So, What Were Confucius Teachings All About?
Confucius’ teachings, the core of his ideas, are about human relationships. When he looked at the world around him, when he looked at the problems facing China, and he asks these questions about “What went wrong?”, “Why are things so messed up?”, “What are we going to do to put things back into proper order?” His response was to say “People need to understand the relationships between individuals in society. If we want a well-ordered society, a society in which people can live together peacefully and in prosperity, then we need to recognise that society is a network of human relationships”. He saw the family as a sort of microcosm of this. Image: bfishadow, flickrThe relationships within the family served for Confucius to represent the kinds of relationships that in society were desirable as a whole. They were relationships that, on the one hand, involved obligations, duty, responsibilities and, on the other hand, bonds of affection, compassion and caring.
