Why Listen to Past?
Lauren Pfister
Why listen to a voice from the distant past? We should listen only if it tells us something that can lead us toward a better future. That is exactly what practical wisdom does, moving within us to overcome the barriers of all ages, generations, cultures, and troubles through the truths about life which it reveals. Even though wise persons will necessarily be limited by their historical settings and cultural environment, what endures is the wisdom that makes them exemplary persons.
The ancient Chinese wise man, Master Kong (“Confucius”), sought to leave a legacy of a flourishing life based on humane care. It was a cultivated form of humaneness which challenged militaristic opportunists, petty selfishness, and one-sided stubbornness, inspiring concerns for public and peace between the countries of the Warring States Period in ancient Chinese history. His was a cross-cultural openness based on humane values, enhanced by a ritual flexibility which nurtured and sustained civic responsibilities.
Seen as one of the great Chinese heroes, especially by those willing to become wise, Master Kong left a heritage as a innovative and personal teacher, deeply concerned for the younger generation of potential civic leaders in his day. He was a teacher precisely because he recognized that the proper understanding and realization of wisdom from his own cultural past was important for the younger generation. In his understanding there is a dynamic relationship between learning and thinking, studying and meditating, precisely because we need to become informed and reformed by a vital practical wisdom in order to transform social and political networks. He knew that this wisdom could become a life-transforming power stimulating and creating new kinds of social relationships.
As a consequence, Master Kong was central in helping to create a new class of persons, an educated middle class, which could mediate between rulers and the ruled, and provide a lived out pattern of cultivated humaneness for all to consider and follow. In this he certainly had to deal with political controversies, but he managed not to be overcome by them, seeking instead humane forms of governing and civil society.
At the heart of his understanding of human flourishing was support for virtue-based familial and friendly relations. He believed that when these were properly extended, they could bring about creative intergenerational and societal renewal. Notably, at the end of his life he had a following of some 3000 disciples, revealing something of the power of his own exemplary life.
In this achievement, however, he did not rest in self-satisfying pride. Instead, he sought never to allow personal benefits to outweigh concerns for humane care and appropriate social obligations which guided his life as a teacher, counselor, and minor official. On the contrary, over the seven decades of his life, Master Kong had a continually growing sense of the profundity of human existence in the context of an ultimate power he referred to as “Heaven”. It was this sense of awe of this ultimate power within the transformations of cultural life �" referred to as the decree of Heaven �" and his own personal experience of being enabled to overcome many cultural and political obstacles hindering his ideals, which convinced him that his hope for a more humane form of life in the future was both feasible and supported by Heaven.
Lauren Pfister
Why listen to a voice from the distant past? We should listen only if it tells us something that can lead us toward a better future. That is exactly what practical wisdom does, moving within us to overcome the barriers of all ages, generations, cultures, and troubles through the truths about life which it reveals. Even though wise persons will necessarily be limited by their historical settings and cultural environment, what endures is the wisdom that makes them exemplary persons.
The ancient Chinese wise man, Master Kong (“Confucius”), sought to leave a legacy of a flourishing life based on humane care. It was a cultivated form of humaneness which challenged militaristic opportunists, petty selfishness, and one-sided stubbornness, inspiring concerns for public and peace between the countries of the Warring States Period in ancient Chinese history. His was a cross-cultural openness based on humane values, enhanced by a ritual flexibility which nurtured and sustained civic responsibilities.
Seen as one of the great Chinese heroes, especially by those willing to become wise, Master Kong left a heritage as a innovative and personal teacher, deeply concerned for the younger generation of potential civic leaders in his day. He was a teacher precisely because he recognized that the proper understanding and realization of wisdom from his own cultural past was important for the younger generation. In his understanding there is a dynamic relationship between learning and thinking, studying and meditating, precisely because we need to become informed and reformed by a vital practical wisdom in order to transform social and political networks. He knew that this wisdom could become a life-transforming power stimulating and creating new kinds of social relationships.
As a consequence, Master Kong was central in helping to create a new class of persons, an educated middle class, which could mediate between rulers and the ruled, and provide a lived out pattern of cultivated humaneness for all to consider and follow. In this he certainly had to deal with political controversies, but he managed not to be overcome by them, seeking instead humane forms of governing and civil society.
At the heart of his understanding of human flourishing was support for virtue-based familial and friendly relations. He believed that when these were properly extended, they could bring about creative intergenerational and societal renewal. Notably, at the end of his life he had a following of some 3000 disciples, revealing something of the power of his own exemplary life.
In this achievement, however, he did not rest in self-satisfying pride. Instead, he sought never to allow personal benefits to outweigh concerns for humane care and appropriate social obligations which guided his life as a teacher, counselor, and minor official. On the contrary, over the seven decades of his life, Master Kong had a continually growing sense of the profundity of human existence in the context of an ultimate power he referred to as “Heaven”. It was this sense of awe of this ultimate power within the transformations of cultural life �" referred to as the decree of Heaven �" and his own personal experience of being enabled to overcome many cultural and political obstacles hindering his ideals, which convinced him that his hope for a more humane form of life in the future was both feasible and supported by Heaven.
