In this class, we’re going to be thinking about ritual and cultivation. First, we’ll think about ritual precisely as a kind of self-cultivation. Then we’ll dive into Xunzi’s text with some questions. But first, we’ll get some general impressions.
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What passages in the text particularly took your attention (e.g. because they interested you, because you disagreed with them, because they puzzled you)?
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Has anything you have read in this text led you to seeing yourself, your life, others or the world differently? If so, what?
Ritual maps
Sketch a map of the rituals you use in your own lives. You have 15 minutes.
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Identify and document rituals from your own lives (morning routines, greeting customs, digital etiquette)
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Analyse which aspects of these rituals might cultivate virtues like respect, discipline, or mindfulness
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Create a visual map showing how daily rituals shape character traits (you can do this any way you like)
Share your maps! Then we’ll move on to the text.
Questions:
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Xunzi says that “Ritual is a means of nurture.” How? And is he right?
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Xunzi also says, “And so when ritual is at its most perfect, the requirements of inner dispositions and proper form are both completely fulfilled.” Do you have any experiences of this complete fulfilment?
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Xunzi focusses not just on small rituals, but also big rituals, for example death rituals. He writes as follows: “The funeral rites use life to ornament death—they make abundant use of semblances of the person’s life to send him off in death. Thus, one treats the dead as if still alive, and one treats the departed as if they survive, in order that end and beginning be given one and the same care.” What do you understand by this, and what is the purpose of ritual at these big turning points in human life?
We’ll share in the main group.
Homework
For your homework, we’re moving on to talk about another Chinese tradition, and that is the tradition of Daoism. So your homework is to read the first two chapters of the Zhuangzi.