Chinese Attitudes Toward Nature, Time, Good and Evil Essay

As for the carriage of Chinese mickle toward character, it is undisputed that it is marked by a strong feeling of union, for example, single of nature and piece. According to Dong Zhongshu, who was the or so important philosopher of the Western Han, nirvana had its leave alone and purpose. It was Heaven that make the sun, the moon, and the stars move, the quartet seasons trade, and on the whole told animals and plants grow and die. Heaven was sliceakinhearted, so it made things produce angiotensin-converting enzyme an another(prenominal) Heaven was wantwise severe, so it made things egressgo one another. Moreover, Heaven created a regulation to rule over the quite a little. This miserlyt that Heaven cherished the pot to be ruled.When a principle did roundthing wrong, Heaven would be angry and would allot the ruler warnings by causing weird natural phenomena to happen, such as eclipses, earthquakes, floods and droughts. This speculationthe fundamental inte raction amongst Heaven and slicehad a clear purpose. On the one hand, it was in hunted to figure that the rulers position and power were thrustn to him by Heaven, and should not be questioned on the other hand, the ruler should be virtuous and benevolent, and mold well, so as not to begin Heavens anger. Dong had a well-known saying The Way is considerable because it originates in Heaven. Heaven does not change nor does the Way. I would like to explain the paper clearly by an example. That is Feng Shui. Feng Shui (also known as geomancy) is an ancient Chinese system of aesthetics believed to use the laws of both Heaven (astronomy) and realm (geography) to help one improve keep by receiving positive qi. Maybe galore(postnominal) mess think it is superstition, just now I consider it coffin nail reflect the hunting of harmonious purport season of Chinese people. there atomic number 18 four purposes in Feng Shui, pursuit the uniformity of charitable body the con currence between people and people the harmony between people and society the harmony between people and nature.Let me give a small example about placing a bed. The bed shall be passably spunkyer than the knee and not practiced the door. And it shall award to the south and back to the marriage in order to ad unspoilt duxhlt, the aorta and larger veins direction of the blood circulatory system, so that people loafer fall a sleep easily, and micturate a high quality sleep. The bed keistert facet the west, because the rotation of the earth is from vitamin E to west, making the blood rush toward the head, and people send packingt sleep soundly. disseminate presses which mean air conditioners hang supra the pillow, or the lights suspend above the bed, grow about oppression, and cause adverse heart of body and mind. Mirrors cant face the bed, if not people may be startled easily in midnight, and cant be peace. It really can express the office toward nature, uniting of pro mised land and tender-heartedity. As for the attitude of Chinese people toward cartridge holder, three features testament be mentioned about. The runner is round- type while outlook. In the oriental humanness, farming is the major way of carrying out material and exchanging not bad(predicate)s dominates all the economic life of the whole society.This pastoral civilization treats human and the nature as interrelated and interacted,the macrocosm as an integer organi recally linked. So in oriental society the round-type time outlook is that nature and human is integrate. This kind of time outlook holds the purview that time is like a circle and all the things in the world return to its origina1 express after a cycle of time, for example, the alternation of twenty-four hours and night, the rise and go of the four seasons,the go of the twelve months, the increase of the age and the evolution of plants.This kind of time view makes the Orientals do by the time at their disp osal and do things at ease. For instance, when a t apieceer has not finished an important point in his class,he can prolong his class. At the Chinese wedding feast, few people will come at the time which is pen on the invitation card. Moreover, Chinese use time very casually and intangibly. Chinese favour to say some uncertain oral communication 1ike at once, sometimes, a short while, which a1ways confuse the westerners.Chinese students who be studying English tend to misuse the tense when communicate with foreigners. In a word, Chinese dont have clear differentiation model of time. The second is polychromic time system. polychromatic time system means people are very casual in using time. In other words, world punctual is important, however not strict. colored time system is the heritage of handed-down agri heathenish society. pack are apply to do severa1 different things at the comparable time and do things emphasizing prime(a) time.Chinese think that everything in the world develops with the cycling of time, so people get wind the time that is ripe for acting, which means each step of our action is determined temporarily by our surroundings. So action is ill planned by Chinese. In some occasions, people can do many another(prenominal) things in the same(p) time. A Chinese salesman can check out with the prototypal customer on the one hand,and utter the hots to a second one on the other hand, even greet a three One at the same time. However, westerners can hardly accomplish them and also can not accept them. The third is past time predilection.Time predilection is a relatively stable mover in cultural difference. It is connected to the historical background of the. Generally speaking, people who have too heavy tradition, look up to history and past, so their time orientation is past-oriented. Chinese belong to past-oriented. People fate great respect to the past. The past let and 1esson are important reference for directlys succes s and failure. Chinese show respect to ancestors and teachers. They like to say things by referencing to the old books and stories. That is why Chinese call teachers lao shi. lao means old.People attach importance to age and experience, because they are symbols of power and wisdom, so words like lao and da ceaselessly mean respect in Chinese. As for the attitude of Chinese people toward good and curse, peradventure the most extreme view of faithfulness is found in the Buddhist tradition. Buddhism maintains that we are born pure and are surrounding(prenominal) to what is called loving kindness when we enter this world. Hence, people are good, and our culture is what makes us evil. The view of good is also found in Confucianism. Meng Zi made the original virtuousness of human nature the keynote to his system.To him, the virtue of adult male together with the accompanying virtues of righteousness, rites and wisdom arises from the familiar springs of the human heart. These four cardinal virtues come in their seed formthe four beginnings, as the feeling of compassion, shame, modesty, and of the distinction between right and wrong. Such feelings are customary among mankind and they come as course ad taste for food, and sight for beauty. This, Meng Zi argued, can be seen in the fact that a child naturally loves his parents and that a man will instinctively experience a feeling into a well.Therefore, human nature is originally good, and will be good if it is guided by its innate feelings, just as water is inclined to meld downward. In contrast to the concept of the goodness of human nature advocated by Meng Zi, Xun Zi state that human nature is originally evil because human desires inevitably lead to greed and strife if left untrained. Believing that goodness can only be acquired, Xun Zi show the value of education and environment. To him it is environment and pronouncement that make the man, and it is obedience of the precepts of the sage-kings that pro duces the goodness that is in him.In the end, however, not only is the life of virtue a possibility but even sage-hood is within reach. Therefore, Xun Zi said, Every man on the street can go like the sage-king Yu, a perfect Jewish-Orthodox Confucian note. What mentioned about are viewpoints from the ancients. directly Chinese attitudes toward good and evil are very wide and vague, not like Christianity which has a ten commandments, making the common public even those without much cultural literacy has some certain standards, ruling what can do and can not do, their attitudes toward good and evil are absolutely clear. merely to Chinese, cryptograph must been done and nothing can not be done. The demarcation line between good and evil is obscure, in some condition something is good but in other condition it may be bad. To Chinese the boundary is always about degree, whether it is excessive or not. For example, talk between Chinese friends sometimes contains black language, but it doesnt mean they nauseate each other, most of time, it is just joking. That bearing is not really evil, but if it is overdone, it will be.Chinese Peoples attitude toward nature, time, good and evil have been create gradually, and they are relatively stable in a long time, but they are not without changes. The better living conditions, the festering of the economy, the improvement of the society and the increase of the interaction of people from different cu1tural backgrounds will doubtlessly have subtle effects on their views, although it is also a long process. What I talking about is some rudimentary attitude of Chinese, it will help foreigner to understand Chinese better, but not always apply to every Chinese at every time.