Should funeral culture be abolished? What do Peking University professors say?

"Nurturing life and mourning death without regret is the beginning of the king's way." In the view of the ancients, the proper arrangement of birth, rearing, death and burial is an important influence on the stability of the world's land, which is related to the social and ethical norms and political order.

"Xunzi - Rites of Passage" has also said: "Funeral rites, the living to decorate the dead also. The funeral rite is to decorate the dead with the living, and to send them to their deaths. Funeral rites have been inherited through the generations, it can cultivate the heart of love and filial piety. Funeral customs have been passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years, and have long formed a unique cultural phenomenon, becoming an important part of traditional Chinese culture.

However, the funeral culture has been resisted in modern society, with some people believing that the traditional funeral culture is too pedantic and complicated, and is a product of feudal society, and they vigorously call for the abolition of funeral customs. To this, Peking University professor Wu Fei responded, "Without traditional funeral rites, Chinese culture is completely hopeless."

Funeral culture can cultivate a heart of benevolence and respect

The book of the Later Han Dynasty says: "filial piety is the crown of a hundred acts and the beginning of all good deeds," "filial piety is the first of a hundred good deeds," and "filial piety " is a very important culture, basically everything is centered around filial piety, and the traditional funeral culture is a good reflection of filial piety, it can arouse the children's love and respect for their parents.

The mourning activities of the funeral culture are diverse and rich in content.

After a person's death, a mortuary ceremony is performed to put on the deceased's birthday suit, bathe and dress him, and tidy up his grooming so that he can go in a more dignified manner, and this part of the ceremony conveys the living's deep feelings of respect and reluctance for the departed.

The next step is to inform friends and family of the news, which is traditionally called "mourning," and which is practiced differently in different regions.

After the funeral is over, there is a condolence ceremony, in which friends and relatives receive condolences, and the family of the deceased kneels in the funeral hall to thank those who have come to offer condolences.

After the condolence ceremony, it is necessary to carry out the coffin ceremony for the deceased, and then to put on the mourning clothes for the funeral.

There is also an important part of the funeral, that is, "mourning". Wailing requires all descendants must "sing cry", in the folk custom, this is an important manifestation of filial piety and filial piety, people will also be based on the volume of the cry to determine the descendants of filial piety how.

This series of seemingly cumbersome, tedious funeral ceremony, in fact, everywhere reflects the living to the deceased's filial piety and respect for the feelings, it is wrapped up with the rules and etiquette of love and reluctance to hide.

The funeral ceremony is actually to give people a place to vent their emotions, if these ceremonies are abolished, on the one hand, is disrespectful to the dead, on the other hand, will also make the living less of a way to vent their emotions, not to feel the deceased's feelings of affection and filial piety, and over time, people will be lost to their friends and relatives of benevolence, emotional indifference.

Funeral culture can cultivate love and respect, even for an emotionless person, he will be moved to love and sympathy in the face of the real experience and emotional impact of funeral rituals, and the emotions he feels at that moment will mold him into a true and complete person.

Funeral culture can improve people's moral cultivation

Mengzi said, "Tracing the distance, the people's virtue returns to the thick." Treating the death of parents and memorializing ancestors in a prudent manner will make the people more loyal and honest, which also shows that funeral culture has a role in shaping the national character quality.

The traditional Chinese funeral culture emphasizes filial piety and love, and filial piety to elders also reflects the idea of the order of elders and children, which teaches people to respect their elders and to accept teaching, which creates certain family rules for the family's education.

And considering the larger picture, it also provides a guarantee for the development of society. The family and the country are two inseparable wholes, the development of the family will affect the overall tendency of the country, only to build and manage the small family well, in order to let everyone run smoothly.

The filial piety in the funeral culture teaches children in the family to respect their elders and honor their parents. The implementation of such a good family culture will cultivate children with a high level of morality, and when these children go out into the society, the family culture that has been cultivated in their bones will also make them consciously abide by the rules and regulations of the society and be a legitimate citizen of the society.

The family is the cell of the society, and the values of the family determine the overall moral quality of the society to a certain extent. Although the funeral culture seems to have direct correlation with the family unit, in fact, it also indirectly influences the social order and morality of the whole country, so we can not ignore the important role of the funeral culture in the governance of the country.

Funeral culture can protect traditional culture

Wu Fei, a professor at Peking University, said, "Nowadays, the only connection between Chinese people and the traditional Chinese civilization is in the funeral rites, and if the funeral culture completely disappears, it is hard to have hope for the traditional Chinese culture."

Chinese funeral culture is an important part of traditional Chinese culture, reflecting traditional Chinese patriarchal and ethical concepts in both content and form.

Traditional thinking in ancient China emphasized "benevolence, love," "propriety and law," and the need for children to be filial to their parents, respect their brothers and sisters, care for the community, be careful with their words and behavior, and be close to moral people, all of which are reflected in the rituals of the funeral culture.

In addition, the inheritance and development of traditional culture is also reflected in the rituals and customs of funerals. In China, ancient people have always believed in the concept of life and death that "death is like life", so they would hold grand ceremonies for funerals to express their filial piety and respect for the deceased.

"Funeral rites, sacrifices and sincerity" people will also be held after the funeral rituals, and finally in the location of the cemetery, the funeral culture is also inherited from the traditional cultural ideas, pay attention to the "burial of rites," to comply with the idea of inferiority and superiority, and the order of the eldest and youngest.

Burial culture as an important branch of traditional culture, we can not blindly break, but should be reasonable pruning, so that it as an excellent traditional culture continue to take root and sprout, branching and spreading, for the inheritance of traditional culture and development, to provide a wealth of nutrients.

The Peking University professor's appeal for a funeral culture is a wake-up call, reminding us that we can't just discard traditional funeral culture, which is inextricably linked to traditional culture, and that we need to respect its development; in other words, preserving an excellent funeral culture is preserving traditional culture.

But in the inheritance and protection of excellent funeral culture at the same time, we also need to learn to "take the essence, remove the dross", for some feudal, superstitious funeral practices to take measures to resist, for example, some time ago, widely known as "plutonian marriage" events --For example, in the recent widely known incident of the "wedding of the dead" - through the private theft and sale of corpses, to carry out the ceremony of the wedding of the dead, such feudal and ignorant funeral customs are not in line with the social norms, should be abolished.

The development of funeral culture and traditional culture should be complementary to each other, and the integration of the two can better inject freshness and vitality into the modern culture of society.