What do loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, wisdom, courtesy, righteousness and faith mean?

Loyalty: The original meaning means that people should maintain a solemn and respectful attitude when offering sacrifices. Later, it was extended to a variety of meanings, such as loyalty to the country and patriotism.

Filial piety means honoring parents, respecting the elderly and respecting the virtuous. "Filial piety is the first of all virtues". China's filial piety culture has a long history and occupies an important position in traditional culture. Unfaithful and unfilial people cannot stand between heaven and earth. The most typical story is Twenty-four Filial Pieties.

Benevolence is kindness, people-oriented and caring. The core of benevolence is people-oriented, starting from the goal of caring for, caring for and developing people, so that the nation in this country can reach the best state of harmony.

Righteousness means upholding justice and keeping moral integrity. The original meaning of righteousness is a kind of moral behavior or truth. Giving up one's life for righteousness means that one can give up one's life in order to believe in righteousness again.

Courtesy means paying attention to etiquette and respecting others. The original meaning of "ceremony" is to hold a ceremony of offering sacrifices to God and seeking happiness. Sacrifice with precious objects to express gratitude and respect for "heaven", and the core of the ceremony is the word "respect".

Wisdom means that a person who is wise, intelligent, well-versed in the way of heaven and earth and the reason of the world becomes a wise man. "Wisdom" first reflects the individual's ability.

Faith is honesty and law-abiding, and a promise is as good as a promise. A person who is insincere and does not match his words with his deeds is certainly not "trustworthy". Confucius regards "faith" as an important embodiment of "benevolence", and "benevolence" is an essential moral character of sages.

Extended data

Three cardinal guides and five permanents are important thoughts in China's Confucian ethical culture. Confucianism maintains social ethics and political system through the enlightenment of the three cardinal guides and the five permanent members.

In Li Weihan Wen Jia, the three cardinal guides are "the monarch is the minister's guide", "the father is the son's guide" and "the husband is the wife's guide", which is also called "the meaning of monarch and minister", "the relationship between father and son" and "the harmony between husband and wife".

The "benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom and faith" advocated by the five permanent members are all positive energy.

The words "three cardinal guides" and "five permanent members" come from Dong Zhongshu's Spring and Autumn Stories in the Western Han Dynasty, but as a moral principle and standard, they come from Confucius in the pre-Qin period.

Confucius once put forward ethical concepts such as monarch, monarch, minister, father and son, benevolence, courtesy and wisdom. Mencius further put forward the "five ethics" of "father and son are blind, the monarch and the minister are righteous, the husband and wife are different, the ages are orderly, and friends are trustworthy". According to his theory that "Yang is worse than Yin", Dong Zhongshu further developed the concept of five ethics and put forward the way of three cardinal guides and five permanents.

Dong Zhongshu believes that in interpersonal relationships, there is a natural and eternal master-slave relationship between monarch, minister, father and son, and husband and wife: the monarch is the master and the minister is the follower; The father is the master and the son is the slave; The husband is the master and the wife is the slave. The so-called "the monarch is the minister, the father is the son, and the husband is the wife". Dong Zhongshu also believes that benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom and faith are the basic principles for dealing with the relationship between monarch and minister, father and son, husband and wife, and superior and subordinate relations, and the rulers should pay enough attention to them.

The theory of three cardinal guides and five permanent members began with Dong Zhongshu and was completed by Zhu, but Dong Zhongshu did not connect the three cardinal guides and five permanent members. Ma Rong, a Confucian scholar at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, first linked them. This juxtaposition means that feudal thinkers finally combined feudal discipline with moral principles to form a complete political, ethical and moral system.

In the Song Dynasty, Zhu developed the theory of Heaven, which linked the "Three Cardinals and Five Permanences" with "Heaven". He believes that the three cardinal guides and the five permanents are the development of natural laws, the natural product of natural laws embodied in social norms, and the eternal panacea for coordinating social relations. " At this point, Zhu's theory of "one reason is different" has become the norm of social life order.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Benevolence, Courtesy, Wisdom, Faith, Flexibility, Courtesy and Frugality

Baidu encyclopedia-three cardinal guides and five permanent members