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RELATED TOPIC:
THE CONFUCIAN TRADITION

 
CONFUCIAN TEACHING
Three Confucian Values:
Humaneness (Ren)

Robert Oxnam :: Another key value in Confucian thinking — the second leg of the tripod — is humaneness, the care and concern for other human beings.

Irene Bloom :: A second, very important concept in the Analects of Confucius, and again in later Confucian thought, is that of ren. Sometimes that term ren is translated as goodness, benevolence. I prefer to translate it as humaneness or humanity because the character is made up of two parts.

On the left is the element that means a person or a human being. On the right the element that represents the number two. So, ren has a sense of a person together with others. A human being together with other human beings, a human being in society.


ren

[Excerpt from the Analects of Confucius]

Confucius said: "...The humane man, desiring to be established himself, seeks to establish others; desiring himself to succeed, he helps others to succeed. To judge others by what one knows of oneself is the method of achieving humanity..."

Excerpt from Sources of Chinese Tradition, Wm. Theodore de Bary, ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), Analects 6:28.

 
Image of the character ren