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''Ren'' () is the Confucian virtue denoting the good feeling a virtuous human experiences when being altruistic. ''Ren'' is exemplified by a normal adult's protective feelings for children. It is considered the outward expression of Confucian ideals. Yan Hui, Confucius's most outstanding student, once asked his master to describe the rules of ''ren''. Confucius replied, "One should see nothing improper, hear nothing improper, say nothing improper, do nothing improper."〔Analects 12:1〕 Confucius also defined ''ren'' in the following way: "wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge others."〔Analects 6:30 http://ctext.org/analects/yong-ye/zh?en=on〕 Confucius also said, "''Ren'' is not far off; he who seeks it has already found it." ''Ren'' is close to man and never leaves him.〔(Do-Dinh 107)〕 == Interpretation of the Chinese character == The single ideogram for ''ren'' is a composite of two distinct common hanzi, 人 (Man, a man, a person ) and 二 (two), with 人 assuming its common form inside another character, to which various interpretations have been assigned. One often hears that ''ren'' means "how two people should treat one another". While such folk etymologies are common in discussions of Chinese characters, they often are as misleading as they are entertaining. In the case of ''ren'' - usually translated as "benevolence" or "humaneness" - Humaneness is Human-ness, the essence of being human. For Confucius the interaction of completely dependent infant and caring parent is the most emotionally charged human interaction, “To love a thing means wanting it to live…”.〔Analects XII.10〕 The Way of humaneness is human interaction and through shared experience knowing one’s family. “Fan Chi asked about humaneness. The Master said it is loving people. Fan Chi asked about wisdom. The Master said it is knowing people”.〔Analects XII.22〕 In other words, human love and interaction is the source of humaneness, the source of the human self. Another common interpretation of the graphical elements is Man or a man connecting Heaven and Earth. 人+二=仁 (Jén) man on left two on right, the relationship between two human beings, means humanity, benevolence, seed. Originally the character was just written as丨二 representing yin yang, the vertical line is yang (male, penis, heaven, odd numbers), the two horizontal lines are yin (female, vagina, earth, even numbers), 仁 is the seed and core of everything. The character 人 (man, rén) and 仁 have the same pronunciation. When a human is unable to be humane, he or she does not qualify to be a human but an animal. But when a human is able to be humane, for example, when Buddhism first introduced to China in the Han Dynasty the Chinese people translated the Buddha's name into "able to be human" or someone with ”ability and humanity" (能人,能仁) because Confucius's teachings and Buddha's teachings are "one to two, two to one." Pre-imperial epigraphic sources testify to alternative writings of the same character: 忎 (given as a variant of 仁 in the Shuowen dictionary), 身 with 心 below, and the latter compound with 人 on the right.〔Behr, Wolfgang. "In the Interstices of Representation: Ludic Writing and the Locus of Polisemy in the Chinese Sign".〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ren (Confucianism)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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