Ren

Ren is the central virtue of Confucian ethics, translated “humaneness”, “benevolence”, “goodness” or “authoritative conduct”. The character combines the signs for “person” and “two”, and has often been read as the virtue that belongs to human beings in relation to one another. In the Analects Confucius describes it in many ways: to love others; not to do to others what you would not want done to yourself; to establish others as you would establish yourself.

Confucius held ren to be at once near and very difficult: anyone who truly desires it has it, yet he rarely granted that anyone had attained it fully. Mencius taught that all human beings have the beginnings or “sprouts” of ren in their hearts, shown in the alarm and compassion anyone would feel on seeing a child about to fall into a well; cultivation develops the sprout into a full virtue.

The Neo-Confucians gave ren a cosmic meaning. Cheng Hao taught that the person of ren forms one body with heaven, earth and all things, and Wang Yangming that the great person regards all things as one body. Ren in this sense is both a moral virtue and a kind of unitive awareness.