china resources and potentialities

China’s Resources & Potentialities

A presentation based on understandings taken from the Baha’i Writings, Joe Carter 2010 02 25

“China has the most great capability. The Chinese people are most simple-hearted and truth-seeking…

Truly, I say, the Chinese are free from any deceit and hypocrisies and are prompted with ideal motives.

China is the country of the future.

Abdu’l-Baha, Reported in "Star of the West", vol. 8, April 28, 1917, No.3, p.37

Abdu’l-Baha

1950 – Establishment of the United Nations

“China, a land which has its own world and civilization, whose people (in 1923)

constitute one-fourth of the population of the globe, which ranks foremost among all nations

in material, cultural, and spiritual resources and potentialities, and whose future is assuredly bright.

Letter from Shoghi Effendi to the Baha'is of the East, 23 January 1923.

China Pop: 1.3 billion (2007)World Pop: 6.6 billion (2007)

China = 19.7%

Shoghi Effendi

Part 1: A brief look at China’s material, cultural, and spiritual resources and potentialities.

Part 2: What are China’s material, cultural, and spiritual resources and potentialities for ?

The expression of the spiritual in the material is done by the wise and the cultured…

Material Civilization, the result of their efforts, appear in the form of: - Physical Accomplishments

- Laws - Regulations - Arts and Sciences - Government

(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 283)

What do we mean by “Material, Cultural and Spiritual”?

Material and spiritual civilization are like two wings on a bird.

Spiritual Civilization is the flame inside the glass of the lamp of material civilization..

China ranks foremost in: - Material- Cultural- Spiritual Resources & Potentialities

Physical AccomplishmentsLaws & Regulations Arts & Sciences Government

Xia Dynasty (2100-1600 BC), Bronze Ritual Vessel

Shang Dynasty (1600-1027 BC), Bronze Mask

Zhou Dynasty (1027-256 BC), Ideal City described in Zhou Li: Kao Gong Ji

Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) , Clay Figurine

Han Dynasty, Clay Figurine

Han Dynasty, Brick Relief Carving

Northern Wei (386-534) / Sui / Tang, Buddhist Relief Sculpture

Tang Dynasty (618-907), Clay Figurine of a Foreign Merchant

Tang Dynasty, Big Goose Pagoda, Xian

Han to Tang Dynasty, Dun Huang Caves, Colour Scheme

Tang Dynasty, Handwriting of the Poet, Li Bai

Song Dynasty (960-1279), Porcelain

Song Dynasty, “Traveling Amid Hills and Streams” by Fan Kuan

Song Dynasty, Stone Sculpture

Song Dynasty Buddhist Statue

Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), Mural Painting

Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), “Hanging Temple”, Shanxi Province

Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Temple of Heaven, Hall of Prayers for Good Harvests

Beijing: a city linking heaven and earthThe Emperor prayed for good harvests.

Emperor’s Room: Place of Honour,Power, & Stillness

Beijing Old City: Forbidden City

Emperor’s Room: Place of Honour, Power, & Stillness

Five Colours Earth Temple

Beijing Old City: Five Colours Earth Temple

Emperor’s Room: Place of Honour, Power & Stillness

Altar

Beijing Old City: Courtyard house is a “child” of the Forbidden City. A reminder of the Heaven–Earth linkage in every home.

Patriarch’s Room: Place of Honour, Power & Stillness

Beijing Old City: Courtyard House

Patriarchs Room: Place of Honour, Power & Stillness

Beijing Old City: 2008 Olympic Site is on the ceremonial “sacred” axis. The Olympic theme also reflects a consciousness of the link between heaven and earth.

China ranks foremost in: - Material- Cultural- Spiritual Resources & Potentialities


Robert Temple, The Genius of China, 1998.

Prince Chu Cai Yu invented the tempered scale in 1584.Johann Sebastian Bach, used it for The Well-tempered Clavier, 1722.Twelve fifths = (1.0136) Seven octaves

Some Examples: The Decimal System, the compass, paper, explosives, wheelbarrow,….

Columbus and Zheng He Sailing into the wind

Voyages of exploration and exchange not conquest.

“It would be better if the nations and peoples of the world had a clearer understanding of each other, allowing the mental chasm between East and West to be bridged. After all they are, and have been for several centuries,

intimate partners in the business of building a world civilization. The technological world of today is a product of both East and West to an extent which until recently no one had ever imagined. It is now time for the Chinese contribution to be recognized and acknowledged, by East and West alike. And, above all, let this be recognized by today’s school children, who will be the generation to absorb it into their fundamental conceptions about the world. When that happens, Chinese and Westerners will be able to look each other in the eye, knowing themselves to be true and full partners.

Robert Temple, The Genius of China, 1998, p. 12

Modern Science & Technology

European Industrial Revolution

European Agricultural Revolution

Chinese Ideas and Inventions

The Islamic world was a vital link between China and Europe.

Islam, a Vital Link between China and Europe

Muslims take great pride in citing a hadith that says "Seek knowledge even unto China." It points to the importance of seeking knowledge, even if it meant traveling as far away as China, especially as at the time of the Prophet Muhammad, China was considered the most developed civilization of the period. Islam in China began during the caliphate of 'Uthman ibn Affan (Allayhi Rahma), the third caliph. After triumphing over the Byzantine, Romans and the Persians,

'Uthman ibn Affan, dispatched a deputation to China in 29 AH (650 C.E.), eighteen years after the Prophet's death, under the leadership of Sa'ad ibn Abi Waqqaas, Prophet Muhammad's maternal uncle, inviting the Chinese emperor to embrace Islam.

Even before this, the Arab traders during the time of the Prophet, had already brought Islam to China, although this was not an organized effort, but merely as an offshoot of their journey along the Silk Route (land and sea route).

To show his admiration for Islam, the emperor Yung Wei ordered the establishment of China's first mosque. The magnificent Canton city mosque known to this day as the 'Memorial Mosque' still stands today, after fourteen centuries.

One of the first Muslim settlements in China was established in this port city. The Umayyads and Abbasids sent six delegations to China, all of which were warmly received by the Chinese.

The Muslims who immigrated to China eventually began to have a great economic impact and influence on the country.

They virtually dominated the import/export business by the time of the Sung Dynasty (960 - 1279 CE).

Indeed, the office of Director General of Shipping was consistently held by a Muslim during this period. Under the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644 CE) generally considered to be the golden age of Islam in China, Muslims gradually became fully integrated into Han society.

http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/Muslims.html

http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/Muslims.html

An inscription on the northern wall of its portal dates the mosque to 1009, although most of what remains today dates from the 1310 reconstruction by Ibn Muhammed al-Quds of Shiraz, under Emperor Zhida of the Yuan Dynasty.

The Great Mosque of Quanzhou, Fujian Province

A great center of trade around the year 1000 AD.

China ranks foremost in: - Material- Cultural- Spiritual (Philosophical) Resources & Potentialities


Some aspects of Governance in China:- Long Duration- Moral Foundation- Respect for the Learned- One Center, Hierarchical

Some Aspects of the History of Government in China- Long Duration- Moral Foundation- Respect for the Learned - One Center with a Hierarchal Structure

Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel, Norton and Co., 1997

“(China) was already unified politically in 221 B.C. (Qin Dynasty) and has remained so for most of the centuries since then. From the beginnings of literacy in China, it has had only a single writing system, whereas modern Europe uses dozens of modified alphabets.

Of China’s 1.2 billion people, over 800 million speak Mandarin, the language with by far the largest number of native speakers in the world.

China has been Chinese, almost from the beginnings of its recorded history.

We take this ….unity of China so much for granted that we forget how astonishing it is.”

Qin Dynasty China: +/- 3,000,000 km²European Union: 4,324,782 km²USA (continental): 8,080,464 km² USSR: 21,352,572 km²

Xia 2200 – 1750 BC

Shang 1750 – 1040 BC

Western Zhou 1027 – 771 BC

Eastern Zhou 770 -256 BC

Qin 221 – 227 BC

+/- 3,000,000 km²

Han 206 BC – 220 AD

Tang 618 - 907

Northern Song 960 - 1127

LIAO

XI XIA

Southern Song 1127 - 1279

JIN

XI XIA

Yuan 1271 – 1368 (Chinese “Ship of State” run by Mongolian captains)

The Meng People(Mongolian)

Ming 1368 - 1644

Qing 1636 – 1911 (Chinese “Ship of State” run by Man/Qing

captains)

The Man People(Manchuria)

Qing: Rebellions (green) and Incursions (red) 1840 - 1911

Russia

Japan

Russia

EnglandEngland

France

Germany

Japan

Russia

People’s Republic of China 1949 (Relative isolation for over 25 years) Open Door 1978

The Chinese system of Governance had:

- Longevity, over 3,000 years. One country with one script.

- One Center, one Leader (the Emperor, the spiritual and temporal ruler, with the Mandate of Heaven)

- Hierarchical Organization

- Poets and philosophers as their conscience

- Examinations system for government service that tested knowledge of philosophy (Confucian texts) as of the Tang Dynasty (about 700 AD).

The Zhou Dynasty (1027 BC to 226 BC) introduced “The Mandate of Heaven”

“While the Zhou thus continues, like the Shang, to use kinship as a main element of political organization, they created a new basis of legitimacy by espousing the theory of Heaven’s mandate. Where Shang rulers had venerated and sought the guidance of their own ancestors, the Zhou claimed their sanction to rule came from a broader, impersonal deity, Heaven (tian), whose mandate (tian ming) might be conferred on any family that was morally worthy of responsibility.

This doctrine asserted the ruler’s accountability to a supreme moral force that guides the human community.

Unlike a Western ruler’s accession through the doctrine of the divine right of kings, which rested on birth alone, the Chinese theory of Heaven’s mandate set up a moral criteria for holding power.”

John K. Fairbank, China: A New History, Harvard University Press, 1992, p. 40

Confucius, in the later half of the Zhou Dynasty stressed moral cultivation of the individual as the foundation of social order and good government.

“From the son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of their person as the root of everything besides."

Chinese Ancient Governance: One Center, one Leader, Spiritual and temporal ruler combinedMandate of Heaven (not Mandate of the People), Hierarchical OrganizationOne country, one script, Poets and philosophers (Learned Individuals) as their conscience.

God

God-King

King

Jesus “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's”

Abuses of the Popes, resistance to knowledge,beginning of split between science and religion

American Revolution. Rejection of Kings, Separation of Church and State, Division of Powers, Party Systems.

Russian Revolution. Rejection of God and Kings

The Reunion of Moral

& Temporal Authority

The World (except China)

China

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The Enlightenment, The Rise of Science

A Brief History of Authority

God is Dead

Compare with Chinese Ancient Governance: One Center, one Leader

Spiritual and temporal ruler combinedMandate of Heaven, not Mandate of the People

Hierarchical Organization One country, one script

Poets and philosophers (Learned Individuals) as their conscience

China ranks foremost in: - Material- Cultural- Spiritual (Philosophical) Resources & Potentialities


Chinese Spiritual and Philosophical Resources

•Buddhism (Mahayana)

•Confucianism “Confucius renewed morals and ancient virtues.” Abdu’l-Baha, SAQ, p. 165

•Daoism

•Poets (for example: Li Bai and Du Fu)

Love of justice expressed in the words of its poets and philosophers. Daoism: Belief in harmony through dynamic balance, complementary poles: male-female, material-spiritual, inside-outside, light-dark, logic-intuition….capacity to merge opposites and resolve paradoxes, balanced ying and yang, an attitude toward systems, such as in healing and the human body, that allows it to see “wholes” more than dichotomies.The long Confucian tradition that moral order is the foundation of social order and harmony. The well-being of society depends on the spiritual health of the individual. Confucius said if he had to summarize his teachings in one word it would be “reciprocity”. “Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself.” “In hearing litigation, I feel, like anybody else, the necessity to cause the people to have no litigation”. An appetite for consensus-seeking, not litigation, to resolve conflicts.From Buddhism, China has a received high-minded spirituality and a keen sense of the coherence between the material and the spiritual. An emphasis on the importance of the group.Love of perfection that generated so many centuries of civilized beauty. Capacity for obedience. Open-mindedness, tolerance, a lack of prejudice, desire to learn and "seek truth from facts“. Love for the practical application of knowledge; the admiration for deeds not words. Importance given to family relationships, especially respect for parents and elders. A belief in the harmony between man and nature, as seen in China's art, much of its poetry, and, in particular, its garden design. These prefigure the essential concerns of sustainability. Belief in "Tian Xia Yi Jia" (All under heaven is one family).Freedom should not overstep "the boundaries of right".ModerationModesty

A Selection of Some of China’s Spiritual Concepts & Characteristics

Poets Du Fu (AD 713-770)

"Behind the red-painted doors wine and meat are stinking.On the wild roads lie corpses of people frozen to death.A hair breadth divides wealth and poverty.This strange contrast fills me with unappeasable anguish.”

The Roof Whirled Away by Winds "When will this long night of drizzle come to an end?Now I dream of an immense mansion, tens of thousands of rooms,Where all the cold creatures can take shelter, their faces alight;Not moved by the wind or the rain, a mansion as solid as the mountain. Alas, when shall I see such a majestic house?If I could see this, even though my poor house were torn down,Even though I were frozen to death I would be content.


Daoism

"No calamity is greater than not knowing what is enough No fault worse than wanting too much Whoever knows what is enough Has enough. Attachment comes at wasteful cost; Hoarding leads to a certain loss; Knowing what is enough avoids disgrace; Knowing when to stop secures from peril. Only thus can you long last.

Lao Zi, Dao De Jing, ch. 46 and 44

"The sage does not hoard, The more he does for others, The more he has himself. The more he gives, The more he gets.

[1] Lao Zi, Dao De Jing, ch. 8.

Confucianism

The Great Learning (Da Xue), an “executive summary” of the teachings of Confucius. Every school child for centuries memorized it; and its theme is deeply embedded in Chinese culture. [

Briefly, it states that the goal of development is: • to illustrate virtue: • to renovate the people; and • to rest in the highest excellence.

The methods include: • self-regulation • cultivation, and rectification, • investigation

The process relates the accomplishment of peaceful development with the internal life of the nation, the well-being of society to the spiritual health of the individual.

"From the son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of their person as the root of everything besides."

The investigation of reality by the individual is the fulcrum upon which the inner and outer balance depends.

Confucius 551- 459 BC

Wishing to order well their own States,

“The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the empire, first ordered well their own States.

孔子 ( 大学 ) Kong Zi (Great Learning)

they first regulated their families.

Wishing to order well their families, they first cultivated their persons

Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts.

Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts.

Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge.

Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things. Things being investigated, knowledge became complete.

Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere.

Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified.

Their hearts being rectified their persons were cultivated.

Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated.

Their families being regulated, their States were rightly governed.

Their States being rightly governed, the whole empire was made tranquil and happy.

“Social advancement, we know, arises from the ideals and shared beliefs that weld society together. Meaningful social change results as much from the development of qualities and attitudes that foster constructive patterns of human interaction as from the acquisition of technical capacities. True prosperity - a well-being founded on peace, cooperation, altruism, dignity, rectitude of conduct and justice – flows from the light of spiritual awareness and virtue as well as from material discovery and progress.

Such qualities as trustworthiness, compassion, forbearance, fidelity, generosity, humility, courage, and willingness to sacrifice for the common good have constituted the invisible yet essential foundations of progressive community life.]

Overcoming Corruption and Safeguarding Integrity in Public Institutions: A Baha’i Perspective "Global Forum on Fighting Corruption II", May 2001, the Hague, Netherlands.

“From the son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of their person as the root of everything besides.“ From “The Great Learning”

Balance: Inner/Outer, Spiritual/Material

“Wo Bu Pa Ben, Wo Pa Hui” 我不怕苯 , 我怕坏 .

I don’t fear stupid (behaviour); I fear bad (behaviour).Miss Zhang, Grade 3 teacher, Black Sesame Lane Elementary School, Beijing, 1997.

"…unless the moral character of a nation is educated, as well as its brain and its talents, civilization has no sure basis."

Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks, Baha’i Publishing Trust, London, 1979, p. 31.



“….the communities are day and night occupied in making penal laws, and in preparing and organizing instruments and means of punishment. They build prisons, make chains and fetters, arrange places of exile and banishment, and different kinds of hardships and tortures, and think by these means to discipline criminals, whereas, in reality, they are causing destruction of morals and perversion of characters.

The community, on the contrary, ought day and night to strive and endeavor with the utmost zeal and effort to accomplish the education of men, to cause them day by day to progress and to increase in science and knowledge, to acquire virtues, to gain good morals and to avoid vices, so that crimes may not occur.

Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 270

“In hearing litigation, I feel, like anybody else, the necessity to cause the people to have no litigation.” Confucius

If a relationship descended to the need for litigation, it was a sign of a lack of moral education.



FREEDOM

"At fifteen my heart was set on learning; at thirty, I stood firm in the society; at forty I had no more doubts; at fifty, I knew the mandate of heaven; at sixty, my ear can tell the good from the bad; at seventy I could follow my heart's desire without transgressing the norm”.

(Another translation of this last part: "At seventy, I could follow the dictates of my own heart, for what I desired no longer overstepped the boundaries of right.)

This quotation from Confucius is so well known to Chinese people that they often identify the age of a person not by years, but by the maturity of his relationship to freedom.

Someone in their thirties is referred to as being in the "er li" - "stand firm" stage of development; in their forties, the "hu huo" - "not confused" stage; in their fifties, "zhi tian ming" - "understand the meaning of life"; sixties, "er shun", "can distinguish good from bad"; and in their 70s, "er cong xin suo yu" - "follow desire from the heart without transgressing the norm". It is understood that real freedom is attained after a life-long learning process, that it has limits. Freedom should not overstep "the boundaries of right".

“The quality of freedom and of its expression -- indeed, the very capacity to maintain freedom in a society -- undoubtedly depends on the knowledge and training of individuals and on their ability to cope with the challenges of life with equanimity."[1]


“This (individual-society) relationship, so fundamental to the maintenance of civilized life, calls for the utmost degree of understanding and cooperation between society and the individual;


“All within the four seas are brothers”

Confucius, Analects 12:5

"Heaven is my father and earth is my mother...all people are my brothers and sisters, and all things are my companions..."

Zhang Zai (1020-77), a Neo-Confucian pioneer

“The Earth is One Country and Mankind its Citizens”Baha’u’llah


BuddhismThe religion that empowered/propelled Chinese civilization

Buddhism

Hînayâna (Lesser Vehicle) Buddhism “is continuous with the Buddhism of the early disciples in emphasizing the necessity of renouncing the world and aggressively pursuing the path of self-conquest…..Its spirit ideal is symbolized by the individual who in self-sufficient homelessness has overcome the power of craving…..and has thus gained the unutterable peace of Nirvana.

Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) Buddhism is a movement that arose within Indian Buddhism around the beginning of the Common Era and became by the 9th century the dominant influence on the Buddhist cultures of Central and East Asia. Mahâyâna spread from India to Tibet, China, Korea and Japan, giving rise to various schools.

While the Hînayâna practitioner seeks his or her own liberation, the Mahayanist wishes to attain enlightenment for the sake of the welfare or benefit of all sentient, suffering beings.

E.A Burtt, The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha, A Mentor Book, 1982., p.123-4

Buddhism…..the influence (of Mahayana) Buddhism ….lay in its practice of love and equality, which was an outcome of its fundamental teaching of the unity of all beings, and of its ideal of supreme enlightenment to be attained by all. This enlightenment amounts to realizing…the basic unity of existence, the spiritual communion pervading the whole universe. Those united in the faith in Buddha and His teaching form a close community of spiritual fellowship, in which the truth of oneness is embodied and the life of charity is practiced….

The central idea in (Mahayana) Buddhist teaching is the gospel of universal salvation based on the idea of the fundamental oneness of all beings…. save oneself by saving others is the gospel of universal salvation taught by Buddhism.” Because of one’s compassionate concern for (others), one’s own spiritual peace cannot be perfect as long as salvation has not been universally won.

E.A Burtt, The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha, A Mentor Book, 1982., p.123-4

Members of the Board of Design Consultants appointed to plan the constructionof UN permanent headquarters on Manhattan 's East River site. Foreground, left to right: Liang Si Cheng, China; Oscar Niemeyer, Brazil ; Nikolai D. Bassov , USSR ; and Ernest Cormier, Canada . In second row, from left to right: Sven Markelius, Sweden; Charles E. Le Corbusier, France; Vladimir Bodiansky, France, engineer consultant to Director; Wallace K. Harrison, chief architect, USA; G.A. Soilleux, Australia; Max Abramovitz, USA, Director of Planning; and consultants Ernest Weismann, Yugoslavia; Anthony C. Antoniades, Greece, and Matthew Nowicki, Poland. New York . 18 April 1947 .

Liang Si Cheng, a prominent Chinese architect


Liang Si Cheng, founder of the School of Architecture at Qinghua University, states Buddhism inspired the arts and architecture of China. In the introduction to his book, A Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture, he says:

"The reader should not be surprised that the overwhelming number of architectural examples presented here are Buddhist temples, pagodas and tombs. In all times and at all places religion has provided the strongest impetus to architectural creation. [1]

“Buddhism reached China at approximately the beginning of the Christian era. Though there are records of the erection of a Buddhist pagoda as early as the beginning of the third century A.D, we possess today no Buddhist monument before the middle of the fifth century. However, from then on until the later fourteenth century, the history of Chinese architecture is chiefly the history of Buddhist (and a few Taoist) temples and their pagodas.”[2]

[1] Liang Si Cheng, A Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture, MIT Press, 1984, p.3.[2] Liang Se Cheng, A Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture, MIT Press, 1984, p. 31.

Fo Guang Si in Shanxi Province, A Tang Dynasty temple built in 857 AD, one of the two oldest wooden structures in China. Discovered by Liang Si Cheng & his wife Lin Hui Yin In June 1937

Shi Jing Shan, southwest Beijing. Caves contain 1000 year old Buddhist scriptures carved in stone tabletsThe beauty of the script was out of respect for the beauty of the words.

MaitreyeIs the name of the Future Buddha

“Another Buddha will arise in the world…., 'How shall we know Him?' The Blessed One replied: 'He will be known as Maitreya, which means He Whose name is "kindness”.Baha'u'llah's given name, Husayn, is Arabic for "kindness.“ Bah’u’llah is the Maitreye, the fifth Buddha, the Future Buddha.

Amitabha Amitabha is the main object of devotion of the Pure Land (Jing Tu/Holy Land) School of Chinese Buddhism. He is considered to preside over a Pure Land to the west. The name "Amitabha" can be translated as “Light of the Infinite”--very similar to the title "Baha'u'llah““Glory or Light of God”. The word "ABHA" ("most glorious") is the superlative form of the word BAHA (Glory).Chinese people often repeat: “Na Mo Amitofu” or “Praise Amitabha” (Praise Baha’u’llah) Statue of Maitreye, the Future Buddha

At Yong He Gong, Beijing.The statue is 18 meters high and is made from one piece of wood

Note: The Hindu language has the same source as Persian, both belong to Arian language.

Shoghi Effendi stated that “China ranks foremost in:

- Material- Cultural- Spiritual Resources & Potentialities


The presentation so far has provided a glimpse, showing China’s: - Rich artistic expression - Science and technology were the most advanced in world until 1400 AD (+/-)- Millennia of experience administering vast territories- Rich spiritual heritage and rich experience in the art of living

Conclusion of Part 1

Part 1: A brief look at China’s material, cultural, and spiritual resources and potentialities.

Part 2: What are China’s material, cultural, and spiritual resources and potentialities for ?

What are China’s Material, Cultural, and Spiritual Resources and Potentialities for ?

Social evolution has arrived at the beginning of its maturity, to be expressed in a New World Order, a global civilization.

China has been prepared through its long history to make its own valuable contributions to that Order.

“The Earth is One Country and Mankind its Citizens”Baha’u’llah

"...the earth's inhabitants are now challenged to draw on their collective inheritance

• to take up, consciously and systematically, the responsibility for the design of their future…..

• to..."erect.....a social system at once progressive and peaceful, dynamic and harmonious, a system giving free play to individual creativity and initiative but based on co-operation and reciprocity. [2]

The challenge of maturity is • to accept that we are one people, • to free ourselves from the limited identities and creeds of the past, and • to build together the foundations of global civilization.

"Today, humanity has entered on its collective coming-of-age, endowed with the capacity to see the entire panorama of its development as a single process.

"The primary question to be resolved is how the present world, with its entrenched pattern of conflict, can change to a world in which harmony and co-operation will prevail.

World order can be founded only on an unshakable consciousness of

the oneness of mankind, a spiritual truth which all the human sciences confirm.[3]

[2] To the Peoples of the World: A Baha’i Statement on Peace, Introduction, The Universal House of Justice, October 1985.[3] Ibid, Part 3.

The New World Order: A Turning Point….new goals

John Fairbank

This noted Sinologist, in the introduction to his recent book, China: A New History, refers to China as a latecomer to modernity. And, he asks whether China has emerged from isolation just in time

to participate in the demise of the world or,

with millennia of survival experience,

to rescue it?

What will China’s contribution be to the New World Order?

Yan Yang Chu

".....through the last forty centuries China must have matured her thought and learned many lessons in the art of living. Maybe China has something to contribute. Surely there must be a better way, a more humane way of settling international disputes than just by cutting each other's throats.

Surely, with China's four hundred million people (in 1930), four thousand years of culture and vast resources, she must have something to contribute to the peace and progress of mankind.“

Yan Yang Chu (James Yen) was the founder, in China of the Mass Education Movement. In the 1930s, of a rural development education program in Ding Zhou, south of Beijing. In 1943, he was awarded a Copernicus Citation, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Copernicus. The awards were given in Carnegie Hall, New York City, to ten outstanding modern revolutionaries; the others included: Albert Einstein, Orville Wright, Henry Ford, and John Dewey.


“Fraternity is the as yet unrealized ideal of humanity. Liberty has no safe foundation except human brotherhood. Equality can never be anything but a dream until we feel towards each other as brothers. It may be for China, to point the way to this fraternity. Napoleon Bonaparte said, ‘When China moves, she will move the world’. For centuries, the Chinese have been a peace-loving people. China with its multitudinous population and its love of peace cannot but be instrumental in bringing about Universal Peace – when rights need not be backed by armies and dreadnoughts.

Song Qing Ling, Woman in World History: Song Qing Ling, Israel Epstein, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 2003, p.5.

In June 1947, Song Qing Ling wrote to Nehru saying, referring to the civil war in China and pre-independence convulsions in India, “Perhaps this is the tempering process from which our peoples will emerge with awareness and new spirit for their task in the future civilization.”

She suggests the suffering of China has helped it acquire capacity.

Song Qing Ling (wife of Sun Zhong Shan)

Bertrand Russell While he was serving as a teacher in Beijing in the1920s, He observed China's:

"production without possession, action without self-assertion, and development without domination".

Russell, Bertrand, The Basic Writings Writings of Bertrand Russell: 1903-1959, Edited by Robert E. Egner and Lester E. Dennon, George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1961 .


“China, a land which has its own world and civilization, whose people (in 1923)

constitute one-fourth of the population of the globe, which ranks foremost among all nations

in material, cultural, and spiritual resources and potentialities, and whose future is assuredly bright.

Letter from Shoghi Effendi to the Baha'is of the East, 23 January 1923.

China Pop: 1.3 billion (2007)World Pop: 6.6 billion (2007)

China = 19.7%

Shoghi Effendi


The challenge of maturity gives rise to, or entails, some specific challenges. These include: - Materialism - Corruption - Dialogue between science and a belief system - Maturation from authoritarian to “integrative” social relations - Equality between men and women - A vast Increase in human capacity / Grass-roots institutional capacity - Environmental Sustainability - A Common Development Vision

The more China "buys" into" an exclusively material definition of modernization, the less it will see its own potential value and the harder it will be for it to find its heritage of any relevance to modern life.

The more the definition of “modern” excludes the development of our spiritual capacity, the more will China’s heritage be overlooked, and the more China will feel like an outsider to the global development process. Is it possible that China something important to contribute to “true“ modernization?

Challenge: Materialism

Bao Gong, the symbol of uprightness, has received bribes.Cartoon from a Chinese newspaper, 2007

Hui (Bribe)

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Challenge: Corruption

Challenge: Dialogue between science and a belief system


"When words and action are not directed by a moral force, scientific knowledge and technical know-how conduce as readily to misery as they do to prosperity and happiness." [1]

“The empowerment of humankind through a vast increase in access to science and technology requires a strategy for development which is centered around an ongoing and intensifying dialogue between scientific and spiritual knowledge. [4]

[1] Position Statement on Education, prepared by Baha’i International Task Force on Education, 1989.[4] Baha'i International Community, Office of Public Information, The Prosperity of Humankind, Part 4, 1995.

Social Character

Characteristics World View Emotional and Intellectual

Characteristics

Relationships with Others

1. Authoritarian Power- oriented DichotomousPerceptions

Rigidity Authoritarian Submission

2. Indulgent Pleasure-oriented

Indiscriminate Perceptions

Promiscuity Anarchic Relationships

3. Integrative Growth-oriented Unity in Diversity Creativity Responsibility and Cooperation

Three Kinds of Social Relationships

Challenge: Maturation from authoritarian to “integrative” social relations

“Authoritarian” is a stage of growth.

Chart by psychologist Dr. Hossain Danesh

Authoritarian Power-Oriented Relations

“Women hold up half the sky”. Chairman Mao Ze Dong

"The world in the past has been ruled by force and man has dominated over woman by reason of his more forceful and aggressive qualities both of body and mind. But the scales are shifting, force is losing its weight, and mental alertness, intuition, and the spiritual qualities of love and service, in which women is strong, are gaining ascendancy.

Hence the new age will be an age less masculine and more permeated with the feminine ideals, or to speak more exactly, will be an age in which the masculine and feminine elements of civilization will be more properly balanced.

Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'u'llah and the New Era, 1976 U.S. edition, p.156.

[1]

Challenge: Equality between men and women

“Men are more burdened with the more adolescent attitudes and habits of competition and control. Maturity for a man is autonomy and separation from others, independence and individual achievement. A concern with relationships, and co-operation appear as weaknesses.

Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice, Harvard Press, 1982.

‘Despite the competitive aspects of any society, there must be a bedrock modicum of cooperation for society to exist at all. (I define cooperative as behavior that aids and enhances the development of other human beings while advancing one's own.) It is certainly clear we have not reached a very high level of cooperative living. To the extent that it exists, women have assumed the greater responsibility for providing it. Although they may not label it in large letters, women in families are constantly trying to work out some sort of cooperative system that attends to each person's needs.

Dr. Jean Baker-Miller, Towards a New Psychology of Women, Beacon Press, Boston, Second Edition, p.62-3.

"The assumption of superiority by man will continue to be depressing to the ambition of woman.

Abdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, US edition, 1982, p.76.

As long as the authoritarian mode predominates, women, like a minority’s relationship to a majority, have to know the men better than the men know them.

[1]

“Society will find itself increasingly challenged to develop new economic models shaped by insights that arise form a sympathetic understanding of shared experience, from viewing human beings in relation to others, and from a recognition of the centrality to social well-being of the role of the family and the community.

Such an intellectual breakthrough - strongly altruistic rather than self-centered in focus – must draw heavily on both the spiritual and scientific sensibilities of the race, and millennia of experience have prepared women to make crucial contributions to the common effort.

Baha'i International Community, Office of Public Information, The Prosperity of Humankind, Part 5.

Women, therefore, may more easily be able to transition to the integrative mode. If China “ranks foremost among all nations in material, cultural, and spiritual resources and potentialities”, and Chinese women are advancing more rapidly toward the integrative mode; then perhaps Chinese women are foremost among the foremost!

Challenge: A Vast Increase in Human Capacity

“The creation of the institutions of a global society, a web of interconnected structures that hold society together at all levels, from local to international institutions that gradually become the patrimony (inheritance) of all the inhabitants of the planet is for me one of the major challenges of development planning and strategy.

Without it, I fear, globalization will be synonymous with the marginalisation of the masses.

Dr. Farzam Arbab, The Lab, the Temple, and the Market, IDRC, 2001.

A Vast Increase in Human Capacity requires a corresponding increase in grass-roots institutional capacity.

Their families being regulated, their States were rightly governed.

Their States being rightly governed, the whole empire was made tranquil and happy.

The Great Learning

Lin Yu Tang (1895-1976) pointed out in 1935 in his book,

“My Country and My People”, that the Confucian teaching, the Great Learning, moves through the levels of social organization and leaves out community.

He says that the jump from State to family is indicative; that unity and loyalty are operative at these two levels, but this sense is weak in between.

Add an institutional layer at the community level

to channel safely, productively, and creatively the increasing capacity of humanity.

Ultimately only a spiritually based civilization – in which science and religion work in harmony – will be able to preserve the ecological balance of the earth, foster stability in human population, and advance both the material and the spiritual well-being of all peoples and nations.

From “Conservation and Sustainable Development in the Bahá'í Faith”, a paper presented by the Bahá'í International Community to the Summit on the Alliance Between Religions and Conservation. 3 May 1995.

Challenge: Environmental Sustainability

“The fallacies in theories based on the belief that there is no limit to nature's capacity to fulfill any demand made on it by human beings have now been coldly exposed. A culture which attaches absolute value to expansion, to acquisition, and to the satisfaction of people's wants is being compelled to recognize that such goals are not, by themselves, realistic guides to policy.”

Prosperity of Humankind, Section 5, statement prepared by the Baha’i International Community Office, 1995

Spiritual HeritagesChallenge: Environmental Sustainability

"No calamity is greater than not knowing what is enough No fault worse than wanting too much Whoever knows what is enough Has enough. Attachment comes at wasteful cost; Hoarding leads to a certain loss; Knowing what is enough avoids disgrace; Knowing when to stop secures from peril. Only thus can you long last.

Lao Zi, Dao De Jing, ch. 46 and 44

"The sage does not hoard, The more he does for others, The more he has himself. The more he gives, The more he gets.

Lao Zi, Dao De Jing, ch. 8

Spiritual Heritages

The “Visions” that spawned and impelled civilizations are the religions of the world. As their vitality declined, so too the civilization. Each one of them, however, helped humanity advance toward maturity, preparing it for the est

ablishment of a global civilization, the goal of evolution. Our newly emerging One World needs a Common Faith, one universal Cause, to meet the challenges of our new condition.

Challenge: A Common Development Vision

Arnold J. Toynbee This British historian referred to civilization as a process, an endeavor...

“….to create a state of society in which the whole of mankind will be able to live together in harmony as members of a single all-inclusive family. This is, I believe, the goal at which all civilizations so far have been aiming unconsciously, if not consciously.“

Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, abridged one-volume edition, p.44.

The civilizations are like rivers, leading to the ocean of the New World Order.

Krishna

Buddha

Zoroaster

Abraham

Moses

Jesus Christ

Muhammad

The Bab

Baha’u’llah

The Founders of the world’s great religions are the sources of civilization

The Elements of Civilization were all Present in China’s History

“All these religions have their source in Heaven which they obey. Traced to the source, the three sages are no different.

Poem on the three religions, in the Tao Xuan. Cited in Chan,Religious Pluralism, p.123

New World Order

“The true and outworking spirit of modernism..”

“This re-formation and renewal of the fundamental reality of religion constitute the true and outworking spirit of modernism, the unmistakable light of the world, the manifest effulgence of the Word of God, the divine remedy for all human ailment and the bounty of eternal life to all mankind.

Abdu'l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 10.

Material, Cultural, and Spiritual HeritagesWho is ready to build the New World Order? What is the condition of those approaching this challenge?

Fanaticism

Sense of superiority

Indifference

Suspicion Open-mindedness

Truth-seeking

Free from deceit and hypocrisies

Promptedwith ideal motives

“In the world there are many different roads but the destination is the same. There are a hundred deliberations but the result is one.

The Book of Changes, cited in Legge, The Four Books, pt. 2, ch. 5

Flexibility

Simple-hearted

Doubt

FearDespair

Hope

Sense of Purpose

TASKBuild together

the foundations of global civilization

(True Modernism)

Examples of qualities and attitudes to the great task before us

Magnanimity

Rigidity

Chauvinism

ToleranceModeration

Cynicism

It may be a confirmation and a joy, lifting the hearts of the Chinese people, to find so much of their vast cultural, philosophical, and spiritual heritage

is in tune with the genuine requirements of this new age, to find they have valuable contributions to make to “true” modernization.

"As China becomes more and more involved with other nations, it can, through its own example and its concerted efforts to foster world peace,

become a most effective participant in the development of a new, world civilization. China does not need to follow the same path already trodden by other nations;

it can open a new path that will lead it directly to an honored position in a New World Order that China, itself, will have helped to build.”

Dr. Farzam Arbab

True Modernization

“O Thou Provider! The dearest wish of this servant of Thy Threshold is to behold the friends of East and West in close embrace;

to see all the members of human society gathered with love in a single great assemblage,

even as individual drops of water collected in one mighty sea; to behold them all as birds in one garden of roses,

as pearls of one ocean, as leaves of one tree, as rays of one sun.”

Abdu’l-Baha

Thank you!谢谢 !