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Speaker 1: Pushkin. The COVID nineteen pandemic has taught many of us

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Speaker 1: a lot about what we need to do to live

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Speaker 1: a happier life. And the biggest thing that many of

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Speaker 1: us have missed is all the social stuff, those little

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Speaker 1: family friendship and relationship traditions, going bowling on your boyfriend's birthday,

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Speaker 1: or that monthly sit down dinner at Grandma's or Friday

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Speaker 1: night drinks with your work buddies. Many of us have

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Speaker 1: also missed all those public events that were obliged to attend.

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Speaker 1: They've all been changed or canceled. I've seen this firsthand

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Speaker 1: as a professor and head of college here at Yale.

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Speaker 1: Those time honored Ivy League commencement rituals that have been

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Speaker 1: practiced for hundreds of years, they all got axed last year.

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Speaker 1: If you had asked me before the pandemic, I might

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Speaker 1: not have thought of that as such a bad thing.

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Speaker 1: I mean, graduation rituals can be a bit dorky. But

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Speaker 1: what have many of us realized over the last year.

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Speaker 1: It turns out we really miss this stuff. Now. I

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Speaker 1: am not a pomp and circumstance kind of person, but

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Speaker 1: these rituals have a way of making you feel more connected,

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Speaker 1: like you're a real part of family or community, like

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Speaker 1: you're a bitless out of step with life. But another

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Speaker 1: reason I started to appreciate all these formal rituals was

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Speaker 1: because of a class I stumbled on during COVID. Can

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Speaker 1: you sing that song? I cannot sing it as well

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Speaker 1: as you can, but always shall we sing it together?

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Speaker 1: Chan Joe Chin had San Jo Chin had swayn so

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Speaker 1: sweet song. It's a free online class from my Almam

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Speaker 1: Watt to Harvard called China X, taught by the amazing

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Speaker 1: Peter Bull, the Charles H. Carlswell, Professor of East Asian

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Speaker 1: Languages and Civilizations. Let China sleep, the mighty Napoleon is

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Speaker 1: supposed to have said in a cautious moment at the

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Speaker 1: turn into the nineteenth century. But when China awakens, she

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Speaker 1: shake the world. As I listened to Peter's China X lectures,

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Speaker 1: it became clear that my present day situation was also

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Speaker 1: the preoccupation of a great Chinese thinker, one who lived

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Speaker 1: more than two thousand years ago, Confucius. And so welcome

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Speaker 1: again to happiness lessons of the ancients with me, Doctor

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Speaker 1: Laurie Santos, I can't recommend Peter Bull's China X class enough.

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Speaker 1: I'm a huge Peter Bull fan girl. I was totally

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Speaker 1: blown away when he told me he'd taken the time

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Speaker 1: to go back through the teachings of Confucius to see

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Speaker 1: what the great philosopher had to say about my field

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Speaker 1: of study, happiness. It's hard to overstate how important Confucius

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Speaker 1: is in China, but his ideas are less well known elsewhere.

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Speaker 1: So I asked Peter to start us off with Confucius

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Speaker 1: one oh one. So let's place him in time, which

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Speaker 1: is around five which is also around five hundred years

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Speaker 1: after the founding of the Joe dynasty. In Chinese history

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Speaker 1: is organized by dynasties. When there's a particular ruling house

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Speaker 1: on the throne, and at a moment when all of

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Speaker 1: the smaller states that the dynasty supposedly is in charge

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Speaker 1: of are beginning to fight with each other and make

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Speaker 1: claims on each other, and the nominal king, Joe King,

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Speaker 1: has lost power and so the local lords are after it.

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Speaker 1: And of course, once the lord of your state is

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Speaker 1: after power, these are the other states. Then his underlings

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Speaker 1: are seeking power from each other, and it just goes

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Speaker 1: all the way down that's the world Confucius. We know

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Speaker 1: of no thinker, no one who's thinking about values, who's

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Speaker 1: thinking about the human condition in the same way before Confucius.

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Speaker 1: He's the first. And yet he is not somebody who's

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Speaker 1: born to power. He is from the lowest levels of

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Speaker 1: the nobility. And he talks about this as well, you know,

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Speaker 1: I could be a chariot drive, I could be a

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Speaker 1: steward for a noble family, I could go into the army.

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Speaker 1: And he doesn't do any of those things. He becomes

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Speaker 1: a teacher. That's extraordinary because it's not as if there

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Speaker 1: were people out there who were being teachers, who were

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Speaker 1: engaging in this thing that he called a shred Chinese

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Speaker 1: that we translated into learning. Somebody who made his life

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Speaker 1: through learning. He says at one point, at fifteen, I

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Speaker 1: set my heart on learning. And of course, if you're

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Speaker 1: going to spend your life learning, you're going to have students, right,

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Speaker 1: And so it's not only a life of learning, it's

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Speaker 1: a life of teaching. And that immediately raises a problem

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Speaker 1: because this students say to him, Master, you know, don't

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Speaker 1: you want to go out serve and become an important person?

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Speaker 1: And so to give him in an analogy, they say,

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Speaker 1: suppose you had a jewel in a box at home,

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Speaker 1: would you take it to the market and sell it?

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Speaker 1: And Confucius said, but of course I would, but only

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Speaker 1: for the right price. I'm willing to myself to the

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Speaker 1: right ruler, but they have to pay my price, not

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Speaker 1: me their price. He has things to teach and he

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Speaker 1: has a vision of the past, because if the world

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Speaker 1: is in bad shape, now where do we turn to

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Speaker 1: find proper models? And his answer, We're going to turn

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Speaker 1: back to the beginning of the Joy dynasty five years before,

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Speaker 1: and we're going to see at that point, under those

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Speaker 1: founding kings, the world worked right. And that's what he's

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Speaker 1: loyal to. He's not loyal so much to the states.

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Speaker 1: He goes from state to state. He's loyal to the

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Speaker 1: idea of a Joe dynasty, and he has an interpretation

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Speaker 1: of what made that dynasty successful, what made it a

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Speaker 1: moral world at the beginning. And so what's amazing is

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Speaker 1: he's had such an influence over at Chinese history in

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Speaker 1: China today. But like, we don't actually have a lot

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Speaker 1: from Confucius himself in terms of writing. It's just this

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Speaker 1: one book, right, nothing we have quotations of him that

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Speaker 1: must come from other people who are quoting him, and

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Speaker 1: who sometimes put some of their own quotations in as well.

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Speaker 1: But we don't have any writing by him. We have

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Speaker 1: Confusus of the Analects. This one book we have, which

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Speaker 1: is a series of quotations from Confucius, and often very enigmatic.

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Speaker 1: Confusus says one of that when he's talking about the

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Speaker 1: kind of student he wants, because you know, I want

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Speaker 1: people are really committed, who really put their energy into it,

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Speaker 1: he said, And when I lift up one corner, they

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Speaker 1: have to come back with the other three, otherwise I

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Speaker 1: don't go on teaching them. The great difference between the

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Speaker 1: Greek philosophers who are so wordy, who keep writing stuff right,

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Speaker 1: so low quacious, and there's Confusus giving us these enigmatic

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Speaker 1: sentences like I lift up one corner, you come back

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Speaker 1: with the other three. That's what learning is all about.

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Speaker 1: What is this? What is this right? What he does

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Speaker 1: gives us, in some sense sayings that we have to

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Speaker 1: figure out. We have to think the problem is we

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Speaker 1: have Confusus of the Analects, but we have many confususes.

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Speaker 1: Because later on Confusus being somebody who turns to antiquity,

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Speaker 1: who looks to the text of antiquity, who apparently knows

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Speaker 1: about some text of niquity, gets credited with being the

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Speaker 1: editor of what are called today the Confusian Classics, which

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Speaker 1: are to a large extent about state building. So you

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Speaker 1: have many different kinds of Confusus. And so every period

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Speaker 1: in Chinese history where we see a major shift in

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Speaker 1: intellectual values involves a new interpretation of classics, and there's

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Speaker 1: yet another one taking place in the present. Right, So,

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Speaker 1: think of Confusus as both a moral philosopher, a sage,

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Speaker 1: a model of ethical state building, and so on, can

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Speaker 1: be all those things, but in the end he begins

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Speaker 1: as a teacher. In some ways, it's kind of ironic

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Speaker 1: to be including Confucius in the series that we have

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Speaker 1: on Wisdom of the Ancients, because I feel like if

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Speaker 1: anyone was going to be really supportive of talking about

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Speaker 1: the wisdom of the Ancients, it probably would have been Confucius, Right.

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Speaker 1: I Mean, we think of Confucius himself as being ancient,

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Speaker 1: but you know, if he had a podcast, he'd probably

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Speaker 1: have a whole series of episodes on the Wisdom of

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Speaker 1: the Ancients, right, indeed, and yet in some ways the

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Speaker 1: ancients don't speak. He sees the ancients through their actions,

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Speaker 1: through the records of their past, perhaps through some of

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Speaker 1: the poems of the Book of Poems that he knows.

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Speaker 1: And yet he says of himself, he says, I transmit.

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Speaker 1: I do not innovate. Now we look at that and say,

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Speaker 1: you know, when you transmit your selectives, so you're innovating

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Speaker 1: by selecting. But he wants to make that claim that

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Speaker 1: I don't. I don't I transmit, I transmit the past.

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Speaker 1: And then he goes on and said, I like antiquity,

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Speaker 1: and I'm clever at seeking it, or I'm diligent and seeking.

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Speaker 1: And so Confucius talked about so many things as learning

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Speaker 1: in your China Xe class, but one of the things

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Speaker 1: he didn't talk too much about, interestingly was happiness per

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Speaker 1: se Right in Confucius's time, when you think about sort

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Speaker 1: of the Confucian Chinese, like, what would be the concept

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Speaker 1: of happiness, what would be the terms they you used

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Speaker 1: to talk about it. There's some passing references to happiness, right,

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Speaker 1: or joy or taking pleasure in something, but it's not

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Speaker 1: a big and central concept. It seems to me that

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Speaker 1: there are two other related concepts which are going to

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Speaker 1: help us get at that or get it something that

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Speaker 1: you've been concerned within your work and in these podcasts.

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Speaker 1: And the first is the idea of ritual and living

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Speaker 1: a life within the context of ritual. And the second

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Speaker 1: is the notion of the Chinese word is run and

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Speaker 1: it's been translated as benevolence, goodness, humaneness, or we'll stick

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Speaker 1: with humaneness. And it seems to me that that combination

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Speaker 1: of the idea of ritual and then after discussing that

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Speaker 1: the idea of humaneness gets us to something that I

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Speaker 1: think you're going to say, but that's happiness. But it's

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Speaker 1: not as if this is the term that's chosen by

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Speaker 1: Confusus to hammer away at. The reason why I want

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Speaker 1: to begin with ritual is because, first of all, it's

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Speaker 1: something that we today don't value very much. Right. We

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Speaker 1: tend to say, well it being authentic is important, speaking

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Speaker 1: your mind is important, Ritual behaviors is ritualistic. It's just false.

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Speaker 1: It's not authentic. And what Confucius does when he looks

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Speaker 1: to antiquity, he says, well, what made them successful? He

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Speaker 1: says the answer is ritual, and we look at that

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Speaker 1: and saying, well, how could that be? But if you

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Speaker 1: start to think about ritual, it's many levels of meaning.

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Speaker 1: Let's begin with a ceremony, and ceremonies accomplished things right.

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Speaker 1: A wedding ceremony does something, a graduation ceremony does something

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Speaker 1: right if they uplish these things. Just like language accomplishes things.

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Speaker 1: Ceremonies do things, but ceremonies bring people together in ways

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Speaker 1: that bind them together around common activity. So ritual is doing,

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Speaker 1: not thinking, not speaking. Ritual is doing. If we extend

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Speaker 1: that to everyday experience, we're teachers, we have students. There

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Speaker 1: are ways in which teachers are expected to act, and

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Speaker 1: there are ways in which students are expected to act,

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Speaker 1: and we expected of each other. Well, the same confusus

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Speaker 1: says the same thing. You know, how a ruler acts

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Speaker 1: towards his officials, and how officials actors rulers let them

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Speaker 1: act as they're supposed to act. Let the parent act

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Speaker 1: as a parent should act, that child as a child,

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Speaker 1: and so on. So everything from this perspective can be

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Speaker 1: seen within the contents of ritual that they're ways of

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Speaker 1: right behavior, and these are very effective. One of the

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Speaker 1: challenges these days of teaching about ritual is that everyone

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Speaker 1: thinks rituals are kind of hockey. It's hard to see

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Speaker 1: the power in what they can help us achieve. But

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Speaker 1: you actually use use a technique with your students, a

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Speaker 1: demo where you sort of show them the power virtual right, right,

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Speaker 1: So any of you can do this, and it's called

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Speaker 1: Confucian magic. And this magic is so strong that you

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Speaker 1: will not notice it, and yet it will take place.

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Speaker 1: So imagine the class, all these people in the class,

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Speaker 1: and ask one person go over to one person one

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Speaker 1: side of the room and whisper to them. Go over

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Speaker 1: and to the other person, right, who's gonna walk up

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Speaker 1: to the stage and put your hand out and shake

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Speaker 1: their hands. That's all you have to do, right, So

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Speaker 1: they do that, and of course the other person, who

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Speaker 1: doesn't know what's going to happen. This is why it's magic,

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Speaker 1: the other person says, oh hello, They shake hands and

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Speaker 1: be saying you see, look at that, and everyone in

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Speaker 1: the class goes, huh, what was that? You promised us

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Speaker 1: something great? We promised you something great. And it's the

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Speaker 1: greatest of all things, the ability through your own behavior

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Speaker 1: to bring out the behavior of others. And you can

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Speaker 1: do this. Of course, the next step is to say

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Speaker 1: you could do this for evil, and you could do

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Speaker 1: this for good. That's our choice, and to bring out

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Speaker 1: good behavior and others that's virtue. And virtue is the

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Speaker 1: ability to perform Confucian magic. And you know, a psychologists

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Speaker 1: talk about this confusion magic because it's easy to miss it, right,

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Speaker 1: It's easy to miss how powerful ritual is in making

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Speaker 1: us feel connected and kind of giving us a routine, right,

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Speaker 1: which just reduces the choice that we face. Right, But

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Speaker 1: even the small things we do, from you know, saying

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Speaker 1: God bless you and someone sneezes to you know, shaking

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Speaker 1: hands back when people put their hand out, like, these

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Speaker 1: things are affecting our social connection. They're affecting our sense

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Speaker 1: of community, They're affecting our sense of order, all of

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Speaker 1: which are so important for our happiness. They are they are,

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Speaker 1: that's ritual. That's the greatness of ritual. One of the

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Speaker 1: amazing things when I heard about the importance of ritual

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Speaker 1: for Confucius is to realize is that this is like

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Speaker 1: the big topic and modern science for improving happiness, that

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Speaker 1: if you really want to boost your well being and

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Speaker 1: all kinds of things, you actually need to pay attention

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Speaker 1: to ritual. You know, it is the thing that we

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Speaker 1: kind of think like, oh, this is clunky, Like you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't want to wear this coat to dinner. I

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Speaker 1: don't want to put my fork here. This seems stupid.

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Speaker 1: But psychologically, it turns out ritual is doing so much

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Speaker 1: for us. This actually comes from your colleagues Harvard and

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Speaker 1: Mike Norton and Francesca Gino. They've found that using rituals

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Speaker 1: can cause people to feel less grief after a sort

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Speaker 1: of traumatic event. It can make families feel closer, that

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Speaker 1: can make partners feel more commitment to one another. It

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Speaker 1: can make teams perform better. And what I thought was

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Speaker 1: particularly interesting is there's all kinds of work showing that

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Speaker 1: ritual can give you back a sense of control when

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Speaker 1: things feel out of control in your life. Ritual can

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Speaker 1: make things feel like they're back and ordered and kind

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Speaker 1: of going well. And I thought this was particularly important

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Speaker 1: for Confucius, right because he's saying rituals are super important

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Speaker 1: at a time in Chinese history when everything must have

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Speaker 1: felt out of control, right exactly, And yet and here

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Speaker 1: we get to the problem. I think ritual is really

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Speaker 1: key to so much of life, and we don't see

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Speaker 1: it until we look, and then we start to recognize

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Speaker 1: that it's actually part of us. And of course Confusius

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Speaker 1: keep saying, you have to accept this, you need to

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Speaker 1: really think about it, you need you need to enacts.

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Speaker 1: But then he says, and this is a line I

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Speaker 1: bet you've heard of. He says, you know this family,

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Speaker 1: this noble family in my state, they have eight rows

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Speaker 1: of dancers in their courtyard. And then he says, if

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Speaker 1: this can be born, if this can be accepted, what

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Speaker 1: can't be accepted? You read that and you say, what's

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Speaker 1: he talking about? Until you realize that having eight rows

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Speaker 1: of dancers was a privilege reserved for the king. And

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Speaker 1: so what this noble lord was doing was claiming a prerogative,

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Speaker 1: a ritual prerogative of the king and enacting it himself.

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Speaker 1: And so he was using it out of total self

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Speaker 1: interest to advance himself. And that, of course is the

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Speaker 1: problem of ritual. Very often we do things in order

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Speaker 1: to be self aggratising. We do things that look proper

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Speaker 1: that are really about serving ourselves. And what do you do? Then?

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Speaker 1: I think another thing that Confucius realize is that you

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Speaker 1: can use ritual to maintain order in a society in

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Speaker 1: this really important way, right, And that's an alternative to

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Speaker 1: a different way we think about maintaining law and order,

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Speaker 1: which is through punishment. Right. So Confusus takes this up directly.

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Speaker 1: He said, well, can you govern through punishment, Yes, but

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Speaker 1: you'll have to keep controlling people. If you govern through ritual,

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Speaker 1: people will have a sense of shame and they'll control themselves.

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Speaker 1: They will govern themselves. And that's the ideal government, because ritual,

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Speaker 1: after all, is about how I act and how you act,

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Speaker 1: and how we act together. And it follows then for

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Speaker 1: Confusus that one who is and this is the place,

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Speaker 1: one of the places where he uses the word cultivate themselfs.

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Speaker 1: You cultivate yourself, You learn in order to cultivate yourself.

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Speaker 1: And is that all, person? Oh no, he says. And

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Speaker 1: also to bring peace and security to others? Is that all?

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Speaker 1: And he says no, no, taking a step further for everybody.

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Speaker 1: So if Confucius ledge in the world where people sort

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Speaker 1: of know that the right thing to do is to

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Speaker 1: act according to the rituals and the rules, then how

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Speaker 1: do you get people to do it for the right reasons?

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Speaker 1: So The benefits of ritualized behavior are clear. They help

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Speaker 1: us bond, they save us from making endless, tiring choices,

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Speaker 1: and they can help us process both positive and negative emotions.

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Speaker 1: But as Confucius realized thousands of years ago, the motivation

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Speaker 1: behind our rituals needs to be right. Using rituals solely

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Speaker 1: to impress other people, or worse, to oppress them, can

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Speaker 1: remove many of the benefits. So after the break, I'll

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Speaker 1: have or explain what Confucius said about the right way

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Speaker 1: to use ritual. The Happiness Lab will be right back.

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Speaker 1: As you heard in the first half of the show,

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Speaker 1: Confucius is a teacher who makes his students work. If

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Speaker 1: he lifts up one corner, you as the learner, have

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Speaker 1: to pick up the other three. So we're going to

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Speaker 1: have to work a bit to understand Confucius's nuanced insights

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Speaker 1: into the importance of ritual as a way to enrich

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Speaker 1: our lives. Confucius said that ritual is good for us.

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Speaker 1: It can bring us peace and joy, but only in

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Speaker 1: certain circumstances. So what are those circumstances? Well, even to

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Speaker 1: his disciples, Confucius never gave a complete answer. He says,

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Speaker 1: to one of his students. He says, do you think

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Speaker 1: I know a lot? Is that it? You think I'm

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Speaker 1: just I study a lot, know a lot? And yeah,

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Speaker 1: isn't that it? And he says no, He says, my

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Speaker 1: way has one thread running through it. And so we're

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Speaker 1: sort of left with the conundrum, which is, if there's

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Speaker 1: one thread that runs through all this, what is it?

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Speaker 1: Is it ritual? But ritual has problems, and so maybe

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Speaker 1: it's not just ritual. Maybe there's something more. And that's

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Speaker 1: where we get Confusius is great discovery. And so his

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Speaker 1: great discovery was this idea of ren? So what is

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Speaker 1: this concept of wren? So Confusus gets asked that a

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Speaker 1: lot by his disciples This morning. I went through the Analects,

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Speaker 1: and it looks at all the places where a disciples

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Speaker 1: says Confusus, hey is so and so run and Confusius

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Speaker 1: as well. He'd be good at managing military levies, but

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Speaker 1: I don't know if I can call him run. He'd

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Speaker 1: be good as the steward of a town, but I

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Speaker 1: don't know if I can call him run. He could

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Speaker 1: be a good at conversion with guests at court, but

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Speaker 1: I don't know if I could call him run. And

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Speaker 1: somebody says, well, how about saving the world, give to

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Speaker 1: the common people, help everybody, and confused says, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: even sages have couple with that, but that's not red.

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Speaker 1: So that gets us this problem for its n He says,

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Speaker 1: the wise take joy, happiness, joy in water, the ren

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Speaker 1: take joy and mountains. The wise are active, the ren

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Speaker 1: are tranquil. The wise enjoy the rent endure. So wisdom

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Speaker 1: versus red, water versus mountains, activity versus tranquility, enjoyment versus endurance.

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Speaker 1: That's one way of getting it red. Then he says,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you want ren is right here, right here,

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Speaker 1: all you have to do is want it right. What

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Speaker 1: does that mean? The ren find peace in being red.

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Speaker 1: That person will be free of evil. The person who

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Speaker 1: is ren can deal with poverty, adversity and never be upset.

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Speaker 1: The person who is ren has no anxiety. So I've

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Speaker 1: puzzled over this a long time. He kept thinking, well,

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Speaker 1: it's something. Clearly, it's very very important. And there are

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Speaker 1: lots of passages in the Analects. If you think about

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Speaker 1: passage in the Analects to talk about things, there's lots

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Speaker 1: of passages on learning, on ritual on ren, and yet

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Speaker 1: he can't really define it positively. What's the direct translation

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Speaker 1: of it? Is it? Does it have a direct translation? No? No,

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Speaker 1: there if we look at ancient graphs before the modern

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Speaker 1: Trandese writing. The most ancient graphs, the word comes with

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Speaker 1: the character for person and then the character for two,

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Speaker 1: the number two together. There's another one which seems to

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Speaker 1: be showing the heart, showing on a body or something.

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Speaker 1: That's why there's so many translations for it. Can I

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Speaker 1: give you my favorite passage? Yes? Please? This is called

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Speaker 1: what he calls the message, the method of rend. I'm

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Speaker 1: happy this as a way of gaining insight. And so

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Speaker 1: his disciple says to him, if there was a person

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Speaker 1: who gave extensively to the common people and brought help

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Speaker 1: to the multitude, what would you think of him? Could

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Speaker 1: he be called red? And Confusus says, well, it's no

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Speaker 1: longer a matter of men. With such a person, you

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Speaker 1: could probably call him a sage. But even the sage

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Speaker 1: is Yallenger. The most ancient rulers who created civilization through

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Speaker 1: government and the highest antiquity, even they would have found

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Speaker 1: it difficult to accomplish that much. Now, on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: he says, a run person helps others to take their

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Speaker 1: stand in so far as he himself wishes to take

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Speaker 1: his stand, and he gets others there so far as

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Speaker 1: he himself wishes to get there, and there. It seems

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Speaker 1: to me to get to that ancient style of the

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Speaker 1: character a person with two the number two, that the

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Speaker 1: attitude of ren is one where we recognize not idea

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Speaker 1: of sacrificing ourselves for the sake of others, but that

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Speaker 1: we are in it together. And of course when you say,

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Speaker 1: but that's ritual, right, yes, that's ritual. But there's a

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Speaker 1: passage where a Confuciucy makes this challenge, how can you

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Speaker 1: be human and not be red to make ritual effective?

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Speaker 1: Ritual without red is in humane. It's just it just rules.

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Speaker 1: It's dead. So it's the attitude we bring to our

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Speaker 1: conduct of the rituals we have with each other, it

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Speaker 1: makes all the difference. So it seems like what Confucius

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Speaker 1: is saying is that the importance of ritual isn't just

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Speaker 1: that you're kind of doing these rules. It's the ritual

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Speaker 1: is really a process of kind of building up your community.

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Speaker 1: It's a way that you become in sort of tunus

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Speaker 1: as a human right. It's it's it's the thing that

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Speaker 1: we most care about in modern psychology of happiness, which

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Speaker 1: is social connection. Right, the biggest feature is that we're

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Speaker 1: kind of getting along as ACiE, you know, we're doing

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Speaker 1: for others. We're sort of part of a common humanity.

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Speaker 1: These are the kinds of things to sort of build

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Speaker 1: up our well being, I think in ways that Confucian

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Speaker 1: sort of really support. Indeed, this is why I think

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Speaker 1: that ren is Confusus is great discovery, because he recognized

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Speaker 1: that in a world where there's a lot of ritual,

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Speaker 1: where ritual is highly defined, where is also fits to

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Speaker 1: social ranks and things like this, where ritual involves ceremonies

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Speaker 1: and sacrifices and going to the ancestral temples and doing

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Speaker 1: all sorts of things, that for people to have the

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Speaker 1: proper reverence and sincerity and acting, they needed to bring

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Speaker 1: an attitude to bear on their contact of ritual. And

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Speaker 1: he's trying to figure that out. And that's where I

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Speaker 1: think ren comes in that that's what he figured out

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Speaker 1: that we need to bring this attitude of concern for

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Speaker 1: self and other to our conduct of daily life and

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Speaker 1: to the rights than rituals of daily life, and if

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Speaker 1: we don't do that, then ritual will simply be an encumbrance,

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00:25:12,236 --> 00:25:17,516
Speaker 1: a constraint, will limit our humanity rather than enable our humanity.

425
00:25:17,996 --> 00:25:20,116
Speaker 1: And he was really interested in this idea of enabling

426
00:25:20,116 --> 00:25:22,436
Speaker 1: our humanity in part because you know, he had this

427
00:25:22,516 --> 00:25:24,996
Speaker 1: belief that I think the science shares, which is, we

428
00:25:25,596 --> 00:25:28,676
Speaker 1: not only can self cultivate and become a better people,

429
00:25:28,756 --> 00:25:31,156
Speaker 1: but we need to self cultivate and become better people.

430
00:25:31,196 --> 00:25:34,436
Speaker 1: This was really central to his philosophy right. Indeed, indeed,

431
00:25:34,476 --> 00:25:37,956
Speaker 1: so this notion of cultivating the self is become such

432
00:25:37,996 --> 00:25:41,956
Speaker 1: an important part of Confucian learning. I went back and

433
00:25:42,036 --> 00:25:45,756
Speaker 1: look this. Confucius actually use that term. He does once

434
00:25:46,596 --> 00:25:51,196
Speaker 1: used himself cultivate. He says, those who learned in antiquity

435
00:25:51,716 --> 00:25:56,236
Speaker 1: learned for themselves. Today today, in this fallen world we

436
00:25:56,316 --> 00:25:59,396
Speaker 1: live in, people learn for the sake of others. So

437
00:25:59,476 --> 00:26:02,076
Speaker 1: what does this mean? It means that do I learn

438
00:26:02,236 --> 00:26:05,036
Speaker 1: in order to get a grade, to make my teacher happy,

439
00:26:05,236 --> 00:26:08,836
Speaker 1: to gain attention, for myself, to get a better job.

440
00:26:09,156 --> 00:26:11,396
Speaker 1: Of these are always in which we learn, of course,

441
00:26:11,876 --> 00:26:17,756
Speaker 1: but the highest form of learning is to learn for oneself,

442
00:26:17,916 --> 00:26:21,716
Speaker 1: to develop oneself. And there's no assumption with the Confucius

443
00:26:21,796 --> 00:26:24,076
Speaker 1: that who you are is who you always will be

444
00:26:24,556 --> 00:26:27,236
Speaker 1: if you make the effort, if you set out on

445
00:26:27,276 --> 00:26:31,956
Speaker 1: the process, you can become a noble person. And you know,

446
00:26:32,036 --> 00:26:36,516
Speaker 1: there's a there's a very Chinese term student's which actually

447
00:26:36,596 --> 00:26:42,036
Speaker 1: means the son of a lord, which means nobility, and

448
00:26:42,196 --> 00:26:49,396
Speaker 1: Confucius redefines that nobility is something you gain through your behavior,

449
00:26:49,476 --> 00:26:53,036
Speaker 1: not what you're born as. And so he's taken it

450
00:26:53,076 --> 00:26:56,996
Speaker 1: directly to the nobility and said, no, no, your claims

451
00:26:57,036 --> 00:27:02,316
Speaker 1: to privilege and rightness don't wash unless you make the

452
00:27:02,396 --> 00:27:06,596
Speaker 1: effort to become a noble person. So nobility from birth

453
00:27:06,756 --> 00:27:10,676
Speaker 1: to nobility of merit and nobility of moral merit is

454
00:27:10,716 --> 00:27:13,196
Speaker 1: really his concerned. I mean, this is so cool because

455
00:27:13,236 --> 00:27:14,996
Speaker 1: you know, this is a topic that we talk about

456
00:27:14,996 --> 00:27:17,436
Speaker 1: a lot on the Happiness Lab. You know, this idea

457
00:27:17,516 --> 00:27:19,796
Speaker 1: that what you need to do is you need to

458
00:27:19,836 --> 00:27:22,716
Speaker 1: pay attention to your own happiness levels, but you need

459
00:27:22,756 --> 00:27:24,956
Speaker 1: to recognize that you can also change. We actually don't

460
00:27:25,116 --> 00:27:27,756
Speaker 1: devoted our whole first episode of the podcast to this

461
00:27:27,796 --> 00:27:31,356
Speaker 1: idea that you can change over time. Sonya Lubermerski, the

462
00:27:31,476 --> 00:27:34,716
Speaker 1: psychologist we interview, says, you know, we recognize that most

463
00:27:34,756 --> 00:27:36,556
Speaker 1: good things in life take a lot of work, you know,

464
00:27:36,676 --> 00:27:38,996
Speaker 1: just like learning the piano or you know, raising a child,

465
00:27:39,036 --> 00:27:40,396
Speaker 1: this is going to take a lot of work. But

466
00:27:40,556 --> 00:27:44,396
Speaker 1: cultivating your happiness, cultivating your flourishing, cultivating you know, maybe

467
00:27:44,476 --> 00:27:46,596
Speaker 1: in some sense, your ren right, that's going to take

468
00:27:46,596 --> 00:27:48,396
Speaker 1: a lot of work too, and we have to recognize

469
00:27:48,436 --> 00:27:50,116
Speaker 1: that and put the work into And it feels like

470
00:27:50,116 --> 00:27:53,356
Speaker 1: Confucious would have resonated with this idea. Oh, I think.

471
00:27:53,596 --> 00:27:58,356
Speaker 1: I think entirely he sees people who who misbehave and

472
00:27:58,396 --> 00:28:02,196
Speaker 1: he thinks make him get to the point of behaving well.

473
00:28:02,796 --> 00:28:05,316
Speaker 1: And of course that's why he's a teacher. That's the

474
00:28:05,316 --> 00:28:09,076
Speaker 1: assumption behind being a teacher and believing that learning matter,

475
00:28:09,756 --> 00:28:13,996
Speaker 1: and his own character characterization of himself that at fifteen,

476
00:28:14,076 --> 00:28:17,436
Speaker 1: I set my mind on learning, and then that established

477
00:28:17,476 --> 00:28:19,756
Speaker 1: my will and then got to the point that I

478
00:28:19,796 --> 00:28:24,396
Speaker 1: could follow my desires. That overstepping the bounds is a

479
00:28:24,516 --> 00:28:27,836
Speaker 1: story of self cultivation. So do you follow that Confucian

480
00:28:27,916 --> 00:28:33,036
Speaker 1: tradition yourself? So I think that the way in which

481
00:28:33,316 --> 00:28:38,036
Speaker 1: we care about other people is something we have to

482
00:28:38,076 --> 00:28:41,596
Speaker 1: do in all our work. My work is teaching. When

483
00:28:41,596 --> 00:28:44,236
Speaker 1: I set out to learn about China. I was young.

484
00:28:44,276 --> 00:28:46,116
Speaker 1: I was a high school student. And the reason I

485
00:28:46,196 --> 00:28:49,356
Speaker 1: learned about China was because I thought we in America

486
00:28:49,396 --> 00:28:52,196
Speaker 1: were ignoring it. We pretended as if it didn't exist.

487
00:28:52,236 --> 00:28:54,756
Speaker 1: And this is back in the nineteen sixties. And how

488
00:28:54,756 --> 00:28:57,956
Speaker 1: could we be a truly great country and not recognize

489
00:28:58,396 --> 00:29:01,396
Speaker 1: a fourth or fifth of humanity. And so my goal

490
00:29:01,676 --> 00:29:04,516
Speaker 1: and learning about China was actually to get to the

491
00:29:04,516 --> 00:29:07,556
Speaker 1: point where we learned something that we would outside of

492
00:29:07,636 --> 00:29:11,476
Speaker 1: China learn to care about too. So learning to care

493
00:29:11,516 --> 00:29:15,276
Speaker 1: about others is certainly fundamental. So I'm not just trying

494
00:29:15,276 --> 00:29:17,356
Speaker 1: to figure out how we can take advantage of China

495
00:29:17,676 --> 00:29:20,076
Speaker 1: or how we can have great power of politics. I'm

496
00:29:20,116 --> 00:29:25,476
Speaker 1: interested in how we understand other people. But I'm also

497
00:29:25,556 --> 00:29:29,196
Speaker 1: interested in reminding ourselves in and reminding our colleagues in

498
00:29:29,276 --> 00:29:32,476
Speaker 1: China who believe those of them who believed that power

499
00:29:32,596 --> 00:29:36,476
Speaker 1: is everything, and who have this philosophy to make China

500
00:29:36,556 --> 00:29:38,516
Speaker 1: great at the expense of the rest of the world,

501
00:29:38,876 --> 00:29:41,476
Speaker 1: or make China great again at the expense of the

502
00:29:41,476 --> 00:29:44,836
Speaker 1: rest of the world, that China also had a tradition

503
00:29:45,236 --> 00:29:49,516
Speaker 1: of humaneness and a ritual and of justice, and that

504
00:29:49,636 --> 00:29:52,756
Speaker 1: this is also part of Chinese civilization. Yeah, but have

505
00:29:52,876 --> 00:29:57,116
Speaker 1: I fallen off the way, Yes, many many times. Staying

506
00:29:57,556 --> 00:29:59,716
Speaker 1: on the dao on the way it is hard work.

507
00:30:00,396 --> 00:30:02,636
Speaker 1: But you know, one of the things about this word,

508
00:30:02,716 --> 00:30:05,276
Speaker 1: the Chinese word tao the way, is we know certain

509
00:30:05,316 --> 00:30:08,876
Speaker 1: things about it. It goes somewhere, right, and so I

510
00:30:08,916 --> 00:30:11,476
Speaker 1: am maybe here, but I know the way it goes somewhere.

511
00:30:11,916 --> 00:30:14,396
Speaker 1: I know it's been walked before. I'm not it's not

512
00:30:14,476 --> 00:30:17,596
Speaker 1: unique to me. I'm not one and well, you know

513
00:30:17,636 --> 00:30:20,236
Speaker 1: in China, if you're one in a million, there are

514
00:30:20,236 --> 00:30:22,836
Speaker 1: a thousand other people just like you. But it's not

515
00:30:22,956 --> 00:30:25,516
Speaker 1: unique to me. And the other thing is I can

516
00:30:25,556 --> 00:30:28,236
Speaker 1: tell whether I'm on the way or not, whether I've

517
00:30:28,396 --> 00:30:31,196
Speaker 1: strayed in the path or not. So yeah, there's I

518
00:30:31,236 --> 00:30:33,996
Speaker 1: guess that's all about self cultivation. And I think, you know,

519
00:30:34,316 --> 00:30:37,556
Speaker 1: just being a teacher, you know, given the status of universities,

520
00:30:37,636 --> 00:30:39,876
Speaker 1: we have to build in ritual to do what we do.

521
00:30:39,956 --> 00:30:42,676
Speaker 1: You know, you want to teach you everyone about Confucius,

522
00:30:42,756 --> 00:30:44,356
Speaker 1: but you need to have exams and they need to

523
00:30:44,356 --> 00:30:46,356
Speaker 1: have problem sets, and we need to kind of you know,

524
00:30:46,396 --> 00:30:49,716
Speaker 1: give degrees and diplomas. So I guess the path of

525
00:30:49,796 --> 00:30:52,156
Speaker 1: teaching the way these days comes with a certain amount

526
00:30:52,156 --> 00:30:56,036
Speaker 1: of ritual too. This comes out in a passage Confusus says,

527
00:30:56,076 --> 00:31:00,316
Speaker 1: you know you was broaden learning that. He said, you

528
00:31:00,396 --> 00:31:02,836
Speaker 1: have to tie it together. You have to constrain it

529
00:31:02,836 --> 00:31:06,076
Speaker 1: with ritual. It's not going to be enough to know

530
00:31:06,196 --> 00:31:09,636
Speaker 1: a lot. You also have to have a threaded through it.

531
00:31:10,036 --> 00:31:12,316
Speaker 1: So I think what we've talked about is that Confucius.

532
00:31:12,716 --> 00:31:14,596
Speaker 1: I'm not sure we found a single thread, but I

533
00:31:14,596 --> 00:31:20,956
Speaker 1: think we've found threads, threads of antiquity, a ritual of humaneness,

534
00:31:20,956 --> 00:31:25,556
Speaker 1: of nobility that all intersect, and they're all weaved together.

535
00:31:25,876 --> 00:31:30,076
Speaker 1: And one of the ways in the Confucian tradition through

536
00:31:30,156 --> 00:31:32,956
Speaker 1: Chinese history that's been talked about is this notion of

537
00:31:33,036 --> 00:31:37,356
Speaker 1: weaving threads together, re weaving them when they've been torn apart,

538
00:31:37,636 --> 00:31:43,356
Speaker 1: fabric of society has been torn apart. It was an

539
00:31:43,356 --> 00:31:46,156
Speaker 1: absolute honor to talk with Peter Bull. You should really

540
00:31:46,196 --> 00:31:48,316
Speaker 1: check out his online class on the history of China,

541
00:31:48,436 --> 00:31:52,316
Speaker 1: which you can find at edex dot org. Now I

542
00:31:52,396 --> 00:31:55,196
Speaker 1: know from reading all our reviews that many listeners really

543
00:31:55,316 --> 00:31:58,276
Speaker 1: value the clear and practical happiness takeaways that we try

544
00:31:58,316 --> 00:32:01,596
Speaker 1: to include in every episode. Confucius wasn't the kind of

545
00:32:01,636 --> 00:32:04,676
Speaker 1: teacher that liked to give away simple conclusions. But I

546
00:32:04,716 --> 00:32:07,476
Speaker 1: can tell you what I've taken away from Peter's explanations,

547
00:32:07,796 --> 00:32:10,596
Speaker 1: and that's that ritual. From the simple handshakes to the

548
00:32:10,636 --> 00:32:14,356
Speaker 1: elaborate commencement ceremonies, they all really matter. But we also

549
00:32:14,396 --> 00:32:16,836
Speaker 1: have to approach these events with a sense of community

550
00:32:16,876 --> 00:32:19,996
Speaker 1: and share to humanity. Doing so is one path to

551
00:32:20,036 --> 00:32:23,356
Speaker 1: achieving wren, that elusive and important virtue that allows us

552
00:32:23,396 --> 00:32:25,476
Speaker 1: to feel like we belong and that we're making a

553
00:32:25,516 --> 00:32:29,516
Speaker 1: difference in the lives of the people around us. There's

554
00:32:29,516 --> 00:32:32,436
Speaker 1: only one more episode in this season of Happiness Lessons

555
00:32:32,436 --> 00:32:34,716
Speaker 1: of the Ancients, and we'll be staying in China to

556
00:32:34,756 --> 00:32:38,036
Speaker 1: examine an old philosophy, one that balances out the self

557
00:32:38,076 --> 00:32:41,076
Speaker 1: improvement push of Confucius. It's a school of thought that

558
00:32:41,196 --> 00:32:46,276
Speaker 1: suggests we take it easy and go with the flow Taoism.

559
00:32:46,316 --> 00:32:49,356
Speaker 1: That's next time on the Happiness Lessons of the Ancients

560
00:32:49,476 --> 00:33:04,436
Speaker 1: with me, Doctor Laurie Santos. The Happiness Lab is co

561
00:33:04,516 --> 00:33:07,556
Speaker 1: written and produced by Ryan Dilley. The show was mastered

562
00:33:07,556 --> 00:33:10,196
Speaker 1: by Evan Viola, and our rigual music was composed by

563
00:33:10,316 --> 00:33:14,756
Speaker 1: Zachary Silver Special Thanks to the entire Pushkin crew, including

564
00:33:14,916 --> 00:33:19,956
Speaker 1: Neil LaBelle, Carlie mcgliori, Heather Fine, Sophie Crane, mckibbon, Eric Sandler,

565
00:33:20,236 --> 00:33:24,156
Speaker 1: Jacob Weisberg, and my agent Ben Davis. The Happiness Lab

566
00:33:24,316 --> 00:33:26,956
Speaker 1: is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and meet doctor

567
00:33:27,036 --> 00:33:27,796
Speaker 1: Laurie Sanchos