Min Zi (in Chinese: 闵子) (536B.C. – 487B.C.), with the given name Sun (损) and the courtesy name Zi Qian (子骞), was a native of the state of Lu (鲁) during the Spring and Autumn Period.
As one of the 24 ancient Chinese figures of filial piety, he was known for his filial piety and was one of “The Ten Philosophers of Confucius” (孔门十哲).
Min Sun was a highly appreciated student of Confucius who once said, “Min Sun can be said to know the Li.”
With a profound understanding of Li and putting it into practice, he was a role model for many people. Min Sun also studied the essence of etiquette in theory and perfectly interpreted the nature of Confucianism through his words and deeds.
Profile of Min Sun
Min Sun was born into a low-income family, and his mother died young. He began working at a young age and often worked with his father in a horse-drawn cart for a living.
Later, he learned from Confucius and became a faithful follower of his ideals of Ren (仁) and “virtue,” gaining public recognition because of his filial piety.
During Confucius’s tenure in the State of Lu, Min Sun was invited by the noble to serve as Fei Zai (“费宰”)1. But Min Sun firmly refused the offer. He devoted more of his time and energy to pursuing Ren and spreading Confucius’s ideas.
Eventually, Min Sun died at the age of 50.
Virtues and Characters
- Exemplary filial piety
Many of Confucius’s disciples were outstanding in filial piety, but only Min Ziqian won Confucius’s praise. Confucius also said, “How filial Min Ziqian is!”
- Outstanding for virtues
There was a time when the states of Jin (晋国) and Chu (楚国) tried to entice Min Sun to do something that violated Ren and virtues by offering him a high position and salary, but he refused resolutely. This story was rumored widely at that time.
When Confucius later summarised the qualities of his favorite student, he compared Min Sun to Yan Yuan, who was famous for his moral virtues. Therefore, it can be seen that Confucius thought highly of Min Sun’s moral cultivations.
- Low pursuits of material desires
Min Sun reduced the pursuit of material enjoyment and desire such as the officialdom.
He refused to work for the noble and said he would hide somewhere else if anyone else came to ask him to work for the imperial court.
Anecdotes about Min Sun
Min Ziqian was highly respectful of his parents. He lost his mother when he was young, and his father married a stepmother. The stepmother favored her own sons and mistreated Min Ziqian. However, Ziqian did not tell his father in case of interfering with their relationship.
One winter, the stepmother made cotton coats for her own kids. But she pretended to make cotton coats for Ziqian, as she filled them with reeds, leaving him cold and helpless.
One day, their father took the three brothers out in a carriage and asked Min Ziqian to drive the carriage with the whip in the front. Ziqian was too cold and hungry to drive the carriage, so it slipped into a ditch by the side of the road.
His father was very angry and said, “You are a worthless boy, wearing such thick clothes and still shivering! Look at your younger brothers. Their cotton jackets are thinner than yours, but they do not freeze like you.”
After the rebuke, he even whipped him, which caused a tear in his clothes, exposing the swede. The father pinched the cotton jackets of the other two sons and then understood what had happened.
Knowing that he had wronged Min Sun, the father cursed his wife for being ungrateful and decided to divorce her. Ziqian knelt in front of his father and begged for his stepmother: “If she is here, I am the only one who suffers; if she leaves, my two younger brothers will have to suffer like me without the love of the mother.”
The father decided not to divorce, and the stepmother changed her attitude toward him.
- Fei Zai (费宰): An official position name, equivalent to the county magistrate/head now. ↩︎