Introduction

This book has focused mainly on Western thinkers. It has articulated the quest of thinkers from
European traditions to articulate the good and live in a way that realizes the good. The text follows the
debate of Western humanity regarding the grounds and norms of ethical self-realization.

It follows the rootedness of these norms on the natural law to their grounding in reason and the
eventual employment of discourse theory to arrive at a shared conception of the good in a multiverse of
society. In most ethics courses, including this one, there is heavy emphasis on the traditions of the West
to train students to think about the ethical way of existence. However, there is another tradition of
thinking about the good that is worth considering for a fuller understanding of how people orient their
lives to the good.

This tradition comes from the great civilizations of the East, particularly from India and China.The
students of this course may not realize it but many people in the lities in s are deeply influenced by
ornave great commonalities in their ethical way of thinking with these traditions. For instance, people
believe that if they do bad things, they could be victims of misfortune because of Karma. Others believe
that one ought to live in a way that honors their ancestors. Most people believe that the world is
ordered by Heaven and that if one wishes to have a good life, one must understand that order and live
one's life according to it. These are all beliefs that echo or are derived from Indian and Chinese
traditions. It would be profitable to study these traditions because they are closer to Asian moral
sensibilities and have shaped them.

These Asian traditions share some general characteristics.

Manuel B. Dy identifies six common themes which can be drawn from the great Asian spiritual and
intellectual traditions. Firstly, one can immediately notice that religious thought is intertwined with
philosophical and ethical thinking. There is no real separation of beliefs about the transcendent and the
cosmos, including the traditional mythical beliefs. Beliefs about Dharma and Karma, the Dao and the
gods, frame the critical understanding of the great Asian Philosophical traditions regarding the good and
the good life. At heart, there is a quest to define what it means to live a good human life and their
reflections could not be extricated from their greater belief about how the gods or the greater order of
Heaven govern the universe and keep order, or their intuition that there is a transcendent order that
rules human flourishing but is not and cannot be defined by the intellect. Also, at the heart of this union
of faith and critical thinking about the good is a quest for emancipation. Dy says that at the heart of all
Asian philosophical thought is the quest for emancipation: "be it from moral degradation as inthe case
of Confucianism, from misery as it is in Taoism and Buddhism, and from finitude as in the case of
Hinduism."12

Dy then notes that a second theme which binds these intellectual traditions is "love and compassion."
Since every system seeks to realize human emancipation and fullness, a human fullness that is rooted in
the transcendence of suffering, finitude, disorder, strife, and maybe even death, it becomes important
that people live with love and compassion.
Compassion and love, they intuit, are paths to tranquility, peace, and being whole. Connected with this
is the third theme which is the connectedness of personal cultivation and social responsibility. Realizing
one's goodness is sometimes tied to fulfilling one's duty to one's family, one's clan, and one's
government. 18

Enlightenment is the fourth theme. Each of the great Asian traditions, more or less, outlines a path to
enlightenment. This means an awakening to the true order of the universe which leads to an awakening
to the order to which human beings align their existence." Thus, these traditions give human beings a
path to awareness of the true order of all things, unclouded by human desire and folly, in order to
become what they ought to be.

A final characteristic is that these great teachings offer paths of "harmony with oneself, with others,
with nature, with a Transcendent."15 Because the fullness of human becoming is central to all these
traditions, they all have teachings related to the harmony of self with all beings, especially the
transcendent. For these traditions, the existing transcendent order is the very basis of all forms of
existence.

Human suffering and disquiet are rooted in the person'sinability or inadequate participation in the order
of things.

Thus, various Indian schools of thought speak of the need for human beings to be enligatened in the
ways of the one order of the universe and align one's way of being to that order.

Examples of some of these great traditions are discussed here to give readers sense of how their
metaphysical, religious, and mythical conceptions of the universe can be the foundation of an ethics.The
Vedas and Upanishads

Indian philosophy is not discussed extensively in this section. Buddhism is the focus of this discussion but
only because it is the aspect of Indian thought most relevant and most useful to the local students.
However, the discussion begins with some aspects of ancient Indian philosophy that give the reader the
foundational thought of this tradition.

The Vedas are some of the oldest philosophical writings in the world. These series of hymns to the most
ancient gods are a poetic articulation of the structure and meaning of the universe. Here, there is a
family of gods for whom the hymns are composed. The hymns themselves are considered direct
revelations that speak of the most sacred knowledge about the world, its creation, and the principles of
reality. And the most basic insight of these writings is that Rita is the foundational principle of all things.
Rita is the right order of the universe. Human beings experience this order through the presence of the
gods to whom they dedicate the performance of the hymns embodied in rituals. Each god is a
manifestation of a force or principle of the universe and the singing of their hymns leads to the
realization of a good life aligned to the order of the cosmos and the forces that keep it like the Rita. '
More popularly, this means the performance of ritualsaccording to how priests define perfection. And
unfortunately, most people take the Vedas to be a handbook of prescribed rituals. The focus is on the
external rituals to realize good fortune, which leads to a rethinking of the revelations of the Vedas
collected in the Upanishads.

The writers of the Upanishads seek to understand the fullness of human becoming by realizing the
deepest insight about the true nature of the universe. They seek to articulate why and how human
beings could come to fullness through enlightenment about the transcendent, unchanging reality of
being. The expression of the path to enlightenment is through poetic deliberations on the nature of
being and the human realization of self in this universe.

Beyond rituals, the authors of the Upanishads share a path of spiritual enlightenment. The first idea is
Samsara or reincarnation. All human beings are born repeatedly in different forms of life. It is not just a
process of repetition but one of purification. In each incarnation, a person has a chance to live a more
enlightened life. In the teaching of Karma or actions and their consequences, the actions of persons
have just consequences. The way persons live their lives redounds on what happens to them, and more
importantly, it determines their reincarnation. Reincarnation is not a mere repetitive process, where
one is arbitrarily reborn without reason. The process is one of enlightenment and liberation.

One seeks to go beyond the Karmic cycle of rebirth and, in a sense, entrapment in the life of the finite
body. The panishads teach that by living a life of meditation and purification, one achieves a state of
spiritual enlightenment that will allow us to live in genuine accord with the order of the good. If one
lives well, Karma will lead one to a better life. Thus, one must live well according to one's Darma, which
is the duty that one has based on one's station or station in life. There are duties given one's cast or
status in the social order, and if one fulfills all one's given duties,one can escape the Karmic cycle which
is the state of Moksha or liberation.

To achieve Moksha, remust Ame to the insight that all things are one in the Brahman. All things that
exist are from the Brahman, and ultimately all things return to the Brahman. That simple realization
leads to Moksha or the state of enlightenment that liberates persons from the cycle of birth and rebirth
to a state of stillness and a rootedness in the eternal. This is because the direct insight into this truth
allows one to lose one's egotismi and sense of the importance of the individual self. The fullness of
human existence is to find one's oneness which is one's eternity with the Brahman.

The realization that "all is Brahman" correlates to the greater insight that "Brahman is Atman" and
"Atman is Brahman." Atman is the self that underlies all being. It is the eternal self which is all our
selves. And so all things are one being in Brahman and they are all one self in Atman. 7 To achieve
Moksha is to come to the deepest awareness of this truth and to realize it in one's way of being. Is This
insight can be achieved if one purifies oneself of material needs and desires and meditates on the truths
revealed through the Vedas and Upanishads. One needs direct access to this truth through insight, thus
the need for purification and meditation.

All this exercise aims to experience "the absolute within oneself."° And with that, one finds the eternal
and still center of existence that is finite and comes to an end.
Here we can see how the religious/metaphysical/mythical/ mystical principles of Indian philosophy can
be the foundation for an ethics. If we ask the question "How does a good person live her life?"

', then the answer is to live in a way that leadsto the insight that all things are Brahman, and Brahman
and Atman are one. This means a good human life is one of purification. One must act in a way that does
not detract from insight and enlightenment. Also, one must be careful of one's actions so it does not
incur negative Karma which keeps one imprisoned in the cycle of rebirth. Indian philosophies and
religions seek to articulate how to live in such a way that one fulfills these basic insights.

Buddhism is one development of this worldview.Buddhism

Buddhism was born from the enlightenment of Gautama Buddha who lived between the 6th and 4th
BCE.

A sheltered prince, Buddha sought the meaning of existence when he realized that human life is
suffering. The Buddha's lifelong search led him to extreme asceticism. However, he discovered that
enlightenment and salvation could be achieved in the ordinary human life if

Gautama Buddha

people are enlightened about the nature of suffering. People who seek to arrive at a higher level of
enlightenment, where one can see "beyond birth and death,"20 need to realize four truths called
Chatvari-arya-satyani.

The first truth is that life is suffering or dukkha. In the cycle of death, life, and rebirth, there is constant
suffering." The second truth is that action or karma is the cause of thissuffering, particularly
"nonvirtuous action, and the negative mental states that motivate such actions."? These are afflictions
of the mind such as desire, hatred, and ignorance which are rooted in the wrong valuation of self or
atman. The extreme valuing of the self, the desire to preserve the I is the cause of suffering. People only
need to awaken to the truth that there is no self to preserve. And as long as people keep believing that it
is the human being's task to cultivate the self, people will be trapped in egotism and selfishness.

The third truth is that there is an end to suffering and the path beyond suffering is to transcend this
illusion and enter the state of nirvana. Nirvana is the dissolution of suffering which is the fruit of the
surrender of the ego. In this way, they surrender hatred and desire because hatred and desire are the
fruits of the fact that there is no individual self.

The path to this awakening is articulated by Donald Lopez thus:

One useful way to approach the topic is through the traditional triad of ethics, meditation, and wisdom.

Ethics refers to the conscious restrain of nonvirtuous deeds of body and speech, usually through
observing some form of vows. Meditation (Dhyana), in this context, refers to developing a sufficient
level of concentration (through a variety of techniques) to make the mind a suitable tool for breaking
through the illusion of self to the vision of nirvana. Wisdom is insight, at a deep level of concentration,
into the fact that there is no self. Such wisdom is said not only to prevent the accumulation of future
karma but eventually to destroy all past karma so that upon death, one is not reborn but passes into
nirvana."Clearly, the path to Virvana offers a foundation for living a good life and acting according to the
good. It requires a disciplined form of life in order to realize human fullness.

This is explained in the fourth truth-how human beings ought to live a life free from suffering by
following the Eightfold Path or Astangika-marga. Again, Donald Lopez provides a concise description of
this path:

In brief, the eight elements of the path are: (1) correct view, an accurate understanding of the nature of
things, specifically the Four Noble Truths; (2) correct intention, avoiding thoughts of attachment, hatred,
and harmful intent; (3) correct speech, refraining from verbal misdeeds such as lying, divisive speech,
harsh speech, and senseless speech; (4) correct action, refraining from physical misdeeds such as killing,
stealing, and sexual misconduct; (5) correct livelihood, avoiding trades that directly or indirectly harm
others, such as selling slaves, weapons, animals for slaughter, intoxicants, or poisons; (6) correct effort,
abandoning negative states of mind that have already arisen, preventing negative states that have yet to
arise, and sustaining positive states that have already arisen;

(7) correct mindfulness, awareness of body, feelings, thought, and phenomena (the constituents of the
existing world; and (8) correct concentration, single-mindedness.24

Clearly, Buddhism provides a way to understand what a good human being ought to do to come to the
fullness of human life. The Eightfold Path provides guideposts to acting in this world. If one seeks to act
mindfully, these signposts are exactly a way to discern if one's actions are creative and non-destructive
to others. In fact, they provide a frameworkfor living in a way that avoids the destructive or evil ways of
human beings.

With these examples of Indian thought, we can see that their ethical tradition is not only a quest to
articulate good action but a way to realize genuinely human existence leading to the fullness of
transcendence.Chinese Philosophy and Confucian Ethics

This section explores the fundamental ideas of Confucian thought as a representative of Chinese ethical
thought.

Confucian ethics is not the only or primary form of Chinese ethics. There are Daoist and Legalist, Chinese
schools of thought that contribute equally to the development of the traditional Chinese people's
conception of the good. However, in the interest of brevity, this book focuses on the most popular and
foundational theory to which all subsequent philosophies respond

Confucianism is a system of thought attributed to the teacher Kongqui known in the West as Confucius.
He was an aspiring civil servant who lived his life as a teacher of governance, ethics, and ritual, and was
able to gather a following around him. His main preoccupation was the possibility of building a
harmonious, ordered society. He took his inspiration for building a just kingdom from the ancient sage
rulers, King Wen and King Wu and their virtuous regent, the Duke of Zhou."He believed that if people
were able to internalize or take as their own the ways of these virtuous people, then the state would be
ordered because it would reflect the order of Heaven. This is what he taught people: the way to bear the
order of heaven in one's conduct.

At some point, his followers compiled a book of conversations known in the West as the Analects, the
main source of Confucian teaching. They are a series of conversations, anecdotes, and responses of the
teacher to his students' queries that are not arranged in any particular order. Later disciples worked on
his thought and systematized and deepened it. If one desires to understand the foundations of this
thought, there are three other books that stand as a source for this: the Book of Mencius, the Doctrine
of the Mean, and The Great Learning.

There is one basic aspiration for any Confucian, that is, to be a person who has the virtue of ren, to be a
person who has internalized the way of Heaven. Heaven here does not indicate the abode of God. It is
the source of order and balance, the way of life and nature, the way of justice and proper relationships.
It is the order that must govern one's way of being for people to find their peace. A person of ren knows
how to act properly or with propriety in all situations giving all situations and things their due, but it is
also about being human and the relationships between persons. Manuel

B. Dy explains that "Ren is made up of two characters, ren, meaning human being, and erh, meaning
two, indicating thus that ren is the virtue that governs interpersonal relationships. Ren is translated as
'benevolence,' 'kindness,'

'human-heartedness,' 'humanity,' and when Confucius was asked for its meaning, he said, 'Ren is to love
human beings'" (Analects, 12:22).26In order to realize the ethical nobility or human exemplarity which
makes one a person who bears the virtue of ren, it is necessary to live according to the way of Heaven.

And the path for the master was that of ritual or Li.

Confucius held the ancient ways sacred because for him, these bore the wisdom of ancestors wao still
understood the ways of heaven. These ancestors governed the state and acted in their personal life in
ways attuned to the order of Heaven or the Dao. The way to attunement is to focus on traditional ways
because "filial piety, a respect for and dedication to the performance of traditional ritual forms of
conduct, and the ability to judge what is the right thing to do in the given situation"? were codified in
rituals and customs. For Kongqui, the person aspiring to nobility must master and follow these codes of
conduct because as they are mastered, one's nature becomes one with the Dao. Li or custom and ritual
are not only empty actions that are handed down from the ancestors but the embodiment of the Dao
realized in daily life so that a person who follows Li can become one with the Dao. A person must be
able to live according to the way which is the very order of the universe which, among other things, is
the measure of what is appropriate, of what is just, and the balance which is the basis of harmony. A
person must cultivate himself/herself so that he/she is upright and lives according to the true order of
all things.

For instance, much store is placed by the Confucians on filial piety. This means being able to support
one's parents and take care of them. Keep close to them and support them.
Do not despoil their name and make sure that one's actions do not bring shame to their reputation. This
also means that one should make sure that when they die, one must carry out properly the rituals that
honor them in the prescribed ways.

Many of these rituals were important to Kongqui becausethey preserved harmony, order, right
relations, and were manifestations of respect. More than that, they reflected the wisdom of the noble
rulers regarding the relationship with one's parents in a way that accords with the Dao.

The perfection of the realization of the Li fully attunes oneself to the Dao to the point that one no longer
needs to think about it. One should aim at realizing the rituals with what the master calls "harmonious
ease" (1.12). In the Analects, he says:

2.4 The Master said, "At age fifteen I set my heart upon learning; at thirty I took my stand; at forty I
became free of doubts; at fifty I understood the Heavenly Mandate; at sixty my ear was attuned; and at
seventy I could follow my heart's desire without overstepping the bound of propriety. 28

In this quote, one can see the whole objective of Confucian emphasis on Li. To seek the harmonious
realization of custom and ritual leads one to live attuned to the ways of Heaven. As one becomes
attuned to the ways revealed by heaven to virtuous men, one becomes attuned to the workings of the
Dao. As one becomes more attuned to the workings of the Dao, one no longer needs to think about the
Dao or make an effort at living the Dao because attunement means that one's self is open to and
responsive to the ways of Heaven.

Thus, Kongqui speaks of his own development in the way. His quest for truth is his deepening knowledge
and practice of Li.

Then it becomes a stand, then it becomes intimate knowledge, which eventually leads to perfect
attunement such that his very heart, his will, becomes one with Heaven. His heart will never desire to
act in a way that oversteps Heaven's order because it is completely one with it.To cultivate a greater
realization of Ren, a state needs good education and moral leadership. Good education for Kongqui
meant an education of the heart and virtues.

This one could clearly receive from an education in the ancient rituals and customs that leads to
attunement with the Dao. Moral leadership in a society is particularly important because people need
exemplars to live a life according to the way. The sage realizes that in a corrupt society where the Dao is
not practiced, there will be disorder or people will only comply with the orders of the rulers because of
fear. However, if the rulers practice virtue and are people who have Ren, then the people would be
drawn to live according to the Dao because their social order is founded on it. Also, exemplars show the
people how to live according to the Dao, which in turn inspires them to be virtuous.

As mentioned, there are other philosophies that respond to Confucianism, like Daoism. Daoism puts
more emphasis on the opening to the Dao that makes itself present in the natural order rather than in
the ways of the state, the family, and rulers. It is a mystical philosophy that is too deep and profound to
explain in this short space. However, it is worth noting that although it has a different path, its main
concern is for the human being to reach human fullness by living in attunement with the Dao. Their path
is one of meditation that leads one to full attunement with the Dao such that one could act in a way that
is Wu Wei. Wu Wei is to act without effort, or in a way that is so attuned to the Dao that one acts
perfectly with its flow. No human action becomes contrary to the way of Heaven once one is so attuned
to the very order of the nameless and unknowable Dao. But first, one must accept that the Dao
transcends all knowing and articulation, and with that realization somehow finds a way to gain insight
into that ground of all things.Here we see the heart of these ancient Chinese ethical systems. They all
seek perfect attunement to the Dao in order to realize genuine humanity. Confucians spell out a system
of rituals and customs so that there is a frame that can guide people to that profound attunement.
Daoists offer a more complex path of mysticism that is worth studying in depth because of its poetry and
profundity. But to understand their insight requires a lifetime of meditation and to understand the
insights of Kongqui requires some immersion into Li.Conclusion

This section only seeks to give the student a sense of what the main trends of Asian ethical thought are.
Buddhism and Confucianism are only two of the major traditions from this continent and its long history
of philosophizing. These two are the most relevant to the student given their influence among the
Filipino people.

They are also worth exploring in this chapter because they give a general insight into the ethos of the
great Asian traditions. And this is what is most notable. When Asian thinkers philosophize about doing
the good, they do not think about rules or guidelines for deciding what is a good action or what makes a
norm universal. They are not so keen about articulating rules and norms for autonomous persons to
decide what is an acceptable act for a rational, free, and autonomous person. Their main concern is how
to live a good life and be a good person by gaining an insight into the transcendent and eternal order of
the universe, and from that insight how to attune one's life to that order. Whether it is the Dao or the
Brahma and Atman, one needs a deep intuition of the good and from that intuition live in
attunement.Asian ethical systems are less about becoming an autonomous, rational legislator of one's
own laws. Rather, they are a quest to articulate human connectedness and oneness to the deepest
order of reality. Thus, much of their codes of behavior are concerned more with the process of coming
to attunement with the source of order and harmony. And the good person, therefore, is a person in
communion with his/her fellow humans, with fellow beings, and with the ground of reality itself. Once
the communion is attained, one begins to act as a good person, a person whose self-realization is
immediately harmonious and non-destructive.

It is worthwhile for the student to explore some books that deepen his/her understanding of Asian
philosophy.

These books are accessible to most readers because they are written in non-technical or specialist
language. And so, anyone without training can understand what they are saying.

However, because they are poetic and symbolic, it takes years of reflection and re-reading to begin to
harvest their richness.