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Master Confucius

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Living up to the expectations of the Master in Confucius’ Analects demands extraordinary self-discipline. Throughout the Analects of Confucius it is apparent that morals and ethical behaviors plays a major role. Through the various Analects the master expresses to his readers the importance of Confucius’s philosophical wisdom. It is important to note that these very books still play a major role in our society today. It is said that Confucius’s vision of self efficiency has been influenced, and has profoundly been practiced all around the world. Now, with that said one would think that to follow the order of the Master would be fairly difficult, but in actuality it is very simple and easy to understand. Confucius believed that everything we do in life is a ritual. From the way we shake each others hand, to the way we mark ones life's important moments such as birth, death and so on. It is the actions, and decisions that we make in our every day lives that dictate our pathways, so to say. Now, those pathways include the following, to continue on a path towards self efficiency or stray from our path of enlightenment. It is said that one who can preform Confucius’s exemplary actions is known as the “Junzi” or the “superior person”. One of the best ways to exemplify these actions can be shown throughout the Jataka tales, more specifically the tale of the Golden Goose and The Monkey’s Heroic Self Sacrifice. As I mentioned before, the expectations of the Master in Confucius’s Analects demands tremendous self-disciplinary. To shed some light on the tale for further reference, this tale depicts to its readers how bad ones greed can push them away from Confucius’s goal of self sufficiency. The tale starts off with the brahmin dying. Dying, as he did, he left behind three daughters and one wife. Shortly after the brahmins death, he is born into a Golden Goose.