Confucius believed that people living in society should not be satisfied with the present material life, but should have higher spiritual requirements in the future, that is, they should have their own ideals and fulfill their obligations for social development.
When he teaches students how to look at the relationship between the present and the future, he always guides students to base themselves on the present and face the future, determine their own ambitions, and establish the purpose and ideal of life as personal efforts.
Confucius often "expresses his will" with his students.
One day, he said to his students Yan Yuan and Luz, "Why don't you talk about their ambitions?"
Lutz said: "I am willing to share my horses and chariots, clothes and leather clothes with my friends, and I will not complain if I wear them out."
Yan Yuan said: "My ambition is not to brag about my strengths, nor to declare my contributions." .
Lutz said: We are willing to listen to your old man's ambition.
Confucius said: "My ambition is: the elderly are safe, friends believe, and teenagers are pregnant."
Talking freely with students is a way for him to guide students to cultivate and improve in the direction of "benevolence"
Confucius believes that "determination" is an important starting point, but it is not easy to persist in and realize its ambition. He said: "I am determined to learn five out of ten, stand at thirty, not be confused at forty, know my destiny at fifty, listen at sixty, and act at seventy without overstepping the bounds."
Teenagers are ambitious and need more than ten years' efforts to stand up. It can be seen that ambition is the key to a person's growth and development.
After establishing their ambitions, after long-term unremitting study and cultivation, their thoughts, emotions and behaviors have reached a high level of moral consciousness and "not exceeding the moment", which shows the lifelong, long-term and phased nature of moral education.
Confucius educated students to "take benevolence as the purpose". "Benevolence" is the highest moral standard and ideal of Confucius. He asked students to use "benevolence" to guide their daily moral behavior and stick to their moral beliefs.
"A gentleman who has no food and violates benevolence will inevitably have expectations and will inevitably be displaced." It requires a gentleman not to leave Rende at the moment of eating a meal, not to leave Rende in a hurry and urgency, and not to leave Rende in a displaced environment.
He asked students to "believe in learning, be good at dying", believe in benevolence and righteousness, believe in ideals, be eager to learn, persist and defend with their lives.
People with lofty ideals are benevolent, there is no harm to benevolence, and there is killing for benevolence. "That is to say, it requires a gentleman's kindness, not afraid of death and loss of benevolence, and the courage to sacrifice to fulfill benevolence. He thinks that ambition and ideal are even more important than personal life.
When Confucius educates the relationship between biomass life and spiritual life, he always guides them to pursue a higher spiritual life and strive to improve their spiritual realm. However, in terms of material enjoyment, we should not ask too much, which will hinder the promotion of spiritual realm.
Confucius said, "A scholar is determined to be the Tao, and he is ashamed to eat sick food and clothing." He believes that a student is always ashamed of his lack of food and clothing, and his mind is focused on the pursuit of material enjoyment, so it is difficult to set up lofty ideals.
He praised the student Yan Yuan and said, "Good for you! A spoonful of food, a spoonful of drink, in the mean lane, people can't bear their worries, and they won't change their fun when they go back. Hyun-jae, come back!
In Confucius' view, zhouyan was an ambitious student, and his thoughts focused on learning and keeping the Tao, regardless of the difficulties in his personal life.
He also said: "If you eat less and drink less, you will have fun. Being unjust and rich is like a cloud to me. " Eating coarse grains and drinking cold water, bending my arm as a pillow, enjoying it and getting rich improperly are all floating clouds to me.
He also taught students: "Seek the Tao without seeking food", "Those who have no long-term worries will have immediate worries" and "Those who see small profits will not achieve great things". He believes that a person with lofty aspirations should not be infatuated with and intoxicated with the immediate material enjoyment, let alone covet ill-gotten gains to pursue temporary enjoyment, thus ruining his life's future.
Only after long and arduous training can we stick to our ambitions. Confucius always guides students to pay attention to perseverance and indomitable will exercise when educating students about the relationship between the establishment and persistence of their ambitions. This can also be said to be the last and highest stage of the determination process.
He thinks that even a witch doctor can't do it without perseverance.
In short, the establishment and persistence of ambition depends on personal beliefs and subjective efforts, which are spiritual and internal and cannot be changed by external forces.
Although we can't take Confucius' ambition as our ambition today, his thought of emphasizing ambition and his suggestion that moral education should solve the experience of establishing ambition are all worth learning.
(The 22nd Writing CampNo. 16 1,141,with a total of 252,236 words)