On Growth: Yibin Yang

Five Chinese Tenets
Yibin Yang

In Chinese history, there are five tenets that are of great importance and are used to guide the behaviour of Chinese people. They are： 仁（rén, benevolence), 义（yì，rectitude), 礼（lǐ，politeness), （zhì，wisdom), and信（xìn，fidelity).

There are various interpretations on the five tenets in history by scholars. Undoubtedly, the translation into English will distort more or less its real sense. Thus, here below is just a simplified guide to the five tenets.

Confucious (Yes, it is the Confucious that you know!) first gave benevolence, rectitude and politeness as tenets to live by. Then Mengzi (also known as Mencius, the second greatest Confucianism master) added one more value, wisdom, and another great, Zhongshu Dong, in the Han Dynasty added the remaining two and developed the tenets into what we now consider the complete five tenets.

The Chinese character for benevolence, 仁 (rén)， is composed of 二（two） and 人（person).  We can conclude that this tenet deals with something about the relationship between two persons, in other words, about“interpersonal relationship”. Simply, in order to create harmonized relationships with those around us, we need to love people, to practice benevolence. At its core, the Confucianism ethics system prioritizes the interpersonal relationship in a variety of arenas, from filial piety to parents, to loyalty to employers and respect to elders.

Rectitude or righteousness, deals with treating people not in accordance with individual benefits, but in accordance with justice. Simply, do what is right and refuse what is not right. Benevolence and rectitude are together the core values of traditional Chinese morality.

We need to be benevolent and possess righteousness, but how is this achieved? The answer can be found in the next tenet, politeness. Politeness or courtesy is the detailed system that guides us to carry out benevolence and rectitude properly.

Wisdom, the penultimate tenet, is the intelligence of a thorough and profound comprehension of life, truth, and nature. Frankly, when we are governed by wisdom, we don’t get stuck in life’s tangles.

Lastly, fidelity, which isn’t just a way to strive to be, it’s an active state. As the Chinese character highlights, fidelity is comprised of the character for person and the character for word. So, fidelity is the word of the person. When you keep your word, you practice fidelity.

The five tenets of the Chinese culture are not rules to be governed by, but vehicles for growth. When we implement these five principles into our lives, we are bound to experience personal growth. The combination of benevolence, rectitude, politeness, wisdom and fidelity is a sure formula for growth and perhaps the best place to begin evolving as an individual.
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Yibin is an entrepreneur business owner of a Shanghai and Hangzhou based company which specialises in consultation services, importation, exportation, marketing and printing and packaging.