The JunZi and the Trigrams

[bradford]

Rather than ask LiSe to retract her words, perhaps better to rephrase them. I

I didn't ask her to. I just said she might want to. But she can't say she didn't say them.
I'm not being mean here. I like LiSe lots.

Do you think folks named Lao Tzu or he was just known as the Old Sage and it is later folks who came to the insight that the two pieces of his moniker were a Taoist paradox?

Actually, I at least suspect that Laozi might never have existed, and that the Daodejing may be a collaborative effort on the part of a small group. This is not unheard of, vis Mulla Nasrudin of the Sufis.

 

[bradford]

BTW, I didn't mean to say Junzi was the affectionate diminutive, only the suffix zi.

To Dobro's question, my vote is of course for "on the path," not "realized,"
with the understanding that it takes an extraordinary nobility to even be on the path.

 

[Sparhawk]

BTW, I didn't mean to say Junzi was the affectionate diminutive, only the suffix zi.

Oops. Sorry about that. The thing is, if you put both, "Spanish" and "mamacita," together in a sentence, my "parsing" goes askew...

 

[sergio]

Mamacita Superstar

See, Sophia Vergara is a Spanish Mamacita. In a few centuries, we'll be using the term as akin to "Virtuosity" (not there isn't anything virtuous about her... )

EL retorno de:Luis,el Satiro de New Jersey....
The return of Luis,the New Jersey Satyr-coming to a theatre near you...".TheJun Zi collects all examples of beauty in nature.Provided he shares,good fortune.The inferior Man complains if he does not.No blame"
Sergio(looking through the glass darkly)

 

[heylise]

I think it depends on what kind of example you need. He might fill in all of them. "Ideal" might be enlightened, and "on the path", and knowing he knows very little, and not caring about it, and embracing you when you are lonely, and kicking you out of the door when he feels like it.

But that is just my own idea of ideal. Curious what Lindsay comes up with. Thanks for the link to the JunZi!

Thinking about what Bradford said

Originally Posted by heylise
A 'Jun' is a ruler, not someone learning I think. Jun Zi is a term of respect. ...
And finally I don't think Chinese are particularly interested in someone who is learning.

I am quite used to retracting, I am a Sagittarian, have to retract things all the time...

But this time I think it is just a matter of ‘what’ we are talking about. I did not mean he did not learn, only that the term is not about someone learning. ‘Pupil’ is a term which means someone who learns, ‘sage’ is not about someone who learns, but a sage is all the time learning. Same way I think Junzi is not a term which has anything to do with learning. But a Junzi is of course learning. He would soon stop being a Junzi if he didn’t.

LiSe

 

[meng]

What I'm gathering from LiSe's comments: it isn't built into the meaning of the word, but it is natural for someone developed in those ways to have it.

 

[heylise]

I recognize the confucian way to describe the Junzi, and I can very well understand how they were the ones who came up with the term, and also that this part of the DaXiang actually is very confucian. I like daoist, but I like confucianist too. They have both their own merit. Sometimes you better act (or are) daoist, sometimes better confucianist, all depends on the time.

LiSe

 

[lindsay]

Do you think of this ethical hero, this ideal person, as what some people call a 'realized being' or do you think of him/her as a work in progress? Enlightened, or on the path?

Hi Dobro –

I think the junzi (for followers of Confucius) is an ideal, a model we should aspire to imitate. The junzi embodies all the important Confucian virtues, and employs them successfully and unswervingly in his daily life. The junzi is also a public figure, responsible for others and politically adept.

The traditional Chinese Confucian phrase that summarizes the junzi is “sageliness within, kingliness without.” That is the goal. Nothing more is necessary, nothing less is acceptable.

It’s hard to talk about the junzi in spiritual language. He is not really enlightened, but he is very wise and supremely competent. He is not exactly on the path – he knows his place, and strives to stay in it perfectly. He is not a work in progress – his behavior is perfect in every way – but the rest of us awkward common folk are definitely works in progress, and our job is to become as junzi-like as possible.

Confucius thought the greatest junzi of all was the Duke of Zhou. In case you’ve forgotten, he’s the guy who supposedly put the finishing touches on the Yijing. Because of this, the Yi was considered a peerless manual for achieving junzi-hood (as well as a heck of a tool for divination), and included in the Confucian canon of scriptures.

In ancient China, the kind of thinking and practices we associate with religion and spirituality tended to be in the hands of people who had evolved out of shamanism. This sort of stuff did not interest Confucius very much. He was more interested in restoring conditions of social harmony. What is the best way for people to live together in peace and dignity? – that is the question Confucius thought was important.

And that is why, I guess, almost nobody in today’s world cares about Confucius. Or his junzi.

Lindsay

 

[fkegan]

Hi Linsay and Dobro,
Do you really think of Junzi as an actual person? Isn't it an abstract ideal personified? An example of how one might take trigram imagery and use it for theoretical moralizing.
Like mamacita, which Luis notes is more concretely demonstrated by his photo.

Hi Luis,
Tan lines, sand adhering to her form, the interplay of gestalt image and background all are intriguing reasons to ogle her picture while meditating upon the Void. I mentioned the fingernails only to highlight the only body part left totally to the imagination. Judging by the rest of her, those fingernails must be amazing to not be exposed....perhaps fancy nail polish with exotic things glued into it.

All of you---
Is Sophia V. a Confucian or Taoist exemplar? From the Confucian side she does honor to her Ancestors. From the Taoist she looks like she is having fun even if on site she would be just trying to get the work done and take a shower to get rid of the sand.

Frank

 

[lindsay]

There is one question about Clarity I have agonized over for months - one question that has dulled my appetite, banished my sleep, thickened my tongue, glazed my eye, stooped my shoulder, halted my step. Please, please, I beg you, tell me this one thing: who puts the stars on these forum strings? This string, for example, has three stars (on my screen). Others have more or less. Or none at all. Who does this? Who is the judge? What are the rating criteria? Are strings with stars better than those without them?

 

[bradford]

I recognize the confucian way to describe the Junzi, and I can very well understand how they were the ones who came up with the term, LiSe

I hate to hound you on this, but the Confucians did not come up with the term.
It's used frequently in the Zhouyi, 4 centuries earlier.

Long before the Wings, the Junzi appears in the Zhouyi lines 01.3, 02.0, 03.3, 09.6, 12.0,
13.0, 15.0, 15.1, 15.3, 20.1, 20.5, 20.6, 23.6, 33.4, 34.3, 36.1, 40.5, 43.3, 40.6 and 54.5

Furthermore, the Zhouyi uses a different term to describe the mature or great noble:
Da Jun, found at 07.6, 10.3 and 19.5

What I'm suggesting is that the Confucians had a big part in corrrupting the term,
making it more pretentious than humble.

 

[Trojina]

Lindsay, in the blue bar at the top of this thread theres a box for rating the thread. I don't know who puts these stars in but I can tell you if you want to get rid of a few vote average and the self satisfied smug little blighters disappear - unfortunately it seems one can only kill 2 at a time. There were 5 earlier now there are only 3 Exterminate a few more and get some sleep.

 

[lindsay]

Luis, regarding Sophia V., I think we were talking about the "junzi", not the "jeunesse". Those homophones will get you every time.

Thanks, Trojan! I feel better already. Pop! Pop! Pop goes the little star...

 

[fkegan]

Hi Linsay,
The ratings are whatever folks put as the rating in the little box after email notifications. They should go up and down with the rhythm of the postings.

Sophia is an example of a mamacita not a junzi who would be in drag...

Frank

 

[maremaria]

Clarity’s new product line : On-line Games .

Try now for FREE our new game

Shoot the star.

...the Zen way of disagreeing



To buy extra arrows, click the Donate button​

 

[lindsay]

What I'm suggesting is that the Confucians had a big part in corrrupting the term,
making it more pretentious than humble.

Bradford, are you serious? This sounds like the CONFUCIAN CONSPIRACY theory, soon to be a major motion picture.

"The Confucius Code" opens with the naked body of the Asian Art curator at the Louvre spread-eagled below the tall glass case containing a world-famous Zhou bronze. Sixty-three hexagram figures have been traced on his skin with black ink. In his mouth is a ceremonial jade tablet, and between each of his fingers and toes are small bunches of dried yarrow stalks.

The Securite is baffled. Forensics is useless. The only clues are the strange six-lined symbols carefully arranged in a peculiar sequence (aren't there supposed to be 64?) on the curator's skin. Someone notices a small circle of glass has been removed from the side of the display case. Part of the world-famous inscription on the world-famous Zhou bronze has been defaced. A very powerful laser has been used to erase, with immaculate precision, just two characters.

There is one person in the world who can crack the hexagram code. Lieutenant Mauvais dials a top-secret number for a red phone in an obscure corner of Langley AFB. Beads of sweat form on his brow. "Oui, oui" he whispers. Very carefully, summoning his best English accent, Lt. Mauvais breathes two words into the phone. "Bradford Hatcher."

Within 20 minutes a B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber takes off from Langley, flying west at full cruising speed. Destination: Colorado.

The President of the United States calls a full Cabinet meeting. "Gentleman," he says," a crisis of international proportions has occured." The President fires off rapid, tense words to describe the situation at the Louvre. "In conclusion," he says, " the full scope of the impending world crisis can only be grasped from the defaced inscription on the world-famous Chinese bronze."

"Only two Chinese characters were melted into oblivion. And we know those two characters," the President clears his throat and pulls at his collar. "Those two little characters consisted of ..."

 

[Sparhawk]

Just to add something I remember reading a short while ago in the Journal of Chinese Philosophy (December 2007 - Vol. 34 Issue s1). I just downloaded the PDF version of the article to quote from it:

Virtues of the Junzi

Confucius made extensive use of the notion of junzi, instead of principles, for explaining ethical virtues and instruction. Plausibly, Confucius’s notion of junzi reflects his concern for flexibility in coping with changing circumstances. In this light, Confucius’s ethical thought, unlike that of Mencius (Mengzi) or Xunzi, is best characterized as an ethics of junzi or paradigmatic individuals.2 In this article I present a reconstruction of some principal aspects of Confucius’s conception of junzi. I shall offer a way for sorting out the virtues in the Lunyu,with special emphasis on ren and yi as key elements in a virtue of flexibility.

At the outset, let us note some different translations of junzi:
“superior man” (Legge, Chan, Bodde, and Dubs), “gentleman”
(Waley, Lau, and Watson), and “noble man or person” (Giles, Fingarette, Schwartz, and de Bary).3 Since we are examining the
concept in detail in this article, I will leave junzi untranslated. In any
case, for Confucius, as well as Mencius and Xunzi, junzi expresses an
ideal of a cultivated, ethical character.Although more explanation is
needed to avoid misleading interpretations, the various translations of
junzi may be viewed as valuable attempts to bring forth the translator’s own appraisal of the salient features of this ideal of ethical
character in a way that will be intelligible to English readers.Thus, we
may regard junzi as a sort of emphatic term that, in context, serves to
accentuate certain ethically desirable and commendable virtues
(meide) or qualities of an ideal person. In short, it refers to his or her
ethical excellences. In general, junzi is a paradigmatic individual who
sets the tone and quality of the life of ordinary moral agents.A junzi is a person who embodies ren, yi, and li. Every person may strive to
become a junzi in the sense of a guiding paradigmatic individual,
rather than a xiaoren (small-minded person). There are of course
degrees of personal ethical achievement, depending on the situation,
character, ability, and opportunity of individual moral agents.

(ANTONIO S. CUA (1932–2007), Professor Emeritus, School of Philosophy, Catholic University of America, and Co-editor of Journal of Chinese Philosophy.)​

 

[Sparhawk]

"Only two Chinese characters were melted into oblivion. And we know those two characters," the President clears his throat and pulls at his collar. "Those two little characters consisted of ..."

Sophia Vergara??

 

[lindsay]

Luis -

No, no, no! That's ridiculous! The two characters are "Made [in] Japan".

 

[Sparhawk]

What I'm suggesting is that the Confucians had a big part in corrrupting the term,
making it more pretentious than humble.

Well, I understand what Brad is saying, although, I wouldn't use "corrupting" but 'harnessing" it, in their effort to communicate their philosophical ideals. OTOH, any measuring concept using a higher than thou ideal bar, is pretentious and meant to humble.

 

[Sparhawk]

Luis -

No, no, no! That's ridiculous! The two characters are "Made [in] Japan".

Er..., a lapsus digitalis...

 

[meng]

Lindsay, in the blue bar at the top of this thread theres a box for rating the thread. I don't know who puts these stars in but I can tell you if you want to get rid of a few vote average and the self satisfied smug little blighters disappear - unfortunately it seems one can only kill 2 at a time. There were 5 earlier now there are only 3 Exterminate a few more and get some sleep.

How nice.

And that's all you could contribute to the thread, your negativity?

 

[fkegan]

Meng,
We all contribute our negativity, humor and human concern. If you noted Lindsay original remarks he went on and on about how he was being pursued by the ratings stars and obsessed if not outright possessed by them--it was an act of mercy to note how to bring him peace. If you are a major star supporter feel free to vote more stars and thwart the humanitarian effort to save Lindsay.

Bradford,
Did Confucius make the Junzi term pretentious? I think he just invented the notion of using a concrete human example for his moral lessons derived from trigram imagery. It was later folks, claiming to be Confucians (like the riff-raff claiming to be Freudians and exposing their master's foibles by their ugliness) who did the ugly things that so offend you.
Anyway, being a junzi remains open to everyone when we have a good day. Or you can join the bad set and think one can best prove oneself Superior Man by looking down on everyone else as clearly inferior.

Luis,
Who would take Sophia V's name in vain? She would be in the movie often, but not with any laser blasting anywhere near her. Obliterate her name? Maybe a quick laser shot to her bikini strings just for the reaction--but nada mas.

Frank

 

[bradford]

You guys may not want to see any difference in tone
between the Zhouyi Junzi and the later Confucian version,
but in the twenty Zhouyi instances of the term there is
plenty of context with which to construct a character
study. For one thing, unlike the Da Jun, there is no case
where he is making a command decision with the power
vested in the nobility. In spite of a couple of setbacks,
he is mostly making some savvy decisions, but these are
either ethical, or else they concern taking charge of his
own attitude. He is not always depicted as the master of
his circumstances, but usually he is regarded as smart
enough to figure them out. In other words, still learning
and growing. Note also that he is mentioned three times
each in Gua 15 and 20. These are two more clues to his
character.

01.3, 02.0, 03.3, 09.6, 12.0,
13.0, 15.0, 15.1, 15.3, 20.1,
20.5, 20.6, 23.6, 33.4, 34.3,
36.1, 40.5, 43.3, 49.6, 54.5

 

[fkegan]

You guys may not want to see any difference in tone
between the Zhouyi Junzi and the later Confucian version,

Hi Bradford,
Yes, Bradford, Junzi is a metaphor for an ideal fellow, one who takes adverse circumstances as an opportunity to improve himself, not curse others. He isn't a king and he is every day in every way improving himself.
Other folks, they are always later types after the rep for the original ideal fellow is established are always mistaking the ideals for some actual person who clearly isn't anyone they know (they would be jealous).

We don't want to see the detailed exposition of the difference, perhaps because it is obvious and boring... Got truly old in the medieval European academic nonsense. So, saying you made this wonderful new discovery--Great, congrats on finding another instance of Universal Truth. But don't expect not to take some flack over being so amazed by these details. Like what Establishment Academic Bureaucratic Type doesn't do the same thing all ways and for all time?

Don't be so down on corrupting Confucians. They are just folks too. One can choose to see the universal process or get upset these folks are like totally imperfect or play with Sophia pictures and have a good time.

The choice is YOURS, but other folks may well judge your choice in their own narrow moral tones...
Frank

 

[meng]

Franky, Lindsay is the last person here who needs anyone to defend him. Once again you're judging something you seem to know little about.

 

[fkegan]

How nice.
And that's all you could contribute to the thread, your negativity?

Franky, Lindsay is the last person here who needs anyone to defend him. Once again you're judging something you seem to know little about.

Hi Meng,
How did Lindsay get to be the last person here? And are you boasting in your other part of the sentence--'Who needs anyone to defend 'm?' Are you, in your cute imitation of laconic speech trying to impress me or just exercise your clique prejudice?

Each time you have one of these outbursts, you expose your less attractive parts. Take a long look at Sophia and learn something about what to modestly keep private (like her fingernails) and what to proudly let hang out.

Or perhaps you prefer to take your role model from the sand on the beach, choosing the exact spot to stick or not depending upon technical considerations unknown to the rest of us.

Or study up on being a Junzi and figure out why you insist upon letting my remarks get so under your skin and cause you to erupt.

One tiny thing I know about myself---I have an innate ability to ask questions which mean very little to me; but cause some folks to insist upon revealing their deepest inner issues (a very strong Saturn with many aspects including septiles in my natal chart).

Frank

 

[meng]

My less attractive parts - how funny, Frank. Like I give a crap how attractive I appear to you, or to Trojan?

Actually, I'm going to be trying out the nifty ignore feature, so you can both not concern yourselves about my awful outbursts. It would be a nice courtesy if you returned the favor.

This is great thread. Three people who we rarely hear from - perhaps the forum's greatest Yijing authorities - have come out of the shadows to engage in a lively exchange about a central figure in the Yijing. I fail to see anything negative about this, that someone should be driven to violate the rating system, except that it seems to be this person's aim in life to shoot down stars, dreams, visions or personal aspirations. To me, that is despicable, and ironic in a thread which is about ethics.

 

[bradford]

We don't want to see the detailed exposition of the difference, perhaps because it is obvious and boring... So, saying you made this wonderful new discovery--

It's certainly true that most don't want to understand the Yi at the same level of detail as I do. But then they think they understand the book just as well, and that just ain't so.
Seeing the difference has a practical application in translating from the Chinese, because then one is not required to assume that the Da Xiang is a Confucian document - and one is therefore free to draw more upon the Zhouyi itself, with its own Junzi tradition, in drawing conclusions about what that Da Xiang text is saying.
As to "corruption," I'm using the term in a more value neutral sense. The term has been moved away from its original meaning by people with newer agendas, making these into corrupted sources for interpretation of the original.

 

[Trojina]

You've lost me bruce. Lindsay asked about the star ratings in what i thought was a humorous vein and I answered him in what I thought was a similar tone. I was talking about the stars as if they were little beings who were smug not that the posters in the thread was smug although if the cap fits Anyhow why pick on my comment before Lindsays though he bought the subject up ? You are afraid to challenge Lindsay huh but I don't count is about the size of it i think...great !

As for negativity how about you take care of your own before other peoples. Your hypocricy is alarming . Just look at the thread "What i love about this forum" you took the opportunity to bitch mainly about how the forum and those in it had failed you in some oblique way and that is something you do frequently. Well guess what the forum isn't here to fit around your expectations. I don't jump in to moderate what i see as your hypocrisy and double speak usually - so quit harrassing me for some little quip i make to another member who actually asked the question which i answered. You promote discord -while moaning about others bickering... I could go on but won't