The ultimate goal of every good Confucian is to become a sage, or chun tzu. The word in Chinese means “Noble Person” or “Superior Person” or even “Humanity at Its Best.”
The chun tzu is the central figure in all Confucian teachings. When Confucius first came up with the idea, he seemed to believe that only the rulers of government and members of the nobility were capable of becoming sages. Ordinary schmucks like me could just forget about it. Later Confucians, however, believed that anyone—with enough learning and self-cultivation—could reach the lofty goal of becoming a “Noble Person.”
Let’s work with that, since not too many of us today are members of the high nobility—especially since there is no high nobility in many, if not most, places in the world these days. So what exactly do we have to do to become a sage?
Religious studies professor Rodney L. Taylor writes, “With the ideal of the noble person, Confucians placed major significance on the ability of each individual to learn to become moral. Self-cultivation was aimed at the development of the kind of teachings described: humaneness, righteousness, and ritual and propriety.”
Okay, that sounds fabulous, but “righteousness” and “propriety” are somewhat vague concepts. How do we apply those things to everyday life? In other words, what does a sage or “Noble Person” look like in the real world?
Religious scholar Huston Smith provides a pretty good profile. According to Smith, “The chun tzu is the opposite of a petty person, a mean person, a small-spirited person. Fully adequate, poised, the chun tzu has toward life as a whole the approach of an ideal hostess who is so at home in her surroundings that she is completely relaxed, and, being so, can turn full attention to putting others at their ease. . . . Armed with a self-respect that generates respect for others, [the chun tzu] approaches them wondering, not, ‘What can I get from them?’ but ‘What can I do to accommodate them?’”
Ouch. That sounds a little rough to me. Basically, if I have any hope of becoming a sage, I’m supposed to abandon over 38 years of being a petty person and, overnight, become someone who actually likes other people enough to put their comfort before my own.
Tall order—very tall order. But I’ll work on it.
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