to T'ien, but fails to appreciate the centrality of the concept as a unified principle for the early tradition; see Eno. For a review of Eno's work, see Henry Rosemont, "The Dancing Ru/li Masters," Early China 17 (1992): 188-194.

38. Analects 7.1.

39. Standard interpretations of Confucius have focused on his role as providing a radical disjunction with previous religious traditions that saw T'ien as a high god. See, for example, Wing-tsit Chan, Source Book, chaps. 1-2, "The Growth of Humanism" and "The Humanism of Confucius."

40. See Fung Yu-lan, History of Chinese Philosophy, 1 :30-31, 54-59, 129-131.

41. This is where the strength of Eno's argument lies, suggesting that T'ien provides a networking for the structure of society through the preservation of ritual performance and skills; see Eno, The Confucian Creation of Heaven, pp. 30-63.

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42. The most noteworthy example of this approach is Hall and Ames, Thinking Through Confucius. T'ien is central but not transcendent; see pp. 201-216.

43. The most extensive conversation I have encountered on the topic of the transcendent in Confucian thought occurred during the first Confucian/Christian Dialogue in Hong Kong in 1988. There was an attempt to discuss not only transcendent and immanent, but something that we might describe as transcendent/immanent and transcendent/transcendent. In these distinctions, these terms, whatever they originally were, appear to have outlived their usefulness.

44. There are a number of such sources, but even lames Legge shares in the perspective of a primitive monotheism; see Legge, The Religions of China, pp. 3-66.

45. Within Neo-Confucianism, the Absolute is expressed most commonly as either li, Principle, or T'ien-li, Principle of Heaven; however, there are many additional terms that might also express in a given context or by a given author the concept of the Absolute.

46. In this respect I am in accord with Hall and Ames, but only to the degree that it is useful to show the limitations to the category of transcendence when applied to Chinese materials. I still maintain that posing the question of religious nature in terms of categories of transcendent or immanent is to miss the fundamental nature of what it means to be religious.

47. See Wm. Theodore de Bary, "Neo-Confucian Cultivation and the Seventeenth-Century 'Enlightenment,"' in The Unfolding of Neo-Confucianism, ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), pp. 141-216. See also Rodney L. Taylor, The Cultivation of Sagehood as a Religious Goal in Neo-Confucianism: A Study of Selected Writings of Kao Pan-lung, 1562-1626 (Missoula, Montana: Scholar's Press, 1978).

48. Shuo wen chieh tzu ku lin (Taipei, 1977), vol. 9, p. 1986.

49. William Boltz has suggested the role of the auditory in China as a means for the acquisition of wisdom; see William Boltz, "The Religious and Philosophical Significance of the Hsiang-erh Lao Tzu in the Light of the Ma-wang-tui Silk Manuscripts," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 45 (1) (1982): 101- 102. See Taylor, "Confucian Scripture," p. 24.

50. Bernhard Karlgren, Grammata Serica Recensa (Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1964), p. 222.

51. Shuo wen chieh tzu ku lin 19:527. See Taylor, op. cit., p. 25.

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52. Karlgren glosses the term as rule, law, or norm, suggesting the quality of authority inherent within the word; see Karlgren, Grammata Serica Recensa, pp. 219-220.

53. See Miriam Levering, "Scripture and Its Reception: A Buddhist Case," in Levering, Rethinking Scripture, pp. 58-101.

54. All references to sheng in the Analects refer to figures of high antiquity, and there is little indication that sheng was viewed as a state that could be learned or cultivated by anyone in the generation of Confucius.

55. For Confucius the key term for learning and cultivation was chun-tzu, noble person. For a discussion of this term see Hall and Ames, Thinking Through Confucius, pp. 182-192.

56. Mencius 2A: 7, 2B:1, 6A:7.

57. Ibid., 68:2.

58. Mencius as a religious figure is also an important consideration in understanding the basis of Confucian religiosity. See Lee Yearly, "Mencius on Human Nature: The Forms of His Religious Thought," journal of the American Academy of Religion 43 (2) (1975): 185-198, idem, "Toward a Typology of Religious Thought: A Chinese Example," journal of Religion 55 (4) (1975): 426-443; and idem, "A Confucian Crisis: Mencius' Two Cosmogonies and Their Ethics," in Cosmogony and Ethical Order, ed. Robin Lovin and Frank Reynolds (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp. 310-327. The focus on Mencius always precludes the role of Hsun Tzu and in the area of religious concern suggests that Hsun Tzu remains free of religious import. A recent study of Hsun Tzu should correct this impression and allow for the incorporation of Hsun Tzu into the religious meaning of the tradition as a whole. See Edward Machle, Nature and Heaven in the Xunzi: A Study of the Tian Lun (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993).

59. Many examples could be given of the increasing movement toward the cultivation of sagehood. The movement is most identified with the growth of Neo-Confucianism. It is important to understand, however, that the roots of interest in sagehood extend back to a group of Confucian scholars during the Tang period, the hsing-ming (nature and destiny) scholars who sought to find in Confucian teachings a means of personal cultivation and learning. They are the scholars who began to find interest in the group of works that were later to emerge as the Four Books and thus were responsible for the elevation of Mencius to the position of major interpreter of Confucius.

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60. Chapter 2 of the Chin-ssu-lu begins with the statement that the goal of learning is the quest for sagehood. See Wing-tsit Chan, Reflections on Things at Hand: The Neo-Confucian Anthology Compiled by Chu Hsi and Lu Tsu-chien (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967). See also de Bary, "Neo-Confucian Cultivation," pp. 153-160, for a discussion of the Chin-ssu-lu as a handbook for self-cultivation.

61. Tu Wei-ming has discussed the issue of the human condition as the backdrop against which the ideal of the religious life in Confucianism is posed; see Tu, Centrality and Commonality, pp. 98-102.

62. Mencius 6A: 1-6.

63. Ibid., 7A:1.

64. Analects 4:11, 4:16, 7:36, 14:23, 15:20.

65. Mencius 7B:35.

66. Tang Chun-i, "The Development of the Concept of Moral Mind from Wang Yang-ming to Wang Chi," in Self and Society in Ming Thought, ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), pp. 93-120.

67. I am not going to discuss the categories of li and chi in the context of this essay. As metaphysical categories they play a critical role in Neo-Confucian discourse on the makeup of the human condition, but may be less useful than the axiological categories of Tao-hsin/jen-hsin in the understanding of the transformation of the individual from present to ideal state.

68. See Tu, Centrality and Commonality, pp. 94-98.

69. This pattern for the process of learning is perhaps best seen in the Ta-hsueh, Great Learning, a statement of learning in which the dominance of steps of learning, five steps out of eight, is found as a process of internal learning.

70. Analects 14:25. For a discussion of this concept within the context of Neo-Confucianism, see Wm. Theodore de Bary, The Liberal Tradition in China (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, and New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), pp. 21-24.

71. Analects 16:9.

72. See Chan, Source Book, pp. 497-500.

73.The phrase "to be fully human" is used by Tu Wei-ming to describe the fully religious state within the Confucian tradition; see Tu, Centrality and Commonality, pp. 94-98.

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74. Frequent reference was made to Chang Tsai's vision contained in the Western Inscription as well as many other Neo-Confucian writings as sources for a Confucian ecology, at the recent conference "Confucianism and Ecology Consultation," Center for Study of World Religions, Harvard University, May 1996. Of the present small amount of literature in this area, see Mary Evelyn Tucker and john Grim, eds., Worldviews and Ecology (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1993).

75. Analects 4. 15. For a discussion of this concept, see Hall and Ames, Thinking Through Confucius, pp. 283-296.

76. The most thorough discussion of chung and shu is found in Hall and Ames, Thinking Through Confucius, pp. 283-304.

77. Erh-Cheng chuan-shu (Ssu-pu pei-yao edition), 2A:2a. See Chan, Source Book, p. 530.

78. Wang Wen-cheng kung chuan-shu (Ssu-pu tsung-kan edition), 26:lb. See Wing-tsit Chan, instructions for Practical Living and Other Neo-Confucian Writings by Wang Yang-ming (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), p. 659.

79. To stand in relation to others is what Tu Wei-ming describes as the element of community, an element central to his understanding of the religiousness of the tradition; see Tu, Centrality and Commonality, pp. 113-116.

80. I would argue that this relationality with others as a component of Confucian religiosity is built into Wach's understanding of the nature of religious experience by the nature of the fourth criterion of religious experience, the necessity of such experience to issue forth in action; see Wach, The Comparative Study of Religion, pp. 30- 37.

81. The language of transcendent and immanent seems again to be capable of application, but I would caution that their application may serve only to make less clear the relationship of self and society as well as of self and universe. All that is being said is that the Way of Heaven is fulfilled by being fully human, and to be fully human is more than a relationship with the self. Ultimately self-learning is within the context of others. If transcendence and immanence have any role in this discourse, Heaven remains with elements of both.