Alo and De Filial #74
(PD) Alo and De Lake on Land.
Copyright ©2018 November 27, 2018
Yan: 'Filial' implies 'familial' in our modern language, and 'piety' implies something akin to 'virtue'. Since 'piety' and 'virtue' today have no meaning, and cannot be rationally described by any outsider, and since the idea of 'filial piety' infers not expressing piety towards people who are not of one's own family, then the ancient term 'filial piety' has a very weak meaning in modern words...
Alo: Agreed... to me, speaking of piety ought to imply a permanent piety... a true nature of one's own inner qualities... expressed towards all people worthy of receiving pious behavior... junzi not change... center remains unchangeable...
Yan: Agreed... and I do also understand the idea of how family members ought to give additional respect to deceased family members, but, to me, the respect ought to be natural, of one's heart, and not be a following of customs and teachings. Following a custom of giving the appearance of grief, the grief then would be false... fake... empty... deceitful... cause the person to lower his own inner qualities... make a person bad.
Alo: True... but here we circle back to Nature's way... familial respect, has many ingredients. Born, with similar physical traits as ancestors'... body shape better harmonizes with family's body shapes... natural, and Nature's way, for a person to assume that similar body shapes ought to infer similar hearts and minds... also raised within and sharing the same environment as one's family... one's own thoughts and emotions are influenced by the presence of family members... losing a family member, is also a losing of a portion of one's environment, a losing of one's own ingredients of life... the past thoughts and urges, that previously were released and satisfied through the act of speaking to the family member, the thoughts and urges can no longer be expressed when the family member passes... the inability to release and to satisfy the thoughts, habits, and urges, becomes an ingredient of the emotions of pain and grief... many other ingredients also, and all are different, all are variable... no two people can experience the same grief.
Yan: Very much agreed... and your thoughts are parallel to my own concerns... not all families are identical, and so, not all grief can be identical... cannot have one single custom to fit all people. One individual might grieve for the loss of a person who was important in the individual's life, but the grief would be for the individual's own loss, not a grief for the person who passed... selfish. Another individual might grieve horribly strong because the individual cries for another person's misfortune... love. Another individual, who grew-up without a family, or within a family where there were never any close bonds, that individual might not feel any grief at all... numb.
Alo: Excellently spoken... yes, precisely... one custom cannot fit all... follow one custom, makes almost all followers fake. Fake custom hurts everyone... hurts honest person who cannot express feelings honestly... hurts dishonest person, by strengthening the dishonest person's dishonesty... hurts numb person, by forcing a behavior that is not true... all forced customs of expressed emotions, are harmful.
Yan: Agreed... and too, strong emotions do not easily fade... sometimes lasting a lifetime, but never forgotten... never become callous... strong emotions forever influence the person's future... 'death wound lifetime, injure not-have extinguish nature'... death of a loved-one, the wound remains for a lifetime... emotional injuries, do not possess the nature of being extinguished... similar for customs... forcing an improper custom, harms a person for a lifetime...
Alo: Some of the ancient words were phrased to be interpreted as similarities... as in, respecting one's family members, so likewise give a similar respect to honorable people... not give the same familial respect, nor the same familial love, that is born with love and close relationships, but, rather, just a similar behavior of expressing a good heart...
Yan: And that is where I stumbled... it was appearing to me that the custom of filial piety implied that the custom ought to be given to everyone... and that made no sense to me... I cannot, ever, and will not, ever, give a similar pious respect to a stranger as what I give pious respect to Jun... not possible... simply not possible to do so... defies Nature's way... the act simply cannot be done, and I can only reply to the bad custom with my strongly stating 'no'...
Alo: One man's grief, it might endure for years... another man's grief, it might fade within days... no one is identical... if a man offers a suggestion of time, time of mourning, a time of hurting, or a time of rejoicing... then recognize that the man's suggestion is related to his own life... everyone is different, everyone needs different time to heal... one teaching cannot fit all people...
Yan: I agree... whether three years, or three days... or no day at all for numb people... still there cannot be one set rule for all people...
Alo: Again, circling back to Nature's way... piety, whatever definition that a person wishes to use... piety still requires the mental capacity to think... ingredients include ability to see... ability to recognize what is seen... ability to create mental concept of what is seen... ability to reason the concept... ability to self-reflect self-concept upon what is seen... ability to cyclically continue cycle of see, observe, reason, conceptualize, interpret seen thing relative to self-concept... create mental concept that is then expressed inwardly as one's own emotions... express the emotions outwardly upon what is seen... mentally judge... mentally compare... know what is in front of one's own eyes... and then project one's concept, colored with one's heart, upon the seen person... the cycle does not finish... the cycle continues... the act of piety, is not from point A to point B, the act is a continuous loop... the act of piety, does not end, the act merely shifts to be expressed upon other people also...
Yan: Then, yes... cannot be piety, if cannot think... also cannot be piety, if not good heart...
Alo: Precisely... no law, no custom, can force a person to be pious, if the person cannot think...
Yan: Yes... outsiders... cold inside... do not care about other people, and, cannot create cyclic thoughts... cannot imagine what a cyclic thought might be...
Alo: Correct... a belief that all people can express filial piety, cannot be true... might as well have a custom of filial-jumping-to-the-moon-of-Pluto... cannot be done. Nature rules man... man's customs and laws cannot rule Nature. Source nascented Nature... Nature nascented man... defy Source, defy Nature, when claiming all people are equal. Nevertheless, the act of being pious, infers the act to include honesty, warmth, warmth of caring love, kindness, gentleness, and morality, plus several religious things like righteous, devout, and holy... again the modern word falls into a pit of religious customs... therefore, choose a better word, choose what is real, not choose outsider words, and not accept the word 'piety'.
Yan: Agreed... many times we have had to choose words that are not given by dictionaries, including sometimes having to create phrases for words that do not exist... which, then, means, that we would likely do best by ignoring the modern phrase 'filial piety', and instead replace the phrase with what is real, and what the ancient words actually pointed at.
Alo: Precisely...