Ideas of Confucius on morality and human characters

There were many ideas of Confucius on morality and human characters. I will write only a few here, starting from the core one and then the extension of it.
The core idea has only one word: 恕. Of course, you must understand there is no one-to-one translation from Chinese to English for this word (so is the word Dao 道). It is difficult to completely express a noble idea with words; so, it is better to leave it in a concise form; we call it 言简意赅 (concise word carries deep meanings), or “书不尽言，言不尽意” (books cannot completely include all the words one wishes to say, and all the words one says cannot completely express the noble idea in his mind), and let the learners feel it with their hearts and experience it themselves. The word 恕 is constructed from the words “如心”, meaning “as close as what you think in your heart”. In other words, it means “honestly expressing yourself”. However, it doesn’t end there. For example, what kind of “self” do you want to express and be seen by others? Do you want to be seen as someone with a lot of greed (or craving for sensual pleasure), hatred (or intolerant to many kinds of imperfections in yourself and others), and delusion (or craving for mental pleasure to see things happen according to what you wish them to be)? Do you want to be seen as someone who is worry, stupid (or has a lot of doubts about life), and fearful? Do you want to be seen as someone who is arrogant, has a lot of ego, unforgiving, untrustworthy, lazy, and selfish? If you don’t like to have any of these characteristics, do you pretend to be warmhearted, non-violent, caring, respectful, frugal, and not competing with others, which mean you don’t “express yourself honestly”? If you really think deeply into this one word 恕, you will fully understand 識 and feel the complete meaning (and not just knowing it 知). You will experience the happiness of “honestly expressing yourself”, not having to pretend, and reap the fruit or self-interest of being morally upright and having good human characters. You will voluntarily cultivate morality because it is for your own happiness. Any other benefits, to yourself and others, are bonuses. With a pure heart, you will see clearly what kind of human characters that you want to cultivate within yourself, because those are also the kind of human characters which you want to see in your friends or true-men/women 真人 you want to associate with.
子贡问曰：“有一言而可以终身行之者乎?”子曰：“其恕乎!己所不欲，勿施于人。”——《论语·卫灵公》 A disciple, Zi Cong, asked: “Is there a word that one can follow or practice for his whole life?” Confucius answered: “It is the word 恕! To make sure you don’t misunderstand it, you can think of it as “don’t do unto others what you don’t want others to do unto you.” No one want to live with suffering every day (worry, fear, anxious, depression, angry, sad, etc.). Everyone wants to be happy. Whatever we really want or crave to do is what we believe will bring us happiness; although most of the time it only brings more suffering. You want to be “successful” because you believe it will bring you happiness, but the journey as well as the destination only bring you more suffering and further increase your greed, hatred, and delusion. You should instead cultivate yourself 修身 to be a happy person, benefit your family 齐家 and society 治国, and bring peace to the world 平天下 (at least not giving trouble to the world). If you disagree with this wisdom, it only means you cannot blame others for attacking you or giving you troubles; you can only blame yourself for being weak or not competitive and you are a Capitalist who believe in survival of the fittest. Confucius did not say “do unto others what you want others to do unto you.” What you want may not be what another person wants. Not everyone wants to be rich, have extramarital affair, become famous, eat luxurious food every day, and leisure of not doing anything good for the society. You must never impose your ideology (like “Democracy”, “human rights”, “freedom”, “political correctness”, “morality”, “human characters”, etc.) on others. 子贡曰：“如有博施于民而能济众，何如？可谓仁乎？”子曰：“何事于仁，必也圣乎！尧舜其犹病诸！夫仁者，己欲立而立人，己欲达而达人。能近取譬，可谓仁之方也已。”（《论语·雍也》）Zi Cong asked: “If a person can bring widespread benefits to the people and eradicate poverty or other troubles of the people, how is that? Does it fit the definition of the word 仁?” Confucius answered: “It is much more than 仁. He can be considered a Sage! The ancient great kings of 尧 and 舜 were always feeling unsatisfied for not being able to do more to benefit the people and eradicate poverty. As a truly compassionate person who fit the word 仁, he who wishes to be self-reliant 自足 will also help others to be self-reliant; he who wishes to be benevolent will also help others to be benevolent. Nobody says it is easy to achieve 仁. If you can compare your achievement with the people around you in terms of morality and characters, henceforth improve yourself and help others fulfill their self-development goal of becoming benevolent, you can say it is the path to attaining the character which fit the word 仁.” Wealth and fame are never the objects to pursue; these are useless things like the cloud. 子曰：“饭疏食饮水，曲肱而枕之，乐亦在其中矣。不义而富且贵，于我如浮云。” Confucius trained his disciples to become government ministers or officers for the purpose of benefiting the people and eradicate poverty, never for any personal gain in terms of wealth or fame.
恕 is often understood as forgive 饶恕 or pardon 宽恕. Try to use your heart to empathize or understand another person the fact that nobody wishes to make mistake for the fun of it, unless he is a tyrant. To err is human, to forgive divine. Forgive another person when he/she make a mistake, even if it is done intentionally, if he/she really feels sorry for what is done; so long as he/she is not a tyrant or habitual offender. Tolerance is the power to forgive (恕). If the schools and parents are powerless to forgive, how can they expect the children to have tolerance? One day, Confucius told his disciple, Zeng Shen: “Shen, my philosophies can all be related by one fundamental principle.” Zeng Shen replied: “Understood.” After Confucius left, the other disciples asked Zeng Shen: “What is the meaning?” Zeng Shen said: “The philosophies of our teacher can all be related to Honesty and Forgiveness.” (子曰： “参乎，吾道一以贯之。” 曾子曰： “唯。” 子出，门人问曰： “何谓也？” 曾子曰： “夫子之道，忠恕而已矣。”) Honesty (忠) means truly coming from the heart (忠于事，忠于言，忠于人，忠于己). Loyalty is an act of dishonesty if it doesn’t come from the heart; although some people like it that way regardless. When you are honest, to yourself and to others, everything you said comes from your heart. Nothing is artificial or pretentious, although you may not be right all the time. You will be honest to the king as much as being honest to the people. You will be honest in doing your job, and never make any promise that you don’t intend to keep. You will be honest to yourself, be who you are and not pretend to be someone you are not. If your heart is full of the capacity to forgive, you will be able to tolerate differences and not insist on conformance, although you like people to show good manners.
Another day, Confucius told another disciple, Zi Gong: “Do you think I am someone who learns a lot and becomes knowledgeable by memorizing everything that I’ve learnt?” Zi Gong replied: “I think so. Isn’t it true?” Confucius said: “Not really. I have one fundamental principle to relate and bind together all my knowledge.” (子曰： “赐也，女以予为多学而识之者与？” 对曰： “然，非与？” 曰： “非也！予一以贯之。”) Anything that has nothing to do with Honesty and Forgiveness isn’t Confucianism even if Confucians (or Neo-Confucianism) say it is. You don’t have to become knowledgeable by memorizing a lot of things that you’ve learnt. You just need to let Honesty and Forgiveness guide you in your words and actions, and in making decisions to move or to stop (言行举止). Confucius said: “Compassion includes being respectful, forgiving, truthful, hardworking, and benevolent. Being respectful to everybody will avoid being humiliated. Being forgiving will be loved by everybody. Being truthful will be trusted by everybody. Being hardworking will bring success. Being benevolent (i.e. showing the people how they can benefit themselves by following certain techniques or methods) will be able to influence others to work for common good.” (恭、宽、信、敏、惠。恭则不侮，宽则得众，信则人任焉，敏则有功，惠则足以使人。)
When Confucius was the Justice Minister of Lu state, a father lodged a complaint that his son had no filial piety (孝). Confucius arrested the son, but did not make any judgment or hand out any sentence for three months. In the end, the father decided to retract the complaint, and Confucius freed the son. A minister was unhappy with the way Confucius handled the case. He said: “Confucius lied to me. He told me that filial piety is the most important fundamental principle in governing a country. Now, there is a case where he can kill one person in order to set an example which will deter other people from being rebellious to their parents. Instead of showing justice is served, he frees the offender.” When Confucius heard that, he said: “When the forefathers made a law, they would clearly explain the objectives of the law, and they abided by the law themselves. If some people break the law, the leaders would praise the rest of the people who follow the law, so that all the people would slowly be influenced to follow the law. If some people still break the law, the leaders would remove the unimportant parts of the law so that it became simplified for easy implementation. After using this practice for a few years, the people would accept and abide by the law. If a few individuals still break the law, then the punishment can be handed out. Everybody would then know why the offenders were punished.” Not educating the people but punish them when they break the law; this is an act of punishing innocent people (不教其民，而听其狱，杀不辜也。). The people are innocent if they don’t know anything about the law. The law has deterrence power but you can choose not to use them to scare the people; you can choose not to execute the punishment (i.e. catch the offenders, educate them, and then release them) (威厉而不试，刑错而不用). Honesty (忠) and Forgiveness (恕) are more fundamental than filial piety (孝); without which filial piety is faked. Law and benevolence (in term of forgiveness) are like the two wings of a bird; both must work together to bring effective results. Some people refer to these as carrot and cane. The cane is mainly used to scare the children; you don’t have to actually whip them. It would be even better if you don’t even scare them with the cane; so that they do goods not due to fear of punishment. It is best to teach them to love each other than to punish them when they break a rule innocently. Children are usually innocent, not tainted by adult’s false definitions of right and wrong. They act naturally without thinking too much; they don’t always know how to relate what they do and the rules set by adults. Even adults have difficulty relating what they do and the puzzling laws of the government. The real Confucianism emphasizes teaching the people to have honesty and forgiveness, and teaching the people to have good manners, using leadership by example, is far better than making laws and punishing the offenders (德礼优于政刑，德礼为主、政刑为辅).
What happens today is much deviated from the forefathers’ way. The education system confuses the people (i.e. teaching the children to be intolerant of differences, to have a strong selfish desire for money aka success, to the negation of everything else), and the government makes so many complex laws, making the people so bewilder and unable to follow. The government then punishes the people. That is why the law enforcements are intensified but the offences are still overwhelming. (今之世则不然，乱其教，繁其刑，其民迷惑而堕焉。则从而制之，是以刑弥繁而邪不胜。)
A system which emphasizes rule-of-law (法家) and justice (义) basically focuses on hate rather than love. It advocates hatred toward people who break the law, instead of forgiving or giving the offenders a chance to repent. The use of force by the government or the schools is a form of violence. The system advocates the use of violence against “violence”. An eye for an eye only ends up making the world blind. A three-foot ridge is not tall but steep; therefore, even an empty cart cannot cross over. A fully loaded cart can easily climb up a hundred-foot hill because the slope is gradual. (三尺之岸而虚车不能登也，百仞之山任负车登焉，何则？陵迟故也。) It is a steep order for expecting the children to comply with all kinds of silly rules within a short period of time without proper education. Confucius taught his disciples to handle hostility with a diplomatic manner (以直报怨) to get their message across, using reasons and compassion to convince people to change without damaging the relationship. Lao Zi taught us to handle hostility with love and kindness (以德报怨). Treat kindness with kindness too. There is no need to show different faces to kind friends and hostile people, because being kind is not about trying to get people to reciprocate; it is about self-conservation, of being who you are, a giant human with giant capacity (大人大量) to forgive. It is probably more effective than diplomatic manner in influencing hostile people to become more polite and friendly.
If someone is too sensitive and easily offended and, without second thought, he would use personal force or the government law to hammer obedience into anyone who offended him, it would reflect badly on the level of civilization. Truly civilized people (华夏) despise the use of violence, either at the personal level or the government level. Only barbarians (夷狄) like to use violence. Someone from a civilized nation but exhibit barbaric behaviors should be treated as a barbarian (夷狄而华夏者 则华夏之 华夏而夷狄者 则夷狄之).
Confucius said: “A person who looks serious and fierce outside, but actually feels fearful inside, is like a little man. Isn’t he similar to a thief who breaks the wall, careful but feeling afraid of getting caught?” (色厉而内荏，譬诸小人，其犹穿窬之盗也与？) “A real gentleman always looks enthusiastic (fun, friendly, sociable and emotionally expressive). A little man always looks worry and angry.” (君子坦荡荡, 小人长戚戚。) A big man has a big capacity to tolerate differences (大人有大量); a little man only wants everybody to tolerate him, or respect his sensitivity and never enrage him. A big man will give way (谦让) to others; a little man only wants everybody to give way to him. You don’t have to be rich to be a big man. In fact, rich people are often little men; they always want something from everybody instead of giving and forgiving. People who cannot give way to others often have a lot of fear; the fear comes from desires in that they are GREEDY (贪) to get something, or HATE (嗔) to see/experience something, or having delusion (痴) about something (such as seeing certain exotic hobbies as highly desirable and other things as inauspicious), therefore fear of losing things like face, fame, money, time, energy, beautiful things, delicious foods/drinks, or lavish lifestyle.
Confucius knew the negative side of promoting compassion 仁. He said: “I have never seen a person who really likes compassion but hates people who are lack of compassion. A person who really likes compassion sees it as an extremely precious/rare thing and high standard which is very hard to achieve; therefore, not expecting many people to be able to achieve it. For a person who hates lack of compassion, his show of compassion is merely to prevent himself from being grouped among the people who are lack of compassion. Will he ever use all his energy to practice being compassion?” (我未見好仁者，惡不仁者。好仁者，無以尚之；惡不仁者，其為仁矣，不使不仁者加乎其身。有能一日用其力於仁矣乎？) If compassion is easy for everyone to achieve, it will cease to be a precious thing.
子曰：“君子道者三，我无能焉：仁者不忧，知者不惑，勇者不惧。”子贡曰：“夫子自道也。” Confucius said: “A true gentleman has three characteristics, but I have none of them: truly compassionate makes him has no worry, truly understand the Dao or truth of life makes him has no doubt, truly courageous makes him has no fear.” Zi Cong said: “My great teacher. You are really describing who you really are.” Be a happy person first; have no worry, no doubt about life, and no fear. Being benevolent to others or doing good karma will make you happier (giving alms is always better than receiving) and bring good fruits to you, contributing to making you a true-man/woman.