Why hundreds of Harvard students now studying ancient Chinese philosophy to change their lives for the better?
How to be truly successful and enjoy a balanced life of tranquility? Let us learn from the world's oldest living civilization with over 5,000 years of recorded history. The wisdom of ancient Chinese philosophy and Confucian moral teachings offer the rest of the world priceless insights, more non-Chinese like hundreds of Harvard University students in the United States are learning all these nowadays. It is not only the "economic miracle" of China and Asia which should be the reason for us to study Chinese culture, but its unique Chinese philosophy and diverse ideas.
Let me share this interesting article from The Atlantic authored by Christine Gross-Loh on October 8, 2013:
Image below of America's oldest and most prestigious Harvard University, sourced from www.top10rankings.org
Below is image of Hong Kong actor Chow Yun Fat playing the role of the great teacher and philosopher Confucius, image sourced from www.seeraa.com
Why Are Hundreds of Harvard Students Studying Ancient Chinese
Philosophy?
The professor who teaches Classical Chinese Ethical and Political
Theory claims, "This course will change your life."
BY: CHRISTINE GROSS-LOH OCT 8
2013, 10:49 AM ET
Picture a world where human
relationships are challenging, narcissism and self-centeredness are on the
rise, and there is disagreement on the best way for people to live harmoniously
together.
It sounds like 21st-century America . But
the society that Michael Puett, a
tall, 48-year-old bespectacled professor of Chinese history at Harvard University ,
is describing to more than 700 rapt undergraduates is China , 2,500 years ago.
Puett's course Classical Chinese
Ethical and Political Theory has become the third most popular course at the
university. The only classes with higher enrollment are Intro to Economics and
Intro to Computer Science. The second time Puett offered it, in 2007, so many
students crowded into the assigned room that they were sitting on the stairs
and stage and spilling out into the hallway. Harvard moved the class to Sanders
Theater, the biggest venue on campus.
Prof. Michael Puett, image below sourced from ealc.fas.harvard.edu
Prof. Michael Puett, image below sourced from ealc.fas.harvard.edu
Why are so many undergraduates
spending a semester poring over abstruse Chinese philosophy by scholars who
lived thousands of years ago? For one thing, the class fulfills one of
Harvard's more challenging core requirements, Ethical Reasoning. It's clear,
though, that students are also lured in by Puett's bold promise: “This course
will change your life.”
His students tell me it is true:
that Puett uses Chinese philosophy as a way to give undergraduates concrete,
counter-intuitive, and even revolutionary ideas, which teach them how to live a
better life. Elizabeth Malkin, a student
in the course last year, says, “The class absolutely changed my perspective of
myself, my peers, and of the way I view the world.” Puett puts a fresh spin on
the questions that Chinese scholars grappled with centuries ago. He requires
his students to closely read original texts (in translation) such as Confucius’s Analects, the Mencius, and the Daodejing and then
actively put the teachings into practice in their daily lives. His lectures use
Chinese thought in the context of contemporary American life to help 18- and
19-year-olds who are struggling to find their place in the world figure out how
to be good human beings; how to create a good society; how to have a
flourishing life.
Puett began offering his course
to introduce his students not just to a completely different cultural worldview
but also to a different set of tools. He told me he is seeing more students who
are “feeling pushed onto a very specific path towards very concrete career
goals” than he did when he began teaching nearly 20 years ago. A recent report shows a steep decline over
the last decade in the number of Harvard students who are choosing to major in
the humanities, a trend roughly seen across the nation’s liberal arts schools.
Finance remains the most popular career for Harvard graduates. Puett sees
students who orient all their courses and even their extracurricular activities
towards practical, predetermined career goals and plans.
Prof. Michael Puett of Harvard, image below sourced from www.asia-institute.org
Prof. Michael Puett of Harvard, image below sourced from www.asia-institute.org
Puett tells his students that
being calculating and rationally deciding on plans is precisely the wrong way
to make any sort of important life decision. The Chinese philosophers they are
reading would say that this strategy makes it harder to remain open to other
possibilities that don’t fit into that plan. Students who do this “are not
paying enough attention to the daily things that actually invigorate and
inspire them, out of which could come a really fulfilling, exciting life,” he
explains. If what excites a student is not the same as what he has decided is
best for him, he becomes trapped on a misguided path, slated to begin an
unfulfilling career. Puett aims to open his students’ eyes to a different way
to approach everything from relationships to career decisions. He teaches them
that:
The smallest actions have the
most profound ramifications. Confucius, Mencius, and other Chinese philosophers
taught that the most mundane actions can have a ripple effect, and Puett urges
his students to become more self-aware, to notice how even the most quotidian
acts—holding open the door for someone, smiling at the grocery clerk—change the
course of the day by affecting how we feel.
That rush of good feeling that
comes after a daily run, the inspiring conversation with a good friend, or the
momentary flash of anger that arises when someone cuts in front of us in
line—what could they have to do with big life matters? Everything, actually.
From a Chinese philosophical point of view, these small daily experiences
provide us endless opportunities to understand ourselves. When we notice and
understand what makes us tick, react, feel joyful or angry, we develop a better
sense of who we are that helps us when approaching new situations. Mencius, a
late Confucian thinker (4th century B.C.E.), taught that if you cultivate your
better nature in these small ways, you can become an extraordinary person with
an incredible influence, altering your own life as well as that of those around
you, until finally “you can turn the whole world in the palm of your hand.”
Recent research into neuroscience
is confirming that the Chinese philosophers are correct: Brain scans reveal
that our unconscious awareness of emotions and phenomena around us are actually
what drive the decisions we believe we are making with such logical
rationality. According to Marianne LaFrance, a psychology professor at Yale, if
we see a happy face for just a fraction of a second (4 milliseconds to be
exact), that’s long enough to elicit a mini emotional high. In one study
viewers who were flashed a smile—even though it was shown too quickly for them
to even realize they had seen it—perceived the things around them more
positively.
Decisions are made from the
heart. Americans tend to believe that humans are rational creatures who make
decisions logically, using our brains. But in Chinese, the word for “mind” and
“heart” are the same. Puett teaches that the heart and the mind are
inextricably linked, and that one does not exist without the other. Whenever we
make decisions, from the prosaic to the profound (what to make for dinner;
which courses to take next semester; what career path to follow; whom to
marry), we will make better ones when we intuit how to integrate heart and mind
and let our rational and emotional sides blend into one. Zhuangzi, a Daoist philosopher, taught that
we should train ourselves to become “spontaneous” through daily living, rather
than closing ourselves off through what we think of as rational
decision-making. In the same way that one deliberately practices the piano in
order to eventually play it effortlessly, through our everyday activities we
train ourselves to become more open to experiences and phenomena so that
eventually the right responses and decisions come spontaneously, without angst,
from the heart-mind.
If the body leads, the mind will
follow. Behaving kindly (even when you are not feeling kindly), or smiling at
someone (even if you aren’t feeling particularly friendly at the moment) can
cause actual differences in how you end up feeling and behaving, even
ultimately changing the outcome of a situation.
While all this might sound like
hooey-wooey self-help, much of what Puett teaches is previously accepted
cultural wisdom that has been lost in the modern age. Aristotle said, “We are
what we repeatedly do,” a view shared by thinkers such as Confucius, who taught
that the importance of rituals lies in how they inculcate a certain sensibility
in a person. In research published in
Psychological Science, social psychologist Amy Cuddy and her colleagues found
that when we take a power stance (stand with our legs apart, arms thrust out,
taking up space), the pose does not only cause other people to view us as more
confident and powerful; it actually causes a hormonal surge that makes us
become more confident.
At the end of each class, Puett
challenges his students to put the Chinese philosophy they have been learning
into tangible practice in their everyday lives. “The Chinese philosophers we
read taught that the way to really change lives for the better is from a very
mundane level, changing the way people experience and respond to the world, so
what I try to do is to hit them at that level. I’m not trying to give my
students really big advice about what to do with their lives. I just want to
give them a sense of what they can do daily to transform how they live.” Their
assignments are small ones: to first observe how they feel when they smile at a
stranger, hold open a door for someone, engage in a hobby. He asks them to take
note of what happens next: how every action, gesture, or word dramatically
affects how others respond to them. Then Puett asks them to pursue more of the
activities that they notice arouse positive, excited feelings. In their papers
and discussion sections students discuss what it means to live life according
to the teachings of these philosophers.
Once they’ve understood
themselves better and discovered what they love to do they can then work to
become adept at those activities through ample practice and self-cultivation.
Self-cultivation is related to another classical Chinese concept: that effort
is what counts the most, more than talent or aptitude. We aren’t limited to our
innate talents; we all have enormous potential to expand our abilities if we
cultivate them. You don’t have to be stuck doing what you happen to be good at;
merely pay attention to what you love and proceed from there. Chinese
philosophers taught that paying attention to small clues “can literally change
everything that we can become as human beings,” says Puett.
To be interconnected, focus on
mundane, everyday practices, and understand that great things begin with the
very smallest of acts are radical ideas for young people living in a society
that pressures them to think big and achieve individual excellence. This might
be one reason why, according to the Chronicle for Higher Education, interest in
Chinese philosophy is taking off around the nation—not just at Harvard. And
it’s a message that’s especially resonating with those yearning for an
alternative to the fast track they have been on all their lives.
One of Puett’s former students,
Adam Mitchell, was a math and science whiz who went to Harvard intending to
major in economics. At Harvard specifically and in society in general, he told
me, “we’re expected to think of our future in this rational way: to add up the
pros and cons and then make a decision. That leads you down the road of ‘Stick
with what you’re good at’”—a road with little risk but little reward. But after
his introduction to Chinese philosophy during his sophomore year, he realized
this wasn’t the only way to think about the future. Instead, he tried courses
he was drawn to but wasn’t naturally adroit at because he had learned how much
value lies in working hard to become better at what you love. He became more
aware of the way he was affected by those around him, and how they were
affected by his own actions in turn. Mitchell threw himself into foreign
language learning, feels his relationships have deepened, and is today working
towards a master’s degree in regional studies. He told me, “I can happily say
that Professor Puett lived up to his promise, that the course did in fact
change my life.”
CHRISTINE GROSS-LOH is the author
of Parenting Without Borders: Surprising
Lessons Parents Around the World Can Teach Us (Avery, 2013)
Image below of Confucius quotation in ancient Chinese calligraphy and its English translation, sourced from www.chilture.com
Image below of Confucius quotation in ancient Chinese calligraphy and its English translation, sourced from www.chilture.com
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