—— Interview with Jiang Qing in Guangzhou New Weekly
Jiang Qing
When the Wenchuan earthquake happened, I felt the shock in the countryside of Guizhou, and I learned about the earthquake disaster through the Internet later.
Indeed, I saw that the government's rescue action was very timely and effective, and the rescue actions of various voluntary organizations were also very touching, which showed the excellent national spirit of China people who went through the difficult times with one heart and one mind, which is worthy of our special book today. Now, the rescue has entered a stage of settling the lives of the living and comforting the hearts of the living. I think it is necessary to reflect on the earthquake and the disaster relief operation from the perspective of China traditional culture. What I mean by reflection is from the perspective of religion, because the problem of religious absence is prominently reflected in this disaster relief operation. As we know, the government is a secular power organization, and voluntary organizations are secular mass organizations. The functions of these two organizations in the process of disaster relief are mainly to treat the injured in time, prevent the disaster from expanding and settle the material life of the living. Of course, it is not easy to do this, and these two types of organizations have done their best. However, the earthquake disaster does harm to people not only in the material aspect of survival, but also in the spiritual aspect of the mind. The damage of this earthquake disaster to people's mind and spirit is mainly manifested in the great grief of losing loved ones in an instant and the fear of impermanence of life or the fear of facing death. In the face of this great grief and fear of death, the rescue power of secular organizations is often very weak, because this is a religious problem and needs to be solved through religion. Only the transcendental sacredness and eternal soul of religion can solve the great grief and fear of people in the face of death. As far as China's traditional culture is concerned, this kind of religion which transcends sacredness and soul eternity is Confucianism. However, Confucianism did not appear in this earthquake disaster. We can see from the pictures on the Internet that the rescuers wrapped the bodies of the victims in plastic sheets and parked them on the roadside in rows, and immediately disposed of them after their identities were confirmed. At this time, no religious organization was present to hold a religious ceremony to turn over the dead, and the dead did not get the dignity they deserved, which in turn aggravated the great grief and fear of death of the living.
however, in traditional China, although there is no organized church in the west, Confucianism, as a culture, permeates all levels of social life, and realizes its sacred and eternal religious functions through the system of rites and music. Specifically, when a person dies, the soul of the deceased is called back through the "resumption ceremony" in the Funeral, and the soul of the deceased is appeased through the "comfort ceremony", and the spirit of the deceased in heaven is paid homage through the Sacrifice Ceremony. In this way, not only did the deceased gain the dignity of the deceased in the Confucian ceremony, but also the Confucian belief that the soul rose "around the emperor" would alleviate the great pain of bereavement of the living and the fear of death, because with this Confucian belief, people would not think that their loved ones would never exist again, that life would disappear completely like matter and the world would be a big darkness and nothingness, but that after death, people just changed a form of existence, and the dead and the living maintained various contacts through religious ceremonies. In ancient China, these religious rites and music ceremonies were accomplished through the Confucian education of the gentry class. In ancient China, the gentry assumed the function of soothing the souls of western religious priests. We can imagine that at the scene of the Wenchuan earthquake disaster, if Confucianism organizes religious ceremonies to comfort the souls of the dead and appease the feelings of the living, it will certainly make the dead get dignity and at the same time alleviate the pain and fear of the living. Unfortunately, Confucianism was absent during the Wenchuan earthquake relief, and there was no religious participation when religion was most needed in the earthquake disaster.
Therefore, the enlightenment from the Wenchuan earthquake disaster is that China needs Confucianism and needs to rebuild Confucianism to solve the problem of sanctity of life and eternity of soul of China people. China is a big country, and all kinds of disasters often occur. Only by rebuilding Confucianism can we alleviate the pain of impermanence of life and the fear of death, and alleviate the spiritual problems caused by disasters. Due to the great changes in the society of China today, the traditional gentry education system no longer exists. Today, it is necessary to establish a Confucian organization in the form of a religious community in response to the reality in China, through which the hearts of China people in the disaster can be comforted.
For the mental pain after the earthquake, the society now emphasizes "psychological assistance", which is certainly a timely relief method, but the problem of "death" is both serious and profound, and the pain it brings is too deep and too great, which cannot be completely solved by the scientific "psychological assistance" of modern doctors. For ordinary people, it is impossible to relieve their pain through simple life preaching. At this time, it is necessary for religious organizations to hold corresponding religious ceremonies, connecting life and death, seclusion and brightness, and god and man through religious ceremonies, so as to respect the dead and comfort the living, and inspire everyone's sense of awe and eternal love for life. These solemn and sacred religious ceremonies can not be completed by secular institutions such as the government or voluntary organizations, but only by religious institutions, and in China, they should be completed by local religious institutions, namely Confucian institutions.
It is for this reason that I have been advocating the reconstruction of Confucianism in recent years. Confucianism has mastered a whole set of ritual arrangements for crowns, weddings, funerals, burials and sacrifices from birth to death. That is to say, China people live and die all their lives in the settlement of Confucian etiquette, and through Confucian etiquette, they can solve the anxiety and pain of China people's life, so that China people can obtain the sacred meaning and eternal value of life. If such a disaster happened in ancient times, the soul of the deceased would be comforted through the Confucian consolation ceremony, so that the living would feel that the soul of the deceased still exists, be settled by the ceremony, and contact us when they go to the right place, so that the living would feel at ease and alleviate the great pain and fear of facing death. Therefore, I have always stressed that Confucianism is not a school of thought, and its particularity lies in that it not only provides the thinking of life theory, but also provides the comfort of people's deep feelings in life. The role of this kind of emotional comfort can be particularly obvious in such a catastrophe as the Wenchuan earthquake.
Now people only understand Confucianism from the Analects of Confucius, which leads to a deep misunderstanding of Confucianism. They think that Confucius only talks about life but not death, and only talks about offering sacrifices to gods (souls). Therefore, they think that Confucius is an atheist, an agnostic or a skeptic on the issue of souls. Recently, they think that Confucianism is a religion without gods or souls. This is the biggest misunderstanding of Confucianism! If we want to understand Confucianism, we should not only understand Confucianism from the Analects of Confucius, but also from the Six Classics, which clearly contains the belief of "the immortality of the soul", such as the sacrificial songs of the ancestral temples in the Book of Songs, Elegance and Ode, and the religious ceremonies and ceremonies in the Book of Rites. Therefore, today we are going to deconstruct the so-called enlightened generation of intellectuals in China's understanding of secularization and rationalization of Confucianism and secularization of human culture since the May 4th Movement, and return the true colors of religiousization of Confucianism. We have seen from today's Wenchuan earthquake that the religious and sacred nature of Confucianism and the eternal belief of the soul are the greatest values of Confucianism.
For the living, the enlightenment that can be drawn from the disaster is that life is impermanent and spirit is eternal. In the face of disaster, we will find that all secular pursuits are only of short-lived significance, the material world may die instantly, and the eternity of human beings lies in the immortality of the spiritual soul. Of course, this profound life theory does not expect all people to understand it, as long as the scholar-bureaucrat class understands it. For ordinary people, Confucianism can only play the role of emotional comfort to alleviate the pain of impermanence and the fear of death.