Philanthropy and charitable thinking

Confucian philanthropic thought comes from the Confucian value of "benevolence", including "people-oriented", "commonwealth", "righteousness and profit" and other ideas. The Confucian idea of charity comes from the Confucian value of "benevolence", which includes the concepts of "people-oriented", "commonwealth" and "righteousness".

"Benevolence" is the core content of Confucianism. Ren is to love people, which can be regarded as the elaboration of the primitive and ancient humanitarian concepts, laying the theoretical foundation for the formation of the Confucian concept of charity.

Confucius put himself in the shoes of others and regarded tolerance and favor as "benevolence". Mencius, on the other hand, paid more attention to relieving people's distress and saving their lives, treating the love of life as the most benevolent, and the indiscriminate killing of innocents as non-benevolent. From Confucius's "the benevolent love others" to Mencius's "intolerance of others", Confucianism's theory of charitable thinking has been gradually enriched and perfected.

People-oriented thinking is an important element of Confucian doctrine. Confucius Yun: "Zi for politics, how to kill? Zi wants to be good and the people are good." (The Analects of Confucius. Yan Yuan") and the cloud: "repair yourself to the people." (The Analects of Confucius. Xianqian"), "save the use of love. Mencius clearly advocated: "The people are the most important thing, the gods of earth and grain come second, and the ruler is the least important thing" ("Mencius． The King of Liang Hui" (梁惠王上). Xunzi went even further: "The ruler is the boat, and the common people are the water; the water carries the boat, and the water overturns the boat" ("Xunzi． King's System"). Confucianism in this people for the state-based thinking, reflected in the social concept of charity, is that the monarch should "benefit the people", the implementation of benevolent government. This idea is extended to the social life, it has become the cultural foundation and ideological source of the rulers of successive dynasties to implement a variety of policies in favor of the people.

The idea of "commonwealth" is also an important part of Confucianism. The formation of the idea of "commonwealth" is related to the fact that Confucius advocated the equalization of wealth and opposed the disparity between the rich and the poor. The Analects of Confucius. Ji's" cloud: "I heard that there is a state of the family, do not worry about the widow and suffer uneven, do not worry about the poor and suffer from anxiety. Cover even without poverty, and without widow, and peace without inclination." In the view of Confucius, a stable and harmonious society, the distribution of property is the most important thing, things are the same, there is no difference between the rich and the poor, people will get along with each other, so that "the old man is safe, the friends believe in it, and the young man is pregnant with it." (The Analects of Confucius. Gongye Chang"). This is perhaps Confucius' original vision of a commonwealth. Later on, he depicted a world of commonwealth that the world would be fascinated by: "People are not the only ones who are close to their relatives, and not the only ones who have children, so that the old will have an end, the strong will have a use for their strength, the young will have a long life, and the widows, widowers, orphans, invalids, and the sick will have something to feed them; and there will be a share for the men, and there will be a homecoming for the women." (The Book of Rites. A little later, Mencius also put forward the idea that "if people are friendly with each other in and out of the country, if they watch out for each other, and if they support each other in sickness, then the people will be friendly with each other" ("Mencius: Teng Wen Gong"). Later, Mencius also proposed an ideal society in which "those who go in and out are friendly, those who look out for each other, those who support each other in sickness are in harmony with each other, and the people are in harmony" ("Mengzi. Teng Wengong"). This idea of "the world as a commonwealth" has had a profound influence on the world of thought throughout Chinese history.

The concept of righteousness and profit is also an aspect of the Confucian culture of charity. The Analects of Confucius. Li Ren": "The gentleman is a metaphor for righteousness, and the villain is a metaphor for profit." It also says: "The gentleman's righteousness is thought to be the top." The true gentleman is often able to make a selfless choice between morality and profit, and then transcend the immediate interests and become a model of morality, which is said to be: "not righteous and rich and noble, in me as floating clouds." It is by the Confucian concept of righteousness and profit, some ancient Confucians are more righteous than profit, do not talk about fame and fortune, diligently committed to carry out the charity of saving the poor and helping the poor. This also makes the later in the choice between righteousness and profit, all honesty and righteousness, give up profit and take righteousness. Such as the Ming and Qing dynasties, many merchants since childhood Confucianism, not to profit to harm the righteousness of the business rich, often happy to lose good funds, become "Confucian merchants". During this period, in the Hui merchants, Jin merchants and other famous merchant gangs, there are such a group of good and righteous Confucian merchants, give up money and donate money to start up a hall, guilds for the poor and sick fellow villagers for charitable relief, or to serve the community, and actively participate in the disaster relief, and promote the development of civil charities. After the introduction of Buddhism to China, the formation of the Chinese Buddhist ethical thinking to the concept of good and evil, the concept of life as the main content of the Chinese Buddhist ethical thinking, the theory of persuasion is particularly rich.

Buddhism believes that only by constantly reforming one's faults can one's mind be purified and goodness achieved. For this reason, there are the Ten Good and Ten Evils, the Three Fortunes, and the Five Precepts. Under the guidance of these precepts, Buddhist temples and their monks have been practicing not to kill but to release, building life release ponds and life release societies, and not to steal but to give, setting up charity halls and building righteousness bureaus since the Wei, Jin, and North/South Dynasties.

The Buddhist method of doing good deeds is also discussed in particular, such as "cultivating blessed fields" and "giving alms". The so-called blessed field, refers to the good deeds are like farmers sowing seeds in the field, there will be a fall harvest, that is, to persuade the world to do more good deeds, more merit, will be rewarded in the future. The so-called giving is divided into three kinds of giving: financial giving, legal giving and fearless giving. Fortune giving is the giving of wealth to help the poor and needy; Dharma giving is the teaching of the right way of life to break the cycle of enlightenment; and fearless giving is the helping of others to be free from fear, so that they can be at peace with themselves physically and mentally.

Buddhism, in order to realize the purpose of persuasion, puts forward the theory of karma, that "karma has three rewards: a present reward, now doing good and evil, now suffering; second life reward, work in this life, the next life to suffer the fruit; third after the reward, or karma, after a hundred thousand births to suffer karma". This kind of karma reincarnation says, gives the ethical revelation that: cultivate good virtue in this life, ascend to the heavenly realm in the next life; create evil deeds in this life, fall into hell in the next life.

The concept of compassion is at the heart of Buddhist teachings. In Sanskrit, the word "compassion" means pure friendship and love, and "sadness" means sorrow and sympathy. For Buddhist believers, in order to become a holy Buddha, one must be compassionate, giving happiness to others with a loving heart and removing suffering with a compassionate heart. The Buddhist sect also expands compassion to the infinite, emphasizing that Buddhists, in order to escape from the cycle of rebirth and the three realms, should embrace the spirit of compassion and sail universally through all sentient beings with righteousness, enlightenment, wisdom, and goodness, practicing the righteousness of "being with joy and uprooting suffering," creating a field of blessings for all sentient beings, and treating all sentient beings well with the four immeasurable thoughts of "compassion, joy, and surrender. With the four immeasurable minds of "compassion, joy and surrender", he treats all living beings kindly, and with a magnanimous mind, he urges the world to wish for compassion and salvation, and to carry out a wide range of good deeds.

To sum up, Chinese Buddhism is actually an ethical religion that urges people to stop evil and follow the good, and to avoid evil and tend to the good. It calls for breaking all evils and cultivating all goodness, which is to regulate people's psychological motives and behavioral tendencies on the level of ethical values of charity, urging people to be introspective in their social and personal lives, to overcome their selfish desires, to do away with evils and follow goodness, and to cultivate a noble character and sentiments. Taoist culture is an important part of traditional Chinese culture. Taoist culture contains a wealth of ethical ideas, such as the philosophy of "purity and inaction" and the moral concepts of "rewarding the good and punishing the bad, good and bad retribution", which became an important source of thought in the development of traditional charity in ancient China.

The origin of charity in pre-Qin Taoism

Lao Zi, as the founder of pre-Qin Taoism, had a unique view on "good" and "evil". In Lao Zi's view, "Tao" is the source of all things in heaven and earth, which cannot be named, nor can it be detected, but it can be rewarded and punished according to the time, so that the good people will be blessed and the evil people will be cursed. Therefore, he suggested that the world should follow the law of Tao, and that everyone should be good and treat all beings well.

The concept of charity in the Taiping Jing

The Taiping Jing's "theory of bearing and burden" has become the basis for charitable activities in later generations. "The concept of "bearing burdens" was developed on the basis of the theory of good and evil retribution and the idea of heaven and man's induction, which states: "Accumulating good deeds will bring you more happiness, while accumulating evil deeds will bring you more calamities. Simply put, "the doctrine of bearing the burden" means that if a person commits an evil deed, he will suffer for his descendants; if a person does a good deed, he will benefit his descendants, and the scope of his sufferings or blessings will be limited to the first and next five generations. This provides the ideological basis for the followers of Taoism to avoid evil and do good deeds. It is believed that anyone's good or bad behavior is not only retributed in oneself, but also has an impact on the descendants of future generations; and people's present-day misfortunes and blessings are also the results of the behavior of their forefathers. If an ancestor is at fault, his descendants must also bear his retribution. The scope of responsibility is: to bear the responsibility of the first five generations, and to spread to the next five generations. "It is also suggested that if one can do good deeds and accumulate great virtues, one can avoid the residual sufferings of the ancestors and benefit future generations; if one does not change from evil, the gods will reward good and punish evil according to one's behavior.

The charitable view of Taoism in the Tang and Song dynasties

The Tang and Song dynasties were the flourishing periods of Taoism. Due to the two emperors' respect for Taoism, the wind of Taoism has developed to the extreme, and Taoist temples are almost all over the famous mountains and valleys. At the same time also emerged Sun Simiao and other famous Taoist scholars, recorded a number of Taoist scriptures, such as "Taoist Collection", "Induction on" and so on, enriched the treasure trove of Taoist thought, which also contains the idea of charity.

Sun Simiao, a Taoist priest of the Tang Dynasty, put forward in his influential medical book "Thousand Gold Prescriptions" that medical practitioners should have the medical ethics of "human life is the most important thing, and there is a thousand gold", and they should also have "the will to relief", and have the heart of universal love to help and save people. This kind of medicine to help the world of compassionate thinking for later generations to set up a charity relief organizations, such as medicine bureaus, medical treatment is quite inspiring, so that the folk good people to give medicine to the good deeds frequently seen. Taishang Induction Psalm" is a famous book of exhortation according to the Taoist scriptures. It preaches good and evil retribution and lists various good and evil deeds as the standard for people to avoid good and evil, in the form of admonition by the Taoist god "Taishangjun". Modern Chinese charitable thinking was influenced by a number of Western charitable thoughts, and finally formed a charitable thinking that not only conformed to the requirements of the times, but also had a brand-new connotation. In the wave of "Western learning" in modern China, the Western concept of charity and welfare was introduced to China along with the introduction and study of the Western capitalist system by the advanced Chinese. They grafted the modern Western capitalist charity and welfare ideas onto the traditional Chinese "commonwealth", "average" and other simple charity ideas, so that the modern Chinese charity ideas show the characteristics of ancient and modern, East and West convergence, and move towards modernization and institutionalization.

In the modern philanthropic world, most philanthropists still build their ideological cornerstones on the ancient Chinese traditional concepts of "commonwealth" and "average", and still use these traditional terms in expressing their philanthropic ideas, but borrow and incorporate some ideas of Western society. They still use these traditional terms in expressing their philanthropic ideas, but they have borrowed and incorporated some concepts from Western societies. They generally agreed with Western ideas and systems of social welfare, and demanded to learn from Western systems and experiences in China. As a result, philanthropic thought in modern China has taken on a capitalist nature and a modernized character.

From the thoughts of modern advanced Chinese, we can roughly summarize the following basic concepts of the modern Chinese charity thought community.

I. Philanthropy is a kind of public welfare, and it is the duty of the government. Helping the poor and the needy is the proper function of government agencies, not out of sympathy.

II. Philanthropy should be institutionalized and incorporated into the government's social security system.

Third, private philanthropy is the backbone of charity and an important supplement to government social security, and its development should be vigorously promoted and the supervision of charitable organizations should be strengthened.

Four, to break through the traditional clan and regional concepts, to realize the great welfare and charity. Charity should not be divided into clans, regions and national boundaries.

Fifth, we must follow the example of the West and set up various modernized charitable institutions, including charitable schools, charitable hospitals and so on.

The formation of modern Chinese thought is the acceptance of a number of influences on the idea of social charity and welfare in the West. Specifically, there are three main aspects, namely, church philanthropy, the Western press, and the overseas insights of the Chinese people.

The charities organized by the churches in China are one of the most direct ways for the Chinese to learn about Western social philanthropy. With the infiltration of foreign religions after the Opium War, some missionaries or churches in the ports of commerce and the interior of the country set up nurseries, orphanages, clinics, hospitals, and other charitable institutions for the care of infants and medical care. Under this influence, some enlightened gentry and merchants began to contact Westerners to set up Western medical clinics, modeled on the Church's baby-sitting institutions, to carry out baby-sitting business. The church's disaster relief and charity activities also had an impact on China's charitable endeavors. Some of the large-scale relief efforts in modern times were modeled after the disaster relief committees set up by Western missionaries in China.

In the books translated into China in modern times, some of them introduced the history, politics, folklore and social conditions of western countries, and touched upon some aspects of charity. The newspapers and magazines founded by foreigners in this period reported a lot on the charitable medical care, baby-sitting and disaster relief activities held by Western missionaries. These books and newspapers enabled the people of China to have a clearer understanding of the welfare and charity work of western countries.

After the middle of the 19th century, the people of China had the opportunity to go abroad, and the number of people gradually increased. They wrote travelogues of what they had seen and heard, which were circulated among the people of China. These journals contained information about modern charity work in various countries. After these diaries and travelogues were circulated in the society, they had a considerable influence on the emerging modern philanthropy in China, and accelerated the pace of conversion of traditional Chinese philanthropic thought into modernization. Modern China's philanthropy is built on the foundation of socialism, and its thought shows stage by stage characteristics with the establishment and improvement of the socialist system and the deepening of the understanding of socialism, and finally forms the socialist philanthropy and welfare thought with Chinese characteristics.

In the early days of the founding of New China, the old welfare relief was regarded as "the ornament of the ruling class to deceive and anesthetize the people", and the old charitable institutions should be taken over and transformed; private charities should be rejected, and the government should be the main body of charitable undertakings. With the extreme leftist ideology in the late 1950s and the decade-long "Cultural Revolution", domestic philanthropy gradually went into decline, and philanthropy was greatly denied. Philanthropy was regarded as a sugar-coated bomb of the bourgeoisie, a hypocritical act of the landlord class, and a tool used by the so-called philanthropists to make a name for themselves; philanthropic thinking and its behavior were regarded as otherworldly, and the good deeds were regarded as "smearing socialism in the face"; and people were convinced that socialism could relieve the human world from all sufferings, and that there was no need to develop philanthropy. The people were convinced that socialism could relieve all human suffering and that there was no need to develop philanthropy at all.

After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1978, a series of reforms were initiated in various fields, but philanthropy still encountered some resistance. But a part of the people began to correct the misunderstanding and prejudice against philanthropy. They tried to bring relief work into the hands of the private sector and advocated the vigorous development of private philanthropy.After the 1980s, the theoretical community developed a new understanding of charity, philanthropy and humanitarianism, and philanthropy was given a proper name, which cleared up the ambiguous perceptions and prejudices that had been left in people's minds. The government also changed its attitude and began to allow all sectors of society to participate in social welfare and relief work. After entering the 1990s, people with knowledge of the situation believed that it was necessary to change from the past, when the government practiced welfare-type all-encompassing, and gradually transitioned to a form that relied on the strengths of the private sector in society. The Government also explicitly endorsed and supported the development of philanthropy. Philanthropy has become an effective supplement to the new social security system, an important form of regulating the third distribution of social wealth, and an important force in building a harmonious society. In the government and civil *** with the efforts, so far, the charitable ideological community has undergone profound changes, philanthropy has been generally recognized by the people, charitable awareness has been popularized, civil charity has been attached great importance to the Chinese nation's excellent traditional virtues gradually be returned.